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dawnwave16 · 5 years ago

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Crash and Burn!

Marinette was over it. In the 3 months that had passed since HawkMoth's defeat. Lila's lies had grown from name dropping lies to ones that would destroy reputations in seconds if they ever came out. Adrien had seen the light when she had lied about his mother but the rest of the class still fell for everything that tumbled out of her mouth.

Due to being Ladybug, Marinette was one of the few that knew HawkMoths identity and it had unfortunately soured her dream of becoming a fashion designer. Not that that had been a bad thing as far as Marinette was concerned. Going into fashion design full time was something that Mlle Bustier had pretty much pushed her into when Marinette had made the mistake of doodling in class. Marinette's original dream had been to be able to fly F-14 Tomcat's just like her birth father. Everybody thought that Tom Dupain was her birth father but that wasn't true. Her mother had met Tom when Marinette had been four and the two had hit it off immediately. Harm had been please for Sabine, even letting her change Marinette's surname in the school records to make things easier for Sabine on parent-teacher evenings. His only condition had been that Sabine let Marinette visit him every other Christmas and on some school holidays. It was because of these visits that Marinette had started to dream of following her father into the air as soon as she was old enough. On the visit, shortly before her eleventh birthday, she had been visiting him and he'd had to go to one of the aircraft carriers for work. She couldn't remember all the hoops that had had to be jumped through to allow her to go with him but she did remember how it had ended. It had been her first time on an F-14 after all. It was a night flight and her father had insisted that the easiest way to prove that the pilots were innocent was to fly with them. He was so sure that there was nothing to worry about that he had put her into the second seat in the cockpit of the second jet. He had told her how they were flown and how to land them and she was eager to see everything from the back seat. Nobody had counted on the fact that someone had tampered with the front piolets air hoses, adding a knock out gas to them on a time-release that had only been found after they had landed. Or more accurately, after she and her father had had to take control and land the jets. It had been as scary as it was thrilling for the ten-year-old and she had vowed that she wanted to do it again. But only when she was older. It was due to this dream that Marinette had put so much effort into all her studies. Everyone thought it was just so that nobody could criticise her grades when she made it big but it was so that when she eventually graduated she could enlist in the US airforce and study law as well as how to be a piolet so that she could be just like her father. When Mlle Bustier had pushed and pushed and pushed her into fashion Marinette had let it happen and even believed that it was the right thing to do. However, she hadn't stopped the way she studied and now that her real dream was back at the forefront of her mind, she was glad that she hadn't let her study habits drop. It was as Marinette was reminiscing about all of this that Lila had started a new story. One about what it was like on an aircraft carrier, which Lila had only been on because she had been kidnapped and the captain of the carrier had saved her. She was so into her story and Marinette was so lost in her daydream that neither girl noticed the very handsome man dressed in Navy Dress Uniform standing in the doorway with a woman standing in a US Marine Dress uniform. It was only when he spoke that Marinette snapped back to the present. “There is no Navy in the world that would let a civilian walk around one of its aircraft carriers the way you are describing. It would be a serious breach of security and the captain could be court marshalled for letting it happen.” “Not to mention the only civilian to step on an aircraft carrier was a ten-year-old and her father had to jump through several bureaucratic hoops in order to let her go on board with him for the week that he was on board.” The woman added. Everyone in the class spun round to face the two of them, tensing up, except Marinette who had relaxed for the first time in ages. Her father and his wife were here and as today was the last day of school, that meant that she would be flying out to the US soon to take the first step towards her dream. Unfortunately, it seemed there would be drama from Lila first though. “Show how much you know. I'm the daughter of an Italian diplomat-” “Layla Nekane Rossi, age eighteen, born in Basque and daughter to the private secretary to the current Italian Diplomate. Father is a known con man and womaniser. You speak Italian and French although you have lived in three countries. Expelled from school in both Basque and Italy for bullying, both emotional and cyber, accused but never charged on three occasions of bullying to the point of suicide and one case of assault. Do I need to carry on?” Mac's voice was cold and hard as she spoke giving a condensed version of Lila's file. Mlle Bustier had blanched as Mac spoke and had had to sit down by the end of it. Lila was about to say something to defend herself but Harm spoke up first. “Unfortunately you finally chose the wrong person to bully. They might not have been making a fuss recently as they have finally realised that the ones she was trying to protect don't deserve it but that doesn't mean she didn't go looking for justice for your previous victims. To add to the charges from the other countries, you will be facing charges of terrorism along with one Chloé Bourgeois. As you are old enough to be tried in court as an adult, that is exactly what will be happening.” “What! That is ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous! Why am I getting charged with anything?” Chloé screeched. “You'll find out when you get to court. In the meantime, I suggest you both find a decent lawyer.” Mac said dryly. “Who are you two anyway?” Alya demanded even though she was still reeling from everything that had come out about Lila. “Lieutenant Colonel Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie, USMC and Captain Harmon ''Harm'' Rabb Jr Executive officer (XO), USS Allegiance.” The class spun round to face Marinette as she spoke. “Marinette, you know them?” Adrien asked his face a mask of confusion. “Why wouldn't I know my birth father and someone he is in an on-again-off-again relationship with? By the way, it's great to see you both again but I thought you were only meant to be coming to France in three weeks time?” Marinette's voice was just as dry as Mac's had been and the class realised that Marinette had spent a lot of time around them in order to have picked up that sort of habit. “Marinette why would they need to fetch you. You're 18, surely you are capable of travelling by yourself. Besides didn't you get invited to study at ESMOD? Or are you just travelling for a month before your new classes start?” Mlle Bustier's voice was calm but Marinette could hear the manipulative quality in it. She sighed and turned to face her old teacher. “One, I never applied to ESMOD, so I have no idea why you think they would have invited me to study there. I let you think that I wanted to be a fashion designer because that is what you were constantly telling me I should be. Yes, I like fashion but that's not what I want to do with my life, it never has been. Two, Yes I am capable of travelling by myself but why would I turn down the chance to spend time with my family. Hawkmoth and Dad's duty has kept him away for the last four years and I have missed him terribly! Skype and phone calls just aren't the same as being able to cuddle into him while watching movies. And three, if you truly want to know what I will be doing with the rest of my life I'll tell you. I plan to follow in Dad's footsteps in be a naval aviator for the US Marines and study to be a JAG. I want to fly for as long as I can though!” Harm smiled proudly as his daughter spoke then exchanged a look with Mac when their influence on her personality shone through. “Where's my hug, munchkin?” Harm said with a smirk. Marinette walked over to him and gave him a big hug her eyes squeezed closed as she soaked in her dad's reassuring presence. To Marinette, this was the best medicine she could ever have asked for. Not only was her dad here but he had exposed Lila or Layla as was her real name, in a way that couldn't be fought. He had provided hard evidence for every fact he had provided. Mlle Bustier, however, didn't seem to get the memo that Marinette was done with being manipulated by her. “Marinette are you sure about that? I mean don't you have commissions from several big-name celebrities that you get regularly?” Marinette forced herself not to growl at Mlle Bustier, not knowing that Adrien's father had walked up and was waiting at the door, listening to the answer too as Mr Agreste was still wanting to offer her an internship. “Designing was never my end-game career choice. If I wash out of basics or am injured in a way that the navy or JAG is not an option, then I will think about doing design full time. Those that have commissioned me for things know that it will never be my full-time job and that I want to serve like my dad does. They support that decision and encourage me to do my best!” Adrien walked over to her and gave her a hug, as she had stepped out of her father's arms as she spoke to Mlle Bustier. Like everyone else, he hadn't seen his father arrive but he decided to give one last parting shot to the class before he left too. “Only one person has ever asked me what I want to do with my life. When I said I didn't know she encouraged me to follow my heart. Unfortunately for almost everyone here, she has my heart. The conversation

took place three years ago so this is not a rash decision despite what most of you think. I'm leaving to follow Mari into the Navy. I have my green card etc and everything has already been legally approved, so you can't use that against me. Also, yes I do know that we probably won't be in the same unit but this is something I want to do for myself.” As soon as Adrien had finished talking the group of four walked away with the teens between the two adults, the four of them chatting away happily in English which left most of the class confused. Neither of the teens noticed Mr Agreste standing in the corridor, leaning against the wall clutching his heart as though in pain. They didn't notice the ambulance as it pulled up to fetch Mr Agreste, nor did they notice as police cars arrived to fetch Chloe and Layla. They didn't see the class trying to make sense of the mess that had been left behind them and to be honest, they didn't care. As far as Adrien and Marinette were concerned, they were free to live their lives. They had been friends for years and they became better ones when they had revealed their identities to each other after Miracle Queen. They were partners and they would face the future the way they had faced everything else: together.

@ash-amg-blog

#salt #lila salt #ms bustier salt #class salt #adrien sugar #au bio dad for marinette #marinette deserves better #badass marinette #non-designer marinette

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danasfilmreviews · 3 years ago

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“Forrest Gump” (1994) Review

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) isn’t the smartest person you’d meet. Raised by his single mother (Sally Field), who showers him with love, encouragement, and words of wisdom such as “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”, Forrest learns to navigate through life and persevere through whatever life throws at him. We watch Forrest as he first escapes bullies in grade school, to becoming a star on his school's football team, to then becoming best friends with Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) while serving in the Vietnam War, to then becoming a ping-pong champion and opening a seafood business. Through all this, Forrest never forgot about one of the most important things in life; his love for his childhood sweetheart, Jenny (Robin Wright).

First off, I think that the way the story is told is very unique. The film is narrated by Forrest, as he sits at a bus stop and explains his life story to strangers sitting there with him. The movie goes back and forth between showing Forrest at the bus stop, and showing Forrest actually in those situations. I thought that this was unique and allows the viewer to understand Forrest and his emotions when he looks back on his life and all that he has been through.

Forrest is definitely a unique character. I thought that Tom Hanks did a great job in the role of Forrest and portrayed him perfectly, from his mannerisms, to his accent and his awkwardness. Something that I thought was very special was Forrest’s relationships with the people he meets throughout his life. We of course know how much Forrest admires and cherishes his mother and Jenny, but beyond that, Forrest becomes attached to Bubba and Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise), both of whom he met while serving in the army. By opening up a shrimping business in honour of Bubba and his dream (Bubba Gump Shrimp Company), and sticking with Lt. Dan and watching their slow-blooming friendship unfold, we admire Forrest for his loyalty and kindness, even in times when others don’t show him the same. He also remains to be a strong character, despite the hardships of losing his loved ones one-by-one, including his mother, Bubba, and sadly, Jenny.

One thing that I liked about this movie was the portrayal of Jenny. Although never explicitly shown or told, it is heavily implied that Jenny was abused by her father. To be honest, at times throughout the movie, I was quite annoyed by Jenny and her actions, as well as how she treated Forrest. However, despite this, by the end of the movie, I learned to appreciate her character, and understood that she could be acting a certain way because of her unfortunate past.

Finally, I want to talk about the end of the film, as I thought that this was very impactful. Near the end of the film, Jenny unveils to Forrest that they have a son together. They spend every day together, cherishing every second spent together as a family, until Jenny passes away. The final scene in the movie shows Forrest sending his son, Forrest Jr., off on the first day of school. In a sequence similar to that in the beginning of the film (including the same bus driver), viewers get a parallel to Forrest and his childhood. This is a heartwarming scene as we feel that Forrest is prepared to give his son the best life possible, after learning from his own personal experiences.

I would rate this film a 8.5/10. To be completely honest, I think that this film is very overrated, but I enjoyed watching it very much. There are elements of humour, sadness, and love, and action, which I appreciated in the film, and contributed to creating a well-balanced film in terms of tone and mood. I think this is a pretty well-rounded movie, and also one of those “must-watch” films just because of how much it has been talked about. I would recommend this film to anyone over the age of 16. I think in order to fully understand the story (for example, the implied message that Jenny has been abused in the past), the viewer would have to be a bit older. I also think viewers that are a bit older than a young teen, would be able to appreciate the complexity of the story and the message of the film. Overall, I thought that Forrest Gump was a great movie that many people will enjoy watching, although perhaps it may be a little too praised.

#forrest gump #film #film review #tom hanks #run forrest run #bubba gump #romance #drama

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silent-era-of-cinema · 4 years ago

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Lila Lee (born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel; July 25, 1905 – November 13, 1973) was a prominent screen actress, primarily a leading lady, of the silent film and early sound film eras.

The daughter of Augusta Fredericka Appel (1875–1940) and Carl Appel (1873–1935), Lee was born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel on July 25, 1905 in Union Hill, New Jersey (now part of Union City), into a middle-class family of German immigrants who relocated to New York City. She had an older sister, Pauline ("Peggy"), who had been born in Hamburg, Germany in 1900.

Searching for a hobby for their gregarious young daughter, the Appels enrolled Lila in Gus Edwards' kiddie review shows where she was given the nickname of "Cuddles"; a name that she would be known by for the rest of her acting career. Her stagework became so popular with the public that her parents had her educated with private tutors. Edwards would become Lee's long-term manager.

Lillian Edwards, wife of Gus Edwards, was Lee's guardian. When Lee was 15 years old, she went to court seeking an injunction to prevent Mrs. Edwards "from collecting any money for Lila's services." Mrs. Edwards countered that she had spent 10 years helping to shape Lee's career and had invested money in her.

Lee performed in vaudeville for eight years.

In 1918, she was chosen for a film contract by Hollywood film mogul Jesse Lasky for Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which later became Paramount Pictures. Her first feature The Cruise of the Make-Believes garnered the seventeen-year-old starlet much public acclaim and Lasky quickly sent Lee on an arduous publicity campaign. Critics lauded Lila for her wholesome persona and sympathetic character parts. Lee quickly rose to the ranks of leading lady and often starred opposite such matinee heavies as Conrad Nagel, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Reid, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, and Rudolph Valentino. Lee bore more than a slight resemblance to Ann Little, a former Paramount star and frequent Reid co-star who was leaving the film business and at this stage in her career an even stronger resemblance to Marguerite Clark.

In 1922 Lee was cast as Carmen in the enormously popular film Blood and Sand, opposite matinee idol Rudolph Valentino and silent screen vamp Nita Naldi; Lee subsequently won the first WAMPAS Baby Stars award that year. Lee continued to be a highly popular leading lady throughout the 1920s and made scores of critically praised and widely watched films.

As the Roaring Twenties drew to a close, Lee's popularity began to wane and Lee positioned herself for the transition to talkies. She is one of the few leading ladies of the silent screen whose popularity did not nosedive with the coming of sound. She went back to working with the major studios and appeared, most notably, in The Unholy Three, in 1930, opposite Lon Chaney Sr. in his only talkie. However, a series of bad career choices and bouts of recurring tuberculosis and alcoholism hindered further projects and Lee was relegated to taking parts in mostly grade B-movies.

Lee was married and divorced three times. Her first husband was actor James Kirkwood, Sr., whom she married on July 26, 1923. They had met on the set of Ebb Tide in 1922. Kirkwood filed for divorce in May 1930 on grounds of her desertion; the divorce was finalized in August 1931. Lee and Kirkwood had a son in 1924, James Kirkwood, Jr., whose custody was granted to his father; he became a highly regarded playwright and screenwriter whose works include A Chorus Line and P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. Kirkwood Jr. was primarily raised by Lee's family in Elyria, Ohio.

In her autobiography, Lee revealed she lost her virginity to Kirkwood before they were married and she fell pregnant as a result. Kirkwood ultimately arranged an abortion for her, and their relationship continued after this only because Kirkwood threatened to tell Lee's mother of their premarital relations.

In June 1928, Lee began an affair with John Farrow while Kirkwood was in London.[8] Lee wrote Kirkwood stating she wanted a divorce, and in late September of that year, the two formally separated. Lee decided not to fight for custody of their son because Kirkwood threatened to kill Farrow, Lee, their son, and himself. After their divorce, Lee traveled to Arizona and stayed in a sanitarium. Lee also became engaged to John Farrow, but they separated in 1933 after Lee discovered he was being unfaithful to her. He would go on to marry Maureen O'Sullivan in 1936.

At the beginning of her career, Lee dated Charlie Chaplin.

Her second husband was broker Jack R. Peine, who she married on December 8, 1934. By July 2, 1935, the two had divorced. Lee claimed Peine was a drunk, a gambler, and a cheater. Shortly into their marriage, with Lila looking for a house for the two, Peine took off to Mexico and didn't return for a month.

In 1935, Lee began a relationship with car salesman Reid Russell. In 1936, Lee was living in California with her son, novelist Gouverneur Morris, and his wife Ruth. Lee became engaged to Russell and planned to marry him once he obtained a divorce. On September 25, 1936, Russell's dead body was discovered outside on the hammock by Kirkwood Jr. He had been shot in the head with a .32 caliber one or two days prior. The bullet had penetrated Russell's head and passed through the other side, but the bullet and empty shell were never located. The gun found in his hand was one he kept in his bureau drawer at home.

Her third husband was broker John E. Murphy. According to author Sean Egan in the James Kirkwood biography Ponies & Rainbows (2011), Murphy's will left Lee at the financial mercy of his second wife, who consequently became the manipulative character Aunt Claire in P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, written by Lee's son, James Kirkwood, Jr.

Following the discovery of Russell's body, his death was investigated and treated as a suicide, and Mr. and Mrs. Morris both said that he was suicidal and had made suicidal remarks after losing his job. Lee would later confirm he had threatened suicide on multiple occasions and that he talked about it incessantly.

On November 11, the Los Angeles Times reported that a woman had made a telephone threat towards Russell's mom, Victoria, urging her to stop pushing the investigation into her son's death. The case had recently been reopened after Victoria had a conference with the investigators. Ruth told Lila that Reid had left a suicide note, but that she wasn't going to tell anyone about it. Lee went to the District Attorney's office to say that there was no suicide note, however Morris backtracked and said that there was. Lee herself never read the note, but Morris read it to her, and then burned it in an ashtray. Later in life, James Kirkwood Jr. would confide to a friend, William Russo, that there had been three suicide notes - one in Ruth Morris' jewel box, and two within a newel post on the handrail of a set of stairs in the house. The two other notes were found after the case was closed.

Gouverneur Morris, his wife Ruth, and Lila Lee were questioned by authorities about the destruction of the suicide note. Mrs. Morris claimed she found the suicide note in a box on her dresser drawer two or three days after Russell's body was discovered. Because his death had already been declared a suicide, Morris decided to burn it. Gouverneur Morris added that neither he nor his wife heard the report of a gunshot neighbors recalled coming from the Morris home at about 9 P.M. on September 24, and that there had been no argument prior to Russell's death.

On November 17, the Los Angeles Times reported that Russell's body may be exhumed depending on the report of a ballistic expert who was trying to determine if the .32 caliber revolver found in his hand had been fired recently. The following day, it was reported that Russell's body was to be exhumed as it could not be determined if the .32 caliber had been fired recently because the gun was in such rusty condition. During this time, investigators began to doubt the suicide hypothesis, but still were not considering murder, but rather if his death had occurred somewhere else other than outside on the hammock.

That same day, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Russell's mother Victoria claimed that four days before Russell's body was found, a woman had telephoned repeatedly asking for Russell and demanding to know where he was. Investigators were beginning to consider that Russell's death could have been a "love slaying". However, on November 19, his ex-wife told the Los Angeles Times that she believed Russell had killed himself. An entirely new theory was also introduced that day by The Examiner, who ran a story headed, "Racketeering Ring Linked to Russell Case". The source for the information was Detective Lieutenant Harry Leslie Hansen of the Georgia Street Divison, who was an old friend of Russell. The Los Angeles Times carried the story the next day, claiming that Hansen had reported to the District Attorney's office that Russell had told him that he was going to quit his automobile salesman's job to smuggle arms and ammunition to a foreign country. Russell revealed these plans to Hansen when the two had gone on a weekend party five days before his death. The same paper reported that Russell's exhumed body had led a county autopsy to declare that the results of the first autopsy still stood: the wound on Russell's temple was powder-marked and seared, indicating a self-inflicted wound, and that the wound was too small to have been made by either .45 or .38 caliber weapons and too big to have resulted from the firing of a .22, thus indicating that the .32 found in Russell's hand was indeed the cause of death.

In the 1930s she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and briefly stayed at a sanitarium in Prescott, Arizona in 1933. She then moved to Saranac Lake, New York for treatment at the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital. Lee made several uneventful appearances in stage plays in the 1940s, and starred in early television soap operas in the 1950s.

In 1973 Lee died of a stroke at Saranac Lake. She is buried at Brookdale Cemetery in Elyria, Ohio.

For her contribution as an actress in motion pictures, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1716 Vine Street. It was dedicated on February 8, 1960.

#lila lee #silent era #silent hollywood #silent movie stars #classic hollywood #golden age of hollywood #classic movie stars #1910s movies #1920s hollywood #1930s hollywood

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thetaxcollector2020veronlin-blog · 4 years ago

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Cuevana The Tax Collector 2020 Pelicula Completa Latino HD

HAGA CLICK AQUI : https://bit.ly/33Lw9UB

Production companies: Fast Horse Pictures, Kodiak Pictures, Cedar Park Entertainment Distributor: RLJE Films (select theaters, VOD, digital) Cast: Bobby Soto, Cinthya Carmona, George Lopez, Shia LaBeouf, Elpidia Carrillo, Lana Parrilla, David Castañeda, Conejo, Cheyenne Rae Hernandez, Cle Sloan, Noemi Gonzalez, Juan Carlos Cantu, Chelsea Rendon, Rene Moran Director-screenwriter: David Ayer Producers: Chris Long, David Ayer, Tyler Thompson, Matt Antoun Executive producers: Douglas Duncan, Buddy Patrick, Steve Matzkin, Misook Doolittle, Sarah Schroeder-Matzkin, Mickey Gooch, Jr., Doug McKay, Cindy Bond, Todd Williams Director of photography: Salvatore Totino Production designer: Andrew Menzies Costume designer: Kelli Jones Music: Michael Yezerski Editor: Geoffrey O'Brien Casting: Mary Vernieu, Lindsay Graham-Ahanonu

SINOPSIS No se sabe nada acerca del argumento de esta cinta de acción y crímen que, aparentemente, seguirá la línea de dos de los trabajos anteriores de David Ayer: Training Day y Sin Tregua (End of Watch).

La cinta está dirigida, pues, por David Ayer (Escuadrón Suicida, Bright) y protagonizada por Shia LaBeouf (Honey Boy, The Peanut Butter Falcon), Bobby Soto (For the People, S.W.A.T. Los hombres de Harrelson), Chelsea Randon (Nueve vidas, Urgencias), Cinthya Carmona (The Fix, Greenhouse Academy) y Lana Parrilla (Érase una vez, Chase).

'The Tax Collector': Film Review Violent Los Angeles street culture on both sides of the law has been an abiding fascination in David Ayer's output, notably in his bruising screenplay for Training Day and his nervy, documentary-style cop drama, End of Watch. The buddy dynamic and gritty milieu of that 2012 film invigorate the best elements of The Tax Collector, the writer-director's return to a smaller-scale project after taking a critical hammering with the big-budget, high-concept outings of Suicide Squad and Netflix's Bright. "So why another L.A. crime movie?" asks Ayer in his Director's Statement. Why, indeed.

Despite a lot of admirable aims, such as creating layered roles for the Latino acting community and spending production dollars in areas that could benefit from the economic boost, this grim bloodbath feels too routine to be of much interest.

The well-acted film is shot by Salvatore Totino with impressive dexterity, capturing the urban sprawl of L.A. with a sharp eye and deft ability to build textured atmosphere, and Geoffrey O'Brien's editing shows an equally propulsive hand. But almost everything about this mean-streets action thriller feels familiar and a touch self-important, starting with its heralding of the sacred code blasted over a portrait of protagonist David (Bobby Soto) with his beautiful wife and angelic kids: "Love. Honor. Loyalty. Family."

The vaunted authenticity legitimized by Ayer's upbringing in South L.A. in the 1970s and '80s in this case doesn't mean he has a fresh perspective. The conflict of a loyal lieutenant in a criminal organization who compartmentalizes his life into hard-core career thug on one side, devoted paterfamilias on the other — "God allows me to walk from the darkness and come back into the light," says David — by now seems a standard gangster trope. As soon as that's established, we know exactly where he's going to feel the pain.

While Soto (Narcos: Mexico) makes a reasonably charismatic lead, the more magnetic character is his sidekick, a twitchy killing machine known as Creeper (Shia LaBeouf, reuniting with Ayer after Fury). Encased in figure-hugging skinny suits, Mafia-grade sunglasses and just the right amount of bling, LaBeouf goes full Method with his flavorful dialogue and wired physicality, whether Creeper is extolling the virtues of his smelly protein diet, musing on the value of morning meditation and the meaninglessness of God in his universe or simply itching to stop talking and spill some blood. The actor builds a fully formed character that suggests an intriguing backstory, giving off sparks in his every scene.

Regrettably, that's not so much the case with the more generically drawn David and his wife Alexis (Cinthya Carmona), who is perceived as being safely outside the family's criminal operations but has enough of a stake in the business to know what's what. She certainly has no qualms about calling on David to put the fear of death into the "Mexican Kardashians" holding up work on their daughter's quinceañera dress, and she oversees the weekly tally of protection money collected by David and Creeper from 43 different L.A. street gangs.

Alexis is also the point person who communicates directly with Wizard, the overlord of the crime organization whose current situation (along with the unbilled famous name playing the role) is revealed in the film's closing scene.

'Tax Collector' Trailer Reteams Shia LaBeouf and David Ayer David's connection to Wizard becomes apparent only gradually, once an old rival of the crime boss returns from Mexico intent on reshaping the street-gang landscape according to his own rules. That hostile interloper, Conejo (borrowing the rapper name of Jose Martin, who plays the role with maximum menace), takes pleasure in reminding David how he's still a glorified errand boy instead of a fully-fledged made man.

Conejo first extends a hand offering David an executive role in his burgeoning empire. When that offer is declined, Conejo sends a brutal message via David's drug dealer Uncle Louis (comedian George Lopez, bringing understated snarl to a dramatic role). "I'm the future and you're the past," Conejo warns David, later adding, "Everything you love is gonna die."

While David prays to Jesus to keep his family and their palatial Spanish-style home safe, Conejo's religious rituals make Santeria look like Sunday school. The movie veers into grotesquerie as he prays at an unholy altar for protection in the oncoming turf war, bathing in the blood of a human sacrifice in a room that looks like Keith Haring threw a Dia de los Muertos party.

This might have been lurid fun from a director who didn't take it all so seriously, even if it's in questionable taste at a time when the White House administration has done everything in its power to demonize Latin American immigrants. There's little leeway for dark humor in Ayer's world, though I did get a kick out of Conejo's lady friend Gata (Cheyenne Rae Hernandez). Licking her lips lasciviously, the aptly named feline fiend can lob explosives and rain bullets from a semi-automatic all while skipping about on vertiginous heels. And you don't even want to know about her skills with a hammer. But Gata is a figure out of a Robert Rodriguez grindhouse world stuck in a fundamentally realist realm.

The inevitable faceoff between Conejo's goons and Wizard's is plenty bloody, intercut with Conejo's Satanic prayers. But the sequence feels almost perfunctory, yielding few surprises for a director with the sinewy action command Ayer has shown in the past. Pretty much everything that follows becomes both predictable and a little too easy as David musters all his force to protect what's most precious to him, calling on help from the leader of a Bloods gang (Cle Sloan) in his showdown with Conejo.

Earlier scenes have sketched in David's strategic ability to accrue loyalty as well as the humanity he shows when one gang rep's payment shortfall is explained by the medical expenses of his chronically ill daughter. But Ayer seems to be laboring under the misapprehension that the family-oriented gangster is something new in movies, along with the conflicted cycle of intergenerational violence. When blood-drenched David starts spouting hackneyed dialogue like "For my family, I live. For my family, I die. For my family, I kill," it's hard to stifle a groan. And the incorporation of the Zen aspects of Jiu Jitsu into his climactic fight is too flimsy to add anything.

Ayer drives the action along efficiently enough to the churning dread of Michael Yezerski's score. But there's too little depth to make you care about the characters and too little imagination at work to make The Tax Collector pay.

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#Cuevana The Tax Collector 2020 Pelicula Completa Latino HD

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theussanvegad · 5 years ago

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Character development questions: hard mode.

Special shout-out to @dxctxrii for reblogging this, I figured I’d just go ahead and answer all of them at once.

Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

Lorelai has 4 siblings in the 24-36 age range, she is the second oldest child at age 34. She would most likely be closest with her older brother Kyle, who is the executive chef at Indigo.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?

Rather strained, and has been since she was 10, being born and raised on the resort planet Risa, her mom tried to push her into the “staff” field on this world. Given Risa’s reputation and culture, that meant a lot of sex work. Her mother disapproved of Lorelai’s dreams of joining Starfleet.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?

Leto McLaren always tried to do right by his children, even after the divorce. He stayed working for his ex-wife at Indigo resort hotel as a charter deep sea fishing guide to keep an eye on things and make sure Vanessa (the mother) didn’t go too overboard. He was the one who booked Lorelai on the first liner to earth when she passed her academy entrance exams with flying colors.

Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

Wolf 359... she was second officer on the USS Endeavor, the only ship to survive that disaster (badly damaged)... you don’t go through something like that unchanged... and yes, anyone who’s familiar with her service record knows

On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets?

Her ring of lucky charms. (A simple old fashioned key ring full of charms, several from her former captains and teachers at the academy... she has one from her siblings and father, and a special one from her second officer LtCdr. Laura Winters.

Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams?

Occasionally, most of her dreams are erotic in nature.

Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares?

Watching 39 other starships coldly and efficiently destroyed by a single cube, her direct superior dying in her arms on the endeavor, and being assimilated

Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target?

Yes. Target at the practice ranges at Starfleet Academy

Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up?

Yes, she went from a life that would have made her a glorified prostitute (albeit a legal one) to a decorated and respected starship captain in Starfleet.

Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?

Usually less.

In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?

The battle of Maxia, where on her first assignment out of the Academy, she was assigned to the USS Stargazer under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. She was a young jr grade Lieutenant, fresh from the Academy, and the ship came under attack from an unknown and unidentified ship, she was forced to take the helm after the helm officer was badly injured.

In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been?

The immediate aftermath of the Barzan gambit, where the task force the USS Anvegad (her ship, and first command) exited the Barzan wormhole on the completely WRONG SIDE OF THE GALAXY! The goal had been a covert insertion into the Gamma Quadrant behind Dominion lines to gather intelligence... the result, six starships scattered across the Delta Quadrant.

Is your character bothered by the sight of blood? If so, in what way?

Does your character remember names or faces easier?

Faces

Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not?

No, she’s a Federation citizen and a Starfleet Captain in the 24th century... (watch some TNG if you don’t know what that means)

Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success?

For her the two are nearly the same

What was your character’s favorite toy as a child?

A small powerboard or floater

Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others?

Wisdom. Experience has tempered her, teaching her the value of both, however, wisdom has been shown to produce more long term solutions and results than ambition alone.

What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before?

She’s openly sexual, has no problems flirting or seducing someone if it will help complete a mission, it has when she was dating a fellow lieutenant earlier in her career, she seduced her entire away team out of a very tight spot on a mission and allowed them all to get back to the ship safely... her boyfriend at the time did NOT like it.

In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism?

At this point, she doesn’t care, people either accept her for who she is and what she can do, or they don’t.

If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others?

She is more apt to analyze the situation, was something she did the cause or contributing factor? Was there a failure in the chain of command somewhere, did a mechanical fault lead to or contribute to the event. Was the action caused by another, if so did she underestimate them or were they simply better?

What does your character like in other people?

Passion, doesn’t matter what they’re passionate about, but that passion is something that she can identify with and reach common ground.

What does your character dislike in other people?

Deliberate ignorance (not ignorance, when they simply don’t know something,) but the abject refusal to learn from mistakes, refusal to better themselves because of misguided pride.

How quick is your character to trust someone else?

It depends on the person and the situation. Sometimes it’s an instant decision based on instinct, some times it takes time

How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person?

She relies on Natira Kosh, her Chief of security to investigate, to gather evidence, and to narrow down potential suspects before she makes her decision. “Everybody, including myself is a potential suspect until they have been properly cleared by my chief of security.”

How does your character behave around children?

She is polite and friendly, rather comfortable with them

How does your character normally deal with confrontation?

She will defend anyone on her crew vigorously, and with passion. She stands her ground, unless doing so would pose an immediate threat to her ship, her crew, Starfleet or the Federation.

How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation?

She prefers diplomacy to combat, something that she learned from her first Captain, but will not shy away from or hesitate to use force if it is necessary. In the case of a known hostile, and previous attempts at diplomacy have failed, the decision is instant and immediate.

What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?

Joining Starfleet and seeing the galaxy... obviously that did come true

What does your character find repulsive or disgusting?

A certain Kazon Maj... seriously FUCK that guy in particular!

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable.

Relaxing in a proper bath, with a glass of wine and an audio book playing.

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most uncomfortable.

Waiting, particularly when she cannot affect the outcome one way or another.

In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?

It depends on who is giving it, and why,

Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method?

She prefers to analyze the results of the failed attempt first to determine why it failed, what effect it actually had, what if anything caused it to fail, and could these be corrected? Then she might try again... if time and the situation permits such a luxury of said analysis. In a battle situation, she’s likely to change tactics and strategy on the fly to adapt

How does your character behave around people they like?

She’s warm, friendly, approachable, courteous and polite.

How does your character behave around people they dislike?

In a professional setting, she remains courteous and polite, but with an undertone if cold businesslike professionalism.

Is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status?

Honor most times

Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat?

Remove the threat... neutralize it, contain it if possible... destroy it if not

Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)?

Fun fact: Risian Feather Monkeys do NOT react well to being tickled. And a young Lorelai had seven stitches to prove it

How does your character treat people in service jobs?

Growing up in such an environment herself, she treats them quite well, knowing the difficulties that such jobs entail.

Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first?

She feels that she has earned everything she has gotten, through hard work, determination, and ability. If she hadn’t earned her captaincy, she wouldn’t be a Captain.

Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them?

Boothby, the grounds keeper at Starfleet Academy, Captain Picard aboard The Stargazer

Has your character ever had a dependent figure who was not related to them?

Every person under her command, as far as she’s concerned

How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it?

Rather easy in the right situation, and though she doesn’t like to say it without meaning it... she can and has.

What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?

She’s not sure what will happen, but she sees it as a new adventure.

#lorelai mclaren #character questions

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asiajanuary2020 · 5 years ago

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January 12, 2020

One of the best days ever! Today we did a Hanoi City tour with Backstreet Tours. In the morning we traveled in an old army Jeep around the city, and in the afternoon we each got on the back of an old army motorcycle and traveled through surrounding areas of Hanoi.

Our tour guide’s English translation of her name is Snow. She was so much fun to travel the streets of Hanoi with! She told us a bit about her background- she went to university and got her degree in banking, but decided she wanted to be a tour guide and is now studying to become a professional tour guide. We asked how she spoke English so well and she told us it was from watching Ellen! They learn written English in school, but most of the English teachers in Vietnam do not have good pronunciation, so they have to learn how to speak English another way. Snow was very enthusiastic and entertaining and knowledgeable. This all made for an excellent tour!

We started out by traveling to the real Hanoi area - the Black Market area. People used to sell goods here “under the table” out of their homes, but now the government has made it legal, so they sell EVERYTHING out of little stalls in front of their homes.

Then snow took us to Train Street, which is a very narrow street that the passenger train travels through and houses front onto the railroad tracks. There is just enough room for a narrow sidewalk on either side of the tracks. This area started becoming popular to visit, so many of the people living along the tracks opened little businesses on the ground floor of their homes.

Next we traveled to The President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. It is a mausoleum which serves as the resting place of Vietnamese Revolutionary leader & President Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is a large building located in the center of Ba Dinh Square, where Ho, Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam from 1951 until his death in 1969, read the Declaration of Independence on September 2, 1945, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. It is also known as Ba Đình Mausoleum. The embalmed body of President Ho Chi Minh is preserved in the cooler, central hall of the mausoleum, which is protected by a military honour guard. The body lies in a glass case with dim lights. The mausoleum is generally open to the public. Snow told us that they have to close the mausoleum in the hot summer months and move his body to a cooler spot in order to keep preserving it. We had no idea that they had preserved him so that the public could visit him.

Next we visited the Temple of Literature. Map

The Temple of Literature or Temple of Culture (Vietnamese: Văn Miếu, Hán-Nôm: 文廟[1][2])) is a Temple of Confucius in Hanoi, northern Vietnam. The temple hosts the Imperial Academy (Quốc Tử Giám, 國子監), Vietnam's first national university. The temple was built in 1070 at the time of Emperor Lý Thánh Tông. It is one of several temples in Vietnam which is dedicated to Confucius, sages and scholars. The temple is located to the south of the Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long. The various pavilions, halls, statues and stelae of doctors are places where offering ceremonies, study sessions and the strict exams of the Đại Việt took place. The temple is featured on the back of the 100,000 Vietnamese đồng banknote. Just before the Vietnamese New Year celebration Tết, calligraphists will assemble outside the temple and write wishes in Hán characters. The art works are given away as gifts or are used as home decorations for special occasions.

Next we drove through the French Quarter on our way to the “Hanoi Hilton” prison. Hỏa Lò Prison was a prison used by the French colonists in French Indochina for political prisoners, and later by North Vietnam for U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. During this later period it was known to American POWs as the Hanoi Hilton. The prison was demolished during the 1990s, although the gatehouse remains as a museum. The name Hỏa Lò, commonly translated as "fiery furnace" or even "Hell's hole", also means "stove". The name originated from the street name phố Hỏa Lò, due to the concentration of stores selling wood stoves and coal-fire stoves along the street in pre-colonial times.

The prison was built in Hanoi by the French, in dates ranging from 1886–1889 to 1898 to 1901, when Vietnam was still part of French Indochina. The French called the prison Maison Centrale, ‘Central House', which is still the designation of prisons for dangerous or long sentence detainees in France. It was located near Hanoi's French Quarter. It was intended to hold Vietnamese prisoners, particularly political prisoners agitating for independence who were often subject to torture and execution. A 1913 renovation expanded its capacity from 460 inmates to 600. It was nevertheless often overcrowded, holding some 730 prisoners on a given day in 1916, a figure which rose to 895 in 1922 and 1,430 in 1933. By 1954 it held more than 2000 people; with its inmates held in subhuman conditions, it had become a symbol of colonialist exploitation and of the bitterness of the Vietnamese towards the French.

The central urban location of the prison also became part of its early character. During the 1910s through 1930s, street peddlers made an occupation of passing outside messages in through the jail's windows and tossing tobacco and opium over the walls; letters and packets would be thrown out to the street in the opposite direction. Within the prison itself, communication and ideas passed. Many of the future leading figures in Communist North Vietnam spent time in Maison Centrale during the 1930s and 1940s. Following the defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the 1954 Geneva Accords the French left Hanoi and the prison came under the authority of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Thereafter the prison served as an education center for revolutionary doctrine and activity, and it was kept around after the French left to mark its historical significance to the North Vietnamese. During the Vietnam War, the first U.S. prisoner to be sent to Hỏa Lò was Lieutenant Junior Grade Everett Alvarez Jr., who was shot down on August 5, 1964. From the beginning, U.S. POWs endured miserable conditions, including poor food and unsanitary conditions. The prison complex was sarcastically nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by the American POWs, in reference to the well-known Hilton Hotel chain. There is some disagreement among the first group of POWs who coined the name but F8D pilot Bob Shumaker was the first to write it down, carving "Welcome to the Hanoi Hilton" on the handle of a pail to greet the arrival of Air Force Lieutenant Robert Peel.

Beginning in early 1967, a new area of the prison was opened for incoming American POWs; it was dubbed "Little Vegas", and its individual buildings and areas were named after Las Vegas Strip landmarks, such as "Golden Nugget", "Thunderbird", "Stardust", "Riviera", and the "Desert Inn". These names were chosen because many pilots had trained at Nellis Air Force Base, located in proximity to Las Vegas.[11] American pilots were frequently already in bad shape by the time they were captured, injured either during their ejection or in landing on the ground. The Hanoi Hilton was one site used by the North Vietnamese Army to house, torture and interrogate captured servicemen, mostly American pilots shot down during bombing raids. Although North Vietnam was a signatory of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, which demanded "decent and humane treatment" of prisoners of war, severe torture methods were employed, such as rope bindings, irons, beatings, and prolonged solitary confinement. When prisoners of war began to be released from this and other North Vietnamese prisons during the Johnson administration, their testimonies revealed widespread and systematic abuse of prisoners of war.

Regarding treatment at Hỏa Lò and other prisons, the North Vietnamese countered by stating that prisoners were treated well and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. During 1969, they broadcast a series of coerced statements from American prisoners that purported to support this notion. The North Vietnamese also maintained that their prisons were no worse than prisons for POWs and political prisoners in South Vietnam, such as the one on Côn Sơn Island. Misstreatment of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese prisoners and South Vietnamese dissidents in South Vietnam's prisons was indeed frequent, as was North Vietnamese abuse of South Vietnamese prisoners and their own dissidents.

Beginning in late 1969, treatment of the prisoners at Hỏa Lò and other camps became less severe and generally more tolerable. Following the late 1970 attempted rescue operation at Sơn Tây prison camp, most of the POWs at the outlying camps were moved to Hỏa Lò, so that the North Vietnamese had fewer camps to protect. This created the "Camp Unity" communal living area at Hỏa Lò, which greatly reduced the isolation of the POWs and improved their morale. After the implementation of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, neither the United States nor its allies ever formally charged North Vietnam with the war crimes revealed to have been committed there. In the 2000s, the Vietnamese government has had the position that claims that prisoners were tortured at Hoa Lo and other sites during the war are fabricated, but that Vietnam wants to move past the issue as part of establishing better relations with the U.S. Tran Trong Duyet, a jailer at Hoa Lo beginning in 1968 and its commandant for the last three years of the war, maintained in 2008 that no prisoners were tortured. However, eyewitness accounts by American servicemen present a different account of their captivity.

After the war, Risner wrote the book Passing of the Night detailing his seven years at the Hanoi Hilton. A considerable amount of literature emerged from released POWs after repatriation, depicting Hoa Lo and the other prisons as places where such atrocities as murder, beatings, broken bones, teeth and eardrums, dislocated limbs, starvation, serving of food contaminated with human and animal feces, and medical neglect of infections and tropical disease occurred. These details are revealed in famous accounts by McCain (Faith of My Fathers), Denton, Alvarez, Day, Risner, Stockdale and dozens of others. In addition, the Hanoi Hilton was depicted in the 1987 Hollywood movie The Hanoi Hilton. The prison continued to be in use after the release of the American prisoners. Among the last inmates was dissident poet Nguyễn Chí Thiện, who was reimprisoned in 1979 after attempting to deliver his poems to the British Embassy, and spent the next six years in Hỏa Lò until 1985 when he was transferred to a more modern prison. He mentions the last years of the prison, partly in fictional form, in Hỏa Lò/Hanoi Hilton Stories (2007). Most of the prison was demolished in the mid-1990s and the site now contains two high-rise buildings, one of them the 25-story Somerset Grand Hanoi serviced apartment building. Other parts have been converted into a commercial complex retaining the original French colonial walls.

Only part of the prison exists today as a museum. The displays mainly show the prison during the French colonial period, including the guillotine room, still with original equipment, and the quarters for male and female Vietnamese political prisoners. Exhibits related to the American prisoners include the interrogation room where many newly captured Americans were questioned (notorious among former prisoners as the "blue room") is now made up to look like a very comfortable, if spartan, barracks-style room. Displays in the room claim that Americans were treated well and not harmed (and even cite the nickname "Hanoi Hilton" as proof that inmates found the accommodations comparable to a hotel's). Propaganda in the museum includes pictures of American POWs playing chess, shooting pool, gardening, raising chickens, and receiving large fish and eggs for food. The museum's claims are contested by former prisoners' published memoirs, and oral histories broadcast on C-SPAN identify the room (and other nearby locales) as the site of numerous acts of torture.

After the prison, we hopped on the back of the motorcycles and headed to lunch. This was a true authentic Vietnamese experience- driving through the very congested streets of Hanoi on the back of a motorcycle! This is the main mode of transportation and it is crazy because just about anything goes!!!! Signals and street signs and laws are just “guidelines” and pretty much ignored. But it all seems to work pretty seamlessly! What a blast!!!!

Snow took us to a restaurant for a delicious Vietnamese lunch. She took care of ordering for us with attention to everyone’s dietary wishes. It was a great lunch and a nice break in the day. Back onto the motorcycles where we started our way out of the City Center, traveling over the oldest bridge in Hanoi. Long Biên Bridge (Vietnamese: Cầu Long Biên) is a historic cantilever bridge across the Red River that connects two districts, Hoan Kiem and Long Bien of the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. It was originally called Paul Doumer Bridge. The bridge was built in 1899-1902 by the architects Daydé & Pillé of Paris, and opened in 1903.[1] Before North Vietnam's independence in 1954, it was called Paul-Doumer Bridge, named after Paul Doumer - The Governor-General of French Indochina and then French president. At 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) in length, it was, at that time, one of the longest bridges in Asia. For the French colonial government, the construction was of strategic importance in securing control of northern Vietnam. From 1899 to 1902, more than 3,000 Vietnamese took part in the construction.

It was heavily bombarded during Vietnam War due to its critical position (the only bridge at that time across the Red River connecting Hanoi to the main port of Haiphong). The first attack took place in 1967, and the center span of the bridge was felled by an attack by 20 USAF F-105 fighter-bombers. CIA reports noted that the severing of the bridge did not appear to have caused as much disruption as had been expected. The defence of Long Bien Bridge continues to play a large role in Hanoi’s self-image and is often extolled in poetry and song. It was rendered unusable for a year when, in May 1972, it fell victim to one of the first co-ordinated attacks using laser-guided "smart bombs". Some parts of the original structure remain intact, while large sections have been built later to repair the holes. Only half of the bridge retains its original shape. A project with support and loan from the French government is currently in progress to restore the bridge to its original appearance.

Today trains, mopeds, bicycles and pedestrians use the dilapidated bridge, while all other traffic is diverted to the nearby Chương Dương Bridge and some newly built bridges.

Under the bridge, poor families live in boats on the Red River, coming from many rural areas of Vietnam.

We then traveled through a large agricultural area, and then reached our destination of the Bat Trang Ceramics Village . It is a 14th century porcelain and pottery village near Hanoi, housing local artisans who combine both traditional and modern techniques to create beautiful porcelain artworks. Not only are you able to purchase some of the finest handmade ceramic products in Vietnam, you can also see them made right before your eyes during your visit.

Located next to the Red River within the Gia Lam District, Bat Trang Ceramics Village Hanoi holds an important place in history of the ceramics industry in Asia, as it’s close to trading ports Thang Long and Pho Hien. Today, visitors can explore its many ceramic stores and workshops to browse through a vast selection of vases, bowls, cups, and plates.

Snow took us all around the village where we visited with different artisans and saw different stages of making the ceramic pieces.

Then we headed back to the City Center to the Hidden Gem coffee shop for a final stop for refreshments. Some choose to try the famous egg coffee. I had a coconut coffee and Mike had hot chocolate. Then we got dropped off at our hotel where we said our goodbyes to Snow and the other drivers. It was by far one of the best tours we have ever experienced!

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jaces-archivist · 5 years ago

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The Perfect Date

Servis and Koil first appeared here, in a fic that was never meant to be expanded upon lol

This is like 50% Megumi event fic and 50% shipping my two ocs hope that’s okay @bace-jeleren ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Servis had never been happier in his life. Even after almost a decade married to Koil he could hardly believe that such a good, wonderful man had agreed to spend his life with him, and what a life it was. Before long after the War of the Spark he’d broken down and gone back to find the stranger who’d saved his life. It took a week before he broke again, telling him how they had actually first met. Servis kept finding new ways to break the rules for his husband’s sake, for the better. They’d even had a public Selesnya wedding, half the guests disguised as servers until the last minute. A Dimir assassin’s life was never straightforward, and he never tired of it.

Koil couldn’t stop grinning. This perfect moment was like a microcosm of all the good he’d worked for in the last years. Right now he was riding Happy Jr. down the Transguild Promenade. He’d brought the now-adult wolf into the world with his own hands, the continuing legacy of a wolf that had served him faithfully for decades. He’d risen in the ranks of the Ledev, and now both proudly wore gold lieutenant’s embellishments on their casual uniforms. Servis was in his arms, the stranger who had bafflingly approached him weeks after the War of the Spark, saying that they’d met before, that they’d fought together. Oh how glad he was that he had humored him. Years had passed with the delightful, tricky Dimir man, and he never tired of finding new ways to delight him more.

Koil had planned out the whole day. First they’d tried the new “bowling” establishment, then they spent time in the park, and now they were riding Happy Jr. to reservations at their favorite restaurant, a little Golgari place on the Promenade…

Happy Jr. stopped as both riders checked out the commotion far down the street. There appeared to be a grey cyclops rampaging. Koil silently hoped everyone got out of the matter safe. Servis silently hoped it didn’t ruin their date. Koil’s adorable need to help everyone didn’t help their chances. Curiously, a human-looking figure was going toe-to-toe with the cyclops. Presumably the authorities would have heard of the incident, but their robes didn’t seem to be Azorius or Boros, and their Orzhov colors were distinctly un-Orzhov patterned. A small figure popped out of the fighting and flew down the street – literally, straight up and sideways at head height. A young mage, probably, hopefully propelling themself to safety. Suddenly, the cyclops picked up the human and slammed her into the ground. She didn’t get up. Now Koil had stirred Happy forward to help them, nearly colliding with the child.

“Mister! Mister, help! You’re a soldier, right? Slesnee-any or something? Please, she’s going to kill me!” Happy Jr.’s claws scrabbled at cobblestones to turn around, as the cyclops roared and charged at the pair. The child kept flying without apparent effort, babbling at Koil, who had difficulty following through his pulse roaring in his ears. Fear magic, perhaps. The child didn’t seem to be doing anything, and who’d ever heard of a cyclops mage? How on earth was he feeling the effects from so far away, with the plaza cleared out from the fight?

Servis had obligingly curled up under Koil as he rode forward to intervene, and now he groaned and slapped his forehead. The child, just look at her! Maybe she could get away with claiming the Simic gave her rabbit ears, but solid black eyes? Innate levitation? And any Ravnican three-year-old can say “Selesnya”. The girl was obviously a planeswalker. The cyclops probably was, too. They were never going to get to the restaurant. His husband was just too good to say no to someone in trouble. Servis loved that about him, any other time.

“Fine.” He swung around and up, giving Koil room and deftly balancing on his favorite good girl’s back as she ran away from the grey cyclops. “Come on,” He told the young planeswalker. “Hi! My name’s Megumi. What’s- waaaah!” He snatched her by the leg, no room for argument, and pulled her down into his previous place. He could feel fear magic affecting him, even this far away, and it was probably going to mess up both Happy and Koil soon enough. That wouldn’t do.

Whoosh. Fog spilled out from Servis, slipping from any crack in his clothing it could find. By now though, the unbelievably athletic cyclops had already caught up with them, and Koil turned Happy Jr. to meet her. Her aura was terrifying up close. Koil nearly froze, but enough of his training kicked in in time to swing his small shield up, the thing denting like a tin can under the cyclop’s fist. Happy Jr. was bowled over and threw her riders from the impact. Koil barely held it together after that. She would have killed him. All to get after this little girl.

“No!” Wham, and the human from before was back, miraculously recovered. She didn’t appear to have a scratch, and now she was edged with a faint white-and-gold halo, tainted with black. She tried again to hit the cyclops, who barely looked fazed by the blow.

“How many times do I have to show you!? This little display is pathetic.” The cyclops turned around to engage the figure. Human? Angel? Spirit? Planeswalkers were a dime a dozen today, it seemed.

Koil indulged his impulse to run, get away, and signaled Happy Jr. Koil hauled the stunned girl onto the massive wolf and leaped up himself. The wolf again clawed for purchase down the cobblestones of the Promenade. Servis had somehow hung onto her, and her scrabbling turned into galloping as his fog surrounded the group riding her, enveloping them and slipping them out of view. He crafted it as dense and wide as he could, anything to protect his husband. That should stop her.

The cyclops had buried the other planeswalker in the street again, and turned to face where the pair riding the wolf had been. She squinted and searched.

“You can’t hide from me!” She pointed a clawed metal arm. K-Chang! Her hand detached and shot out, trailing a long chain behind it. So that’s what that it was for. It shot wide, missing Servis’s head by several feet, but the fact that she even knew their general direction was a bad sign. The claw buried itself into a nearby building, and ripped out a huge chunk of stone as she jerked it back, already running forward at that incredible pace.

Happy Jr. leaped right, then left, then right again, getting lost in the maze of side streets that makes up Ravnica. The cyclops roared past behind them on the Promenade. Koil eventually had Happy Jr. slow down. She gratefully sat and dumped her passengers into a side alley, then flopped onto her side, panting. Now Koil’s pulse roared from normal adrenaline. “W-what was that?”

“Grii.” The girl said. “She’s a planeswalker, like me, and she got here only a second after me and Sophi did. She hates me because of my parents and she’s been hunting me for so long and I don’t know what to do and, and…” The girl became more and more frantic as she told her normally well-practiced tale. Koil simply got down on one knee and embraced her as she cried, or tried to, her tears obviously spent long ago. She sniffled. “…I hope Sophi’s okay.”

“Koil.” Servis said. Koil looked up, still holding Megumi. “The cyclops, she can find us. That weird claw came close even though she couldn’t see us. Planeswalkers are completely unpredictable, and I don’t want to assume that whatever it is only works in short-range.” His fog was still flowing, pooling around his feet and out. It rose up and clung around the forms of the panting wolf and the three riders, spilling into the wider street. Neither was worried that anyone would find it odd. They had to notice it at all first.

All three felt their pulses quicken back up. Grii was gaining on them, and fast. Someone said, “Shit!”. Servis and Koil looked at each other, then at Megumi. Koil murmured, “language”, for the sake of it, then they all scrambled to get back on Happy Jr.

They made it out and turned just before Grii would have blocked the alley off. Sophi staggered after Grii in turn, showing lots of wear and tear for her trouble. On Happy Jr.’s back, Servis got ready.

During his early assassin days, he’d pretty much only been able to do his fog trick. That was technically still true, but when you’re skilled enough at a particular field of magic you can find many interesting uses for it. The wind caught him and he flew directly back into Grii’s face. He pulled his now-immaterial form in, around and in her. She grabbed and pulled at the wisps as she slammed sideways and began to choke. He could delay her, if he could concentrate long enough to

“That’s enough.” Lazav said. Servis was kneeling in supplication, panting and trembling. His superiors were disappointed. They’d wanted to test his loyalty. Again. He’d failed. Again. Everything was gone. Koil, Happy, Happy Jr., his position, their date, it was all just a wonderful dream, just as he’d always feared, deep down. Now they knew all about his weakness and they were going to fix him, cut out his love and turn

He was curled up on his side, cheek pressed to more dirty cobblestone. Grii was hundreds of feet away down the long street. Servis slowly got back up and wiped off tears. “Ohhhhh, you’re not gonna get away with that.” He looked up. The street was a dead end. Koil was leaning against the wall, clutching his side. Happy Jr. was also down, curled protectively around his feet and whining and growling up at Grii. Without missing a beat Servis pulled out his long knife and threw it without even looking. Special Dimir first-grade assassin equipment. It would hit. Servis was already running forward.

Koil tried to keep himself between Grii and Megumi, pointing his spear at her as he clutched his crushed ribs. Suddenly, there was a knife sticking out of her head. Servis’s knife. She barely even reacted to it, only jerked it out in a gush of blood and swiped at Servis. A huge portion of his body tore away in a puff of smoke, resolidifying as he rolled to a stop, unconscious and bleeding heavily. Grii took the opportunity to dart a hand forward, shoving Koil aside and slamming Megumi up onto the wall by the throat.

“Finally. Finally! All those bodies, all this suffering. Your parents, they took everything from me. I trained for my entire life to kill her, and they just took that away.” Koil tried to stab her and she slapped him to the ground without even taking her eyes away from Megumi’s face, gasping for air. “I wanted to take my revenge. But you! You evaded me at every turn. Every nobody across the multiverse ran to your side. I failed, again and again. I failed!” She slammed Megumi into the wall again for emphasis. With one hand, Megumi clawed at an arm the size of her torso and with the other hand, she reached for a white knife at her hip. “Now you owe me too. I’m going to make this slow.” Grii was crying, but she was smiling. “Finally! I’ve been waiting so long to make this happen. I’ve done so much. I’ll finish off these ones first so I’ll have all the time in the multiverse to make you suffer. It’s been so, so long. What’s a few more days?” Megumi now had the knife raised to stab, but dropped it as her weakened arm spasmed. “Finally...”

Koil stared at Servis’s body. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Not him, not Servis. Not his laughing, playful, beautiful husband. She couldn’t take everything from him. No, that was the fear magic talking. She hadn’t taken everything. He had so much he leaned back on. Now he asked them for more, silently pleading and relying on his connection to all of the might of Selesnya, his brethren. Help me. Help my husband. In his mind, they answered in a great chorus. Koil channeled their gifts and their wishes, gathering green and blue ribbons and swirls to form a sphere of pure energy at the end of his spear. He lifted up with the tide and shoved forward, and all of Selesnya shoved with him.

“YOU. WILL. NOT. TOUCH. HER.” Sophi was back again, and glowing as golden and sick as Koil’s weapon glowed bright and warm. She slammed into Grii’s legs as Koil slammed into her side, Grii flipping like a ragdoll hard into the pavement. The stone broke beneath the force of both impacts, nearly burying Grii’s entire upper half.

Koil immediately felt drained. He coughed, and more blood than before came out. He wasn’t a mage like Servis, and his body wasn’t used to channeling energy like that. Megumi twitched and gasped and retched on the ground. Sophi crawled to curl protectively over the girl, a faint gold-and-grey aura surrounding them. Koil stumbled to Servis’s body. Strained to hold his ear above his mouth. He could feel breath. Thank the gods! Thank Selesnya! Servis breathed again, a bit more deliberately, and stirred. The group heard Grii groan and move at the same time, and they dragged themselves up and dragged themselves out of the alley, Happy Jr. leaning on all four of them.

It felt like days, though it was probably only minutes before they turned and found a main street. Two Azorius soldiers were standing guard on the corner. “Holy shit.” One said as she saw the group. They resembled ground meat more than living people at this point.

Thump thump thump thump ROAR and the soldier’s eyes widened as her partner flung a spark of blue light somewhere behind them. The first soldier jerked the group behind the corner as she pulled out a crystal, requesting backup immediately, barely getting them out of the way of Grii’s charge. By sheer coincidence they’d found the same promenade that Grii had initially caused a ruckus in, and Boros and Azorius soldiers began flinging containment spells at the raging cyclops matching the initial description. At first she flung one spell aside, then two at the same time, then more, then more. But a few got through. Her movements slowed, her feet lifted off of the ground. She beat more back. More got through. A few minutes and several dozen soldiers later Grii was in a multilayered containment sphere, floating a few feet off the ground. She raged and screamed and beat great holes into the spells, but they just kept coming.

Koil eventually tugged on a soldier’s cape enough to draw his attention. He did his best to speak clearly through the pain and the blood and the burgeoning swelling. “The cyclops, she’s… a planeswalker.” The soldier nodded and spoke more into a crystal. Several soldiers pulled out mizzium cuffs with red and blue trim, with resolute faces. Before any of them could advance, Grii suddenly calmed, them vanished out of the sphere with a scream muffled by the layered spells, which collapsed into themselves after her.

There was a pause as everyone checked themselves, then a commotion from above as Grii dropped down on where Megumi, Sophi, Koil, Servis, and Happy Jr. were receiving medical attention. Some enterprising soldiers had thought of the possibility and she was hit with half a dozen spells midair, slamming down next to her target. Before she could even lunge at the group, spells slammed into her from all sides and as they moved away from her she was eventually trapped again. If she had been raging before, now she was absolutely lost. She nearly broke through several times, reaching at Megumi, who flinched each time, before the layered spells stabilized once more. Eventually Grii just curled up in a fetal position and began sobbing. “So close… so close… if not for that damn pyromancer and that damn fencer and that damn robot and that damn angel and that… so close…”

Some Boros medics had treated the group, and while they all had long-term injuries even with magic, the ragtag group was stable again. Megumi spoke up. “She’ll never stop, you know. Even if those cuffs work she’ll never, ever stop. No matter where I go, she finds me. I can’t stay with you or she’ll hurt you again. I’m sorry.” Koil moved to stop her, but she simply vanished like she’d become a breeze. “What!? Megumi, no!” And Sophi vanished just as quickly as her medic made a grab for her.

The crowd of police milled around apprehensively while they waited for transport for Grii. She’d fallen silent and didn’t seem to have noticed that her quarry had vanished.

“She’s here! She’s here! …Oh my gods. It’s actually her.” A curvy elf in petticoats and glasses had apparated in the square, looking around wide-eyed at the square. A curvy pure-white woman with long curly hair and ears like Megumi’s appeared next, then a thin fine-dressed vampire with short black hair. The newcomers stood slack-jawed at the sight of the pacified cyclops. A beat passed before the vampire growled loudly, and with inhuman speed and strength was suddenly clawing at the sphere to get to the cyclops inside. They hurled curses in a frothing rage. While three soldiers worked to wrestle the vampire off of the blue sphere, Grii woke up from her state and noticed the vampire. Her old rage came back full force, and she screamed loudly enough to be heard through the sphere from where Koil and Servis were standing. She stretched to her full size and pushed at her contraints, and the bubble burst, releasing a shockwave of sound that caused most of those present to be knocked over, dazed. Grii was gone. The vampire growled again and vanished as soon as they could stand. The white woman planeswalked away as well, hugging herself with necrotic black arms. The planeswalker elf milled about asking and answering questions.

Koil turned to Servis. They were both laying on stretchers next to each other. “…Maybe we can ask one of these people to pick up our orders.” Servis grimaced and turned to the medic still tending to him. “Can you smack him for me?” The medic grinned and obliged him, causing Koil to wince. “Thanks. No, I’d rather just spend the rest of the night home with you.”

“I couldn’t ask for a more perfect way to end the day.”

“I… you… that’s super sweet. I hate you. I love you.”

Koil chuckled. “I love you too.”

For the next few hours, laying side by side, holding hands, they just stole glances at each other, grateful that each was still alive.

#mtg #my posts #bace-jeleren #megumi event #servis #koil

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zoeykaytesmom · 6 years ago

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What Is Life?

Description: I am taking my OC from A03, and putting her and Rafael Barba in a different universe of how they meet. I’m new to posting on here so it might take me a little bit to figure this out lol. The title comes from a George Harrison song; it’ll make more sense the longer the story goes.

@xemopeachx @sweetsummertime99 @lyssa1385 @tropes-and-tales @esparza-army @jramirezblogs @thatesparzacrush

September 1989

“Ma why do we have to switch schools for our Freshman year?” Anthony Rossetti Jr, or Tony as he was called, practically whined while his mother, Stella fixed breakfast.

“Stop whining, Junior,” his twin sister, Elizabeth or Izzy, said as she came in the kitchen, holding her blue and white plaid tie. “Ma a little help?”

“You two are going to have to learn to tie these yourselves,” Stella laughed as she took the tie from her daughter.

Stella Rossetti had accepted a position as the guidance counselor at a Catholic school in the South Bronx, after spending many years teaching high school English at a public school in their Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst.

“And to answer your question, Junior, the schools in this neighborhood are getting worse. Plus, since I work there, your dad and I don’t have to pay tuition. Also, you two have basically went to school with the same people all your lives and it wouldn’t hurt you to make some new friends.”

“Isn’t that what college is for?” Tony asked with a mouth full of eggs.

“Could you be anymore disgusting?”

“Come on, sis, you like seafood.”

“Junior, stop being gross,” their father said as he came in for breakfast.

FDNY Lieutenant Anthony Rossetti Sr. had come in from his shift around 6 am. He wanted to see his kids off to their first day of their freshman year and to wish his wife of 17 years luck on her first day of her new position.

“Come on, kids. Hurry up and finish your breakfast. We don’t want to be late,” Stella told her twins.

“God, we’re gonna look like such nerd riding to school with our Mom,” Tony muttered. “Well, you more than me, sis.”

Izzy had braces and Tony had teased her non-stop since she got them in the summer.

“Leave your sister alone, Junior,” Anthony instructed his namesake as he loaded his plates with the scrambled eggs and bacon his wife had made.

*****

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Izzy said after she bumped into a guy, whose locker was next to hers, causing her books to fall into the floor.

“It’s okay,” he told her with a kind tone. “Hey, weren’t you in my 4th period AP Biology class?”

“Uh…yeah,” she sort of stammered as she looked into the guys green eyes. “Izzy…”

“Rossetti. I remember. You’re the daughter of our new guidance counselor.”

“That’s me,” she sort of chuckled as she took a book from his hand.

“I’m Rafael. Rafael Barba.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Rafael.”

“You, too,” he smiled as he helped her to her feet.

“Hey, Ra-ffi.”

“Hey, Eddie, Alex. This is Izzy Rossetti.”

“Hi,” she said as she sort of waved at them.

“Rossetti? Uh-oh. You’re the counselor’s daughter,” Eddie teased.

“Yeah, that’s me,” she repeated.

“Well, welcome to Monsignor Scanlan High School,” Alex said with smarmy smile that Izzy uncomfortable.

“So, what’s your next class?” Rafael asked her.

“Uh, lunch, actually.”

“Us too. You want to join us?”

“Maybe another time, Rafael. I need to find my brother.”

“I’m gonna hold you to it,” he smiled.

“It was nice to meet you guys,” she told Alex and Eddie before heading to the cafeteria.

“That girl is hot,” Eddie told Rafael.

“I don’t know about the braces,” Alex mentioned.

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Rafi. You don’t want that amount of metal near your dick if she’s giving you head.”

“Seriously, man?!”

“I’m just saying. I mean, yeah, she is hot but those braces are scary.”

“I think they’re cute,” Rafael added.

“Uh-oh. Our boy has a crush,” Eddie laughed.

“Come on. I’m hungry,” Rafael told them as they headed to the cafeteria.

********************

“Baby girl why are you eating lunch in my office?” Stella asked her daughter.

“I don’t fit in here, Ma.”

“It’s been a half a day. Have you met anyone?”

“Well…I met a guy,” Izzy said with a small smile.

“Really? Is he cute?”

“Unbelievably so, Mom. His name is Rafael Barba.”

“Barba…Barba? I wonder if he’s Lucia’s son?”

“Who?”

“You remember Lucia Barba. She taught with me at PS 128.”

“Sort of,” Izzy shrugged as she picked at the cheeseburger she had got from the cafeteria.

“What happened to my daughter that didn’t meet a stranger?”

“I don’t know.”

“She’s still there,” Stella chuckled as she took a bite of her own cheeseburger.

“Why are me and Tony on different schedules?”

“Because I thought it would be best. You two have been joined at the hip since before you were born. You need to make new friends, meet new people.”

“I guess.”

The first bell rang, signaling to the 11:30 lunchers that they had 10 minutes to get to their 6th period class.

“I gotta go, Ma. Thanks for letting me have lunch with you.”

“Of course, baby girl. I know this is different from public school but you’re gonna do great.”

“Thanks.”

Izzy headed to her AP American History class.

“Ah, yes, Miss Rossetti. There is an empty desk next to Mr. Barba. Rafael, raise your hand so Elizabeth can find her desk.”

“It’s Izzy,” she told her teacher as she made her way to the desk next to Rafael.

She opened her book to the page Mr. Cervantes had said and was doing her best to concentrate but her attention was mainly on Rafael. He had his hand up to answer any question that was asked.

“Miss Rossetti?”

“Huh?”

“What started World War I?”

“The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand from Austria,” she answered without missing a beat.

“Just making sure you were paying attention to something other than Mr. Barba.”

Some of the kids in the class giggled as she wanted to die in her seat.

***********

“Don’t let Cervantes get under your skin,” Rafael told her as they walked out of class.

“I was just amazed at your knowledge,” she lied.

“I like to read,” he shrugged as they walked down the hall. “Speaking of…did I see a copy of ‘Less Than Zero’ in your hand earlier?”

“You did. Bret Easton Ellis is one of my favorite authors.”

“I saw the movie…”

“Oh no. The movie and the book are so different. Julian, Robert Downey Jr’s character, doesn’t die in the book.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Have you ever read anything by Kurt Vonnegut?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“You should. ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ is really good. I think you’d like it.”

“Well, I might have to check it out.”

“So, my friend Alex thinks you’re hot.”

“Yeah?” She asked, even though she didn’t want Alex to be one of the three to think she was hot.

“Yeah. You think you might be interested…”

“Not really. I mean, no offense but I have basketball try-outs next week and honestly, he doesn’t seem like my type.”

“I understand,” Rafael chuckled. “So, you’re an athlete, huh?”

“I’ve been playing basketball since I was 10. You?”

“The only thing I play is Chess…and Nintendo.”

“I could give you a run for your money.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve beat Super Mario Brothers 1 & 2 several times.”

He laughed at her joke.

“I could probably kick your ass at Chess, too, though.”

“Challenge accepted, Rossetti,” he told her with a smirk.

*********

“Hey, you’re Izzy, right?” A girl with brown hair asked as she opened the other locker next to Izzy’s.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Erin Harris. We have History together.”

“Right, yeah. You sit in the back.”

“So Mr. Cervantes will leave me alone. How do you like it here so far?”

“It’s been a week,” Izzy shrugged. “It’s not so bad, I guess. I’ve just been used to public school all my life.”

“I know the feeling. My parents made me transfer here to the junior high last year because I kept ‘getting in trouble’,” Erin laughed.

“I see.”

“I’m not that bad. Honestly. Just hung around with the wrong crowd. Dying my hair pink was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Wow.”

“So, uh, you like Rafael?”

Izzy was a little taken aback by Erin’s blunt question. “Wha-what do you mean?”

“I sit behind you and see the way you stare at him during class.”

“I mean…he’s cute,” she shrugged.

“Well, he’s in love with Yelina Ortiz so, don’t get your hopes up.”

“Who’s she?”

“Come on. She has the same lunch we do. I’ll show her to you.”

After Izzy and Erin sat down with their diet cokes and nachos they had gotten from the a la carte table, Erin pointed out Yelina to Izzy. She was tall, long dark hair, and very beautiful dark skin. Izzy gave up any hope of dating Rafael in that instance. She saw the way he practically fawned over her; Alex did, too, though.

“Are they dating?”

“No. That’s the thing. He follows her everywhere but she only dates older guys.”

“How do you know this?”

“It was like that last year in eighth grade even. It’s kinda sad cause he’s a very nice guy. Really sweet.”

Just then, across the lunch room, Rafael looked up to see Izzy looking at him. He sort of smiled, causing her to blush and look back to Erin.

“He’s coming over here.”

“No, he’s not.”

“If you’re gonna make the basketball team, shouldn’t you be eating better?” Rafael teased as he took a seat at their table. “Hey, Erin.”

“What’s up?”

“It doesn’t hurt to cheat once in a while,” Izzy giggled. “Hey! Don’t you have your own lunch?”

“I already ate it,” he smiled as he popped the cheese drenched chip in his mouth.

Izzy couldn’t help but laugh at the cheese that had dripped onto his chin.

“What?”

“You got…you…here,” she told him as she wiped his chin.

“Oops,” he laughed. Erin nudged Izzy and discreetly motioned toward Yelina, who was burning a hole through Izzy at that very moment.

“I think you’re…uh…friend is getting a little jealous.”

“She’ll be fine,” Rafael told her as he continued to sit with Erin and Izzy for the remainder of lunch before their history class.

The three of them walked down the hall after lunch to their class. Erin took the desk directly behind Izzy instead of her normal seat in the very back.

“You’re in my seat, Erin,” Bradley Walker told her.

“Now it’s mine. There’s a few other empty ones.”

“Ugh, whatever.”

********************

“You’re not going to the winter formal?”

“No, Ma,” Izzy answered as they worked on dinner one night in November.

“Why not. We could get you a beautiful dress, get your hair done…”

“No one’s asked me,” she shrugged.

“I thought Alex Munoz asked you. That’s what your brother said.”

“I can’t stand Alex, Ma. And he didn’t ask me. He told me I was gonna go with him more or less. I don’t need someone making decisions for me.”

“He was probably just playing around.”

“Still…there is nothing attractive about him whatsoever.”

“Well, you and Erin could always go with each other. Surely guys would ask you to dance.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you know this girl your brother is taking?”

“Heather? A little, not well though. She seems nice enough.”

“How’s my two favorite girls?” Anthony asked as he kissed his wife on the cheek.

“Good. How’d you sleep?”

“Decent enough. Uh, Izz, there’s someone in the living room to see you.”

“Me? Who?”

“That boy that hangs out with your brother.”

“That could be anybody, Pop.”

“I can’t keep all his friend’s straight. Just go see. I can finish helping your mother.”

“Okay.”

She opened the kitchen door and found Rafael, still in his school uniform.

“Hey, Raf,” she smiled. “My dad did tell you Tony was…”

“Yeah, I know. I came to see you, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You know the winter formal is in a few weeks?”

“I’m aware,” she laughed.

“Your brother said you didn’t have a date and I was wondering if you’d like to come with me?”

“Uh…uh…”

“It’s just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” he said with a smirk.

“I just thought maybe you’d go with Yelina.”

“Yelina?” He laughed. “Please. She wouldn’t go to the dance with a nerd like me.”

“You’re not a nerd,” she told him as she tilted her head. “And yes, I’d like to go with you.”

“Are you saying that out of pity or because you really want to go with me?”

“I’d really like to go with you.”

“Then it’s a date. I’ll see you school at tomorrow.”

“Rafael what brings you by?” Stella asked after she came out of the kitchen.

“I…uh…I just asked your daughter if she’d like to escort me to the winter formal.”

“Is that right? And what did you say, Elizabeth Machelle?”

“Well, of course, she said ‘yes’, Mrs. Rossetti.”

“Jeez, Rafael,” Izzy said as she rolled her eyes.

“Well, I am finishing up manicotti that my son asked for but he can’t keep himself at home so you’re more than welcome to stay for dinner.”

“I should probably get home.”

“Nonsense. I’ll call your mom.”

“Oh, okay. Sure, thanks.”

Stella called Lucia who said it was fine if Rafael stayed for dinner and Anthony said he would make sure he got home instead of taking the subway back to the Bronx.

********************

Izzy had found a simple, strapless black mid-length dress with sequins but not too flashy at all.

Rafael showed up in a black 3-piece suit with a red tie. Izzy was impressed to say the least. She had only seen him in his school uniform, other than the few times he had come over on the weekends in jeans and t-shirts.

“You look beautiful,” he smiled at his date when she came down stairs. Her blond hair was done in ringlets which had given her a headache as they were being done but a couple of Advil later, she was fine and ready to go.

“Thanks, Raf. You look…pretty good, too.”

“And we all know, I look great,” Tony laughed.

“Okay, Tony. Where’s your date?”

“We’re picking her up on the way, Dad. Thanks again for getting us the car.”

“Well, I thought it was better than you guys taking a cab or the subway.”

“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Rossetti.”

“Not a problem, Rafael. I want my daughter home by 11.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If there’s one hair on her head out of place…”

“Dad!!!”

“I’m just kidding, princess. You guys have fun.”

They let Stella take a few pictures before they left. They sat in the town car, Rafael’s legs bouncing as he nervously ran his hands on his knees.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, Izz,” he smiled to which Tony just sort of laughed, earning a nudge in his ribs from his sister.

***************

They finally arrived at the “Winter Wonderland” formal dance. It was basically a prom for the Freshman and Sophomores.

“There you are!!” Erin exclaimed when she saw Izzy walk in with Rafael.

“I told you I’d be here,” Izzy laughed at her now best friend.

“You look amazing. Doesn’t she, Rafael?”

“Yes, Erin. I already told her she looked great.”

“Come on, let’s dance.”

“Erin…”

“It’s okay, cariño. Go have fun. I’ll get us something to drink,” Rafael told her. She didn’t know what “cariño” meant but it didn’t sound bad.

Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” blasted over the speakers as Izzy and Erin danced while they laughed and sang along.

She noticed Rafael sitting at a table with Eddie and Alex as he watched her.

Erin had actually went to the dance with Eddie so they went to sit with their dates.

Soon Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Enough” started playing.

“Dance with me, Raf?”

“I don’t really like to dance.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun,” Izzy told him.

“What the hell?” He shrugged as he took her hand and led her to the dance floor. She didn’t understand why he didn’t like to dance because the boy sure knew how to move. Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” came on next so the two of them continued to dance.

“How about a break? Some food maybe?”

“Uh, sure, Raf,” Izzy agreed as she was working up an appetite after dancing.

After a few snacks and a couple more glasses of punch, Erin grabbed Izzy as The Romantics “Talking in Your Sleep” started playing.

“So, uh, what’s up with you and Rossetti?” Alex asked.

“We’re friends,” Rafael told them. “She didn’t have a date and neither did I so I asked her…”

“Rafi?”

“Uh…hey, Yelina.”

“Your date seems to be more into her best friend than you.”

“She’s just having fun,” he shrugged. “We’re just friends. It’s not like she has to be by my side the whole time.”

“Hey, Yelina, you want to dance?” Alex asked.

“No thanks, Alex. My date is getting us something to drink,” she said as she motioned to the Senior that she had been dating, Riley Watkins.

Izzy noticed Yelina and immediately grabbed Erin and headed back to the table. She promptly took her seat next to Rafael, pushing Yelina out of the way with her butt.

“Izzy. I wondered why you were leaving this poor guy all alone,” Yelina snarked.

“Hey, Raf, you want to join me for another dance?” She asked as Billy Idol’s “Hot in the City” started playing.

“You bet,” he smiled.

They continued to dance. They were even warned by one of the teachers that was chaperoning that they were a little too close. Izzy wanted to make a move on him so bad.

“You know, I really like the red and green rubber bands you have on your braces,” he told her as they danced to Journey’s “Open Arms”.

“Uh, thanks,” she said as she felt her face get hot. She was so glad it was dark enough that he couldn’t see her blush.

“Would it be okay if I…” he asked as he moved in closer to her, making her heart skip a beat.

“Can I cut in?” Yelina had the audacity to ask.

Izzy knew Rafael was in love with her and actually let her.

She went to the bathroom with Erin following close behind.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?”

“You let Yelina dance with him? Are you crazy?!”

“What was I gonna say?”

“How about, ‘fuck no! He’s here with me,’?”

“We’re just friends.”

“He was about to kiss you.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Are you that fucking oblivious?!”

“Erin…”

“Her date left. She’s here alone now. She’s trying to swoop in on your guy.”

“He’s not my guy.”

“I’m just trying to help you, here.”

“I’m fine, Erin. Really.”

Rafael had went looking for Izzy after sharing half a dance with Yelina and found her coming from the bathroom of their school’s gym.

“Hey, you want another dance?”

“Actually, I think I’d like to go home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m getting tired. Erin has been wearing me out,” she lied.

“Oh. Okay. Do you want me to find Tony and Heather?”

“They still have an hour before curfew. I can catch a cab.”

“No, you can’t. You came with me and I’m going to make sure you get home safely.”

“I’ve got her,” Erin said with a glare.

“Erin I can get her home. It’s fine.”

“I’m going with you then.”

“Whatever.”

************

Erin told Eddie she was ready to leave so he decided he’d go, too, even though she told him he didn’t have to.

Tony told his twin that he had enough money to get a cab for him and Heather and for her to take the car their dad had gotten for them.

The ride to Bensonhurst was a quiet one. Once the driver pulled up to Izzy’s house, she and Erin got out but Rafael insisted on walking Izzy to the door.

“I had a good time tonight with you.”

“Yeah, me too,” she smiled.

Erin leaned against the porch wall with her arms crossed, her eyes shooting daggers into Rafael.

“Erin can you give us a minute?”

“Uh no,” Erin replied to Rafael.

“Here’s my key, Erin. Just go up to my room.”

“If you say so, Izz,” she scoffed as she took the key chain from her best friend and unlocked the door.

“So, I guess I’ll see you Monday?”

“Yeah, Rafael,” Izzy nodded.

“Thanks for coming with me tonight.”

“I had a good time.”

“I’m glad. Well, I guess I should be going.”

“Okay.”

He started to move closer to her but the kiss landed on her cheek instead of her lips like she had hoped.

They said one last good-bye before she went inside.

#rafael barba #fanfic

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takeeachdayonebookatatime · 3 years ago

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Gone baby gone…….

A LAW AND ORDER SVU fanfiction

Fin: pov we just spent 2 hours doing some diversity class. Liv had suggested it to Garland saying it would improve the svu department. He agreed, it's now lunch time, we all are eating a chicken sandwich with soda and plain chips.

Captain Olivia Benson: pov I'm in my office on the phone with deputy chief Garland about a missing baby he is saying mercy hospita just called it in to him something about the missing baby being a newborn just hours old taken from the hospital. He said an amber alert is being made they are asking every officer to help.

Amanda: Missing babies are so hard, especially newborns, we made it to the location Garland had everybody meet at. It was so all of the officers were on the same page as us. Even some civilians came to help. We paired them with an officer for safety reasons. Some volunteer EMTs even came to help; they were also paired with and officer same with the volunteer firefighters/search and rescue.

Kat: pov we were going to find this baby even if it took all day. Garland told Liv that organized crime was coming to help search and she should get them up to date on the search and everything we have so far. Carisi was even helping us by getting us rush warrants.

Carisi: pov Liv said stabler used to be her old partner at svu now he works organized crimes. We were now back at the 16th precinct where we worked. The OC unit was meeting us here to get up to date on the case.

Liv: pov I have not worked with Elliot in years. I'm happy to work with him again but I never thought it would be this way. Also he doesn't know I was promoted to Captain.

Elliot: pov we arrive at the 16th precinct where svu is and it looks so much different. My Sergeant Ayanna Bell talked to Garland on the phone. I noticed Fin, he said Liv was on the phone something important. I introduced my team starting with my Sargent bell, Lieutenant Marv Moennig, our commanding officer, Detective 1st Grade Freddie Washburn, Detective 2nd Grade Diego Morales, and our hacker Jet Slootmaekers. I introduced Fin as Detective and he says it is Sargent Odafin Tutuola now.

Fin: pov I introduced our ADA Dominick Carisi, Jr, detective second grade Amanda Rollins, detective first grade Katriona Tamin. Liv comes out of her office and says she just talked to Garland. They have a lead. A guy saw a woman earlier in a gas station parking lot near the hospital trying to shove a car seat in a car and it would not fit since it was an older model car. The car seat looked expensive. It even came with a box the guy threw away in a dumpster. Liv says that is fantastic because we can use the box's to see where the car seat was bought and surveillance cameras to get the car info.

Elliot: pov Liv just came out of another room. I think it was an office Fin said she was on the phone. I don't think it would be her office. I introduce her to my team as my former partner Detective Olivia Benson. Amanda says it is Captain Olivia Benson Now she got promoted from Lieutenant 3 years ago. 7 Years ago she got promoted from Sargent and 11 years ago from detective. Wow I had no idea she moved up in the ranks, the tip lines are so busy with people calling to say they saw the car. Fin and Freddie were going to the gas station to see what info they can find.

Amanda: pov me and Diego went to the hospital to interview the parents again. Kat and Marv were going to talk to the hospital staff again. I got a text with a picture of a woman. Liv said Fin found out where the car seat was bought. He talked to the owner and got a name, address and phone number for the lady. The picture was what the lady looked like. She also texted that Elliot said jet was tracking the lady's phone.

Kat: pov me and Marv are talking with the staff and they said the lady named Monique quill was in the hospital this morning. She had just gotten discharged after she had a stillbirth. I told Liv the new info we had found out.

Liv: pov me, Elliot his Sargent and some other officers swarmed her house Elliot busted the door down since he wanted to do it so bad. I told the others to search the house then stay back when they found her. So the mother does not hurt the baby. I found the mother in the baby nursery rocking the baby. I told her everything was okay but I needed to check the baby. Because something was going around the hospital and it was deadly to newborns and if she wanted to keep her baby safe I needed to check the baby out. I was sent here to check on the child once she handed me the baby, I had some other officers arrest her. Fin told me quick thinking on the lie about the deadly disease spreading in the hospital. I said no problem, I'm just lucky it worked out. The baby got returned to her parents, we went out to dinner with the people from organized crime. We talked about our jobs and how I have been doing svu for 22 years which is awesome and an amazing accomplishment for a woman to be in charge. Some funny stories were also told and a few embarrassing ones as well.

Fin: pov the food was so good we don't go out to eat often because we work so much at svu Kat was laughing so hard at some of these stories. Liv talked about the time there was a dead prostitute in Captain Cragen's bed. It turned out he was framed. Elliot was so shocked that it happened to him. Afterwards we all said goodbye and went home. The end. ……

#books #bookreviewer #read #reader #reading #betareader #fanfiction #lawandordersvu #tvshow

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antoine-roquentin · 7 years ago

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At 7:30 a.m., on March 16, 1968, Task Force Barker descended on the small hamlet of My Lai in the Quang Nai province of South Vietnam. Two squads cordoned off the village and one, led by Lieutenant William Calley, moved in and, accompanied by US Army Intelligence officers, began to slaughter all the inhabitants. Over the next eight hours US soldiers methodically killed 504 men, women and children.

As the late Ron Ridenhour, who first exposed the massacre, said years later to one of the present authors, “Above My Lai were helicopters filled with the entire command staff of the brigade, division and task force. All three tiers in the chain of command were literally flying overhead while it was going on. It takes a long time to kill 600 people. It’s a dirty job, you might say. These guys were flying overhead from 7:30 in the morning, when the unit first landed and began to move into those hamlets. They were there at least two hours, at 500 feet, 1000 feet and 1500 feet.”

The cover-up of this operation began almost from the start. The problem wasn’t the massacre itself: polls right after the event showed 65 percent of Americans approved of the US action. The cover-up was instead to disguise the fact that My Lai was part of the CIA killing program called Operation Phoenix. As Douglas Valentine writes in his brilliant book, The Phoenix Program,

the My Lai massacre was a result of Phoenix, the ‘jerry-built’ counter-terror program that provided an outlet for the repressed fears and anger of the psyched-up men of Task Force Barker. Under the aegis of neutralizing the infrastructure, old men, women and children became the enemy. Phoenix made it as easy to shoot a Vietnamese child as it was to shoot a sparrow in a tree. The ammunition was faulty intelligence provided by secret agents harboring grudges – in violation of the agreement that Census Grievance intelligence would not be provided to the police. The trigger was the blacklist.

The My Lai operation was principally developed by two men, the CIA’s Paul Ramsdell and a Colonel Khien, the Quang Nai province chief. Operating under cover of the US Agency for International Development, Ramsdell headed the Phoenix program in Quang Nai province, where it was his task to prepare lists of suspected NLF (called by the Americans “Viet Cong”) leaders, organizers and sympathizers. Ramsdell would then pass these lists on to the US Army units that were carrying out the killings. In the case of My Lai, Ramsdell told Task Force Barker’s intelligence officer, Captain Koutac, that “anyone in that area was considered a VC sympathizer because they couldn’t survive in that area unless they were sympathizers.”

Ramsdell had acquired this estimate from Col. Khien, who had his own agenda. For one thing, his family had been hit hard by the Tet offensive launched by the NLF earlier in the year. In addition, the NLF had seriously disrupted his business enterprises. Khien was notorious for being one of South Vietnam’s most corrupt chieftains, an officer who had his hand in everything from payroll fraud to prostitution. But Khien apparently made his really big money from heroin sales to US soldiers.

For the CIA, the need to cover its involvement in the My Lai massacre became acute in August 1970, when Sergeant David Mitchell, a member of Task Force Barker, was put on trial for killing dozens of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. Mitchell claimed that the My Lai operation had been conducted under the supervision of the CIA. The Agency’s lawyer, John Greaney, successfully prevented Mitchell’s lawyers from lodging subpoenas against any Agency personnel. But despite such maneuvers, high CIA and army brass were worried that the truth might trickle out, and so General William Peers of US Army Intelligence was given the task – so to speak – of straightening out the furniture.

Peers was a former CIA man whose ties to Agency operations in Southeast Asia dated back to World War II, when he supervised the OSS’s Detachment 101, the Burma campaign that often operated under the cover of Shan opium trafficking. Peers had also served as CIA station chief in Taiwan in the early 1950s, when the Agency was backing the exiled KMT supremo, Chiang Kai-shek and his henchman Li Mi, Peers had helped design the pacification strategy for South Vietnam and was a good friend of Evan Parker, the CIA officer who headed ICEX (Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation), the command structure that oversaw Phoenix and other covert killing operations. It’s not surprising, then, that the Peers investigation found no CIA fingerprints on the massacre and instead placed the blame on the crazed actions of the enlisted men and junior officers of Task Force Barker.

In the immediate aftermath of My Lai the polls may have shown 65 percent approval by Americans, but it’s doubtful whether such momentary enthusiasm would have survived the brute facts of what Operation Phoenix involved. As Bart Osborn, a US Army Intelligence officer collecting names of suspects in the Phoenix Program testified before Congress in 1972,

I never knew in the course of all of these operations any detainee to live through his interrogation. They all died. There was never any reasonable establishment of the fact that any one of those individuals was, in fact, cooperating with the VC, but they all died and the majority were either tortured to death or things like thrown out of helicopters.

One of the more outlandish efforts to protect the true instigators of My Lai came during the 1970 congressional hearings run by Senator Thomas Dodd (father of the present US senator from Connecticut). Dodd was trying to pin the blame for My Lai on drug use by US seeing a CBS news item showing a US soldier smoking marijuana in the jungle after a fire-fight. The senator forthwith convened hearings of his subcommittee on juvenile deliquency, and his staff contacted Ron Ridenhour, the man who had first brought the massacre to light prior to Seymour Hersh’s journalistic exposé. Ridenhour had long made it his quest to show that My Lai was planned from the top, so he agreed to testify on the condition that he would not have to deal with any foolishness about blaming the murder of over 500 people on dope.

But no sooner had Ridenhour presented himself in the hearing chamber than Dodd began to issue pronouncements about the properties of marijuana so outlandish that Harry Anslinger himself would have approved. Ridenhour got nowhere, denounced the proceedings and expostulated outside the hearing room that “Dodd is stacking the evidence. Nobody mentioned drugs at My Lai after it happened and they would have been looking for any excuse. Many, many Americans are looking for any reason other than a command decision.”

Although Dodd had simply wanted to blame My Lai on drugs and move on, the press now began to take an interest in the whole question of drug use in Vietnam by US forces. The attention prompted a congressional delegation to travel to Vietnam headed by Rep. Robert Steele, a Connecticut Republican, and Rep. Morgan Murphy, a Democrat from Illinois. They spent a month in Vietnam talking to soldiers and medics and returned with a startling conclusion. “The soldier going to Vietnam,” Steele said, “runs a far greater risk of becoming a heroin addict than a combat casualty.” They estimated that as many as 40,000 soldiers in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. A follow-up investigation by the New York Times reckoned that the count might be even higher – perhaps as many as 80,000.

The Pentagon naturally preferred a lower figure, putting the total number of heroin addicts at between 100 and 200. But by this time President Nixon had begun to mistrust the flow of numbers out of the Defense Department and dispatched his White House domestic policy council chief, Egil Krogh Jr., to Vietnam for another look. Krogh didn’t spend time with the generals, but headed out into the field where he watched soldiers openly light up joints and Thai sticks and brag about the purity of the grades of heroin they were taking. Krogh came back with the news that as many as 20 percent of the US troops were heroin users. The figure made a big impression on Richard Nixon, who readily appreciated that although Americans might be prepared to see their sons die on the front lines battling communism, they would be far less enthusiastic at the news that hundreds of thousands of these same sons would be returning home as heroin addicts.

Partially in response to these findings Nixon recruited the CIA into his drug war. The man the Agency chose to put forward as coordinator with the White House was Lucien Conein, a veteran of the CIA’s station in Saigon, where he had been involved in the coup in 1963 that saw South Vietnam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem, assassinated along with his brother Ngo Dhin Nhu. (The Diems were regarded by President Kennedy and his advisers as insufficiently robust in pursuing the war. What the CIA proposed, local South Vietnamese generals disposed, and the Diems died in a hail of machine-gun bullets.) At the time of his death Nhu was one of the largest heroin brokers in South Vietnam. His supplier was a Corsican living in Laos named Bonaventure Francisi.

Lucien Conein himself was of Corsican origin, and as part of his intelligence work had maintained ties to Corsican gangsters in Southeast Asia and in Marseilles. His role in the White House drug war team appears to have been not so much one of advancing an effective interdiction of drug supplies as in protecting CIA assets who were tied to the drug trade. For example, one of the CIA’s first recommendations – an instinctive reflex, really – was a “campaign of assassination” against global drug lords. The CIA argued that there were only a handful of heroin kingpins and that it would be easy to eliminate all of them. A White House policy memo from 1971 records this piece of Agency advice: “With 150 key assassinations the entire heroin-refining industry can be thrown into chaos.” On that list were relatively small-time players and those without any links to the CIA-backed KMT forces that controlled the crucial supply lines out of the Shan States. This discretion was nothing new, since there had been an agreement between Anslinger’s Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (the forerunner of the DEA) and the CIA not to run any of Anslinger’s agents in Southeast Asia, lest it discommode the CIA’s complex living arrangements in the region.

Another tactic advanced by Conein was to contaminate US cocaine supplies with methedrine, the theory being that users would react violently when dosing themselves with this potion and turn violently on their suppliers. There’s no evidence that either of these schemes – assassination or methedrine adulteration – was ever put into play. But the Agency was able to convince the Nixon administration that its eradication effort should be directed at Turkey rather than Southeast Asia, said effort culminating in an attempt at export substitution, with opium growers in Anatolia being helped to set up a factory to produce bicycles.

The CIA was well aware that Turkey provided only between 3 and 5 percent of the world’s supplies of raw opium at that time. In fact, the Agency had prepared an internal survey that estimated that 60 percent of the opium on the world market was coming from Southeast Asia and noted the precise whereabouts of the four largest heroin labs in the region, in villages in Laos, Burma and Thailand. This report was leaked to the New York Times, whose reporter relayed the main conclusions, without realizing that these villages were all next to CIA stations with the labs being run by people on the CIA’s payroll.

In April 1971, the CIA’s ties to the opium kings of Southeast Asia nearly sparked a major international confrontation. Crown Prince Sopsaisana had been appointed Laotian ambassador to France. On arrival in Paris, the prince angrily announced that some of his copious luggage was missing. He berated French airport officials, who meekly promised they would restore his property. In fact the prince’s bags had been intercepted by French customs after a tip that Sopsaisana was carrying high-grade heroin; indeed, his luggage contained 60 kilos of heroin, worth $13.5 million, then the largest drug seizure in French history. The prince had planned to ship his drug cargo on to New York. The CIA station in Paris convinced the French to cover up the affair, although the prince was not given back his dope. It hardly mattered. Sopsaisana returned two weeks later to Vientiane to nearly inexhaustible supplies of the drug.

Why the CIA interest in protecting the largest trafficker nabbed on the French soil? The opium used to manufacture the prince’s drugs had been grown in the highlands of Laos. It was purchased by a Hmong general, Vang Pao, who commanded the CIA’s secret air base in Laos, where it was processed into high-grade Number 4 heroin in labs just down the block from CIA quarters. The heroin was then flown to Vientiane on Vang Pao’s private airline, which consisted of two C-47s given to him by the CIA.

Vang Pao was the leader of a CIA-sponsored 30,000-man force of Hmong, which by 1971 consisted mostly of teenagers, fighting the Pathet Lao Communist forces. The Hmong had a reputation for fierceness, in part due to a century of conflict with the Chinese, who had, back in the nineteenth century, driven them into Laos after taking over their opium fields in Hunan. As one Hmong put it to Christopher Robbins, author of Air America, “They say we are a people who like to fight, a cruel people, enemy of everybody, always changing our region and being happy nowhere. If you want to know the truth about our people, ask the bear who is hurt why he defends himself, ask the dog who is kicked why he barks, ask the deer who is chased why he changes mountains.” The Hmong practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, with two crops – rice and opium, the first for sustenance and the latter for medicinal and trading purposes.

Vang Pao was born in 1932 in a Laotian hamlet called Nong Het. At the age of thirteen he served as an interpreter for the French forces then fighting the Japanese. Two years later he was battling Viet Minh incursions into Laos in the First Indochina War. He underwent officer training at the French military academy near Saigon, becoming the highest-ranking Hmong in the Royal Laotian Air Force. In 1954 Vang Pao led a group of 850 Hmong soldiers on a fruitless mission to relieve the beleaguered French during their debacle at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.

The Hmong were first marshaled into a surrogate army by a French colonel called Roger Trinquier, who confronted a crisis in the French budget for local covert operations and intelligence in a fashion that covered more than one objective. “The money from the opium,” he wrote later, “financed the maquis [that is, the Hmong mercenaries] in Laos. It was flown to Cp. St. Jacques [a French military base sixty miles south of Saigon] in Vietnam in a DC-3 and sold.” The money was put into an account and used to feed and arm the guerrillas. Trinquier cynically added than the trade “was strictly controlled even though it was outlawed.” Overseeing the marketing in Saigon was the local French director of the Deuxiéme Bureau, Colonel Antoine Savani. A Corsican with ties to the Marseilles drug syndicates, Savani organized the Bin Xuyen River gang on the lower Mekong to run the heroin labs, manage the opium dens and sell the surplus to the Corsican drug syndicate. This enterprise, called Operation X, ran from 1946 through 1954.

Ho Chi Minh made opposition to the opium trade a key feature of his campaign to run the French out of Vietnam. The Viet Minh leader said, quite accurately, that the French were pushing opium on the people of Vietnam as a means of social control. A drugged people, Ho said, is less likely to rise up and throw off the oppressor.

During World War II, OSS officers working to oust the Japanese from Southeast Asia developed a cordial relationship with Ho Chi Minh, finding that the Viet Minh leader spoke fluent English and was well versed in American history. Ho quoted from memory lengthy passages from the Declaration of Independence, and chided the intelligence agents, noting that Vietnamese nationalists had been asking American presidents since Lincoln for help in booting out the French colonialists. As with Mao’s forces in China, the OSS operatives in Vietnam realized that Ho’s well-trained troops were a vital ally, more capable and less corrupt than Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang army and the pro-French forces in Indochina. When Ho was stricken with malaria, the OSS sent one of its agents, Paul Helliwell, who would later head up the CIA’s Overseas Supply Company, to treat the ailing Communist. Similar to Joe Stilwell’s view of Mao, many military and OSS men recommended that the US should back Ho after the eviction of the Japanese.

After arriving in Vietnam in 1945, US Army General Phillip Gallagher asked the OSS to compile a detailed background on Ho. An OSS operative named Le Xuan, who would later work for the CIA during the Vietnam War, acquired a dossier on Ho from a disaffected Vietnamese nationalist: Le Xuan paid the man off with a bag of opium. The dossier disclosed to US intelligence agencies that Ho had had extended stays in the Soviet Union, a revelation that doomed any future aid from the Americans for his cause. Le Xuan would later turn on the CIA, showing up in Paris in 1968 to reveal his services to the Agency and denounce its murderous policies in Vietnam.

In 1953, Trinquier’s Operation X opium network was discovered by Colonel Edwin Lansdale, at the time the CIA’s military adviser in Southeast Asia. Lansdale later claimed that he protested about this French role in opium trafficking, but was admonished to hold his tongue because, in his words, exposure of “the operation would prove a major embarrassment to a friendly government.” In fact, the CIA’s director, Allen Dulles, was mightily impressed by Trinquier’s operation and, looking ahead to the time when the US would take over from the French in the region, began funneling money, guns and CIA advisers to Trinquier’s Hmong army.

The post–Dien Bien Phu accords, signed in Geneva in 1954, decreed that Laos was to be neutral, off-limits to all foreign military forces. This had the effect of opening Laos to the CIA, which did not consider itself a military force. The CIA became the unchallenged principal in all US actions inside Laos. Once in this position of dominance the CIA brooked no interference from the Pentagon. This point was driven home by the military attaché to Laos, Colonel Paul Pettigrew, who advised his replacement in Vientiane in 1961, “For God’s sake, don’t buck the CIA or you’ll find yourself floating face down on that Mekong River.”

From the moment the Geneva Accords were signed, the US government was determined to undermine them and do everything in its power to prevent the installation of Ho Chi Minh as president of all Vietnam, even though elections would have clearly showed he was the choice of most Vietnamese, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously admitted. Eisenhower and his advisers decreed that Laos’s neutral status should be subverted. On the ground this meant that the neutralist government of Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma, which had amicable relations with the Pathet Lao, should be subverted by the CIA, whose preferred client was General Nosavan Phoumi. The Agency fixed elections in 1960 in an attempt to legitimize his rule. Also in 1960 the CIA began a more sustained effort to build up Vang Pao and his army, furnishing him with rifles, mortars, rockets and grenades.

After John Kennedy’s victory in 1960, Eisenhower advised him that the next big battleground in Southeast Asia would not be Vietnam but Laos. His counsel found its mark, even though Kennedy initially snooted Laos as “a country not worthy of engaging the attention of great powers.” In public Kennedy pronounced the country’s name as L-AY-o-s, thinking that Americans would not rally to the cause of a place pronounced “louse.” In 1960 there were but a thousand men in Vang Pao’s army. By 1961 “L’Armée Clandestine” had grown to 9,000. By the time of Kennedy’s assassination in late 1963, Vang Pao was at the head of some 30,000 troops. This army and its air force were entirely funded by the United States to the tune of $300 million, administered and overseen by the CIA.

Vang Pao’s original CIA case officer was William Young, the Baptist missionary-become-CIA-officer we met in the preceding chapter. Young never had any problem with the opium trafficking of the Hmong tribes. After Young was transferred out of the area in 1962, the CIA asked the Frenchman Trinquier to return as military adviser to the Hmong. Trinquier had just completed his tour of duty in the French Congo and consented to perform that function for a few months before the arrival of one of the most notorious characters in this saga, an American named Anthony Posephny, always known as Tony Poe.

Poe was a CIA officer, a former US Marine who had been wounded at Iwo Jima. By the early 1950s he was working for the Agency in Asia, starting with the training of Tibetan Khamba tribesmen in Colorado (thus breaching the law against CIA activities inside the US), prior to leading them back to retrieve the Dalai Lama. In 1958 Poe showed up in Indonesia in an early effort to topple Sukarno. In 1960 he was training KMT forces for raids into China; his right hand was by now mangled after ill-advised contact with a car’s fanbelt. In 1963 Poe became Vang Pao’s case officer and forthwith instituted new incentives to fire up the Hmong’s dedication to freedom’s cause, announcing that he would pay a cash bounty for every pair of Pathet Lao ears delivered to him. He kept a plastic bag on his front porch where the ears were deposited and strung his collection along the verandah. To convince skeptical CIA superiors, in this case Ted Shackley in Vientiane, that his body counts were accurate, Poe once stapled a pair of ears to a report and sent it to HQ.

This souvenir of early methods of computing the slaughter of native Americans was not as foolproof as Poe imagined. He himself later described going up country and finding a small boy with no ears, then was told that the boy’s father had sliced them off “to get money from the Americans.” Poe shifted his incentive to the entire heads of Pathet Lao, claiming that he preserved them in formaldehyde in his bedroom.

This man, described by an associate as an “amiable psychopath,” was running Phoenix-type operations into Lao villages near the Vietnam border. The teams were officially termed “home defense units,” though Poe more frankly described them as “hunter-killer teams.” Poe later claimed that he was booted out of Long Tieng because he had objected to CIA tolerance of Vang Pao’s drug trading, but his description suggests more an envy for the French style of direct supervision of the opium trade. In a filmed TV interview at his home in Northern Thailand Poe said in 1987,

You don’t let ’em run loose without a chain on ’em. They’re like any kind of animals, or a baby. You have to control ’em. Vang Pao was the only guy with a pair of shoes when I met him. Why does he need Mercedes and hotels and homes when he never had them before? Why are you going to give him them? He was making millions. He had his own avenue for selling heroin. He put his money in US bank accounts and Swiss banks, and we all knew it. We tried to monitor it. We controlled all the pilots. We were giving him free rides into Thailand. They were flying it [that is, the opium cargoes] into Danang, where it was picked up by the number two man to Thieu [at the time South Vietnam’s president]. It was all a contractual relationship, just like bankers and businessmen. A wonderful relationship. Just a Mafia. A big organized Mafia.

By the time Poe left this area of Laos in 1965, the situation was just as he described it twenty years later. The CIA’s client army was collecting and shipping the opium on CIA planes, which by now were flying under the American flag.

“Yes, I’ve seen the sticky bricks come on board, and no one challenged it,” Neal Hanson, an Air America pilot, said in a filmed interview in the late 1980s. “It was as if it was their personal property. We were a freebie airline. Whoever was put on our plane we flew. Primarily it was the smaller aircraft that would visit outlying villages and bring it [the opium] back to Long Tieng. If they put something on the airplane and told you not to look at it, you didn’t look at it.”

The Air America operation played a key role in expanding the opium market. CIA and US Agency for International Development funds went to the construction of more than 150 short, so-called LIMA landing strips in the mountains near the opium fields, thus opening these remote spots to the export trade – and also ensuring that such exports went to Vang Pao. The head of AID in that area at the time, Ron Rickenbach, said later, “I was on the air strips. My people were in charge of supplying the aircraft. I was in the areas where the opium was grown. I personally witnessed it being placed on Air America planes. We didn’t create the opium product. But our presence accelerated it dramatically.” In 1959 Laos was producing about 150 tons. By 1971 production had risen to 300 tons. Another boost to opium production, much of which was ultimately destined for the veins of Americans then fighting in Vietnam, was enabled by the USAID’s supplying rice to the Hmong, thus allowing them to stop growing this staple and use the land to cultivate opium poppies.

Vang Pao controlled the opium trade in the Plain of Jars region of Laos. By buying up the one salable crop the general could garner the allegiance of the hill tribes as well as stuff his own bank account. He would pay $60 a kilo, $10 over the prevailing rate, and would purchase a village’s crop if, in return, the village would supply recruits for his army. As a village leader described it, “Meo [that is, Hmong] officers with three or four stripes came from Long Tieng to buy their opium. They came in American helicopters, perhaps two or three men at one time. The helicopter leaves them here for a few days and they walk to the villages, then come back here and radio Long Tieng to send another helicopter for them and take the opium back.”

John Everingham, an Australian war photographer, was at that time based in Laos and visited the Hmong village of Long Pot; he recalled in the late 1980s that

I was given the guest bed in a district village leader’s house. I ended up sharing it with a military guy, who I later discovered was a leader in Vang Pao’s army. I was wakened by a great confusion of people and noise at the bottom of the bed, where there was a packet of black sticky stuff on bamboo leaves. And the village leader was weighing it out and paying quite a considerable amount of money. This went on several mornings. I found out it was raw opium. They all wore American uniforms. The opium went to Long Tieng by helicopters, Air America helicopters on contract to the CIA. I know as a fact that shortly after Vang Pao’s army was formed, the military officers gained control of the opium trade. It not only helped make them a lot of money. It also helped the villagers who needed their opium carried out, a difficult task in wartime. The officers were obviously paying a very good price because the villagers were very anxious to sell it to them.

In the early 1960s the trading chain from Long Tieng was as follows: the opium would be shipped into Vietnam on Laos Commercial Air, an airline run jointly by Ngo Dinh Nhu and the Corsican Bonaventure Francisi. Nhu, brother of South Vietnam’s President Diem, had presided over a huge expansion in Saigon’s opium parlors in order to fund his own security operation. But after the Diem brothers’ assassination, Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky, the man selected by the CIA as South Vietnam’s new leader, began bringing the opium in from Long Tieng on Vietnamese air force planes. (Ky had previously been head of South Vietnam’s air force.) A CIA man, Sam Mustard, testified to this arrangement in congressional hearings in 1968.

At the Laotian end, General Phoumi had placed Ouane Rattikone in charge of overall opium operations, and his dealings resulted in about a ton of opium a month being landed in Saigon. For his services, however, Rattikone was getting only about $200 a month from the parsimonious Phoumi. With the backing of the CIA, Rattikone rebelled and launched a coup in 1965 against Phoumi, driving his former boss into exile in Thailand. Rattikone now wanted to drop the contract with the Corsican’s Air Laos, which, despite Marshall Ky’s switch, was still doing business. Rattikone’s plan was to use the Royal Lao Air Force, entirely funded by the CIA. He referred to the opium shipments on the national air force as “requisitions militaires.” But CIA air commander Jack Drummond objected to what he deemed a logistically inefficient use of the Royal Lao Air Force’s T-28s and instead decreed that the CIA would furnish a C-47 for the dope runs “if they’d leave the T-28s alone.”

That’s precisely what happened. Two years later, in 1967, the CIA and USAID purchased two C-47s for Vang Pao, who opened up his own air transport company, which he called Xieng Khouang Air, known by one and all as Air Opium.

At the time the CIA decided to give Vang Pao his own airline, the CIA station chief in Vientiane was Ted Shackley, a man who had gotten his start in the CIA’s Paperclip project, recruiting Nazi scientists. Before he came to Laos Shackley had headed the Agency’s Miami station, where he orchestrated the repeated terror raids and assassination bids against Cuba and consorted with the local Cuban émigrés, themselves deeply involved in the drug trade. Shackley was an ardent exponent of the idea of purchasing the loyalty of CIA clients by a policy of economic assistance, calling this “the third option.” Tolerance – indeed active support – of the opium trade was therefore a proper military and diplomatic strategy. He also had a reputation for preferring to work with a team of long-term associates whom he would deploy in appropriate posts.

Thus one can follow, through the decades, the Shackley team from Miami, to Laos, to Vietnam (where he later became CIA station chief in Saigon) to his private business operations in Central America. When Shackley was in Vientiane, his associate, Thomas Clines, was handling business at Long Tieng. Another CIA man, Edwin Wilson, was delivering espionage equipment to Shackley in Laos. Richard Secord was supervising CIA operations, thus participating in a bombing program depositing more high explosive on peasants and guerrillas in the Plain of Jars than did the US on Germany and Japan during the whole of World War II. Shackley, Clines, Secord and Air America cargo kicker Eugene Hasenfus show up later in our story, in Central America, once again amid the CIA’s active complicity in the drug trade.

By the time Shackley moved to Saigon in 1968, the war had turned against Vang Pao. The Pathet Lao now had the upper hand. Over the next three years the story of the Hmong was one of forced marches and military defeats, and as the ground war went badly the CIA took to bombing campaigns that killed yet more Hmong. As Edgar “Pop” Buell, a missionary working in the hills, wrote in a memo to the CIA in 1968, “A short time ago we rounded up 300 fresh recruits [from the Hmong], 30 percent were 14 years old. Another 30 percent were 15 or 16. The remaining 40 percent were 45 or over. Where were the ages between? I’ll tell you – they’re all dead.”

By the end of the war in Laos a third of the entire population of the country had become refugees. In their forced marches the Hmong experienced 30 percent casualty rates, with young children often having to put their exhausted parents, prostrated along the trail, out of their misery. By 1971 the CIA was practicing a scorched-earth policy in Hmong territory against the incoming Pathet Lao. The land was drenched with herbicides, which killed the opium crop and also poisoned the Hmong. Later, when Hmong refugees in Thai refugee camps reported this “yellow rain,” CIA-patronized journalists spread the story that this was a Communist essay in biological warfare. The Wall Street Journal editorial page ran an extensive propaganda campaign on the issue in the early Reagan years. Vang Pao ended up in Missoula, Montana. General Ouane Rattikone went into exile in Thailand.

This CIA-transported opium engendered an addiction rate among US servicemen in Vietnam of up to 30 percent, with the soldiers spending some $80 million a year in Vietnam on heroin. In the early 1970s some of this same heroin was being smuggled back to the US in the body bags of dead servicemen, and when DEA agent Michael Levine attempted to bust the operation, he was warned off by his superiors because it might have led to exposure of the supply line from Long Tieng.

In 1971 a second-year grad student at Yale named Alfred McCoy met the poet Allen Ginsberg at a demonstration for Bobby Seale in New Haven. Ginsberg found out that McCoy had studied up on the drug trade and also knew several Southeast Asian languages as well as the political history of the region. He encouraged McCoy to research allegations about CIA involvement in the drug trade. McCoy finished his term papers and traveled to Southeast Asia in the summer of 1971, where he embarked on a courageous and far-reaching investigation that yielded brilliant results. He interviewed troops and officers in Saigon, and there also met John Everingham, the photographer who had witnessed the opium dealings in Laos. Everingham took him back into Laos to that same village. McCoy interviewed Hmong, both villagers and chiefs. He tracked down General Ouane Rattikone in Thailand. He interviewed Pop Buell and the CIA agent William Young.

Back in the United States by the spring of 1972, McCoy had finished the first draft of what was to be the path-breaking The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. In June of that year he was invited to testify before the US Senate by Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin. Following that testimony, he was called by his publisher Harper & Row, demanding that he come to New York and meet with the company’s president, Winthrop Knowlton. Knowlton told McCoy that Cord Meyer, a top-ranking CIA officer, had paid a visit to the owner of Harper & Row, Cass Canfield, and had told Canfield that McCoy’s book posed a national security threat. Meyer demanded that Harper & Row cancel the contract. Canfield refused, but did agree to let the CIA review McCoy’s book before publication.

While McCoy was deliberating what to do, the CIA’s approach to Canfield leaked out to Seymour Hersh, then working at the New York Times. Hersh promptly published the story. As McCoy wrote in the preface to a new edition of his book published in 1990, “Humiliated in the public arena, the CIA turned to covert harassment. Over the coming months, my federal education grant was investigated. My phones were tapped. My income tax was audited and my sources were intimidated.” Some of his interpreters were threatened with assassination.

The book was duly published by Harper & Row in 1972. Amid Congressional disquiet, the CIA told the Joint Committee on Intelligence that it was pressing forward with an internal review by the CIA’s Inspector General. The Agency sent twelve investigators into the field, where they spent two brief weeks in interviews. The report has never been released in its entirety, but this is its conclusion:

No evidence that the Agency or any senior officer of the Agency has ever sanctioned, or supported drug trafficking, as a matter of policy. Also we found not the slightest suspicion, much less evidence, that any Agency officer, staff or contact, has ever been involved with the drug business. With respect to Air America, we found that it has always forbidden, as a matter of policy, the transportation of contraband goods. We believe that its Security Inspection Service which is used by the cooperating air transport company as well, is now serving as an added deterrent to drug traffickers.

The one area of our activities in South East Asia that gives us some concern has to do with the agents and local officials with whom we are in contact and who have been or may still be involved in one way or another in the drug business. We are not referring here to those agents who are run as penetrations of the narcotics industry for collection of intelligence on the industry but, rather, to those with whom we are in touch in our other operations. What to do about these people is particularly troublesome in view of its implications for some of our operations, particularly in Laos. Yet their good will, if not mutual cooperation, considerably facilitates the military activities of the Agency-supported irregulars.

The report admitted that “the war has clearly been our over-riding priority in Southeast Asia and all other issues have taken second place in the scheme of things.” The report also suggested that there was no financial incentive for the pilots in Air America to be involved in smuggling, since they were “making good money.”

Reviews of McCoy’s book were hostile, suggesting that his hundreds of pages of well-sourced interviews and reporting amounted to conspiratorial rumor-mongering by a radical opponent of the war. McCoy’s charges were dismissed out of hand in the Church hearings of 1975, which concluded that allegations of drug smuggling by CIA assets and proprietaries “lacked substance.”

As McCoy himself summed it up in 1990, in words which no doubt strike a chord in the heart of Gary Webb, “Although I had scored in the first engagement with a media blitz, the CIA won the longer bureaucratic battle. By silencing my sources and publicly announcing its abhorrence of drugs, the Agency convinced Congress that it had been innocent of any complicity in the Southeast Asian opium trade.”...

Lynching Music

Viet Thanh Nguyen: “Country music was the most segregated kind of music in America, where even whites played jazz and even blacks sang in the opera. Something like country music was what lynch mobs must have enjoyed while stringing up their black victims. Country music was not necessarily lynching music, but no other music could be imagined as lynching’s accompaniment. Beethoven’s Ninth was the opus for Nazis, concentration camp commanders, and possibly President Truman as he contemplated atomizing Hiroshima, classical music the refined score for the high-minded extermination of brutish hordes. Country music was set to the more humble beat of the red-blooded, bloodthirsty American heartland.” (The Sympathizer)

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thechurchillreview · 7 years ago

Photo

Contains SPOILERS for Doctor Who and Season 2 of Broadchurch.

Imy Comic by Irma Ericksson.

http://www.imycomic.com/the-cartoonist/

Images/Gifs from Doctor Who (2005-), Black Mirror (2011-), Attack the Block (2011), and Broadchurch (2013-2017). The humorous Fem-Agenda List from comedian and late night show Full Frontal host Samantha Bee. Tweets from Johnathan Pyror and Mackenzie Lee.

I’ve being going through some life-changing stuff. I moved and got a place with roomies. Not done transporting possessions yet. Working somewhere else. Dealt with car issues. A lot has occurred. :)

Hence why this has taken considerably longer to type, edit, and post than I originally envisioned over a month ago. XD

On Sunday July 16th 2017, the long-running BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who starring a time and universe traveling body shifting Gallifreyan Time Lord made the announcement that a woman would play the longtime exclusive to men portrayal character next. Alongside companions, the Doctor is the true definition (not the derogatory kind) of a Social Justice Warrior. The Doctor assists civilizations, helps people, tries to alter certain events in time, and clashes against all types of enemies. The most famous among them being the Daleks, of course.

There’s been twelve Doctors (Well, thirteen if John Hurt’s War Doctor is counted...Doesn’t seem to be though. Since Jodie isn’t labeled as the 14th Doctor. ) played by men since the series inception back in 1963. The original run lasted until 1989, the revival of the show began in 2005. Doctor Who was created by C.E. Webber, Donald Wilson, and Sydney Newman. Producer Verity Lambert, story editor David Whitaker, and writer Anthony Coburn also contributed to the development of the series that would eventually become Doctor Who. In 1986, Newman wrote to BBC Chairman Michael Grade, "At a later stage, Doctor Who should be metamorphosed into a woman. This requires some considerable thought — mainly because I want to avoid a flashy, Hollywood Wonder Woman because this kind of heroine with no flaws is a bore. Given more time than I have now, I can create such a character."

So, over three decades (839 episodes, one TV movie, four charity specials, multiple specials, and two animated serials) later, Newman’s words are realized under Broadchurch creator and new Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall (with the departure of Steven Moffat). At the end of 2017, the current Doctor incarnation actor Peter Capaldi portrays will be replaced by Jodie Whittaker following the Regeneration process. This decision is is merely another form of change: a significant theme pertaining to the Doctor’s character as a whole.

On top of that, in the 1999 Red Nose Day telethon episode Doctor Who: The Curse of the Fatal Death was the first time the doctor was a woman (Joanna Lumley). In the audio drama Doctor Who Unbound Exile which is free from the restraints of continuity released in 2003 actor Arabella Weir played the Doctor. During the 9th Doctor’s run, it was revealed that the Doctor was bisexual even though the character rejected Jackie Tyler’s advances in “The Parting of Ways”. The Doctor flirted with Jack Harkness, proposing to dance with in the episode “Doctor Dances” whilst promising to give him what Rose Tyler had with Mickey Smith should Jack purchase him a drink. Captain Jack Harkness and River Song are characters both from the 51st century where pansexuality is the norm. Companion Clara Oswin Oswald has been in a relationship with a man but mentions kissing women too. When the 11th Doctor touches his hair following the completion of the 10th’s Regeneration process, the character says, “I’m a girl. No, no. I’m not a girl. And still not ginger.” This suggests that a the Doctor could be a woman. In the 2011 episode “The Doctor’s Wife” Neil Gaiman wrote from over six years ago, the Time Lord Corsair is mentioned and it is divulged that Corsair had a Regeneration that switched him into a her. In the 2013 mini-episode “The Night of the Doctor”, the Sisterhood of Karn (first appearance was in The Brain of Morbius that aired in 1976) asks the Doctor what Regeneration is desired (“Fat or thin, young or old, man or woman?” “Fast or strong, wise or angry, what do you need now?”): ultimately Paul McGann’s 8th Doctor wishes to be a “warrior” and is transformed into the War Doctor (portrayed by the late and incredibly great John Hurt). Since the show’s 2005 revival, an infamous Time Lord villain known as The Master went from being solely men into a woman named Missy (Michelle Gomez) after an off-screen Regeneration took place.

Change is important for the purposes of bringing a fresh angle to an established accepted formula whilst having potential narrative merit, symbolizing growth, modern day relevance, and validation to something existing. How change is navigated, utilized, or coped with is equally as important. Each Regeneration leads to viewers, writers, showrunners, and cast members having to accept that a previous version of the Time Lord is gone. “No more.” Their look, personality, memories, relationships, mannerisms, and whatever else gets scrambled into something entirely different post-Regeneration.

Likewise, the companions of the Doctor go through switcheroos often as well. Some leave us furious. Sad. Perhaps even glad.

My point is that we’re resist to change. Struggle with it. Less of a fan as a result. Which is understandable. However, when a certain demographic has been catered to for decades, altering this comes with a price. To be candid, I find the reactionary backlash a tad odd and chuckle-inducing. As if the time-traveling alien Doctor was ever defined by masculinity before. If that’s your chief defining attribute of the Doctor then I legitimately feel sorry for you. The Doctor represents more than a man or a woman and that’s why this beloved character has obtained a prestigious status among fictional creations.

This is the inherent beauty of science fiction. Close to infinite possibilities at one’s creative fingertips are there. That’s why Daisy Ridley’s Rey being a protagonist and an in training Jedi (General Leia Organa never got this despite her mighty connection to the Force) within the new Star Wars flicks is a big deal. Nichelle Nichols’ Lieutenant Uhura from Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek was historical by being the first African-American not to play a servant on American television. Did you know that Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. asked her to remain on Star Trek when she thought about leaving in the late 60s? “For the first time on television, we [people of African descent] will be seen as we should be seen every day, as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing and dance, yes, but who can go into space, who can be lawyers and teachers, who can be professors — who are in this day, yet you don’t see it on television until now." Nichols would further influence Dr. Mae Jemison, the first black woman to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, directly cited Star Trek in her decision making. Additionally, Nichols’ Uhura would serves as a role model to Star Trek: The Next Generation Guinan actor Whoopi Goldberg ("I just saw a black woman on television; and she ain't no maid!") too. Should I list all of the ways in which Charlize Theron’s Furiosa of Mad Max: Fury Road and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman have contributed to the more inclusive than most genre?

The casting choice of actor Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor bothered me from the get-go. Since Peter Capaldi had already been on the series via the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) episode “The Fires of Pompeii” as Caecilius. Not too long after that Peter would be in the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood: Children of Earth as John Frobisher too. Capaldi took over the role of the Doctor from Smith in 2013. Why the Doctor’s facial appearance is similar to Caecilus was eventually addressed in the 2015 episode “The Girl Who Died”. For whatever reason I’ve been unable to decipher, I’ve just never clicked with Capaldi’s Doctor. On the other hand, I am still grieving a tremendous loss...Which is actor Pearl Mackie’s SDCC announcement she’s leaving the companion position this December. Meaning I do have some level of viewership enjoyment with Capaldi due to Bill’s accompaniment with him.

I’m sincerely going to miss her.

In short, what has been hinted at in the past will become reality this December. No one’s being blindsided, I’d argue. Not about being PC either. These seeds were clearly being planted prior to.

Yes, this a holiday present I’m fondly looking forward to. Especially after seeing Jodie Whittaker’s nuanced performance as Beth Latimer in Chris Chibnall’s Broadchurch. Or Jodie’s role in the Black Mirror (a dark genius sci-fi series courtesy of Charlie Brooker) episode “The Entire History of You.” Psst, the entirety of Black Mirror is on Netflix...There’s even an episode that warned about a candidate like Donald Trump rising to power. I’d be remiss not to type about Whittaker being in the cult science fiction hit film Attack the Block (2011) as well. All of that she’s done deserves to be seen. That’s what I’ve been re-doing in anticipation actually!

With both Peter Capaldi’s and Steven Moffat’s tenures with Doctor Who coming to a personally welcomed close, my ranking of excitement is considerably lofty I must admit. We’ve needed an overhaul for awhile now. The long awaited for revolution of making the protagonist Time Lord a woman next brings a fresh dynamic to Doctor Who. I reckon she won’t be able to coast or take some things for granted like previous incarnations did. The involvement of Chris Chibnall and the inclusion of Jodie Whittaker has me ridiculously psyched for Doctor Who’s future. I believe both of them will positively contribute to the series with their injection of needed new. I even feel compelled to finally watch Doctor Who again in a strangely devoted fashion (something I haven’t done in years) versus sporadic glances at the telly throughout Capaldi’s run.

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rudderless-in-an-ocean-of-stars · 7 years ago

Text

in your eyes (i find my salvation), chapter four

Find it on Ao3 here:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11225808/chapters/25083762

iv. we’ll drown together in this sea of sorrows (no one ever taught us how to swim)

Lucy Lane does what she does to protect people.

It’s what she has always done, what she has been raised to do, the one thing she learns from her father that she doesn’t wish she could scrub from her brain.

This We’ll Defend.

It’s the army motto, and by the time she’s old enough to talk, she’s heard it enough to have committed it to memory.

(So what if no one defends her from the toe of her father’s boot or the back of his hand? She’ll learn to defend herself- and everyone else- when she’s older.)

She grows up in the shadow of her sister- pretty, perfect Lois.

(Lois will never know the way it feels to be hit by a parent, to pick herself off of the ground tasting blood in her mouth from the weight of their father’s fist.)

Model student, model daughter, model everything.

Lois’ mother, their father’s first wife, died in childbirth.

Lucy’s mother took off before she was even a month old, dropping her daughter off on the doorstep of the man she’d spent a single night with nine months ago and fleeing back to her native Dominican Republic.

It was hard enough taking second place to her older sister in their father’s heart, but harder still to grow up as the sole mixed-race child in a white neighborhood.

She doesn’t know much about her mother, aside from the fact that she was of Lebanese-Dominican descent and the source of most of Lucy’s looks.

Oh, sure, Lois had gotten her fair share of teasing for having a half-sister who looked nothing like her, but Lucy was the one who actually had to face the reality that most of her peers thought her less simply by virtue of her heritage.

She fights tooth and nail to make a name for herself that isn’t Lane.

Lucy skips a grade, joins activities like debate club and Model U.N., signs up for track & field in the winter and lacrosse in the spring, and fills the rest of her time volunteering around the community.

People begin to call her an overachiever.

(So what if the real reason she has so many extracurriculars is so that she can avoid going home? What happens behind closed doors is nothing they’ll ever know.)

She snaps at anyone who dares to call her ‘little Lane’ and hones her claws until people get the message that she isn’t someone to be trifled with.

By the time Lucy enters high school, she’s already a prime candidate for the National Honors Society.

Four years later, she graduates valedictorian, breezing through her AP classes and ending her senior year with a 4.8 GPA.

When they call her to the stage, it’s no longer under the shadow of her older sister’s accomplishments.

(So what if she has to spend three hours covering up the bruises that her father’s latest drunken rampage has left her with? Lucy’s always had a knack for makeup anyway.)

She ends up graduating from West Point with a Bachelor’s Degree in Science in a single year as opposed to four, thanks to those A.P. courses and summer programs she took. At nineteen years of age, she just might be the youngest person to leave West Point for reasons other than expulsion.

From there, she’s commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army with five years of service ahead of her. She works hard, gets her J.D and LL.M degrees through accelerated online courses as she rises through the ranks, because even if she doesn’t believe in her father, she believes in the one good thing he managed to teach her.

This We’ll Defend.

Lucy passes the bar exam with flying colors and becomes one of the youngest JAG Officers the Army’s ever seen at the age of twenty-two, three years into her five-year contract with the military.

She’s stationed stateside at this point, the legal attaché of her father’s staff, living on the army base just outside Metropolis.

This is no coincidence- Sam Lane’s personal vendetta against a certain Kryptonian means that as long as she’s part of her father’s team, she’ll likely spend all of her active duty waiting for Superman to step out of line.

This is how she meets James Olsen.

(She’s twenty-four and full of fire and he’s the first person who doesn’t mind the fact that she’s made of steel and flames.)

Like every other good thing in her life, it ends with the aid of her always well-meaning sister, and she requests a transfer out of her father’s unit so she can spend the next four years buried in the depths of the military, hoping that James everyone will stop looking and finally write her off as lost.

She’d only signed a five-year contract for active duty, but military service means a minimum of eight years, and gladly agrees to spend the three years she could be in the inactive reserves (I.R.R.) in the field where she belongs. The Army lets her, partly because she’s Sam Lane’s daughter, but mostly because she’s one of the best damn officers they’ve ever seen.

Lucy spends those years in places that are hot and dusty and full of I.E.D.s and by the time she returns to the states and moves to National City, she’s earned the rank of ‘major’ and enough scars to last her a lifetime.

Now she’s twenty-eight, one year out of service and a member of the group they’ve affectionately nicknamed the ‘SuperSquad’, utilizing her law degrees as the head of Legal Affairs at CatCo, and there’s nowhere else she thinks she’ll ever want to be.

She’s still as fucked up and broken as ever, but she has found herself a home in this city, in these people, and she’ll be damned if she ever gives it up.

There are times when she looks in the mirror and can barely stand the fact that she’s missing so many pieces of herself, but she’d lost most of those pieces long ago, before James and before the Army, so it’s a burden whose weight she’s used to carrying.

No one else in her newfound family is exactly whole either, so she knows they’ll never mind.

Lucy Lane does what she does to protect people.

Especially the people she loves.

So when she goes to Lena Luthor’s office and tells her to keep her distance, she reminds herself that it’s all to keep Kara safe as she tries not to cry at the sight of the other woman’s face when it crumples at her words.

(She’s sure that her own face might have once mirrored Lena’s, during the early days of her youth, when the concept of abuse was still new to her and she hadn’t yet learned how to hide her emotions away.

It proves to be an exercise in futility, in the end.

No matter how deep she managed to bury her emotions from the world, she never could quite manage to do it well enough so that she would be as unfeeling as she made herself seem.)

Afterwards, she does her best to drink herself into oblivion because she still hurt someone, and even if it was to protect another person, the pain she’s caused is still another tally mark in her ledger.

It’s for this very same reason that on military holidays, or whenever she gets congratulated for her time in the Army, she goes out and downs a shot for every life she ever took overseas.

May will always be a very rough month for her.

Surprisingly, she’s only ever gotten blackout drunk on one spectacular occasion- her first Memorial Day in National City.

To this day, Lucy doesn’t think she’s ever seen James as angry as he had been, then.

She’d managed to keep a lid on her drinking for the first few months after her discharge, or, at the very least, make sure James wasn’t aware of the full extent of her nighttime habits, but Memorial Day had fucked that up on an epic scale.

Now, she finds him waiting up for her more often that she doesn’t.

Which is why he’s currently having a one-sided staring contest with her as she guzzles down a glass of water for the headache she knows she’ll have tomorrow if she doesn’t hydrate.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she says, but they both know it’s a lie and the words leave a bitter taste in her mouth that all the water in her glass can’t wash away.

Just like blood, she thinks, and something beneath her ribs gives a painful little twinge at the thought.

“Lucy, please.” He’s pleading now, and she’s just so, so tired-

“I feel like my father,” she confesses lowly, lets the words slide out in a whisper nearly as broken as she is, leaning heavily on the edge of the marble countertop that stands between them. “I don’t want to be like my father-”

Her throat closes up around the words she longs to say and she shatters right then and there, ten at night and in the kitchen of apartment they share, the home they’ve tried to build for themselves.

She shatters-

Please don’t let me be him.

-but, as always-

Never, Lucy, never. You are nothing like him.

-he’s there to put her back together again.

(And that, that is why Lucy Lane will never stop loving James Olsen.

He is the first person to see her for what is, not who she pretends to be, the first to not shy away from the fact that she’s far from perfect, and that ‘normal’ is something she’ll never be.)

For the first decade of his life, Winslow Schott Jr. is proud to bear his father’s name.

Until his father kills six people with a bomb disguised as a teddy bear, and he finds himself being sent to live with his distant relatives just after Christmas, the holiday he will quickly grow to hate because of the massacre he will never be allowed to forget.

He drops the ‘Jr.’ then, shortens ‘Winslow’ to ‘Winn’ and tries to pretend like he’s never been called anything else.

His eleventh birthday passes, and he lets the date slide by without reminding anyone because he has court to attend next week and he doesn’t have the stomach to celebrate anything, let alone the day he was born to a man who would become a killer.

He discovers the wonders of alcohol in high school, when one of his friends throws him an unwanted party for turning sixteen. He spends every birthday after that somewhere dimly lit and vaguely warm, where he tries his best to replace all the blood in his veins with alcohol so that he wouldn’t have to be related to the man who murdered with such terrible, terrible ease.

The years pass, and Winn is careful to keep himself in check- he’s never been quick to anger, but then again, neither had his father, and the man had gone on to massacre six people with a bomb hidden inside a teddy bear, of all things.

Even feeling the vaguest hint of irritation is enough to fill his veins with a paralyzing fear that this is it, that he is going to snap and go down the same dark path as his father.

So he does his best to stay calm, stay sane, no matter what.

Bullies tear his homework out of his hands, and he doesn’t allow himself to do anything but walk away.

A teacher accuses him of cheating when his test scores for the district’s latest computerized assessment outstrip every other student in the state, and he denies these claims in front of the principal with nothing but neutrality in his veins.

A decade slips by, and he graduates from M.I.T. at the top of his class, gets a job at CatCo Worldwide Media, and the world seems like it has decided to let Winn out from under the shadow of his namesake’s crimes. For the first time since he woke up to the sound of sirens outside of his house, Winn finds himself hopeful that he’ll be able to live a life untainted by the gruesome memory of the deaths of half a dozen people.

Then he wakes up one morning and turns on the news just in time to learn that his father has broken out of prison and gone on another killing spree.

He just barely manages to get to work on time after nearly having to fight his way through the dozens of reporters waiting outside his apartment building.

Cat summons him into her office, takes one long look at him, and slides a crystal bowl of candy across her desk. He sits down, coming close enough to see that the bowl is filled with Skittles, not M&Ms- his favorite, not hers- and that’s all it takes for him to finally let go of the tears he’s been holding back since he switched on the television.

CatCo covers the story without a single mention of the Toyman’s son.

She calls him into her office again, just before he heads home, and tells him that he doesn’t have to worry about anyone bothering him from then on.

Rumors spread like wildfire among the employees of the media circuit that confirm his suspicions about the fate of the reporters she’d curtly informed him wouldn’t be seen again.

He doesn’t know how she does it- and he knows well enough not to ask- but every single reporter who had stood out on the steps of his building and harassed him to near tears is jobless and black-listed by every serious media outlet by the end of that week.

It doesn’t stop him from scrubbing his skin raw in the shower for a week afterwards at the memory of their probing questions and taunts, the worst of which being an offhanded comment about the ‘family resemblance’, but it helps.

Winn confesses all of this- every single repressed emotion, unspoken thought, everything- to the one person who understands exactly what it feels like to lose someone so close to their hearts.

It’s not James- everyone he’d ever loved is still living.

Nor is it Maggie- her parents had kicked her out simply for being gay, there was no love lost between them.

It’s not Kara and Lucy either.

Kara and Lucy have both lost parents, just not the way that he had. Lucy had never known her mother, and she’d never loved her father. Kara hadn’t had the chance to know her parents at all, let alone love them. She loved what they could have been, what they could have had, but she was robbed of the opportunity to love them for who they were.

But Alex- Alex had loved her father, just like Winn once loved his.

She knows how it feels to have that love torn away.

So Winn confesses everything to Alex, who holds other people’s secrets just as well as her own.

Later that year, and every year after that, Father’s Day will roll around and Alex Danvers will show up on his doorstep with a bottle of butter liquor in hand and a sardonic smile plastered across her features.

They cry and they rage and so what if Alex nearly puts her fist through his living room wall one year; they are coping and this is how.

Sometime after the booze has run out and they’ve run out of tears to shed, they’ll curl up together in Winn’s bed, an embrace fostered out of their shared agony and a desire for the simple comfort of human contact. He’ll have his head tucked under her chin, face pressed against her neck as he struggles to control his hitched breathing. Alex will wrap an arm around his shoulders and allow him to curl his arms around her waist and squeeze as hard as he can until he falls asleep.

The first time they do this, the first time they gather to wallow in this misery they have in common, it takes Alex the better part of an hour and nearly half a bottle of tequila before she can choke out a tearful confession of her own about just how alone her father’s death had made her feel, still makes her feel.

Winn’s father isn’t dead but he might as well be, so he reaches out with a boldness he’d almost forgotten having and pulls her across the couch to let her stifle her sobs in the cotton of his favorite Firefly shirt.

He meets Kara first, falls head-over-heels for the beautiful girl with the beautiful soul. It never goes anywhere, though, and his infatuation fades with time as their friendship solidifies into something bright and strong.

But he grows to love Alex just as deeply, if not more so.

Kara is a light, a shining beacon of strength and hope and heart, but Alex is safe port in a dark sea, and sometimes what he needs is a harbor in the darkness, a chance to greet the shadows he’s spent most of his life in and Alex understands this in ways that no one else can.

Kara has fallen into the shadows, but it has never stained her soul the way it taints theirs, and for that, Winn and Alex are glad. Kara’s light is the very definition of strength, and it’s something they all pray she’ll never lose.

She is the sun, and they, the night that makes the fills the spaces in between. This is the balance that pulls them all together and keeps them from falling apart.

He would do anything for them, and they for him, so when Alex calls him in the morning and tells him he has Cat Grant’s blessing to work from Kara’s apartment, he goes.

A/N:

Most of this chapter was erased before I could post it, and the rest is still being salvaged from the remains of my notes.

I’m really sorry. :(

But I didn’t want to make you guys wait until I had everything back, so I decided to split the chapter in half (it was a loooong chapter anyways) and this is it.

I hope you enjoyed, regardless.

Please feel free to let me know what you think of this fic- like it? Love it? Hate it? Drop me a comment down below.

#SuperCorp #SuperCorp fanfiction #Lena Luthor #Kara Danvers #Supergirl #SuperGAY #CW #Ao3

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thetaxcollector2020veronlin-blog · 4 years ago

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#[REPELIS!]™ — The Tax Collector Pelicula Completa en Español

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