Never Grow Up! Never Surrender!

@delphi-star You do recall correctly!! She does not give a shit about that man! She's happily married! She tipped him for being a witness at her wedding!

This was so obvious when I realized it, but I think most people miss it, because we’re so desensitized by D&D-style magic with immediate, visibly, flashy effects, rather than more subtle and invisible forces of magic. When Gollum attacks Frodo on the slopes of Mount Doom, Frodo has the chance to kill him, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says:

Frodo: Go! And if you ever lay hands on me again, you yourself shall be cast into the Fire!

Frodo’s not just talking shit here. He is literally, magically laying a curse. He’s holding the One Ring in his hands as he says it; even Sam, with no magic powers of his own, can sense that some powerful mojo is being laid down. Frodo put a curse on Gollum: if you try to take the Ring again, you’ll be cast into the Fire.

All the other people in the franchise who were offered the Ring declined to take it because they were wise enough to know that if they used its power – and the pressure to do so would be too great – they would be subject to its corruption.

Could he have been drawing on the Ring’s power at this point in the story? At this point in the story we’re relying on Sam’s narration, and Sam doesn’t know what’s going on in Frodo’s head, so it’s hard to say for sure. Having used it once, after spending so long holding out against it, was that the breach in the dam?

Which means that the moment that Frodo succumbs to temptation is not the moment at the volcano – it was already too late by then. The moment he is taken by temptation was when he used the power of the Ring to repel Gollum.

‘I would ask one thing before we go,’ said Frodo, ‘a thing which I often meant to ask Gandalf in Rivendell. I am permitted to wear the One Ring: why cannot I see all the others and know the thoughts of those that wear them?’

‘You have not tried,’ [Galadriel] said. ‘Only thrice have you set the Ring upon your finger since you knew what you possessed. Do not try! It would destroy you. Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others.’

In other words:

Frodo asks Galadriel, herself carrying a Ring of Power, “Could I, hypothetically, use the power of the One Ring to do something magical aside from turning invisible?” and Galadriel replies, “Yes, hypothetically, you totally could, assuming the magic you want to do involves laying compulsions on others, but I strongly recommend against it, because it would fuck up your brain.”

This was in the first book. At the end of the third book Frodo uses the Ring to fuck Gollum up, forcing him to throw himself into lava if he disobeys Frodo’s commands.

‘Down, down!’ [Frodo] gasped, clutching his hand to his breast, so that beneath the cover of his leather shirt he clasped the Ring. ‘Down, you creeping thing, and out of my path! Your time is at an end. You cannot slay me or betray me now.’

Then suddenly, Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet filled with a hideous lust and rage; and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice.

‘Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.’

Then the vision passed and Sam saw Frodo standing, hand on breast, his breath coming in great gasps, and Gollum at his feet, resting on his knees with his wide-splayed hands upon the ground.

…

Frodo is sparing Gollum’s life here, and shaping that into his curse. He is only cursing Gollum—can only curse Gollum—as an effect of this mercy; if Gollum were dead, he could not be cursed by Frodo or the Ring; his survival makes the curse possible and serves as payment for the curse: they are in effect making a bargain here, wherein Golllum’s life and his sentence of dying in the Fires of Doom should he take the Ring again are as one, a package deal, which Gollum “accepts” by retreating with his life.

Then, once Frodo comes to Mount Doom, he cannot cast the ring into the fires; the Ring has him in thrall, since he has used it. Now into the picture again comes Gollum, whose greed for the Ring has surpassed his love of his own life—even having been cursed with death should he touch it again, he craves it and demands it for himself, taking it from Frodo by force.

Thus we see the Ring’s power divided against itself—it has defeated both Frodo and Gollum, and its defeat of Gollum inspires Gollum to fight Frodo for it, invoking the curse. And thus Sauron, who has it, now, by virtue of both its erstwhile Bearers falling under its (and therefore its Lord’s) sway, is cheated out of it by the effects of Frodo’s act of mercy.

Frodo spared Gollum, and used the Ring’s power to set a curse, and when Frodo faltered, it was Gollum whom he spared who took the Ring from him and invoked that curse, falling into the Fires of Doom and, due to the same greed that defeated Frodo, taking the Ring with him.

If there had been no sparing Gollum, there would have been no curse, and Frodo would have had the task Isildur failed at—destroying the (beautiful, useful, lovely ring)—set before him alone, and he may have succeeded, or he may have failed, or he may have tarried too long in the struggle for Sauron’s destruction to come in a timely fashion, or the resolution and the Ring’s destruction may have hurt him far beyond the loss of a finger.

Instead, there was Gollum, in thrall to Sauron yet doomed by Frodo, to take from Frodo both the Ring and the burden of destroying it. Frodo, in his mercy-tinged use of the Ring, effectively shifted the impetus behind the Ring’s destruction from himself to the doom laid on Gollum—and Sauron’s hold over Gollum made it a near certainty that the doom would come to pass: Gollum would die, and not surrender the Ring, and thus the Ring would fall with him into the fires of Mount Doom.

The warrior-poet-king Cú Chulainn was, eventually, brought down because he was bound by a geas. His geas was to never eat the flesh of a dog (I believe by Culann, but I’m not sure on that). Well, he got served some dog stew. He couldn’t eat it, because it was dog. But he couldn’t not eat it, because that would be extremely rude, according to cultural custom at the time - a custom so strong, it might as well have been a geas on its own. Either way, he was breaking a geas’ rules, and this magically weakens him before an upcoming battle. He - and his charioteer and horse - are slain

He tells you he’s okay and you believe him, because you have to; because not believing him would mean he’s lying about the fractured ribs and the ligature marks on his neck that make his voice sound like it hurts to speak. He tells you not to worry, that he’s been at this for twenty some odd years and he’s use to the pain, but the stakes are higher now, the threats are greater, and all you can do is watch a man that you’ve come to love, take longer and longer to heal. It doesn’t escape you how much more grey is in his hair from when you first met him, how many new scars litter his body, how he tries to quiet the sound of every twinge and ache that he feels just getting up out of bed. 

You tell him to rely on you more and he says he’s gonna, but somehow it feels like another lie.

One day, the man you love will die, and it’ll be his own damn fault, but you’ll still feel responsible and he’ll give you one last look and say that he’s glad it was him.

When I moved, I’m certain they understood I was leaving because I had all my stuff and gave them lots of food and compliments.

But, they chased down my friend who lived in the next burrough over. They had recognised that friend with me several times and followed them to their house when they couldn’t find me.

They adopted my friend and it was now my friend’s job to bring them snacks and receive the presents.

This was maybe 6-7 years ago.

I visited London last year. Went to see my friend. The crows all not only recognised me, they tracked me down. We got into my friend’s flat and not twenty minutes later there was chaos on the balcony.

We open the curtains, the entire fucking murder is there shouting because they wanted to see me.

I used a purchased sewing pattern once in 2011 and I've drafted everything myself since then, so I'm not the right person to ask, but hopefully people will leave suggestions in the notes.

I guess the best way to tell would probably be to see if there's a blog or a social media presence indication a real human who's been around for years, instead of just a lone etsy shop that's popped up suddenly. I've also heard the ai scam ones are suspiciously cheap? I know there's also a website called Pattern Review.

Even though I haven't sewn any of these I would like to shoutout my friend Scroop Patterns, who is a real human & sewing/costuming teacher who I've been following for about 15 years and who puts a ton of work into her patterns and instructions, and thoroughly tests them. Even sews up at least one sample for each pattern on a cheap beginner sewing machine! She also has posts with the tester makes, and various other useful information on her blog.

None of them are button up shirts, so it's not what you're looking for, but she's got a nice variety of both modern and historical things that get very good reviews so I'm sure somebody seeing this will find them useful.

i cant be normal about anything i like ever . it has to consume me like evil mold

-by thegingerwrites

After an argument over Ahsoka's training, Obi-Wan and Anakin wake up to find themselves padawans again. Eighteen years old with no idea of where they are and how they got there. With no time to figure out what has happened to them, they have to follow Ahsoka and their men into battle.

Obi-Wan Kenobi has no idea who this pretty padawan is or where this strange connection between them came from.

Anakin is desperate to know what his master was like as a padawan.

Ahsoka hopes that all of them make it out of this in one piece.

—————

Why would the physical manifestation of oppression come from Naboo it’s not like our planet is segregated and the native population can’t travel off world or trade with the greater galaxy unless it’s through our spaceport. It’s all cool though cause we let Jarjar in the senate so we technically let them off planet to represent themselves.

Sitting down at the table, I remembered the scars on my arm. The universal signifier of "This Kid Needs Help." Maybe his kindness was only out of pity. He saw those and assumed there was some great misery and wanted to offer me some relief. It's generally good to be kind to people who are hurting. But I wasn't hurting that bad.

The thing is, there is some great misery. People generally aren't doing that great. There is a great misery within me and within him and within everyone, and some people notice the pain, some people express it, others don't. But we all suffer from something.

It doesn't matter if someone seems to deserve some relief. Everyone needs it. Everyone is suffering constantly. Some more than others, but still. This Kid Needs Help applies to everyone.

Thirty minutes later, I went to get a second pastry, intending to pay and leave a tip this time. It was the same cashier. As he reached to grab it for me, I saw scars on his arm.

when you deposit a paycheck in a traditional bank account, you go online and see the number in your balance. to you, it looks like there is a single account that quarantines your money away from everybody else’s. you may think that when you deposit money in the bank, the bank is just holding that money for you, but actually, by depositing money is a bank, you are lending the bank company your money.

a bank company’s core function is to make money by bundling together the deposits that many customers have lent it, and investing that money in the stock market. the bank’s investments earn interest, which is the bank’s profit. if you have a savings account, you’re essentially telling the bank “hey, I plan to have this money sitting here for a while without drawing on it.” a savings account is a more stable investment base than a checking account for the bank, which is why the company incentivizes you to have one. when you earn interest on a savings account, that is the bank giving you a tiny kickback of the money they are making through investing your (and others’ blended) deposits.

the traditional banking system is insured by the federal deposit insurance corporation (FDIC), which is a government agency. if you took all your money out of the bank and hid it under your mattress, if somebody broke into your house and stole it, you will lose all your money. but the government insures money in traditional banks, usually up to $250,000 per consumer account. this means that even if the bank company’s investments all fail and the bank company loses all your cash, the government will bail the bank out, and you will not lose your money.

by putting your money in a traditional bank, you ensure your money is protected, you get a small kickback of interest, and you get access to the convenience of the bank’s online platform to track your finances. you also get a debit card to easily make purchases by drawing directly from your accounts. for the bank company, they get billions of dollars of interest-free loans, in the form of their customer’s deposits, to invest in the stock market. at its core, ignoring fees and credit cards and mortgages, this is how the banking system works.

bankification is the idea that non-banking companies are trying to operate like banks. this includes tech companies like Apple offering credit cards, but an aspect of bankification that is less understood is companies incentivizing consumers to give them interest-free loans. while banks are regulated by the government in exactly when and how they can operate within this business model, other companies trying to profit through this model are not always beholden to these regulations because their activities are not technically considered banking. let’s look at an example: loyalty programs.

in 2025, starbucks has an estimated $2 billion in deferred revenue from their loyalty program. deferred revenue is like a gift card; the company receives money because the customer paid up-front for the gift card, but the company is beholden to discount a future purchase by the pre-paid amount. there are multiple advantages to receiving deferred revenue for a company.

when a customer loads money onto their starbucks loyalty account, they are essentially buying a digital gift card. remember how banks encourage consumers to put money into savings accounts because it is a long-term holding account, which makes it a more stable investment base? once you buy a gift card, you cannot convert it back into cash. the money cannot leave the company, making a very stable investment base. starbucks offers a lot of benefits and discounts for customers who load money onto their loyalty accounts because starbucks recognizes the value of a captive investment base of interest-free loans. when many customers prepay through the loyalty program, starbucks is using that pooled money the same way a bank does: investing it to make even more money.

as a side note, two other major advantages of this gift card model for companies is inflation and breakage. money loses value over time through inflation. when you buy a gift card, you pay the money upfront, and the company can invest that money sooner at its higher value. breakage is the idea that if a gift card is bought but never redeemed, then the company essentially got money for nothing.

now, does this bankification through loyalty programs directly hurt consumers? well, not really. consumers who participate in these sorts of loyalty programs get benefits like discounts. the problem is indirect harms: that this money is uninsured for the consumer, and the deferred revenue investment base is less regulated than traditional banks.

if starbucks’ investments failed and the company died, any money those customers had paid into the loyalty program but had not yet used on purchases would disappear. the money is not insured, so the customer wouldn’t get it back. the same is true for keeping your money in any non-FDIC insured company, including companies like PayPal and Cashapp*. (*some services from those platforms, usually the credit cards, are insured because they have a backing partner bank. but a sitting balance in a free account is usually not FDIC-insured. don’t leave your money sitting in these accounts.)

because companies investing their deferred revenue is regulated and taxed differently than traditional banks’ investments, not only if there less protection for the consumer, but there is less protection for the wider economy. If a bankified company with significant investments into other bankified company fails, this can cause a shockwave effect similar to the 2008-9 financial crisis wherein all the interconnected bankified companies are destabilized. banks are heavily regulated to avoid that happening again, but bankified companies are not beholden to that legislation.