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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Could you expand a bit on the "death of expertise"? It's something I think about A LOT as an artist, because there are so many problems with people who think it isn't a real job, and the severe undercutting of prices that happens because people think hobbyists and professionals are the same. At the same time, I also really want people to feel free to be able to make art if they want, with no gatekeeping or elitism, and I usually spin myself in circles mentally thinking about it. So.

I have been secretly hoping someone would ask this question, nonny. Bless you. I have a lot (a LOT) of thoughts on this topic, which I will try to keep somewhat concise and presented in a semi-organized fashion, but yes.

I can mostly speak about this in regard to academia, especially the bad, bad, BAD takes in my field (history) that have dominated the news in recent weeks and which constitute most of the recent posts on my blog. (I know, I know, Old Man Yells At Cloud when attempting to educate the internet on actual history, but I gotta do SOMETHING.) But this isn’t a new phenemenon, and is linked to the avalanche of “fake news” that we’ve all heard about and experienced in the last few years, especially in the run-up and then after the election of You Know Who, who has made fake news his personal brand (if not in the way he thinks). It also has to do with the way Americans persistently misunderstand the concept of free speech as “I should be able to say whatever I want and nobody can correct or criticize me,” which ties into the poisonous extreme-libertarian ethos of “I can do what I want with no regard for others and nobody can correct me,” which has seeped its way into the American mainstream and is basically the center of the modern Republican party. (Basically: all for me, all the time, and caring about others is a weak liberal pussy thing to do.)

This, however, is not just an issue of partisan politics, because the left is just as guilty, even if its efforts take a different shape. One of the reason I got so utterly exasperated with strident online leftists, especially around primary season and the hardcore breed of Bernie Bros, is just that they don’t do anything except shout loud and incorrect information on the internet (and then transmogrify that into a twisted ideology of moral purity which makes a sin out of actually voting for a flawed candidate, even if the alternative is Donald Goddamn Trump). I can’t count how many people from both sides of the right/left divide get their political information from like-minded people on social media, and never bother to experience or verify or venture outside their comforting bubbles that will only provide them with “facts” that they already know. Social media has done a lot of good things, sure, but it’s also made it unprecedently easy to just say whatever insane bullshit you want, have it go viral, and then have you treated as an authority on the topic or someone whose voice “has to be included” out of some absurd principle of both-siderism. This is also a tenet of the mainstream corporate media: “both sides” have to be included, to create the illusion of “objectivity,” and to keep the largest number of paying subscribers happy. (Yes, of course this has deep, deep roots in the collapse of late-stage capitalism.) Even if one side is absolutely batshit crazy, the rules of this distorted social contract stipulate that their proposals and their flaws have to be treated as equal with the others, and if you point out that they are batshit crazy, you have to qualify with some criticism of the other side.

This is where you get white people posting “Neo-Nazis and Black Lives Matter are the same!!!1” on facebook. They are a) often racist, let’s be real, and b) have been force-fed a constant narrative where Both Sides Are Equally Bad. Even if one is a historical system of violent oppression that has made a good go at total racial and ethnic genocide and rests on hatred, and the other is the response to not just that but the centuries of systemic and small-scale racism that has been built up every day, the white people of the world insist on treating them as morally equivalent (related to a superior notion that Violence is Always Bad, which.... uh... have you even seen constant and overwhelming state-sponsored violence the West dishes out? But it’s only bad when the other side does it. Especially if those people can be at all labeled “fanatics.”)

I have complained many, many times, and will probably complain many times more, about how hard it is to deconstruct people’s absolutely ingrained ideas of history and the past. History is a very fragile thing; it’s really only equivalent to the length of a human lifespan, and sometimes not even that. It’s what people want to remember and what is convenient for them to remember, which is why we still have some living Holocaust survivors and yet a growing movement of Holocaust denial, among other extremist conspiracy theories (9/11, Sandy Hook, chemtrails, flat-earthing, etc etc). There is likewise no organized effort to teach honest history in Western public schools, not least since the West likes its self-appointed role as guardians of freedom and liberty and democracy in the world and doesn’t really want anyone digging into all that messy slavery and genocide and imperialism and colonialism business. As a result, you have deliberately under- or un-educated citizens, who have had a couple of courses on American/British/etc history in grade school focusing on the greatest-hit reel, and all from an overwhelmingly triumphalist white perspective. You have to like history, from what you get out of it in public school, to want to go on to study it as a career, while knowing that there are few jobs available, universities are cutting or shuttering humanities departments, and you’ll never make much money. There is... not a whole lot of outside incentive there.

I’ve written before about how the humanities are always the first targeted, and the first defunded, and the first to be labeled as “worthless degrees,” because a) they are less valuable to late-stage capitalism and its emphasis on Material Production, and b) they often focus on teaching students the critical thinking skills that critique and challenge that dominant system. There’s a reason that there is a stereotype of artists as social revolutionaries: they have often taken a look around, gone, “Hey, what the hell is this?” and tried to do something about it, because the creative and free-thinking impulse helps to cultivate the tools necessary to question what has become received and dominant wisdom. Of course, that can then be taken too far into the “I’ll create my own reality and reject absolutely everything that doesn’t fit that narrative,” and we end up at something like the current death of expertise.

This year is particularly fertile for these kinds of misinformation efforts: a plague without a vaccine or a known cure, an election year in a turbulently polarized country, race unrest in a deeply racist country spreading to other racist countries around the world and the challenging of a particularly important system (white supremacy), etc etc. People are scared and defensive and reactive, and in that case, they’re especially less motivated to challenge or want to encounter information that scares them. They need their pre-set beliefs to comfort them or provide steadiness in a rocky and uncertain world, and (thanks once again to social media) it’s easy to launch blistering ad hominem attacks on people who disagree with you, who are categorized as a faceless evil mass and who you will never have to meet or negotiate with in real life. This is the environment in which all the world’s distinguished scientists, who have spent decades studying infectious diseases, have to fight for airtime and authority (and often lose) over random conspiracy theorists who make a YouTube video. The public has been trained to see them as “both the same” and then accept which side they like the best, regardless of actual factual or real-world qualifications. They just assume the maniac on YouTube is just as trustworthy as the scientists with PhDs from real universities.

Obviously, academia is racist, elitist, classist, sexist, on and on. Most human institutions are. But training people to see all academics as the enemy is not the answer. You’ve seen the Online Left (tm) also do this constantly, where they attack “the establishment” for never talking about anything, or academics for supposedly erasing and covering up all of non-white history, while apparently never bothering to open a book or familiarize themselves with a single piece of research that actual historians are working on. You may have noticed that historians have been leading the charge against the “don’t erase history!!!1″ defenders of racist monuments, and explaining in stinging detail exactly why this is neither preserving history or being truthful about it. Tumblr likes to confuse the mechanism that has created the history and the people who are studying and analyzing that history, and lump them together as one mass of Evil And Lying To You. Academics are here because we want to critically examine the world and tell you things about it that our nonsense system has required years and years of effort, thousands of dollars in tuition, and other gatekeeping barriers to learn. You can just ask one of us. We’re here, we usually love to talk, and we’re a lot cheaper. I think that’s pretty cool.

As a historian, I have been trained in a certain skill set: finding, reading, analyzing, using, and criticizing primary sources, ditto for secondary sources, academic form and style, technical skills like languages, paleography, presentation, familiarity with the professional mechanisms for reviewing and sharing work (journals, conferences, peer review, etc), and how to assemble this all into an extended piece of work and to use it in conversation with other historians. That means my expertise in history outweighs some rando who rolls up with an unsourced or misleading Twitter thread. If a professor has been handed a carefully crafted essay and then a piece of paper scribbled with crayon, she is not obliged to treat them as essentially the same or having the same critical weight, even if the essay has flaws. One has made an effort to follow the rules of the game, and the other is... well, I did read a few like that when teaching undergraduates. They did not get the same grade.

This also means that my expertise is not universal. I might know something about adjacent subjects that I’ve also studied, like political science or English or whatever, but someone who is a career academic with a degree directly in that field will know more than me. I should listen to them, even if I should retain my independent ability and critical thinking skillset. And I definitely should not be listened to over people whose field of expertise is in a completely different realm. Take the recent rocket launch, for example. I’m guessing that nobody thought some bum who walked in off the street to Kennedy Space Center should be listened to in preference of the actual scientists with degrees and experience at NASA and knowledge of math and orbital mechanics and whatever else you need to get a rocket into orbit. I definitely can’t speak on that and I wouldn’t do it anyway, so it’s frustrating to see it happen with history. Everybody “knows” things about history that inevitably turn out to be wildly wrong, and seem to assume that they can do the same kind of job or state their conclusions with just as much authority. (Nobody seems to listen to the scientists on global warming or coronavirus either, because their information is actively inconvenient for our entrenched way of life and people don’t want to change.) Once again, my point here is not to be a snobbish elitist looking down at The Little People, but to remark that if there’s someone in a field who has, you know, actually studied that subject and is speaking from that place of authority, maybe we can do better than “well, I saw a YouTube video and liked it better, so there.” (Americans hate authority and don’t trust smart people, which is a related problem and goes back far beyond Trump, but there you are.)

As for art: it’s funny how people devalue it constantly until they need it to survive. Ask anyone how they spent their time in lockdown. Did they listen to music? Did they watch movies or TV? Did they read a book? Did they look at photography or pictures? Did they try to learn a skill, like drawing or writing or painting, and realize it was hard? Did they have a preference for the art that was better, more professionally produced, had more awareness of the rules of its craft, and therefore was more enjoyable to consume? If anyone wants to tell anyone that art is worthless, I invite you to challenge them on the spot to go without all of the above items during the (inevitable, at this rate) second coronavirus lockdown. No music. No films. No books. Not even a video or a meme or anything else that has been made for fun, for creativity, or anything outside the basic demands of Compensated Economic Production. It’s then that you’ll discover that, just as with the underpaid essential workers who suffered the most, we know these jobs need to get done. We just still don’t want to pay anyone fairly for doing them, due to our twisted late-capitalist idea of “value.”

Anyway, since this has gotten long enough and I should probably wrap up: as you say, the difference between “professional” and “hobbyist” has been almost completely erased, so that people think the opinion of one is as good as the other, or in your case, that the hobbyist should present their work for free or refuse to be seen as a professional entitled to fair compensation for their skill. That has larger and more insidious effects in a global marketplace of ideas that has been almost entirely reduced to who can say their opinion the loudest to the largest group of people. I don’t know how to solve this problem, but at least I can try to point it out and to avoid being part of it, and to recognize where I need to speak and where I need to shut up. My job, and that of every single white person in America right now, is to shut up and let black people (and Native people, and Latinx people, and Muslim people, and etc...) tell me what it’s really like to live here with that identity. I have obviously done a ton of research on the subject and consider myself reasonably educated, but here’s the thing: my expertise still doesn’t outweigh theirs, no matter what degrees they have or don’t have. I then am required to boost their ideas, views, experiences, and needs, rather than writing them over or erasing them, and to try to explain to people how the roots of these ideas interlock and interact where I can. That is -- hopefully -- putting my history expertise to use in a good way to support what they’re saying, rather than silence it. I try, at any rate, and I am constantly conscious of learning to do better.

I hope that was helpful for you. Thanks for letting me talk about it.

#history #long post #anonymous #ask

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bettertheworld · 3 years

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To change, you have to change.

The most important crash-course our planet is on is with itself, it doesn't matter that in billions of years our solar system is going to collide with a nearby galaxy, our planet is on a crash-course with human habits and they're already ruining the world bite-by-bite, meal-by-meal.

Yes, there are other factors threatening our existence causing climate change, but none of those factors have as much impact as what we ingest as 'foods' and 'drinks'. None of those other factors can be compromised because people need to travel to and from work, move about the world, people need to get goods from one part of the world to another etc...

What people don't need is to support the burning and deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest and other grasslands to allow cattle to graze, we don't need meat to exist as a thing that keeps us fed - that idea is 100s of years old and if you haven't heard, Justus Von Liebig was wrong – very wrong. For an idea that old to be so strongly affecting us today, means we're living in the past - we don't need animals to get ample protein in our lives. Ignoring the problems the present is creating is a true and horrible crime of today, but you should also realize that someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes and initially, it's not our fault. If this scenario were a person in their life, a medical doctor would send that person to a psychotherapist, and you know that doctor would have already started them on an SSRI among other drugs that they would be getting kick-backs on.

Later on I'll describe to you what the Disease Model is, and how Doctors operate within those boundaries to keep us sick, but alive.

The Covid-19 pandemic is the canary in the coal-mine telling us that if we don't change our ways, minds, and belief systems, it's going to be too late to save life as we know it; look at Covid-19, it’s already doing that. Misguidedly, I tried so many times to inform and help people accept the facts, but at that time, I didn’t know that, new facts are polarizing, they don’t just change belief-systems. I burnt so many bridges wasting effort on people who weren't ready to accept new information, who didn't want to change, and who at best wanted to make me look like a blabbing fool. What does it take to make someone talking pure gold look like their talking garbage? The answer is a loyal following. Take away the loyalists, and you take away Those-Who-Resist's ground to stand on. Inform the following, and instead of working against them, like Othello, you're now working with them. Seems easy, but it's an absolute nightmare sometimes to be on this mission – while trying to do life.

The bottom line is this, If we don't change our eating habits, we're going to be looking back on 2020 and we're going to regretfully say, 'we should have listened, we should have read the true science and informed ourselves and understood that vegan activists are sharing information so that we can minimize our impact which elongates the future for generations to come, not to take away anyone's rights or freedoms today'. You might not see all of those right away, but I need to make the point about 2020 and it's a bit cheesy, here it is in a series of extremely short sentences. 2020. Vision. Hindsight. (You see what I’m doing here?) Covid-19. Human deaths. Animal flu Spillover. Cause of covid. These points are all strongly connected and the answer to the problem is, leave the animals alone. We can easily be getting all nutrients from plants, thereby eliminating the ability for animal flu spillover, stopping future pandemics and living successfully and healthfully. Wow, seems simple. If you need proof about how vegans can kill it physically, check out Nimai Delgado on Instagram. Here's a hint - do not worry about adequate protein intake – I would worry a whole lot more if I still ate meat.

Did you know that a chickpea has every amino acid that your body needs and none of the cholesterol that lays down fatty streaks in your arteries? Dietary cholesterol only comes from eating animal products. Did you know that of the 20 amino acids, only 9 are essential? Did you know that plants make amino acids? Did you know plants make ALL amino acids? Did you know you can live healthfully with just eating plants? If you doubt, check out nutritiondata.com; it will set you free.

I had the hindsight to realize that we are the problem, what I was eating was harming me, and that change happened without me forfeiting anything and that what I needed to thrive and live my best, most fulfilling and healthiest life was growing in the ground and putting carbon back into the ground thereby removing carbon dioxide from the air? What was being bled out, hung upside down, chopped into pieces, packaged, and then referred to as Halal Beef or 'extra-lean ground chuck' was killing me from within. It is my hunch that in the future, Halal will be condemned as an inhumane and non-sustainable practice. If you doubt my words, consider watching Earthlings, and I mean ALL of Earthlings – It's free on Youtube.

Covid-19 was caused by humans' interactions with animals. You can try to re-word, re-frame, re-everything the previous sentence, but you can't, we caused it by conquering the world and being negligent with our logistics and lack of science. It doesn't matter if you can conjure up conspiracy theories or already understand that it's our closeness with animals that has caused the pandemic. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details because that's already been done. I'm here to send a wake-up call to anyone who will listen, anyone who will change, anyone who cares about their children, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters, parents, or anyone who will live beyond your years, basically anyone beyond yourself. Yes these are strong words, but these are grim times.

Are you going to be in the group who changed given the information that is out there, or will you be in the stubborn group who thinks they can interpret the science better than the professionals can? Are you going to continue to believe that every falsely "debunked" meat-free solution as a result of fake news is remotely inclusive or correct? Are you going to choose greed and personal choice over minimizing your impact on the future? Are you going to let fake news scare you into eating meat? The only reason why you have a choice today is because of capitalism, but is capitalism helping or killing you? Take capitalism away, and you would be left with no choice, you would be doing what is best for the planet because that’s also best for you and, if you don’t know, climate change is already here!

Again, I'm not here to take away your personal choice, I'm here to instill a sense of agency within you, to give you the power to take control of your life, to be in the driver's seat with regard to your own health, and to reframe the choices that you have so that you can choose better for whatever the rest of your years look like or whatever may come to be on this planet because of you. Do you want to be part of the solution, or would you rather defend your right to live unsustainably because you have money?

Take the rich for example, whatever you want, you get because they have the money for it. Well, consider the fact that heart disease has not been linked to a lower socioeconomic status, instead it affects everyone roughly equally if you're all eating an equal amount of animal protein and animal fats, you're all getting just about the same amount of sick (ignoring specific nutrient deficiencies). Whether you're eating the rarest of blood-dripping steaks with the fanciest 1000-thread count napkins on your laps, or you're going through a McDonald's drive-thru dropping lettuce all over your car because all your bank account will let you do is get a Bacon-Double-Cheeseburger and the person who made it can’t get all the lettuce between the patties, either way that animal fat is being pushed into your arteries by your blood pressure and the animal protein is wreaking havoc in your body promoting your genes to signal cancer growth within your body. It doesn't matter if you're eating only white meat vs red, animal protein does not promote optimal health for a human being.

Eating meat was the exception and necessary at one point in time within evolution, but it was never meant to be a long-term solution, how do I know this? Our bodies tell us that. Our teeth are flat for grinding roughage, our teeth cannot shred muscle very well. We have elongated GI systems designed to absorb complex carbohydrates, our stomach acid is not as strong as true carnivores. We require vitamin C in our diet which relates to us having trichromatic vision, vs Lions that only see black, white and grey. Vitamin C is found in plants, not meat. Yes we have the ability to digest meat, but it wreaks havoc on our bodies, and it takes a long time to see the result of that action develop into symptoms of various cardiovascular diseases, and cancers.

With regard to deciding to finally kill Betsy the cow because you’re starving and need to eat something? Can you imagine being that person who had to hack up the first cow when it went against their way of life at the time? How traumatic it would be! Maybe you can imagine doing it yourself right now, and or it's time to think, "If I can't do it, how am I going to pay someone else to do it? Ask yourself that 3 times.

Necessity has a way of changing us because we’ll do anything to survive. Whether you accept it or not, we're already at that point of necessity with regard to climate and I’m glad someone has done something about it. Look at Greta Thunberg, if you haven't seen her documentary, I highly recommend it, it's called 'Greta'. A child who has been handed an unfair start at life, facing a climate crisis and being left to think, 'what's the point of me doing anything other than this?' The answer to her question is 'quite honestly, barely any". Her campaign of 'Skolstrejk for Klimatet', translated it means "school-strike for climate" has gained momentum and woken people up, but was that her resonsibility in the first place? We all know the answer to that, and that proves that our ignorance is making the future more and more unfair for each child born, and if that’s your child, and if you eat meat, you truly do not what to offer the best planet to your children.

I have to address this quickly because so many people refer to it. If 'God' created the world, the bible via prophets and animals to eat, then god also created Science and Philosophy and Logic, which has now proven many facts about diet and disease, so how are we going to defend eating meat with words of the bible and ignore the Science, Philosophy and Logic that was also bred of God? You tell me what you come up with.

You tell yourself that it's just one meal, it's just a couple meals a day, or it's every meal and it's your choice and you can do whatever you want to your body. That is true because capitalism allows that, but if you want to grow and become better than you already are, you should really ask yourself a question that about 98% of people ignore - "Am I doing this whole food thing right?" And therefore, "Am I giving myself too many allowances? Do I have a realistic or horribly unrealistic view of my own life and my existence?" Yes, it goes deep, but is it too difficult to critically look at yourself? Think beyond yourself.

For those educated regarding Critical Theory and higher degrees of thought in school, you may ask yourself a lot more questions than that, but before you begin to answer them with regards to food, do not even think about answering them with regard to your experience if you have only tried eating one way, you need to go with science on this one and use yourself as an experiment - make changes, and gauge how you feel – cut the meat and dairy, align your thoughts and feelings with what is on your plate.

It was only a year ago Canada made their first food guide without Research from the companies providing the animal products. Is it just me or does it seem crazy to have ever used research from Beef producers about beef? Regarding the changes which nearly left meat out completely, I have my own conspiracy theories as to why meat was left in, but take a hint people, it was all but removed. Wake up and smell the chickpeas, ditch the animal products.

What do you think your children, grand-children, great-grand-children, etc.. will think of you? No you will not meet all that come to be because of you but they'll know if you were the first go ditch meat, and take control of your health. You have the power to choose, you have the agency to act autonomously and to think for yourself. What legend do you want to leave behind? What are they going to say about you if you refuse to change?

My mother has smoked my entire life, always telling me that she'll quit, it's hard I know, but after 35 years, I've given up trying to change people, instead I refuse to keep secret for her, her habits that are shortening her life day in and day out. Telling her that if she dies of anything related to her smoking or eating habits, that I will use her as an example to teach my nieces about cause and effect. Call me brutally honest, call me anything you want, but before all, call me a realist.

Did you know that even in abusive relationships, the abused will at times defend the abuser? Did you know that happens a lot more than you realize? Maybe now you can realize that you're being abused by the meat-producers and now you're defending them by defending your 'right' to eat meat?

I think we are ready to remove the veil, but to do so you'll have to do the research yourself and not just take my word for it. Everything I spout nowadays, is the opposite of what I knew myself to be in 2014. The fact that I have been through university with a degree in Human kinetics, spending time with nutrition and other Biomedical sciences - nothing woke me up better than meeting a Vegan who cared enough to hold my hand and walk me through what big businesses never wanted me to find out. That what we eat is killing us, the planet, and the future. Now, science has shown us that with a vegan diet, rich of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, we can reverse the number top killers (heart disease and many cancers) of people caused by ingesting animal products or at least optimize your chance at fighting off or living with a disease. Eating animal products is never part of the solution, it’s the problem.

Take control of your life and inform yourself because only you can live your life.

#climateemergency #drought #vegan #diet #lifestyle #sustainability #sustainable #climate catastrophe #climate activism #riversilence #veganlife #veganporn #food #foodblog

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bard-llama · 4 years

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The Witcher Fic Masterlist

Masterlist of all of my Witcher fics, updated as of June 5, 2021.

If you like my writing, consider donating to my ko-fi! I am writing gift fics for all donors.

Here is a masterlist of all completed multi-chapter fics.

Series:

Families of Choice

Geraskefer Canon Divergent AU

Summary: The best families are those you choose. Jaskier realized that early in life, but his family continues to expand over the years.

Series Masterlist

Cintra Happily Ever After Series:

AU from the Families of Choice Series (as of the end of 5 Dinners with the Lioness chapter 5)

Summary: A series in which I pretend everything is fine and nobody dies, and Geralt makes Cintra his home base after the feast in episode 4.

Series Masterlist

Chronic Pain Series

Summary: Unconnected shorts in which I vent my pain onto fictional characters.

At Her Back

Summary: Yennefer was born with a twisted spine. Her transformation had cured her, but she still felt the pain as if nothing had changed. Geralt offers Jaskier's services as a masseuse.

Coming to a Head

Summary: During a confrontation gone wrong, Jaskier gets hit with a spell that is supposed to cause unimaginable pain. So why does Jaskier seems mostly unaffected?

When Pigs Talk

Summary: When seeking pain relief, Yennefer takes something that makes the pigs in her pig pen start talking. It’s the start of an interesting evening.

Your eyes aren’t rivers there to weep

Rated E

Summary: Geralt’s eyes burn and ache like he’s undergoing the trials again, so Jaskier does his best to help distract from the pain.

Don’t Cry for Me, Temeria

Iorveth/Roche Witcher 2 Different First Meeting AU

Summary: A Witcher 2 Canon AU in which Iorveth and Roche meet before either of them know who the other is. Somehow, this changes absolutely everything.

Series Masterlist

Fish Out of Water

Iorveth/Roche MerMay AU

Summary: Once upon a time, all elves lived in the sea and had mer forms. Now, Iorveth is something of a novelty, one of the last true elves.

Series Masterlist

For You, My Love, I Bleed

Iorveth/Roche angsty AU

Summary: Iorveth and Roche had been happy, or so Iorveth had thought. Then King Foltest recalls Roche to the capital, and suddenly Iorveth is left alone as Roche returns to Foltest. Roche made his choice, clearly, and Iorveth just has to deal with that. But all is not as it seems, and Roche considers everything worth sacrificing if it protects the man he loves.

Series Masterlist

A Hard Day’s Night

Iorveth/Roche interrogation AU

Summary: Iorveth ends up imprisoned, with Vernon Roche as his interrogator. From there it only gets worse - or better, depending on your point of view.

Series Masterlist

If You’re Good to Mama

Iorveth/Roche Outsider POV

Summary: The Clarabelle is the finest brothel in town and its located in the shittiest part of town. Follow the adventures of the Madame, Eliza, and the brothel workers as they start working to supply food to the terrorist elves in the Scoia'tael.

Series Masterlist

Keep Me

Iorveth/Roche fanart AU

Summary: All Vernon Roche wants in life is someone to keep him and appreciate him. Surprisingly, he may find exactly that - in the form of his enemy, no less. Based on this art.

Series Masterlist

King and Country

Iorveth/Roche divergent AU

Summary: When Foltest rejects Vernon Roche, he sets into motion a series of events that have consequences he never could've expected. A universe in which Roche's anger and hurt at Foltest remove the rose colored glasses.

Series Masterlist (NEW ADDITIONS!)

Love Shack

Iorveth/Roche Secret Relationship AU

Summary: The Love Shack: a ramshackle cabin in the forest that happens to be Iorveth and Roche's only respite from a reality full of violence, war, and hate. In the Love Shack, all that matters is each other.

Series Masterlist

The Lovestruck Fox

Iorveth/Roche Schoolgirl Crush AU

Summary: It’s obvious to anyone with eyes that the Scoia’tael Commander holds his opposite in the highest esteem.

Series Masterlist

Petals and Stripes

Iorveth/Roche Hanahaki AU

Summary: Those that felt the deepest of deep loves could develop a condition known as the wasting disease. Those afflicted slowly suffocate as their lungs fill with fruit representing the one they love. Well, it's supposed to be fruit. So why is Commander Roche coughing up flowers?

Series Masterlist

With A Look I May Not Meet

Iorveth/Roche capture AU

Summary: When Iorveth is captured using his relationship with Vernon Roche, Roche is forced to make a decision. Stand with King Foltest and Temeria as he has always done - or choose Iorveth and go on the run.

Series Masterlist

The Woodland Fox and The Temerian Hound

Iorveth/Roche animal transformation AU

Summary: Roche usually didn’t mind Triss’s magic much. Sure, she poked at him with it all the time, but it was always playful, inviting him in on the fun. This time, however, something had gone very, very wrong and he was quite sure that it would take him a long time to trust her magic again. Because somehow a rebound spell had hit him, and now he had a tail. A dog’s tail. Well, he was always getting called Foltest’s attack dog. Now it was just a bit more literal.

Series Masterlist

Under the cut:

New! Gen fics (22)

Yennefer fics (4)

Geraskier/Geraskefer fics (25)

Geralt getting railed fics (4)

Cintra fics (Calanthe/Eist and others) (9)

Lambert/Aiden fics (6)

Lambert/Jaskier fic (1)

Wolf Witcher fics (2)

New! Iorveth/Roche fics (45)

New! Saskia fics (3)

Gen Fics:

(They came after me) With Masterful Deceit

Summary: When Jaskier discovers that Yennefer has Elven blood, he is forced to confront his prejudices.

Beauty and Imperfections

Summary: Jaskier signs up to be a nude model. He's expecting it to be a fun, sexy time. It goes a lot differently than he expected.

The Blood of the Covenant is Thicker Than the Water of the Womb

Summary: Found Family prompt fills, focusing mostly on Iorveth and Roche. Chapter 1: Geralt invited all of his family to join him in Corvo Bianco, which is great, but has the downside that finding a moment alone is near impossible.

Cards Out For Your Country

WiP

Summary: In which a great number of people are convinced or coerced into posing for a Gwent Pinup Calendar.

Greg the Demon Horse

Summary: Jaskier tries to make a stuffed toy for Ciri. If only he knew how to sew properly.

Gwent, The Good Old Game (NEW!)

WiP

Summary: Zoltan, Dandelion, and Priscilla decide to go all in on a new money-making scheme involving gwent. This time, they are going to sell stories and dolls of the characters that appear on gwent cards. It's guaranteed to make a killing.

History is Written by the Victors

Summary: “Dara said grandmother’s men laughed as they raped women and killed babies by - by swinging them by their legs, bashing their heads in.” Fuck. Tentatively, Jaskier wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into a hug when she didn’t flinch away. In his head, he could hear Filavandrel’s voice, the humans proudly watch these very fields grow... our babies fertilizer for their grain. He swallowed against rising bile. Against his neck, he could feel Ciri finally succumb to tears. “How could grandmother order that? I know her, that wasn’t what she was like! But Dara wouldn’t have lied.”

Wherein our characters struggle with knowing that good people can do awful things, and that everything you think you know is probably wrong.

How to Train Your Roach

Summary: The story of how Jaskier's stupid ditties on the road accidentally trained Roach.

Inspired by Her Fire

Warning: Spoilers for Witcher 2, specifically something from the end of Iorveth’s Path.

Summary: Saskia's POV during the Council Meeting where Saskia introduces Iorveth.

It’s the Little Things

Summary: A collection of fills for various prompts! Chapter 1: “You. Rest. Now.”

jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves

Summary: Jaskier writes a song about the Slaughter of Cintra.

Life is a Cabaret

Witcher 3 Canon/Spoilers

Summary: Set during the Cabaret quest, after Geralt helps Dandelion with his staged fight, he decides that Dandelion's big comfy bed at the Rosemary & Thyme is perfect for a bit of rest. Dandelion doesn't exactly mind.

The Lion That Haunts My Dreams

Rated M

Summary: Calanthe does what is needed to protect her kingdom. Dara just wants to forget. Two perspectives on a genocide.

Marilka

Summary: Geralt knew he couldn’t claim his Child of Surprise. Destiny had punished him harshly the one time he’d thought about raising a child. He could not risk its wrath again.

Power

Summary: Yennefer had been forced to fight for every bit of power she had. So why does the power to make people see her seem so unattainable? An introspective look at Yenn during the Dragon Hunt (but ignoring the break up because I can)

Sentenced to Write

Summary: A collection of fics from 1 sentence prompts. Chapter One: Thief!Ciri Chapter Two: Kid!Calanthe

Soft Words and Kind Hearts

Summary: A collection of fills for Geralt Fluff Week 2020. Day 1: First times. Geralt gets a tattoo and becomes part of the Blue Stripes Commandos

Sweat and Blood and Tears: A Geralt Whump Collection

Summary: Collected shorts for Geralt Whump Week

What Makes a Family

Summary: Ciri spends her first birthday since the Fall of Cintra at Kaer Morhen.

What You Meme to Me

Summary: A collection of Witcher fics inspired by memes. Just because. Second chapter: Jaskier doesn't understand why people are so obsessed with gender. Why would what's in their pants matter?

The White Wolf

Summary: Geralt always gets named the White Wolf in fight clubs, even before Jaskier gave him the name. Sometimes he even hid his medallion and gave a fake name, and still, he was always called the White Wolf.

Your Voice is Your Life

Summary: “Your voice is your life.” His old teacher used to tell him. Jaskier largely disagreed, but then a djinn steals his voice. Bottled Appetites from Jaskier's point of view

Yennefer Fics

To Be...

Summary: Collection of shorts for Yennefer Appreciation Week on Tumblr!

A Tribute to the Fae

Rated E

Summary: When Yennefer accidentally trespasses on fae land, she must pay the price.

Viscount Pankratz and Wife

WiP

Summary: When Jaskier receives an invitation to a fancy party addressed to him and his wife, he decided he deserved a night of fun causing problems for people. Who better to help than Yennefer of Vengerberg?

Yenn & Djinn

WiP

Summary: Bottled Appetites AU Jaskier’s last wish is for Geralt to appear. This manages to change everything.

Geraskier/Geraskefer Fics:

(I would not wish) Any Companion But You

Summary: I’m not your friend, Geralt always insists whenever Jaskier calls them such.

100 Ways to Love You

Rated E

Summary: A drabble collection for Witcher OT3 sex Okay, it might be more double drabbles than drabbles, but shhh

Awaken in Pleasure

Rated E

Summary: Geralt dreams of having Jaskier waking him up with sex. He finally manages to ask for it.

Bounce a Coin Off Your Witcher

Rated E

Summary: Jaskier has lots of thoughts about Geralt's arse in leather pants. And then they get stuck in a small room together.

Butter That Biscuit

Rated E

Summary: Bottled Appetites Ep 5 AU – When Jaskier awakes in Yennefer’s room, he does, in fact, butter that biscuit.

Five Almost Kisses and One Happily Ever After

WiP

Rated E

Summary: What it says on the tin. Geralt knows he wants Jaskier, but why would the bard ever be interested in a witcher? Five times Geralt ALMOST figures it out and one time he actually makes a move.

Five Times Geralt Frotted Against Jaskier’s Ass and One Time He Fucked It

Rated E

Summary: Based on this tumblr post about Geralt frotting against Jaskier's ass in his sleep.

Fulfilling a Need

Rated E

Summary: Geralt has been twitchy and restless lately. When Jaskier confronts him, he discovers that what Geralt needs is for Jaskier to take control and fuck his face. So he does.

Gestures of Affection

Rated M

Summary: A collection of shorts featuring any configuration of the relationship between Geralt, Jaskier, and Yennefer and the ways they show affection to each other. With bonus Ciri, because she’s their family.

Hit Me Baby (One More Time)

Rated E

Summary: Jaskier desperately wants physical evidence of Geralt’s love for him.

How to Spoil Your Pet

Rated E

Summary: Yennefer and Jaskier team up to give Geralt everything he wants. He wants a lot. Good thing they're amenable.

Howling Swirling Storm

Summary: Jaskier is a winter spirit who has always been shit at hiding his powers. But somehow Geralt still never figured it out?

Jaskier’s Words are Horseshit

Summary: The thing about Jaskier is, he never shuts up. Literally, ever. That was the first thing Geralt noticed about the bard, but he was not prepared for all that entailed. Jaskier was, quite literally, always making noise of some sort. If he wasn’t singing, he was humming, muttering, strumming at his lute. Even in his sleep, the bard hmm’d and sighed and mumbled and snored continuously.

A Kiss With a Lash

Rated E

Summary: Geralt asks Jaskier to punish him for the Break Up (TM)

Making Amends

WiP

Rated E

Summary: Jaskier is putting his life back together after the Mountain™. So what is he supposed to do when Geralt arrives at his doorstep?

Pamper Your Witcher

Rated E

Summary: Geralt doesn't let himself have the finer things in life. So Jaskier decides to pamper him.

That Wild Blue Yonder

Summary: Jaskier lives in the modern world as Julian Alfred Pancratz. When his family vacations at an old castle his cousin owns, he discovers an old wardrobe that leads to the Continent. Specifically, it leads to a wardrobe belonging to Madeline de Stael.

The Pleasure of a Good Bath

Rated E

Summary: Geralt had always enjoyed baths. Since Jaskier had joined him, they'd gotten even better - and it was making it difficult to hide that he wanted more.

Porny Prompt Pile

Rated E

Summary: Just porny fics based on prompts. First chapter: Geraskier - blow job while standing Second chapter: Geraskier - Jaskier riles Geralt into rough sex

Relationships Require Communication

Summary: Jaskier liked to joke about him being allergic to the word ‘friends’, but he wasn’t far off. Geralt was aware that he was not good at talking, not good at feelings, and definitely not good about combining the two. After Yennefer and Jaskier leave him on the mountain, Geralt does some thinking about what happened and how exactly he messed up. And how to fix it.

Rushing Thoughts and Pulsing Hearts

Rated E

Summary: Geralt knew he was in love with Jaskier, but what could he do about it? No one believed Witchers could love. Not even him, sometimes.

So hold me, lover, like you used to

Rated E

Summary: When Geralt brings Cirilla to Oxenfurt to search for Jaskier, he was not expecting to walk into a concert the bard and another were giving together. Songfic based on The Amazing Devil.

When Words Act As Phantoms on Horseback

Summary: Jaskier gets Geralt used to the lack of silence. Without him, the silence creeps up on him and itches at his mind until he must break it. AKA how Netflix!Geralt slowly becomes more like Game!Geralt.

With Knot But A Look

Rated E

Summary: Jaskier asks tamed werewolf!Geralt to fuck him in the forest under the full moon.

Worth 100 Words

Summary: This is a Witcher drabble collection, using prompts. Mostly OT3 and family fics with Ciri.

Geralt getting railed fics:

A Cintran Welcome

Rated E

Summary: Geralt’s Witcher stamina is too much for Jaskier to handle alone, but he wants Geralt to experience being fucked to exhaustion. So he arranges a gangbang in Cintra. Featuring Geralt’s self–loathing getting overwhelmed with pleasure.

Forest of Plenty

Rated E

Summary: Geralt goes to visit his friend Mousesack for some fun and discovers that Mousesack and Jaskier have already anticipated his arrival and prepared quite a surprise for him.

I’m Yours to Claim

Rated E

Summary: Geralt knew he would eventually agree to go to Cintra. It was Jaskier asking, after all. He hadn't expected to run into his old friend and fuckbuddy, Mousesack, but it was nice to see him again.

Size Matters: The Geralt Size Queen Chronicles

Rated E

Summary: Just porn about Geralt being a size queen.

Cintra Fics:

5 Gifts from Family, 1 Vision of the Future, and 1 New Start

Summary: Pavetta gets to know her family after the banquet.

Artistic Endeavors

Rated M

Summary: Calanthe discovers that her daughter has a habit of drawing rather explicit art. For the Banned Together Bingo prompt "Porn". Set before Episode 4: Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials

Falling Into the Lion’s Den

Rated E

Summary: Calanthe and Eist have slept together many times, but it was never about feelings. So why does Eist propose to her and insist on changing everything?

Her Mother’s Legacy

Summary: Ciri had always had trouble with schooling. So if Geralt wants to train her in monster lore, he's going to have to do some things for her. Featuring ways Pavetta helped Ciri figure out how to manage her ADHD.

Like a Punch to the Face

Summary: “Oh sweet Cintra, you were so promising, from your spoiled princess to your stupid old king! But when I arrived, the royals were dead! Tossed out a window or shot in the head!” Ciri forced herself to keep walking past the puppet show, feeling like a fist had reached into her chest and ripped out her heart.

The Lion in the Woods

Summary: Mousesack teaches Ciri about the importance of balance.

The Lioness and the Seahound

Rated E

Summary: A collection of Calanthe/Eist porn fics. Chapter One: Calanthe positions Eist so that she can ride him while giving the illusion that she was taking him. Eist loves it.

Mousesack’s Educational Retreat for Proper Young Nobles

WiP

Summary: 13 year old Calanthe gets sent to a “whip-your-heirs-into-shape” 6 weeks and she is not happy about it. She’s also not delighted by this kid Eist, who is determined to become her friend, and sharing her room with 2 other noblewomen was not fun. Featuring 13 year olds’ interpretations of cultures, some significant cultural misunderstandings, and some slow but sure developing friendships.

O war! Thou son of hell

Summary: In the aftermath of war, Calanthe waits to feel the way everyone said she was supposed to.

Lambert/Aiden Fics:

An Evening of Frippery

Rated E

Summary: When Lambert and Aiden get invited to a fancy party, it’s the perfect excuse to dress up, dance, and have some fun.

Fuck Me Properly (NEW!)

Rated E

Summary: Aiden stumbles upon Lambert getting fucked by a plant. With tentacles. Then his brain kind of shorts out.

One Way to Skin a Cat (NEW!)

Summary: A reflection on Aiden's thoughts in the aftermath of his near death, and a realization of what Lambert must be thinking.

pretty witcher (walking down the street)

Rated E

Summary: Lambert decides to finally make his move, dressing up in his prettiest dress to encourage Aiden to give in to temptation. Before he has a chance, though, bandits force them into an unexpected position.

Silk and Lace

Rated E

Summary: When Aiden and Lambert split up on the road to tackle separate contracts before meeting again, Lambert takes the opportunity to spoil himself with pretty clothes and slow, drawn out pleasure.

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This (NEW!)

Rated M

Summary: Lambert wakes up when Aiden has a bad dream. Fortunately, he knows a good way to get Aiden's mind off of it.

Lambert/Jaskier Fics:

Desperate Affection

Rated E

Summary: Lambert didn't know when he'd fallen in love with the bard, but he could no longer imagine life at Kaer Morhen without him.

Wolf Witcher Fics:

Ensnared

Rated E

Summary: Lambert, Geralt, and Eskel have a long tradition where Eskel ties them up. This time, they've invited Aiden and Jaskier in on the fun.

The School of the Wolf

Summary: Vesemir is old, the oldest Witcher alive. Witchers don’t retire, they get slow and they die. He knows he's slowing down, but all he has left in this world is the boys he trained, and the legacy of the School of the Wolf.

Iorveth/Roche Fics:

A Kiss Can Mean A Thousand Things

Summary: Fills for kissing prompts based on the 50 Types of Kisses Writing Prompts

And Ghosts Did Shriek and Shrill

WiP

Rated M for violence/gore

Summary: After the unjust murder of his team, Vernon Roche is willing to do anything to get them back. Even if it means drawing on unspoken-of beliefs from a childhood in Velen.

Before All Else, Be Armed (NEW!)

Summary: Iorveth and Vernon Roche are finally getting together. But when it comes time to disrobe, they run into a few problems. Namely, the sheer number of concealed weapons each of them carry.

Brewing Romance and Dissent

WiP

Summary: When a spear to the eye means that Iorveth needs to take at least a year to recover, he decides to spend it undercover in a coffeeshop in Vizima's Royal Quarter. He's also not expecting his favorite customer to be a human.

Can’t We All Just Get Oolong?

WiP

Summary: In which Iorveth and Roche discover that Roche's mom Eliza works for both of them, drink lots of tea, and slowly get to know one another.

The Chase

WiP

Rated M

Summary: Iorveth likes making Roche chase him when the Blue Stripes and the Scoia'tael clash. When Roche manages to catch him one day, something entirely unexpected happens. And then it keeps happening.

Commander Roche’s Secret Lover (NEW!)

WiP

Rated E

Summary: Commander Roche is very clearly hiding a lover. His team tries to figure out who it could be.

Deep Inside Me (NEW!)

Rated E

WiP

Summary: Iorveth longs for things he shouldn't want and his attempt to ignore that ends up making everything worse.

Devour What’s Truly Yours

Rated E

Summary: When Roche discovers Iorveth inside a magical circle of flowers with pollen that makes you feel good, he was not at all prepared to find out what they had to do before they could leave.

A Dh’oine’s Only Use (NEW!)

Rated E

Summary: Iorveth arranges for his Scoia'tael to make use of his new whore, Vernon Roche. After all, a dh'oine's only use is as a hole to be fucked.

Dream a Little Dream of Me

Rated E

Summary: It totally doesn’t mean anything that Roche dreams of Iorveth.

‘Ere Our Souls Are Ground To Dust

Summary: After Nilfgaard conquered the continent and deigned to let Temeria be self-governed, Roche finds himself drowning in work trying to build a new government and keep an economy afloat (well, more get it back there for some parts of Temeria). Meanwhile, he and Iorveth were managing to live a fairly domestic life together. It had only been a few months, but it was going well. Then they have their first fight. Over coffee, of all things.

Every Kiss Begins With Kayran (NEW!)

WiP

Rated E

Summary: Every once in a while, there was a local brave enough to seek out the Kayran for a pleasant distraction. The Kayran was delighted to oblige. And sometimes, sometimes there were people who wanted a more regular experience. People like Iorveth, who had scheduled monthly fuck dates to work off the stresses of command. Neither of them expected to get discovered during one such session.

Explore That Which Sets Your Soul Aflame (NEW!)

Rated E

Summary: Iorveth very much was not expecting Vernon to ask about his ears. But if he's going to satisfy Vernon's curiosity, it's only right that Vernon satisfy his in return.

Eye on You

WiP

Rated E

Summary: 5 Times Iorveth Accidentally Watched Roche Come and 1 Time Roche Watched Him

False Positive (NEW!)

WiP

Rated E

Summary: When Iorveth sneaks into Lobinden in disguise to enjoy the Imbolc festival, the last thing he expects is to deal with Vernon Roche - especially because Vernon doesn't know it's him.

The First Seeds of Trust

WiP

Rated E

Summary: As soon as Iorveth had started fighting vines rather than fighting him, Roche knew something was up. Still, nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.

Great Eggspectations (NEW!)

WiP

Rated E

Summary: In the aftermath of Temeria's fall, Vernon Roche is feeling unmoored. So it only makes sense to track down his once-enemy. Iorveth has always encouraged his mind to bring its best and right now, he dearly needs that. He's in for a slight surprise when he actually finds Iorveth, though.

A Heart’s Fire (NEW!)

Summary: Skellige is the only kingdom without a price on Iorveth's head, so it only makes sense to seek shelter there after the Scoia'tael are disbanded. The isles are nice, but what had been pleasantly cool in summer now turns freezing in winter and elves were not made for temperature extremes. So of course Iorveth manages to get caught in a blizzard.

How to Fluster an Elf

WiP

Summary: When Geralt, Dandelion, and Zoltan make a casual remark about never having seen Iorveth flustered, Roche decides to take it as a challenge. Featuring Nilfgaardian feasts, cultural differences, really fancy beds and baths, and a witcher, a dwarf, and a bard who are having the time of their lives watching Roche try to catch Iorveth off guard.

It’s the Little Things

Summary: A collection of fills for various prompts! Chapter 1: “You. Rest. Now.”

The language of friendship is not words but meanings

WiP

Summary: When Geralt is hired by the Blue Stripes and the Scoia'tael to find their missing commanders, he discovers that not only have said commanders somehow turned into children, but that the two groups managed to scare them away before introductions could be made. Fortunately, Roche and Iorveth both have their own ways of making themselves understood.

Leap of Faith

WiP

Summary: When Roche changes the rules of engagement in a skirmish with the Scoia'tael, Iorveth ends up captured.

Needs More Dragons

Summary: Frankly, 2 dragons in all the Witcher stories? Not enough. So have some fics with random dragons! Chapter 1: Honey, I Adopted A Dragon: Iorveth may have acquired a baby dragon while Roche was traveling. Roche is about to find out.

Never Have I Ever

Summary: The Blue Stripes have an evening off. What better way to spend it than by playing drinking games?

On Knife’s Edge

Rated E

Summary: After they assist in the Battle of Kaer Morhen, Iorveth and Roche end up traveling back to Temeria together. An injury to Roche’s arm leaves him unable to shave himself, so it’s only polite for Iorveth to offer his assistance… right?

Olfucktory Senses (NEW!)

Rated E

WiP

Summary: Iorveth typically found the smell of human exertion to be nauseating. But when it's Vernon Roche's sweat, somehow he finds himself responding entirely differently.

Orificial Business

Rated E

WiP

Summary: When Roche hears a rumor that the Scoia’tael might be frequenting a brothel on the edge of town, he decides it’s worth going undercover to see.

Pining and Poignards (NEW!)

WiP

Rated E

Summary: Iorveth may spend a lot of time thinking about Vernon Roche, but it didn't mean anything. It couldn't mean anything. Doesn't stop him from contemplating the possibilities, though. Meanwhile, Roche attempts to teach himself Elder Speech to translate the carvings on a knife Iorveth stabbed him with.

The Portrait of Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon (NEW UPDATE!)

WiP

Summary: Ciri hates the portrait from her childhood that Geralt displays openly and proudly and loudly. He shows it off to everyone he can and she wants to destroy it. Lucky for her, two fighting enemies present a prime opportunity to make the portrait's destruction look like an accident.

The Pride of Temeria

The Blue Stripes are Temeria's elite Special Forces Unit. Their mission is to hunt down the Scoia'tael, but in between fighting and drilling, they get up to an awful lot of shenanigans. “He looks like he’s dead,” Shorty said, poking the sleeping form of their commanding officer with a stick. “Shorty!” Silas hissed shrilly. The newbie was still scared of breaking rules and he fidgeted nervously. “What?” Shorty shrugged, “He sleeps like the dead, it’s fine. As long as he’s not actually dead, anyway.” “He’s not,” Ves, their erstwhile second in command, rolled her eyes. “He’s just fucking weird.” “Are you sure he’s okay? How can he possibly breathe like that?” Igo frowned in worry, which wasn’t surprising for the man who had accidentally become their de facto team therapist. “What he needs,” Thirteen pointed in what would have been a dramatic gesture if not for the drunken stumble, “is a goo’ pair o’ tits to bury his face in.”

Red is the Rose (Complete!)

When Roche gives Iorveth a rose of remembrance, Iorveth doesn't know what to think. Legend has it that if you give a rose to someone you love, then it’ll live forever, but surely that can't be true. After all, Roche is his enemy.

Run Away With Me

Summary: Iorveth and Roche spend a starlit night together. “Run away with me,” he murmured, only half aware of the words he was saying. But when Iorveth froze, they truly processed and suddenly cold fear gripped him. He stuttered a correction, “I mean – I know, obviously, you can’t just leave your people. It’s – I–” Iorveth cupped his face, cutting off the stream of words. “Vernon,” Iorveth said, voice soft and wondrous. “Vernon,” he said again, tugging Roche forward into a desperate kiss, full of wanting and longing and regret. Even though Roche already knew the answer – of course they couldn’t just run away together – he still had to close his eyes and brace himself against the words he knew were coming when Iorveth drew back again. “Cariad,” Iorveth whispered, stroking his face. “Were my life my own, I would go anywhere with you.”

Scenes from Another World

Summary: Standalone scenes based on different trope AUs, but set in the canon Witcher universe.

Sentiment and Condescension

Summary: Roche hadn’t been planning to go to the Vengelbud party, but as soon as Emhyr told him not to... Now if he could just get Iorveth to leave him alone, he could get wasted in peace.

Seven Seconds in Holding

Summary: Iorveth is very, very unclear on how his last fight with the Blue Stripes led to him here, spooning Roche in the Blue Stripes’ holding cell, both their wrists cuffed together.

Spousal Privilege

Summary: Stuck at a diplomatic conference, Roche is frustrated that none of the elves in the room will even acknowledge he exists. Then Iorveth enters and it's like seeing an old friend. And then somehow they end up pretending to be married.

A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion (NEW!)

WiP

Rated E

Summary: Roche wakes up in a different world, one where he and Iorveth are raising Foltest's children in the dwarven city of Vergen.

These Boots (are gonna walk all over you)

Rated E

Summary: Neither Iorveth nor Roche had expected their fight to go like this. Inspired by this gorgeous art.

Time is Cruel, To Rob Us from Ourselves

WiP

Summary: An AU of Don’t Cry for Me, Temeria/(Im)Perfect Strangers where a magical artifact sends everyone back through events of Iorveth’s past. Iorveth is less than pleased, but the insights into his character may be invaluable for more than one person present.

Under Pressure

WiP

Rated E

Summary: When Iorveth defeats Vernon Roche, he intends to take his time interrogating his enemy. Fortunately, an abandoned mage’s house nearby provides him with the perfect toys to make this fun.

The Value of a Man

WiP

Summary: When Iorveth finally defeats Roche, he decides that such a valuable prisoner is worth ransoming back to the King. After all, surely the King's Enforcer is worth a few concessions to elven rights. Right?

To Weave The Strands of Fate (NEW!)

WiP

Summary: There is a tradition in Velen. Whenever a child is born within Velen, a lock of their hair is cut off and gifted to the Ladies of the Wood. According to whispered legends, the Lady Weavess could add the hair to her loom and thereby change their Fate.

What Happens in the Cave-In Stays in the Cave-In

WiP

Summary: When Iorveth and Roche’s fight ends abruptly because of a cave in, they find themselves trapped together as they wait to be unburied. In the meantime, Roche is injured and Iorveth has herbs that could help - but all he knows about humans is “they need more”.

Wolves and Squirrels and Stripes

Rated E

Geralt/Iorveth/Roche

Summary: A collection of Witcher 2 short fics featuring Geralt, Iorveth, and Roche. Chapter 1: Iorveth had never expected this to happen when Geralt invited him to visit Kaer Morhen.

Saskia Fics:

Damned Be The Thoughts That Refuse To Leave (NEW!)

Rated E

Saskia/Iorveth/Roche

Summary: When Saskia gifted him a toy shaped like a large human penis, Iorveth had sworn he would never use it. After all, it wasn't as if there were any humans he desired... right?

Shared Custody (NEW!)

Rated E

Saskia/Iorveth/Roche

Summary: Iorveth wasn't sure how walking into Saskia's office to see her talking with Vernon Roche of all people led to the three of them jammed into a closet with him in the middle, but he supposed it could be worse.

What Goes Around Comes Around (NEW!)

Rated E

Saskia/Philippa

Summary: Philippa decides to give Saskia a little treat to wake up to. Saskia repays her in full.

157 notes · View notes

of-another-broken-heart · 3 years

Text

I’m just going to copy/paste this because it took me hours and I’m drained.

I guess I have to format it again if I want it to show up at all...

I couldn't even make it back home before breaking down crying again.

Driving while chronically sleep deprived, exhausted, fatigued, and dissociating is bad enough. Doing it with all that AND without being able to see? How special.

I barely had time to sit down, my phone rang. I answered it, begging for someone to hear me. For thirty straight seconds. "Hello? Hello? Hello???" Finally someone spoke, but they couldn't hear me. I'm sobbing. They hung up. I scrambled to call back, from my computer, because at least then I'm not fighting a lack of reception as well as my anxiety. They called again. I didn't answer. I waited for my computer to ring through instead. I'm put on hold. I'm sobbing. It was just to ask what my pharmacy is. Which I already answered on my paperwork. Which I answered, again, at check-out. And I was forced into a third confirmation via a pointless, needless, anxiety-attack inducing phone call hazing. For something I already answered.

It's not fucking fun. People don't choose this. I didn't choose this. But does it matter? "Call," the command comes. "Just call." "Call to confirm." "Call to ask." "Call." "Call." "Call."

I want you to think of something that takes physical hold of your body and brings to you to tears. I want you to hold that and sit with it until it does those things. I want you to choose to reduce yourself to a sobbing mess, struggling to breathe, alone. And I want you to picture a world where you are commanded, demanded, required to do this. For virtually everything. Imagine needing help - but you must first re-traumatize yourself with your most painful memories until your nose is running and your eyes burn from crying. And you're exhausted for the rest of the day, too. Maybe multiple days. Absolutely exhausted. So fucking depleted that taking yourself to the bathroom is almost impossible. Feeding yourself - even eating something out of a can, or microwaved - is a herculean effort. Does that sound fun? Of course not.

As for the appointment itself: It's the same. Much better bedside manner. But it's the same underlying capitalism-serving "care" system. It's my fault. I'm not trying hard enough. I'm not blacking out alone on the side of the road enough. I haven't dissociated hard enough and/or blacked out while driving yet, so it can't be that bad, right? Not until I'm maimed or dead, right? Why address the root of a problem when we can just plaster on endless band-aids instead? When we can blame you for hurting, instead of the environment that's poisoning you? I'm not medically sedating myself into an obedient little wage slave, and that's the real problem. I should aspire to produce capital for someone with most of the remaining hours of my life. That's the purpose of living, that's the reason for "health"care - not to care about health, no, just to keep the wheels of capitalism well-oiled with wasted human life. Inherent human value? Quality of life? Nah.

They refused my medical history. I brought the 72-page pdf on a flash drive. Because that's how I was given it. Because I can't afford to buy and operate a personal fax machine and/or print out a chapter book's worth of pages of medical records. I went through the trouble of getting the files, and it took over a month - only to be told "we can't take anything but paper or fax." I filled out a file release form as best I could. But I didn't have the phone number or address memorized. Not even before that place became synonymous with medical neglect and trauma for me. So now they're going to go through the ancient months-long ritual of requesting the self-fucking-same documents from LISH, either by mail or fax, because they "can't" access a flash drive or a pdf or use email. Welcome to 2021. We're back to "normal" and teleheath never existed and the internet is fake and technology is a myth and why do anything efficiently when you can waste time and do damage to people instead? My Aunt called to check in on me during her lunch break. (Thank you again) She offered to get the file printed and try to hand it in for me. I'm too tired to hope. I'm too exhausted to think they'll accept it without fuss. Anything and everything to make things harder.

Top priority order of business is the whole "diseased for life" thing. Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Hypothyroidism. Daily hormones for every day of the rest of forever, gatekept behind eternal doctor visits and prescriptions and pharmacies and copays and and and and did I mention this is forever? I've got a referral to have a thyroid sonogram done. Haven't ever had one of those before. Need to make that appointment. I was able to have my blood drawn for the thyroid testing without needing an additional appointment, which was a nice change of pace. Normally you're supposed to fast for that, but I wasn't expecting that could be done during the visit. Three years of having to make additional trips to the lab for blood work. I ate immediately before getting there, so hopefully nothing had a chance to metabolize and skew the results. Even though it was great not to have to juggle yet another appointment for health shit, it was stressful. The nurse took three tries before she had all the supplies she needed in the room. I already have anxiety spikes (which also raise my blood pressure and heart rate) for all doctor visits now. (White Coat Syndrome, I learned, it's called) I didn't need to have a rubber cable tied around my arm, popped off, tied again, popped off, and tied a third and final time to make it worse. A pro to that con: she was incredibly accurate and gentle. I normally have sub-dermal bleeding and some bruising after having blood drawn, and keep the bandage on for a day or two. The bandage didn't last even an hour after I got home - but there wasn't a single spot of trapped blood, and I almost couldn't even tell where she stuck me.

I have another new diagnosis to add to my growing collection. Hypertension. High blood pressure. I used to have slightly low blood pressure. It stunned the first doctor I ever saw (you know, because I'm fat, so that sort of thing is supposed to be ~impossible~) and it frustrated my last doctor at first, too. But now, with years of building stress and anxiety? It's almost like living with your most basic human needs barely provided (food, shelter, healthcare - let's not bring up social needs LMAO those don't count anyway, right?), and at constant risk of being taken away, for months (years, in some cases) on end, is some form of stress. It's almost like being constantly dismissed and told "you're just not trying hard enough" (WHILE TRYING YOUR BEST JUST TO SURVIVE EACH DAY) is some form of stress!It's almost like perpetual, ongoing, worsening stress has a negative impact on your heart! It's almost like there are decades of data that spell this out, plain as day!It's almost like I noticed my elevated heart rate back in NOVEMBER and mentioned it out of concern to my last doctor - who dismissed it outright because my reading in-office wasn't *that* bad, and also shouldn't I be on 5487 psych meds instead? If I was sedated out of my mind, I wouldn't be physically capable of feeling stress in my body despite the presence of real-world stress factors. That's healthy, right? Don't bother to solve the stressors, just neuter the body's response to them. Super healthy response. (Not) My GYN took note of my concern in December, when my vitals DID show as high in-office. Not that my GYN had the jurisdiction to do anything about it. I'm being put on another medication to try to mitigate this, and potentially also address some anxiety. I haven't picked it up yet. I don't know the name. I don't know if I'll be able to afford it. "Your copay is only a dollar!" Yes well, when you don't have a dollar, you can't afford a dollar, can you?

I was given a list of psychiatrists. To "Call!!"Precisely none of them are a reasonable distance away. Nearly half aren't even in my insurance network. Some explicitly exclude Medicaid. Others are exclusively for children. I was suggested a medication for depression and anxiety. I can't remember which one. Either Abilify or Lexapro? I declined it for now, either way. I wanted to be able to research it. Lexapro is just another SSRI and I already know those don't work for me. Adding a chemical bouncer to my brain to make sure the happy chemicals stay out to play doesn't help when there are no happy chemicals in the first place. A quick search for Abilify doesn't address anxiety at all so it was probably Lexapro. In which case, I am not interested in repeating a different-flavor-Prozac experience. It was not good. I didn't get any notes with that medication, regardless. I got a sticky note with "Valerian Root Extract (tea or tincture)" and "Magnesium Glycinate 2 capsules" scribbled on it, instead. Out-of-pocket home rem-maybes. I can't afford to experiment with snake oils, so mostly I'll probably just spend a bunch of time looking for data and research and studies for those substances, and that's it. If I get around to psychiatric care, I will have to start from scratch in my insurance's shoddy search tool, again. And, frankly, it's not a priority. My mental health struggles are the result of a lot of physical factors and external/social factors, and no amount of artificial chemicals bullying my brain is going to solve any of it. When your car starts leaking oil, you don't just commit to buying more oil forever and dribbling it all over, wherever you go. You fix the fucking leak. If your house has a gas leak, you don't invest in gas masks. You fix the fucking leak. If you end up with a burst pipe, you don't commit to wasting water and money and damaging your environment. You fix. The fucking. Leak. But in these comparisons, I'm getting prescribed oil and gas masks and infinite water damage/waste/bills as long-term care.

I mentioned my fatigue. It was the final straw that made me give up with the last doctor. It just keeps getting worse. It's been getting worse for over 3 years. And I'm so, so fucking tired of it getting pinned fully on the fact that I'm not on psych meds. I WAS on psych meds during part of those 3 years with my last doctor. And it didn't fucking make any difference! A daily chemical lobotomy does not address or restore my lack of physical energy. My decades-old medication-resistant insomnia has never vanished with psych meds before, and it's not likely to do it now. Especially not with yet another of the same family of chemicals that I already know don't work. I want my concern to be taken seriously. I don't want it just brushed into the mental health corner, again. Being too tired to even do the things you used to enjoy - no one fucking wants this! I don't want this! I miss being able to go for walks. I miss going to the gym. I miss seeing how much I could do, and feeling good, and feeling strong. And I can't do any of that now. Not without risking harming myself in the process.

No one wants this. I keep talking, but it feels like no one listens. At the earliest opportunity, we're back to repeating the same tired old shit that doesn't work. I try to come prepared, and the stress and time and system make sure I fail to stand up for myself anyway. I didn't get to document my disordered eating history. The relapse this year. Restricting, sometimes to the point of not eating at all. I declined to be weighed, because I want my care to be based on relevant data, vitals, blood results - not the shape and size of my body. But I was too tired to realize I needed to dodge a verbal ask for the same information. Which, it turns out, is nearly as bad a trigger as having the scale spit it out for me. Being your own advocate for equal care, when you're already tapped out? I'm not winning that challenge.

I'm frustrated. I'm not giving up, but I am frustrated and beyond tired. I don't really expect anyone to read this mess. But it's here.

#personal

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nosunsetsjustsilence · 4 years

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The Manics and Gender Identity, Part 1

There is a lot to unpack in Nicky and Richey’s early lyrics pertaining to gender, particularly in terms of identifying with women. Richey approaches the subject — as he is wont to do — with regard to the exploitation and degradation of the female image, while Nicky’s attitude is more inquisitive and casual. Both use lyrics to express their own personal “What if?”

Make no mistake: I’m not claiming that either Nicky or Richey is/was non-cis or trans or anything other than curious. But it’s clear from their personal lyric struggles and hard-won lifestyle choices that this was a different time they were living in. In the 1990s, gender identity was not a topic with any kind of mainstream recognition, at least beyond those who wanted a “sex change” or girls who were considered “one of the boys”. I think it’s fascinating, at least from my perspective, to go back and examine the themes of gender dysphoria, identity, and frustration in lyrics written before any of it was part of popular conversation, and in a way that emphasized the then absolute cultural disconnect between desire and society.

Also, it’s important to note that both Nicky and Richey have presented gender in ways that don’t have anything to do with lyrics. Nicky is comfortable in traditionally female clothing and wears dresses on and off stage; both band members wore makeup and feathers on a regular basis. I’ve tried to write about gender in terms of lyrics only, but at times I do take examples from visual media.

Finally, keep in mind that yours truly is non-binary, and the discussion will hopefully not reek of a cis person watching queer men from behind bars in a zoo.

Special thanks to @sinisterrouge for vetting this before I posted <3

Little Baby Nothing

Although Richey seemed to find comfort in claiming that his lyrics were about the larger world — in the case of Little Baby Nothing, feminism and the way women are perceived in media — a closer look usually reveals a personal stake. When I discussed the meaning of this song previously, I emphasized that the “Little baby nothing” in question is clearly Richey himself, writing in the first person and deconstructing his own image to align with a kind of mindless female groupie used for sex.

My mind is dead, everybody loves me Wants a slice of me Hopelessly passive and compatible Need to belong, oh the roads are scary Hold me in your arms I wanna be your only possession

Richey often refers to himself as a “slut” and a “prostitute” and uses self-referential porn star imagery in his lyrics (So Dead: “You need a fix I’m your prostitute”, Yes: “there’s no lust in this coma even for a fifty”), aligning the industries of pornography and music performance in very vivid ways most often pertaining to exploitation. Appropriately, singing pivotal stanzas on this track is none other than Traci Lords, arguably most famous (especially in the early 90s) for an underage porn scandal.

What’s more, in the lyrics booklet for Generation Terrorists, there is a quotation or excerpt included for each song. The following corresponds to Little Baby Nothing:

“The male chromosome is an incomplete female chromosome. In other words the male is a walking abortion; aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.” -Valerie Solanos.

Ninety percent of what the Manics said and did in their early years was intended to be shocking and/or ironic. Of course they were trying to incite anger and riots, the questioning of institutions, and a teardown of normalcy. But the fact that Richey later used part of this radical statement as the title to one of his songs (“Of Walking Abortion”, natch) proves that he took it somewhat seriously, even if only in the most simple sense — that part of him resented his own maleness.

Life Becoming a Landslide

This is another song I’ve previously discussed, mostly in the arena of Nicky and Richey individualizing their distinctive voices into lines that can clearly be attributed to one or the other. In a song about nature vs nurture and the plastic confines of greater humanity cracking down on who or what someone is really supposed to be, we have:

Life becoming a landslide Ice freezing nature dead Life becoming a landslide I don’t wanna be a man

As far as writing style goes, Nicky was always fairly straightforward. Richey loves to convolute his message with proper nouns and alternating verb cases and a lack of a subject just to throw people off, but here’s Nicky, my boy, just saying, “Dude. Being a man sucks. I don’t like this.”

He could mean that being human in general sucks. But, since his attitude towards women leads me to believe he would not abbreviate humanity in this way, and given his and Richey’s track record with gender and Nicky’s well-documented gender presentation, I think it’s clear the lyric means that he doesn’t want to be male. Because he feels it doesn’t suit him, for whatever reason. And that nature failed by making him a man instead of a woman.

Yes

‘Yes’ is an incredible song. Its major-chord melody juxtaposed against Richey’s raw portrait of degradation is truly a thing to behold. The theme? Being used, prostitution both literal and metaphorical (“For sale? dumb cunt’s same dumb questions”), exploitation in the name of capitalism (“In these plagued streets of pity you can buy anything”), and reaching the lowest possible point of existence (“Purgatory’s circle, drowning here, someone will always say yes”). But the chorus — the chorus boasts one of the rawest images of sexual violence the band has ever used:

He’s a boy, you want a girl so tear off his cock Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him, call him Rita if you want

Wow. Okay. Where to begin? The implication here is that gender, along with everything else, is mutable if you have enough money and power to abuse people. However, it appears the change would be made not to entertain others, but to appeal to a specific person, sexually (“fuck him”). The “you” in question is clearly attracted to women, so the narrator offering to mutilate himself to please them can be seen as a last-ditch act of desperation. (“It feels like this massive defeat,” said a friend. “You can make him a woman to pleasure someone, but what’s left to change after that?”)

Richey wrote most of the song; “Rita”, obviously, is the name used for an alternative female identity. But who would Rita be? Richey seems to be wondering. Would she still be me? And would the change even be worth the affections of whomever he’s speaking to? If the means are so drastic (and difficult to picture without experiencing secondhand pain), that answer would usually be “no”. But the song is called “Yes”. I would say yes to anything at this point, Richey is saying, even the most extreme sexual violence imaginable, if that’s what you wanted.

4st 7lb

This is an extreme example of Richey using world issues to examine his own nature. Although anorexic himself, Richey writes “4st 7lb” from the point of view of an obsessive young girl admiring thin models. There could be multiple reasons for this, not the least of which is that when a person fails to fit the “classic” case of an eating disorder, they are often ignored. So, Richey says, you need me to be a teenage girl? I can do that.

(Note that in 1994, when this song was written, any eating disorder demographic outside the “white girl who loves fashion too much” model did not exist by medical standards and was usually subject to ridicule.)

Karen says I’ve reached my target weight Kate and Emma and Kristin know it’s fake Problem is diet’s not a big enough word I wanna be so skinny that I rot from view

Embodying the anorexic female stereotype allows Richey to criticize both the world and himself; by creating a parody of a young girl with an eating disorder, he creates commentary on how ridiculous and counter-intuitive her thought process actually is. The song is brutal and often focuses on nudity and sexual imagery, as it has been suggested in studies that eating disorders occur in those who are trying to annihilate their own puberty. Though Richey was well into his 20s when he wrote this, he often expressed a loathing of aging and the entire concept of adulthood.

Stomach collapsed at five Lift up my skirt my sex is gone Naked and lovely and 5 stone 2 May I bud and never flower My vision’s getting blurred But I can see my ribs and I feel fine My hands are trembling stalks And I can feel my breasts are sinking

Ultimately, “4st 7lb” hits hard as both an experiment in identity and a vicious satire of the rich white girl eating disorder cliché. Although the lyrics do not express a desire to become female, they do indicate that Richey feels everything might be easier and fit more neatly into a box if he were a girl.

[Coming in Part 2: The Girl Who Wanted to be God, Tsunami, Born a Girl, and Pretention/Repulsion.]

#gender identity #gender fuckery #manic street preachers #manics #nicky wire #richey james #richey edwards #lyrics #yes #little baby nothing #generation terroris #the holy bible #life becoming a landslide #4st 7lb #eating disorders #gender

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mousehole5000 · 3 years

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the rest... of... book 4..... through chapter 225

i sad.

“He was lying to himself and lying to others! All nothing but deceit! No matter what, it was impossible to pretend nothing had ever happened, and it was impossible to return to before!!!” - i know :(

“Before Feng Xin went, he was afraid. Now that Feng Xin had gone, he wasn’t scared any longer. But, even though he wasn’t afraid anymore, he was in deeper agony.” - ah yes. being afraid of your friends leaving so you do things to drive them away so you can have something to point to and say that you were the one who made the choice and you dont have to fear it anymore. except that has never once worked out ever and turns out losing people just means you lost them and it still hurts. not that i would know or anything.....

“He saw upon the table there were a few plates of horrid-looking dishes that were now cold. They were what he made the queen take away without eating a single bite the night before. Now, he pulled them over absent-mindedly, and ate everything, not daring to leave behind a single leaf, afraid to miss a single grain of rice. After he ate he started puking.” - this broke me and the bad cooking isnt funny anymore :(

all this happens after they have money again. no further commentary on this chapter

i know for a lot of book 3 i just wanted hua cheng to go away but now i would give anything for wuming to come and interrupt these interactions with white no-face

“Lang Ying, a brute commoner, led an army and destroyed Xianle. With the aura of the king enveloping his body, ordinary evil wouldn’t be able to come close to his person. However, at this moment, what Xie Lian brought with him were millions of souls of those who died on the battlefield!” - interesting to think about this story from lang ying’s point of view. the bit about his wife and child... oh my god... the things we carry with us...

“Will it really be alright to leave him like this? How about, I give him a cup of water?” - cup of water motif is back... ouch

“One person. Just one. Really. Just one person was enough!” - for like 20 minutes after reading this i really was just sitting here thinking about every time a stranger did me a small a kindness and the times i did the same it just made me cry harder i love people and they really can be awful and choose to be cold and cruel but it means that when they choose to be kind..... it doesnt negate the cruelty but its still indescribable.. and being able to see that and remember that even after all the pain.....

ugh still just thinking about the times ive gone through something that changed me and having the cold numb fear that i would never be the same as i was before that i would lose some precious part of me forever and wondering if this would be the thing that finally did it... i dont know if ive ever actually experienced a piece of media that really make me think about that tbh

“Stop thinking so highly of yourself! I don’t need you to teach me anything, I can learn on my own. If you represent heaven’s will, then something like heaven’s will should be destroyed!” - why is defying the heavens so sexy.... keep it up (edit after white no-face identity reveal: HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!)

the fact that xie lian went through what he did and got nothing out of it and in fact lost everything he had left due to the trauma,,,,, but just one person is enough for him to willingly offer to do it again, even if all he could save is one person,,,,,, crying again.... and who it is who takes it all on instead... ok...

“After all, everyone knew that Mu Qing ascended because he cleaned up all the remaining stubborn resentful spirits in the old capital of Xianle, so to understand it as “generous and kind” wasn’t unreasonable. In any case, everyone in the old capital of Xianle were all very grateful for him.” - its not unreasonable at all!!! this boy picks cherries for his mom and the neighborhood kids leave him alone

“Shaking his head, Xie Lian contemplated, then he ladled two large bowls of rice, one offered inside the Temple of Ju Yang, the other inside the Temple of Xuan Zhen. Finally, feeling that everything served its purpose, he clapped his hands close, completely satisfied.” - please i just want them to be friends again

ruoye........ xie lian bidding farewell to the tiny red flower.... ok i feel a totally normal amount about all these things

book 5 time!!!

xie lian king of taking a third option.. no one dies in the kiln at all we’re just leaving bitch

“Xie Lian didn’t know why he had to use his hands to cup Hua Cheng’s cheeks, but he did so subconsciously, probably so he could comfort him, but also because Xie Lian was afraid Hua Cheng’s face would be frostbitten by the snowstorm.” - gay people.....

“This giant stone divine statue must’ve been sculpted when Hua Cheng was trapped inside the Kiln, when he was severely beaten down and in intense suffering.” - ohhhh my god. okay. okay. look. i get it....

“The divine statue obeyed his command and took off with a gigantic, wide step, going along with the rolling current of snow. One slide was several miles, and the snow waves it created crashed around its body. Because both its arms were open, even though it was a body of a million tons, it still maintained good balance.” - HELL YEAH!! HELL YEAH LETS FUCKING GO LETS GOOOOO

the statue that requires transfers of spiritual energy... statue of make you kiss me i see how it is.....

“Hearing this, Hua Cheng raised his brows, his expression seeming to say, please have them beat each other to death, that’d be great.” - when you dont like your SO’s friends and they dont like you

“With a sharp sword in hand, Xie Lian was like a tiger with wings added, his might increasing exponentially, and he struck out!” - YES!!! GET EM!!!!

“No one could blame him for not knowing what was going on. Perhaps, he was confused the entire way: Why was he beaten? Why was he buried inside a wall? Why was he turned into a daruma doll? And why did he have to turn into a sword, too? There was not a single point where he’d figured out what was happening.” its okay qyz its okay i know honey me too

HELLO?? SQX IS BACK???? omg what a development omg omg okay okay interesting... okay so shi wudu would have rather died than lose everything but shi qingxuan is still trucking

“Hua Cheng responded lazily, “Oh? So you mean to say, beggars can’t save the world? Is it because they don’t have the ability to, or because they’re not worthy?” - KING okay i know this is a motivational tactic but also... who was it who took on all the souls for the human face disease and did in fact save the world back then hmmm?

absolutely enthralled by the fact that in chapter 207 we find out that the guoshi is in fact just. still here. and the name of the chapter is "Seeking Affection; Ghost King Fakes Displeasure” which i mean that happens too but fjasdlkfajsld

bruh okay. okay. okay. everything is happening okay. okay. chaos in the heavens okay. ling wen is still invited to kiss me on the mouth tho idc

“Indeed Yin Yu didn’t have enough confidence, and said weakly, “Chengzhu has shown me grace, he saved me…” “I know,” Jun Wu said. “He even helped you pacify and send off the resentful spirit of Jian Yu, who died during banishment, am I right?” - awww im glad they resolved that bit that whole situation was awful also give me the forbidden hua cheng ghost king lore...

“Yin Yu finally couldn’t take it anymore. He clenched his fists tight, his knuckles cracking, and he whipped around. “I DO RESENT HIM! I DO HATE HIM!!! BUT, SO WHAT??” - yin yu kiss me on the mouth right now

“Xie Lian hugged him. “It’s alright, it’s alright. These are all small matters, really. Your Highness Yin Yu, just live in this world for another few hundred years and you’ll know that none of that really matters. Either driven to madness or really wishing someone would die, whichever. Who in the world has never had such thoughts? I’ve even thought of massacring all in the world who had wronged me, it’s true, and no lie, I’d almost done it. But look at me, haven’t I shamelessly lived until now? You haven’t actually done anything in the end, and that’s the most important thing.” - he’s right im crying again

“But…in the end, I…still think…it’s so unfair,” Yin Yu sobbed. “If I was already destined to be no one remarkable, then at the very least, I…wanted to be a kind and perfect person. But…I couldn’t even do that. It’s really…so unfair. And truth to be told, even in this moment, just thinking that I’m dying for Yizhen, this little dummy, I still can’t get over it. I can’t even let go and die with a heart with no resentment and no regrets, what is that.” - YIN YU YOU CANT DIE NOOOOOOO youre the only man in this whole book i would kiss why does this always happen im actually really sad ;_;

“If the Rain Master was killed directly, and a better heavenly official couldn’t be found to replace her, the people put food above all else; if agriculture isn’t running smoothly, the world will be thrown into chaos. You don’t let people eat, people won’t give you a job. Besides being displeased with the Rain Master, the people of the world might also begin to be dissatisfied with the great god above Rain Master’s head. Which means, if he isn’t careful, the fire can burn all the way onto him. If things aren’t controlled adequately, it might incur riots to topple gods.” - rain master my friend rain master... also yes!!!!! food production!!!! critical!!!!!!! theres a lot you can get by without but food is not one of them!!!!!

“Feng Xin was Xie Lian’s servant, his good friend, but not his slave. He could’ve built his own home, had his own family. And he had actually already met those people, but the encounter just had to be during Xie Lian’s first banishment, the toughest days they suffered back then.” i am very sad about all of this

hua cheng in the palace of ling wen looking for the brocade immortal while the heavens are in complete chaos as the world turns on its head and STILL taking the time to beg for kisses is making me lose it fjalkdfjlsd

oh my god the guoshi and the cards thing..... hmmmm

delighted that mount tong’lu has such great significance beyond just being the kiln or whatever

hmmm crown prince of wuyong... its truly sad... but dude.....

the way that the heavenly capital is literally built out of previous gods... wow

the outright attempt to continue to cycle of trauma that failed simply bc 1. xie lian is his own person and 2. xie lian recieved kindness and gave it back to the world even to the people who refused to help him im ;_;

the absolute mess of xuan ji/rong guang/pei su/banyue/ke mo going down in the palace of ming guang... entertainment

okay i think im to a point where i dont have any possible spoiler knowledge in my brain about what happens next (only thing i have is theres a joke about he xuan eating that i dont understand yet and i think we might get like an emily corpse bride moment but if we do i dont know why) but oh my god things have escalated

#oh my god the next one might be the last??? we'll see #what a ride for real #tgcf liveblog #ty to everyone who comments or reads even a bit of these i appreciate you #mouse mumbles

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agape-philo-sophia · 1 year

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➝ Psychopaths Sociopaths and Narcissists Rule The World 🚨

Throughout history, psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, and assorted antisocial-personality-disordered individuals have ruled societies.

Psychopaths and sociopaths often exhibit glibness and superficial charm, have a grandiose sense of self-worth, are pathological liars, display extreme narcissism, are deceitful, cunning and manipulative, exhibit a lack of remorse or guilt, show a callous disregard for the feelings of others, have no conscience, lack empathy, and fail to accept responsibility for their actions.

In a competitive world, the people who act immorally, who have no regard for truth, are going to have an advantage over those who play by the rules. The result is that those who achieve positions of power will be the most ruthless, the most sociopathic, the ones without conscience.

In societies run by psychopaths, ambitious individuals and sycophants, who are not clinically psychopathic, are induced to model themselves after powerful psychopaths in order to achieve power. The result: psychopaths breed more psychopaths.

When corporate leaders, bankers, media executives, academics, military officers, government officials, Congressmen and Senators, and even Presidents and Prime Ministers, are liars and deceivers, and are ruthless, callous manipulators who have no regard for truth or other people, the entire fabric of society is twisted in their image, and psychopathic behavior becomes the norm.

Our world is characterized by: permanent war, full-spectrum dominance, targeted assassinations, rendition, torture, water-boarding, NSA, FBI, CIA, Mossad, MI6, NATO, Gladio, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, mercenaries, Blackwater, paramilitaries, Contras, counter-insurgency, nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, drones, landmines, cluster bombs, napalm, white phosphorus, Agent Orange, depleted uranium, biological and chemical weapons, enemy combatants, shock and awe,

mujahideen, al-Qaeda, Taliban, Islamic State (ISIS), Zionism, state terrorism, false flags, 9/11, color revolutions, regime change, coup d'etats, sanctions, drug trafficking, human trafficking, plausible deniability, impunity, fascism and neo-fascism, Auschwitz, Nanking, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, genocide, apartheid, dictatorship, plutocracy, oligarchy, kleptocracy, political sociopaths and narcissists, structural adjustment, austerity, extreme inequality, exploitation, poverty, elite pedophilia, endemic corruption, predatory capitalism, profiteering, tax havens, money laundering, bank bail-outs and bail-ins, too-big-to-fail, monopoly capitalism, globalization, market manipulation,

financialization, corporatism, corporate personhood, golden parachutes, fracking, mountain-top removal, tar sands, Fukashima, laboratory-created diseases, genetically-engineered food, glyphosate, medical-pharma mafia, vaccine catastrophe, autism, three-strikes, maximum-security, militarization of police, corporate media, public relations, propaganda, fake news, surveillance, RFID chips, optical scans, facial recognition, global government, the New World Order.

It is clear that this world has not been built by caring human beings, but has been constructed and is run by powerful hallow soulless individuals.

And, despite the violence, suffering and chaos they have caused, we allow them to remain at the top, and in control.

“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.” – George Orwell

➝ We Continue To See The Chess Pieces Coming Together More Than Ever Before 🚨: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1432349031010406408?referrer=MindCom

➝ Government cannot protect you from Violence and Chaos because government IS Violence and Chaos: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1437401288961691659?referrer=MindCom

➝ THE UNHOLY TRINITY of the control system 🚨: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1437098428600422401?referrer=MindCom

➝ The Real Pandemic in Our World is Moral Relativism 🔔: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1431594325652803597?referrer=MindCom

➝ THE REAL VIRUS ARE THOSE RULING OVER US 🔔 Pandemics Come And Go — So Do Tyrannical Empires: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1423345784581001225?referrer=MindCom

➝ CONTROLLED CHAOS — Divide and Conquer — Full Spectrum Domination 🚨: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1433946465872384015?referrer=MindCom

➝ Ordo Ab Chao — Order Out Of Chaos: Their Order ➝ Hegelian Dialectic — Controlled Opposition: Problem — Reaction — Solution 🚨: https://www.minds.com/MindCom/blog/hegelian-dialectic-how-the-government-uses-cognitive-dissona-923206440956583936?referrer=MindCom

➝ For Thousands of Years These Satanic Demon Rats Have Been Managing and Controlling Their Human Cattle 🚨: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1427437874696949769?referrer=MindCom

➝ The Papal Bloodlines Black Nobility Crime Families 🚨: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1430532570327552008?referrer=MindCom

➝ "Everything is Alright": https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1435654924376477709?referrer=MindCom

➝ They DON'T Serve You❗: https://www.minds.com/MindCom/blog/they-don-t-serve-you-908724247204122624?referrer=MindCom

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djregular · 3 years

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Gonna say this here instead of Twitter ‘cause I don’t feel like arguing about it, and one of my most popular posts here is (inexplicably) the time I posted the Anna & The Apocalypse trailer, i.e. nobody here cares about my thoughts like that.

I think my biggest frustration with stocks and crypto in the wake of all this shit with #GME and Robin Hood is that I keep seeing some of the most “Capitalism is a disease” folks I know diving into this fray, as though the ability for “regular people” to be able to figuratively poke hedge funds in the eye is some sort of necessary moral imperative for the poor/working class. I understand full well that there’s no easy way for us to untangle ourselves from capitalism as individuals. We have to eat, we have to have a place to live, etc. No ethical consumption under blah, blah blah.

The thing of it is, stocks, crypto, and all this other speculative shit is the one place where the only way to win the game for folks like us—and it is just that, a game—is not to play. These are systems where the whole artifice is laid bare, and it’s literally just people with at the least disposable income, or at the most incredibly sums of wealth, playing around with fake money. They’re high stakes gambling dens, and for some godforsaken reason way too many people have this notion that they’re Matt Damon’s character in Rounders. This latest round of betting may have exposed something about the game, sure, but it’s not a tell for you to get in there and play in the feeble hope that you’ll beat the house. The tell is that the whole game is fucking fake, and has been for this entire time.

The Stock Market: Our whole economy can be upended by things that actually do not exist, and the only people who actually deserve to see long-lasting negative consequences from downturns will always be bailed out by the government or have those consequences otherwise mitigated because they have enough real money to weather the storm.

Crypto: Fake, speculative “currency” that has an actual harmful environmental impact.

The way forward is not for us to fight for our ability to enter a level playing field with these ghouls. Believe me, there are way more than a few people encamped in the WSB reddit that are finance guys and people who’ve played the game for long enough to know better, and are just trying to get another leg up. Instead, leave it the fuck alone and push for regulations and taxing the fuck out of the billionaire class that runs it. You can’t just put up a casino wherever the fuck you want. I know plenty of gamers who railed tirelessly about loot boxes. The stock market and crypto shouldn’t be treated any differently. And if we stopped treating either like they had any real value, maybe we could get on with the real business of changing things for the better.

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paperanddice · 4 years

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Rat King

Rat kings come from a real world metaphor, a Germanic phrase about those who live off of others, the kings of the rats. That name was eventually applied to any situation where a group of rats were found stuck together by their tails, an event rare enough that the legitimacy of it is under question. Living examples are so rare as to be nearly nonexistent, and most specimen that people have found are suspected of being faked with dead rats. It hasn’t been fully disproven yet though, so most likely it seems like it’s possible, but very rare.

In fantasy, the tangling of rat tails instead leads to a collective intelligence that slowly grows as more rats join in. Tome of Beasts specifically ties them to Chittr’k’k, their demon lord of rats, so of course they’re evil. They spread the corrupting influence of the Abyss and are literally capable of absorbing more rats with a reaction that heals them the amount of damage they deal to any rat. Their primary means of combat is using the mass of rats that make up their form to bite and spread a vicious disease that applies exhaustion, one of 5e’s more violently fatal status effects. Four attacks per round add up to a lot of potential damage, and a lot of forced saves to resist exhaustion. Even worse, they literally radiate bad luck, forcing saves against a bane effect. This ability is incredibly powerful when stacked with its disease, making it far more likely for creatures to fail their save and suffer the penalty from exhaustion.

After discovering and destroying a rat king in the city’s sewers, a mage becomes obsessed with learning the secret behind the creature. He collected as much of the rat king’s body as possible, including several rats that were cut free but not killed in the struggle, and returned to his lab with them. He then collected as many live rats as possible, paying coin to beggars and children in exchange, and started purposefully tangling and gluing their tails together to see if they formed a new creature. So far he hasn’t managed success on his own, but the longer his tests go on the more likely it is for Chittr’k’k to take notice of his actions and “reward” them.

A rat king has taken leadership of a wererat thieves’ guild. The new direction it is taking the guild rests heavy on the minds of the lower members though, who joined to gain the money needed to live a better life, not to summon forth demons and prepare to undermine and destroy the city. This is where they live after all! But they’re far too afraid of the rat king to oppose it openly, and the city’s rat population is entirely under the king’s control, so they desperately hope for outside help that can remove the rat king without exposing them to danger as well.

Chittr’k’k has been summoned forth in the ruined undercity, a massive complex of ancient buildings buried under the current capital. He now wars with the Mouse King, who already had made his home there, and both powerful beings are seeking allies where they can. The demon lord of rats, frustrated that he cannot command the rats and mice of the undercity to swarm and kill the Mouse King so simply, has begun creating rat kings in mass to swarm the tunnels and buildings, absorbing as much of the Mouse King’s court as possible and hunting down the leader.

#D&D #DnD #Dungeons and Dragons #5th edition #D&D5e #Kobold Press #Tome of Beasts #monster

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alexsmitposts · 4 years

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America Under Total Censorship Lockdown as it Circles the Drain The United States is under a broad censorship lockdown. News from regional press is blocked from national coverage, stories are crushed, certainly Facebook and Google ban and delist, but now at a level that should be unimaginable. The stories run in two areas, seemingly unrelated, that being BLM protests and the other COVID-19. Both are political issues for sure. One strange, certainly inexplicable move has been made by the Trump regime, starting July 16, 2020. Trump has ordered defunding of COVID-19 testing, something that will certainly cripple efforts to rein in the pandemic, and he has also ordered massive cuts to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), ending their ability to report test numbers, hospitalizations and deaths. He then issued an executive order to hospitals to stop reporting COVID-19 data to the appropriate agencies and to channel data directly to his political staff. This will be the painful story as there is a reason for these actions, ignored entirely by the press, but first we need to establish the extent and severity of censorship from the ground up. We will cover a number of stories that should have been followed, certainly investigated and ask some hard questions. Real news reaches a very few and with it warnings, to be careful. Even the FBI, once the enforcers of corporate rule in America, is left out of the loop. There may well be a hideous secret being kept from Americans and the world about how bad things are in the US and any who threaten that secret may well face the fate of so many who have died reporting facts that make the Deep State uncomfortable. As a journalist, I regularly get whistleblower reports, certainly on a daily basis. Many are outrageous and conspiratorial and weeding between credible and insane is taxing in a world where “insane” is the norm. However, a pattern has made itself perfectly clear. Let us take a few anecdotal issues and see where we go. This week, in Detroit, a man convicted of two murders was released. It seems the police detective who handled the case back in 2002 faked everything, witnesses were coached, evidence fabricated, a man spent 16 years in jail and was obviously innocent. The story was reported but what wasn’t reported is that the same Detective Sergeant had done this before. All complaints were quashed by police officials, and many of his fake cases were featured on reality television. Up to half of the “solved” murder cases in Detroit, once “Murder Capital of the World,” involved this corrupt cop, who is still “on the job,” meaning hundreds are in prison for decades, even life, who are innocent. It also means this is still going on. Worse still, who did the killings? We now suspect that a criminal group within the police may be running a “murder for hire” organization and has been doing so for years. There are no investigations, and no one is asking why. Who are their clients? On a broader national issue, there is a huge but largely unreported controversy in Portland, Oregon. President Trump and Attorney General William Barr have sent several hundred armed personnel to Portland to act as fake police against protesters there. No one is sure where these men come from, the fake police, not the protesters, though this is a valid question also, but they seem to be prison guards. It is illegal in the US for the federal government to send police to a state. It is illegal for prison guards, who are not police, to exercise arrest power outside the walls of a prison as they are not “certified” and “sworn” law enforcement officers within the state where they are, in this case, deployed. This is a massive constitutional crisis. Then something more curious happened. Senator Ted Cruz, a comic figure, tweeted a photo of those arrested by these fake police. Photos of a dozen young men, all white, claiming they were Antifa operatives. In the Tweet, Cruz referred to their “mullet” haircuts. The “mullet” is a style often ridiculed. Those wearing this hairstyle are invariably rural, deeply conservative, and poorly educated. They are classic “Trump base.” There was little evidence, other than sketchy news stories, that Antifa even existed. It is now clear that the all-white violent demonstrators are hired thugs from among the rural poor, hired from “Trumpland.” This is a common GOP practice dating back to Watergate and Donald Segretti. The same story came up in Grand Rapids, Michigan when violent demonstrators began looting during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in June. Those arrested were white, had arrived from across the state, and had been paid $300 each by political organizers. Guessing whose political organizers isn’t too difficult. These facts were delisted by Google, the Tweets were taken down and Facebook posts were erased as well. No press follow-up was done and both police and prosecutors have since “disappeared” those arrested. On June 1, 2020, a Ukrainian truck driver who had worked for a CIA sponsored militia fighting against Donbass separatists, plowed his vehicle into protesters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Bogdan Vechirko failed to kill anyone, but shocking video showed 2000 peaceful demonstrators running for their lives. All reporting ended there. We found that Bogdan Vechirko was not jailed and that no legal action has been taken. Worse still, no one has asked why. A month later, in Seattle, an Eritrean immigrant plowed his white Jaguar into protesters killing two. His family has strong ties to CIA sponsored war lords. The video is among some of the most horrific ever filmed with those he struck at 100 miles per hour flying high in the air. He was chased down by a witness who pulled his vehicle over miles away. Press was told he is under arrest. No details are available. He may be out on bail; no details are available. Where he lives, anything about his family or background is withheld. He is a ghost. Only days ago, a Trump supporter entered a convenience store outside Lansing, Michigan. State law requires anyone entering a store to wear a mask. When confronted by a shopper, the Trump supporter pulled out a large kitchen knife, just the thing used for buying cigarettes and milk, and stabbed the 77-year-old shopper repeatedly. The video from the store is withheld as is the name of the victim and any witnesses. It gets better. In moments, police found the perpetrator and an officer pulled his car over. This was in an affluent neighborhood, in front of the perpetrator’s home. The perpetrator got out of his vehicle with a butcher knife in one hand and a large screwdriver in the other. The police officer, a woman with 22 years’ experience, demanded he drop his weapons. His replies, maniacal and haunting, are unforgettable, like something out of a horror film. As he ran toward the officer, she fired more than a dozen shots, hitting him 8 times as he slashed at her. He barely went down even then but died at the scene. Now the incident has been “un-happened.” There are no facts about who this was, why this happened or how the perpetrator, a well-paid state employee, became a terrorist. We have dozens more such incidents daily in the US, some are legitimate, angry people under pressure while others are theatrical with the perpetrator’s ghosts. As a juxtapose, when a wealthy couple in St. Louis pointed weapons at demonstrators near their magnificent home, media reported on every aspect of their lives, story upon story for weeks. These are all tabloid level stories that should have driven media to shake every tree, question families, show photos of victims and bloody crime scenes. This is how the media makes money, as the saying goes, “if it bleeds-it reads.” Not anymore, not when perpetrators are clearly not what they seem to be. Where are we going? Well, we are certainly going to take this one home. So, why is there a massive crackdown on reporting? Is it tied to police murders? Yes, maybe it is but we don’t think so. Is it tied to COVID-19? We have held off thus far in asking questions about censorship of COVID-19’s impact on the US. We will ask some of those questions now. We have both facts and “alternative facts” hitting the media regarding the pandemic. As COVID-19 levels skyrocket in states like Arizona, Florida, California and two dozen others, reporting becomes, not just contradictory but insanely so. In Florida the governor, DeSantis, claims that 98% of the state’s hospital beds are currently empty. The graphs he publishes are all over Twitter and Facebook, placed there by political trolls. At the same time, however, the largest hospitals in Florida report that they are at 119% of capacity and are overrun with COVID-19 patients. Rebekah Jones, a medical statistician fired for disputing faked data ordered by Governor DeSantis, says deaths are being not just underreported but on a large scale. Easily available video of overflowing hospital wards and licensed “real” medical professionals complaining of lack of medicines and equipment, can be found but are never reported on mainstream media. We do know this, the only drug that treats COVID-19, Remdesivir, is virtually unaffordable, is totally controlled by Jared Kushner and that the State of Florida, in the midst of a massive outbreak of COVID-19, exhausted all supplies over a week ago and Washington isn’t sure when they can release more. This isn’t being reported either. We are also told that those who die are often over 80 years old but massive anecdotal evidence, including regular reports by experts, cite the large number of young victims who are seriously ill. However, their serious illness and hospitalization is not reported and their deaths, if they are dying, are unreported as well. In fact, none of the data received can be depended on, not just in Florida but in dozens of states that seem to be “sitting on” numbers hospitalized and even fatalities. This censorship is driving many to openly shun needed precautions leading to massive increases, all documented, of COVID-19 infections. Why? Conclusion As a test against censorship and misreporting, algorithms are run, based on total tested, total tested positive, total hospitalized, total cured and those who die. As more are tested, more with lesser symptoms, the percentage of infected who later die is continually lowered or was until the beginning of July 2020 when numbers hit a plateau. When COVID reporting began to yield usable data, around mid-April 2020, death rates of those infected were at an unrealistic 36%. Testing levels, through presidential interference, were extremely low, something that would seal America’s role as a failed state. As testing increased, the percentage of recovered compared to deaths followed a predictable curve, which would flatline at some point. With testing levels, after months of interference, substantive enough to give a meaningful result and death levels somewhat modified by the use of Remdesivir, the death percentage “flatlined” at 7 percent. Thus, if a state like Florida were to have 10,000 new cases in a day, with an average of 7% dying, this would mean that eventual death levels would hit 700 a day for this state alone. This figure would be modified by higher or lower numbers testing positive or by lower death rates for larger numbers of younger infected. No such figures are reported. Using figures already proven, many states are reporting very inconsistent figures when looking at testing-hospitalizations-recoveries and deaths. Simply put, they are lying, underreporting by as much as 50%. Florida is clearly one of these. It is clear that the press has yet to do any statistical analysis on COVID-19. Why? There is also significant evidence that the medical community is aware of these inconsistencies. Respected medical professionals have come forward repeatedly with claims of underreporting and, more serious as well, their own theories that COVID-19 is a biological weapon. Attempts to debunk professionals by medical quacks and charlatans backed by conservative think tanks fill the media, while respected professionals are boycotted entirely. Could the US be hiding 100,000 additional COVID-19 dead? A recent leak from the CDC now predicts 800,000 dead by the end of 2020. From the Daily Beast: “If someone had suggested five months ago that we would be seeing more than 3 million cases and 135,000 COVID-19 deaths in the US by mid-July, I wouldn’t have believed it. But now it’s distinctly possible that, five months from now, half of all Americans could have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, and more than 800,000 Americans may die in this extraordinary outbreak. That is what many of our most prominent public-health experts now expect.” However, as of this writing that figure is 143,042, or is it? Is there a lie so big that the United States would find it offensive to perpetrate? I think we all know that answer.

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