#it's still massively under construction which i can personally judge by the fact that i plan for it to be much larger than just 40 pages

[agirldying]

i’m making more additions to my exposee and.... wow i went through a lot

#i keep rounding up and saying like oh hey i wrote 40 pages now #its like 36 and it was 38 yesterday lol i made a ton of edits and cut things out to paste in later #it's still massively under construction which i can personally judge by the fact that i plan for it to be much larger than just 40 pages #especially if my goal is to include everything i can possibly remember from 2014 to 2015 and maybe onward as well #just to also voice the shit i had to go through after the fact #like this blog is the only leverage i have in publicizing my trauma #literally nobody from the area gives a shit about this #even though some of what happened is literally a federal crime #but its not your problem until it involves you huh new paltz #anyways #idk like i just need someone to be like #you've been through so much and you're really a trooper to have survived that because most people wouldve given up by now #but i feel like the best i can do is to just say it to myself until i dont need everyone elses reassurance #idk the whole thing about my trauma is that everyone ignored it even when it happened right in front of them so it often feels as if #the healing thing to do is to show everyone and hear everyone's sympathy so that i can make up for the sympathy i never got #but its also such an emotional burden on everyone else #aaaaa #/rant

[unhealthyfanobsession]

Can I ask for drunk Nesta flirting with Cassian in front of the ic and him getting all flustered but being secretly pleased about it???

Hell yeah you can! I love this idea! It wasn’t specified so I’m going modern here just because I’m not really sure where this could’ve happened in the canon timeline without a bunch of other factors impeding. Also I’m throwing in a dash of my fav jealous Cassian 😏

It wasn’t that Cassian didn’t want to be there. Well, no, actually that was exactly what it was. Cassian didn’t want to be there. He was exhausted and he hadn’t gotten to the gym that morning and he had a massive deadline that Rhys kept insisting they could push back but Cassian didn’t want to. He just wanted to go home and finish his report and maybe have a glass of whiskey to close off a truly awful week.

But Feyre’s art exhibit opened earlier that week and he hadn’t even gotten to see it yet and so it wasn’t like he could blow off her big party when he already felt like the world’s worst friend.

And he was completely lying to himself and everyone else. He didn’t want to be there because he didn’t want to watch Eris Vanserra’s slimy ass mill about the elegantly decorated, high ceilinged, natural light dripping, beautiful space, with his eyes glued to Nesta’s ass as if it was the art they were meant to be appreciating.

Did Cassian also appreciate every inch of her body like it had been sculpted by Michelangelo? Yeah but that was besides the point. And he had the respect to do it subtly.

“Remind me why he’s invited,” Cassian grumbled into his overpriced merlot. Because apparently only wine was classy enough for these fancy, classy, art events.

“He’s Lucien’s brother.” Azriel also didn’t look impressed by Eris’ uninvited hand on the small of Nesta’s back. Or the way he kept refilling her glass before she asked or was even done. “And he’s richer than Midas and spends a lot of that money on art.”

Cassian rolled his eyes. “We have as much money as he does.”

“Yes but you know Feyre’s rule. No family purchases. She doesn’t want to be a success just because Rhys could buy and sell this entire gallery.” Azriel was stoic as usual. Betraying no opinion on the matter.

It was several hours of carefully constructed comments where Cassian pretended he knew anything about art and pretended his neck wasn’t getting increasingly hot under his collar as Eris kept glued to Nesta’s side.

Cassian had no right to be jealous. He knew that. He and Nesta weren’t anything. Casual flirting. Witty banter. Eternal, pining, unrequited love on his end that she didn’t even seem to notice or care about. So fine. Maybe Eris was her type. It wasn’t his place to interfere.

Except that she really needed a glass of water right now and-

Cassian’s hand darted out on instinct as Nesta walked past him, wobbling a little on her completely impractical shoes.

“Careful sweetheart.”

He braced for the hissed don’t call me that, but When he looked up Nesta was blinking slowly through a hazy wall of the wrong wine.

The wrong wine because Eris had been giving her a Nappa Cab Sauv all night when she preferred old world Syrah. Which was probably why she kept drinking it so quickly, looking for her opportunity to get what she really wanted.

“Cass,” she smiled. It was a little lopsided and definitely off kilter, but even through her wine brain he could see that she was playing at something. Nesta had never called him Cass in his life. “It’s so good to see you!” Her voice went up a full octave and she pressed her entire body against his as she hugged him.

The display turned a few heads in their direction. It was mostly just family at this point, and Eris who couldn’t learn how to take a fucking hint. Technically, he supposed, Eris was family. Nesta’s fucking brother in law. Was that how it worked? Was the brother of the person your sister married also your brother in law? Brother in law once removed?

Not important, moron. Drunk Nesta. Body. Wrapped in a tight sheath dress and clinging to him. Cassian closed his hands around her back and got lost for a minute.

Holding her against him like she was made to fit in his arms. Breathing in her scent like he could capture it in a bottle and spray it on his pillow every night before he went to bed.

Someone cleared their throat. Feminine. High pitched. Mor.

Nesta had already let go and was smirking at him a little. He dropped his hands immediately. “Um, yeah, always a pleasure.”

“Interesting choice of words,” Nesta’s grin was feline. She was definitely up to something. And normally he would make a stupid remark, probably something about how much more pleasurable the evening would be back at his apartment, except that she was drunk and his entire family was staring and Eris was still standing there.

“Can I get you a glass of water?” It seemed like the right thing to say. To offer. Feyre smiled a little, a silent thank you. Azriel was covering a laugh, Mor was watching them both with narrowed eyes like a hawk, and Rhys honestly couldn’t have cared less. Nesta’s eyes narrowed. “Or maybe throw you into a pool,” Cassian joked stupidly.

“You should probably buy me dinner before offering to get me wet.” Someone dropped a glass. Cassian honestly thought it might have been him and he wouldn’t have noticed. Not in that moment. Not with Nesta looking at him through hooded eyes and talking about…

He could do this. His pants were not getting tight. Not at all. Because he wasn’t a damn teenager.

“I- um- do you-”

Nesta burst out laughing. It was a sound he’d never heard from her. She was usually all sultry under her breath snorts or ironic guffaws. Full, deep, angels singing, laughter was not usual for Nesta.

As evidenced by the fact the no one was even pretending not to be watching them anymore.

“I’ve got her.” Eris pushed himself back to Nesta’s side.

“Does he?” Nesta looked straight at Cassian, one eyebrow raised. “Because I’m willing to bet he wouldn’t have made it past glass two if your family wasn’t here.”

Azriel coughed. Amren cackled.

“You… do you want him to have you?” It came out wrong. The words. He meant did she want Eris to take her to get some water. Like he offered. He didn’t mean, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t…

“I want you to have me.” She was drunk. She was so drunk and it shouldn’t have been hot but fuck him it was. It wasn’t some sloppy college night out messed up drunk. It was a woman whose inhibitions had been soaked in wine just enough that every word out of her mouth was low and hot and honest.

“Find somewhere else to be, Vanserra.”

“Hey man what the fuck? We were talking-“

Cassian scoffed, snapping out of whatever flustered mess Nesta had put him in. “Anyone who gave her that much Cab Sauv doesn’t deserve to talk to her. Get lost.”

“I saw you eyeing the bottle,” Nesta laughed a little, swaying on her toes. Cassian moved his hands from a support on her bicep to a full arm around the waist support. Even if she did try to fall he could lift her with one arm easy. “Thought you might say something after…”

After the night they spent in her apartment with a bottle of her favourite Syrah only a week ago. It hadn’t been on purpose. Feyre and Elain and Azriel and Lucien were all supposed to be there. And they all conveniently cancelled only after he’d already showed up.

Which, judging by the barely contained grins on their faces, was even less of a coincidence than he thought. Busybodies.

“I’d offer you a glass of Syrah now, but I think what you need is a coffee.”

“Oh but then I’ll never sleep. And I do think I’m ready for bed.”

Sensing that he’d lost, Eris swore under his breath and stomped off.

“Let me take you home, Nes.” Cassian whispered into her hair.

“Hmm, your place or mine.”

“Yours,” he kissed her temple, pulling her legs out from under her and not even paying his family a backwards glance. “For a nightcap of 2 big glasses of water and a bottle of aspirin that I’m going to leave on your nightstand for the morning.”

“You don’t want to be there in the morning?”

Cassian groaned. “You said it yourself, Sweetheart. Dinner first.”

“You’re never going to let me live this down.” Nesta sighed, head lulling onto his shoulder.

“Actually go for dinner with me next week and I promise to never bring this night up again. And bribe our friends to do the same.”

“Deal,” Nesta said immediately.

An hour later after Cassian had supervised Nesta drinking her water he was about to leave her apartment when she yawned.

“Hey Cass,” she mumbled, half asleep.

“Yes sweetheart?”

“You made a bad bargain. I would’ve gone out with you either way.”

Cassian chuckled, a low rumble. “I’m satisfied with the bargain I made.”

“Cheesy as hell.”

“You love it.”

Nesta laughed, “I am prepared to tolerate it at best.”

“Good enough for me.”

#nessian #nessian fanfiction #drabble requests #nesta archeron #acosf #cassian #nesta and cassian #a court of thorns and roses #sarah j maas #a court of silver flames #a court of mist and fury #acotar

[contrabandhothead]

dancing in the dark - band of brothers

- [ MOE ALLEY ]

this man has absolutely no idea what he’s doing

he’s very tense, but it’s only because he’s super nervous

if you get him a few drinks, he’s bound to loosen up a bit over time

he’s pretty good at any type of dancing BUT slow dancing

if you do decide to slow dance, you’re going to have to lead for a while

he catches on quickly, and he only steps on your toes once

he hasn’t stopped apologizing for it though

likes to lean in and press his chin on top of your head

- [ BUCK COMPTON ]

smug bastard... he’s so good at dancing that it’s unfair

i mean, Buck’s good at everything, so it makes sense that he’d be just as good at dancing

he’s probably the one teaching YOU

spins and dips you all the time, but he does it so fast that you feel like you’re going to fall

but of course, he’s there to catch you because he’s your knight in shining armor

firm believer in leaning in really close at the end of the last slow dance and kissing you

dancing on a night out is probably the easiest way for him to show you off, so he does it all the time

he just likes to show everyone how amazing his broad is

- [ CHUCK GRANT ]

this man would probably have to be coerced into dancing with you

like someone cue “i don’t dance” from high school musical 2

he must either be very drunk or you have to argue with him, and if he is sober then he’ll be very grumpy about having to go on the dance floor

he’s not even bad at it???

he’ll never admit it, but he actually has a lot of fun

yanks you close to him and passionately kisses you because he just can’t help himself

he secretly loves it

because let’s be for real here, Chuck is a simp and he’d doing anything just to make you smile

- [ BILL GUARNERE ]

he’s a horrible dancer but you’ll never catch him acknowledging that fact

it’s kind of endearing how bad he is... you just can’t help but join him

he’s definitely the one convincing you to go out on the dance floor with him

just be grateful that he doesn’t step on your toes, even though he’s pretty embarrassing

the only thing he’s good at is dipping you

and you already KNOW he’s going in for a kiss when he does that

it’s probably one of your most common dates

you tease him a lot about his “moves” but he doesn’t care, as long as he gets time alone with you

- [ BABE HEFFRON ]

this poor baby

he knows that he doesn’t know how to dance and he really DOESN’T

he’s going to step on your toes every 2 seconds and you’re going to have to lead the dance

i feel like he’d end up getting pretty good at it if you taught him for some time

he murmurs “1 2 3” under his breath so that he can get the counts right

always staring down at his feet

please just reassure him that he’s doing great

it’s honestly really sweet, and he rubs your feet after as a silent apology for stepping on them so much

- [ JOE LIEBGOTT ]

ABSOLUTELY NOT THIS MAN PUTS UP SUCH A FIGHT

however, whatever you want, you get

so he ends up caving in (but he’s such a grouch about it)

UNTIL YOU REALIZE THAT HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD AT IT???

and when you tell him that, he gets so freaking smug about it he’s such a cocky bastard

stares into your eyes until you blush so hard that you have to look away

he just likes to see you flustered, let’s be honest

lets you lean your head against his chest so you can feel his heartbeat

- [ CARWOOD LIPTON ]

THIS MAN

OMG HE IS SUCH A GOOD DANCER AND HE TAKES YOU OUT ALL THE TIME

he gets sooooo flustered if you ask him to dance, he just rubs the back of his neck because it feels so warm

he only does slow dances

he’s so gentle when he grasps your hand in his hwerhiehrhe

AND HIS HAND IS SO WARM AND LARGE AND IT JUST ENGULFS YOUR ENTIRE HAND-

tells you that you look beautiful every 2 seconds while you sway

relentless compliments

- [ GEORGE LUZ ]

this little shit, he’s such a crazy dancer

he does NOT slow dance he’s too hyperactive for that

cheers you on while you dance

he’s pretty goofy when he’s dancing, so expect a little second-hand embarrassment

passionate kissing in the middle of the dance floor in front of everyone??? y e s

he also dances super close to you, but don’t quote me on that mkay

honestly he is most likely very drunk

expect to be comforting him while he throws up in the toilet at home

- [ DONALD MALARKEY ]

HE’S SO SHY ABOUT IT IEERIEIR

Skip & Penk probably bullied coerced him into asking you to dance

he’s so shy at first that he’s barely moving, and he keeps looking behind you

he’s actually looking at Skip, who’s giving him a massive grin and a thumbs up

you have to lean in real close and tell him it’s alright and that you won’t judge him

he gets really flustered when you do that, but he takes your advice

you both danced for so long that your feet hurt

he carried you home one he noticed you wincing

- [ LEWIS NIXON ]

only dances when he’s super drunk... sorry, i don’t make the rules

he actually doesn’t dance when he’s sober because it reminds him of when his father made him take dancing lessons as a child

it wasn’t that he was bad at dancing, he just hated the teacher with a burning passion

but of course, he’s somehow still more coordinated than you are when dancing??? even though he’s drunk???

make it make sense like sis how

he totally does a drunk make-out session on the dance floor with you

he knows some of the MOST complicated dances

he’d totally pick you up like the one scene from Dirty Dancing

- [ EUGENE ROE ]

this man... PROFESSIONAL DANCER

his mom taught him, and he used to dance with his grandma all the time

honestly he’s the master of dance, so you might just as well sit this one out and enjoy the view

no, like, seriously, enjoy the view

why??? because this man can sway his hips like there’s no tomorrow

honestly i see him as a very touchy person when he dances

he needs to have at least one hand on some part of your body

king of grinding

- [ RONALD SPEIRS ]

he’s Roe’s only competitor for the title of Dance King

his nickname is Dirty Dancing and no i don’t take constructive criticism

he’s good at dancing and he KNOWS IT

he’s so smug when you blush after he asks you to dance

he looks at all the other troopers at the table when you accept and he’s like “mhm, i just did that and they just said YES”

also probably grinds but he 100% does it on purpose to get you riled up

probably has to be mildly tipsy to get the courage to ask you to dance

especially if other people are around you

- [ FLOYD TALBERT ]

someone gave this man too much confidence for the dancing skills he has

like he’s not bad... but he should not be that cocky with the basic moves he’s got

and he’s sooooo confident when he asks you to dance

you knock down his confidence a bit when he realizes how much better at dancing you are

it’s fine, he has enough ego for the both of you when it comes to dancing

he’s very good at partner dancing

and yes, he will indeed grip your waist

he squeezes your hips too

- [ JOE TOYE ]

nuh uh

not happening, he’d actually rather die

he’d be drunk and you’d still be arguing with him!!!

lucky for you though, he’s drunk, so he doesn’t have 90% of his strength and you can just drag him on to the dance floor

he’s so drunk that he can only slow dance

he rests his head against your shoulder and pulls you super close, letting you lead the dance

he’s at the perfect angle for you to whisper a small thanks that only he can hear into his ear

he goes so red, even the tips of his ears are flushed

- [ DAVID WEBSTER ]

THIS MAN WENT TO PRIVATE SCHOOL SO OF COURSE HE KNOWS HOW TO DANCE

his parents totally made him take lessons so he wouldn’t embarrass them when they went to galas

and don’t get me wrong, he’s very good at traditional dances

but he doesn’t know how to let loose, so you have to teach him

he gets the hang of it really fast, but it’s really funny and cute at first because his face is scrunched up in concentration

honestly it’s probably the most fun he’s had in his entire life

and he just can’t stop smiling at you

he’ll never forget it

- [ RICHARD WINTERS ]

omg he’s such a gentleman

even if you said no to his request, he’d still be super nice about it (which ofc you don’t because IT’S LITERALLY DICK WINTERS)

only knows the basic slow dances, but he’s really good at them

he wants to make sure that you’re comfortable and that he’s not overstepping his boundaries, so you’re going to have to make the first move

he’s so sweet and respectful about it, he doesn’t try to grope you at all

he keeps his hand firmly against your lower back and makes sure it doesn’t slip any lower

he also stares into your eyes to make sure he’s doing everything right (also because he just thinks you have the prettiest eyes)

you kiss his cheek when he drops you off at home, and he turns the prettiest shade of red ever

hey!!! i hope you liked this, i tried lol. i know you sent this over message, so i’ll @ you just to make sure you see it! i had a lot of fun writing this, thank you so much for sending a request! i hope you have a lovely week 💕 @claudiastrollo

#band of brothers #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers x reader #moe alley #moe alley x reader #buck compton #buck compton x reader #chuck grant #chuck grant x reader #bill guarnere #bill guarnere x reader #babe heffron #babe heffron x reader #joe liebgott #joe liebgott x reader #carwood lipton #carwood lipton x reader #george luz #george luz x reader #donald malarkey #donald malarkey x reader #lewis nixon #lewis nixon x reader #eugene roe #eugene roe x reader #ron speirs #ron speirs x reader #floyd talbert #floyd talbert x reader #joe toye

[logsfm]

hey my loves   !   i’m mia  ,  21 from the east coast   !   i have not roleplayed in sheeeesh   ...   like five or six months   ?   but i am so excited to be here for opening with all of y’all   .   i spent like all morning trying to weed out this gal logan right here   ...   she’s a trip   ,   that’s the best overall description i have for ya   .   anywho   ,  lets get to the actual thing you’re here for her lil intro   .   also if you wanna mssg on discord here ya go   𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐬 𝖜𝖍𝖔𝖗𝖊#7040   .

logan samara-de jaager was spotted in the fashion district adorning  air force 1’s university blue  , with some airpod pros on . they’re most likely listening to  benz i know by kelvyn colt  . you may know them as  @delogan  or as that  bella hadid  lookalike . their  twenty fourth  birthday just passed . while living in  the upper east side  , they’ve gained a bit of a reputation . they’re known to be  querulous  but on the other hand  passionate  . wonder if they’ll be the next person to hit the headlines . ( cisfemale / she/her +  mia / twenty one / she/her ) + ( “ logan de jaager seen shoving ex in hotel footage during heated argument , not so sweet huh? ” / “ miss de jaager was spotted sneaking into ex beau’s apartment , what could she be up to? ” / “ sweet socialite or greedy trust fund baby ? milan de jaager publicly accuses daughter logan of stealing $1M … ” )

born into the true lap of luxury . the daughter of real estate magnate & high - profile attorney milan de jaager and his wife , british born socialite lana samara . the two of them held high favor within the 1% but were also able to find a perfect balance . they did a great job of separating personal life from the tabloids . it was rare to really know the happenings of their day to day . they had this particular kind of mystery to them , if you will .

it wasn’t long before lana began to instill the very same rhetoric she received as a child into her own   .   quality over quantity   ,   was the motto   .   just not in the way you’d assume   .   the quality at which a de jaager presented themselves to you was much more important than than quantity of time you spent with them   .   looks   ?   they’re everything   ,   in the de jaager household   .   time was simply a societal construct implemented to catch you on a bad day   ,   for that very line of thinking they embodied being late   .   rushing out of the house to finish your make up in the car   ?   a literal sin in the eyes of her mother   .

she was encouraged to take part in ballet and beauty pageants growing up   .   anything that could showcase how beautiful their daughter was lana and milan were on board for   .   personally logan hated ballet but she couldn’t deny she loved the applause the night of a showcase   .   she also couldn’t stand pageants but loved having all eyes on her as she went on stage   .

it became quite clear as the years went on that her parents were much more like close friends to their daughter than like rule - instilling guardians   .   she would text them to dismiss her from school   ,   get them to buy her   &   her friends alcohol for sleepovers  /  parties   ,   was very much so that kid who got high with her parents   .   really anything you could do with your friends   ?   was fair game with logan   &   her folks   .

at sixteen a friend of her moms who was going to be a designer for spring fashion week that year asked if logan would want to walk for him   .   she was quick to accept the offer and before she knew it she had multiple offers to walk in that years fall fashion weeks   ,   because of how easy it came to her   -    though   ,    she’s the first to admit she never really took modeling all that seriously   .

it was just a year later that her way of life changed drastically , logan and her twin brother had been caught by paparazzi on a friends boat in the hamptons snorting a white substance , anyone with eyes knew exactly what the group of teenagers were doing . upon returning home the two received the crackdown of the century . their once friendly parents turned to strict jail like guardians . often reminded that they put the families reputation at stake . the pressure to be perfect was something logan had never had to deal with until now & she almost cracked under the pressure at every turn .

it wasn’t until she left for college that she was finally given some room to breathe , attending the university of florida was the best choice for what logan truly wanted to do with her life - become a sports analyst . growing up she was infatuated with sports & and would have been involved in much more than just cheerleading had her mom allowed for her to get so much as a speck of dirt on her . during her time in florida the paparazzi seemed to find her more often than not , something her parents often denounced both over the phone & in public . the longer she spent away from the upper east side the more she became america’s sweetheart & simultaneously a thorn in her parents side . she graduated from university in 2018 , only returning back to new york for the sake of work . she’d been offered a reporting job with espn , on top of taking up modeling gigs here & there when ever she felt necessary .

personality …

one thing is very true about the de jaager’s & is very much so the same for logan ; she is not to be trusted . she can be extremely charming when she wants to be . she could sell a bag of rocks to a beach & get a princess to sell her sole to sex work . she knows exactly what people want to hear & when they want to hear it and has no qualms about lying straight to someone’s face if it means she gets something out of it . in fact sometimes , she might lie to your face just for the sheer fun of being able to call you gullible .

she’s very much so a spoiled brat although she hates when anyone call her one , she feels like she has more layers to her than that broad term . hand in hand with that is her drama queen like tendencies , any situation were there is a simple solution she will find a way to blow vastly out of portion .

due to her mother’s heavy influence growing up , she can be rather vein & materialistic . catch her like “ i can’t date a garbage person ” to someone simply because they’re not as rich or known enough for her liking .

it’s rare that you’ll ever see her jump out of character . she’s very calculated & aware of who she is ( or who she needs to seem like ) so if you ever see her emotions getting the better of her , you’ve really broken her .

she’s the type to dabble in a little bit of anything   ?   she’s a rich nyc party girl who’s been partying well before anyone should have allowed her to so she’s done it all   .    you’d be kidding yourself to think you could surprise  /  scare logan on a wild night out   .

she’s quick   &   creative with her sense of humor   .   she has both a crude / dry sense of humor   ,   as well   ,   and really just doesn’t find goofy things to be funny but more or less embarrassing   ( so if she ever tells you you’re goofy , remember it’s not a compliment ) .

her upbringing   &   parents sentiment on tabloids once reflected massively on logan   ,   but now she couldn’t quite care less about it all . after all she spends hours in front of cameras on a regular basis for work . although she does tend to shy away from people who she deems are hungry for fame or attention   .   she’s been used in the past for fame   &   will never let it happen again   , plus she’s the type to lap up attention so she likes to have as little fame whores around her as possible , more shine for her .

when she isn’t being a total nightmare though she’s actually really fun to be around ? she’s playful & loves to keep the party alive . often can be found claiming “ i’m high on life ” although everyone saw the pictures , logan , we know what you’re really high on , girl .

very chatty girl , too . victim of foot - in - mouth syndrome , big time . she doesn’t try to be disloyal & spill people’s secrets ( or does she ? ) but she can’t help herself . if she has piping hot tea she’s gonna spill it because she doesn’t wanna burn herself .

very observant girl , who loves to people watch but her observations can sometimes get muddled when she starts judging people a little too hardcore .

she’s also a undercover couch potato    &    by that i mean if you give her an option to go out   &   do something she’ll never outwardly choose to stay home to watch netflix and snuggle up under the blankets but secretly she’s hoping   &   praying she gets a chance to do so   .

plots   ...

END THIS ( L.O.V.E ) / her first love   .   these two brought the absolute worst out of one another   .    they messed her up so much that she has a weird perspective on what love between two s/o’s should even feel like now   .   maybe they had another s/o at the same time as her   &   kinda just strung her on   &   when it came out were able to lie so much to her that she believed them   .   idk   ,   in truth we could really plot something completely different as to what they did   &   inevitably what the breaking point was   .   maybe they broke up with her   &   had they not ended it maybe she would’ve still been okay with being in the relationship   .   idk i just feel like this one could be fun as hell   .     also they’d be the one whom she was caught arguing with in one of her headlines   .   ( 0 / 1 )

AFTER PARTY / this is a more reckless take of party buddies   .   im envisioning a group of people who when the parties over they all pull up to close by gulf course   ,   indulge even more in their choices of substance   ,   there is a naked gulf tournament going on   ,   there are drunks driving golf carts   ,   swerving and pouring bacardi all over the course   .   running from security when they pop up   .   it’s tradition at this point   &   if someone doesn’t come it’s almost disrespectful at this point   .   idk i just love the thought of this kinda vibe   .   ( 2 / ? )

SECRETS / okay so this one is messy   .   basically logan was very private for most of her life   (   thanks mom   &   dad   )   and during the early stages of highschool she lied to everyone saying she was a virgin   .   she told each one of these individuals that they were her first whether it be to make them fall for her   “   innocence   ”   ,   want to chase after her   ,   or whatever else we might be able to plot out   .   inevitably they compare notes at some point and find out that she’d been lying to them all   .   we can plot out how they confronted her i feel like we could make this real dramatic though   .   this would also be a backstory plot so   ,   we  can also plot out how things have transpired since for them   .   ( 0 / 3 or 4 )

BEST FRIEND / these two girls take best friends to the next level   .   they relate to one another on every level and are there for one another at all times   .   there is never a moment where they are competing with one another because they know that their #1 in there respective category   .   they are one another’s ultimate hype beasts   .   they truly embody chaotic goddess vibes   .   it’s like they were placed on this earth simply to be friends because they compliment one another that well   .   ( 0 / 1 )

LETS FALL IN LOVE FOR THE NIGHT / they are the one that’s there whenever she’s down   .   they have the ability to make her feel like they have some sort of old love whenever she’s around them   .   those feelings only last for the night though   .   they enjoy when she rambles on about sports or the novel she just recently read or really just anything she enjoys can put a smile on their face   .    they know better than to ever confuse what is going on between them though   ,   they know that she’ll never be theirs   .   whether they’re okay with this or not we can definitely plot out   .   ( 0 / 1 )

MOANA / they are not a fan of logan   .   they see her for what she is   :   an attention seeking   ,    spoiled brat and the fact that they don’t want anything to do with her makes her want them all the more   .    when they finally slept with her it was only to prove a point to her s/o at the time   ,   to prove that she’s not the sweet girlfriend she claimed to be   .   basically they’re the person who outed her for being a ho ho ho but despite knowing that they outed her for that she still tries to hook up with them because they were the best she ever had    .   they often turn her down but after a while not even they can deny that they’re attracted to her   .   they still don’t fuck with her though   .   also i think it’d be cool if their were two of them   &   maybe they worked together to out her to her s/o that didn’t believe she was a cheater   ( 0 / 2 )   also bring the s/o that they outed her to   ( 0 / 1 )

ELEVEN / the type of relationship that is stuck in the grey area   .   they’re more than friends but they don’t necessarily admit to having feelings for one another   .   honestly they probably don’t even think they have feelings for one another   .   it’s a weird dynamic   .   they spend the most of their time together late at night   .   there meeting time    ?   11pm   .    they go on wild joy rides to the beach   .   heads out of the sun roof as they let out a loud woo   .    the only thing accompanying them is a big bag of weed   .    sometimes they have deep talks   ,   honestly they probably know more about one another than anyone else   ?   because of these adventurous of theirs   .   when they aren’t having deep talks they’re running across the beach aimlessly   &   rolling around in the sand with one another   .   it’s really just a very pure plot that i need in my life   .  ( 0 / 1 )

TRUST NOBODY / this is someone who used logan for fame / attention   .   they either became close friends or even started dating   &   they used everything they learned about her or what went on between them to relay back to a tabloid / would call paparazzi to come and take pictures of them together whenever they’d go out   .   ( 0 / 1 )

some other plot ideas i’d love to see   :   x   ,   x   ,   x   ,   x   ,   x   ,   x   ,   x   ,   x   ,   x   ,   x   ,   x   .

#wealthyhq:intro #hellurrrr *

[hypexion]

A Pile of Fanwalkers (Part 3)

Part three of all these fanwalkers. Now it’s time for all the ones who are mean, and should not be trusted. Sometimes because they’ll stab you, and sometimes because they’re just... kind of massively evil.

The basic format for each planeswalker will be a Name/Colour Identity/Pre-Ignition Typeline/Homeplane blob of information, a quickish description of them and some “fun“ facts, and then some hits and misses for extra flavour. Also, I’m going to split this into three posts - “Heroic“, “Okay“ and “Villians“, for I believe I have the moral authority to judge my creations.

Also some of these are going to be from fanplanes, which will go undescribed beyond whatever tidbits come out the character flavour. Others will just have a ?, representing a lack of knowledge and/or sufficent worldbuilding. With that out of the way, let’s go!

Villians

Evil is not a state of being. It is a form of intent, and a form of action. Some of these Planeswalkers can be trusted. Some of them may even appear to be nice. But make no mistake. They have caused suffering. They have altered lives for the worse. Either by design or consequence, their effect upon the multiverse marks them as villians.

Aster - B, Human Warlock, Zodyas - Aster was born under the influence of a bad star, which granted him the ability to draw power from negative emotions. But don’t think that makes him a bad person. Aster’s powers do not compel him to perform evil deeds. They simply enable him. Motivated by nothing greater than his own self-interest, Aster is the truest example of a disaster with a point of view. He was, while it lasted, a member of the Infinite Consortium. After Tezzeret forget how to run it, Aster managed to… convince a number of cells to accept his leadership. While lacking a grand plan for his splinter group, he’s interested in expansion, if only for the sake of increasing his own personal power. Aster may possess a certain kind of charm, and some level of restraint when compared to other ‘walkers, but do not be decieved. The moment harming you becomes worth the effort, Aster will be ready to do so.

Aster is often described as being pale of skin and dark of hair. There’s some weird magic causing that, since different cultures usually focus on different things when describing others. Aster prefers to dress in the fashions of power, whether that happens to be expensive robes, hand-tailored suits, togas or other such clothing. He preferes to wear darker colours, but if opulence is the style of a plane’s elite, then opulent he shall be. While he does carry a mean looking dagger, his primary form of defense are his so-called attendants - humanoid shades he commands via magic. These can perform many tasks, such as “fetch me more wine“, “open that door“ and “kill them“. When Aster planeswalks, he dissipates into a fine black mist. Interestingly, if he’s thinking about planeswalking, his magic generates a similar mist, that trails from him as he moves.

Hits: Power, influcence, tormenting his enemies, using people’s guilt to literally physically crush them. Misses: The undead, constructs, Loxy, Constellation Cults trying to recruit him, being around Ashiok for too long.

Galina - WB, Human Advisor, Ithmorne - In her early life, Galina leaned much more towards the White aspects of her personality. Even as a member of the Zoriac Imperium, she valued their goal of peace greatly, and was one of those that saw certain practices as a detriment to that goal. However, this did not last. When the outpost she was in was raided, everything changed. The ignition of her spark saved her life, but not her right eye. Fortunately for her, Galina arrived on Ravnica within dragging distance of a Simic emergency care clinic, where it was assumed she was an Azorius member who had suffered a run in with the Gruul. This was a role she was happy to take up for real, once the chance provided itself, seeing the Senate as an obvious parallel for the Imperium of her homeplane. In fact, Ravnica seemed to have many similarities with Ithmorne. This could only be due to the work of Azor, the great Sphinx who had brought peace to her warring plane so long ago, and whose Compact still enforced it now. Galina soon realised that her ability to traverse the multiverse would allow her to find more worlds ‘saved’ by Azor, and in turn learn more from them. Ultimately, she decided, those factions on Ithmorne too small to be affected be the Compact would be forced into co-operating. And if not? Then they would perish. Such would be the price of peace. The process had already begun, Galina believed, and if accelerating the pace was necessary, it would be done.

Galina has white skin and long brown hair. Additionally, the events that led to her ignition left her with a noticeable scar, running from her temple, across her right eye, to halfway down her right cheek. Many wonder how her right eye survived such a wound, and the truth is that it didn’t. Instead, she had it replaced by the Simic while on Ravnica. Galina generally wears the standard uniform for those in her position in the Zoriac Imperium - navy blue military robes, kept in the best condition possible. Rather than carry a weapon, Galina relies on her mastery of law magic, using it bind and impede her enemies. She is also capable of many of the standard black mana abilities, especially those which weaken her foes. When combined, these make her a formidable, and potentially deadly opponent. Galina’s planeswalking effect is a jagged and chaotic burst of darkness, which can cause minor damage to living things that nearby.

Hits: Peace through power, Azor, law and order, her own take on the concept of justice, Simic biomagic. Misses: “Barbarians“, insubordination, traumatic memories.

Malius - UBR, Human Wizard, Innistrad - In every profession, there are those that push boundaries. They look at the rules, and wonder which are truly needed. These are the kind of people the majority of Innistrad distrusts. And in the case of the stitcher pariah Malius, they are completely right to do so. While his fellow skaberen found his “wolf with werewolf arms“ experiment a daring new idea, even they had limits. Rumors began that he had started to use demons as a source of parts, and that he consorted with diabolists for unknown purposes. These rumors contained some truth - Malius was interested in demons and had, for a time, used them to “improve” his creations. But over time, he had become interested in the nature of demonic pacts, and how one might acquire the benefits without having to pay the price. Somehow, he was able to construct a device that extracted the source of a demon’s power, and began using it to infuse himself with dark power. For a time, not demon, nor mob, nor torch-wielding monstrosity could stop him. The destruction of the Helvault was an opportunity to Malius, bring him yet more specimins. Everything was going well, until an angel arrived. She cut through his creations, and had both the strength and motivation to kill Malius. In an act of desparation, he activated the extractor, aiming it at the angel. She exploded (don’t worry - she got better (sort of)). This would have been incredibly fatal to Malius had his Spark not ignited, sending him across the Blind Eternities to Zendikar. And so, he soon discovered all sorts of new things to stitch. Including Eldrazi. In fact, Malius was straight-up ecstatic during the events of Eldritch Moon.

Malius’ various experiments have left him with sickly, pallid skin, and pale white hair. His eyes no longer appear human, and those who spend time around him soon feel uneasy. Malius wears the standard dress of the stitcher, a white labcoat, brimming with tools and notebooks. Malius often manipulates his tools via telekinesis, either to work upon a new creation, or as a method of attack. In dire situations, he calls upon the demonic powers he has infused himself with, physically taking on the form of a demon. This grants him signifigance strength, speed and endurance while it lasts, but prevents him from planeswalking, making it as risky as it is useful. When Malius planeswalkers, he disappears in cloud of dark and burning ash, crackling with lightning. This occurs even when he cannot actually planeswalk due to being a demon.

Hits: Extracting demonic power, demonic infusions, terrifying creations. Misses: Angels, torch-weilding mobs, basic medical ethics.

Skath - WBG, Naga Assassin, Orpheri - At first glance, Skath is like any other planeswalker assassin you might meet. She kills people for money, and she does it well. However, she is still a member of the organisation that trained her, a religious order of assassins on Orpheri. So Skath will not kill those standing on sacred grond, those not old enough to be an adult of their kind, and she requires more than just a payment before targetting a diplomat or member of a religious order. Beyond the rules of her faith, however, Skath kills without hesitation, selling death for gold and jewels. When not killing, she is surprisingly thoughtful, a writer of poetry and cultivator of interesting plants. And while unrepentant, she not always unrelenting. Put up enought of a fight, or simple hide in a shrine for a few days, and Skath will move onto easier targets.

Skath has copper-brown scales, and no hair, because Naga don’t have hair on Orpheri. She wears light armor on her torso, which is engraved with protective magic. Her favoured weapons are two scimitars, enchanted to deliver venomous strikes. She also carries a dagger, and a number of poisons, so that she might have the perfect tool for any assassination. In a pinch, she can bite someone, however the Naga Assassins of Orpheri consider this an act of last resort. Mainly because once you identify the cause of death as Naga venom, finding the killer is fairly simple. Skath planeswalks with a flash of pale orange light, leaving behind traces of sand. Interestingly, she is capable of being incredibly precise with her appearance on a plane, and has sometimes managed to planeswalk into a room based on it’s relative position to a know location.

Hits: Getting paid, botany, the statisfaction of a job well done. Misses: Cold places, oath-breakers, Locke, people attacking her from sacred ground (this is actually a bad idea - her religion sees this as an act of desecration, meaning you ultimately forfeit the protection provided).

Look at all these not nice people. It’s probably best to keep a distance between you and them. Of course, their motivations differ greatly, so if you were to find yourself in close proximity to them, you might be able to avoid getting stabbed. Or worse.

#fanwalker #magic the gathering #fan character february

[johs2803]

The Great illusions

(This is a short practice snippet of an AU in the Miraculous Ladybug universe. Nothing is really all that different except Master Fu is the one to consistently choose who gets which miraculous and they stay with them. Secret identities are universally maintained. To quickly summarize. Alya is wondering why she, an honest and forthright person; whose passion for truth has set her on a oneway track to becoming a journalist, was granted the power of what essentially amounts to lying. Heavily inspired by a certain scene in Terry Pratchett’s “Hogfather”.)

I DO NOT OWN OR IN ANY WAY LAY CLAIM TO MIRACULOUS: TALES OF LADYBUG AND CHAT NOIR. ALL CHARACTERS FALL UNDER THOMAS ASTRUC AND ASSOCIATES. THIS IS A WORK OF FANFICTION FALLING UNDER THE LAWS OF FAIR USE AND IS NOT INTENDED FOR ANY KIND OF PROFIT.)

 Alya, heaved a heavy sigh as she read the latest comment asking for more details and analysis on a certain fox themed superhero who had helped in the latest akuma attack. Once again, she replied with, that despite the ladyblogs best efforts, Rena Rouge was as wily and elusive as her namesake and thus she could offer little in terms of illumination. She quickly deflected any more prodding by posting more pictures of the heroes in action, even that annoying turtle boy. These days, she had shifted her ladyblogs focus from exposing the heroes’ identities, to posting the action, the fact she had a front row seat didn’t hurt when it came to describing details. When pressed for reasons she just said that she had started to respect their secrets and didn’t want to impede them any further, which most took at face value. She couldn’t justify her truth crusade if it meant her secret had to stay secret. But telling her fans this was just one more lie she had to shoulder. 

If anything, continuing her ladyblog and never mentioning that she had a camouflaged camera drone follow her and her cohorts; was a huge help in maintaining her secret identity. The very thing she had tried to unveil from Ladybug for months before the package with her camera drone had come with hexagonal black box that would rock her world at its foundation. Her childhood dream and adolescent hopes had become true in a way she had never dared believe. Being a superhero, working with her idol and other like her, she wouldn’t trade it for anything. Except, as the case was, her ideals. Finishing her posts Alya held her head in her hands, her monitor displaying a close-up of Rena Rouge smiling at the camera. Her reflection aligned perfectly with the image, except, the one in the mask was happy having the time of her life, the one behind it was starting to doubt why heroes should ever need to wear masks.

“You look like you have your tail in a trap.” Alya jumped. She had been so lost in thought, that the mischievous voice above her head had shaken her from stupor rather suddenly.

Her malaise of doubt turned surprised bemusement quickly turned into a slight giggle as she looked up seeing the adorable vulpine kwami floating above happily snacking on a cherry.

“You’d think I’d be used to you sneaking up on me like that by now.” She said rotating her chair to get a better look at him. Her? Did primordial embodiments of abstract concepts have genders?

“Please, Kit. I’ve been doing surprises since before the earth was cosmic dust.” He said smugly gulping down a cherry and spitting the seed in her trash bin. Her unprecedented love for cherries had been one of the easier lies to tell her family, if only cause Trixx looked absolutely adorable when eating them. “Seriously though; something is clearly bothering you kit, and I’m guessing it has something to do with me.”

It was a statement not an accusation, and Alya was experienced enough in deduction to know how he had arrived at that conclusion, her monitor still portraying her heroic persona. “It’s not you Trixx. It’s just…” She paused. “Being a hero is a lifelong dream for me, and I love you, amongst other things, for making it come true. What’s bothering me is the lies. I always knew heroes had their secrets, but I never knew it was gonna be this hard keeping them.”

“You’re doing well so far I’d say.” Trixx said nodding to the monitor with her comments deflecting the probes and her drone posing as the real reporter.

“That’s not what I meant.” She replied.

After a moment, Trixx replied with. “Ah, so it’s the act itself that’s eating you?”

Alya just nodded.

“You know why you need to lie. Your friends, your sisters, your parents; all of them can be used against you if everyone knew who you were behind the mask.”

“Yeah. I get that. What I don’t get, is why I got the power of lying in addition to having to maintain lies. I mean look at Ladybug and Chat noir. One of them can make everything right, and the other can destroy everything bad. Even Shelly is a protector obnoxious as he is. I just can’t help but thinking about Lila, you know the girl I told you about who Hawkmoth gave a knockoff of your powers to? She lied constantly and nobody whom she contacted was happy afterwards. The way I see it, lying and illusions just hurt people in the end.” She ended her tirade with huff slumping in her chair.

Trixx had sympathetic look on him and just floated down to her side rubbing her cheek. “You’ve done good things with them though. Like when you saved your akumatized sisters or that time your boyfriend was about to be eaten and your illusory doppelgangers of him confused that monster?”

She smiled to herself. She had done that. Even if Nino had been less than grateful to her for it. One of the very few points of friction between them was that he did not like Rena Rouge and she did not like Carapace. Whom, for reasons she could not for the life of her fathom, he deeply admired. Alongside LB and CH of course.

“Yeah. Still leading people away from the truth always seems to go wrong. If they are lead to believe the wrong things it just ends up hurting them and benefitting those that maintain them.”

Trixx floated away and up to the ceiling and asked, “Then why do you tell your sisters that the tooth fairy comes to give them money for their lost teeth, when you and your sister do it each night they put them under their pillow?”

Alya looked up at that. “Well, that’s…” She stammered. “…different. They’re just kids, all they need now is that they are safe and that there is some magic out there. Not including Miraculous’. Besides they’re smart, so like me and my big sis, they’ll realize one day that it was just a story we used to make them happy.” She quickly added. “Heck, it helped me want to find out the truths everybody tried to hide.”

He turned around and pointed at her in an ‘AHA’ pose. “My point exactly! Not all illusions can be hurtful and without realizing it you are telling them the lesser illusions, so they have the practice necessary to believe in the great illusions!”

“The great illusions?” She asked puzzled.

“Yep” he said with an air of self-importance. “Justice, duty, beauty those kinds of things.”

“Wait, those aren’t the same at all!” she objected

“You think so? Then take the universe and examine it with the strongest lens you know off and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy or even one boson of beauty! And yet, you BELIEVE that those things exist in the very fundamentals of this existence and that all of it may be judged via that tinted lens.” Trixx darted around in great arcs as he spoke but ended his final statement right in front of her face.

“But if we don’t believe that, what else is there?”

“Just the things you can perceive.” Alya’s face dropped a tad as the weight of Trixx’s words hit her. “If you don’t believe in things that aren’t real, how else can they become?”

Alya was quiet, not quite able to process what Trixx had told her. He’d know better than anyone, but were all the things she believed built on a lie others had told her? She had never considered it, and now that she did with her discerning reporter’s ambition, she did not like the conclusions she saw.

Trixx air of importance vanished, replaced by sympathy as he floated to her cheek and hugged it as best as his miniscule frame could managed. She smiled a genuine smile as she scratched the top of his head. The, literally, tiny gesture had a colossal impact. Not unlike how she hugged away the nightmares her little sisters sometimes woke from, she mused.

After a while Trixx floated back and with his own genuine smile said; “Look ki- Alya, like any power in the universe, illusions may be used to hurt others as much as they may be used to help them. Creation may overwhelm other entities and destruction does not discriminate between good and bad. It doesn’t so much matter what the power is, as what you do with it. And going along with one or more of the great illusions does not make you a liar. It makes you someone who wants to do good in the world and make what is essentially one massive lie reality. And I know that you know that that is a good thing.”

Alya pulled him back into a cheek hug which he happily returned.

“Thanks Trixx.” She said. Then with a teasing lilt. She said, “I’d still like a kwami of truth though.”

Picking up on her less than serious tone, his reply was the opposite in its earnesty. “Well, I wouldn’t trade you for any human in the world.”

(This was an idea I had after watching a subpar filmatization of an otherwise great author’s works. I wanted to practice my writing and thought this was a good place to start. I’d appreciate any constructive criticism and hope you all have a miraculous day!)

#alya cesaire #trixx #miraculous ladybug #fanfic #snippet #critical thinking #illusions #terry pratchett #hogfather #miraculous fanfic #miraculous

[saladejin]

Changing States | Jimin

Jimin x Reader | non idolverse au, husband!Jimin |  Fluff, crack-ish, slight angst

Summary: You receive a much needed comfort after one of the worst days in history. Well... your history anyway. 

Warnings: Mention of a pregnancy loss.

Word Count: 3k 

* Request from my Ao3 series ‘Movie Night’.

~

Sometimes people liked to call it waking up on the wrong side of the bed. You preferred to label it as just a bad day, nothing to worry about usually, yet now you were rethinking everything.

Today, your entire bed seemed to be on the wrong side of the room.

You awoke to the sound of loud machinery and boisterous yelling filtering in from the window. Blinking the sleep away, you inwardly cursed for forgetting to get the uneven windowsill fixed up yet again. Now you would have to deal with the noise from the construction site next door without being able to complain about it because it was your scatterbrain that had left you to suffer in silence.

You let your eyes flutter shut and extended one arm towards the other half of the bed, desperate for the warm body that would usually be there but only meeting the cold, dreary bedsheets with your fingertips.

That’s right, he has to work extra early hours today.

You sat up slowly, letting your eyes trail over the hauntings of a crease he had left in the smooth fabric. You couldn’t help but roll over to rest your face into his plush pillow, trying to catch the last tendrils of his scent that was made up of a million different things. The things that made you feel secure and bolted to the ground, whether it be his aromatic shampoo or the light cologne he’d worn the previous day.

It hadn’t been the best morning so far, but you knew he would have made it perfect if he’d only been by your side. Being your source of motivation to get going, or something.

You got to your feet and padded into the bathroom to make yourself somewhat presentable. Your brows were still twitching from the obnoxious noise outside, and the fact that they’d brought in a big reversing truck had amped the annoyance level. Repetitive beeping was a big no for your sanity at the moment.

“Two more weeks,” you sighed and tried to angle your lips upwards into a smile, just for the sake of feeling brighter in mind and spirit.

Then, the smile vanished as a high pitched shriek tore from your throat. The big fat hairy spider sitting on your mirror didn’t move, but you did.

“What the fuck!” You growled, eyeing the creature and clenching at your heart over your shirt to stop it from racing. It was so big you were almost too afraid to try getting rid of it. Usually you could whip out the fly spray or get a cup and a sheet of paper to let it outside, but this one was giving you eyes.

“Nope.”

You let the bathroom door click shut and let your head rest against the wood with an audible thump. It was still morning, but already you’d been through about twelve of your most detested emotions of all time.

I’ll let Jimin deal with it when he gets home.

You left the spider to its own devices and made your way into the kitchen for some food. Luckily for you, the milk had expired and your coffee machine had decided to overflow and ooze its weird concoction of water, caffeine and sugar straight onto your tiles. Tiles which had been freshly mopped not two days ago, mind you.

You reminded yourself to feel thrilled that it hadn’t been on the carpet instead.  

You could only sigh again and began moving your feet to get the cleaning stuff from the cupboard. The sound of the machine dripping occasionally followed you the entire way, and that, coupled with everything else that had gone down so far, landed you the biggest headache you could possibly imagine.

You weren’t hungover, but if things continued the way they were then it wouldn’t be long before you’d be setting yourself up for something similar. Your phone buzzed a while later and you perked up at the message from your best friend. She’d suddenly invited you out for lunch, but you didn’t know how to feel.

I’ve been kicked out of the bathroom and I haven’t had much to eat. I’ll look like trash and be grumpy as hell, but hey at least it’ll take my mind off everything for a while.

~

Newsflash, it hadn’t helped.

You watched in shock as your friend beamed at you from her seat in the café. Your coffee had been served unnaturally cold, and then when you’d sent it back they had returned with a completely wrong order altogether. You could barely keep your fragile sense of civility together for the nervous looking waiter, but whenever you felt yourself about to snap you just imagined Jimin’s heart-warming smile and the words he would always speak in moments of amounting stress.

“It’ll be alright baby, you’ll get through it.”

Now, the aforementioned shock was stemming from your friend and colleague. The friend and colleague who had just dropped a bombshell.

“We’ve decided to move interstate! There’s a lovely house on a river we saw and fell in love with,” She smiled excitedly.

“That’s amazing,” You breathed, genuinely feeling happy for her but trying your best to ignore the feelings of sorrow gripping at your heart.

“I’ll be sad to leave you guys and the company, but I’ll come down to visit as often as I can. You okay (Y/n) sweetie?”

You jerked as her hand found yours across the table.

“Yeah, sorry I’ve had a bit of a chaotic day. I’m so happy for you,” You smiled, grasping her hand and feeling relieved when she seemed to let the moment pass. You hated yourself for letting the negativity outweigh everything else, but you knew you would easily be feeling elated if had just been a better day.

“I’ll have to show you photos, maybe you two will be inspired to look for another place somewhere too,” She smiled tenderly, knowing you and Jimin had always wanted to venture out into the world to find the perfect spot. Work had overtaken many things so far in your married lives, but seeing your friend finally break free did make you feel hopeful for a change.

Feeling encouraged by your thoughtful and optimistic expression, your friend continued.

“Just a nice little place with a perfect temperature for like, everything! Wouldn’t it be great to even live close together? Our families and kids could share so many memories.”

Your smile dropped and your best friend suddenly let her voice die in her throat, realising she’d brought something up she shouldn’t have just yet. It was a little soon.

“Oh shit, (Y/n) I didn’t mean to.”

“No, it’s fine silly,” You laughed it off, still squeezing her hand to reassure her. Her worried gaze pierced into your own and you felt a tad uncomfortable from all the emotions in your brain running rampant all of a sudden.

“You look under the weather, let me pay your bill,” She offered softly, getting to her feet and prompting you to follow. You were so grateful she was so tuned to your mannerisms, she knew just when you needed a break from it all.

You said your goodbyes after apologising for your miserable appearance once again, finally getting into the car and heaving a massive sigh to rid yourself from the tension. You contemplated calling Jimin, but you knew that he was at work and would likely be busy with getting everything done. He was efficient like that.

“What a shitty person I am, couldn’t even be fucking happy for my friend,” You muttered in shaky annoyance as you started up the car, feeling like you wanted to scream all your anger away into the dashboard. Onlookers be damned, you didn’t care about being judged.

No, just buy some ice cream or something on the way home. You’ll have a better day tomorrow.

More of his words drifted through your memory.

“Keep it together, treat yourself. You deserve happiness.”

A sad smile tugged at your lips and you made it onto the road after promising yourself to feel better. If you hit a low point in your day you could only climb up from it. You told yourself to clear your mind and look forward to what time you had left.

To your chagrin, the positive outlook only lasted so long when you found yourself neck-deep in traffic; the sound of rumbling engines and an occasional beep of a horn being the only sounds greeting your ears for a solid ten minutes.

What the…

Your resolve cracked at the edges and began crumbling.

“Music will help,” Your teeth found your bottom lip as you reached for the radio station buttons, but unfortunately you were only met with white noise and the momentary sound of ads breaking through. You could almost feel the speed of the ice cream melting.

The world became blurry and your grip tightened on the wheel.

~

“I’m home, my love.”

Jimin’s slightly wearied voice echoed through the front hallway as he shuffled through the door, keys thrown onto the bench and coat draped over a nearby bar stool. He rolled his shoulders experimentally to feel how tensed they were, letting out a sigh at the muscles loosening from their strained position.

“(Y/n)? Jagi?” He used a few more names to try and get your attention, full lips pulling into a frown when he only heard muffled sobbing coming from the living room.

Oh no…

“(Y/n)?”

He walked into the room with purposeful strides, rolling up the sleeves of his button up as he went to help cool down. When he saw the flickering screen of the television, he noticed instantly that an attempted movie stream had failed due to a poor internet connection. He searched the couch hurriedly with concern flashing in his chocolate brown eyes, finally coming to rest on your form wrapped in a blanket huddled to one side. His heart broke when he watched your shoulders tremble with another barely contained wail.

“Shit, (Y/n) are you okay?” He inhaled sharply and jogged over to kneel in front of you, hands flying upwards to peel the blanket away from your face.

“God, I’ve wanted to hear your voice all day,” You sniffled, face red and puffy from tears. He didn’t know why you were crying, but the man embodied all the sensitive qualities of an empath. The sorry sight of you made his own emotions well up at an alarming rate.

“Hold on,” He cradled your face and stood up to gently smear the tears away from your cheeks, planting a sweet kiss on your forehead before rushing to the bedroom to get changed into something comfier.

“You definitely should have called me!” He groaned with a frown, hating that you were feeling so saddened but hadn’t been in contact to let him know.

You could only sigh. “You were working, I’d be too much of a bother.” You swayed on your feet as you waited for him out in the hallway leading to your room. You just wanted to be close to him now; wanting absolutely nothing more than his soothing words and body heat. He finally nudged open the door with his elbow, now dressed in tracksuit pants and a plain white t-shirt that was looser than anything else he owned.

“Come here baby,” He cooed and looked at you with softened eyes, reaching down to sweep you into his arms almost effortlessly. You wrapped your own arms around your husband tightly as he brought you back to the comfort of the couch, pressing his lips to your hair to remind you that he was home safe and sound.

“Tell me all about it.”

You sighed a rickety sigh, feeling even more tears swell from nowhere at the feeling of immense joy you now felt.

“Shit day, just all round shitness,” You murmured as you settled comfortably into his lap. His fingers swept some of your hair away and then moved to run through the tresses, making you smile and lean into the inviting pressure.

“Hmm, what was the first thing,” Jimin prompted, wanting you to let it all out to him while also being curious as to what had caused such emotional trauma. You revelled in the softness of his voice and moved your own hands to touch his face. He thought it was cute, but you believed the resulting smile he flashed your way was the most adorable thing to exist on this planet.

“The windowsill, for one,” You finally muttered, breaking off into a chuckle.

“Oh, whoops. I keep forgetting.” He clicked his tongue, a rumble of a growl sounding deep within his chest. You chuckled again and couldn’t help but nuzzle your face affectionately into his neck.

“It’s not your fault, I was gonna call up about it ages ago.”

His fingers continued to comb through your hair as he hummed for you to continue. Your tears had stopped altogether as you synced your breathing with his, feeling secured by the feeling of his rhythmic heartbeat underneath your moving hand.

“Met up with (F/n), but I looked like shit and felt like shit too. Oh yeah, coffee machine broke before that as well.”

“Wow, double whammy.”

You snorted and tried to push down your feelings of endearment to continue solemnly. “She’s moving away with her husband, interstate.”

Jimin let out a low noise of understanding. Finally, he could wrap his head around why the combination of all these small and big events would cause you to fall apart at the seams. Now that he thought about it, it had been so long since he’d even seen you cry. Maybe you’d been bottling it up for months now, and he just hadn’t noticed.

Work causing me to be ignorant, again! I really need to start focusing on what’s important...

Jimin pushed the thoughts away as you continued with the adoption of a heavier tone, the warmth of your tears falling onto his shoulder suddenly. He ran a hand over the top of your head to comfort you, his own eyes watering at your outward display of frustration.

“I couldn’t bring myself to feel happy, I mean I was but she’s one of my only friends at work and I know I’ll feel a little lost without her there. The house sounds really nice from what she said too.”

Jimin felt your form stiffen as you sobbed lightly.

“Then what?” He prompted with a soft whisper, holding you closer and rubbing your arm to help calm you down.

“She t-talked about kids and stuff, I’m so fucking stupid but I couldn’t help thinking of the miscarriage. She knew too, she…she had to stop herself from speaking just so I wouldn’t break down. Jimin, I’m such a horrible friend, I really am…”

Jimin felt his own sorrow creeping up on him as you brought up something that had deeply affected you both. You comforted one another as you stopped to brood for a few minutes, the silence being as consoling as anything while you focused on the sound of his breathing. He cleared his throat, urging away the crackle in it to lighten the atmosphere.

“It’s alright, the world is full of people you’ll meet and keep close to you. Think of all the opportunity out there instead of seeing the loss. We can visit, no?”

You cracked a smile at his much needed optimism.

“Of course. Of course we can, love.”

He kissed your head again and you reached up to smooth your now softened hair out of your face and peripherals. You looked up at him with an absolute storm of adoration clouding your gaze.

“How about we stay in tonight and just cuddle here on the couch. I’ll get the TV working too,” He murmured, bringing his hands to cup your cheeks lovingly and letting his eyes curve slightly from the accompanying smile. You ruffled his thick ashy locks briefly before shifting in his lap and capturing his lips with your own gently.

“I love you so much, it hurts sometimes,” You sighed after pulling away, but he jerked to follow your lips a second after. You hummed in amusement as you moved to straddle him, trying to pour all of your gratefulness and appreciation into the kiss.

You disconnected but rested your foreheads together to lock eyes, your face scrunching slightly when he tickled your nose with his own.

“I love you too, but you already knew that,” He rasped, planting another tiny peck to your lips and letting it linger.

You couldn’t stop running your thumbs across the expanse of his wide cheeks, your noses still inches apart and warm breaths tickling each other’s lips in small puffs. It was as if neither of you ever wanted to move.

“Yeah, kinda,” You giggled while giving his cheeks the lightest of pinches.

“Kinda? I’ll give you kinda…” Jimin growled playfully and rolled you over to the other side of the couch, standing up straight and flexing out his shoulders while you shrieked with laughter.

“I’m sorry, I know!”

He chuckled cutely and leaned over to tickle you some more before showering you with more kisses. You let your face relax as you took in his warm gaze. You felt a little calmer and more serious after the small bout of liveliness you’d had.

“Sorry, I didn’t really ask about your day. Now that I’m done I can give you a massage while you tell me.”

Jimin let out a big breath and fixed his roughened hair, looking down at you with vaguely tired eyes that were still filled with appreciation.

“Massage sounds amazing love, but I need the toilet.”

“Okay, maybe the ice cream is back to normal. Get it on your way back?” You called out after him.

“Sure thing.”

You smiled softly to yourself as you thought about how much he had managed to cheer you up with one conversation. You did feel kind of selfish for unloading all your troubles onto him without seeming to give a shit about his day in return, but you promised you would make up for it as soon as he came back. You would help him turn his day around, just like he’d done for you.

In fact, the ice cream reminded you of this very moment. When it came down to it, something like this could never be irreversible. Even if you were a sad, melted puddle of emotions from the moment you woke up, you’d since been restored to your former glory by your saviour husband, your personal freezer. He kept you together when you needed it the most.

“AH!”

A muffled shout from the bathroom caused you to slap a hand to your mouth to stop the cackles from escaping.

“That’s a big motherfucker.”

Copyright © 2020 by salade. All rights reserved.

#park jimin #jimin #reader #jimin fluff #bts fanfic #bts fluff #slight angst #husband material #just a whole lot of hurting tbh #he is a sweetheart #it's too late for this #bts #sorry for this #saladejin

[fadingmatter-blog]

tryken wrote this

Alright. In replies to the multitude of "poetry can be anything! Someone's trash is someone else's treasure! You can't judge poetry, man!" You're wrong. And because I care about both this reddit and having a job after I've finished my MFA in Poetry next year, I want to explain to you why you're wrong.

1.) Think of a poem as having a thesis line. This thesis line could be an observation you made that stimulates a question. You don't even have to have an answer to that question, but you're trying to get your thesis across like a paper. This could be, "Indecision has ruined my life," or, "my mother's drinking has not only distanced herself from my sister so much that all they share at this point is their now mutual love for drinking, a trait my sister most likely picked up to be like our mother." So now you have your thesis idea. What sparks your poem. And observations are fine, too, about nature or the history behind an old barn. Ted Kooser is great for this.

2.) Now you have a thesis. Great. Time to convey it and make that reader feel what you feel. Uh oh. There's the problem. In fact, it's become a harder problem, because the average person is assaulted with hundreds of television shows, advertisements, facebook posts, memes, pictures of words written on signs slathered on their social network sites, all competing for that person's emotion. Damn. And most of these have music and moving images trying to get through their hardening exterior. So how do you do it with your poem? This is where the craft of poetry comes in. You need to make something efficient and powerful. You have to build an engine under the hood of your poem and piece it together. If I come out and say, "I'm sad, you left me, now I'm mad." That's not going to go very far. Also, it doesn't get my thesis across, because I'm not specifying who left me, or what kind of sadness I'm feeling, or why it's turned to anger. While sometimes the who isn't important, we need a fresh way to explain the feeling. BUT if I just up and tell you, you're not going to feel it as strongly.

3.) IN poetry, you're trying to explain something beyond the words themselves. Poetry has so much more focus on it due to its size than prose. It's language distilled. And you don't see it until you start /analyzing/ professional poetry and have a professional explain to you what's going on in the poem that the poet intended to happen. Line breaks aren't just random snaps of line for the sake of lining up rhyme. Syntax, the length of a line, all are chosen to have a certain velocity.

Let's analyze something short and sweet. We're going to do W.S. Merwin's "Separation."

Your absence has gone through me / Like thread through a needle. / Everything I do is stitched with its color.

So how much is there to talk about here? Well, let's just touch on a couple of choices Merwin has made. First, he chooses a tercet (three-line stanza). Three line stanzas usually come off as evocative and self-contained. If they appear on after another, they can seem uncomfortable (which can work to the writer's advantage). Haiku, for an example, has been made a tercet in the west. So for a short poem, a tercet works extremely well.

The big feature, however, of Merwin's "Separation" is the contrast of absence going "through" the narrator. That's a big deal. Absence is almost always seen as a hole or an emptiness. Yet the narrator has been filled by it. How do we know the narrator isn't being stabbed through by something hollow? Because the comparison of what's moving through him is as thread through a needle. It's solid. It's tangible. It makes the absence real. The self-contained last line (as the previous two lines are a single sentence) has a lot of strength to it, as it gets the second point of the thesis across: everything the narrator does has some element of that absence showing in it. That's a big topic, and Merwin gets it across in three lines. Three frickin' lines. But, wait, there's more. Stitching is an act of construction and creation. So that absence isn't shown in just a superficial color. It's stitched, meaning it goes into the actions themselves, deeper down beyond the revealed color we can see.

Finally, consider the title to the poem. It's "Separation," not absence, which is the emotion he's feeling. This is something more permanent, more forced against the narrator's will. While it doesn't give us a complete view of the circumstances of the absence, it gives us an idea that it was forced upon the narrator, and possibly the "you."

Let me make for you this poem as most likely seen on r/poetry:

Absence

I feel your absence like an empty cart / like a hole in my heart / it hurts when I do anything without you.

This is a bad poem. Cart and heart have nothing to do with one another. It fails to extend the metaphor, it's obvious that they're made to force the rhyme, a now overbearing element to the poem. "Hole in my heart" is a cliche. It doesn't have any punch like fresh imagery does. And what better way to end this crap-fest than being told about an abstract emotion like pain. We're not surprised. We're not taken anywhere. This is a bad poem. Merwin's poem sounds like it's written by a Poet Laureate (and that poem isn't even close to some of his more masterful work). There is a massive difference between good and bad poetry. Good poetry has so much more going for it in depth. You can analyze it all day and see the elements of it all working together. Or could never go into those elements, read the poem, and still walk out surprised at how it made you feel and never know why.

That's good poetry.

TL;DR: Stop treating poetry like an arts and crafts project. It's not. It's a real art form. When you say that it can be anything and be good insults the last 2,000 years of effort by poets across the world.

Edit: Wow! Thank you for all of these replies. I've edited the tercet poems in the piece to include slashes between line breaks so the breaks won't be lost. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Edit 2: I wanted to elaborate on "thesis line." The "thesis line" is just a fancy wording for the "core idea" of the poem. You have this line that you could type, but it would be telling your audience. Instead of just telling them how you feel, you're building a poem around your "core idea" to elevate the communication of it above explanation, or communicating something which explanation cannot.

[14081830a]

What If We Stopped Pretending?The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.

By Jonathan Franzen

September 8, 2019

Illustration by Leonardo Santamaria

“There is infinite hope,” Kafka tells us, “only not for us.” This is a fittingly mystical epigram from a writer whose characters strive for ostensibly reachable goals and, tragically or amusingly, never manage to get any closer to them. But it seems to me, in our rapidly darkening world, that the converse of Kafka’s quip is equally true: There is no hope, except for us.

I’m talking, of course, about climate change. The struggle to rein in global carbon emissions and keep the planet from melting down has the feel of Kafka’s fiction. The goal has been clear for thirty years, and despite earnest efforts we’ve made essentially no progress toward reaching it. Today, the scientific evidence verges on irrefutable. If you’re younger than sixty, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it.

If you care about the planet, and about the people and animals who live on it, there are two ways to think about this. You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world’s inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope.

Even at this late date, expressions of unrealistic hope continue to abound. Hardly a day seems to pass without my reading that it’s time to “roll up our sleeves” and “save the planet”; that the problem of climate change can be “solved” if we summon the collective will. Although this message was probably still true in 1988, when the science became fully clear, we’ve emitted as much atmospheric carbon in the past thirty years as we did in the previous two centuries of industrialization. The facts have changed, but somehow the message stays the same.

Psychologically, this denial makes sense. Despite the outrageous fact that I’ll soon be dead forever, I live in the present, not the future. Given a choice between an alarming abstraction (death) and the reassuring evidence of my senses (breakfast!), my mind prefers to focus on the latter. The planet, too, is still marvelously intact, still basically normal—seasons changing, another election year coming, new comedies on Netflix—and its impending collapse is even harder to wrap my mind around than death. Other kinds of apocalypse, whether religious or thermonuclear or asteroidal, at least have the binary neatness of dying: one moment the world is there, the next moment it’s gone forever. Climate apocalypse, by contrast, is messy. It will take the form of increasingly severe crises compounding chaotically until civilization begins to fray. Things will get very bad, but maybe not too soon, and maybe not for everyone. Maybe not for me.

Some of the denial, however, is more willful. The evil of the Republican Party’s position on climate science is well known, but denial is entrenched in progressive politics, too, or at least in its rhetoric. The Green New Deal, the blueprint for some of the most substantial proposals put forth on the issue, is still framed as our last chance to avert catastrophe and save the planet, by way of gargantuan renewable-energy projects. Many of the groups that support those proposals deploy the language of “stopping” climate change, or imply that there’s still time to prevent it. Unlike the political right, the left prides itself on listening to climate scientists, who do indeed allow that catastrophe is theoretically avertable. But not everyone seems to be listening carefully. The stress falls on the word theoretically.

Our atmosphere and oceans can absorb only so much heat before climate change, intensified by various feedback loops, spins completely out of control. Some scientists and policymakers fear that we’re in danger of passing this point of no return if the global mean temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius (maybe more, but also maybe less). The I.P.C.C.—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—tells us that, to limit the rise to less than two degrees, we not only need to reverse the trend of the past three decades. We need to approach zero net emissions, globally, in the next three decades.

This is, to say the least, a tall order. It also assumes that you trust the I.P.C.C.’s calculations. New research, described last month in Scientific American, demonstrates that climate scientists, far from exaggerating the threat of climate change, have underestimated its pace and severity. To project the rise in the global mean temperature, scientists rely on complicated atmospheric modelling. They take a host of variables and run them through supercomputers to generate, say, ten thousand different simulations for the coming century, in order to make a “best” prediction of the rise in temperature. When a scientist predicts a rise of two degrees Celsius, she’s merely naming a number about which she’s very confident: the rise will be at least two degrees. The rise might, in fact, be far higher.

As a non-scientist, I do my own kind of modelling. I run various future scenarios through my brain, apply the constraints of human psychology and political reality, take note of the relentless rise in global energy consumption (thus far, the carbon savings provided by renewable energy have been more than offset by consumer demand), and count the scenarios in which collective action averts catastrophe. The scenarios, which I draw from the prescriptions of policymakers and activists, share certain necessary conditions.

The first condition is that every one of the world’s major polluting countries institute draconian conservation measures, shut down much of its energy and transportation infrastructure, and completely retool its economy. According to a recent paper in Nature, the carbon emissions from existing global infrastructure, if operated through its normal lifetime, will exceed our entire emissions “allowance”—the further gigatons of carbon that can be released without crossing the threshold of catastrophe. (This estimate does not include the thousands of new energy and transportation projects already planned or under construction.) To stay within that allowance, a top-down intervention needs to happen not only in every country but throughout every country. Making New York City a green utopia will not avail if Texans keep pumping oil and driving pickup trucks.

VIDEO FROM THE NEW YORKER

David Attenborough on Spiders with Personalities

The actions taken by these countries must also be the right ones. Vast sums of government money must be spent without wasting it and without lining the wrong pockets. Here it’s useful to recall the Kafkaesque joke of the European Union’s biofuel mandate, which served to accelerate the deforestation of Indonesia for palm-oil plantations, and the American subsidy of ethanol fuel, which turned out to benefit no one but corn farmers.

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Finally, overwhelming numbers of human beings, including millions of government-hating Americans, need to accept high taxes and severe curtailment of their familiar life styles without revolting. They must accept the reality of climate change and have faith in the extreme measures taken to combat it. They can’t dismiss news they dislike as fake. They have to set aside nationalism and class and racial resentments. They have to make sacrifices for distant threatened nations and distant future generations. They have to be permanently terrified by hotter summers and more frequent natural disasters, rather than just getting used to them. Every day, instead of thinking about breakfast, they have to think about death.

Call me a pessimist or call me a humanist, but I don’t see human nature fundamentally changing anytime soon. I can run ten thousand scenarios through my model, and in not one of them do I see the two-degree target being met.

To judge from recent opinion polls, which show that a majority of Americans (many of them Republican) are pessimistic about the planet’s future, and from the success of a book like David Wallace-Wells’s harrowing “The Uninhabitable Earth,” which was released this year, I’m not alone in having reached this conclusion. But there continues to be a reluctance to broadcast it. Some climate activists argue that if we publicly admit that the problem can’t be solved, it will discourage people from taking any ameliorative action at all. This seems to me not only a patronizing calculation but an ineffectual one, given how little progress we have to show for it to date. The activists who make it remind me of the religious leaders who fear that, without the promise of eternal salvation, people won’t bother to behave well. In my experience, nonbelievers are no less loving of their neighbors than believers. And so I wonder what might happen if, instead of denying reality, we told ourselves the truth.

First of all, even if we can no longer hope to be saved from two degrees of warming, there’s still a strong practical and ethical case for reducing carbon emissions. In the long run, it probably makes no difference how badly we overshoot two degrees; once the point of no return is passed, the world will become self-transforming. In the shorter term, however, half measures are better than no measures. Halfway cutting our emissions would make the immediate effects of warming somewhat less severe, and it would somewhat postpone the point of no return. The most terrifying thing about climate change is the speed at which it’s advancing, the almost monthly shattering of temperature records. If collective action resulted in just one fewer devastating hurricane, just a few extra years of relative stability, it would be a goal worth pursuing.

In fact, it would be worth pursuing even if it had no effect at all. To fail to conserve a finite resource when conservation measures are available, to needlessly add carbon to the atmosphere when we know very well what carbon is doing to it, is simply wrong. Although the actions of one individual have zero effect on the climate, this doesn’t mean that they’re meaningless. Each of us has an ethical choice to make. During the Protestant Reformation, when “end times” was merely an idea, not the horribly concrete thing it is today, a key doctrinal question was whether you should perform good works because it will get you into Heaven, or whether you should perform them simply because they’re good—because, while Heaven is a question mark, you know that this world would be better if everyone performed them. I can respect the planet, and care about the people with whom I share it, without believing that it will save me.

More than that, a false hope of salvation can be actively harmful. If you persist in believing that catastrophe can be averted, you commit yourself to tackling a problem so immense that it needs to be everyone’s overriding priority forever. One result, weirdly, is a kind of complacency: by voting for green candidates, riding a bicycle to work, avoiding air travel, you might feel that you’ve done everything you can for the only thing worth doing. Whereas, if you accept the reality that the planet will soon overheat to the point of threatening civilization, there’s a whole lot more you should be doing.

Our resources aren’t infinite. Even if we invest much of them in a longest-shot gamble, reducing carbon emissions in the hope that it will save us, it’s unwise to invest all of them. Every billion dollars spent on high-speed trains, which may or may not be suitable for North America, is a billion not banked for disaster preparedness, reparations to inundated countries, or future humanitarian relief. Every renewable-energy mega-project that destroys a living ecosystem—the “green” energy development now occurring in Kenya’s national parks, the giant hydroelectric projects in Brazil, the construction of solar farms in open spaces, rather than in settled areas—erodes the resilience of a natural world already fighting for its life. Soil and water depletion, overuse of pesticides, the devastation of world fisheries—collective will is needed for these problems, too, and, unlike the problem of carbon, they’re within our power to solve. As a bonus, many low-tech conservation actions (restoring forests, preserving grasslands, eating less meat) can reduce our carbon footprint as effectively as massive industrial changes.

All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was winnable. Once you accept that we’ve lost it, other kinds of action take on greater meaning. Preparing for fires and floods and refugees is a directly pertinent example. But the impending catastrophe heightens the urgency of almost any world-improving action. In times of increasing chaos, people seek protection in tribalism and armed force, rather than in the rule of law, and our best defense against this kind of dystopia is to maintain functioning democracies, functioning legal systems, functioning communities. In this respect, any movement toward a more just and civil society can now be considered a meaningful climate action. Securing fair elections is a climate action. Combatting extreme wealth inequality is a climate action. Shutting down the hate machines on social media is a climate action. Instituting humane immigration policy, advocating for racial and gender equality, promoting respect for laws and their enforcement, supporting a free and independent press, ridding the country of assault weapons—these are all meaningful climate actions. To survive rising temperatures, every system, whether of the natural world or of the human world, will need to be as strong and healthy as we can make it.

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And then there’s the matter of hope. If your hope for the future depends on a wildly optimistic scenario, what will you do ten years from now, when the scenario becomes unworkable even in theory? Give up on the planet entirely? To borrow from the advice of financial planners, I might suggest a more balanced portfolio of hopes, some of them longer-term, most of them shorter. It’s fine to struggle against the constraints of human nature, hoping to mitigate the worst of what’s to come, but it’s just as important to fight smaller, more local battles that you have some realistic hope of winning. Keep doing the right thing for the planet, yes, but also keep trying to save what you love specifically—a community, an institution, a wild place, a species that’s in trouble—and take heart in your small successes. Any good thing you do now is arguably a hedge against the hotter future, but the really meaningful thing is that it’s good today. As long as you have something to love, you have something to hope for.

In Santa Cruz, where I live, there’s an organization called the Homeless Garden Project. On a small working farm at the west end of town, it offers employment, training, support, and a sense of community to members of the city’s homeless population. It can’t “solve” the problem of homelessness, but it’s been changing lives, one at a time, for nearly thirty years. Supporting itself in part by selling organic produce, it contributes more broadly to a revolution in how we think about people in need, the land we depend on, and the natural world around us. In the summer, as a member of its C.S.A. program, I enjoy its kale and strawberries, and in the fall, because the soil is alive and uncontaminated, small migratory birds find sustenance in its furrows.

There may come a time, sooner than any of us likes to think, when the systems of industrial agriculture and global trade break down and homeless people outnumber people with homes. At that point, traditional local farming and strong communities will no longer just be liberal buzzwords. Kindness to neighbors and respect for the land—nurturing healthy soil, wisely managing water, caring for pollinators—will be essential in a crisis and in whatever society survives it. A project like the Homeless Garden offers me the hope that the future, while undoubtedly worse than the present, might also, in some ways, be better. Most of all, though, it gives me hope for today.

A previous version of this article mischaracterized the scientific consensus around a “point of no return.”

[martin9395]

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 Getting container sphere footwear still relies on your tastes, yet in selecting for the correct set, you need to level minded on a number of the variables that may aid you really feel extra pleasant while participating in. You might certainly not understand that you may still strengthen your abilities by utilizing extra relaxed basketball shoes.

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 There are actually brand names that permit personalization of basketball shoes -you are going to be actually the one that will definitely make your very own footwear.

 Higher leadings are actually better for baseball. The long leadings of these footwear secure the ankle joints coming from spinning in the course of strenuous actions, consequently it avoid ankle joint personal injury.

 It holds true that many baseball gamers pay out additional interest to the type of the footwear than simply viewing the bodily appeals of the footwear. The absolute most necessary for all of them is actually that, they may focus in participating in the video game when they fit along with their footwear.

 You need to think about the essential components of basketball shoes prior to getting. Appear for the single high quality of the footwear, pick a dense main however possesses a lighter body weight.

 Footwear lug the total mass of a specific, hence footwear must be actually sturdy. In baseball, bunches of strenuous motions are actually implemented, and also footwear possess a huge payment in these activities. When a gamer possesses the best relaxed footwear, along with excellent quality assistance as well as quite delicate pillow he may surely focus extra in participating in the activity due to the fact that he may relocate easily and also perfectly.

 Basketball shoes are actually extremely suppliable items in the marketplace. Popular labels in making premium running shoes are going to absolutely sustain their consumers for several years due to the fact that they were actually currently confirmed as well as checked over times.

 Picking for the correct basketball shoes for you is actually pretty complicated considering that each individuals possesses distinct feets constructs. The footwear helped make through well-known makers were actually based upon the basic constructs and also measurements of the feets. If in the event that, you may certainly not discover the footwear that fit absolute best on your feets, you may choose personalization.

 Just how To Choose The Right Pair Of Basketball Shoes

 What performs Jordan, Nike, Adidas, Reebok, as well as Under Armour share?

 They all deliver an assortment of basketball shoes to decide on. This helps make opting for the best set of basketball shoes a whole lot harder than it need to be actually.

 There are actually many distinct concepts, shades, forms, and also dimensions.

 I am actually going to offer some pointers to assist you pick the ideal baseball footwear for "you".

 Go with Comfort

 If you need to select in between appeals and also convenience, constantly opt for convenience.

 After an even though you will not discover the footwear as desirable as you performed when you created the acquisition, and also the soreness is going to end up being even more recognizable.

 That was actually a massive oversight due to the fact that my feets will be actually incredibly aching after participating in baseball and also it would certainly hurt to reduce and also produce easy activities on the baseball court.

 When I resided in High School I utilized to opt for look into convenience due to the fact that I might certainly never locate the footwear I desired in my measurements (which was actually 13.5 in U.S. Mens).

 The appearances of the footwear will certainly mislead you right into believing that you may deal with the soreness. If your top priority takes place to become the appearance of the footwear, you might wind up compromising convenience so as to possess the extra desirable footwear.

 Ankle joint Support

 If you want to protect against recurring ankle joint personal injuries, you ought to buy basketball shoes that supply excellent ankle joint assistance. I suggest mid-top and also high-top footwear.

 Ankle joint accidents are actually a regular accident gone through baseball gamers.

 If you make a decision to use low-top footwear, yet you possess a past of ankle joint accidents, I suggest you acquire an inconspicuousness ankle joint prepare for added ankle joint help.

 Low-top footwear are actually excellent for those that wish to relocate promptly as well as be actually pale on their feets, however you are going to must lose ankle joint assistance.

 Appears

 You intend to decide on the footwear that appears the most effective to "you". Do not fret about opting for the footwear that individuals point out appears excellent. In the end of the time, you desire to more than happy along with your investment.

 If you're acquiring footwear for your baseball staff, I suggest you pick a footwear that possesses the exact same shade as your crew jacket, or even you can easily only pick a complete dark footwear or even a total white colored footwear.

 You need to constantly pick your footwear located upon convenience and also ankle joint help initially, and afterwards appears.

 Various other Tips

 Opt for a footwear along with wonderful grip. You do not intend to be actually sliding and also moving on the baseball judge, thus see to it you pick a footwear along with pleasant grasp.

 Select a footwear coming from an outstanding brand name. A few of the well-known companies that have actually been actually developing fantastic basketball shoes for several years consist of, Jordan, Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Converse, as well as Under Armour.

 The Perfect Basketball Shoe

 Basketball shoes along with longevity, help, reliability, adaptability, and also surprise absorption are actually vital factors to think about to guard these components of the physical body. One should likewise choose whether one likes a high-top or even low-cut baseball footwear. As a challenger drips the sphere towards you, the kind of footwear calculates exactly how the gamer will certainly safeguard versus a challenger.

 In purchase to participate in at a very competitive amount, the professional athlete needs to have the right kind of baseball footwear. Basketball shoes have to use sturdiness, assistance, reliability, versatility, as well as surprise absorption.

 Unlike Marbury, Jordan's footwear begin at a pretty much higher rate of $145. Cost distinctions likewise exist amongst various brand names of basketball shoes.

 One certainly never places a footwear back on the shelve without appearing at the rate tag. The rate of "trademark" footwear differs extensively coming from $15 to over $200. A variety of NBA super stars possess their very own individual footwear.

 If one favors a reduced slice playing footwear, the ankle joint is actually available without defense. Along with a low-cut footwear, it is actually most effectively to put on an ankle joint prepare to stop personal injury. Very high- best basketball shoes ought to be actually used at the extra rigorous amounts of baseball competitors.

 Exactly how to Choose the Perfect Basketball Shoes

 Footwear made use of in participating in baseball is actually really essential given that this can easily provide you as well as your feets the convenience it needs to have. Considering that baseball entails bodily ache because of difficult instruction, the premium of the footwear is actually a should to become effective.

 For a challenging sporting activities like baseball, footwear are actually a quite essential. Baseball is actually everything about your feet job and also possessing the effective footwear are actually vital. You carry out certainly not wish to miss out on opportunity off of the video game that you can be exercising your jump-shot, considering that your feets are actually injuring all as a result of your footwear.

 To become capable to discover the basketball shoes, the 1st primary point to consider would certainly be actually the form of components made use of and also the sole. If you are actually preparing to participate in baseball quickly, below are actually a number of the important things that you must think about when purchasing your footwear:

 Make an effort to secure the shoelaces while proper the footwear. This will certainly assist identify the correct dimension for you. Ensure that you purchase a set of basketball shoes where you possess adequate area to shake your feet.

 Measurements of footwear This is actually additionally an incredibly significant point to consider given that it will certainly guarantee your convenience while participating in baseball. Specialists claim that a great set of basketball shoes need to permit the gamer to glide in his or even her feet effectively yet ought to be actually comfortable adequate to make sure that the footwear will definitely certainly not arrive off while participating in. Simply like in selecting the normal footwear, purchase your set of basketball shoes after your strategy.

 The design of the footwear Although this is actually certainly not definitely a primary point to consider in conditions of look, the general appeal or even design of the basketball shoes you will definitely be actually acquiring ought to match your demands. To those that perform certainly not require ankle joint assistance as well as like lightweight footwear, low-tops are actually the greatest. If you carry out go along with a reduced supporting footwear I suggest that you use ankle joint dental braces or even receive wrapped to safeguard your ankle joints.

 Always remember exactly how the footwear thinks on your shoes is actually the absolute most necessary point. Exactly how the footwear appears must be actually second. When you can easily locate a footwear that really feels really good as well as appears excellent after that you ferret out one thing.

 When getting basketball shoes, are sure that you attempt it on. As well as, while trying, enter each sets of the footwear as well as stroll. This will certainly assist you choose if the footwear fit or otherwise.

 Style of footwear In baseball, footwear alternatives may be actually figured out through a gamers posture he or even she participates in on the judge. This is actually certainly not constantly the scenario for gamers, yet you must consistently maintain this in thoughts when picking your footwear.

[sinesalvatorem]

How Discrimination Works (Copied From Chat)

I mean, I think racial discrimination and profiling as they now exist are mostly a side effect of living in a huge, atomised population where you can’t keep track of everyone you’re going to meet individually.

So, different groups of people are going to differ on averages for how they act - whether because of culture or incentives or w/e - but this doesn’t affect how you behave toward them under a certain number of people.

You don’t care about averages when you know every life detail of individuals.

Like, imagine you’re hosting a dinner party and you have 15 friends. Based on your years of interaction with them, you know Dave and Maria are going to start fights with the other participants, so you don’t invite them.

It doesn’t matter that Dave is a white guy or Maria is a Hispanic woman. You know them personally and, from knowing them, can predict what they, specifically, will do.

At this level, the demographic characteristics of people don’t matter /at all/. You’re using actual, individual knowledge to discriminate on who’s allowed at your event.

This is also the situation with the least false positives and negatives. Discriminating against groups will always leave you with a lot of false results because, while the groups may differ on averages, there’ll always be people in the tails you wanted to keep or exclude who you couldn’t.

So, why would anyone use a courser, looser, stupider proxy for figuring out if someone is actually an asshole? Well, costs.

I am told that people who aren’t me often have a hard time cultivating deep friendships with a hundred people which allow them to judge the character of every soul. IDK /why/ you guys aren’t on my level and think you should git gud, but I am accepting of your frailty.

But, anyway, that means the costs of personally tracking that many people are too high for you to discriminate on character. Instead, you want to discriminate on something that /correlates strongly/ with character.

It’s only a proxy, but it’ll still let you keep out a lot of the bad folks and keep in a lot of the good folks. Hopefully.

So, say you run a pub. You have a few regulars that you know things about and who’s character you can vouch for. Sometimes one of them has a bad day and yells at someone, but you know that this is a rare occurrence, so you just give them a stern talking to and leave them be.

The next day, a rando comes in. He’s had a bad day and he yells at someone. You ban him from the pub.

Why? Because /most/ people who randomly start yelling at other patrons are assholes. In the case of your regulars, you know them well enough to be aware that they aren’t personality-level assholes, even if they act like assholes once in a while.

Meanwhile, you have no way of knowing that this rando off the street is a firefighter with three cats and a heart of gold who just learned that his mother died.

You just don’t have that background because you can’t pay that much attention to that many people. Kicking anyone who becomes verbally abusive is a rule that /usually/ works, so it’s worth the costs when it fails. The rules are the rules (if you have nothing better than rules to work with).

This also means that a group having explicit rules is a sign that its members don’t know each other well enough or can’t agree well enough that they don’t need coarse-grained methods like these. Friend groups rarely have written rules; corporations usually do.

As you ascend the ladder of number-of-people-to-deal-with, you notice that the main constraint is how much time and attention you can spend on each person.

The dinner party host could spend hundreds of hours on each guest over the course of their friendships. The pub owner may have been able to watch the rando customer for half an hour before he started making a ruckus. What happens if you have five seconds?

Imagine you’re a bouncer for a club and have to decide who to let in and who to keep out. You’re the most important gatekeeper, so it’s on you to keep out as many assholes as possible - but you have to wave people in or tell them to fuck off /quickly/.

So, with just a few seconds to make your decision, you have to default to an even more visible proxy than the pub owner did.

Unfortunately, as proxies become more visible, they also tend to work less well, so you’ll be even more imperfect than before.

As you’re only human and have to work fast, you look people up and down and judge their hair and face and clothes. You form an intuitive impression of whether this person looks like The Right Sort.

Of course, this is going to be somewhat divergent from who is and isn’t an asshole and /notably/ correlated with social class. Whoops. But, well, you had five seconds, dude. What did you expect?

However, it’d be even /worse/ if you had effectively no seconds. When you get big enough for a bureaucracy with forms to fill out, you can’t even /look/ at people. You can only discriminate based on features someone can write down on a form.

So you exclude all the black men on the assumption that they’ll start fights. This is /ridiculously/ lossy. This is a false positive extravaganza. But, above a certain size, this is all you’re gonna get.

So, the obvious response to arriving at level 3 or 4 and realising that this profiling thing is out of control is to ban discrimination. However, I think that misses important facts about the situation illustrated above.

The first is that the discrimination is serving a purpose. Sometimes that’s avoiding fight-starters, but it could really be anything. It doesn’t matter much /why/ people value it, just that they do so strongly enough that they clearly put a lot of effort into it.

But something that falls out of that is that /people don’t stop/. As the proxies for discrimination become more stupid and useless, people /keep using them/. 

They seem to be pretty desperate to find some way to filter who they let into their homes and pubs and clubs, so you should expect them to be willing to swallow a lot of costs to keep doing so.

So, when you start banning discrimination, what actually happens? What do people do?

Well, they seem to find the one method of discrimination that hasn’t been banned and can’t be banned: Price.

Most notably, in urban housing markets, zoning laws that make construction difficult and drive up prices until the poors move out. They aren’t a bug; they’re a feature.

“Has enough money to buy a house in San Francisco” is a very lossy proxy for someone’s propensity to start fights, get drunk, break windows, or otherwise be a bad neighbour. But there are too many people to filter to use a proxy that /isn’t/ super lossy.

Of course, this is a filter that’s way more costly than the others, because it comes with a massive deadweight loss - you’re paying a $300k premium to not live around poor people, with “poor people” being itself a proxy for the actual set of people you want to avoid. It’s not enough to /say/ you have this much money - you have to /actually pay it down/.

And that’s why I basically don’t think the Bay Area’s housing crisis is going away, unless there’s another white flight and suburbanisation becomes a thing again, which would /also/ be shit.

Like, there are people who want to go back to a time when houses weren’t ridiculously expensive, so they want zoning to go away. Meanwhile, there are people who want to go back to a time when cities didn’t have no-go areas, so they want to Zone All The Things.

I think that, as long as price discrimination is the order of the day, this tug of war isn’t going away.

No, I don’t have suggestions. I’m just the person who waves at problems suggestively and hopes someone else will solve them.

I can say that allowing people to discriminate on wealth-in-the-bank as its own metric would lead to basically the same distribution of “rich people /here/; poor people /there/” that we currently have without the massive deadweight losses.

But that’s still “making the current situation suck a little less”. We still have the problem of how all discrimination got super coarse-grained. If we could get as fine grained as the dinner party host, then we could bring salvation to the realm.

But, until then, we’re still haggling over ways to become marginally less fucked.

#copy pasted from a conversation #society #politics #economics #racism cw #long post cw

[magneticmaguk]

Funkmaster Flex Vs. DJ Clue is the DJ Battle the Culture Needs

Hot 97 or Power 105.1? Which seminal hip-hop/R&B New York radio station you pledge allegiance to is bound to provoke heated debates.

DJ Funkmaster Flex and DJ Clue—the de-facto voices of Hot 97 and Power 105.1 FM respectively—have recently turned up the heat on their long-standing feud over who is the number one DJ in New York, period. But this time, the fight is not just for radio supremacy. On March 8th, Bronx-bred super-producer Swizz Beatz stoked the flames for a DJ battle between Flex and Clue to settle their longstanding rivalry for once and for all.

Funkmaster Flex and DJ Clue have been rivals on the radio, on the mixtape circuit, and in nightclubs. They both are icons for DJ culture, which is why Hot 97 and Power 105.1 have elevated them as their primetime DJ talent. Their rivalry has escalated over the years, and the battle proposed by Swizz could finally be their tipping point. Whether or not Flex and Clue actually decide to go into combat, it is no doubt as important as previous face-offs between Nas vs. Jay Z, Kanye West vs. 50 Cent, or Kendrick vs. Drake. Flex and Clue have their own strengths and weaknesses as hip-hop DJs, and since there aren't any set terms for this type of DJ battle—opponents are judged on everything from their technical skills to their showmanship appeal—it's impossible to predict who would win. Still, it's a given that DJs are competitive, and a battle could raise the bar for the art of DJing.

On that night in March, while at a private dinner inside of what looks like a fancy car dealership, Swizz put Clue on the spot in an Instagram video, pressuring him to battle Flex and "earn that crown back." Also present were rapper Fabolous, A&R/photographer Lenny Santiago, and singer/producer Ryan Leslie, who stirred the pot by laughing at Swizz's comments. "Flex is gonna try to finish you," said Swizz. Cue Flex writing in the comments section: "He don't want none of me on that Fucking set BRUH!" Warning shots fired?

DJ Clue and Funkmaster Flex hosting the 2014 McDonald's Flavor Battle (Photo by Patrick Neree)

Since then, Flex and Swizz have repeatedly tried to bait Clue, both posting Instagram clips of Flex scratching the "earn that crown back" taunt over the instrumental to Biggie's "Who Shot Ya?", as if to suggest that he's scared. Yet Clue, the self-proclaimed "Michael Jordan of Mixtapes," maintained a zen master's poise; he assured fans on Instagram last month that he has exclusives that can outshine Flex's turntable skills. (Flex, Swizz, and Clue did not return THUMP's multiple requests for comment.)

A week before Swizz put Clue on the spot, Swizzy had engaged in a high-profile beat battle against Just Blaze at an undisclosed location in NYC, and arguably won by playing an unreleased Jay Z, Jadakiss, Nas, DMX collaboration in a "drop the mic" moment. Meanwhile, apparently Pharrell and Timbaland are talking about going at it in their own beat battle.

For his match with Clue, Flex has suggested playing exclusive for exclusive, DJ skills for DJ skills. Both artists have an impressive discography of songs, mixtapes, and studio albums spanning generations of hip-hop and R&B. Clue has a nice rep merging gritty rappers with beloved pop stars; he produced Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" (Remix) featuring Jadakiss and Styles P. Flex has a slight edge with reggae and dancehall collaborations, so the idea of Flex playing dub plates roasting Clue are probable.

According to a recent post on a fan's Instagram, Clue has denounced back-spinning songs as irrelevant to this brewing battle. Yet, there is no denying that two turntables and a mixer are the tools of the trade, and rewinding a record manually or scratching samples lies at the core of hip-hop. Taking two songs and looping the instrumental break to hype up the party is the great invention by hip-hop's founding fathers Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa, who built the foundation for club DJs.

When radio DJs go at it, they are empowered by the almighty microphone to strike down with furious anger from the mountaintops.

Finalists in the Disco Mix Club (DMC) World Championship are given six minutes to showcase their talent, no sound effects. Clue and Flex both use a bomb—a seven-second explosion sample that sounds like the ground is erupting from under you—as their signature drop. Flex introduced the atomic bomb first, and in the beginning, reserved as a signpost that he was going to break a major rap record live on Hot 97—Nas "Hate Me Now" or Fat Joe "My Lifestyle" for example. The impact of the bomb is now oversaturated from Flex using it as a point of emphasis during his on-air rants, and Clue co-opting it. Clue's current arsenal of drops ranges from a sample of his signature laugh to his catchphrase "Do Remember." When he shouts his alias "ClueManatti," it rings through like a rapid fire of syllables, long before "G-G-G-Unit" was on the tip of the rap world's tongue.

Then there is the question of showmanship—the scratching, beat-juggling technical DJ skills that defines the DJ's pedigree. When Flex scratches, his style is recognizable—he masterfully rubs the records, yet he doesn't lean heavily on the crossfader to cut smaller pieces of the song. He hits with power instead of precision. On the other hand, Clue's scratching and mixing are questionable, and he rarely does it.

Clue is from Queens, Flex is from The Bronx; their battle is like the DJ version of Coke vs. Pepsi, Mets vs. Yankees, or MC Shan vs. KRS-One. But Clue and Flex's feud actually most vividly recalls the one between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and the gloves have been off long before Swizz became the quasi-Don King. Ali and Frazier were friends before they became bitter rivals, just like how the DJs were on somewhat respectful terms in the 90s, when Clue hosted his own weekly show, "The Monday Night Mixtape" on Hot 97, where both he and Flex worked at the time. Clue even shouted out Flex, plus a handful of Hot 97 staff, on his "Winter War Mixtape" in '95. (Clue left Hot 97 in 2006.)

Five years ago, Funkmaster Flex aired out Clue, sending shots at the Power 105.1 DJ over who rules the NYC airwaves after Flex scooped him on the Nicki Minaj, Cam'Ron & 2 Chainz collab, "Beez In the Trap." "I see this guy talking tough last night… by the way, the Mets they win sometimes too; two weeks out of 52," said Flex live on the radio. He never calls out Clue by name, but it's obvious who he is referring to. A few days later, Clue tweeted and responded with a few scathing insults for Flex on air, calling him a hoe and a clown, and a "number 2 … worrying about what I'm doing." He also claimed Flex plays parties for free—a knock on a DJ who is synonymous with the dynasty of hip-hop nightlife in the 90s.

Besides Clue and Flex going at it, there is no lack of shots at Flex thrown from Charlamange Tha God, or Peter Rosenberg at The Breakfast Club—no one is safe, anybody gets it. But when radio DJs go at it, they are empowered by the almighty microphone to strike down with great vengeance and furious anger from the mountaintops.

A rivalry of a similar scale happened in the early 80s when the late-great Frankie Crocker, program director for WBLS—the first Black-owned New York radio station—was up against Barry Mayo, the general manager for WRKS 98.7 KISS FM. Crocker introduced hip-hop music onto the airwaves on a station known for black adult contemporary R&B music, and hired the late DJ Mr. Magic from WHBI to play on BLS. Not to be outdone, Mayo, hired DJ Red Alert and Chuck Chillout to challenge KISS FM. (Fun fact: Flex used to carry Chuck's records back in the day.)

So, can anyone be friends? Former Hot 97 host-turned-Power 105.1 host DJ Envy told Vlad TV in 2012 about the beef between the stations: "There is no talking to your enemy, no shaking hands with your enemy, or DJing a party with your enemy." Despite the entrenched animosity between Flex and Clue, it is competition at the end of the day, akin to a reality TV drama on your car stereo.

But after all the talk, where is the action? It's been over one month since Clue was called out by Swizz on Instagram, but a date still hasn't been set for this brewing showdown—or any of the other dream battles by Swizz. The main display of DJ talent we've seen Flex associated with is Turntable Tuesday—a weekly showcase on Hot 97 in which Flex invites guest DJs like Rob Swift, Scram Jones, and most recently, Just Blaze, to get busy on the 1s and 2s. During the show, Flex stands by on camera, smiling at the artful display of turntablism (real DJing).

As great as all the guests are, they are the undercard. Flex vs. Clue is the main event we're waiting for. A bridge between the two DJs could help end the rift between them, despite what DJ Envy said about how there is no crossing of lines between the station's personalities. But just like an actual bridge, it is a massive undertaking, and like most construction in New York, you can't hold your breath on a quick completion.

Correction: a previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Power 105.1 and Hot 97 are owned by the same parent company, Emmis Communications. Only Hot 97 is owned by Emmis Communications.

#music

[pluckyredhead]

Daredevil 101: Typhoid Mary, Part 2

CONTENT WARNING: Same as last time - dubcon, attempted sexual assault, sexual violence, infidelity, child abuse, ableist depictions of mental illness.

When we last left the Nocenti/Romita run of Daredevil, Matt had begun cheating on Karen with the sweet, innocent Mary Walker, little guessing her other identity as the unhinged killer Typhoid. He was also about to face off against Foggy in the courtroom, via a proxy at least, with Foggy representing the slimy corporation Kelco, whose illegal toxic waste dumping had blinded a little boy named Tyrone, and Matt coaching Tyrone’s inexperienced lawyer.

Foggy, canonically one of the best and most expensive lawyers in the MU, somewhat pityingly expects to run rings around his opposition - until Matt walks in (just as an audience member), and he completely falls apart:

Get a haircut, Matt.

While the jury deliberates, Matt goes to the apartment Foggy now shares with Glori to rub it in:

“What happened to your morality, Foggy? P.S. I have literally attempted murder multiple times."

Foggy doesn’t say a word in this whole sequence, which just...baby. My sweet baby. MATT’S GOOD OPINION MEANS SO MUCH TO HIM.

Anyway Matt concludes his speechifying by offering Foggy a job at the clinic and is about to leave when Glori hauls him into the other room and reads him the riot act, pointing out that Matt is acting like this at least in part because he’s pissed that Foggy and Glori started dating after Glori dumped Matt. Matt ignores this and high-and-mighties his way out of the apartment, and...that’s, um, kind of the last we see of Glori for a really long time??? Which is so weird??? I love you, Glori, I’m sorry that you, like most of Matt’s love interests, eventually come to a Tragic End (TM).

The jury deliberation goes on for long enough to Daredevil to fight Typhoid again, but just as she’s about to kill him:

Mary loves Matt so much (apparently...this is not a relationship that has much emotional weight, since we basically only ever see them sucking face while neglecting a blind child and never, like, having things in common) that she’s managed to exert some sort of control over Typhoid for the first time. Matt, meanwhile, is still completely oblivious.

Matt dries off, and the jury reconvenes:

SOMEONE GET TYRONE AWAY FROM MATT, JESUS.

Meanwhile, Foggy finally does what he’s known he has to do for issues and issues now, and quits.

(That second panel in the second row is a reference to Fisk having attempted to pay off a juror, which Matt managed to put a stop to.)

Anyway, Tyrone’s family wins their lawsuit! Hooray! Fisk is furious, and also increasingly jealous of Typhoid’s toying with Matt:

I’m pretty sure this is supposed to make us thing Typhoid is even more evil and disgusting, which, you can move right along with your slut-shaming and your fatphobia, Daredevil comics.

This raises the question of whether Fisk is committing infidelity here, since he is technically still married, though Vanessa is currently institutionalized in Europe due to the trauma she sustained at the hands of the, um, sewer people. Or, what I find more interesting - whether Fisk thinks he’s committing infidelity, because the overall morality of having what is technically an affair when one’s partner is ill and indefinitely incapable of consent is certainly not something I feel equipped to make a call on. But Fisk is very invested in the sanctity of marriage - note his meddling in the Nelson marriage - and I don’t think he's shown with anyone besides Vanessa or Typhoid. It’s also worth noting that Matt, who is in a similar situation many years later, does consider himself to have cheated.

And speaking of cheating!

Any guy who ever said to me “Oh, darling...you’re like a child” would immediately find himself dumped so hard, even if he did look like Matt Murdock/Charlie Cox/kind of a redheaded Robert Redford in terrible sunglasses. But this is what I’m talking about when I say that Mary is all supplicant and innocent and sweet, and also what I’m talking about when I say this is a full-on affair where Matt is considering leaving Karen, and not just the occasional dubcon-y stolen kiss.

Also, for those of you who were not yet born in the 80s, that dress is real.

Typhoid has realized that Mary won’t allow her to kill Daredevil - oh, and Fisk explicitly told her not to, because he wants Matt broken, not dead - but she decides to get someone else to do her dirty work anyway, and uses Fisk’s IBM Henchman Database to hire all of Matt’s rogues from this particular era (none particularly interesting...Bullet, Bushwacker, I’m already asleep) to beat the shit out of him instead:

That last line is such a cliche I can’t even make a joke about it. I’m so tired.

Brief interlude for Matt and Karen to rescue some missing kids with the help of the Fatboys, and then for Matt to be adorable:

I love the consistent canon that Matt is great with kids, and this scene is so heartbreaking and sweet (even if Butch hasn’t shown up since like 1990 and Matt hasn’t thought about him once, but what can you do?).

ANYWAY. Back to Typhoid destroying Matt’s life!

There are a lot of covers during this run with Matt in a tattered costume and a subject position, but this one might be the most explicit - especially with the hints of pink on the torn underside of the costume and the massive phallic object between Mary’s legs. (And the liquid trickling down Matt’s face towards his open mouth, can’t forget that!) Over and over again we see Matt weak and in peril, defeated and violated, both by Mary and later by the gender-bending Mephisto.

What strikes me is that Matt’s not just victimized here - he’s sexualized. He’s objectified. Matt’s always been a fairly lithe, graceful hero as opposed to your Supermans, your Caps, your Punishers, and in these covers - which, remember, are a marketing tool, meant to entice customers to buy - he’s portrayed as beautiful and eroticized in an entirely submissive, feminine way. And this was during the chest-thumping, uber macho, xenophobic 80s!

But it’s part of the handwringing, too. The fact that he’s an eroticized victim is part of what makes Typhoid so threatening. If part of Matt didn’t “want it,” she wouldn’t be scary. (PLEASE NOTE I am not saying that sexual assault survivors want their assault in any way! I’m talking about the unhealthy construction of this narrative and the underlying anxiety of it, especially to the straight male reader.)

And while we’re talking about the underlying anxiety of changing gender roles and also power dynamics and also kink...

Yeah, I don’t even know what to do with that last panel.

This is after Typhoid has sicced Matt’s rogues on him and they’ve all beaten him to hell and back. He starts hallucinating that his father’s ghost is yelling at him in an alley, and is then rolled by some random petty criminals and beaten further. So yeah, he’s calling some random mook “daddy” there.

I honestly don’t know if it’s intended to be kinky, but...I kind of think it is? Again, so much of this run is about the dangerous subversion of gender roles. Early on Matt gets hit on by a dude in a seedy bar (“Well, well, well...red spandex, tight as a drum. You pitching or catching, Redman?”); in the next post, he’ll kiss someone who normally presents as male and it will UPEND THE MORAL FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE, I’M NOT KIDDING.

So yeah...when I look at Matt here - chest bared, head bowed, legs spread, calling the person beating him “Daddy” - I can’t help thinking that this is yet another lesson on the dangerous enticement that is male submission.

Matt eventually tangles with Typhoid while still in this sorry state, and she manages to push Mary down far enough to strike the killing blow and throw him off a bridge (though she does shed a solitary tear over it):

Matt doesn’t die. (Surprise! They do still publish Daredevil comics, after all. In fact, Matt’s never totally died and come back, though he has faked his death at least four times that I can think of off the top of my head.) He just lies there under the bridge until he’s attacked by an evil vacuum cleaner.

...Yeah, so this had something to do with the big company-wide “Inferno” crossover, which I didn’t read, but all the electronics in the city come to life and attack people? And there’s a vacuum cleaner under this bridge?

Anyway Matt fights it of, and then who should show up to take him to the hospital?

Why, it’s Typhoid Mary of the incredibly obvious name! Judging by her hair not being in weird inexplicable dreads and her speech bubbles being white and not pink - and the fact that Matt recognizes her as Mary - I guess she’s attained some sort of compromise between her two personalities for the moment?

Meanwhile, Karen has been keeping the Fatboys safe with the help of a guest-starring Natasha and worrying herself sick over Matt’s disappearance. She’s confused when Mary shows up at the hospital to see Matt as well, and especially when Mary (who appears to be fully Mary now, no Typhoid) calmly tells Karen that she knows all about Karen but it’s Mary that he really loves:

Karen leaves the hospital in tears and doesn’t return to their apartment.

The city burns. Matt eventually hauls himself out of bed and fights demons until the crossover is (almost) over.

The legal clinic is closed on the basis of Matt operating without a license. The Fatboys hate Matt now for cheating on Karen. Mary was an illusion.

Matt’s reaching rock bottom, and he’ll hit it in the next adventure: Gay Panic Road Trip to Albany! There are genetically engineered pigs and straw feminists, it’s pretty exciting.

#daredevil #daredevil 101

[thalsianiii]

Demons and you in RP.

So, it’s come to my attention over my time Roleplaying on Wyrmrest Accord that there are quite a few misconceptions and misunderstandings (or ignorance) when it comes to Demons in lore. So I’d thought I’d throw up a synopsis of what I have amassed in my time mastering Demonology as a point of roleplay with citations and explanations... So lets go!

Not-Demons

So to start, I’m going to note that not every summonable companion under the warlock classes “Summon Demon” list is actually a demon. Voidwalkers (and by extension Voidlords) are in fact non-demons and are Void Creatures, which are different. [1] Observers are, arguably, non-demons. They are native to the Great Dark Beyond.[2] Given that demons are native to the Twisting nether, one might argue that this makes them non-demons.

Aside from these two, Anything else summonable by a warlock is in fact a current demon.

With that having been said, lets talk about the demons!

Imp/Fel Imp

Literally the weakest and easiest Demon to summon & contract. The ritual to summon an imp is gifted to any warlock who passes their initial proof of magical & physical ability. They’re generally sassy, clever, and mischievous. Utilizing fire and illusion (invisibility) magic primarily. [3][4]. Fel Imps are slightly larger versions of Imps. Despite being more powerful than standard imps, they are considered equally easy to contract into service [2]

Succubus

Succubi are the female of the Sayaad species, to date there has been no recorded appearance of an Incubus (Male). Some theorize they are kept as slaves on the Sayaad home world, or will killed off by the Succubi. Masters of seduction, illusion and other forms of mind controlling magic. They are capable of taking on the form of a beautiful woman and are known to fall in love with their warlock masters, making them very loyal. They are capable of extreme cruelty and make for effective interrogators. [5]

Felhunter (Felhound)

Hound like demons that are capable of devouring many forms of magic and life essence. [6] They should therefore be considered “dangerous demons”. It is common for people to Roleplay Felhunters as if they were like a companion canine (honestly, I prefer this.) However, the portrayal of the Felhunter consumed by the Demon Hunter Vandel in the novel “Illidan” suggests they may be just as intelligent as a sentient person. This having been said, this portrayal is only made post consumption, and later in the novel it is alluded that the “voice” of the demon could have been his own thoughts as well. [7]

Felguard

Felguards are a warrior class of the Mo’Arg species of Demons. They are deceptively agile and powerful fighters. Despite their brutish and seemingly berserk style of fighting they are in fact intelligent in their design. Using their reckless combat tactic to discover weakpoints in the enemy line and then converging on that target. Felguards love to do battle and have occasionally been known to ignore the order to retreat.[8] Because of this, only dedicated Demonologists have the ability to summon them.[9] Given this knowledge, they should be considered extremely dangerous demons for RP purposes.

Infernal

Technically, an Infernal is more of a construct than a demon. But they’re also considered “Living” siege weapons and have a soul. However, since they are a staple of The Burning Legion and are used exclusively by Warlocks and other Demons, for the sake of this writing we will consider them demons. They are constructed from matter and Fel energy. The core or “Infernal Soul” is made by the ritual summoning of a Fire elemental into a pool of corrupted water or lava. turning it into what is essentially a Felfire elemental, otherwise known as the Infernal Soul. These are then fused with Fel rocks/matter thus forming an Infernal. Infernals can be stored in a dormant state. This state is what is used to summon them forth as a crashing meteor, where in they awaken upon impact. [10]

Doomguard

Originally, the Doomguards were a form of magical police/slaves used by Sargeras before his corruption. They are specifically attuned to Sacrificial magic and would punish any who delved in such practices. After Sargeras fell to madness, he “freed” the Doomguards from that duty [11]. Historically, Doomguards demanded a sacrifice in order to be summoned. This was done either via the Curse of Doom or Ritual of Doom spells. The former of the two would summon a Doomguard upon dealing killing damage to the target. The latter would kill one of the party members participating in the ritual. This mechanics were later revised to simply deal massive damage to the player.[12] Because of this, it is my personal opinion and preference that Doomguards should still require a substantial sacrifice in order to be summoned. Given that they are easily the most powerful demon a warlock player can summon, they should have the highest cost. Mechanically, yes there is a talent that allows us to summon them like any other pet. But given the history of the demon both in lore and in game play, it stands to reason that a sacrifice would still be required.

Shivarra

Considered the most fanatical of the legions demons, they serve as mystics and almost priest like in the way they revere and serve Sargeras [13]. Shivarra are... well they’re bitches in my opinion. They seem to hate mortals from their attitude when spoken too.[14] However, they can also share some personality traits with succubi, Mother Shahraz in Black temple is one such example.[15] As well as their recorded responses when doing /kiss or /flirt towards them as warlock minions, but this could simply be a left over mechanic from the succubus pet in which they replace.[16] They are considered a higher order demon[2] and therefore should be considered as dangerous demons.

Conclusion

So there you have it. All the Demon lore or RP you could ask for in one neat post for all you Demon junkies out there. Hopefully this helps you with your use with them in role play, either as enemies or as companions. Personally, I love all my demonic companions and I love roleplaying as/with them. it offers a great dynamic to my roleplay and it’s always fun to see how they interact with those around them! I’d like to end with, this is in no way meant to “tell you how to roleplay” and is simply a collection of canon facts and points that  have been or are present in warcraft lore. If you want to throw down your Doomguard willy nilly, or have a pacifist Felguard, that’s your choice (I’ll judge you for it... but it’s your choice). And of course, if you find more lore on Demons too add, or that may refute some of these points. Show me!

References

Most of my sources are indeed from the Wowpedia page. I use this because wowpedia grabs its sources from various confirmed lore sources and developer quotes. Feel free to peruse these links and see where this information originates from in game, novel, or other sources.

1) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Ask_CDev#Ask_CDev_Answers_-_Round_4

2) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Jubeka%27s_Journal

3) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Imp

4) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Imp_(warlock_minion)

5) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Succubus

6) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Felhound

7) Illidan by Willaim King. Various chapters following Vandel specifically.

8) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Felguard

9) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Felguard_(warlock_minion)

10) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Infernal

11) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Doomguard

12) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Doomguard_(warlock_minion)

13) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Shivarra

14) Quest: An Unusual Tome, Comments made when talking to the Shivarra.

15) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Mother_Shahraz

16) http://wow.gamepedia.com/Mother_Shahraz (specifically the ‘Trivia’ section)

#Demons #OOC #Roleplay #Lore #citation #sources #accuracy #lore abiding #Lore Nazi #research #I'm a huge ass nerd #and I love it

[jfcoisy]

Jack Coisman

Profesor Lacey

Eng 212 

8/15/2020

Surveillance Anthology Analytical Reflection

 Going through sources around this topic led me on two different paths. They were either bashing surveillance as being too powerful, resulting in no privacy from the perspective of the source, or, how surveillance is used to protect yourself. These seem to be the complete opposite of each other, which is alright, because they led to some pretty interesting threads. I’ll start with the more interesting one of ethical hacking.  Hacking is something that is not generally seen as a positive thing; however, in the YouTube video titled “Ethical Hacking In 8 Minutes | What Is Ethical Hacking? | Ethical Hacking Explanation | Simplilearn” on the channel Simplilearn, it mentions how ethical hackers can be used to help prevent things like ransomware attacks. This ransomware attack seizes control over the technology it infects, demanding a ransom of typically a couple hundred dollars in order to get functionality of the devices back (Ethical Hacking). Over time, businesses began to hire ethical hackers in order to stop these attacks from occurring. For example, they could point out potential weaknesses in the systems they are being hired to protect. This video and article on the anthology work hand in hand, but the other artifacts on ethics take these concepts in a more broad spectrum. Even in the article by Sean Moran on surveillance ethics notes different theories on ethics (Moran). It talks about surveillance asymmetry as it deals with “The Panopticon”. Between combating online hacking, or the idea that surveillance should be “symmetrical” in society, these articles point out the ethical flaws in the system of surveillance applied today.

Following ethics comes the performance of surveillance on society. In other words, actually how surveillance affects people when they know they are being watched. Nobody is surprised that people do in fact act very differently when they know they are being watched. In other words, people put on a different personality when they know they are being watched because they know that their actions are being judged. Videos on this subject make it very obvious that the person in the spotlight is not the same person once they walk away. For example, the YouTube video called “How Would People Act When No One Is Watching (Social Experiment)” shows a young man interview several groups of people asking if they would help a homeless man if they saw one. Most people said yes they would do something and if it wasn’t a solid yes, it was a maybe. From there the camera left and the groups all walked past the same paid actor posing as a homeless man. Only one woman stopped. The woman who stopped had more of a personal connection to seeing a homeless man which resulted in her actually giving the man five dollars, but she had no idea that the experiment was still going on from the interview. With that being said, there are reasons that this happens which can be explained in the articles in the anthology. One is titled “How Being Watched Changes You - Without You Knowing”. This article has some very clever points on the topic such as the comment, “Our online activities are an exercise in reputation management”.  From there, the article goes on about how sensitive people truly are to being watched as well as the experiments over the years that prove it. The point is that people’s reputations really matter to them. Humans have an innate desire to please those around them, and when they are reminded of this fact then they act how anybody would want them to act. Once that watchful eye is removed is when the spotlight personality goes away again. It is a vicious cycle for some people who are very prominent online, especially with how influential social media is.

Now comes everybody's’ favorite topic, politics. Where there is politics there must be political cartoons. What better way to start off the politics section of the anthology than with political cartoons right? There are two images linked in the anthology depicting government surveillance, in a pretty bad light. The images have a hint of humor in them, but in reality hold a grain of truth in regards to today’s society with so much surveillance over each other. Now, taking that to a whole other level is the idea of government/political surveillance. I found this idea shown best in the article title “The Dangers of Surveillance” by Neil M. Richards. This source is written about the threat of powerful surveillance tools in the hands of massive government agencies. Everything down to the small digital technologies that have changed how people live can give detailed records of their lives (Richards). The author even goes as far to say that although there are laws to protect us from the government breathing down our necks it does not mean that they are not doing it anyways. How are they supposed to be caught when they are on top of the food chain? This is due to a lack of ability for us to know if and when we are being watched (Richards). The political cartoons can make government surveillance seem exaggerated and silly, but in reality the situation could be far more invasive than people really understand.

No matter how invasive the surveillance surrounding somebody is, it has an affect on everybody’s sense of identity whether that be consciously or subconsciously. This can be seen the most when analyzing social media’s effects on people. The article titled “Social Media Surveillance” by Adrian Shahbaz highlights components of social media that act as surveillance tools. Social media has born a new market for surveillance that countries across the world are utilizing to comb through massive amounts of information (Shahbaz). While these social media platforms have a main purpose of connecting friends and building communities, state agencies in repressive countries see these sites as storehouses of speech and personal data that can be observed and recorded to detect and suppress dissent (Shahbaz). For example, the Chinese Aegis surveillance program which is used to construct a full view of the virtual world with the ability to store a massive amount of data to analyze (Shahbaz). Obviously, social media can have some unintended effects with the amount of personal information just sitting on an online profile. Another article by the name “Surveillance and identity: conceptual framework and formal models”  notes three purposes of surveillance in today’s society. Keeping control by the police and government, social sorting for business and marketing customers, and lastly mutual monitoring between two peers over something like social media (Surveillance and Identity). The important aspects to get out of these example articles is that social media is used for that third purpose. It is advertised as a way for peers to connect when in reality there are two more purposes for the same information. As a result, identity may be scrutinized very heavily down to every detail. A blog titled “Watch out: The Psychological effects of mass surveillance” by Zawn Villines points out the other dangers of identity in a society of mass surveillance. When people are conscious of being watched all the time it results in many negative traits due to the expected conformity when living under such surveillance (Villines). Additionally, this decreases the trust of the government, as well as increases stress as concerns rise over who is watching (Villines). At the end of the day, identity suffers under mass surveillance.

Last but not least comes the technology surrounding all of this surveillance. Obviously there are the obvious cameras that act almost as nanny cams, but technology is constantly advancing. With this advance has come an increasing demand for drones. Between the four artifacts listed in the anthology, two are highlighting what drones are really becoming capable of. One of which shows how these drones could be used for security purposes. This video, called “Drone Security System Watches Over Home From Above” by the channel Associated Press highlights a drone that could be used to keep a home safe (Associated Press). The video is structured a bit like a commercial showcasing how the security drone really works while also showing it in action . Whether it acts more as a patrolling camera, or gets activated in the middle of the night, this technology is used as a security eye where someone would least expect it (Associated Press). The idea behind the video is nobody is gonna mess around with a drone patrolling the house even if they do see it. Technology like this can really transcend the average security cameras most people invest in. Cameras are evolving as time goes on, and so does the surveillance we have over each other. Drones are only one type of advanced camera. Other sources note all kinds of surveillance. For Example, a website on statistica called “Security and Surveillance Technology” offers loads of statistics behind everyday surveillance tools. No matter what it is, surveillance will persist in all kinds of forms.

[day0one]

Coronavirus updates: Texas reports single highest daily rate increase of infections 9 hrs ago

The novel coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 311,000 people worldwide.

More than 4.6 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations' outbreaks.

The United States is the worst-affected country, with more than 1.4 million diagnosed cases and at least 88,898 deaths.

Today's biggest developments:

US death toll surpasses 88,000 Texas reports single highest daily rate increase of infections 137 cases of NYC children with syndrome associated with COVID-19 Judge rejects Martin Shkreli's plea for early release Here's how the news developed on Saturday. All times Eastern.

1:17 p.m.: UK to get Oxford COVID-19 vaccine 1st as part of pharmaceutical deal The United Kingdom will have first access to Oxford University's COVID-19 vaccine if it's successful, a U.K. government official said Sunday.

Oxford has signed a global licensing agreement with U.K.-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to deliver 100 million doses of Oxford's potential vaccine; the company will work to make up to 30 million of those doses available for the U.K. by September as part of the deal, according to Business Secretary Alok Sharma.

"This deal with AstraZeneca means that if the Oxford University vaccine works, people in the U.K. will get the first access to it, helping to protect thousands of lives," Sharma said in a statement.

Researchers at Oxford and Imperial College of London will also receive 84 million pounds (about $101 million) in government funding toward developing a vaccine, Sharma announced.

Human clinical trials for Oxford's coronavirus vaccine began last month. Imperial's vaccine trial is set to begin in June.

The U.K. has the third-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and the second-highest number of deaths in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 244,000 cases and 34,716 fatalities.

12:20 p.m.: Gov. Cuomo urges New Yorkers to get tested, demonstrates swab test during briefing New York has more testing capacity than New Yorkers are using, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday.

Some drive-in sites that can do 50,000 COVID-19 tests daily are only doing about 5,000 a day, the governor said.

To urge those eligible to get the COVID-19 swab test -- often described as unpleasant -- the governor demonstrated getting one live during his daily coronavirus briefing.

"This test is not an invasive test. There's no pain to this test," Cuomo said before the test. "This is nothing about this test that should intimidate people from not taking this test. It's fast and easy, and so fast and so easy that even the governor can take this test. That's how fast and easy it is."

A doctor wearing personal protective equipment then collected a sample from the governor using a deep nasal swab.

"That is the whole test. I'm not in pain and discomfort," Cuomo said after the seconds-long test was administered. "There's no reason why you should not get the test. You don't even have to be New York tough to take that test."

New York state has more than 700 testing sites and is performing up to 40,000 tests a day, Cuomo said. The state also has formed a partnership with CVS, the governor announced Sunday; more than 60 CVS pharmacies across the state will be able to do 50 or more tests a day.

New Yorkers eligible for the diagnostic test include anyone with COVID-19 symptoms, those who have had contact with someone with a confirmed case, a person in a precautionary or mandatory quarantine, health care workers, first responders, nursing home employees and essential workers. Additionally, those who are returning to work during Phase 1 of the state's reopening, such as construction or manufacturing workers, are now also eligible, the governor announced.

The state also launched a new website Sunday to find testing sites.

11:15 a.m.: 137 cases of NYC children with syndrome associated with COVID-19 There are now 137 cases of children with Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome Associated with COVID-19 in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced during his daily press briefing on Sunday.

Of those cases, 66 have tested positive for the coronavirus or antibodies were detected. There has been one death from the illness.

De Blasio implored parents that if they see their child exhibit any of the symptoms of the syndrome, including persistent fever, rash, abdominal pain and vomiting, to immediately call their health care provider.

"Early detection saves lives of children," the mayor said.

Overall, the number of daily hospitalizations has remained flat since May 14, while ICU admissions and the percentage of people who tested positive for coronavirus were both down, de Blasio said. There were 469 ICU admissions, down from 506 on May 14; and 11% of people tested were positive, down from 13%.

Meanwhile, beaches will remain closed Memorial Day weekend but de Blasio did not rule out the possibility that they will be open later in the summer.

"It's still not safe," the mayor said, adding that walking on the beach is permitted but if officials start to see people congregating and are going against recommendations, they will take further measures.

De Blasio also implored New Yorkers to give blood as the supply in the city has gotten low due to a lack of blood drives because of coronavirus-related social distancing.

The New York Blood Center, which helps supply additional blood to area hospitals, is down to a two-day supply of blood.

"We need to make a comeback quickly," de Blasio said.

Hospitals have their own emergency blood supplies but unless they receive additional blood, some surgeries cannot move forward, the mayor said.

10:30 a.m.: Spain daily death toll under 100 for 1st time in 2 months For the first time since March 16, Spain's one-day death toll from the novel coronavirus dropped below 100.

Spain reported 87 new deaths on Sunday, bringing the total deaths in the country from the pandemic to 27,650.

The country's Health Ministry reported 652 new cases.

Spain has had 231,350 confirmed COVID-19 cases, which is the fifth most cases globally after the U.S., Russia, the U.K. and Brazil, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

Fernando Simon, chief of emergency response, said the rate of transmission is low, "which makes us think that we are in a favorable situation," but that a second wave is possible.

7:39 a.m.: Eric Trump implies Democrats, Biden using coronavirus as conspiracy to hurt President Trump by 'taking away' MAGA rallies In an interview on Fox News Saturday night, Eric Trump baselessly accused Democrats and Joe Biden's campaign of trying to use the coronavirus to hurt his father, President Donald Trump, politically by "taking away" his campaign rallies.

Speaking on "Justice with Judge Jeanine," Eric Trump tossed a number of confusing and wild accusations about Democrats, Biden, and the coronavirus pandemic -- appearing to claim that lockdowns around the country were part of a Democratic/Biden manufactured conspiracy to stop the president's campaign rallies and hurt his political prospects, despite the virus death toll now approaching 90,000 in the United States.

The president's son accused Democrats of wanting to "milk [the coronavirus] for everything they can" and seemed to imply that Democrats and the media were blowing the pandemic out of proportion to hurt the president, saying that after Election Day the "coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen."

Asked how the virus has impacted President Trump politically, Eric Trump blamed Democrats for rallies being put on hold, which he called "Donald Trump's greatest tool":

"Biden can't go on stage without making some horrible blunder. I mean even from his basement he's making awful gaffes every single day, so, his campaign is thrilled that he's not going out there. And they think they're taking away Donald Trump's greatest tool, which is being able to go into an arena and fill it with 50,000 people every single time," Eric Trump said. "So they they will and you watch they'll milk it every single day between now and November 3, and, guess what, after November 3rd, coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen."

"They're trying to deprive him of his, his greatest asset, which is the fact that the American people love him. The fact that he's relatable. The fact that he can go out there and draw massive crowds. Joe Biden can't get 10 people in a room, my father's getting 50,000 in a room and they want to do everything they can to stop it. So make no mistake, to a lot of them... a lot of them this is a very cognizant strategy that they're trying to employ. It's no different than again the nonsense that they're trying to throw in the Hope Act," he continued. "It's no different than the mail-in voting that they want to do all these places. It is no different than wanting illegal immigrants to vote in our country. It is a cognizant strategy. And it's it's sad and again it's not going to be allowed to happen we're going to win November."

Eric Trump claimed using the coronavirus is a "cognizant strategy" by Democrats and/or Joe Biden and implied they played some role in "taking away Donald Trump's greatest tool" -- which is a confusing and baseless accusation given not only was the decision to stop rallies made by the president's own campaign, it came as many experts said large gatherings like political rallies shouldn't return until as recent as next year.

Also, he's echoing comments President Trump made early on as the virus first spread when he called it a Democratic "hoax" given their response to the virus. But, months later, Eric Trump is now implying the response to the virus is some Democratic conspiracy while experts like Dr. Fauci are warning that reopening the country too soon could lead to "needless suffering and death."

4:48 a.m.: Texas reports single highest daily rate increase of infections The latest number of of coronavirus cases in Texas jumped by 1,801 in a single day, the highest daily rate since the state started tracking data. The number of cases reported now stands at 46,999, according to the latest figures released by Johns Hopkins University.

There are currently 19,093 active cases statewide with 1,791 patients hospitalized -- which is an increase of 75 from yesterday.

A total of 678,471 people have been tested out of a statewide population of around 29 million people.

The state of Texas has also reported 1,305 fatalities -- an increase of 33 but down from the two day high of 58 and 56 the previous two days.

12:35 a.m.: Federal judge blocks North Carolina governor’s restrictions on religious services A federal judge issued an order on Saturday that allows North Carolina religious leaders to reopen their doors to their congregations in spite of the governor’s warning that they risk spreading coronavirus.

Gov. Roy Cooper said he wouldn’t appeal the ruling blocking his restrictions on indoor religious services.

A hearing is scheduled May 29 on whether the order will become permanent.

The order prevents Cooper from taking enforcement actions against religious worshipers but also states they should observe recommendations for social distancing and reduce transmission of the virus when possible.

Governor Cooper's spokesperson issued the following statement in response to the order.

"We don't want indoor meetings to become hotspots for the virus and our health experts continue to warn that large groups sitting inside for long periods of time are much more likely to cause the spread of COVID-19. While our office disagrees with the decision, we will not appeal, but instead urge houses of worship and their leaders to voluntarily follow public health guidance to keep their members safe."

7:45 p.m.: 'Pharma Bro' denied release from prison Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical executive imprisoned for fraud and most infamous for hiking the price of a lifesaving drug, was rejected for release due to COVID-19.

Shkreli, 37, had argued for release in part because of his work in bio pharmaceuticals, which he said could benefit the public. If allowed to research coronavirus, Shkreli said he could bring a cure to market.

MORE: 'Delusional': Feds slam 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli's attempt to leave prison to find COVID-19 cure The judge flatly rejected the claim.

"The court does not find that releasing Mr. Shkreli will protect the public, even though Mr. Shkreli seeks to leverage his experience with pharmaceuticals to help develop a cure for COVID-19 that he would purportedly provide at no cost," U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York Kiyo A. Matsumoto wrote.