Asperger Syndrome Dreamwidth Community

Expanding on one of the things I mentioned yesterday: for Pain Project reasons, I'm interested in knowing what you learned about atoms at school, and roughly what age you were. I'm especially interested in whether (and when) you were exposed to the Bohr model (there's a nucleus, with electrons orbiting around it at fixed distances) and the current consensus model (electron orbitals defined as regions where an electron is most likely to be found).

( Read more... )

We're living in historic times.

It seems like this message should be going viral, but it has so few views in YouTube.

Spread the word.

There are other troubling accounts, like the details in this interview with local KARE 11 news, and also this person showing local FOX 9 news explaining constitutional rights to viewers, for when ICE comes door-to-door with their armed gangs. Last night, I had not just the common 1 helicopter overhead, but there were 2 of them simultaneously which has never happened before. I have to wonder now if the new shooting is why they were there. As this witness explains on FOX 9 news, it happened in Hawthorn neighborhood, which is the one directly east of my Jordan neighborhood of north Minneapolis.

I'm not particularly concerned for myself. I am worried, however, about the care and feeding of my cat, should anything ever happen to me. As I've mentioned before, I'm not on the first list that my federal government is pursuing now, but I will be on their second and third lists.

• I saw the news stories like this one about the "Are You Dead?" app. I thought, "That's perfect!" I tried to download it, but apparently it's only on iPhones but not Android.
• I discovered that all Android phones have Google's own Personal Safety app. Maybe it's because of all the trying-to-be-helpful training options showing up everywhere, but the user interface is really awful. Even this explanatory article seems really long. I'm not sure I'd be able to use it in a hurry. I promise to make an attempt today to set it up, though.
• I just downloaded the ReadyNow app from Human Rights First. It's straightforward, and I plan to configure it completely for my own needs today. It is, however, another "active" tool instead of a "passive" tool that I also need to arrange.

Question: What is a good "dead man's switch" that will send an email if I fail to respond within 48 hours? I figure that's long enough that my cat won't suffer ill health without her usual daily feeding of special food.

So.... how about a little good news?

I learned today that back in November the gastroenterologist removed a potential pre-cancer in my colon. The message was delivered a month ago, but I wasn't on the correct health website (it's slightly confusing, locally) to see it until today. The lab notes were:

The specimen is received in formalin with proper patient identification, labeled "large intestine, transverse colon polyp". The specimen consists of 3 gray-tan to pink, sessile fragments of mucosal tissue, ranging from 0.6-1.3 cm in greatest dimension.

The doctor's interpretation to me is included below. I am amused that the doctor used the wrong pronoun for me. I'm reminded again that I wish English would just stop with the sex-based pronouns.

The pathology of the polyp removed during the last colonoscopy came back as sessile serrated lesion. These are benign but precancerous polyps with the potential to turn into cancer if not removed completely during colonoscopy. Thankfully we were able to remove the entire polyp. Because we found this polyp during her colonoscopy, I recommend repeating another one in 3 years.

Take the small wins where you can get them. Even if they're only 1.3cm long... which doesn't actually sound "small" for a polyp.

On the one hand, it is sort of obvious why I've decided I want to have another go at working out how Continental knitting works for a project that involves reversible cables and ribbing on DPNs.

On the OTHER, this feels like a bit of a trial-by-fire given that my problem has historically been tension...

So, I've written some drabbles. They are original fiction, for an urban fantasy setting. (And yes, I'm still writing more of them.)

I'd love it if you friendly people could have a read…

( five drabbles )

I finally retrieved access to my very old Proton mailbox. It was unused for so long that they deleted all prior content. I am, however, still grandfathered for a "@protonmail.ch" email domain. Here in the USA, however, it's easier to tell someone "@protonmail.com".

Anyway, I generally approve of this review of their security features. While subject lines could still be uncovered by a government, the text body of an email sent from a Proton account to another Proton account should not be available to anyone but the Swiss government, and even then only if you have broken Swiss law. At least, according to Proton's own privacy report on this topic. Other email providers are listed here as additional options.

Anyway, if you ever need to send me a fully-private message, then you're welcome to message me at:

[email protected]

Additionally, someone sent me information about a new tech called Reticulum MeshChat. (Sorry, Dreamwidth tells me that I'm unable to message you back directly.) I'm still looking into it for messaging even when mainstream internet is down, using other local people to create a mini-net. I've seen articles and pages (like this recommendation) about various kinds of this stuff, which I think crossed everyone's mind back during Occupy. I'll look deeper into this solution when I have more mental bandwidth. It looks potentially useful at first glance.

The USA is falling apart, but I still have to go to work. I suspect I won't have the attention this evening after work to post properly, so here's a quick note instead.

This first video comes from Mastodon. It doesn't offer any details, but someone local recognized the location, so it's definitely in the Twin Cities. My best guess is the intersection of Portland and Snelling on the far west side of St. Paul. Somebody posts in a reply to the original that they notice Bongino in the background, which maybe is why they were extra brutal, as performance for the boss. It's not clear if the abused person is conscious or alive, given how limp they are. This video clip is only about a minute long.

In more peaceful presentation, the Federal Reserve Chair who basically controls our economy posted this unusual video on YouTube. It's basically a 2-minute declaration that this Republican administration has corrupted the USA government, if you read between the proverbial lines like a Russian resident of a corrupt government.

As a text story bonus, Kristi Noem forbids oversight. Another classic fascist move, trying to ensure blindness to atrocities, demanding that people believe only what they tell everyone to believe. Exactly as those historians called out specifically in that video I linked yesterday.

Now, I have to go earn some of those soon-to-be-devalued dollars, so I can keep the electricity and water running in my house. And pay for whisky.

Update: I can't confirm this info (be aware of AI-generated fake media as a possibility for everything), but the U.S. Postal Service has apparently sent a notice to their employees about potential martial law.

Celebrating. A's birthday!

Reading. ( Rogerson, Rundell, McGuire, Clarke, Duncan, Scalzi, Hermé )

I also: remain up to date with Dreamwidth; worked through a brief pain management course for Youth, as background reading.

Writing. The Document continues to be expanded a little every day. It is now over 4000 words.

Playing. A bit of The Bridge, "a 2D logic puzzle game that forces the player to reevaluate their preconceptions of physics and perspective", which sounded like it might be about the right speed for me given that we'd just enjoyed playing through the Monument Valley series, and which instead for the most part does not seem to fit into my brain terribly neatly and is also weirdly evocative/reminiscent of Braid (lonely dude in a suit) while also being kinda... gay? possibly? I can't tell yet? Anyway we've played through I think the first four levels and might or might not continue.

We have also engaged in some Spirits -- mostly A playing and me watching, because I am not feeling up to timing problems and having to keep pressing Esc also feels overwhelming, but I have been Providing Commentary and enjoying watching the process of TURNING MUSHROOMS INTO CLOUDS to HELP THE LEAVES GET HOME.

We have also been playing (independently) sudoku, & grousing about each other's incomprehensible approaches to solving things, and then I nerdsniped A with a specific puzzle & they went to look up Theory And Strategy Of Sudoku, and I may yet get around to uh actually looking up the approach named "jellyfish"...

Elsenet vass has introduced me to Squardle.

Cooking. One spice mix, and subsequently one recipe from East featuring a vegetable I think I have not previously consciously eaten (Jerusalem artichokes). Another batch of medlar sticky toffee pudding as A's birthday cake; I think that in fact one cannot tell the difference between medlar that has not been jellied and medlar residue from jellying, at least in this setting. Also, turns out you can successfully add beetroot to the red cabbage and cauliflower udon noodles thing. Oh, and pineapple fried rice, which A had somehow never previously encountered???

Eating. We were both, on Friday, quite tired and sad. The internet brought us Pizza Express. It was good.

Making & mending. I FINISHED A GLOVE. I WOVE IN THE ENDS. Now to cast on glove #2 of that pair...

Growing. Both orchids seem to be putting forth flower stems! And I have sown lemongrass, pineapple physalis, and (not expecting any of these to actually germinate) some lithops I was sent as a gift a while ago...

I woke up around 1am, and I haven't been able to sleep again. It's about 4:30am as I finish this post. Today is the day before semester start, so it'll be busy/hectic at work, and I'm very short on sleep.

Just skip the stressful bits, or click to read them...

I feel that I was right in thinking Trump would save his best/worst for Minnesota. The previous surge of 2,000 armed and masked agents (Trump's personal army, in essence) coming to Minnesota was not enough. They're sending another 200 after they failed to meet their quota in Louisiana. They haven't even started arresting people on their new list of domestic terrorists, basically anyone who has ever criticized them or supported anti-fascism. I'm pretty sure my name is somewhere on that next list. Not to mention the still-proposed autism registry. So many undesirables, so many lists.

"Vote harder for Democrats" was never a winning strategy, as I've pointed out for a long while. The fact that Democrat leaders aren't even willing to join in merely defunding ICE as some minimal bureaucratic resistance is proof enough of their ineffectiveness. I want to hear concrete plans for constitutional changes that will prevent this problem in the future, not merely changing the political palette from red to blue.

I'm not the only one who's starting to wonder if we'll finally get a hot civil war phase started right here in Minnesota, maybe even Minneapolis. I'm not a fan of Jesse Ventura either, since I consider him a raging narcissist similar to Trump, but his on-the-street interview comparing events now to Gestapo of the past is definitely on the mark. He graduated from the local high school that resisted ICE during the last week before schools shut down in response to the federal invasion. He says some pretty inflammatory things in that video clip, and I tend to agree with him. He says, "Read history. You'll learn from history." I strongly recommend yesterday's talk from those historians I keep mentioning. One of them seems to pressure the other to suggest that armed resistance is the probable next phase, historically speaking, but neither goes that far.

I'm pretty sure we're all thinking it. As this pastor recounts his conversation with ICE and being detained by them, they want us afraid. That was the thing he was asked repeatedly, "Are you afraid?" They think their only power comes from the weapons they point at others. They clearly don't understand anything about democracy or resistance. Those historians publicly declare that the USA is now fascist. I agree 100%. Any plans we make now need to start from that premise. We're a plutocracy, and we're fascist. What do we do now?

As this person wrote on the Minneapolis subreddit in a thread about creating local patrols, "Alarmist isn’t a concern anymore when literally everything is alarming." A little good news is that a recent legal observer training session by MonarcaMN.org was apparently very well attended, with over 1,000 people showing up. As I remind readers here occasionally, I am Antifa, and you should be too.

I'll leave you with an amusing thought, a funny retort to the insanity of current events in the USA. This self-described "Emotional Support Canadian" declares that "Canada is taking Minnesota. It's settled." (YouTube short) It's funny. I chuckled. I wish it was true. I wish I was sleeping now, content that I'd wake up in Canada.

1. I HAVE FINISHED A GLOVE. Even I wove the ends in! So A now has one (1) glove, only... however long it's been since the 19^th of March 2025... since I cast it on, and hey, maybe I'll even get the second one done inside the year. Maybe.
2. I have contacted a potential therapist. (I am very annoyed about the therapist who looked extremely promising until I visited their actual website, rather than just their listing on the directory, and discovered the weight loss hypnotherapy offerings. The person I've contacted instead is explicit about HAES.)
3. In partial reward for same, I have asked Oxfam to send me more books. Most of them are about food; one of them is about pain. (Probably Philosophy Of Pain, rather than my area of interest, and definitely Old, but it was A Landmark In The Field and it was £3.99, so.)
4. SEEDS arrived, by which I mean oca. V glad I ordered a specific bag of the variety I was most interested in as well as the Mixed Bag, because the variety I was most interested in is not represented in said Mixed Bag. Which is fine, the difference is Largely Colouration Anyway, but oca generally do well for me and they're tasty and they're also very low effort.
5. I am having a bad brain week, but this evening we got the internet to bring us pizza and we spent a bit of time curled up on the sofa playing two different games, except my brain wasn't really cooperating so mostly A played them and I watched, and between the food and the shared activity and the knitting it's a bit quieter in here now, for which I am very grateful.

List of protests and safety suggestions: https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1q7labj/locations_of_protest_safety_how_to_help_if_you/

I'm trying to think what to do about the government thugs in Minneapolis and the threat from our Republican Vice President for them "going door to door to find undocumented migrants" (NPR.org) in my neighborhood.

I have very little furniture, nothing that would accommodate anyone besides me. I dislike strangers in my house, and I've avoided them for a decade. Now, however, seems like an appropriate time/use for the added stress of such social involvements.

Q1: Do you have any recommendations for some furniture that above all else is easy to disassemble? I've never bought furniture unless I could pick it up and move it myself. That means I have very little. I don't even own a bedframe, preferring my mattress directly on the floor. Easy to disassemble is a requirement, but non-polluting-or-destroying materials is also important to me. I'm considering the Thuma brand. Thuma's webpage says they use sustainably sourced wood, but they don't really explain details, so it might just be greenwashing advertising.

I intend to buy two TwinXL sized frames. They could both go in the spare bedroom, separately or pushed together, or I could try one of them myself if they remain unused there.

Q2: Do you have any recommendations for TwinXL mattress? Keep in mind that my little house upstairs goes from extreme cold to extreme heat because there's not much proper in-house ventilation. I'm considering either Purple or Nectar brands, but I'm very open to suggestions. Purple markets their Restore Plus version as better for side sleepers like me, with improved airflow, which is important when bundled under layers of blankets during Minnesota winters. That's the TwinXL model that I'm leaning toward buying for myself and the new bedframes.

Q3: Do you have any recommendations for a heated recliner? My old recliner (hauled here a decade ago after someone's relative died and they needed to clear the house) is literally falling apart now, so I need a replacement. If it was heated, then I wouldn't have to repeatedly buy a new electric blanket every 2 years or so. Most brands I see online come with far too many amenities if they include heating. I just want a recliner with heating, that's all.

TLDR: If you want just one thing to read easily, then I recommend this Minnesota Public Radio News text story or watch their Instagram video about it.

When my parents visited many weeks ago, I told them that I expected Trump to save his "worst/best" response just for Minnesota, because our governor dared to oppose him in the election. Trump and this Republican administration didn't disappoint. They sent a small army to Minnesota. There are confusing reports right now of at least 1 but maybe 2 incidents with ICE shooting at people, and at least one person dead.

Click to read the many links to other news sources...

Here is all the detail that I know.

• Livestream (after the killing) video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/6f2uyGkcRco
  (Google Maps pin for 34th and Portland, in south Minneapolis, not near me here in north)
• Photos on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/danielsuitor.com/post/3mbtsyiaxos27
• City Of Minneapolis official statement (also Bluesky): https://bsky.app/profile/minneapolismn.gov/post/3mbtv2rfhod27
• An early news story with links: https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/breaking-major-response-to-shooting-involving-ice-agent-in-minneapolis

We are officially in the "blackout period" on my team, where vacation time is not allowed, due to the increased workload of the new semester. Otherwise... I would be taking off this afternoon, starting this moment.

Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security posted here on Facebook (archived copy) that "MURDERERS HAVE NO HOME IN MINNEAPOLIS." The irony, it hurts.

Update 4pm Central: ICE/DHS posted falsehoods about the event. Of course they did. If you feel the need, you can watch the video here and here on Bluesky. It is not bloody or graphic. It is, of course, disturbing because you know that somebody alive at the beginning is dead at the end. If Bluesky doesn't show you the video, then you need to edit your Account settings to allow graphic content. There is longer and better footage available here on Facebook. If you need a method to rip videos yourself from webpages, then I strongly recommend Video DownloadHelper.

Edit 5:40pm Central: Someone took the video and highlighted where the driver was politely signaling to the ICE truck to go ahead of her. She was trying to safely leave and not hurt anybody. They posted this video on the Law subreddit.

Our typically authority-loving mayor actually said something surprising. He told ICE (YouTube, NBC News) to "Get the fuck out of Minneapolis." And our Governor Walz ordered our National Guard troops to protect Minneapolis from ICE.

The recent actions of the USA against Venezuela have several layers of bad news in them, depending on which layer of control in the USA that you want to examine.

Click to read all 3 layers of the bad move in Venezuela...

1) Power: This top layer is Trump alone. This is the wannabe strongman who craves attention. This is the carving of the world into regions of influence under supreme leaders. This is the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, although Trump himself would know little to nothing about such historical precedent.

This facet of the problem was very well explained by that historian that I keep harping about. This link (YouTube) is timed at the part of her Saturday video where she explains the importance of the rule of international law in the world, thanks to the horrors of World War with the possibilities of nuclear weapons in the mix. Trump has ended that rule of international law and order. Countries and factions may now (thanks to leadership by example) do whatever they think they can get away with, using any method (nuclear, biological, assassination, kidnapping) that they wish. See Russia->Ukraine (and others prior) and China->Taiwan (and others prior, like Tibet). They get a stronger position for their military takeovers of other nations too, despite any weak protests they might make about the USA actions in Venezuela.

2) Plutocracy: This layer is all about resources and capitalism. The billionaires will appreciate this move, since it continues the USA economy in a status quo mode for a while longer. There will be no religious opposition from the so-called moral majority to this use of military power without congressional approval beforehand. USA religion has been overtaken by prosperity gospel during the last few decades.

Why did God put USA resources under under the ground of other sovereign nations? It's very inconvenient. Now, we have to bother with going there to take it. Might makes right, since it's obvious that God wants us to have these things. They're right there! See: USA in Venezuela (oil), Panama (shipping lane), Greenland (rare earth minerals and oil), and Canada (minerals and tar sands).

3) Dollars: This layer belongs to whoever is handling Trump, steering him through well timed grift and praise to choose particular actions at particular times. This is the bad stuff.

This facet of the problem was very well explained by some random old guy that I'm unable to identify on YouTube. His channel is about a month old, and it's all about global economics. It might be AI generated, for all I know. This link (YouTube) is timed to the section where he explains that other countries were already moving to abandon the dollar as their international currency, and Venezuela was moving that direction.

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD why the USA was so friendly with Saudi Arabia after 9/11 and the fall of the Twin Towers. President Bush let them flee, no questions asked. It turns out that they agreed 50 years ago (in 1974) to sell all of their oil using only USA dollars, around the time that the USA abandoned the gold standard. We couldn't dare annoy them, because they helped stabilize the dollar. Saudi Arabia finally started leaving the dollar behind, and Project mBridge confirmed the transition away from the dollar. Russia moved to several currencies to trade oil. BRICS nations are using Indian rupee for oil.

Venezuela currently has the largest proven reserves of oil on the planet. There are rumors that I cannot even source properly that Venezuela was about to start selling oil in yuan. They couldn't be allowed to stop selling their oil in USA dollars. There's little left to prop up the value. We had to seize their oil to continue the dollar for a little while longer. That's the deepest layer of this terrible onion.

I mentioned this particular issue back in 2009. Yay, me. So much winning. *sigh* Not to worry, though. Trump's $2,000 paycheck will save me from the USA economy's collapse.

Reading. ... I think I genuinely have mostly just been stubbornly catching up with Dreamwidth (at time of writing I am UP TO DATE). No, wait, I did also (via oursin) end up reading several articles about the contents of Oliver Sacks' papers and personal archive, most of which was not hugely surprising given the results of some of my previous digging, but which has resulted in me reaching the firm decision that I shan't be citing any of his examples that can't be extremely independently verified. (Thoughts about case histories for public consumption continue.) And finished one of the Periodicals I'd had sitting around, and gleefully dumped it in the recycling!

I acquired a new book (passingbuzzards flagged up that Craft Wars #2 Dead Hand Rule came out recently; apparently I've been hiding so comprehensively from my e-mail that I presumably have a Max Gladstone Newsletter languishing somewhere in there) but it is not yet on the ereader. (And downloaded a Toby Daye short from Patreon, but that's not going onto the ereader until I have stitched it into the giant whole-series single ebook). I now also have two books sitting around in Libby. So! Next up Vespertine, then Rooftoppers, then maybe I settle down with Index, A History of the and actually finish it? Since I am no longer focussing primarily on pain reading? Because...

Writing. ... the document is over 3000 words long. At the moment most of what I'm writing falls into one of two categories: structure/scaffolding, and Words I Will Definitely Be Deleting because they're currently extremely note-to-self and will require significant expansion. But there are paragraphs! And I've written a little every day so far this year (except today, which I will rectify before I put the laptop down)! (The bar for Tick This Off My List is a single word.)

Playing. As of a little earlier this evening I have All The Inkulinati Steam Achievements, admittedly by Alt+F4ing my way through the Master run (i.e. flouncing most times I was about to lose a fight) ABOUT WHICH I FEEL BAD but probably not bad enough to go back through and do it Properly.

We have also finished Monument Valley 3, we think, in that we have All The Achievements... but we were a bit confused by the way it just sort of... trailed off after completing the Hall of Memories. I am sort of anticipating a further expansion, I think?

Cooking. This evening I decided I was Sad and that we were going to have Pineapple Fried Rice. A had not previously experienced this, and was... perplexed. Also mulled apple juice, starting with apple-and-ginger and eventually adding apple-and-pear to the problem.

Eating. Highlight: Lebkuchen and mulled apple juice from a flask (well, insulated mug) at the obelisk near the square water. Have also been Greatly Indulged with avocados, and enjoying them enormously.

Exploring. Visited the square water! Which was frozen, at least at the surface! There were excellent frost patterns on moss and also shelf fungi! Several of the trees had been decorated! Excellent stonk, v pleased. Earlier in the week we did a shorter stonk (... it now occurs to me that this is probably a family-specific usage...) around some of the back roads and enjoyed Ongoing Illuminations.

Making & mending. I have fixed Adam's glove????????? I have now made approximately nine tenths of a glove for Adam?????????? I need to actually do the thumb, but after giving up on the mitten flap in disgust after winding up ripping it back Multiple Times, this time around I ripped it back even further and then Grimly and Obsessively Counted, and... it worked??? (Promptly had to frog the bind-off as well, though, having forgotten a key instruction; I checked my notebook and was dismayed to find no notes on the obvious solution there, until I triple-checked the pattern and discovered that that would be because the obvious solution is literally a part of said written pattern...) Maybe I'll get the other one done in time for April (and before they've spent a year on the needles). Maybe.

Growing. CAN CONFIRM: MYSTERIOUS YELLOW HABANERO IS TRINIDAD PERFUME. Curry leaf cutting not dead yet. Have utterly failed to get any seeds sown this week despite Best Intentions but I have at least made the propagator more approachable, and ordered minimal Bonus Seeds (and indeed opted out of bonus bonus seeds altogether, good job me).

Observing. Robins, on my bike and at the square water. Corvids misc. Several excellent sunsets! And the almost-full moon framed perfectly in the not-exactly-an-alley the building front door disgorges into the middle of, which I made A go back outside to take a look at when they got home from work on Friday.

This afternoon I have, I think (I hope I have my fingers crossed) got unstuck on the pair of mittens I'm making for A, having frogged the palm yet again; I have been having inordinate difficulty with successfully picking up slipped stitch columns consistently so as to wind up with the flap not at a ridiculous slope. I don't know why I've been finding this so hard (it was fine on the previous pair!), and I am not super thrilled with the neatness (or otherwise) of how the picking up has gone, but I'm now most of the way to done with this one, please the gods may it continue thus.

A meanwhile spent the afternoon cleaning fountain pens, and was willing to do one of mine while I was at it, so the dip-fill that got done when the nib was reground has now been cleaned out and TOMORROW I can fill it with Its Intended Ink and THEN I will... get to see how much I hate the intended combination of colours, heh. (I am contemplating doing some inline journalling, with slightly different colours of ink for todo lists vs Recountings Of Feelings About Day.)

I am also pretty much caught up with Dreamwidth, by which I mean "I haven't finished reading all of today's posts, and I'm probably not going to before I sleep, but I am, like, at one day behind now", which is a joy. Along the way I have discovered that a new Craft Wars book got published while I was hiding from my many (many) e-mails; been baffled that uk.bookshop.org just... doesn't sell English-language Max Gladstone ebooks, as far as I can tell; and made slow progress on remembering that commenting is a good thing now, actually. (I've been leery of it while Significantly Behind in case Things Had Gone Bad in the interim, but I've been significantly behind since April, so I have some relearning to do.)

What else what else? Snow, a smattering thereof, or possibly just Very Enthusiastic Frost; finally managed to point out the octopus topper on one of the localish post boxes in such a fashion that A was able to observe it; there is a fresh batch of yoghurt to go in the fridge overnight and then get decanted in the morning; I have not today managed to sow the various grow-on-indoors seeds I want to get started in the propagator before it's time for Everything Else (pineapple physalis, lemongrass, ... oh no what's the third thing) but, hey, Perhaps Tomorrow. Many things. For now: rest.

ficinabox revealed the authors, er, several weeks ago. But I was too caught up with yuletide to remember to post what I wrote! So here it is. I had great fun writing this crossover between Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, where Charlotte gets a better life than canon. As I was pondering how to logically get Brandon and Charlotte to meet even though they live so far apart, it occurred to me that Sir John Middleton and Sir William Lucas are very similar people and would probably get along amazingly well. (The other easy way to do it would be to set it earlier in both canons, when William Lucas (not yet Sir William) is a prosperous tradesman, probably with business connections in London, and Colonel Brandon has just been handed custody of his dead beloved's child and is trying to figure out frantically what to do with her, before he has to go back to his regiment in India or wherever. I can easily see him marrying then to give her a mother, and if he somehow became acquainted with the Lucases while in London, might find Charlotte just the ticket.)

( Thoughts on the Lucas finances )

Title: A Summer in Devonshire
Fandom: Sense & Sensibility/Pride & Prejudice
Characters: Colonel Brandon/Charlotte Lucas
Author: Beatrice_Otter
Written for: hiddencait in Fic In A Box 2025
Summary: Sir John Middleton was happy to invite his friend Sir William Lucas and family to stay at Barton for the summer. Charlotte is happy to travel, and to meet new people.


( Author's note: travel distances and clothing details. )
***

Sir William Lucas had never aspired to visit St. James' Court, nor indeed to become a knight; he had been content with his life as a respectable (and prosperous) tradesman. When such an opportunity had been granted him, all unexpectedly, he had been so overcome with all the honor of it that he had not been able to savor the pleasures thereof. Given his humble antecedents and employment, very few in that place took any notice of him, and those who did cared more to practice their superiority than form any connection. It was an experience more pleasurable in the telling, for he spent many congenial hours describing the grandeur of the court and its people to his acquaintances in Meryton, as he and Lady Lucas took their place as one of four-and-twenty families of good breeding in the neighborhood.

It also spurred his desire to trade his business for an estate more suitable to his new dignity, for being Sir William of any estate (however small) would occasion less comment than Sir William, tradesman of a small market town.

( That being accomplished, he settled in quite happily to being a landed gentleman, and would never have stirred from Meryton again if Lady Lucas had not possessed the ambition her husband lacked )


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