This is the positive, non judgemental blog of a British female Mystrader and Carvelier, early sixties, unashamed fanfiction writer, Larper, Steampunk adventurer and Mother of Cats. Be welcome, whoever you are. Love who you want, be who you are.
Adult ProTip, from a security professional: If a kid tells you, "My parents are gonna kill me / kick my ass / kick me out" for something relatively minor, don't respond with shit like "Really? ;) that sounds a little extreme, don't you think sweetie?" because that shit really does happen.
Instead, respond as though whatever threat they are afraid of is fully valid, and offer whatever you can do to help- ask if they believe they are in danger of being hurt in any way, and work accordingly.
If they're overreacting, they'll usually realize and dial it back, self-correct and begin thinking a bit more rationally.
If they're not overreacting, and the danger is real, then they'll need a level-headed adult in their corner, not another condescending authority figure who doesn't believe them.
Some kids who ARE being abused will backpedal too btw, and minimize things. But investigating gives you a chance to assess, and lets THEM know that there are adults who exist, who- even when they’ve done something wrong- still care about their wellbeing more than they care about punishment
Basic safeguarding practice in the UK, if a kid tell you they are feeing unsafe, listen to them. Don't promise to sort things out, don't make promises you cannot keep. If they ask you to keep it secret, don’t promise that either. Tell them that in order to keep them safe, you'll have to share the information with someone who can help them. Tell either your Safeguarding Lead if you are at work, if you have one, Child Services, or the police. Never share it with a parent if they are the problem. Coax as much info out of the child as you can; names, what happened, dates, addresses, and record this as well as your personal details. Don't write it down while talking to the child, do it immediately after. If you want to, repeat it back to make sure you've understood. Don't ask leading questions (how did that make you feel?), stick to facts. That kid is trusting you, so don't dismiss them. Remember to trust your gut feeling and report it even if you're not sure. It's down to others to determine if there is a case and effect the child's safety. You are the beginning, the catalyst.
Maekar seeing how well you do with his kids and wanting to add another Maekarling
and you don’t need much convincing
18+ (smut, breeding duhhh)
he watches you from across the courtyard where you sit on a low stone bench, surrounded by blooming spring flowers and a gaggle of excitable children that are not made of your blood. but someone of lesser understanding would not have known that.
the deep crimson of your skirts pool out around you, an unfurling magnolia with velvet petals, as you perch on the seat with rhae curled in your lap, head tucked beneath your chin. aemon sits beside you, his head on your shoulder as he reads softly aloud, and daella sits at your feet, fingers running up and down the smooth expanse of your skirts. aegon stands on his toes behind you, pushing yet another small flower into your hair.
maekar pauses in the doorway, leaning against the stone arch as he observes. his children speak kindly to you, and you speak to them much the same, and as you soothe rhae with one hand, pet daella’s hair with the other, whilst listening to aemon’s muttering and allowing aegon to turn your hair into a garden, maekar realises something. he realises he wants this life with you.
and when he corners you that evening, his children put to bed and tucked out of sight, he realises you want the same thing.
he’s not gentle.
it had started gentle, as it usually did, but after pulling you apart on the flat of his tongue, followed by the stretch of two thick fingers, he knew exactly what he wanted and how he was going to get it. good thing you liked it like that.
maekar curls you over the edge of the bed, your body completely bare as you bend and lay amongst the silks and furs. a strong, calloused hand holds the back of your neck, anchoring you to the feathered mattress as he stretches your pussy open around the thick of his cock.
he groans, feeling your pussy pull tight around him as he ruts in. silk walls draw inwards, heavy against the ridges along his shaft and the vein, pumping hot with blood, that runs along the underside. his other hand is a vice on your hip, dimpling the flesh as he forces you back onto him, the slapping sounds of skin-on-skin loud in the evening silence of your chambers.
you mewl into the sheets beneath you, a string of saliva already catching out the side of your mouth as your husband thrusts into you, the movements deep and far-reaching. heavy balls nudge against the swollen pearl of your clit, and you mewl again, startled, when the head of his cock punches up towards the plug of your cervix.
“don’t fuss,” maekar grumbles, rutting into you, eyes trailing down the line of your spine and over the curve of your arse as he holds you down by the nape. your pussy drools around him, his flushed shaft slick as he pulls out, then shoves back in. he groans, “fuck, you always take me so well, don’t you?”
he doesn’t really want a response when he questions you like this, cock splitting you open as he pins you to your shared bed. you gape, breathy moans falling free of your throat as your fingers tangle in the silken sheets and sweat builds tacky down your back and thighs. he listens to you gasp and mewl, a crooked smile on his face as he kneads the fat at your hip.
“how many times…” maekar begins, sentence breaking momentarily as the wet squelch of your cunt becomes audible in the flame-soaked silence, the open hearth flickering nearby. you whimper, and your husband groans. “will i have to spill in this tight cunt before you’re full, huh? how many times will she have to take me before you’re round with my child?”
you let out a pathetic sound, some mix of a gasp and a moan, the syllables showing some semblance of his name, but it’s lost in the heat of your pleasure. a third orgasm sparks at the ends of your nerves, flames flickering across the walls of your womb, deep in your pelvis.
maekar grunts, strands of white hair falling loose over his forehead, cheeks hued with pink beneath the candlelight. he palms the flesh of your arse now as the hand on your neck pushes you deeper against the bed.
“is that what you want, little dove?” he asks as his hips rock, the leaking head of his cock pushing right up against that perfect spot inside you. your back arches and you cry out his name, pussy fluttering as heat fills the base of your tummy. he grunts, continuing as you squirm. “you want me to fill you? spill deep inside this tight cunt ‘til she makes a right mess of herself, yeah?”
“maekar,” you manage out, and it’s low and tense and strung across a high-pitched moan. you fist the silks and furs for support as he rocks against you, bed creaking.
“i’m right here,” he whispers, barely audible over his hips slamming against your arse. the fingers on your neck give you a gentle squeeze, and you suck in a shallow breath. then, he groans, the thick of his cock sucked in tight as your pussy flutters around him. “oh, she wants it, little dove. wants me to fill her—wants me to make you a mother.”
you cry out at his words, your release strung taut across your sparking nerves. it’s right there, your entire body growing rigid beneath him as he spears you apart on his cock. you grow hot, and hotter still, tension deep through the lines of your pelvis as you angle your hips to meet his thrusts, heartbeat heavy in your clit.
maekar huffs and grunts behind you, his voice breaking across a poorly hidden whine. “fuck, fu-uh-ck, oh, little dove, here we go, here we go…”
he coaxes you through your orgasm as it ignites and overwhelms you. your body shakes, trembles like a picked flower, as heat bursts through your pelvis and the depths of your womb, your pussy squeezing tight around him. you moan, his name and his title up in the air around you, as stars burst behind your lowering lids and your legs threaten to give out.
but he’s not far behind you—as you come, he groans his praises, guiding you through the fissuring of pleasure with “that’s it, there we go” and “good girl, just like that” as he ruts his cock towards the base of your womb. with each thrust into you, slick dribbles out around his shaft, and he feels it along the seam of his balls as they draw up, visions of you fat with his child at the forefront of his mind.
maekar groans loudly. “gods, you’ll look perfect round with my child—fuck, i’ll be good to you, little dove, an’ i’ll keep you full all—the—fucking—time—” thrust, thrust, thrust, with each word, before he’s letting out a hoarse moan of your name and shoving himself to the hilt inside you.
he rolls his hips, sliding against you in lazy movements as he spills right against your cervix. still fizzling down from your own orgasm, you let out a shaky moan as he fills you, seed too warm in the base of your pelvis. his cock twitches, jerks inside you as your walls flutter, then pull him in even tighter as his seed fills you, fills you still, then settles.
he doesn’t pull out, but he collapses half way on top of you—the hand on your neck moving to bracket your head. you shift a little, panting as he plants a wet kiss to the corner of your mouth. you whine, turning your head to slide your lips to his. he grunts into your mouth as your tongues meet, and you taste yourself on him as your heart begins to slow beneath your ribs. he pulls away, resting his dewy forehead against your temple.
“it’ll take,” he says like he’s sure of it. like he knows it will.
“and if it doesn’t?” you counter through a mumble, limbs lax as you melt into the silks and furs, his body a firm press atop yours.
maekar chuckles. it’s a deep, low sound that vibrates through his chest, and it makes a little whine slip past your lips.
“then we keep trying,” he mutters, rolling his hips and nudging his cock deeper. you whimper, a shudder racking through you in response. he kisses your warm cheek. “i’ll fill you again and again, every fucking night, until you’re too full to even move… understood?”
you nod, words evading you as he noses your cheekbone, kissing you softly there too as his cock twitches where it sits deep, plugging you full of him.
If the young think that only the young are writing fanfiction, what is supposed to happen to us when we’re not young? It’s not like someone who loves enough to write and publish fanfic is going to stop being involved in fandom (maybe new or different ones but not gone altogether), so are we supposed to…die? Are we supposed to Midsommar that shit and launch ourselves off a cliff because we’re too old for fanfiction? Is the ao3 curse supposed to finish the job? Where do they think we’re all going?
Not this again? There were people in their 80s loving fandom in the 1980s. We all grow old. I'm in my mid 60s. Fandom isn't new. Be thankful a gang of people forged the way ahead so you can enjoy it now. "Very well, Ser. You are grateful. Now fuck off."
And stop being ageist. Honestly irritating when people on here comment on age and call someone (whether actor or content creator) "old" and they're not even 50! You are showing how young (and ignorant) you are. You will be that age someday and when you reach it and realise you are still engaging in fandom and don't want to stop, maybe you'll realise how stupid you were.
Maybe the answer of course is to sigh softly and patronisingly, and say "Ah, you're too young to understand..."
Soft tagging @blockcat-safari, @jackdraw-spwrite, @cityofangeisislying, @audioeidolon, @venusplantt, @bardicc-inspo and @voidindite in case they would like to play along :)
(Feel free to jump in if this looks fun and I forgot to tag you!)
Tagz: @alighttoburnalltheempires @capetown-devotee @numberoneff-fan @h3rsh1esdah1st0r1e5 @lewisfairlytreated @marceline-urfavweapon @r0cketbabyd0lls @yousemasoulalai i wonder what u guys get hehe ^^
I want to know how one gets pwp out of this thing. Let me know if you have any luck @keirgreeneyes @blue-posey @copperplatebeech @hot-on-my-watch @etrebko
Then you’re gonna love this photo of Annie Jump Canon.
Working at Harvard in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s as a “Computer”, Annie Jump Cannon cataloged stars using their spectra from photographic plates, in an effort to understand the mysteries and peculiarities of stellar spectra.
This was hard, detailed, nuanced work. By 1889, three years into her work, she had classified over 1,000 stars. By 1913, she could classify 200 stars an hour. She could classify three stars a minute, just by sight. Using a magnifying glass, she could classify stars down to 9th magnitude, 16 times fainter than the human eye can see. And she did this all with exceptional accuracy.
Over the course of her career, she personally classified more than 350,000 stars, accounting for a mind-boggling 98% of all contemporary stellar spectra classifications, a feat that wouldn’t be bested until the 1990’s with automated digital sky surveys.
Cannon used these classifications to develop the Harvard spectral classification system (O–B–A–F–G–K–M), organizing stars by surface temperature and physical properties.
It is hard to overstate just how foundational her work was to modern astronomy and astrophysics. Her classifications have enabled more than a century of breakthroughs in stellar structure and evolution, including the understanding of how stars change over time and how temperature, luminosity, and composition are related. The system underpins the Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagram, one of the most important tools in astrophysics, and remains embedded in modern research, from stellar population studies to galaxy evolution.
The immense scale of her work was itself a massive contribution to astronomy. For comparison, before Cannon, star catalogs contained between 600 and 4,000 stars. Her work single-handedly proved that large-scale stellar classification was both feasible and scientifically valuable. She helped establish systematic star catalogs as a core method of modern astronomy and laid the groundwork for astrophysical research on stellar structure, evolution, and populations that continues today.
[ID: a cuneiform tablet displayed on glass, with a museum label that reads 'Complaint about delivery of the wrong grade of copper' - 'About 1750 BC (Old Babylonian Period), from Ur'. There is a larger tablet on the left, cut off by the border of the picture. End ID.]
some interesting things about our guy Ea-Nasir and his hate mail
1: the most famous one is the first one we found and it was by a person named Nanni. I just think we should remember the person who wrote it
2: we wound up finding like, a whole closet full of complaints about Ea-Nasir
3: I read translations of several of them as well as suplemental information on Ea-Nasir by the professionals that studied him, and it's been a while, but i will now tell you a summary of his life story to the best of my ability as i remember it
He started off early in his career becoming one of the main copper dealers working directly for the palace, where he built up a good reputation for himself.
Then he moved into being more of a middleman, buying the copper from the outlying city states and then selling it to his old contacts at the palace. And also on the open market. Soon he was dealing in both the wholesale ingots (which is what most of the complaints are about) and finished copper products direct to both smaller merchants and the general public - things like decorated copper pots etc.
At some point he wound up in one of the city states buying copper and stayed there.
It was the island city state of Dilmun, in the Persian Gulf, downstream from his hometown of Ur.
There is absolutely no evidence to say i am right about this next point, but i know how people work, and given what follows, i strongly suspect he got in with the wrong crowd and developed either a gambling problem or a drug problem (or it could have just been women and beach parties, but i do suspect drugs or gambling more)
Anyway, what we do know is that he sort of stopped coming back to his old city, and started running a sort of scam. I really think it was basically like the bernie madoff thing, he would say "if you give me the money, i can buy you the best copper at a good price" and someone would give him the money, and then he would spend that money, and then he would get really really hard to track down, and then when the person finally did track him down he'd be like "fine!"
So he'd get someone else to give him money for top shelf copper, then he'd spend like half that money on bottom grade copper and send the shitty copper to the person who was hounding him to complete his contract. That person would write an angry letter, often threatening legal action, and Ea-Nasir would basically be like "listen, you gave me money for 100 ingots of copper, i sent you 100 ingots of copper; if you don't want them now, that's on you"
He did this a lot. Two of the guys in charge of buying copper for the palace itself (his old job) had to buy good copper with money out of their own pocket after he took the palace money they gave him and sent shitty copper to the palace. And remember, he KNEW what the palace standards were.
At some point in all this he got himself a business partner, and one of the tablets is from this business partner, and it basically says "i'm sending you a good customer with good money who is exactly what this business needs. Please, please do not be the asshole you usually are."
Another complaint tablet i liked is like the third one this author is sending him and among other things it says "do you not know how tired of you i am?"
Anyway, as you can imagine, he burned all his bridges, ruined his reputation, and drove himself out of business. At which point he had to move back home. My guess is he left some angry loan sharks in Dilmun holding a large IOU when he bailed.
Then he tried to start a lot of other businesses. I think he opened a restaurant briefly? He even did some speculative real estate.
Somewhere in here, he had to sell some of his house to his neighbors. All the houses were touching, like, they all had shared walls like an apartment complex, so he basically plastered over the doors to, idk, half his house, and they knocked a door in one of the shared walls to access it, and just like that half his property became part of his neighbors' home. He must have been very broke.
In the end, he wound up running a second hand clothing store out of what was left of his home.
So that's the tale of Ea-Nasir, people really have been living the same stories since always, haven't we.
Anyway I think we should try to remember Nanni's name, the person who wrote the most famous of the complaint tablets
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
"(...) There's a lot of waiting around in filmmaking, and you have to be ready, like, you know, like an athlete. The challenge really is getting to the starting line in good shape, and then running the race is the easy part, sometimes. So often, the challenge in filmmaking is just maintaining your state of readiness. So that when somebody says 'action', you're entirely in that mode, in that part of the story, in that frame of mind, and that you carry the right feelings with you. And it can come at any time and then, you know, again and again and again - but it's mainly the spaces in between. That, that is very challenging; you can get very easily distracted.
People often ask, you know, what humorous things happened on set. For me, very little, because I want to maintain a focus (...) With this part in particular, you know, I prefer to remain... still. Yeah, just to wait. He's [Baelor] a great character because there's a patience to him and a kind of stillness that I find has a depth (...)." - Bertie Carvel
This is why there are no bloopers or silly photos. Bertie prefers to be quiet and professional, and simply wait. It helps that Baelor is patient too. I often think the waiting around would test my patience were I in the same position. Not that the man can't be won't have fun and smile, just mid-filming, he doesn't care to.
"‘I grew up live role-playing,’ (...) ‘spending time in caves and woods, being elves and goblins. It was pretty much my full-time interest at school and I did it all through my teenage years and slightly overlapping with the beginning of university. [He studied English at Sussex]. We used to go away for weeks at a time and live in character. But it never occurred to me to be an actor until I went to university.’" - Bertie Carvel (x)
This is why I love the man. When he talks about the moment when Baelor rides through the gates of Ashford as being a "bugles in your soul" moment, I'm sure his larping days are where this is from. If you've ever been live role-playing there are those moments that stick in your heart and soul as momentous never-to-be-forgotten heroic memories. He gets it.
I love how everyone involved in "Dalgliesh" shared photos of Bertie Carvel; not just official stills, but also his co-stars gave us BTS pics.
Yet, from the set of "AKotSK," we got almost nothing, and from "Doctor Foster's" new season, only crumbs. I really thought his co-stars were going to feed us, but I was wrong. Obviously, they are not obligated to do so. I just think it would be nice to get something that isn't a blurry photo or clips from set spoiling the new season. Also, I don't believe the narrative that I have seen on Twitter saying that Bertie didn't get along with the cast of "AKotSK," or that he has beef with Sam Spruell, which I think is people trying to create drama. Something else I have seen is some people say that he doesn't like taking photos while at work or with his co-stars, which I think is bullshit because my Instagram feed is always flooded with photos from the "Dalgliesh" set that his castmates took with him, in which he looks happy, and also photos that they took of him from afar. Anyway, I hope after filming is over for "Doctor Foster," we get at least something from wrap day.
Long COVID patients can experience severe energy crashes after physical exertion. New research provides clear evidence that there's a biolog
Full Transcript at the link; 3-minute listen.
Quote:
By taking biopsies from long COVID patients before and after exercising, scientists in the Netherlands constructed a startling picture of widespread abnormalities in muscle tissue that may explain this severe reaction to physical activity.
Among the most striking findings were clear signs that the cellular power plants, the mitochondria, are compromised and the tissue starved for energy.
"We saw this immediately and it's very profound," says Braeden Charlton, one of the study's authors at Vrije University in Amsterdam.
The tissue samples from long COVID patients also revealed severe muscle damage, a disturbed immune response, and a buildup of microclots.
"This is a very real disease," says Charlton. "We see this at basically every parameter that we measure."
I feel insane seeing stuff like this because this research already exists for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, a post viral condition caused by multiple types of viral infections that a LOT of people with "Long Covid" meet the diagnostic criteria for.
This article mentions that ME/CFS is a "similar complex condition" but that's DEEPLY underreporting the similarities. The phrase "post exertional malaise" (now researchers are trying to replace it but this article uses that phrase) was INVENTED for ME/CFS. It's the only known condition, before "long covid", that causes these kinds of symptoms after exertion!
It's good to know for sure that it's the same mechanisms at play when the inciting viral infection is Covid and not, for instance, Epstein-Barr or RSV, but half the time it doesn't seem like researchers are making comparisons at all, just reinventing the wheel and acting like "long covid" is a totally new phenomenon with no previous point of comparison.
There are literally drugs in human trials to try to treat the mitochondrial dysfunction in ME, this dysfunction is well-established and fairly well understood and I feel insane when ppl report on long covid without mentioning that there is already a named and studied condition that accounts for this subset of symptoms!!
SOME researchers are drawing comparisons but they're largely ME researchers who everyone else is largely cignoring because of the widespread perception that ME is a fake disease for lazy women.
That same perception btw is why "graded exercise therapy" (GET), or exercise gradually increasing in intensity, cwas for years the go-to treatment despite MOUNTAINS of evidence that it makes ME patients sicker. Some end up permanently bedbound and unable to even eat or drink without a feeding tube/IV because the damage is so bad!
The GET recommendation was finally changed only in the past few years in the US and the UK, and many doctors hate that they're not allowed to recommend it anymore, because they insist despite the evidence that ME/CFS is psychological and ME patients are just "deconditioned" and too lazy to do anything about it.
Now the same kind of "treatment" is being recommended for long covid patients despite evidence showing exercise is having the same kinds of cellular effects as it does in ME patients. "Taking PEM into account" sounds gentler but I'm deeply concerned about the reinvention of GET for patients who meet all the criteria for an illness that's been shown definitively to become permanently worse with GET.
This mitochondrial damage is progressive in ME, and there's no reason to believe patients who meet all the criteria of ME after Covid won't experience the same progression if they force themselves past their energy envelope in such a systematic way.
The additional finding that T cells — part of the immune system's arsenal — had infiltrated the muscles of long COVID patients also caught Iwasaki's attention, possibly indicating "an autoimmune response within the muscle cells."
This autoimmune response is well-researched for ME. Every time you overexert, you're injuring your cells more and more. It's deeply worrying that rebranded GET is being recommended for long covid patients who meet the criteria for ME when research like this study keeps showing it's the same phenomenon.
Baelor Breakspear is 39 canonically at the tourney. Bertie Carvel is at this moment 48 (and delicious) which goes to show that being the Targaryen heir to the throne ages a man prodigiously and isn't recommended to anyone who wants to live a long life.
Bear in mind that this is a medieval world we're in, and the average life span for such times is around mid to late 40s. Despite Baelor being high status, which can give you greayer longevity (you're not working in the fields, you get better food, likely to have food when others are going without after failed harvests, better medical care, such as it is), people age more quickly in such an environment. Adulthood begins around early teens, not late. Responsibility is loaded on younger shoulders. These people are learning to fight, they to go to war, and Baelor has been in tourneys in his teens, faced off against his uncle when he was 17, had that elegant nose broken twice, probably suffered unspecified other injuries as a result of tourneys, fought in a war, most likely suffered the hardships that come with a military campaign, as did Maekar. Maekar's skin is pockmarked from something like chickenpox, or worse, which may well have had long term health effects. All these things will age you. So although they should be younger in years, they probably wouldn't look it. Hence I think casting wasn't that wrong. Dunk is supposed to be 16 or 17 in the books.
Incorrect. If you made it to adulthood, you had a fair chance of hitting fifty, fifty five even in the medieval period. And if you were wealthy? Hoo boy. Your chance was even better. Your enemies in that stratus of society were diseases of chance (plague, flu, etc.), injury during war or tourney or diseases of excess like gout or type 2 diabetes, both of which can lead to complications that will eventually take you out. It's mainly a math misunderstanding. Baelor was mature, but he wasn't falling apart at the seams. Plus his dad was properly old, which indicates that genetically he had it in him. Now, would the Spring Sickness have taken him out? Maybe. But regardless, even real medieval people weren't dropping dead all over once they hit middle age. Hope this makes sense!
Interesting article. I'm definitely not suggesting *everyone* is dying in their 40s. *If* you make it to adulthood, you might have a chance of reaching higher than your 50s, but a high infant mortality skews the overall result, but people did manage their 50s 60s, even 80s. Lifestyle and status have significant influence on you reaching it.
Thoughts from a Broad @jaybeefoxy - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
