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stressisakiller · 4 years ago

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The Sunflower and His Star

Bucky Barnes x Reader Soulmate AU

(Hello Sunflower Part 13)

Summary: What happens when you and Bucky are framed for the murder of a Wakadian King?

Warnings: mentions of death, interrogation and a couple of cuss words

Word Count: 3k

A/N: Ok guys this is the final chapter of the main storyline. I have a couple of Ideas for some offshoot chapters that are more like drabbles, but otherwise, this fic is done. Well after I add the Wanda and Vision chapter. I will be going back and making some changes, especially after watching The Winter Soldier tonight and seeing some inconsistencies.

Please let me know if you have any drabble requests. I will probably put them under a different heading just to keep it all clean and clear.

Thank yall for reading!!!

Series Masterlist

<< Previous

It’s been 2 weeks since the trial, you and Bucky have spent the majority of that time within the confines of the tower, with the small exception of running to your favorite coffee shop a couple of blocks away. The morning starts off like any other, you wake up way too early and go for a run, leaving Bucky to sleep in for once. You are walking to the kitchen passing through the common room when your attention is caught by the headline of the TV. You freeze, Wakanda’s King and other dignitaries are dead after an explosion at the Vienna international center. You see the photo that shows the suspected culprits and you collapse into the chair behind you. The two people running from the scene look like you and Bucky because of course, they do.

“Friday, could you please ask Tony to come here.” your voice is shaky as you call out to the AI. “Tell him it’s urgent.”

“Yes, ma’am”

It takes Tony all of two minutes to come rushing into the room.

“Friday said you called for me and that it’s important.” He speaks between deep breaths, showing just how quickly he ran at your summons. You just point at the TV and the breaking news displayed.

“Fuck,” is the first word that comes from his mouth after a moment of stunned silence, “wait, wait wait. That’s not possible, you were here that day, we watched Lord of the Rings with Cap and his girl.”

“Right,” you agree, “since neither of us had seen them before. Although I’m pretty sure Bucky read the Hobbit when it came out, cause he’s ancient.” you allow yourself a small amount of humor in the face of this news. If you didn’t have humor you would have given up a long time ago.

“Then it’s fine you have alibis. And Friday as proof.” He says as if it were the simplest thing ever.

“But will anyone believe us? Our alibi is that we stayed in our room all week and then had a movie marathon with three people who would probably lie for us anyway. Nat was there with the new King and she texted me and told me he’s pissed and will do anything to find his dad’s killer, which as of now everyone believes to be me and Buck.”

You are trying to keep your hands from shaking, you couldn’t have one fucking day without some new bullshit popping up, could you? At that moment Tony’s phone begins to ring, he looks at it and then at you with a grimace. You just wave for him to answer it, you knew this was going to happen. Once he finishes the call he looks at you.

“That was King T'Challa, he said he would like to speak with you both in person.”

“Fine,” you answer, keeping your voice firm, “but he has to come here, I’m not going somewhere I don’t know to speak with someone who wrongly believes that I killed their dad. I’ve had enough torture to last a lifetime.”

He nods at your words, agreeing. “That’s what I told him, he said he would be here in 30 minutes.” You shake your head at his words.

“How the fuck will he be here in… you know I don’t even care right now. Let me just go wake up the grizzly bear and we will have a calm uneventful talk with the Monarchy.”

You trudge to your room and open the door. The sight of Bucky sprawled out across the bed relaxes you enough to smile. You step up to him and sit on the edge, tracing his face lightly to wake him up. He’s used to you waking him up like this so he doesn’t freak out.

“Morning,” He gives you a dopey smile with his eyes closed before immediately sitting up at the look on your face, hands coming up to cradle your cheeks, “What happened?”

“We’ve been framed for a crime and now the king of Wakanda wants to talk to us about whether or not we killed his father.” You whisper.

“Fuck.” He wipes a hand across his mouth, “When will he get here?” You hate how resigned he sounds.

“We have about thirty minutes so I’d get dressed if I were you, I’ll go make some breakfast.”

You leave him to get ready and walk to the kitchen to start making some eggs and bacon, might as well have a good breakfast since the rest of your day will probably be shit.

There is an alert from Friday that an aircraft holding the king and his warriors has landed on the roof. You take a deep breath and continue to drink your coffee, there is no reason for you to be anxious you did nothing wrong. The guests march into the room, straight to where you and Bucky are sitting.

“Come we need to speak with you.” Says the man at the front of the group. You immediately realize that he must be the King. You are surprised by how muscular he is, Wakanda must value strength in their culture.

“I’m not going anywhere, whatever you want to ask us you can ask us here. We agreed to answer your questions, not to be taken away and interrogated.” You speak as evenly as you can, looking straight into the angry eyes in front of you. You can see his hand clench and the warriors behind him grasping their spears tighter. Tony steps in between the two of you.

“I invited you here for a civilized conversation, not an interrogation.” He speaks calmly yet firmly.

“Screw that, these two soldiers killed my father and countless others. I will have justice for their crimes.” He is practically vibrating with anger at Tony’s words.

“I will admit that we have done terrible things, but I swear that this isn’t one of them,” Bucky says standing and placing his hand on your shoulder.

“Do you have proof of that?” One of his warriors steps forward to speak.

"Well-” You turn towards her as you speak “-for 3 days ago we have the witness of a priest, a judge, and about 20 others."

"A priest?" The King’s voice is full of confusion.

"Yes, a priest, we got married 3 days ago and since then have stayed confined to our room for a stay-in honeymoon, other than a movie night last night with three other people that Friday will be able to provide you with a record of." You are calm as you speak, you have been through worse things than this.

“Who is Friday and who are your witnesses for this movie night?” The Warrior demands, obviously, the King trusts her, or else he wouldn’t let her interrupt so often.

“Friday is Tony's AI and the witnesses are Tony, Captain American, and Cap's soulmate.” He isn’t going to like that, honestly, if you were him you wouldn’t like it either, it’s too convenient.

“Well, how can I trust them? One is your brother, one is the Winter soldier’s best friend and the other is Captain America's soulmate, she will say whatever he asks her to.” he spat, you couldn’t help but snort at his words.

“You obviously haven’t met her.”

You finally agree to go into separate rooms and speak with one of the warriors, but they were not allowed to keep their weapons. After being asked an insane amount of questions you finally decided that you are done, you had done nothing wrong and Bucky needs you.

“If you are quite finished asking the same 5 questions worded differently over and over, I would like to see my husband.” You are over being patient with them, it was getting you nowhere.

"Your husband? You and the soldier are married?” She looks at you incredulously.

“Yes I believe we mentioned this when you all got here, it is known to happen between soulmates. We got married 3 days ago in the tower, not that it is any of your business, and considering neither of us have done anything against you or your country I would like to see him.”

“You and the Winter Soldier are soulmates? Why haven’t you told anyone?”

“Yes we are soulmates and all the important people in our lives do know. We don’t make things like that public knowledge since Hydra can and will use it against us. Now I am going to go see my husband. And his name is Bucky”

Without waiting for an answer you walk out the door and head down the hallway towards the raised voice of the person questioning Bucky.

You step through the door without knocking and the sight before you almost breaks you. The warrior is yelling at Bucky while he stared blankly forward, you had only seen him like this a couple of times before. He is stuck in his memories and is accepting all blame for something he isn’t responsible for. You walk straight to him and place your hand on his shoulder, letting him know that you are there for him. The lady's yelling stops as soon as you step forward and she instead begins to glare at you.

“What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in the other room?” She doesn’t hide the malice in her voice. You can understand if you thought that someone had killed someone you loved you too would do anything to catch the killer.

“Well considering that we did nothing wrong and I am the one who lives here I decided that we are done being interrogated.” Speaking quickly and firmly to the warrior, you defend your soulmate. “You see my husband and I were here at Stark tower when this tragedy happened. We decided to have a couple of days at home to relax since 2 weeks before I had been kidnapped and tortured by a man I believed to be my father for the first 25 years of my life.” The volume of your voice slowly increases as the ridiculousness of the situation and your life sink in. “Then I was questioned in front of the entire United States about crimes that I was forced to commit when brainwashed by HYDRA. Which most people believed was destroyed during WWII when in fact it was hidden inside of SHIELD. We decided, as many soulmates do, to get married and we haven’t left the tower in 5 days, if you won’t take my word for it, Tony’s AI Friday has full records of everyone coming and going from the tower as well as surveillance. But for now, you have done enough and I would like to take my husband to our room. I don’t care if you insist on surveillance in fact I expect it from you at this point. But we are done here and you can speak with Tony for anything else you may require."

You don’t allow her to interrupt, you are so fucking done at this point. You turn to Bucky, who still hasn’t moved once you had thoroughly reprimanded the woman in front of you and the King you knew to be watching through Friday. You crouch in front of your soulmate and gently place your hand on his cheek.

“Hey Sunflower, I need you to come back to me. At least walk with me to our room.” he nods at your request and you both slowly stand and walk out of the room.

You gently tug Bucky into your room, pulling him to the bed and having him sit. You crouch back down in front of him and take his hands.

“Bucky,” your voice is soft and you try to pull him back, “Sunflower, please come back to me. The sun is up and your dreaming is done, my love. You aren’t there, you haven't hurt anyone, and no one here will harm you.” You can see his eyes start to focus back on you, pulling him out of the memories that he had been caught up in.

“Sorry.” His voice is raspy from being so caught up in his memories, he sounded as if he had cried for days.

“No need to apologize to me my love, we are ok." As soon as you say this there is a knock on the door. You look over Bucky who gives you a nod before heading to the door. Clicking the button on the inside a screen pops up showing who is on the other side. You sigh and open the door.

"King T'Challa, is there something we can do for you?" Exhaustion seeps into your voice, it truly had been a long day.

“I wanted to apologize for how we have treated you both the past couple of hours. We received word that they caught the Hydra operatives that actually caused the explosion. I apologize for any harm we may have caused to either of you.” His eyes strayed to Bucky as he spoke.

“Apology accepted, I understand why you did what you did, and I hope that we can work together in the future. Goodnight, your majesty.”

He nodded at you and took his leave. You step back over to the bed where Bucky is sitting still a little out of it.

"Did you hear him Sunflower? They caught the operatives that caused the explosion. We are safe again love.” He nods at you, eyes glassy, voice soft as he speaks.

“She brought up something from my past and I couldn’t stop the flood of memories taking over. All the terrible things I’ve done, how can you stand to look at me?” He finally looks at you, his eyes swimming with guilt. It had been a while since you had seen Bucky look this vulnerable.

“I have done terrible things too, my love, there is nothing that you have done that could ever make me love you less. You should know that by now.” You take his face in your hands and gently kiss his forehead before straddling him and pulling him close. You both stay this way for a long time before finally laying down and falling asleep.

You are awoken in the morning by a knocking on your door. Padding over you are greeted by T'Challa standing in a pair of black robes.

“Hello,” you say, your confusion obvious, “what can I do for you?”

"I wanted to speak with you. I spoke with Tony and Steve and they explained what happened to you and to Bucky. I think I may have a way to make this up to you and to help you both." You stare at him in confusion,

"How?"

"My sister. Shuri has discovered a way to erase the trigger words that Hydra programmed into you. She has asked that you join us in Wakanda so that we can help you as means of apology in our treatment of you both."

You can’t hear his next words over the blood rushing in your ears. They might be able to erase the words? Your head starts to spin at the thought.

"You can get rid of the words? They wouldn't be able to brainwash us again?" you finally get out after a moment of stunned silence.

"We believe so."

"Ok let's discuss this over breakfast. I’ll get Bucky and we will be there in a moment."

You decided after a month in Wakanda that you really liked Shuri, she was wicked smart and took no shit. She explained to you both how the treatment would work once you arrived. She admitted that it may be painful to which Bucky stated that you can both deal with pain. The treatment included testing the words and the effect that they have on you. Bucky would talk to you at night about how it was going for him and he told you something interesting about it. He explained to you that when Shuri used the words it felt different, and since she didn't immediately give him orders he was in a bit of a limbo where he was able to speak with the soldier. It was strange for him, it made him realize that the soldier had no choice either and that the soldier was and is a part of him. In between sessions you would both go and train, occasionally with T'Challa, but mainly alone. During these sessions, Bucky would practice bringing the soldier forward without letting him take control. You watched as Bucky changed, he was no longer as lost as he had been, he was more confident, more sure of himself. The words began to affect him less and less and you found yourself enjoying the time in your little hut out of the way. Life was more peaceful than either of you had ever experienced.

Six months later you and Bucky are sitting in a hut with Ayo as she tells you that you are both free. Free from the control of Hydra. You almost can’t believe it, you haven’t been free a day of your life, not with the constant fear of Hydra remaking you into their puppet. She said your trigger words to you and you felt nothing, you could both still access the soldiers, they are and always will be a part of you, but they can no longer take control. The winter soldier can no longer take control of Bucky. You stare at him, the unfiltered joy and disbelief on his face breaks your heart. This man, who so completely holds your whole heart is finally free of the hell that he has been living for over 70 years. It is true that neither of you will ever be truly free of the horrors that you have seen and the ones you committed but you will never again be forced into doing things that you don't agree with. You are free. Bucky Barnes is finally free. The Sunflower and his Star are free.

Tagged users: @calwitch @writerwrites

#hello sunflower #winter solider x reader #winter solider fanfiction #James Buchanan Bucky Barnes #james buchanan barnes #Bucky Barnes #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel #soulmate #avengers fanfiction

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jcs-study · 4 years ago

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It's the start of what Christians would come to call Palm Sunday, at least at this point in the story, and, much like Titanic, we know how this movie will end: "This Jesus Must Die."

This particular recording is of the 2011 Vienna concert cast. I enjoy it partially for the character voices (one of whom, James Sbano, appeared in several U.S. productions of the show, including the original Broadway cast, early in his career before making his mark in European theater), and partially for the vitality and thrill that comes from a live performance. (In fact, I think the next few tracks will also be live performances, just for that "lightning in a bottle" feel.)

You know how we do it by now.

The Lyrics

PRIEST 1 GOOD CAIAPHAS THE COUNCIL WAITS FOR YOU THE PHARISEES AND PRIESTS ARE HERE FOR YOU

CAIAPHAS AH, GENTLEMEN YOU KNOW WHY WE ARE HERE WE'VE NOT MUCH TIME AND QUITE A PROBLEM HERE

BOYS MOB

(outside)

HOSANNA SUPERSTAR HOSANNA SUPERSTAR

BOYS & GIRLS MOB HOSANNA SUPERSTAR HOSANNA SUPERSTAR

ANNAS LISTEN TO THAT HOWLING MOB OF BLOCKHEADS IN THE STREET! A TRICK OR TWO WITH LEPERS AND THE WHOLE TOWN'S ON ITS FEET

ANNAS, PRIEST 1, 2 & 3, CAIAPHAS HE IS DANGEROUS

MOB JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

ANNAS, PRIEST 1, 2 & 3, CAIAPHAS HE IS DANGEROUS

MOB TELL US THAT YOU'RE WHO THEY SAY YOU ARE

PRIEST 2 THAT MAN IS IN TOWN RIGHT NOW TO WHIP UP SOME SUPPORT

PRIEST 3 A RABBLE-ROUSING MISSION THAT I THINK WE MUST ABORT

ANNAS, PRIEST 1, 2 & 3, CAIAPHAS HE IS DANGEROUS

MOB JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

ANNAS, PRIEST 1, 2 & 3, CAIAPHAS HE IS DANGEROUS

PRIEST 2 LOOK CAIAPHAS THEY'RE RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR YARD

PRIEST 3 QUICK CAIAPHAS GO CALL THE ROMAN GUARD

CAIAPHAS NO WAIT WE NEED A MORE PERMANENT SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEM

ANNAS WHAT THEN TO DO ABOUT JESUS OF NAZARETH MIRACLE WONDERMAN HERO OF FOOLS?

PRIEST 3 NO RIOTS, NO ARMY NO FIGHTING, NO SLOGANS

CAIAPHAS ONE THING I'LL SAY FOR HIM JESUS IS COOL

ANNAS WE DARE NOT LEAVE HIM TO HIS OWN DEVICES HIS HALF-WITTED FANS WILL GET OUT OF CONTROL

PRIEST 3 BUT HOW CAN WE STOP HIM? HIS GLAMOUR INCREASES BY LEAPS EVERY MINUTE HE'S TOP OF THE POLL

CAIAPHAS I SEE BAD THINGS ARISING THE CROWD CROWN HIM KING WHICH THE ROMANS WOULD BAN I SEE BLOOD AND DESTRUCTION OUR ELIMINATION BECAUSE OF ONE MAN BLOOD AND DESTRUCTION BECAUSE OF ONE MAN

PRIESTS, ANNAS & CAIAPHAS BECAUSE, BECAUSE, BECAUSE OF ONE MAN

CAIAPHAS OUR ELIMINATION BECAUSE OF ONE MAN

PRIESTS, ANNAS & CAIAPHAS BECAUSE, BECAUSE, BECAUSE OF ONE 'CAUSE OF ONE 'CAUSE OF ONE MAN

PRIEST 3 WHAT THEN TO DO ABOUT THIS JESUS MANIA?

ANNAS HOW DO WE DEAL WITH THE CARPENTER KING?

PRIEST 3 WHERE DO WE START WITH A MAN WHO IS BIGGER THAN JOHN WAS WHEN JOHN DID HIS BAPTISM THING?

CAIAPHAS FOOLS! YOU HAVE NO PERCEPTION! THE STAKES WE ARE GAMBLING ARE FRIGHTENINGLY HIGH WE MUST CRUSH HIM COMPLETELY SO LIKE JOHN BEFORE HIM THIS JESUS MUST DIE FOR THE SAKE OF THE NATION THIS JESUS MUST DIE

PRIESTS, ANNAS & CAIAPHAS MUST DIE, MUST DIE THIS JESUS MUST DIE

CAIAPHAS SO LIKE JOHN BEFORE HIM THIS JESUS MUST DIE

PRIESTS, ANNAS & CAIAPHAS MUST DIE, MUST DIE THIS JESUS MUST JESUS MUST JESUS MUST DIE

The Plot

Caiaphas has noted the growing problems caused by the mob following Jesus. He doesn't understand how he has managed to inspire people and believes that Jesus poses a very serious threat to their authority and the fragile relationship they have with the occupying force from Rome.

Naturally, this comes up for discussion at a meeting of the Temple council with the other Pharisees and priests. When considering what to do about Jesus and his ever-growing popularity, spurred on by the noise of a growing parade outside, the powers that be ultimately agree to make a difficult, terrible decision.

The Analysis

Many great experts, often writing for the edification of other great experts (as the late Anna Russell would put it), have broken down conflict as exemplified in literature and drama into seven distinct categories. None are mutually exclusive; stories often have overlapping struggles, containing multiple characters and storylines. However, each occurs often enough to form a common "type."

This song introduces the secondary conflict in JCS, which is a shining example of one of those categories: man vs. authority. In this case, of course, the man is Jesus, and the authority is the Sanhedrin. It confirms for us Judas' worst fears. They see the situation as a serious crisis; to them, it boils down to Jesus' life or their own. They decide Jesus must be murdered "for the sake of the nation."

And yet, despite how heavy that is, as Tim Rice notes, "On stage, most directors have played this one for black laughs." (As have the performers. Just listen to the cartoonish voices employed on the original Broadway cast recording or on the audience recording of the closing night of Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson's Nineties reunion tour.) Maybe it's just the song's energy. Tim himself calls it, in the same source, "an almost comic number which yet manages to convey an aura of sinister panic."

More than that, this angle must have been somewhat intentional, as there are no less than two then-current pop culture references buried within the lyrics that can only have been intended to draw laughs. Rice calls one out himself:

I even managed to squeeze in a nod to one of my favorite pop hits of the year before, Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" with Caiaphas' line "I see bad things arising" but no one noticed that.

What we did notice, even if unintentional, is slightly more subliminal. The way the verse is worded, is it, or is it not, a humorous allusion to John Lennon's infamous "bigger than Jesus" interview when a priest compares Jesus' fame to that of John the Baptist before him? You be the judge.

Later Lyrical Differences

Minor note before we move to a specific, controversial change: in the lyrics above, I've divided Priests 1-3's lines according to the libretto included with the concept album. I chose to do so because the original (briefly) licensed script's breakdown of which priest sings what, besides Caiaphas and Annas, does not match the score it accompanied at all. While the revised version at least matches its score (including reassigning Priest 1's opening line to Annas, as the revival did), the division of which miscellaneous priest sings what is, to me, rather arbitrary. My advice: go with whatever's in the material you've licensed, but recognize that, for the most part, anything will work, be it what's in the script and score or even assigning lines not belonging to Caiaphas and Annas in simple numerical order (1, 2, 3, etc.).

And now, the big debate… as previously mentioned, for the 1996 London revival, Rice took a second look at the show's lyrics to eliminate, as his autobiography put it, "several false rhymes, which annoy me now." Among those changes, he replaced "One thing I'll say for him / Jesus is cool" with "Infantile sermons / The multitude drools."

This is a better rhyme, technically speaking, than "Miracle wonder man / Hero of fools," and there are those who believe it improves on the old lines, but for the vast majority of JCS fans, the original lyrics are, shockingly, a proverbial "hill they'll die on." In his memoir, Tim remarks that he even "received a letter from a young friend of my son suggesting that the entire flavor of that scene, if not the first act, had been lost." (He ultimately conceded his revisions "didn't make much difference" and "[i]n fact one or two JCS fans complained about [them]," which may explain why so few remain in the licensed score today.)

It's hard not to agree. I understand why it was changed, but I also grasp the meaning of the original: the enemy nods at his opposition (whatever else we can say about him, no denying he's popular), with the other priests arguing "...and that's the problem in a nutshell. His popularity is growing too quickly, at a rate beyond our control." More of a logical flow from one to the other, as a complete thought goes.

Though the licensed score maintains the new lines, the recent Regent's Park Open Air Theatre production in London, which has since played the Lyric Opera in Chicago and is touring the U.S. at the time of writing, restored the old ones. Whether this return will prove temporary or permanent is as yet unclear, but I, for one, welcome it.

Coming Up Next:

Let's go outside and see what the parade looks like! Time for the big party, here comes "Hosanna."

#jcss #andrew lloyd webber #jesus christ superstar #tim rice #jcs #history #spotify #jesus christ super star #jesus christ super-star #song by song #this jesus must die #dennis kozeluh #rob fowler #robert d. marx #james sbano #norbert kohler #Spotify

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ethelphantom · 6 years ago

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Aroma Mocha

So, I'm still kinda sorry about the previous fic, but maybe this coffee shop AU for day 20 makes up for it. 5k of pure humour and fluff, angst nowhere to be seen, I swear. Seriously, I give you my word, you will not need to cry tears of sadness here. Maybe scream at your screen because these two are idiots but like it's still just humour and fluff so.... But yeah. Have fun! Also remember that if you want to be tagged to my Daminette December still, just hit me up! (Or possibly this AU, if I decide to continue it because it was so fun to write.)

Ao3

This is Maribat -- don’t like; don’t read.

____

Damian walked (if you asked anyone else, they would have told you he stormed in rather than calmly walked) into the shop with a scowl on his face, mostly to escape from the horrible weather outside. The bell chimed above his head as he pushed the door open, and immediately he could sense the air in the shop was both sweet and bitter as it enveloped him.

“Hello and welcome to Aroma Mocha! What can I get for you today, sir?” the young woman behind the counter said, a wide smile on her face. Damian could definitely see why it was called the Aroma Mocha, the entire space was filled with different aromas. Somehow, none of them clashed with each other.

“Hi… I’d like to have a mochaccino, please,” he decided rather quickly, quite sure that was what his brother had called the coffee he got Damian last time they were in a coffee shop.

“Sure! Name?”

“Damian.”

“Great! You want to drink it here or are you going to take it with you?”

Damian noted the strong French accent the woman had. She’d probably moved here only lately. Maybe if she seemed to struggle with English at all, he’d change to French for her.

“I’ll have it here, thanks.”

“Alright. That would be five dollars, please.”

Damian took out his wallet and gave her the amount she asked for, putting the same amount of money to the tips jar on the counter. She flashed a bright smile at him, and he really wasn’t sure whether it was the most annoying or the most wonderful thing he’d seen all day. Perhaps it was both.

“Great. You can either wait here ot find yourself a table, I’ll call your name soon, monsieur.”

And there was the first slip-up with languages. Goodness. It’s not like it never happened to him, but it was regardless a little frustrating. He decided he was going to pay attention to her English and change to French if it continued for too long.

(Spoiler alert, he never did.)

After a few minutes of waiting and going through his new notifications, the woman was back.

“A mochaccino for… Daemon!”, the barista called and set the cup on the counter before she went back to her job.

And did she really just call him “Daemon”? No, that was unlikely. Maybe it was just her accent that made him hear thi— aaaaannnd she totally said Daemon. That was the name written on the cup.

Well, that was fine. Maybe she just heard something wrong. It’s not like she did it out of spite or anything. Besides, the coffee was quite good, so that compensated for it.

A few days later, he came back to Aroma Mocha. He’d all of a sudden found himself craving the mochachino the barista had made — though Damian would never admit that to any soul, especially not a living one and perhaps not even a dead one — and hoped she was there to make him more of it.

“Oh hi, welcome back! What can I get you this time?” the young woman said, spinning around to see who had entered the shop. She seemed to recognise him immediately.

“I’d like the same kind of mochaccino as last time, please. Again, my name is Damian,” he said, his tone rather cold. He was irritated from having to deal with his brothers for the entire day and right now, even the idea of getting called by the wrong name was more than a little annoying. If he was taking it out a little on the barista, well, it didn't matter to him.

A strained (and yet somehow bright — Damian was sure any normal person would consider it a genuine one) smile on her face, the barista replied, “Yes, of course, sir.”

He nearly missed the flashing smirk on her face, gone as soon as it had appeared. If Damian had been someone else and not as used to having to pay attention to the shifts in others’ expressions, if he wasn’t sure he’d seen it on her face, he would have likely convinced himself he was just seeing things. But, as it was, he knew it had been there, even if only for the mere second. Well, maybe it didn’t mean anything.

“A coffee for Daymein!”

And yes, there was definitely a wrong name on the cup, but as no one else made a move to get it either, he decided it was his. Once again, the drink was heavenly. The woman’s ability to spell his name was not.

But, two was still just a coincidence. He didn’t pay much mind to it aside from his light annoyance.

Third time was definitely a pattern.

“Deymun!”

He was getting more and more irritated. He’d been to the coffee shop thrice now, and every time the same barista got his name wrong. Even so, he was too stubborn to leave since she made excellent coffee (though Drake wouldn’t agree with him on that, he said it was rather a milkshake than actual coffee), and besides, now that she’d done it already three times, Damian was determined to make sure she called him by his actual name at least once. He would not leave before that, not even if it took him months.

“So, the same as last time? Or do you want to try something else this time?” the barista asked, smiling at him like she always did. Damian checked her name from the name tag. “Mari,” it said.

“Well, what would you recommend, Marie?” he asked, revelling in the offended look he got from her. What was bad was that seconds later it turned into a smirk and there was mischievous laughter in her eyes, and Damian was sure that meant he was in it now.

“Do you prefer the sugary, less coffee-like things more, or would you like to try an actual coffee for once?” she asked, her tone teasing. Drake would probably love her and get along with her faster than he could say coffee. Yeah, he was not going to let them meet. Mari arched her eyebrow, her stance clearly challenging him. Well, who was he to turn down a challenge? No real Wayne and no true Al Ghul would ever turn down a challenge, no way.

“I would like to have more of an actual coffee, as you called it, miss.”

“Would you rather get an americano or a long black? Or perhaps something else?”

He was certain she made sure he would catch on the way she mentioned the — long black, was it? — coffee earlier, daring him to try. He wouldn’t back down now, no way.

“A long black sounds good.”

“Great, I’ll have your drink prepared as soon as possible.”

A guy with blue hair took over the counter as she whispered something to him and started making the coffee. The guy looked over to him with a nearly unnoticeable smirk on his face before he turned to the new customer, his tone sweet but strong. The girl ordering the drink nearly swooned.

“A long black for Damodar ,” she called.

Oh it was on.

This time Damian had to admit the victory was Mari’s as he nearly spit out his coffee, hating every second of it. He was simply unable to not drink it as he could feel her shooting glances and gloating grins disguised as sweet smiles his way every now and then. He had no other choice.

When he came in for the fourth time, he decided to take the same drink, simply asking for an even stronger version of it. Marinette raised her brow, surprised and suspicious of him. He was sure she knew how it had affected him the previous time, but there was no way he was admitting he couldn’t stand it. Maybe he would just dumb a whole lot of sugar in there when she wasn’t looking so he could handle it better.

“Et mademoiselle Marilène , for the record, my name’s Damian.”

Her eye twitched even as she kept on smiling. “I’m sorry, D’occasion, what was that you were saying? I couldn’t hear you properly because you spoke so quietly.”

Damian couldn’t remember the last time he got as strong of an urge to turn on his heel and march away as he did right then and there. He didn’t, though, as he was not ready to admit victory to the girl now, if ever. If it meant he was going to keep coming there until she quit her job or called him by the correct name, he was not going to give up. It wasn’t like he didn’t have the money to keep doing so anyway.

The fifth time Damian asked for a new drink.

“Oh, pretty boy couldn’t take his drink after all? Luka, tu me dois 10 euros, j'ai gagné.”

The blue haired man groaned though there was still a smile on his face. “D’accord, Ma-Ma-Marinette.”

So both of them were French. How great.

Damian ended up cutting off the two of them and tried to make himself sound like he really hadn’t minded the strong, disgusting coffee, all the while noting the way the other barista had called Mari. Maybe he could use it one day? “I would simply like to try something new. Anything else you’d like to suggest?”

Mari smiled, a knowing glint dancing in her eyes. “Well, since you clearly didn’t enjoy strong black coffee, I’m gonna propose you try vienna. It is still strong, but it has whipped cream in it so it smoothes out the taste a little. How’s that sound?”

Damian bit back from commenting on her grammar (it was difficult, but he managed, somehow) as he considered her suggestion. It did sound more enjoyable than the previous one anyway. “Alright, I’ll take that.”

The woman looked victorious as he accepted her suggestion before she went to make his coffee. She also seemed so thoughtful he was sure she was trying to come up with a new name to call him. This time he was prepared though. As she picked up a pen, he opened his mouth, “I’m sure you have a hard time spelling my name, seeing as you aren’t from around here, but I can help you. It’s spelled D-A-M-I-A-N. Damian. Should be very simple and easy even with your brain, miss barista.”

So, maybe he was being an asshole, but this woman had misspelled his name enough many times to justify it, alright. If she was offended, she managed to conceal it very well.

“A vienna for Dandin,”, she called out a few minutes later.

It was his turn to be offended. She was holding out the drink instead of leaving it on the counter this time, and as he took it from her, she leaned forwards and whispered so quietly even he could only barely hear, “payback, you crétin.” He couldn’t even say anything back anymore, his pride wouldn’t allow him. Besides, maybe he deserved it.

Maybe.

Yeah, but even so, he was not letting it go.

It went on and on, and she came up with a lot of new names while at it. Somehow, she’d even gotten the man with hair dyed blue in it, as the few times Mari hadn’t been there and this Luka had, he’d called out Dandy, Danail and Damijan. At least those were closer to his actual name.

That once when he’d told her his name was Damian Wayne and managed to got all of the attention of the cafe, she’d simply laughed and written Devin Wayne on his cup, muttering something about a “Lila”... or was it a “liar”? He hadn’t been able to tell (he did make a mental note to investigate it later, though). Instead, he’d come fuming back to the manor and thrown one of their less valuable mugs against a wall. Alfred hadn’t been happy or impressed but let him go soon after he had cleaned up his mess.

Then there was that one time when his family insisted on coming with him because of how much time he liked to spend in the cafe at Aroma Mocha at this point.

(“If you, who couldn’t stand actual coffee like a month and a half ago are now craving so much coffee that you go to that coffee shop like every day and even then end up stealing my coffee, I have to know what they serve you there,” Drake had decided and then called the rest of the family over, informing them of his plan. They agreed in a blink and went to dress up. He didn’t stand a chance for a second.)

As soon as they entered, Mari smiled at them with the smile she’d worn on her face when they first met, only letting Damian see behind that mask, only letting him know how she truly felt at the moment. He scowled. She was winning and she knew it.

And she knew that he knew it as well.

“Hello and welcome to Aroma Mocha! It’s nice to see new faces come with older every once in a while! Is this your family, Dames?” she asked with an overly sweet tone and tilted her head to the side, smiling all the while.

“Oohh, is she the reason you just keep coming here?”, Grayson asked while Todd was staring at him with eyes wide before voicing everyone’s thought of “ Dames?!” out loud in disbelief. The only one that looked more shocked about it than Todd was his father. It was understandable — no one else could call him by any nicknames, but somehow this small French girl was able to do that without losing the use of both or at least one of her wrists right then and there.

He was never going to hear the end of this.

“Shut up. I didn’t ask any of you to come.”

“What can I get you all?”

As they listed off their orders (Cass got a mocha by pointing at it on the menu, a triple espresso for Tim (at that point she had wondered out loud whether he was actually related to “Dames” or not as he couldn’t drink that much espresso even if he tried — and he had tried, alright — to which she’d been immediately told they were adopted siblings, Tim being the adopted one), Duke ordered a freddo, Jason wanted a ca phe sua da, Dick asked for a galao, his father requested to get a ristretto, Stephanie wanted an iced americano and ended up joking something about Captain America, an iced coffee with salted caramel for Barbara, and Alfred, well. Alfred told Mari he would like to have an Irish coffee after he took one look at the idiots that were the Wayne family), Damian stayed in the back, grumbling and arms crossed over his chest.

“Alright, are you all going to pay for your respective drinks, do you pay in groups or will one of you pay for all of them?”, she asked, ready with the debit card device in her hand.

“But— Damian didn’t order yet?”

The woman looked at Damian and arched her eyebrow, waiting for him to explain. It needed to come from him, they both knew that, as she was still a barista and the worker here. Sighing, Damian resigned to his fate and told his family what it was about. “Marielle and I at some point ended up going with her just making something for me based on how I’ve liked the previous ones until I decide something was what I wanted more of. It probably happened after the sixth time I changed what I wanted.”

Damian smirked as Mari frowned and looked offended. What reassured him she still was definitely in the game (and unlikely to complain to his family at any point) was the snicker he could hear as she was writing one of the names to a cup. Likely his.

“Well, I guess that’s fine then. I’ll pay for all of them”, his father said and took out his card, ready to pay. Once he was done, she waved her colleague (this time it was an Asian young woman with black hair and a neutral expression on her face instead of the blue-haired guy — unfortunately, she too spoke French, which meant he had to endure even more of them now) to help her. Understandable, as they had ordered a lot. Neither seemed to either care about who they were or they didn’t even recognise them. He wasn’t sure which option was more amusing.

And surely, when they were calling them to get their drinks, Mari left his drink the last and made sure he was looking at her in the eye as she called his name. “A raf coffee with extra milk to Dennis!”

The receipt in Damian’s hands crumbled as he heard the name. No matter how horrible the other names had been, this one took the cake. He couldn’t believe she’d thought that Dennis of all the names would fit him in the least. It wasn’t even close to his own name. And, of course, as his luck would have it, none of the other names were misspelled, and they were all written with elegant calligraphy except for his, that was simply written well enough for him to know she had done it again. Totally on purpose.

(Damian wasn’t sure whether the first time they had met she had actually simply heard his name wrong or if she’d already decided back then that she would call him with any names she could come up with. Considering it had been quite the while since, he decided it was probably that she’d gotten better at spelling names unfamiliar to her.)

The flabbergasted expressions on his family’s faces were delightful to see though. They had been talking about how sweet the girl was and how nice it was of her to make their cups look so nice (all of them also had a small doodle on them, courtesy of his barista — wait, his? — as the other woman had given them to Mari for her to scribble something on them), only for them to hear her call Damian “Dennis”.

And he didn’t get mad at her, he didn’t yell at her, he didn’t even correct her. He only scowled and with a grunt, went to get his coffee (Mari winked at him. Goddamnit. Judging by his Grayson’s knowing smile, they had also seen that). The drink was amazing once again, though.

“What… what did you do to the girl if she calls you that?”, Barbara asked after a beat of silence.

Leave it to his family to take the side of a girl they’ve met for the first time over their family member of many years.

“I didn’t do anything to he—”, he insisted but got cut off by Brown who shook her head in disappointment.

“Damian, you’re like a little brother to me and all, but I can’t believe you’d offend a girl so horribly that she calls you by the wrong name on purpose. You didn’t even protest, so you must understand you did something to her as well.”

Damian groaned and swore he was never coming back here with his family again.

It continued on and on.

“How does a cafe affogato sound?”, she asked without lifting her eyes when he arrived one day. How she knew it was him without looking, he wasn’t sure, but that was fine. He was getting used to it.

“Sure, Marybell.”

“What ice cream?”

“Whatever you think fits the best.”

Somehow, their routine of Damian ordering a coffee Mari chose for him and then her writing down a wrong name once again had become comfortable even though he still tried to get her to write his real name on the cup at least once. He needed that victory since Mari had won so many times. Well, she won most of the time, if he was being honest. By that point he knew that he would still keep coming by even if he did win for once.

“A cafe affogato for Deneb!”

“Thanks, Marine.”

“Hey, you got close to my name for once.”

“Damn it.”

And then there was that one day when she’d called him “Dami”. Upon arriving home, he’d stormed in, bringing the attention of everyone in the manor in the vicinity to him.

“I can’t believe her!”

“What did Teacup do now?”

“She— Wait, Grayson, what do you mean Teacup?”

“I became friends with her a while back. She’s cool. Bakes way better than anyone her age should. Loves and values designing more than her own life. Anyway, continue your story.”

Damian spluttered (and he could swear that was the most mortifying moment in his life even after years to come) before composing himself. “She called me Dami today. Dami!”

“You— you sound way too scandalised about this. What’s the problem? It’s way closer to your name than, say, Dennis, and sounds like a nice nickname in general”, Drake said, chugging down his (umpteenth cup of) coffee as he walked past (only god knows how many he’d already had). “Also I agree with Dick, Cupcake’s great. She makes the best coffee — sorry Alfred,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

“That is quite alright, Master Tim. Her skills at making it are truly limitless.”

Drake beamed at him. Beamed.

“You’re only friends with her because she knows how to brew good coffee.”

“That is so not true, Duke!”

“Oh yeah, Pixie Pop’s definitely the best,” Todd declared from where he was sitting and reading yet another book.

“Are all of you friends with her?”

“Yep”, Brown told him, suddenly appearing from behind him and then promptly plopping down on the couch next to Todd. “We all decided to get to know her after that encounter in the shop. But do explain why her calling you Dami is so horrible? Like Tim said, it’s closer to your actual name than many of the others she’s called you, shouldn’t you be happy? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to get her to do for ages now?”

“But that’s precisely the problem!”

Everyone and everything around him stopped, slowly turning to face him.

“What?”

“She never misses an opportunity to call me by some random name that is only remotely close to my own, yet she didn’t take it. There must be something wrong with her! Maybe she’s sick or someone must have truly offended her or she’s dying or—”

A beat.

“Are you fucking serious? You interrupted a perfectly good book because you were worried about Pixie Pop? God, Demon Spawn, I’m glad you’ve finally developed a crush on someone and as long as you don’t hurt her, go off and ask her out, but this is Jon’s job. He’s your best friend. You can fret about your crush to him.”

“A crush?”

“A crush, Damian. You like her. Romantically,” Dick explained on the behalf of Todd.

“No I don’t— Oh my god I like Mari why did none of you tell me?”

“We just did!”

Mari was back to calling him weird names the next day. Damian breathed out a sigh of relief. She was alright.

(And Jon had had a field day when Damian had called him because finally his best friend was crushing on someone and he couldn’t wait to try and help him come up with plans to woo said crush.)

One day he had stepped into Aroma Mocha barely awake and simply went straight to a table and nearly fallen asleep there. He had even forgotten to order a coffee. Three minutes later, someone walked up to him and placed a coffee in front of him along with a cupcake. Damian lifted his eyes to the stranger, ready to tell them to fuck off and go away, only for him to meet the eyes of Mari above him.

“I didn’t… order these?” It came out more as a question than a statement, much to Damian’s dismay. Oh well.

“I know, Dalimil, but you need to get something to stay here. Also you look like you got run over by a bus and like you haven’t slept in three weeks, worse than Tim usually does, which is precisely why here’s a salted caramel cupcake and a chai latte with added caffeine in it.” Her voice remained stern as she pushed the cup closer to him. “You’re welcome, by the way, Damir.”

“I’ll come pay soon—”

“No you won’t. It’s on me, because that’s what friends do. You can give me good tips some day to make up for it though if you want to.”

Friends…?

Oh.

That sounded nice.

Damian made sure he gave Mari three times the amount of money he had to pay for his coffee the next time he came by as tips. She had stared at him like she’d seen a ghost but to her credit, she never said anything about it or tried to refuse it.

After another few weeks, Damian finally gave up on getting his favourite (when had that happened anyway?) barista to spell his name correctly. If he only got her to spell some name correctly he gave her, that would be good enough. He’d once told her his name was Han Solo (in his defense, Dick had made the entire family watch all of the Star Wars movies in two days and that was the first name he could think of), and well, she had most definitely not disappointed and once again had twisted the name.

Mari had ended up writing ‘Handsome Squidward on his cup. Damian had barely managed to groan before he shaking his head fondly at her. He’d been far too tired to be able to react more strongly. Once again she had ended up putting extra caffeine shots in his coffee. Damian was no longer sure whether he was addicted to the caffeine or seeing Mari — or perhaps both. ‘Both’ was a likelier correct answer.

“Soo, what’s it today? You’ve gone through just about everything in our menu by now. Do you want to have something you’ve already tasted before or do you want me to still find a new thing I think you might like?”

“Maybe something you think I may like. Thank you, Mary.”

He noticed the fond smile on her face right away, though it took a few seconds to actually register. For once, he couldn’t see mischief in her eyes, nor did she look like she was planning on some grand scheme like she usually did. It was nice, he decided, seeing her like this.

“Name?”

(They both knew it was just for show at this point.)

Damian considered it for a second. He wanted her to spell the name — any name — he gave her correctly at least once, but it took him a moment to come up with one. While he enjoyed their routine of calling one another by weird, incorrect names, but he still needed that damned victory at least this one time. After that, he wouldn’t care.

“Batman.”

She couldn’t misspell that one unless she decided to mess with him even more and use a completely different name — after all, only a handful of people would dare to even accidentally disrespect Batman in Gotham, and she didn’t seem to be one to do so.

Mari rolled her eyes and told him to go wait for his drink. He did.

“A special coffee for Batman,” she called, trying to contain her laughter. Damian decided it was kind of adorable. At least she used the name he’d given her for once. Victory.

“Here you go, Mister ‘Yes I definitely am Batman himself, I even wear the correct ever present scowl on my face, there’s no way I’m not him’. I hope you enjoy it,” she said chuckling and handed him his drink. She was warm as their hands brushed against each other and Damian could have almost sworn that there was a spark between them at the touch.

“I am fairly sure I will, Miss ‘I can never make a bad coffee unless it’s black and I try to make you suffer as much as possible on purpose’. Thank you very much.”

Damian went to sit down and drank it, finding it was better than anything he’d tasted before. This was what he wanted to have more of. It was just sweet enough to make him want more, but not too sweet so he could easily have a dessert alongside it if he wanted to. It also tasted more like coffee than the mochaccino he had started with had tasted like. Bitter, but not enough to make him gag.

In short, he absolutely loved it.

Then he noticed scribbles on the cup from the corner of his eye. Damian turned it around in his hands and flushed red as he read the text written on it.

Damian W. <3

Call/text me *** ***-**** xoxo

— Marinette

To put it simply, he was irritated. Not only had she not written down the name he’d given her again, but she had also written his actual name which was something he’d been trying to make her do for months now. To make it more complicated, yes, he was irritated but also absolutely smitten with her.

And god if he wasn’t ecstatic to find out she liked him back.

So, seeing as Damian liked her a lot even if he was frustrated with her and it was her that took initiative, he took his phone out of his pocket and texted the number he gave her. It didn’t take long before his phone went off and he got a reply. A quick glance at her confirmed she was on her phone and smiling at it.

DW: Hello. (12.18 pm)

MDC: heya ! i’m glad you decided to message me ! (12.20 pm)

DW: Of course I did. You’re my friend and I also like you. (12.21 pm)

DW: Although I doubt you should be on your phone during work. (12.21 pm)

MDC: your fault for texting me during work (12.24 pm)

MDC: anyway (12.24)

DW: Your fault for giving me your number and not telling me when your shift ends. (12.25 pm)

MDC: ANYWAY (12.25 pm)

MDC: did you like the coffee I made you ? (12.26 pm)

DW: Yes, I did. What was that? I would like to have it again, although not right now, since I just finished it. (12.27 pm)

MDC: I made it specially for you. can’t find it on the menu. I’m glad to hear you liked it ! (12.36 pm)

DW: I am honored that you decided to do that. I truly appreciate it, Angel. (12.37 pm)

DW: Or should I call you Marinette? Or Mari? Please tell me I am not making you uncomfortable. (12.39 pm)

MDC: dw about it ! you can call me whatever you want as long as I get to call you mine ! (12.42 pm)

MDC: wai t what (12.42 pm)

MDC: hey anyway I had an actual reason to give you my number (12.43 pm)

MDC: date today at 6 ? we could meet up here once my shift’s done and over with (12.46 pm)

Damian looked over to the counter, only to find Marinette already looking at him — and, with a smile (that damned smile that was too adorable for her own good), she winked at him. She was going to be the death of him if she kept on being like this.

Smiling, he turned back to his phone and started typing.

DW: A date sounds great. I’ll see you at 6, then, Angel. (12.51 pm)

_____

Dandin -- dimwit, buffoon, idiot D'occasion -- second-hand, used Tu me dois 10 euros, j'ai gagné -- You owe me ten euros, I won D'accord -- Alright

_____

@ladysblackcat @daminett4life @tinyterror333 @annabellabrookes @7-sage-7 @theyellowfeverexperience @thethirdwheelfriend @lady-phoenix-of-tardis @kris-pines04 @daminette-december2019 @bluerosette23

#daminette #maridami #damian x marinette #maribat #Daminette december #marinette dupain cheng #Damian Wayne #damian al ghul #dc #ml x dc #ml #miraculous ladybug #fanfic #fanfiction #ethel's writing #coffee shop AU

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michael-weinstein · 5 years ago

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Leave me alone!

WARNING: This post is a venting-out of boiling anger, which can amount to mental illness. Maybe not for those weak of heart, but for sure for those who caused me so much anxiety, and contrarily, those who want to help me out of this. As for everyone else, read and suffer.

Well, corona, the world is practically on fire, and what else... Oh yes. Things in the relatively more intimate world (that is, for me) - namely, school, my followings on Instagram, YouTube and email subscriptions - keep bothering me to an incredible extent. I was wanting to write this blog post since March honestly, but I didn't find the time and the need to vent everything out. Now, though, that I am really mad, I'm somewhat thankful for the opportunity, because I'm making my opinions known, and merely hoping that they get more circulation than before.

My main classical music following had been Deutsche Grammophon and Decca (through email and Instagram, and - in the case of the latter - 2 YouTube channel subscriptions), the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras (Instagram), Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc (email) and the ClassicsToday.com editor David Hurwitz (YouTube viewing). All of the following had, to a certain extent, drive me insane in the past few months, in ways that I can't describe (one time with Hurwitz, it was so much so I needed to vent my anger in this very outlet). To a certain extent, for those who remember, the same happened with the Mahler Foundation in May, but since writing that post, I've come to realize that not only this is pretty much not important (at least much less than it seemed at the time), there are far worse issues that I'll need to address (I won't yet, perhaps to get more reading and get the image fixed, but I'm hoping I will address this important issue relatively soon). My great bane with the BPO and VPO, but especially with DG, came around the time of the Salzburg Festival in August, which was itself a bane all by itself, but by having these 3 leading musical institutions being an important part of the Festival just made me go bonkers. I don't really had a problem with the Festival being held at the time, when corona cases where relatively low, as long as the Festival was being sensitive, and did things on a much smaller scale as they had said at the beginning that they would. But the moment that they do Elektra and Mahler's 6th, whatever social distancing there would occur in the audience, with so many people onstage and/or in the pit, they're just calling for trouble. It is indeed something of a miracle that there were no casualties during the Festival, but I really think it would have been smarter not to take the risk, whatever the need for culture (besides, probably only those who would attend are those who are "jet-set" and are in Salzburg every year for the wrong reasons, but I will maybe discuss that sometime). The Vienna Philharmonic were therefore one of the major partners in the crime, more so than their Berliner counterparts. But, and this is the important part, I would very much in my hoped-for career as probable pianist and maybe composer, but most as conductor, want to collaborate with the Berliners and the Viennese. They are orchestras that I maybe don't need, but I do want to make music with. The same thing can't really be said for Decca and, more importantly, DG. Interestingly, Decca almost seems dead in the way that they rarely post on Instagram, sent a newsletter or upload on YouTube, while DG is excessive beyond normal human standards. I think they post on Instagram averagely 3 times a day, upload on YouTube twice, and send a newsletter each weekend. How the hell can you bear such a thing?! There are more adventurous labels with pretty "big names" (Alpha, Chandos and Hyperion, to name just three), that I would feel more comfortable to record with, than DG, Decca and probably also Warner (I don't follow them anywhere, which is probably just as good, considering the pervious sentences).

In addition, throughout the Festival the Karajan institue also helped to bring in their own click-baiting and "martyring" of their namesake. My attitude to Karajan as man and conductor is more mixed than it was in the past (most of which can be attributed to Lebrecht), but ever since then they made me emotionally sick with statements to the effect that Karajan was the greatest conductor ever. I have to admit that I'm much more of a Bernstein fan, and that I had barely listened to Karajan recently, but the Bernstein Offices never, apart from the centenary, did interviews of the Karajan kind, and even I'm going to admit that some Bernstein interpretations are less well than some others, maybe even than Karajan's!

So now with the Salzburg band-wagoning out of the way, there are two other culprits: Hurwitz and Lebrecht. I've encountered Hurwitz fairly recently, and I should add, that I have rather mixed relations towards him. One day in the morning, I see a video he uploaded and it makes me absolutely mad (see the link above), and then in the evening he uploads a humorous roast with which I completely agree. But generally, I'm just mixed with him. My relation to Lebrecht is also mixed, though generally positive. He has just finished a survey of most of Beethoven's output. However, his behavior regarding the "Schenker storms" is either complete misunderstanding or just outright conservative foolery.

There are 2 other "classical music" personalities which I have to mention. My relation with Mark Berry is very mixed, but he hasn't bothered me as much since March, as the main activity on his blog Boulezian (shows pretty much where he is heading) is concert and opera reviews, and he didn't have much of a chance to that, so I'm thankful for that. I will give him credit though that he is actually one of 2 people whose blogs gave me the impetus to start mine.

The other one is the other "classical music" personality I want to talk about briefly, Kenneth Woods. He is music director of the Colorado MahlerFest, the English Symphony Orchestra, and writer for his blog View from the Podium. I like him very much, as I share a lot of his musical affinities - Mahler and Shostakovich, to begin with - as well as professional insights into music of (among many others) Strauss and - perhaps more importantly from an interpetive point of view these days - Beethoven. I kind of just happen to agree with many of his opinions, and even those which I didn't think of before, I agree with them because they make sense to me. I think that the reason he appeals to me, is because he's a conductor and a cellist (also used to be a guitarist, and does it in his free time!). With the exception of Hurwitz, who was a percussionist in local orchestras, everyone else I mentioned above are scholar-critics. Woods appeals to me because he's a practical musician (and he keeps a rule not to talk about any living conductors, or at least not mentioning them by name). He was an orchestral cellist, as well as a soloist and chamber music partner as well, so he experiences the actual music world of making music from both sides, as cellist and conductor. Hurwitz, Lebrecht and Berry all might have interesting observations, but their ultimate test is in the performance lab, and that is why I like Woods so much.

So far, I've dealt with classical music's personalities and industry. Now I have to deal with my friends and other Instagram followings. It's more irritating, because even though they are dishonest like the "establishment-industry", they are closer in my world in a sense. Yom Kippur was recently, and I can still remember everyone around just going "I'm sorry, God" and all the other standard things one says before Yom Kippur. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU KIDDING!!! Everyone, especially yourselves, know that we promise never to do these things again, and barely an hour has passed since Yom Kippur is out, and we come back to do those things again. Every year it happens. Everyone knows it, it is simply an open secret that nobody either needs or wants to say. I say the same on myself, by the way. Yom Kippur is a complete lie for us, because neither me, you, and even the most just and Mitzvah-keeping person on Earth, are able to keep the promises that we will get better than this. It never happens. Why do we get flodded with this? It's absolutely no worth. You say that you're "sorry about the way I insulted you"? Complete rubbish. Unless you found out that the entire situation was so stupid you can laugh about it, nobody is sorry about anything they said. The king is naked, and as the meme says, "always has been".

My classmates start growing on my nerves sometimes. The way people just ask for answers so immediately and lazily, without having tried to answer things themselves just makes me go mad. I don't have a problem if they try to do it, or if they're in a rush at the last moment, and ask some guys for answers. But when as soon as the assignment is sent, they ask for someone to do the job for practically 10 other classmates (if not more!), that's too annoying.

My teachers, however, go on a different way of making my life difficult. They don't really annoy me by poking their selfish faces at me as much as expecting me to do everything perfectly. Even those who are kinder (in a sense, since I'm one of the good boys, so kinder practically means that they teach better or are more interesting) make me mad. There are only 2 teachers (another comes close) in the entire school I'm able not only to appreciate, but also to love learning with them. Fortunately, one of them is my homeroom teacher. Without these few teachers, I wouldn't care about school at all. It could just go to hell. We currently have a shutdown, but I still remember a few weeks ago that during a math class, I needed to read my score of Shostakovich's 4th just to keep myself from making my mental health even worse than it was (and probably still is). And even during shutdown, things are not improving. Zoom calls were to be a complete waste of time, were it not for my piano lessons and (sometimes) therapist sessions. History class is especially badly taught. The teacher of that class is of the kind of "the smaller the group - the better", because when I was with her in smaller groups she truly was better. Mind you, I'm the nerd guy who loves history (though I'm probably not the only one in our class), and she managed to make history boring. That's a complete failure. Sports class is a complete waste of time in ways I can't really describe. You can only feel it.

I have though been somewhat fortunate since May and June. Because of my critique of the Mahler Foundation and its online Festival, I've got in touch with a 8th-grader (they/them) from Canada, an a college sophomore in English literature from Florida. We three formed an online gang of just us, getting together on the basis of our love for Mahler and Shostakovich. With their advice, having understood that I will need some really fitting music to get me through the year, I've decided that I will listen on my way to and back from school, as well as during breaks, to listen to nothing but Shostakovich. That plan sort of fell through pretty quickly (by which I mean, only 3 days), but Shostakovich was a great part of my phone repertoire in these first 3 weeks of the school-year. In the last week, however, Henze's Fantasia for Strings took over, and it was somewhat fitting, given that the music began its life as Henze's score for Young Törless, an adaptation of the novel by the fairly similar name of Robert Musil, by Volker Schlöndorff (his directorial debut). These two, the 8th-grader and the sophomore, are practically my main lights these times, when we sometimes meet for a call on Discord at night.

However, these few lights are still engulfed by the complete darkness and hypocrisy that surrounds me now. I've had enough! My complaints go out now especially to the education system in this country which is just reacting horribly to the situation! I can simply go crazy from that! All the Instagram personalities, do me a favor, and please do consider those who are probably less well mentally than you are, and stop showing the way you're enjoying yourselves in pools and parties. And cut the "no filter" crap! If something would have really been with no filter, it would be ordinary and dull. To quote Alex Ross, who in turn paraphrases Nietzsche, I'm done with "the lie of the grand style". Less Wagner (in his conservative bits) and his idiotic imitators, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and all those who thought that music stopped with Beethoven, more Mussorgsky, Scriabin, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Satie, Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Weill, Hindemith, Weinberg, Bernstein, Britten, Nono, Berio, Henze, Messiaen, Lutoslawski, Ligeti, Penderecki, Schnittke, even Boulez and Cage. And please do more meaningful Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Debussy, Ravel and Sibelius.

(Quick sidenote: I have to admit, that this post was written in turns, I wasn't commited to write it. Sometimes I got super angry and vented.)

A few days ago, my sophomore friend sent me a link to a Discord server, where she, the 8th-grader and a couple other friends were part of, and asked me if I would join in. I said I would join gladly. This is my first Discord server, and therefore I've got 4 other friends. This is where I feel at home, where I belong (not in terms of family, thank God, but in terms of friends). I really do prefer being with them than with my classmates.

Our educational system is either a joke, or a gulag. What is the point to have being taught the material on Zoom, for averagely 6 and a half hours a day, 5 days a week, and putting even more workload on us than we had been in school physically, and even more than when we studied online from March to June! And then they expect us to ace through the final exams that we have in the next 2 years! Once in the past few months, I've once wondered about a question: would I prefer to ace my exams, but thereafter being so mentally and emotionally shocked that I will need psychaitric treatment? Or should I not do them at all, but still being able to do what I love doing and be happy with myself? After thinking about it for several seconds, I answered that I would prefer the latter, and ever since then I've been saying this to certain people around me unhesitatingly.

Leave me alone! I'm not able to cope with all of this! I'm feeling so empty, I don't even want to eat a whole ton, sleep a lot, or even die! I'm just empty! I'm barely able to play the piano (that is mentally), I just get tired of it almost immediately! I don't want this to happen! Everything loses its appeal to me!

Over the past few weeks, I've come to know Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, one of the most autobiographical and depressive pieces ever written. It was composed in 1960, when he had just returned from bombed-out Dresden, where there was a movie filmed about the last days of World War II to which Shostakovich composed the music, but more importantly, it was not long after he had suddenly joined the Soviet Communist Party (probably forced to). These 20 minutes of the quartet feature throughout a musical motif - the pitches D, E-flat, C, B-natural. In German notation they are D, S (in German it's actually Es, but the pronounciation is the same), C, H (B is used in German for B-flat). The composer's name, as rendered in German is: Dmitri Schostakowitsch. This is not the first time he has been consciously using this motif (he had already been doing so for nearly a decade), but this is the most extensive use he has ever made of it. It's as if he is obsessed with himself. Shostakovich, as a result of joining the party, was obsessed with suicide, and most of his works from there on consider death, in a way he rarely did previously, death for completely fatalistic reasons, nothing to do with the authorities. The 15th String Quartet, his last, is even bleaker.

The basic point is that ever since I came to know this piece and the school year started, I've used the slogan DSCH as a symbol of protest. I can still remember having half-done math homework, and before scanning them and sending, I scribbled DSCH clearly and furiously across the top of the first page.

The last movement of Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, a slow fugue on a theme beginning with the DSCH motif, is the movement in which Shostakovich seems to obsessed with this motif the most. And all I can say is that for the past two months, if not even more, I've been wanting to just say "Leave me alone!" for eternity, like DSCH in that movement. Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone....leave me alone...leave me alone....leave me alone....leave me alone.....leave me alone..... leave me alone..... leave me alone..... leave me alone....... leave........... me.......... alone......... leave......... me........ alone....... leave....... me....... alone............ leave............ me............. alone................ leave.............................. me.............................. alone..............................

leave me alone

#vent #salzburg festival #david hurwitz #classicstoday #norman lebrecht #slippeddisc #mark berry #boulezian #kenneth woods #mahler foundation #henze #shostakovich string quartet 8 #dsch #coronatime #corona time #gustav mahler #dmitri shostakovich

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segenassefa · 4 years ago

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9: Why Gatekeeping is Ok (#FufuChallenge Discourse)

African restaurants in the U.S., while not as popular as their foreign counterparts, are not far and few between in states such as a D.C., New York, and Georgia having large African communities. In recent weeks, videos of people trying variations of fufu and stew have popped up seemingly out of nowhere, unknowingly creating a “trend” called the #FufuChallenge. While some of the reactions were positive, many of these videos were quite the opposite, in which individuals with little to no home training had the absolute gall to record themselves treating the food as if it were 50 Shades of Grey – including but not limited to spitting, slapping, tossing, and other things that are considered incredibly disrespectful.

Now, fufu is native to West Africa and made from boiled and pounded cassava. Different countries have their versions of the same food, give or take a few ingredients - banku, eba, ga’at, ugali, mofongo, and cornmeal coucou (fungi, for my VI people). As disclaimer – I am an adventurous eater, and the first time I tried fufu, I was a fan. I don’t think it’s a food that’s hard to enjoy flavour-wise, but I can see how the texture may not be agreeable for everyone. Additionally, being from a culture that eats with their hands, there’s a lot of etiquette that’s instilled in at a young age– the most important being that food is not a toy. However, the recent videos have sparked a debate about Black acceptance between different members of the diaspora.

It is interesting how, during a time of inclusivity and unification within the Black community, it is taking no more than pounded root vegetable for most of you to show your ass. I don’t feel like now is the time to remind Black Americans that some of “common” foods would be considered abhorrent to others – chitlins and pickled pig feet, we’re looking at you. Everyone is losing their mind over pounded cassava, but the idea of eating soggy cornmeal – also known as grits – is a normal phenomenon. We can also bring snack foods into this - hot pickles in a bag, Vienna sausages - but the point of this conversation is not to sit here and bash culinary history, but to make the argument clear that every culture has foods that others would find less than palatable.

In the same breath that we want to come together, fight systemic oppression, and be on some fake Marcus Garvey shit, people are referring to African food as disgusting, garbage, and even “dog food”. But you want to go back to Africa, right? Find your roots?

Have you all lost your damn minds?

Black people exist everywhere, and that inherently means that the techniques and methods of cooking we use are prevalent in a lot of other cultures. If you don’t believe me, take the time to Google Korean fried chicken and the fact that the idea of frying chicken in batter was introduced by Black soldiers stationed abroad in the 1940s and 1950s, or how gumbo and jambalaya are variants of traditional African foods, created using recipes that date back to slavery. So, there’s a chance that there are other foods across various cultures – including Black American meals - that resemble traditional African cuisine. Why don’t you drag those on social media as well?

More likely than not, before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, this is probably the food that peoples’ ancestors were eating, and by reasonable conclusion, it’d be the food that OUR ancestors were eating. Additionally, there are so many other cultures with foods that can be turned into trend, so why was the Internet’s thought process to bully African people for no reason other than for laughs on social media? No, just traditional African food? Ok, noted.

Like ENNY said, please free my people from clout. PLEASE. I’m begging at this point.

And non-Black people have not escaped scrutiny either – so if you found yourself at a protest this year or have a cheeky little “BLM” in your bio, but you still found the time to degrade African culture on your timeline, I’m going to need you to go ahead and click backspace on your bio for me really quick, because the math is not math-ing. When it comes to other ethnic groups asking for parts of their culture to be respected and kept sacred, everyone wants to be quiet and listen, but when Black – specifically African people - ask for the same respect, people struggle to do so and are left with two options, or what they think are their only options – to, A, dismantle parts of Black culture to be co-opted and renamed to be acceptable to the white gaze or, B, label these things as disgusting and left at the mercy of Twitter think piece writers and Clubhouse podcasters who have nothing better to do than talk about things that they absolutely have no knowledge on.

Lastly, a LOT of foods from other cultures that are popular in the United States are not even authentic to that culture. To stand in front of a Taco Bell, or Panda Express, or Olive Garden and tell anyone that is your idea of eating “ethnic” food is not only a lie, but the curse of nationalism and Western closed-mindedness.

If you think our friends in Mexico are sitting down at their tables each night with a Crunch Wrap Supreme and Nacho Fries, you are highly mistaken, beloved.

But, with no empathy, authentic African culture has been co-opted as a sort of internet trend in which it’s acceptable to bash damn near an entire continent for food that takes immense labour and cultural knowledge to create successfully. And then, the people who posted their negative reviews actually had to sit, order the food, set it up, film themselves eating it, decide they didn’t like it, go back and edit the video – with their disrespect front and centre – and thought they could post it on the internet free of scrutiny. Like, we (as Americans) aren’t even eating traditional foods from other cultures to BEGIN with, so why was now the time to start, and why did you all start with African food?

Answer, and quickly.

There has always been tension within the Black community between Black Americans and the African diaspora, over feelings of perceived superiority and inferiority on both sides, and in all honesty, this is an argument I don’t subscribe to - at the end of the day, systemic racism does not care what flag you have in your bio, or how long you’ve lived in America – you’re Black, plain and simple.

But West Africans were not the first people who hopped on the internet and begged people to try their food, so the unwarranted opinions are more proof that maybe sometimes, it’s ok to gatekeep. And no one is begging for these reactions either or saying that you have to like it – if you’re not a fan, just nize it and maybe just…delete the video? Outside of the topic of respect also, the Internet is forever. So those of who you unabashedly are posting disrespect on the internet, think where this video will be circulating in a year or so.

Lastly, if you think Africans are blowing the response to the “fufu challenge” out of proportion, keep that same energy next time you see white women in box braids, rocking evil eye pendants, doing intricate henna on your timeline, or trying to lecture you about aligning your chakras, since it has now been established that disrespecting peoples’ culture is no more than acceptable social media discourse.

Be blessed!

#cms #blog post 9 #fufuchallenge #tik tok #twitter #instagram #africa

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thecoolkidsbasement · 5 years ago

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Nancy Drew - Midnight in Salem ‘Fix it Fic’

So because I wanted to take a little writing break from my Inventor’s Absolution fic (so I wouldn’t suffer from the burnout of writing exclusively in one universe for so long), I got somewhat invested in writing a ‘fix-it fic’ for Nancy Drew’s Midnight in Salem game because it was Terribad(TM), and then got un-invested by the time I finished the scene LMAO I don’t think I’ll ever seriously put more time into it (maybe I’ll post it on AO3 + FF.net since it’s a completed scene and to get more eyes on it), so I thought I’d just leave it here for the Clue Crew to enjoy if they so wished. Basically I wanted a rewrite of the game in ‘novel form’ to fix dialogue, plot holes, puzzles, and other various things that I felt needed improvement in the story and plot. This starts at the beginning of the game, shortly after the Book of Apologies thief escapes, and before the opening talk between Nancy Drew and Deirdre Shannon.

Enjoy! Fic under the cut, thanks for reading (and apologies if Nancy seems a bit OOC, I tried doing a mix of ‘new Nan’ with ‘old Nan’. Happy reading, happy writing!

Amongst the verdant firs of the Salzburg forest, our young detective, Nancy Drew, navigates her way back to Moosham Castle after a book thief apprehension gone awry. Through the crowning tops of the wavering trees where they split amongst the drear sky are the towering eaves of the historical estate—the only guide she has in returning to the castle’s footbridge. She surmised the hike back would be a strenuous one, and furthermore considered herself lucky to not have rolled her ankle, or worse, broken a leg, from the way she launched herself over the bridge’s edge as carelessly as she did.

Not a story for Ned, that’s for sure, she decided while rummaging through her shoulder bag to examine the few pieces of evidence her book thief had dropped in their escape; an expelled home-made smoke bomb; a key with an usual blade, the teeth spelling ‘AW’, left abandoned in the cage lock that the Book of Apologies was bound with; and a torn plane ticket to Boston, Massachusetts.

Which was boarding at 3:40 PM.

Tomorrow.

I’ve got to find them before they get back to the states, or else I could lose their trail! Nancy lamented as she pulled her phone from her pocket to check the time, while also seeing several missed calls from a River Heights number — proven earlier to be that of Deirdre Shannon’s. Tucking her phone away, she decided she’d respond later with a lingering thought of how odd it was that Deirdre was calling her. Repeatedly. But right now she had other things to worry about, like how she would apprehend her book thief!

The Vienna International Airport is about a 4-hour drive away. With this ticket I at least know what flight my thief will be on and what seat they’re in! I’ll have to get past airport security first... I wonder if there're any open seats left on this flight?… Nancy puzzled as she climbed up a steep hill, using the rocks protruding from the earthen ridge as makeshift foot holds for a quick return back up to the main road. Brushing dirt off her hands and clothes, she took notice of a tear clean through her pants leg—most likely snagged on a sharp rock or thorny bush while she was running.

Definitely not a story for Ned, the detective sighed to herself as her phone buzzed once more in her jacket pocket. It was Deirdre, again.

The two hadn’t seen each other since the old town hall fire in River Heights last year, and they certainly weren’t on friendly terms once the truth and Nancy’s innocence had come to light… not that they were friendly beforehand, but reveling in Nancy’s short stint in prison certainly didn’t do their tense acquaintanceship any favors.

"Okay, Deirdre, you now have my undivided attention.” Nancy remarked once she answered the call. “What is it?”

“You know, when someone calls you in a panic and tells you not to hang up, it’s probably pretty important that you not hang up!” She snapped from the other side of the line with a huff.

“I’m sorry, but I told you I was in the middle of something. I said I’d call you back later, didn’t I?” She reasoned as she began walking the road back to the castle, lined on either side by dense trees, and examined the tear in her pants again as she walked.

“This isn’t something that can wait! I—…” All the ire in her tone died to a tense silence, in a pause so long Nancy removed her phone from her ear to check if the call dropped. The phone service out amongst the forest wasn’t the best, but her phone confirmed they hadn’t disconnected.

She put her cell back to her ear. “Deirdre? Are you still there?”

“I need your help, Drew.” Deirdre admitted quietly, her voice reluctant and almost ego-bruised, as if she were thinking better of having called the detective in the first place. “My cousin’s gotten into some trouble, and I thought I could help her, but—… but it’s a lot more complicated than what she told me over the phone. It’s worse than I thought it’d be.”

“What kind of trouble?”

"Like I said, it’s complicated.”

Gauging the distance of the road ahead, the peaking towers and the outer curtain walls of Moosham Castle cut through the trees. Nancy hadn’t realized how far she strayed until now. “Well, it looks like I just came into a bit of free time… if you’d like to talk about it?”

“I thought you said you were in the middle of something?”

“I was. I was literally chasing down a suspect when you called and got a little lost on my way back to the castle.”

“…A castle? Where in the world are you, Nancy Drew?”

“Austria, at this place called Moosham Castle. I was trying to locate an artifact for my dad on behalf of a judge friend of his, and—it was the craziest thing!— When I had my back turned, someone dressed all in black appeared out of nowhere and stole the artifact, disappeared in a puff of weird blue smoke, and jumped out the window!”

"Are you saying this guy got away? And here I thought Miss Nancy Drew always got her perp,” Deirdre said with blatant smugness in her voice.

You didn’t see them—they must’ve scaled up the outer wall somehow to come through the window… and they were quick. If they hadn’t stopped when they did to open up the book, I never would’ve caught up to them, Nancy realized glumly. Whoever this person is is crazy athletic, and they knew what they were doing. They knew that the book was here, and they had the key to get it open. This was no random robbery.

“I didn’t think anyone used the word 'perp’ anymore, Deirdre,” Nancy replied with a soft teasing, which granted her a scoff from the other end of the line. Possibly an eye roll, too. “Anyway, back to your cousin. What kind of trouble is she in?”

"Right. Well—… to make a long story short, my cousin, Mei, lives in the infamous Salem, Massachusetts. About a week ago one of Salem’s most historical mansions was nearly burnt to the ground, and now the entire town believes she was the one who caused the fire! They don’t have any evidence she did it, which is unbelievable, but any idiot can see she wouldn’t do something like that—!”

“Deir—Deirdre—Deirdre!” Nancy finally had to yell just to make herself heard over her incensed rambling. “Why would the town believe your cousin Mei would do such a thing if there’s no evidence? What evidence did they find? Did she provide a strong alibi? One that someone, or multiple people, can confirm? Are there any other suspects?”

"God, I forgot about that annoying thing you do where you ask a million questions a second,” Deirdre huffed exasperatedly. "I don’t know what evidence the police have. When I tried reaching out to them, they just laughed at me when they found out I was Mei’s cousin—like they thought it was funny I was trying to prove her innocence! Like it was so obvious Mei would do this and I just couldn’t see it! I had to leave before I gave them the smart-ass piece of my mind… it would’ve only made the situation worse for her.”

“I’m so, so sorry to hear that happened to you, Deirdre… really, I am.” Nancy offered genuinely, just as the footbridge was coming into sight, and she quickened her pace to meet it. “It sounds like your cousin is being falsely accused, or at least he police don’t seem interested in looking into other suspects.”

"Mei hasn’t been accused.” She clarified before sighing defeatedly, grumbling with a tight jaw. "…Not yet, at least, on official record… but everyone in Salem thinks she did it and we both can see where this train is heading. The only people here who see the truth are me and Mei’s older sister, my other cousin, Teegan. Nancy, Mei didn’t do this, and like I said, the situation’s really complicated… more complicated than I can explain over the phone. It’d be easier in person.”

“Are—Are you asking me to come to Salem?” Nancy inquired dubiously. She expected their exchange to be more of a mentoring; for Deirdre to ask for her advice on how to pursue the matter and that would be the end of it, so for her to imply—no, outright admit she needed Nancy to come to Salem—it became clear just how ‘complicated’ this problem really was.

And how desperate Deirdre was to save her cousin.

"You’re really going to twist my arm, aren’t you?” Deirdre groaned. "Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking, Drew. I’m not going to beg.” There was an abrupt pause. "…I might say please, though, if that’ll convince you, but you can never breathe a word of that to anyone!”

As Nancy stopped on the footbridge to lean over the railing, the open window of the north-tower marked where the thief had jumped from the ledge to a sheer drop below; it was almost too high up to jump from without breaking your neck, and the exterior walls were built with smooth stone weather-worn from the years. How could the thief otherwise get up there, let alone get back down as quick as they did without injuring themselves? Perhaps a hook and rope? Climbing tools? Pure agility, athletics, and clever leverage? Perhaps through some other tools or means unknown to her? It seemed clean, professional, planned, and most importantly, puzzling.

“Do you know how far the Boston International airport is from Salem?” Nancy inquired while digging into her shoulder bag to produce the thief’s torn plane ticket, upon remembering it’s destination out. The detective wondered, was it merely coincidence that the Book of Apologies was stolen in the same week a fire vandalized a Salem landmark? Since Moosham Castle and the book itself both had a connection to the witch trials, it couldn’t be completely improbable that there was some deeper relation between the pieces, and her thief’s flight out to Boston only solidified her gut instinct.

“Boston Logan? Uh—it’s like an hour drive from Salem, I guess?” Deirdre said quizzically. “Does that mean you’re coming?”

“I’m definitely coming. In my book thief’s escape, they left behind a torn plane ticket. They were going to the Boston International Airport. The destruction of a Salem monument, the theft of an important artifact involving the witch trials, and the thief’s flight coming into Boston can’t be coincidence. I don’t know if my thief will be in Salem, but I’d bet they’re still linked to the town somehow.”

“That sounds pretty far-fetched, if you ask me.”

“I guess I’ll find out when I get to Salem. I’m going to see about taking an afternoon flight out of Austria tomorrow—think you can hang tight until I get there?”

“As if I have a choice,” Deirdre bit sardonically, before a softened sigh allowed her to continue in a kinder tone. “I’ll pick you up from the airport. Just text me your flight details, and try not to get in at, like, 2 in the morning or something. I’m not afraid to leave you at the mercy of a taxi driver.”

“I hear you. We’ll figure this out, Deirdre… I promise.” Nancy declared, and despite the silence from the other end, she knew Deirdre was still there—listening and careful.

“…Thanks,” She replied, before quickly hanging up as if it would hopefully diminish the tender gratitude in her reply.

#Nancy Drew #Midnight in Salem #MID #fix it fic #Deirdre Shannon #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #Clue Crew #paging Clue Crew #thecoolkidsbasement #Faerie writes

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soviet-history-detective · 6 years ago

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Legasov You Did Not Know

I am going to share an ingot of solid gold right now, the kind that will break your heart and ruin your day.

I have unearthed this some time ago from a book that’s been long out of print. It is the translation of a truly heart-wrenching eulogy written by his late widow, Margarita Mihailovna Legasova. There is a lot of new information about Legasov in this piece, the kind of things only the wife of 30 years would know.

Defenceless Victor—Margarita Legasova’s title of her reminiscences

This title in Trud was followed by a quotation by Valery Legasov:

There are two colour photos hanging in my office at work. One of them is of a Nuclear Atomic Plant, the other of storks. These photos hang near each other as a reminder of the close relationship between life, nature and technology, letting one know beforehand of the fragility of life, about the necessity to keep it. I recalled these photos when I worked in Chernobyl eliminating the consequences of the accident at the NPP. Really, could storks in the future, living on the earth, feel themselves to be safe with modern industry? Is such a peaceful coexistence possible? And if possible, then what should be done to achieve this?

It was not until 10 years after the accident and eight years after Valery Legasov’s death that his widow published a short memoir in Trud that unequivocally confirmed that her husband had committed suicide on 27 April 1988. They had first met when students in the same institute and together worked at a students’ building construction project in what were termed in the USSR as the virgin lands. Under the title Defenceless Victor she described her memories of Legasov’s troubled times at Chernobyl and the period afterwards when he was, to a certain extent, ostracized by the establishment. She also includes interesting comments on what life was like for a senior scientist and his family in the Soviet system: very different from the experiences of Western scientists.

***

Last year we at last completed erection of a gravestone on his grave. This was with thanks to my son and daughter and a few supporters and colleagues of the Academician who helped to cover the expenses. That day when the sculptor invited me to his workshop and showed me the completed work, Valery returned home in the form of his bronze sculpture. He often had to travel away on business trips, we tried to be patient and wait for his return, but on 27 April 1988 he was transported away, already lifeless, forever.

On Saturday 26 April 1986, Valery left for an ordinary business meeting where he learned about the Chernobyl NPP accident and that evening he was already 2 km away from the destroyed reactor. Life seemingly continued but terrible forebodings did not allow us to relax and stop worrying about his health. After 27 April our acquaintances began to say that badly irradiated victims of the accident had begun to be transported to Moscow to Hospital No. 6. Nobody could tell me when he would return.

On the morning of 5 May about 8am there was a ring at the door bell and Valery entered in a borrowed suit of clothes and carrying a polythene bag with belongings rather than his normal case. He was very thin, with a dark face, red eyes and the palms of his hands were tanned black. He only had time to wash, change, breakfast and ask about his two grandchildren before he had to leave at 10am for a meeting. There was no time to tell us what was the state of events at Chernobyl. Then at lunchtime one of his assistants telephoned and said that Boris Scherbina wanted him again at Chernobyl.

It was only when he returned home later that he was able to tell us that he had personally entered the most dangerous areas in the fourth reactor and how shaken he was at the criminal carelessness displayed at the NPP before the explosion.

He next returned home on 13 May and it seemed to us that the biggest difficulties were in the past: but we soon understood that we were mistaken. By summer Valery was already in poor health, suffering from frequent headaches, chronic insomnia, nausea and stomach illness. It was difficult to recognize the earlier Valery in this morally depressed man. He was taken many times for medical investigation to Hospital No. 6 of the atomic establishment. Heart insufficiency, serious leukocytosis, problems with his myelocytes and bone marrow were diagnosed, as well as neurosis. But no official diagnosis was made of radiation syndrome, although I had no doubt that it was so.

He became an Academician at the early age of 45 but some of the leading figures of Soviet science called him ‘A boy from the chemical suburbs’. However, he was interesting to work with and liked jokes, being famous as an amusing raconteur, although everyone knew that science was the principal interest of his life. His private family life was unknown to his colleagues.

For five years, 1964–69, we lived in a flat of 22 square metres at Nizhegorodskaya Street. Though we could use only communal transportation we often made trips together with our two little children to Kuskovo, Ostankino and Arkangelskoye. In Tsaritsino we enjoyed ski holidays. It now seems that these were the happiest times of our lives.

Valery was a car enthusiast for the last 10 years of his life and loved driving at very high speeds. He had always wanted a private car and his first, which was also his last, was a GAZ-25 Volga which we bought in 1977 for 9500 roubles when he was a Candidate Member of the Academy of Sciences. The initial capital for the purchase was his quota from his State Prize received for his achievements in the field of chemistry.

We usually celebrated New Year in the circle of our family, sometimes in a rest house. One of these days a pure bred chau chau puppy appeared in our family and it was assumed that it was my New Year’s gift. Ma Lu Thomas, as she was called, would recognize only Valery as his owner and loved being in our car. She was inseparable from him and died just after Valery’s death. He was also an adoring grandfather to Misha and Valerik and invented little poems for them and played charades.

As a boy he received a musical education and for many years was interested in listening and understanding classical music: Grieg, Sibelius, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. He was also fond of Schnitke. Over the years we bought tickets for many concerts in the Tschaikovsky Concert Hall of the Musical Conservatoire. Valery’s last concert was in Lithuania in the summer of 1987: for flute and organ. Little did I know that soon afterwards Valery would make a first attempt to commit suicide. He swallowed a handful of Triptizol tablets but that time the physicians managed to save him.

In one Soviet TV programme is was said that Academician Legasov was a sincere believer. It is not so. From autumn 1987 he began to read the Bible and thought much about what he read. He was not baptised a Christian, but respected religion even though he was brought up an atheist.

He considered that the East was weak and during his business trips he tried to see as much as possible of culture. He very much wanted to visit one of the sacred Islamic places, the mausoleum of Hoja Ahmed Iasavi, and the monument erected in honour of the ancient Turkish poet who lived in the twelfth century and was an advocate of Sufism. We visited the ancient city of Yami and worshipped at the grave of the philosopher, and Valery often recalled his verses:

Having met a man of another faith

Don’t be evil to him

The God does not like people

With a cruel heart...

After their death punishment

Waits for them...

On his return from the Chernobyl NPP Valery told very sparingly, with tears in his eyes, about the unpreparedness for the accident. Those days nobody could precisely estimate the number of victims, but Legasov understood better than others, the lack of necessary means of health protection: pure water, food products, iodine prophylaxis.

In August 1986 Valery Legasov presented a report to IAEA experts at a meeting in Vienna, about the causes and the consequences of the accident. His five-hour report was very well received and he returned home triumphal. But soon his mood changed. During the last two years after the accident he suffered great psychological trauma and his inner strength was broken.

Twice he was nominated for a high award from the State, and twice the nomination was cancelled. He received a suggestion that he might take up a position with the IAEA in the field of nuclear technology: again, obstacles appeared. There was also the planned nomination for Director of a Research Centre on the Problems of Industrial and Nuclear Safety: this came to nothing. His election as a Member of the French Academy of Sciences was apparently assured and although we went to Paris on 4 February 1988, his last business trip, he did not receive Membership. Also, just after his Paris trip he was hospitalized with acute leukocytosis, pneumonia and severe neurosis.

Chernobyl was not only a tragedy of international importance but it was also the personal tragedy of the gifted scientist Valery Legasov.

Source: Chernobyl Record- The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe, R F Mould

Notes:

I had a feeling there was more to Legasov than what we see in the written material out there (I read Russian at upper intermediate level so I have access to quite a lot of info, and I have read the magnificent in-depth science-engineering reform articles of him which were absolutely jaw-dropping in their visionary quality. Yet some of the information in this article blew my mind. Legasov’s intellectual side is far deeper than anyone’s guess, that is evident.

All the documentary films and other material mention Legasov took sleeping pills in his first suicide attempt in 1987, but it turns out it was Triptizol, which is the brand name of Amitriptyline -a powerful antidepressant prescribed for major depression and where SSRI’s don’t work. It has been used as sleeping medicine in the US, but I have no clue if it had such use in the USSR. It is known Legasov developed a serious insomnia problem, but he was also diagnosed with major clinical depression.

Margarita Legasova was a professor of chemistry, they both graduated from the prestigious Mendeleev School of Chemistry, where they met (as mentioned in the beginning.)

The dog’s name sounds like it’s mistranscribed or something, in Russian language articles written by Legasov’s close friends she is mentioned as Tomka. Poor thing stopped eating after she realized he was gone forever and died shortly after.

#legasov #chernobyl #Valery Legasov

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a-really-bi-girl · 6 years ago

Text

Edelweiss - Chapter 4

Twins

Chapter 4 - Twins

The old man waved at the family of six as they exited the store. The door closed itself after the marked one. When the door closed itself behind you he picked up the telephone horn while selecting a telephone number.

The phone rang for just a view second before the woman on the other side picked it up.

¨What!¨ she hissed into the phone

The older men sighed at her tone, afraid to tell her the news he had for her.

¨I told you to only call me when it is done¨ The woman continued.

¨It is, It is done, miss. But there is more¨ The old men told her while opening a drawer.

¨Well then, tell me¨ The woman asked curiously

The men looked on the picture he held in his hand and then over at you. While you took one look at the small town before entering the car.

The men swallowed and placed the picture back into the drawer. While closing the drawer he spoke.

¨Its her¨

————

¨FUCKING HELL¨ John cursed as the cold water hit his body. While cursing at the cold shower he rid himself of his clothes, not noticing that his tie was missing. Every piece of his bloody clothing he removes and then he tossed it into a corner on the ground.

When the water turned warmer he started replaying what happened on site. A metal flower exploding and leaving everything covered in blood.

‘Sara was bloody right this is freaky. But how is this connected to the missing families, nothing makes sense.’ John taught.

When he removed the final sock, he started scrubbing his body clean of the blood. ¨Missing families, no records, no body’s, metal edelweiss flower, blood, a lot of blood, pure, latin¨ John mumbled. He continued to mumble these words while cleaning the blood of his body.

When most of the blood was of his body, he decided to write the words onto the glass wall of the shower, ¨Missing families, no records, no body’s, metal edelweiss flower, blood, lots of blood, pure, Latin.¨ he wrote on the wall with his fingers.

While washing his hair he looked at the words he just wrote on the wall. While staring at the words and thinking about them he saw something interesting. Some moisture formed a water droplet and it slowly slid over the glass.

The drop traced itself over the words missing families, then the words no record it skipped the words no body’s to lots of blood and it connected itself with the word pure and at last the word Latin.

¨Bloody h… ¨ John wanted to say before another drop formed itself, connecting the words metal edelweiss flower, blood and Latin together. This must be someone trying to trick him or hint him.

He quickly removed the shampoo and the blood out of his hair and the rest of his body. he turned the shower off before picking his clothes up and tossing them into the sink.

He dries himself off before walking out of the bathroom only wearing a towel.

He walked over to the desk and on the back of the now bloody folder, he penned down the two-word connections.

Missing families

No records Metal edelweiss flower

Pure Blood

LATIN

John started circling words out, but before he could think about the connections he just made he was interrupted by a warm voice.

¨I think this is yours¨

——————————

After listening in the car to do a deer from the time of music for a way to many times. You ran out of the car as soon as it stopped. ¨FINALLY¨ You said while stretching your body. The (TERROR) Twins have been singing it ever since we left.

You didn’t hate those two they are like family to you. But in a moment like this, you wish you had duck tape to shut them up.

¨DO, A DEER¨ Tim began ¨ A FEMALE DEER¨ Tara finished.

‘Here we go again’

¨RAY!¨ Alex joined.

¨A DROP OF GOLDEN SUN¨ Their parents joined.

¨You are all plotting against me!!¨ you laugh out while picking up your backpack and walking towards the hotel.

¨Aila join us, I know you know the lyrics¨ Alex yelled at you while you turned around to face them.

¨ME¨ the twins said while running at you. You tried to run away but it was too late. “Sing with us” Tara begged. “Then we will let go of your legs” Tim added.

¨A name I call myself.” you started singing and then the twins and Alex joined.

“Far, a long, long way to run.

Sew, a needle pulling thread.

La, a note to follow sew.

Tea, I drink with jam and bread.

That will bring us back to Do do do do¨ you sang while the twins clung onto your legs.

¨KARMA¨ Alex laughed at you while you slowly entered the Hotel.

“Please, Alex remind me, Why did I agree to support you during this vacation” you laugh out while you leaned against a wall.

¨Guys lets leave Aila her legs alone¨ Carlos laughed out loud.

The twins let go of your legs and ran up the stairs towards their room. While walking upstairs we decided to meet at 19:00 for dinner, so everyone had two hours for themself.

When arriving at the third floor your eyes fell on a red bloody tie. ¨What the…?¨ you mumbled while picking the tie up with one finger.

You studied the tie and the trail of blood drops which made a path past your door towards room 312.

You followed the blood towards 312 while Alex opened your door. A smile appeared on your face when you realised that the tie in your hand, was John’s.

¨U coming?¨ Alex askes

¨Yeah in I an minute, got to return this¨ you respond while holding the tie up.

Alex entered your room smirking while you knocked onto the door, accidentally opening it.

You looked into the room and saw John writing something down while only wearing a towel. ¨I think this is yours¨

John turned around and you checked him out while smiling. John smiled back at you while walking over at you.

“ Here to tell me your name, Lass?” He asks while he stretched his body in front of you while he leans against the doorpost.

You smirk at john while holding his tie up. ¨I’m here to return your tie.¨

¨How thoughtful?¨ John said while gently grabbing the tie from your hand. Your hands touched and you locked eyes. His eyes were dark but so warm at the same time. While pulling the tie towards his body he smirked at you. ¨Here to give me something else love¨

¨You wish¨ You say to John while you let go of the bloody tie. You felt your cheeks turning pink so you quickly change the subject.

¨So what’s up with the blood?¨ You ask while looking at your hand blood-covered hand.

John’s smile fades

¨Do not worry your pretty little head about it, luv¨ he said while he enters his room again.

¨Whatever you say detective¨ you reply while smiling at him while turning around to walk back to your room.

¨Where did you get that¨ John asked while stepping back into the hallway.

You turned around to face him. “Get what?”

“Your Jacket”

¨A small store in a town over up north, the man in the store gave it to me. Said that it would protect me or something, Why?¨ You asked while opening the door.

¨Nothing Lass,¨ John replies when walking back into his room and closing the door.

´Weird´ you think to yourself before you shut the door behind you.

——————

Time flew by when John and Chas were researching the possible leads.

“ The families are I think some kind of sacrifice, but for what?” John mumbled as he flipped through the pages of a dusty book.

“Maybe something of roman origin, Austria was part of the roman empire,” Chas suggested as he opened his laptop.

John nodded as he grabbed a book about the roman gods out of his backpack. “Chas do you have more off those facts for me Mate?” John asked while he opened the book to a painting of the gods and their relatives.

“Sure,” Chas said while looking on the internet for some facts.

“Okay here we go; The name Austria derives from a Germanic word ‘Austro’ which means ‘east’, The Austrian flag is one of the oldest national flags in the world, Approximately one quarter of the population of Austria lives in Vienna, Austria is known for its mountain railways and trains such as the Giselabahn, The people of Austria are masters in creating objects with iron, Former Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger grew up in Austria, 62% of Austria is covered by the Austrian Alps.”

“Stop,” John said while pointing to one of the gods.

“What, o John your not saying that the terminator is involved are you?” Chas jokes.

“No of course not you idiot, the iron, the metal,” John said while walking towards him. “Also known as Hephaestus in Greek mythology, Vulcan came to be considered as the manufacturer of art, arms, iron, jewellery, and armour for various gods and heroes, including the lightning bolts of Jupiter. He was the son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Juno(Hera), and the husband of Maia, Aphrodite (Venus) and Aglaia.”

“So you are saying that is must be connected to this ugly fellow, explains the flower,” Chas said while he entered the names of the names gods and deities into google.

John looked back at his notes “ So we know about everyone who is probably involved, we might also have to look into diverse rituals” John said while placing a cigarette in his mouth.

“Outside,” Chas said, to which John replied“Yes Mum”

John steps outside to clear his head while smoking one of his cigarettes. “Bottoms up you idiot, your in the bus” John heard you laugh. “Alright Alright,” a male voice replies. For a second the two of you were silent before you burst out in laughter.

———–

“Good Morning Sunshine!” You say as you open the windows. The summer sun shined into the room and on Alex’s face. He slowly sat up before he ran towards the bathroom.

You wanted to check on him, but the noises he was making told you exactly what was happening.

You grabbed your bottle of water and your medicine strip. When Alex exited the bathroom you handed it to him.

“Two pills and the whole bottle, and hurry up. We are late for breakfast” you tell him teasingly.

You quickly washed and changed into your clothes. While pinning your hair back with some Bobby pins you walked over to the balcony. You took a picture of the view and sent it to your Dad.

“ Hi Dad, lots of love” you mumbled while typing in the words into your phone and sending him the text.

“I need food” Alex mumbled which caused you to turn around.

"Well let’s get some!“ You reply while walking through the room towards the door.

You opened the door and locked it with your card when you and Alex left the room.

While walking downstairs you heard Alex mumbling about wanting to go back to bed.

‘That boy can’t handle his liquor’ You laughed to yourself.

While entering the restaurant you noticed that the twins were not already at the table.

"Good Morning,” You said to his parents.

His parents responded with morning and the two of you sat down at the table.

"Have you seen the twins? They are never late for breakfast.“ Jane asked you two.

"No, we haven’t, if you want we can check their room?” You suggested while wondering why the twins were not at the table.

Jane nodded “ I would like that, I will make you something to eat while you get those two. We don’t want to be late for the tour”

You quickly grabbed two pretzels on your way out and you handed one to Alex.

While walking up the stairs to the twins their room you ate the pretzels.

When arriving at their door you knocked on it. “Guys wake up you are late for breakfast!"

No noise.

"Tara, Tim wake up” Alex added while banging harder on the door.

Still no noise. Nothing. You could see Alex getting worried.

“Aila, what if?” Alex asked desperately and your eyes got bigger.

“You are not suggesting..?” You reply.

“ I am,” He told you.

“No not on my watch,” You said while squatting down to pick the lock to there room.

You slid two of your Bobby pins into the manual lock on the door.

“Alex when I say now I want you to kick against the electric lock”

Alex nodded and stepped back.

“What’s going on here,” An angry Manager said as he walked over to us.

You ignored the manager and simply spoke “3” as you unlocked the first tumbler.

“Just getting to my siblings” Alex said while getting into position to kick the door open.

“2,” You said when another one opened itself.

The manager looked at the two of you.

“Why?” He asked.

“1,” You said while hearing the last click of the lock.

“They were late for breakfast, their never late for breakfast” Alex replied.

“Now,” you said as you ducked, still holding the Bobby pins in place.

Alex kicked the door open and stormed into the room. You ran in after Alex into the Twins their room.

Alex dropped down onto his knees and looked at you.

You just froze.

“Get his Parents”

————

Taglist: @sirkekselord

#john constantine x reader #john constantine #john constantine imagine #oh john #Edelweiss #john constantine lot #legends of tomorrow imagine

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

Text

How Giuliani’s outreach to Ukrainian gas tycoon wanted in U.S. shows lengths he took in his hunt for material to bolster Trump

By Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger, Paul Sonne and Josh Dawsey | Published January 15 at 3:13 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 16, 2020 |

The four men are gathered around a table cluttered with glasses inside an exclusive Parisian cigar bar, beaming as they each offer an ebullient thumbs-up for the camera.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, is flanked by Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Soviet-born emigres who were helping him hunt for damaging information about Democrats in Ukraine and who now face federal campaign finance charges. At the center of the photo is a new character in the Trump-Ukraine drama: an executive at a company owned by Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian gas tycoon who has been allied with pro-Russia interests and is currently fighting extradition to the United States to face bribery charges.

Photos of the May cigar bar huddle provided to The Washington Post capture a new moment in Giuliani’s operation to procure information from Ukrainian sources to bolster his presidential client. That effort, which played out in various European cities last spring and summer, led Giuliani to seek information from Firtash’s network and other controversial figures with much to gain from helping Trump’s private lawyer.

The previously untold story of how Giuliani and his associates reached out to the Ukrainian tycoon — whom the former New York mayor had previously blasted publicly for alleged ties to organized crime — shows the lengths Giuliani went to in his campaign to defend Trump in the Russia investigation and undermine former vice president Joe Biden. And it highlights how details about his activities are still coming to light, even after weeks of testimony in the House impeachment proceedings.

The Firtash executive who met with Giuliani in Paris was an aspiring Ukrainian politician named Dmitry Torner, later accused by Ukrainian authorities of escaping incarceration in Moldova and living under a new name. The following month, Giuliani sat down in London with other Firtash representatives, according to Otto Dietrich, an attorney for Firtash. Later that summer, Firtash’s attorneys filed a court document that Giuliani touted publicly as support for his claims about Biden.

In a statement, Giuliani said he did not remember meeting Torner or details of his meetings in Paris and London and had limited interest in Firtash. “I never met him. I never did business with him,” he said of Firtash. He did not respond to follow-up questions after The Post obtained photos of the Paris gathering.

On Tuesday, in advance of the Senate trial to consider the articles of impeachment against Trump, House leaders released a cache of text messages and documents turned over by Parnas that contain new revelations of how the president’s lawyer sought to extract information from Ukrainian sources.

Among them: handwritten notes Parnas took during a conversation with Giuliani, according to his attorney, that refer to discussions about Firtash as part of the Ukraine pressure campaign.

In an interview Wednesday with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Parnas said they had an explicit deal with Firtash to get information damaging to Biden in exchange for help with his U.S. extradition. “For us to receive information from Firtash we had to give Firtash something,” Parnas said.

Parnas’s attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, also provided The Post with photos of the Paris meeting. They were not included in the trove of materials released by the House, indicating that there is still more to be gleaned from Parnas’s records.

In the past year, Giuliani and his associates sought information from an assortment of Ukrainians with checkered reputations, including several current and former prosecutors.

None were more high-profile than Firtash, a backer of pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine who has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of having ties to organized crime. Firtash, who has been living in Vienna under travel restrictions since U.S. federal bribery charges were unsealed against him in 2014, has denied such connections and the allegations against him.

Giuliani has acknowledged that he sought information from Firtash associates, but downplayed his efforts, saying that he quickly learned the wealthy Ukrainian had no useful material and moved on. In an interview in October, he said that while he had never met Firtash himself, he “met with people who knew him.”

In a statement this week, Giuliani said he spoke with a Chicago-based attorney who is handling Firtash’s federal case to see if he had “evidence of corruption in Ukraine in 2016” to bolster his defense of Trump.

“I asked some questions about him because I thought he might have some relevant information,” Giuliani told The Post. “I determined that he didn’t.”

He said that Parnas urged him to keep reaching out to Firtash associates, but that he rejected the idea because he did not believe the tycoon had any pertinent information.

But Bondy, who has been urging Congress to call his client as a witness, said Parnas would be prepared to describe Giuliani’s outreach to Firtash.

“If called upon to testify, Mr. Parnas would say that Mr. Giuliani never rejected efforts to establish a line of communication with Mr. Firtash, and that, to the contrary, he did everything possible to secure that channel,” Bondy said.

A member of Firtash’s legal team has said the Ukrainian energy mogul played no role in Giuliani’s efforts to obtain material on Democrats.

A POWERFUL RUSSIAN ALLY

In interviews, Giuliani has said he cast a wide net as he sought information to bolster his claims that Ukrainians worked with Democrats in the 2016 campaign and about Biden and his son, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.

With the help of Parnas and Fruman, he coordinated with sources such as Yuri Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s top prosecutor, as well as his predecessor, Viktor Shokin, to gather material to support his theories and seek public statements by Ukrainian officials that would damage Biden. U.S. officials have criticized both former prosecutors for allowing corruption to fester.

Firtash, however, was a far more fraught source to cultivate — particularly for the personal attorney to the U.S. president.

His fortune was largely derived from his ownership of a company that distributed gas from Russia’s state energy giant in Ukraine. He used his resources to fund pro-Russian political and media interests in Ukraine.

The role required him to maintain close ties to both the Kremlin and in Ukraine, where he was a close ally of Ukraine’s Russia-leaning president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych.

The U.S. case alleges that Firtash helped orchestrate a scheme to bribe Indian officials for licenses to mine titanium intended for sale to a U.S. company. In a 2017 court filing, prosecutors argued to a judge that Firtash had ties to the “upper echelons” of Russian organized crime.

In March, Giuliani used the allegations about Firtash to take a swipe at Lanny Davis, a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton who then served as a lawyer for both the Ukrainian gas mogul and Trump’s former personal counsel Michael Cohen.

“Lanny Davis represents a gentleman named Firtash,” Giuliani told the Hill at the time. “He is considered to be one of the close associates of [Semion] Mogilevich, who is the head of Russian organized crime, who is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s best friend.”

Firtash was “considered to be one of the high-level Russian organized crime members or associates,” added Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney who has cast himself as an enemy of corruption and mobsters.

Nicknamed the “boss of bosses,” Mogilevich was indicted in Pennsylvania in 2003 on more than 40 counts of racketeering, fraud and money laundering. The FBI named him to its “most wanted” list, with an agent declaring that law enforcement believed he had been involved with “weapons trafficking, contract murders, extortion, drug trafficking, and prostitution on an international scale.” Born in Ukraine, Mogilevich is now believed to be living in Moscow.

Firtash has said he has no ties to Russian organized crime and did not do business with Mogilevich. “Half the country knows him. So what?” Firtash told Time magazine in 2017. “Knowing him doesn’t mean answering for him.”

Victoria Toensing, an attorney for Firtash, called the claims that Firtash has ties to organized crime “false.” She and other members of his legal team have complained that the Justice Department has not presented evidence to support the allegation.

While Giuliani expressed distaste for Firtash, the energy tycoon was a potentially valuable connection for his two associates, Parnas and Fruman, who at the time were seeking to secure deals in the gas sector, according to people familiar with their efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

In 2018, they incorporated a new company in Delaware called Global Energy Producers, public records show. By March 2019, the two were seeking a deal with the Ukrainian state-owned gas company, which has done billions in business with Firtash but has recently been locked in a financial dispute with him, the people said.

Giuliani’s introduction to Firtash’s network began in May. That’s when Fruman told a person familiar with his account that he happened to run into a friend in the lobby of a Kyiv hotel who could get to Firtash.

Torner worked as the head of the analytics department at an electricity and gas distribution company in Ukraine owned by Firtash, according to public records and information he later provided election officials in Ukraine when he launched a bid for the parliament as part of a pro-Russian political party.

Representatives of Firtash declined to comment on Torner’s role.

On the eve of parliamentary elections in July, Ukrainian authorities announced that Torner had been disqualified because officials had discovered that he held multiple fraudulent Ukrainian passports under various names.

According to Ukraine’s Security Service, Torner is a citizen of Moldova named Dmitry Nekrasov who was wanted for escaping incarceration in his home country and changed his name to start a new life in Ukraine.

The Moldovan Ministry of Internal Affairs did not respond to requests for information.

Torner could not be reached for comment.

Andrei Tsygankov, an attorney for Torner, said he does not have any information indicating that Torner is facing prosecution in Ukraine or any restrictions on his movement in and out of the country. He declined to comment on matters beyond Ukrainian legal issues. In a statement, Ukraine’s Security Service said there is no wanted notice for Torner in that country.

Torner’s wife, Olga, who has worked as an anchor for a Ukrainian news channel, said in a series of text messages that the accusations leveled by Ukraine’s election commission and intelligence agency ahead of the country’s parliamentary election in July were “completely fabricated” to keep him off the ballot.

She said he changed his name legally and is not wanted for any crimes in any country. She sent an image of what she said was a certificate from Moldova vouching for his clean record.

“How is it even possible to escape prison?” she wrote.

A STRING OF MEETINGS

In late May, a few weeks after Fruman told an associate that he encountered Torner in Kyiv, Giuliani met with the Firtash executive in the private cigar bar of the luxury hotel Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris, according to people familiar with the encounter.

Photos show the president’s attorney clasping Torner in a firm handshake and the Firtash executive beaming as his hand rests on Giuliani’s shoulder.

In a text message, Giuliani said he did not remember Torner’s name and had no notes from his Paris meeting. “Don’t recollect him. He didn’t make an impression,” he wrote, adding that if Torner has any information that could assist his investigations, “I wouldn’t mind hearing it.”

In June, a few weeks after the Torner meeting, Fruman and Parnas secured a meeting with Firtash himself, traveling to Vienna to discuss whether the powerful Ukrainian could assist Giuliani, a person familiar with the meeting said.

Firtash told the New York Times last fall that a mutual acquaintance had vouched for the two Americans, but he declined to name that person. People familiar with the meeting identified Torner as the acquaintance to whom Firtash was referring.

Looming over Firtash at the time was the prospect of extradition to the United States. During the meeting, he told the duo that he was considering replacing Davis as his attorney in the United States and asked about engaging Toensing and her husband, Joe diGenova, two longtime Giuliani allies, as The Post previously reported. Parnas vouched for the couple, who had provided informal advice to Trump’s legal team, and urged Firtash to hire them.

Firtash told the Times that Parnas and Fruman assured him they could help him find “good lawyers in D.C.” who could make his case to the Justice Department.

Giuliani said in a statement to The Post earlier this week that he did not recommend that Firtash retain Toensing and diGenova.

“I have no knowledge who Mr. Firtash considered hiring as his lawyer,” he said.

The cache of documents released by the House on Tuesday included handwritten notes Parnas scribbled on stationery from Vienna’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel in which he appears to describe the effort to persuade Firtash to replace Davis with Toensing and diGenova.

According to Bondy, Parnas wrote the notes in his Vienna hotel room while speaking by telephone to Giuliani during a June visit to the Austrian capital.

“Get rid of Lenny Davis (nicely!),” Parnas wrote. He added, “Victoria/Joe retained” and “$100,000-month.” He also wrote, “Firtash toxic,” a possible reference to allegations against the tycoon.

On another sheet, Parnas referred to the effort to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce investigations related to Biden, writing: “get Zalenksy to Annouce that the Biden case will be Investigated.”

Later in June, Giuliani was in London for a whirlwind trip: He was photographed attending a special overseas Yankees baseball game with Parnas and a fundraiser for a charity that assists Ukrainian Jews displaced by the conflict with Russia-backed rebels in Ukraine’s east.

He also met with an Austrian lawyer for Firtash who is representing the mogul in the extradition proceedings. The lawyer, Dietrich, said the two met in a conference room of a London hotel, but he declined to offer further details.

People familiar with their encounter said it was also attended by Denis Gorbunenko, a former Ukrainian banker close to Firtash. Gorbunenko did not respond to requests for comment.

At the meeting, Giuliani inquired whether Firtash had information about his investigations into whether the Ukrainians had interfered in the 2016 election, as well as the Bidens and Burisma, according to the people.

“I have no recollection of any meeting with the Dmitry Firtash legal team in London or anywhere regarding asking for information about Joe Biden,” Giuliani said in his statement to The Post.

Five days after the London meeting, Parnas sent Giuliani a text message, according to the materials released by the House: “Going to Vienna.”

“Wow!” Giuliani responded.

Just a few weeks later, on July 23, Davis, who had been registered as a foreign agent to represent Firtash, filed paperwork indicating that his engagement had been terminated. In a statement at the time, he said he had been replaced by Toensing and diGenova.

Firtash told the Times that he agreed to pay the couple $1.2 million over four months. The legal duo then hired Parnas as a translator, paying him $200,000 for the same period, prosecutors have said.

Parnas and Fruman soon told friends that Firtash was paying for their highflying lifestyle, including private plane rides and luxury hotel stays. They also said they were pursuing a multimillion-dollar gas deal with Firtash. Firtash told the Times that he paid for the pair’s expenses for a period as they explored a possible side project to sell gas to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Toensing and diGenova secured a meeting in late August with Attorney General William P. Barr to argue that Firtash had been unjustly pursued by the Justice Department.

Around the same time, Firtash’s lawyers soon found a new piece of evidence to argue that his 2014 arrest on the request of the Americans had been politically motivated and that the Austrians therefore should block his extradition.

It was a 12-page sworn affidavit from Shokin, the former Ukrainian prosecutor, that speculated that Biden had engineered Firtash’s arrest to prevent him from interfering with U.S. policy in Ukraine.

In the middle of the document, the affidavit included an unrelated claim from Shokin — that as vice president, Biden had engineered his ouster as Ukraine’s top prosecutor in 2016 because he was investigating Burisma, the gas company that placed Hunter Biden on its board.

It was the same claim Shokin had made months earlier to Giuliani, which Trump had cited in his request to the Ukrainian president for an investigation into the Bidens. Other Ukrainian and U.S. officials have said the Burisma investigation appeared stalled when Biden and other Western officials urged Shokin’s removal.

The Burisma claim was not directly related to Firtash’s case. But as part of Shokin’s affidavit, it was signed and notarized on Sept. 4 and filed under seal in the Austrian court case.

Not long after, an Austrian court announced it was reviewing the material and put Firtash’s extradition on hold. Three weeks later, it was obtained by conservative columnist John Solomon and published in the Hill.

Giuliani cited the affidavit from Shokin to bolster his claims about Biden, holding up a copy of the document during a September television appearance and accusing the media of overlooking its significance.

After Parnas and Fruman were arrested in October on charges of funneling foreign money into U.S. elections, federal prosecutors in New York said they discovered “suspicious” financial links between Parnas and a lawyer for Firtash. (Parnas and Fruman have pleaded not guilty.)

The lawyer, Ralph Oswald Isenegger, sent five wire transfers of $200,000 to Parnas’s wife in September, prosecutors said in court. In a statement, Isenegger said the funds were his personal money he had lent to Parnas and his wife and that Firtash was not aware of the arrangement.

Toensing and diGenova said in a statement that they had been unaware of the financial arrangement.

In early October, they were informed that their appeal to Barr on Firtash’s behalf had failed. The attorney general declined to intercede in the case, and the Justice Department released a statement indicating that the case against Firtash “has the support of department leadership.”

______

Ioana Moldovan in Bucharest, Romania; Natalia Gryvnyak in Kyiv; and Alice Crites and Matt Zapotosky in Washington contributed to this report.

*********

Parnas used access to Trump’s world to help push shadow Ukraine effort, new documents show

By Colby Itkowitz, Paul Sonne and Tom Hamburger | Published January 15 at 9:33 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 16, 2020 |

Documents and text messages released by House Democrats on Wednesday evening show how Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani, used the extensive entree he had to President Trump’s world to help put in motion Giuliani’s shadow Ukraine campaign.

Hundreds of pages of photos, messages and calendar entries show Parnas enlisting a top official at the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action to assist in promoting media coverage he helped arrange and attending functions with Republican congressmen and Trump family members. A calendar entry released as part of the cache shows Parnas had a scheduled breakfast with Trump in New York on Sept. 26 — after the public revelation of a whistleblower complaint about a call the president had with his Ukrainian counterpart.

The new materials made public by the House Intelligence Committee follow an initial trove released Tuesday night that showed Parnas directly involved with efforts to get the Ukrainian president to announce investigations related to former vice president Joe Biden.

The latest cache of documents comes as the Senate prepares to begin its impeachment trial of Trump on Thursday.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday, Parnas said the president knew about his activities.

“President Trump knew exactly what was going on,” he said. “He was aware of all my movements. I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani, or the president. I have no intent, I have no reason to speak to any of these officials.”

In text messages to The Washington Post, Giuliani suggested that Parnas was not being truthful, declining to offer specifics.

“Who cares? Believe him at your peril,” he said, adding: “We all make mistakes. I feel sorry for him and his family.”

The new material indicates that Parnas played a central role in arranging an interview with a Ukrainian prosecutor who claimed there was a plot in his country to help Hillary Clinton — and then urging a senior contact at America First Action to get Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to tweet it.

Links to stories about Ukraine that Parnas sent to America First Action finance director Joseph Ahearn were tweeted by both the president and Trump Jr., the material shows.

Peter Chavkin, a lawyer for Ahearn, said it was not surprising that his client would be interacting with Parnas, a donor to the super PAC.

“It’s apparent that Mr. Ahearn, who worked at America First, was occasionally corresponding with an individual who had interactions with the organization,” Chavkin said in a text message. “Nothing in the communications seems out of the ordinary or sparks any concern.”

A lawyer for Trump Jr., Alan Futerfas, declined to comment on the newly released documents, as did Kelly Sadler, a spokeswoman for the super PAC. An attorney for Parnas declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The materials also shed light on a far-reaching effort to dislodge then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch from her post.

The documents include a May 9, 2018, letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from then-Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) calling for Yovanovitch to be removed. “I have received notice of concrete evidence from close companions that Ambassador Yovanovitch has spoken privately and repeatedly about her disdain for the current administration,” Sessions wrote.

In February 2019, lawyer Victoria Toensing, a longtime Giuliani ally involved in his Ukraine efforts, asked the former New York mayor in a message, “Is there absolute commitment for HER to be gone this week?”

Giuliani responded, “Yes, not sure how absolute. Will get a reading in morning and call you. Pompeii [sic] is now aware of it. Talked to him on Friday.”

Toensing declined to comment. Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment about the exchange.

In a May message to Ahearn, Parnas wrote, “It’s more important than ever to get a good ambassador that’s loyal to our president in there please make sure you pass on the message every ear more important than ever.”

In his MSNBC interview Wednesday, Parnas apologized to Yovanovitch, saying he now believes he was wrong about her.

The new materials released by House Democrats also include months of messages between Parnas and then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko in which the Ukrainian official provided Giuliani’s team with interviews and information in exchange for a pledge that Yovanovitch would be removed from her post.

The messages show Parnas helping arrange a video interview for Lutsenko with John Solomon, a conservative columnist at the Hill newspaper. On March 12, Parnas sent a letter from Solomon to Lutsenko requesting the interview and included a list of questions to be addressed. “I sent you the questions and the invitation from the journalist, call me when you wake up,” Parnas writes after sending the letter to Lutsenko.

After the interview posted online, Parnas texted it to Ahearn and wrote, “Have jr retweet it.”

“Sent,” Ahearn responded.

Parnas then urged Ahearn to “Watch Hannity.”

Later that night, Trump himself tweeted coverage of the story by Fox News’s Sean Hannity.

Several days later, Parnas sent Ahearn an article about calls to push out Yovanovitch, to which Ahearn responded, “That’s a good article.”

That same day, Trump Jr. tweeted out the article and wrote that the United States needed “less of these jokes as ambassadors,” referring to Yovanovitch, a career diplomat.

The relationship between Parnas and Lutsenko turned hot and cold over the months of text messages in Russian. At one point in March, Lutsenko appeared to have grown impatient that he was holding up his end of the bargain — while Parnas was failing to come through with the ambassador’s removal and other requests that would benefit Lutsenko or his boss, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

“I’m sorry, but this is all simply b------t,” Lutsenko wrote on March 13. “I’m f-----g sick of all this. I haven’t received a visit. My [boss] hasn’t received jack all. I’m prepared to [thrash] your opponent. But you want more and more. We’re over.”

Another batch of messages show Parnas and Giuliani in February 2019 discussing possibly signing a “retainer” with the Ukrainian Justice Ministry, appearing to reinforce reporting that Trump’s personal lawyer was in advanced discussions to represent that government.

The Post reported last year that Giuliani had negotiated to represent Ukraine’s top prosecutor for at least $200,000 as he was hunting for damaging material about Biden from Ukrainian sources. At the time, Giuliani wrote on Twitter that he “did NOT pursue a business opportunity in Ukraine” and that he was “paid ZERO.”

In the newly released messages, Parnas wrote to Giuliani: “This is who the retainer should be me out to: ministry of justice of Ukraine Att: minster Pavlo Petrenko.”

“How much?” Giuliani responded. Giuliani said he would follow up with a call, and the messages suggest he sent an agreement to Parnas, who agreed to “print it out and deliver it.”

Later, Parnas asked Giuliani to send wire instructions and requested a copy signed by Giuliani and “Victoria and joe” so the contract can be executed — an apparent reference to Toensing and her husband, Joe diGenova.

“Can do that tomorrow,” Giuliani replied.

The next day, Parnas wrote, “I received signed retainer.”

______

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the first name of the America First Action finance director, Joseph Ahearn.

______

Dalton Bennett, Josh Dawsey, Karoun Demirjian, Rosalind S. Helderman, Michael Kranish and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.

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Eyeing swift impeachment trial, Trump’s legal team aims to block witnesses and cast doubt on charges

By Toluse Olorunnipa and Josh Dawsey | Published January 15 at 7:46 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Jan 16, 2020 |

White House lawyers are trying to engineer the fastest impeachment trial in American history, aiming to have President Trump acquitted by the Senate without witnesses and after just a few days of proceedings, according to senior administration officials.

Trump’s desire for a short trial has solidified over the past few weeks, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delayed transmitting two articles of impeachment to the Senate because of concerns about how the trial would be structured. The White House, which previously supported a more expansive trial in the GOP-led Senate, has now accepted the idea that senators should make quick work of acquitting Trump.

“I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that we’d be going beyond two weeks,” said a senior administration official, who briefed reporters Wednesday on the condition of anonymity. “We think that this case is overwhelming for the president, and the Senate’s not going to be having any need to be taking that amount of time on this.”

President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial in 1868 lasted 11 weeks. President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999 lasted more than a month.

The trial, which begins Thursday in the Senate, will be the Trump legal team’s first official attempt to substantively defend the president against charges that he abused his power by politicizing the U.S. relationship with Ukraine and obstructed Congress by blocking lawmakers’ attempt to investigate him.

The White House has derided the House impeachment inquiry as politically motivated and based on secondhand information and flimsy evidence. The president’s lawyers plan during the Senate trial to dissect the testimony of Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, according to senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Sondland, a Trump donor, made explosive revelations during a televised November hearing implicating the president and others in a “quid pro quo” scheme to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Trump’s political rivals.

Sondland revised his testimony several times between his closed-door meeting with lawmakers and his public appearance before Congress, an issue the president’s lawyers hope to use to cast doubt on his reliability.

White House aides are also gaming out how to manage Trump during the trial, which they expect him to watch and possibly tweet about while it is underway, as he did during the House impeachment hearings, according to the officials. Trump allies plan to have several surrogates on television defending the president during the trial. Republican House members, many of whom jockeyed for official roles on the defense team for the Senate trial, will instead fan out across television networks to ensure that the president’s message gets out and that Trump feels he is receiving a robust defense, the officials said.

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone is expected to lead the president’s team during the trial, after Trump heeded the advice of Senate Republicans who urged him not to appoint House members to his legal team. Trump’s outside counsel Jay Sekulow and deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin are also likely to have a role in the Senate proceedings, officials said.

Some White House officials are wondering whether Cipollone, a longtime commercial lawyer who does not usually appear on television, will turn in the kind of performance that will please Trump during the televised proceedings and keep him supportive of the trial strategy that his aides and Senate Republican leaders are advocating.

Trump, who has vacillated on the desirability of having a lengthy trial vs. quick proceedings, has been influenced by his recent travel to friendly locales outside Washington.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who attended the college football national championship game with the president in Louisiana on Monday, said the cheers from the crowd “buoyed Trump’s spirits” significantly.

This helped get Trump on board with the plan crafted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to conduct a swift trial without hearing from key witnesses.

“He wants it done sooner rather than later,” Graham said in an interview. “I’ve told him, in my view, ‘The sooner the trial is over, the better.’ ”

The briefing for reporters Wednesday came after House Democrats named seven impeachment managers and voted to send the two articles of impeachment to the Senate. Democrats said the managers, six lawyers and one former police chief, signify a desire for a full trial with witnesses, documents and other evidence implicating Trump. Anything short of that would be a “coverup,” Pelosi said.

The crux of the case is the allegation that Trump tried to leverage a White House meeting and military aid, sought by Ukraine to combat Russian military aggression, to pressure Zelensky into announcing and launching an investigation of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as a probe of an unfounded theory that Kyiv conspired with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“The president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections, tried to use the appropriations process as his private ATM machine … to advance his own personal and political advantage,” Pelosi said Wednesday.

A senior administration official briefing reporters said that House Democrats’ case lacked evidence of wrongdoing by Trump, but the official refused to address new documentary evidence that Democrats say further implicates the president.

The official indicated that Trump is likely block efforts by Democrats to further build their case through new witnesses, including former national security adviser John Bolton. Allowing testimony from a former presidential aide about his discussions with Trump on foreign policy would be “extraordinary,” said the official, who added that he did not think the Senate should hear from any witnesses. Another official said the White House was prepared to exert executive privilege if the Senate subpoenas Bolton, who has said he is willing to testify under subpoena about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

On Wednesday, House Democrats continued to press Republicans to allow evidence that the White House has so far blocked.

“We have only obtained a very small sample of the universe of documents that the president is withholding,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), after he was named one of the impeachment managers. “If Mr. McConnell wants to follow the Clinton model, as he keeps professing, all of the documents were provided before the trial. Those documents should be demanded by the senators.”

Several members of Trump’s legal team, including Cipollone and Sekulow, have expressed expansive views on executive power and have experience in rebuffing congressional inquiries.

Cipollone was at White House last weekend preparing for the case, and White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland has talked to aides extensively about rules and procedural motions they can make during the trial, officials said. Ueland worked as a staffer for a Republican senator during the Clinton impeachment trial.

In an Oct. 8 letter to the House, Cipollone declared the impeachment inquiry unconstitutional and illegitimate and said the Trump administration would not participate in it.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California at Berkeley’s Law School, said the “very disturbing” letter was an indication that Cipollone would take the same antagonistic approach to the Senate trial.

“The October 8 letter was very disturbing because of its very aggressive and combative tone. It also reflected no recognition of the importance of accountability and congressional oversight,” he said. “I expect that his taking the lead will mean the same very aggressive and combative approach that puts the president above the law.”

During Clinton’s impeachment trial, his legal team spent three days methodically addressing the various charges against him as the chief justice of the United States presided and most senators sat silently.

Trump’s defense could be considerably shorter. A senior administration official said the White House would mount a “strong case” for the president but that a long trial would not be necessary.

“The reason it doesn’t take a very long time is that the facts are simple, and the facts are on the president’s side,” the official said. “When you have an easy case, you don’t need a long time to present it.”

Trump will spend some of his time trying to build a case for his presidency outside the halls of the Senate, officials said.

Over the next two weeks, Trump plans to travel to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, host a political fundraiser in Florida, speak to farmers in Texas and hold at least two political rallies. “After President Trump signs the historic China Trade Deal greatly benefiting the people of this country, he will continue working and winning for all Americans, while the Democrats will continue only working against the President,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

White House officials sought to draw a contrast between the Democrats pursuing impeachment and Trump carrying out his duties as president.

Trump, the first American president to face impeachment while running for reelection, has spent much of his time recently discussing his reelection, talking to advisers about rallies and specific states, according to people familiar with the situation. He spent a good part of the day Friday with former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, aides said, and regularly asks about specific states and Democratic presidential candidates.

Graham said the president is already thinking of ways to turn the page from the Senate trial.

“He’s really thinking about what to do after impeachment,” he said. “He wants to come out with something strong after impeachment to challenge Democrats.”

In recent days, however, Democrats have emphasized that regardless of the outcome of the Senate trial, the record of Trump’s impeachment will be permanent.

“The president is not above the law. He will be held accountable. He has been held accountable,” Pelosi said Wednesday. “He has been impeached. He has been impeached forever. They can never erase that.”

While Trump has complained often about the “stigma” of impeachment, he mentions it unprompted almost daily.

On Wednesday, Trump was holding a signing ceremony for a partial trade deal with China when he noticed a representative of a top legal firm in the room. He quickly pivoted to impeachment.

“I could use some good legal advice. Do you have some good lawyers?” he said. “I could use some good lawyers, right? Ah, the hell with it. I just have to suffer through it the way I have all my life.”

______

Carol Leonnig, Felicia Sonmez and John Wagner contributed to this report.

*'*******

It’s up to John Roberts to make sure senators stay true to their oath

By Caroline Fredrickson | Published

Jan 15 at 4:01 PM EST |Washington Post | Posted January 16, 2020 |

Caroline Fredrickson is former president of the American Constitution Society and author of “The Democracy Fix: How to Win the Fight for Fair Rules, Fair Courts, and Fair Elections.”

As he presides over the impeachment trial of President Trump, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. does not need to act like a potted plant — nor should he. In fact, Roberts as presiding officer has the ability to force senators to be true to their oath to “do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.”

Under the Senate’s standing rules, the presiding officer has the power to issue “orders, mandates, writs, and precepts,” to “direct all the forms of proceedings while the Senate is sitting for the purpose of trying and impeachment” and to “rule on all questions of evidence including, but not limited to, questions of relevancy, materiality, and redundancy of evidence.” To emphasize the limits of Roberts’s role, some commentators argue that these seemingly broad powers are actually quite constrained, because the Senate majority retains the power to overrule Roberts.

But that does not make the chief justice’s role a nullity. Certainly, were Roberts to rule to admit evidence at the request of the House managers, a Republican senator could object and request a vote. With their majority in the Senate, the Republicans could easily prevail and have evidence excluded. Because the Senate has the final word in impeachment, the House managers have no ability to appeal — at least not to a higher court. But imagine how such a move would influence the proceeding. Would Republican senators really want to demonstrate such unprecedented partisanship, overruling the conservative, Republican-appointed chief justice and lending credence to assertions that they are running a rigged trial and burying relevant evidence?

Roberts has attempted, at times, to position the administration of justice and the role of the judiciary as being above the fray of partisan politics. That desire argues for a more assertive role from the chief justice at the impeachment trial, not less. Now more than ever, Roberts must live up to his own vision of dispensing justice by ruling to admit evidence that will advance the goal of seeking the truth.

In doing so, he would be playing a familiar and impartial role one for which he is well suited. During ordinary court proceedings, judges determine whether evidence is admissible based on whether it is relevant and important to the consideration of the legal issues; they determine whether evidence should be excluded because, for example, it is privileged or unduly prejudicial.

The chief justice as presiding officer should follow such standards in determining how to rule on any demands to admit evidence, allow witnesses to testify or obtain documents. To take one potential example, the president has said he would seek to assert executive privilege to prevent former national security adviser John Bolton from testifying, “for the sake of the office.” The chief justice would seemingly be well situated to determine in the first instance whether and how executive privilege applies in the setting of an impeachment trial.

It would be interesting to see how Republican senators would respond to a ruling by the chief justice that they consider adverse to the president’s interests. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has shown no compunction about stating that he does not want witnesses to testify, a stance at odds with his argument in the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. “It’s not unusual to have a witness in a trial. It’s certainly not unusual to have a witness in an impeachment trial,” McConnell said then, calling a request for three witnesses a “modest” number. Indeed, there has never been an impeachment trial that reached a verdict — for a president or a lesser officer — without witnesses.

But for other Republican senators, especially those facing difficult reelection campaigns, voting to overturn a decision by the chief justice might be a daunting prospect — and rightfully so. As Republican former representative Thomas Campbell, who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment, put it in the New York Times, “How would a senator feel about overruling a judgment on the merits by the chief justice? I think ‘hesitant’ would be the adjective I’d use.”

Those of us who believe the Constitution requires a fair trial — that the Senate oath to uphold “impartial justice” is not meaningless verbiage — must hope that “hesitant” will not be the word historians will use to describe how the chief justice performed his role. Doing little would be ducking his constitutional responsibility, not fulfilling it.

*********

Days before Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose 25% tariff on European autos if they didn’t

By John Hudson and Souad Mekhennet | Published January 15 at 1:30 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Jan 16, 2020

A week before Germany, France and Britain formally accused Iran of breaching the 2015 nuclear deal, the Trump administration issued a private threat to the Europeans that shocked officials in all three countries.

If they refused to call out Tehran and initiate an arcane dispute mechanism in the deal, the United States would impose a 25 percent tariff on European automobiles, the Trump officials warned, according to European officials familiar with the conversations.

Within days, the three countries would formally accuse Iran of violating the deal, triggering a recourse provision that could reimpose United Nations sanctions on Iran and unravel the last remaining vestiges of the Obama-era agreement.

The U.S. effort to coerce European foreign policy through tariffs, a move one European official equated to “extortion,” represents a new level of hardball tactics with the United States’ oldest allies, underscoring the extraordinary tumult in the transatlantic relationship.

President Trump has previously used the threat of a 25 percent tariff on automobiles to win more-favorable terms in the country’s trade relationship with the Europeans, but not to dictate the continent’s foreign policy.

It remains unclear if the threat was even necessary, as Europeans had been signaling their intention to trigger the dispute resolution for weeks. While the United States views the mechanism as critical to reimposing sanctions on Iran in as little as 65 days, the Europeans see the measure as a last chance to salvage a deal they view as vital to reducing tensions and limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

“The tariff threat is a mafia-like tactic, and it’s not how relations between allies typically work,” said Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

When asked about the tariff warning, a senior U.S. official said, “We’ve been very clear that the JCPOA was a horrible deal,” referring to the Iran nuclear deal.

The U.S. official conceded that Europeans were already moving toward triggering the dispute resolution before the threat was issued last week.

“The consensus among the Europeans about the need to hold Tehran accountable took form weeks ago and was driven by Iran’s escalatory behavior and violations of the nuclear deal,” the official said.

European officials complained privately that Trump’s threat only complicated their decision Tuesday to invoke the mechanism, which starts the clock on 65 days of negotiations with Iran about returning to full compliance with the deal. If the dispute isn’t settled, U.N. sanctions could be reimposed on Iran, including a blanket arms embargo.

Officials in Britain, France and Germany say that they had planned to initiate the mechanism but that Trump’s threat nearly caused them to backtrack, out of concern that they could be viewed as stooges of Washington if word of the threat leaked.

“We didn’t want to look weak, so we agreed to keep the existence of the threat a secret,” a European official said.

U.S. officials conveyed the threat directly to officials in London, Paris and Berlin rather than through their embassies in Washington, said a senior European official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.

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stopgenitalism · 6 years ago

Text

Text “Antigenitalism” by Zara Paz (Raw Version) for an Activism Mag in Vienna

Here is another super exciting political article about a phenomenon / movement called "Antigenitalism".

Berlin 2013 - A group of women who have been born with dicks, have experienced shit all their lives and continue to experience shit, fight, have depression, etc., came together. Previously into activism yet, like Antifa, Antipsychiatry, Anarchism, etc. We are thinking about what we want. Whom we still want. And what we are against. Quickly, now. after 15-20 years of activism and thinking about what and who we actually are, a term comes up: genitalism.

This is what has wanted to put us down all our lives long. Wanted to kill us. And what has killed and will still kill many of us: the claim that every human / baby with a penis would a man / boy / male / belonging to the male gender, while each person/ baby with a vagina would be a woman/ girl / female / belonging to the female gender.

As if that would be clear, self evident, natural or supported by us. No. It is not. This claim, this procedure ruined our lives.

Our families and friends are incited against us. Before, until 1994, we / our "sisters" were imprisoned if we started something with a man because of that (the German "gay paragraph" §175 that criminalised so called "homosexual sex amongst men").

For me it was like this: I have always positioned myself as a girl and recognized as soon as spoken out gender position were stated (parents and all people actually do this from birth on, nonverbally children internalize it, even without words / language, logically, right?), first I was allowed to express & dress myself as I wanted in the kindergarten (skirt, long hair, jewelry, etc), but at some point my grandparents got scared that I could "become gay",

because in the documents / following the official doctrine "I was a boy" and later "wpuld become a man", of course, a hetero, everything else was criminalised & tabooed in the 80s, was considered to be perverted, wrong and unacceptable.

Suddenly at one day they shaved my hair, I was put into boys clothes against my will and gradually my toys were exchanged. Suddenly I should be interested in "boy things". A shock that still sits in my bones today. Simply because I so suddenly felt the force of the normative system, had bad presages, which should later prove true.

So far, everything reads like a harmless, exaggerated mimimi. Only if you hit the bridge from there to the many murders of women with cocks and men with pussies, e.g. if the "they fooled" because they said to be, for example, a woman, had sex, gave a kiss to someone or just were flirted or desired by a stranger (without being able to change it), a stranger who then felt "injured in his honor," just because of genitalism (penis = man, vagina = Woman ideologies).

Or, think of teacher Lucy Meadows, who was personally bullied with newspaper articles by Daily Mail reporter Robert Littleton ("you men in a man's body," "stop harassing children, they'll lose their innocence soon enough,", "not in the wrong body, but especially in the wrong job", etc.), until she finally took her own life.

What is new is that someone speaks about it, mockery like that had always happened. In the 90s, the rainbow press liked to publish the private addresses of women who have been assigned a male gender (which is why they legally could not defend against it and then), so that many times such a house was then set on fire ("public disgrace", "something like this may not exist," "what if more people do something like that?").

I grew up with stereotypical, vicious fairy tales of "men in women's clothes" (the, in my ears, sick and exotic-sounding labels "transvestite" and "transsexual" were even sounding more respectful compared to the stuff that was usually said and written), for example in the movie "The Naked Cannon 33 1/3" Leslie Nielsen immediately puked into a tuba after discovering that his dream-woman, who had "something to confess" to him, shows to him that she has a huge tail, what was meant to be the biggest joke in that movie, while in "the silence of the Lambs", the psychopath is a bizarre, "female dressing", androgynous (surely male looking) being that hates women because they can "get" the men/sex he/she dreams of. (The murderer is always shown as a male, like all people with dicks / male assignments are shown in the 90s... except dragqueens because they always told to be male "in reality" in the mainstream media what made them less a danger for the gender security of those times).

In Amsterdam we met a pair of extremely glittery, sequined and extremely high heeled drag queens who became introduced to me as "men who want to be women" under the suggestive emphasis that they are "on the hunt of some men" tonight/in general.

It has always been said "if you have a penis but you do not behave as a man, do not wear menswear and / or are not satisfied with your body, then you are necessarily gay, perverted and disturbed, you have to be all that because you are then a danger and a serious nuisance for the society (well, that's what I always wanted to be anyways but thats another story) and something about you has to change, because that's just not the way how you and society can work together (soon more about that).

"Unfortunately" I was mainly attracted by women (whatever that was supposed to be), so I was automatically perceived as a man, although I (yet for that) took the freedom to put on make up, "behaved as femaie as I could" and did also everything I could not to be perceived as a man/male, but since my family had bullied and punished me for the girls name I had given myself in thekindergarten,

I was still scared to "completely go for it" or" to really claim honest respect to be a woman "(with intention I am writing this in a vague way, because I never could precisely define/find out what gender / a woman / not male should be exactly), how do you "do that" or "how do you get rid of that?", what do all of them want me to do and why do they stage this gender shit and then pretend me to be the only one who is actually trying to break out of it to be the one staging it??)

This led to many detours, at some point then came the phase where I realized I do not want to marry a man necessarily, but still I want to be allowed to use a women's toilet (instead of risking to go to jail for it), I would maybe also let my body " get modulated" so that everybody perceives me as a woman, always and everywhere, it would be easier for me because then I do not always have to discuss everything with everyone, especially not beeing exposed to any fomented homophobia of all people around me.

The big problems were starting in that phase. For psychologists have to approve the name change and the body modulations (even if you pay by yourself, which was the case with me in the end), you can get your arm amputated, if you're funny, make implants and tattoos, as much as you want , but taking hormones like estrogen or testosterone or altering the genitals or having breasts operated can only be done after 3 years of "therapy" that is supposed to "help", whether or not "this help" is needed or not. (To my point of view, "help" against my will is never help, but force and therefor violence, so the phase "forced therapy" I use to describe for the shit the state forced me into, is an intentional oxymoron if you look so close).

Furthermore you are forced to tell and subscribe you would be ("strongly feeling to be") "born in the wrong body", "hating your body" and wanting to modulate it (into the way the law defines a "male / female body", also here doesn´t matter if you really want this or not) and that you" feel like a woman / man " (NOT that you ARE a woman / man - notice the difference !)

and that you would be "into the sex change" towards the court, doctors, authorities, public representatives, the health insurance (always, even when paying yourself), offices and many other institutions then again and again) to be able/allowed to change your name/sex entry or get prescriptions/indications for hormones, surgery and epilations (the only way to do it legally and not having to take the risks that illegal hormones and surgery imply, to be said, a high risk that yet demanded and demands many death victims).

And you have to get and pass documents ("expertises") paid by yourself to many many strangers, institutions and doctors which include lots of very herrassing normative, sexist remarks about your body, the clothes you wear, your underwear, your voice, your hair, your genitals, and your lifestyle.

And, of course, depend on and have to deal with psychologists and psychiatrists who make such decisions (whether or not you are allowed to surgeries and legal name change) are often not casually into these jobs, but having a fetish, groping your body, asking you sexual and intimate questions, record you naked on video or ask you to try and report on certain sex practices with men / women. All around the world.

These laws that say that you are a man / boy when having a penis and you are a woman / girl when having a vagina and otherwise you have to beg for recognition to be "the opposite sex" exist everywhere in the world, in any state. We all had these experiences. We were all permanently bullied, insulted, laughed at, threatened, sexually harassed and / or looked at badly and hostile on the streets, regularly at the latest after psychiatrists forced us to their so-called "everyday test" asking us to wear the clothes that to their opinion "women have to wear" (skirt or dress, even at minus temperatures, shoes with heels, make-up, bra, even with small breasts, possibly tights, etc.). Each of us had had countless experiences of violence, each of us had been bullied, teased and persecuted, mostly by strangers,

been (sexually and otherwise) harassed, "even" by authorities and doctors, etc. everyone of us had been discriminated and mocked, so we decided that we now are fed up with this shit and that we want to do something against this damned madness that destroys our lives and seeks to erase our existences plus our stories, just as oppression always deals with the people it seeks to destroy and exploit.

So we developed a short, catchy concept: we want to fight for an area where the genitalist assignments ("penis = man, vagina = woman") are abolished and everything related to that (gender in documents, anywhere, nowhere) , no newspapers spread the lies of "gender changes" and "born as a boy", which in the end lead to hatred and violence, no transphobic, genitalist media, movies, documentaries, newspaper articles, books, diagnoses, court judgments that repeat and state only "their" viewings on us, strengthening their perspective, but never tells a word about how we perceive our selves, how we see and perceive gender, how we perceive bodies and their meanings. Also not a "biological gender" propaganda bullshit, no "trans" / "cis" / "inter" shit from the outside, which, if you look closely, is the same oppressive stuff.

Because If I am called a "trans woman" for beeing a woman with a dicj and the other woman gets called a "cis woman" because of her body/vagina, this is the same genitalistic procedure and leads in the end just to the same special treatments, discrimination and problems, as if you would directly talk of me as "a man" or a "fake women". Finally in both ways you just take some physical attributes and start emphasizing they would make a "very big difference between two human beeing to either have these or those

attributes". Then you start telling and repeating the claimed differences would be so big you would even have to make two categories of humans

along those body shapes/attributes.

This is also how the categories "trans (gender)", "cis (sexual)" and "inter (identity)" work that we deny, unless you call yourself like this.

No one has the right to impose such stamps on you / us / who ever. Etiquettes kill.

We want to fight for spaces free of all gender assignments, while every state presses us into a genderrole at birth, puts a gender stamp on, with devastating consequences, every newspaper writes about all people and their bodies in body shape related manners and this normative way of stamping and norming people and bodies is what we want to completely leave behind us and be free of, to create own channels, symbols, spaces, language, paroles, culture and stories that are free of all this bullshit,emancipative, not repressive and therefor to show that one can step out of the assigned genitalist sex cramp of all existing States, the media, the "oppressor´s language" and binary gender change lies fairy tales, with which they are trying to justify their violence against us and to legitimize their asshole laws against us, for which there can be no excuse, even if its seeming to be self evidently the dominant doctine and order for many after more than 4,000 years of genitalistic terror and permanent global states of murder, persecution, criminalization and stigmatization of us and our mates.

This is why we are here and standing up against our oppressors, stepping out of this hostile society and leaving its filthy body

normative corsets behind us to unite with our people to found and fight for our own territories free of majority terror, genitalistic

slavery and its hateful impact on our lives, health and possibilities to interact or be perceived as what we really are and may be.

#Antigenitalism #Zara Paz #Text #activism #storytelling #life #oppression #gender #entry #stamp #category #cis #inter #trans #state #mag #vienna

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music2liveby · 6 years ago

Audio

DAY 196: Only the Good Die Young by Billy Joel

Album: The Stranger Release: September 1977 Genre: Rock

The following is a list of accolades that pianist and performer Billy Joel has racked up over the course of his 20 year career: 33 Top 40 hits, all self-written. 23 Grammy nominations, 5 of which were won. 7 honorary doctorates from different universities. Member of both the songwriting and rock and roll halls of fame. Oh, and did I mention that he didn’t even finish high school? The piano man himself would have never been if not for the persistence of Billy’s mother to take up piano at a young age. Reluctant, Billy took lessons from American pianist Morton Estrin, who transformed the young Billy into a piano prodigy. Billy never initially thought of his talent as anything but a hobby, but that all changed one night on February 9th, 1964, when he and 73 million other Americans watched The Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show. This performance has famously inspired several prominent music acts, and in the same case as other musicians was the motivating factor to push Joel into pursuing a career in music. He recalls of the fateful set, “That one performance changed my life. Up to that moment, I'd never considered playing rock as a career. And when I saw four guys who didn't look like they'd come out of the Hollywood star mill, who played their own songs and instruments, and especially because you could see this look in John Lennon's face – and he looked like he was always saying: 'Fuck you!' – I said, 'I know these guys, I can relate to these guys, I am these guys.' This is what I'm going to do: play in a rock band.” While Billy embarked on his quest to become one of music’s greats, his academics began to slip due to his family’s financial struggles. Billy began playing regularly around clubs in his native New York to support his family, often times into the early morning hours. His attendance suffered as a result, eventually causing him to drop out of high school due to a lack of credits. Rather than taking summer classes to earn enough credits to graduate, Billy was steadfast in the pursuit of his shot at being a full time musician. As Joel remembers, he told his family, “To hell with [school]. If I'm not going to Columbia University, I'm going to Columbia Records, and you don't need a high school diploma over there." His proclamation was impressively true, earning his chance after the Philadelphia radio station WMMR began running a live version of his song Captain Jack, a song that would eventually end up on his famous debut album Piano Man. Colombia executive Herb Gordon caught wind of young Billy, offering him a contract on the label that required him to fly cross country from the boroughs of New York to the jungle of Los Angeles, where he recorded his first major label backed album Streetlife Serenade. His time in LA was short lived, as Billy Joel quickly became disenchanted with the culture of the west coast. He moved back to New York, where his next album Turnstiles would help put Billy Joel on the radar with hits like New York State of Mind. Album sales still remained lackluster in general, and Columbia considered dropping Joel from the label. Their decision to hold on for one more album would prove to be a crucial one for the career of Billy Joel, as his breakthrough album The Stranger is widely considered as one of the best albums ever made. The Stranger consists of several signature songs in Billy Joel’s repertoire, of which include Movin’ Out, Just the Way You Are, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant (which is Joel’s favorite song of his), Vienna, and what may be my favorite Billy Joel song Only the Good Die Young. I guess out of 33 potential songs I could have featured, it was hard to pick just one. But as it tends to be, there is just a charm to Only the Good Die Young that is unparalleled in anything else he’s done. That’s my opinion, I understand there’s much contention over Billy’s best. The song is loosely inspired by a high school crush on a girl named Virginia Callahan, who came from a devout catholic family. I think many of us have been rejected by religion a handful of times, this can’t be the only instance. In fact, the Catholic church was not pleased with the supposed image Billy portrayed of the church and called for the song to be banned from the radio and The Stranger pulled from store shelves. However, history has shown that attempts to suppress a form of media will often only increase the popularity of said media. Billy Joel was quick to clear the air on his supposed stance, commenting, "When I wrote Only the Good Die Young, the point of the song wasn't so much anti-Catholic as pro-lust.” He also later pointed out the fact that in the song, the couple never end up together and chastity wins in the end. So much for that argument. Only the Good Die Young was a pivotal moment for young Billy, who finally achieved his goal and rode off into the sunset in a blaze of glory that left some of music’s greatest work. This article, if nothing else, is your excuse to listen to Billy Joel today!

#Only the Good Die Young #Billy Joel #The Stranger #Pop #Rock #365songs

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ammeh7 · 6 years ago

Text

7KPP Week 2019 - Day 5

A Day of Friendships || A Romance for the Ages

By “a romance for the ages” I of course refer to the game’s One True Pairing of Narrator/Jasper.

This fic probably needed to be at least twice as long as I actually had time to make it, and it’s glaringly obvious that I wrote most of Week 5 Day 4 before a lot of the rest of it, but I figured I’d post the thing anyway and maybe go back and fix it up at some point in the future.

Summary: The narrator wants to vicariously kiss Jasper, but MC has a thing for morally dubious princesses.

Warning: Contains huge spoilers for weeks 4 and 5 of the extended demo

The narrator is some sort of Historian-affiliated spirit thing here, but the specifics are left deliberately ambiguous.

Lady Rosaline was made up for the story, since my Gisette-mancer is immoral and I wanted an ethical one for this fic. She could be any 75-manip-compatible background.

This contains several snippets copied directly from the game; I don’t take credit for those!

You can hear me.

Granted, only when you’re half-asleep, but that’s better than I can do with anyone else.

I can hear you, too—or rather, hear you thinking to yourself—which makes discerning your motivations so much easier.

And you’re special. It’s practically a giant sign over your head, screaming “Stuff! Happen over here!”

Most importantly, Jasper’s your butler.

I’ve decided. You’re the one I’m recording this Summit.

Week 1, Day 0

As you drift off to sleep, you contemplate how unbelievably attractive everyone you met at the Welcome Feast was.

It’s a good problem to have, right? And you certainly charmed everyone you met. But as long as we’re discussing unbelievably attractive people: have you seen your butler?

Yes? Okay, good.

Week 1, Day 4

“I hope all our encounters can continue being so mutually pleasing, Lady Rosaline.”

A spike of want runs through you. You can’t wait for the next time the two of you meet.

Really? Character assassination does it for you?

Week 1, Day 6

More than hijinks, sparring, nature walks, or intellectual debates?

Week 1, Day 7

“I think there’s someone who might become special.”

Oh? Really? I hope for your sake they are thinking the same.

It’s Princess Gisette, isn’t it. You have terrible taste. Didn’t you see your gorgeous butler? Or the warrior princess who’s completely besotted with you? The dashing pirate? The thoughtful Revairan lord? Your adorable blushing maid? Did I mention your gorgeous butler? Or pretty much any person besides the one who faked you out with a supposedly private invitation and then tried to manipulate you into slandering an innocent woman?

It could be worse, I suppose. You could have an eye for her brother.

Week 2, Day 5

“I think I would regret it if you were to become a ghost in truth.”

She gives you a soulful look, her blue-violet eyes pulling you in, despite not being the true, gorgeous purple you’ve seen on some of the Isle natives. Such as Jasper.

“Not nearly so much as I would!” You smile at her, not even contemplating how much more purple her eyes could be.

Sigh.

Week 3, Day 2

Jasper has indisputably won the gift-giving competition, but you’re really fixated on that perfume.

She didn’t even pick it out for you! She picked it out for herself! It was probably just a spare bottle she brought in her luggage!

Yes, it’s expensive, but…

Augh.

Week 3, Day 3

Exhausted from herding quarrelsome children at dinner, you drift off to sleep.

There are no assassins around. Nothing noteworthy is going to happen with you for the next seven hours, at least.

Yay!

Across the castle, Jasper is finishing a journal entry, recording dutifully. He’s taken off his jacket and is sitting in his vest, looking enticingly exposed despite not showing an inch more skin than normal. There’s a hint of tiredness around his eyes, but his face is still almost inhumanly perfect.

With a neat flourish, he ends his entry. He pulls off his writing gloves to reveal his long, slender fingers before sprinkling the page with sand to dry it and shaking it off.

He closes the journal, then stands, sticking a finger in his cravat loosen it.

Oh my.

I probably shouldn’t be here. (I might have had to extrapolate the rules of my existence myself, but I’m pretty confident I’m supposed to be watching the actors. And probably not spying on people undressing.)

He removes his cravat and unbuttons his waistcoat, hanging them up neatly. He starts to unbutton his shirt, revealing his pale collarbone, and…I’m being creepy. Sigh.

(See, if you were here, this would be history and not voyeurism!)

I return. You sleep for the next eight hours, rolling over a few times. At one point you scratch your nose.

Absolutely scintillating.

Week 3, Day 5

Jasper has been investigating the plot against you, like the darling he is.

You remember an incident you observed last week, with that same type of easily missed servant and Princess Gisette.

…Yes, if that was the story it makes sense. Especially knowing Gisette and her family’s reputation.

“Lady Rosaline, what is it?”

“Nothing, Jasper. It’s nothing. Thank you for your help, and your investigation. I appreciate it.”

You don’t really, though. You can’t truly appreciate what this means for him, how he struggled with this. What devotion.

Somehow, the discovery that Gisette was behind your accident last week doesn’t seem to be putting you off. In fact, I think it’s piqued your interest.

You make no sense.

Week 3, Day 7

“I hope you will keep something similar in mind, Princess.”

You continue onto the Matchmaker with a dreamy internal smile, not at all bothered by the fact that she just sent your poor butler on a run-around errand because she decided to procrastinate until the last minute with her love confessions.

Granted, he…apparently procrastinates even more, but despite having just received a regular barrage of clandestine proposals, you fail to recognize his advice for the heartfelt confession that it is.

If you’d just reject it, I could live with that, but how oblivious can you be?

You proceed to lie shamelessly about plans for a political marriage to the Matchmaker. She’s totally onto you, I hope you realize.

Week 3, Day 7

Gisette gives you a studying look from across the room. It’s a lot like the look she gave you right after she tried to murder you. Last week.

Are you really sure about this?

You manage to meet her gaze and then give her a significant smile and nod of your own.

Apparently.

Week 4, Day 3

You bask in Princess Gisette’s lap, drinking in her condolences about the terrible burden on you this week.

If you would pause a moment to consider the irony, you might remember that you’ve deduced this burden is all her fault in the first place, and also how tragic you found the death of that fellow she murdered, but you apparently haven’t reached that level of self-awareness.

You at least remember that she also tried to murder you, but you’ve apparently decided to let that slide.

Not for the first time, I question your self-preservation instinct.

Week 5, Day 2

Jasper wipes your fingers carefully, attempting to gently remove the ink.

When he is satisfied it is clean he stares at your hand for a moment, as if lost in thought. It is only a lapse of a moment though, before he returns to himself and releases your hand from his grip with a start.

“Forgive me, Lady Rosaline.”

“Jasper—”

“I should go. I have other duties to attend to.”

Despite your surprised protests, he hurries off, leaving you alone with your newly finished letter.

“—you really need to get more sleep,” you finish, to the empty air. You read once more over your letter to home, plans already forming in the back of your mind for your return.

Sleep? How could you not see the pining there? The repressed longing? How could you not melt into goo over the yearning devotion in his eyes?

How could you not want to stay?

Your maids help you undress for bed, and you doze off happily, oblivious to the fact that you’re totally doing Katyia’s Legacy wrong.

Week 5, Day 4

Jasper sets down your breakfast tray, both he and the breakfast as mouth-watering as always. “Let’s go over your schedule for the day, Lady Rosaline.”

You groan inwardly at the businesslike tone in his voice. Today’s going to be a busy one.

“There’s a rehearsal scheduled this afternoon, for the three hours before dinner. You’ll obviously be expected to attend that. Given that you have a leading role, you may also want to reserve some additional time to go over your lines.”

You perk up at that, looking forward to the opportunity to see Gisette. Perhaps you could even arrange some time alone together under the pretense of practicing your Serah-Vienna scenes.

“You’ve received a last-minute invitation to a tea arranged by one of the delegates from Wellin, Lady Petunia.”

You shake your head. You’ve met Lady Petunia, she’s a dreadful bore. More importantly, she’s not nearly fashionable enough for Gisette to attend her teas.

“You’ve also received an invitation to a group luncheon from Lady Aria of Revaire, as a thank you for the tea you hosted last week. Given your role in the theatrical this week, I believe you can decline without causing offense, should you wish to. Lastly, with the upcoming ball, I believe it would be wise for you to work on your dancing. I would be happy to assist you in that area.”

Lady Aria rarely says anything of substance, but on the other hand, she spends a great deal of time with Princess Gisette.

Do you really want to choose an hour of empty-headed prattle where you may or may not be able to watch Gisette from across the table over dancing with Jasper?

“I’d rather not risk offending Lady Aria. She was a great help to my investigations last week.”

(Yes. Yes, apparently you do.)

“Very well. You should still have some free time after dinner and before the luncheon, which you could spend on dancing, private rehearsal, or something else.”

“I should take some time after the rehearsal to go over the scenes I had trouble with. Perhaps Lord Clarmont or Princess Gisette might even be available this evening to go over some of our scenes.”

Jasper’s eyes widen in alarm, though it does little to disrupt the sheer perfection of his features. “My lady, meeting privately with a man you have not been matched with to rehearse romance scenes would…invite comment.”

You knew that. Etiquette might not be one of your strong suits, but you’re not that oblivious.

“I thought we might be able to find someone to chaperone, but…you’re right, it will be best if I only ask Princess Gisette. I have just as many scenes with her anyway.”

You shrug, as if it doesn’t matter to you one way or the other, pleased to have an excuse for some time alone with Gisette.

“That still leaves this morning. I’m afraid I won’t be available to help you practice your dancing in the hours between now and your luncheon.”

“Perhaps another time. I can practice by myself in the ballroom for today.”

You spend some time dancing around in the ballroom. There’s something about this room, because by spending time in it you can feel your natural charisma increasing.

(Perhaps if you practiced with your butler, instead of trying to look alluring for yourself in the mirror, you’d actually manage to improve your grace and not just your personal magnetism.)

Gisette is not at the luncheon, which turns out to be a dreadful waste of a couple hours. (Just think, you could have been dancing with Jasper.) By the time the designated hour for the rehearsal rolls around, you are practically tripping over your skirts in your haste to escape.

“But Vienna,” you sigh, “how could I possibly trust in his intentions after my most faithful maid saw Lady Matterly leaving his chambers?”

“Sweet girl,” Gisette rests her hand on your back, a waft of sweet perfume teasing your senses. “I know you trust your maid dearly, but you must admit she is…prone to misjudgments. Confront Sir Horus, find his version of the story. He is not a man who would be able to lie under pressure. Not like Prince Armand.”

You turn to face Gisette, clasping her elegant hand between your own. “Oh, but Prince Armand cares for you dearly! I’ve seen the look in his eyes when he watches you across the room. He may be a man who talks all around what he means—not unlike yourself, dear cousin—but I am convinced his affection for you is true.”

“Lady Rosaline!” Lady Avalie is suddenly standing next to the pair of you. “You’re turning your back to the audience.”

Right. You release Gisette’s hand, masking your reluctance to do so. “I don’t think it works for Serah to deliver that line with her back to Vienna. Princess, perhaps if you came around?”

You try a few things, but don’t quite get it right by the time Prince Zarad and Lord Clarmont have finished and it’s time to switch scenes.

“Princess, would you have some time to spare this evening to see if we can get that scene figured out?” You smile apologetically, as if you’re sorry for the bother.

She gives you a coolly assessing look, but you can detect a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “I had some time planned to review my lines. I suppose we could use it to work on our joint scenes, Lady Rosaline.”

After dinner, Gisette knocks on your door, script in hand. “I hope now is a good time to work on our scenes, Lady Rosaline,” she says sweetly, just loud enough to be overheard.

You happily invite her in.

“I admit, Rosaline, I initially found the idea of this theatrical quite a bother, but I’m coming to appreciate its hidden charms,” she says, smiling languidly at you.

You look around for a suitable chair, and land on the one you were sat in yesterday when Jasper so lovingly wiped the ink off your fingers. Without sparing that tender moment a passing thought, you sit and run through your positioning a few times until you have it figured out.

“I confess,” Gisette smiles, “I’m not entirely confident in the scene before the ball, either.”

“Oh, Vienna!” you cry, taking Gisette’s hands in both of your own. “I fear I shall never find love!” You clasp your joined hands dramatically to your bosom.

“A lady should hope never to…” Gisette cuts off in the middle of her character’s quip, shaking her head with a smile teasing at her lips. “Really, my dear? I suspect the audience might notice if you have me grope you onstage.”

You grin unabashedly, releasing her hands. “My apologies. I was caught up in the drama of the moment.”

Okay, you’re kind of cute together. When she’s not planning your death.

“You did not see the so-called ‘love poem’ he sent me, Serah. It contained the most lurid descriptions of my—”

At this point, Serah’s maid is supposed to burst into the room and interrupt, but it’s just the two of you.

She’s standing where Jasper normally does when he’s going over your schedule in the morning. Your eyes meet, tension simmering between you.

You raise an eyebrow, smirking. “Have you ever gotten a particularly terrible poem from a suitor, Gisette? I received one at seventeen that compared my teeth to his mother’s china.”

She tilts her head in thought, her pale hair catching the candlelight without the ethereal pearly shimmer that Jasper’s hair gets in the same light.

“Nothing so terrible as what was recited at that charming little evening you hosted, but there have been a few gems.” She smirks, takes one of your hands in hers and looks deeply into your eyes. “O lovely moon, I beseech you to shine on me eternally, eclipse me in your violet pits…"

You giggle.

“He was so proud of his work that he recited it in person. On one knee. And his father was too important an ally to offend, so I had to smile through all twenty verses.” She wrinkles her nose. “It was all I could do not to gag. But enough of such odious recollections, my dear. I have a rare moment alone with you.” She strokes her fingers over your wrist, not releasing your hand.

“And what would you like to do with it?” you purr.

“Oh,” she smiles slowly, like a cat basking in the sun, “I have a few ideas.”

She steps closer. Her long, cool fingers stroke along your jaw, and she cups the side of your face, her soft lips closing over yours. She kisses you passionately, releasing your hand to bring her other hand to your waist.

You wrap your arms around her, drawing her as tight as you can without mussing her exquisite coiffure. Your mouths melt into each other, her body feeling almost fragile under your hands.

(I wanted to vicariously kiss Jasper, but… this is nice.)

You finally, reluctantly, release each other, and you blush as you realize that you weren’t entirely successful in your quest to avoid disheveling her hair. You were not emotionally prepared for her to pull your lower lip between her teeth like that.

“Let me…” you grab a hairbrush from your dresser.

She raises an eyebrow, looking herself over in the mirror and giving you a fondly exasperated look before taking a seat on your dressing stool. “I shouldn’t give you a hard time. You’re more of a sight than I am.”

You peer over her shoulder into the mirror to find your hair falling out of its twist, bodice off-kilter, cheeks flushed, and lips red and slightly swollen.

“Whoops.” You adjust your bodice and hastily tuck the wayward strands of hair into place. The rest you’ll just have to wait out. “How do I look, cousin?” you tease, sliding a hand into her pale blonde tresses and catching a lock to smooth with the brush.

“Like perfection itself, my dear.” She doesn’t finish the line, tilting her head back languidly and luxuriating under your touch. Hints of the fragrant oils she uses waft up to you as you stroke the brush through her hair.

Once you’ve brushed every lock into place and then some, and can’t really justify drawing it out any further, you twist the strands she had pinned behind her head back into place and replace her hair clip.

She stands, smiling regretfully. “Our time together is always far too short. Until next time, Rosaline.”

With a parting kiss, she picks up her script and departs, leaving you with the trace of her perfume and lips that still feel warm.

Week 7, Day 8

As your ship becomes a speck on the horizon, it feels strange to be idle again. It’s been a long time.

Jasper stands at a window in one of the towers, watching you go, a hint of resigned melancholy in his eyes.

I couldn’t do anything for him. Again.

I know he can’t feel me, not like you could, but I concentrate on all my good feelings, all my esteem, all the love I was hoping you’d be the one to give him for me.

It’s so quick, I might’ve imagined it, but for a moment, a hint of a smile flickers across his face.

I don’t know if anyone like you is going to come around again, but…I can always hope, right?

Jasper turns away from the window, heads back down to help with getting the castle out of the state of disarray that sixty entitled visitors always manage to get it into.

And I?

I wait.

My apologies for how glaringly this fic needed to be twice as long and several times more edited.

I might go back and flesh it out more once I can write about weeks 6/7!

#7kpp #7kpp week 2019 #7kppweek #gisette #jasper #7kpp week #fic

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