#Nairobi Half Life

[depressopax]

LCDP character valentines day headcanons

Fandom - La Casa de papel/Money Heist

Pairing: Nairobi - Berlin - Denver - Tokyo - Professor - Alicia Sierra - Bruce - Cameron - x gender neutral reader Genre: Fluff Warning(s): No smuts, but suggestive themes. Reader is gender neutral. Words: 1.3K Summary: How do the LCDP characters celebrate valentines together with reader? English is not my main language, if I make any spelling mistakes please let me know so I can improve my writing! <3 AO3 link soon

I made one of Breaking Bad characters, so ofc I gotta make one for my babygirls in LCDP 🫶

Enjoy and happy valentines day to y'all!!!

(single gang wya?)

Nairobi

Nairobi LOVES valentine’s day.

Cheesy stuff is her favorite thing - romance movies, dates etc…

So for Valentine's Day, she wants to have a big celebration with you.

She makes plans weeks ahead, booking a weekend for the two of you.

She likes taking you on roadtrips and also going on mini vacations to other towns

So that’s what she does on february 14. 

She doesn’t GAF if it’s in the middle of the week, you’re going lmao

Of course she’s also brought you gifts, probably some jewelry or a plushie. …Maybe both, actually.

Her face lights up when you hand her a gift too.

Will be all over you with kisses

She takes a lot of photos of and with you, and everything the two of you see and do. She wants to document it all and look back at it. 

The day is spent at the hotel, going to a spa, sightseeing or just a candlelit dinner, whichever you prefer.

She also books the fancy room, making sure the two of you have some privacy for the nights… ;)

Berlin

Cheesy, romantic mf man

Andrés would spend a ridiculous amount of money for valentines day 😭

No but fr, you’d have to stop him from spontaneously paying for a trip to another country.

He treats this damn “holiday” like it is a life or death situation

Which can be both charming, but a bit concerning.

Luckily, he listens to you and decides on going for a weekend away instead. …His treat, of course

He books the two of you into some romantic spa hotel, and takes you out for fancy dinners.

Of course… Gifts, too. 

He buys you those things you’ve half mentioned wanting earlier. He memorizes everything you say, basically. 

He does all of this, yet still gets flustered when you give him something back. “Mi amor… You… You didn’t have to.” Meanwhile he has a big grin on his face, feeling grateful for every single thing you do.

The weekend away is full of love, relaxation and… Passion 🤭

“King of valentines day”, what can I say?

Denver

I love Denver, but he is pretty forgetful. 

He remembered it was Valentine's Day the same morning.

But this doesn’t mean he doesn't make an effort. 

He loves you, and even if you don’t care that much about it being february 14, he wants to show his love to you.

He rushes to the store to buy you flowers and some other gift.

He takes you out on a date in the afternoon, making sure he looks extra nice for you. 

The date is something romantic, yet fun.

Either an amusement park, picnics somewhere beautiful, ice/roller skating… You name it. 

When exchanging gifts, he feels bad for almost forgetting, but you don’t seem bothered at all, just happy to be with him. 

He gets excited when you hand him over a gift, feeling damn lucky to have you in his life. 

He doesn’t care what you give him, just happy you had him in mind.

Although, if you were to be angry at him, he has more surprises waiting once home iykwim ;)

Tokyo

A bit like Denver, but at least she remembers the day before lmao

…Might be because you reminded her

She feels bad, tho, so she makes sure to buy you something and also flowers.

Tokyo doesn’t hate valentines day, but does find it annoying with all lovey-dovey couples. 

But she loves you, and defies her dislike for the day.

She warms up a bit at your reaction to the gifts, tho.

And loves what you get for her.

Doesn’t matter what it is, it will be her new comfort item, and a reminder of her love for you.

She takes you out for a romantic dinner, but then drags you out to the club.

She just wants to party the night away whilst keeping you close, showing everyone that you’re hers. 

The night probably ends with the two of you making out on the dance floor, and taking it somewhere more private…

Professor

This man… 

He’s not used to “celebrating” valentines day, so he is awkward about it.

Probably pleads Andrés for his help to pick out a gift to you and give him advice

…Although he ends up roasting his ideas/suggestions, since they’re too bold, perverted or cheesy. 

Still, he ends up taking some advice.

Homeboy just wants to give you a good day

And he does.

Sergio ends up going for the classic - flowers, suit and romantic dinner.

Also buys you some gift, just simply something he knows you like/need. 

Although he’s a bit nervous/awkward at first, being around you makes him less tense.

He totally stops functioning when you smile and give him what you bought for him

Legit a blushing mess lmao

It ends up being a good valentines day, and you make sure to thank him in more than one way 🤭

Alicia Sierra

Alicia has a busy job, but she tries taking a day off, or at least the afternoon - to spend it with you. 

She’s not that cheesy. 

She likes Valentine's Day, since it is a day of “celebration”, but she usually doesn’t bother with it. 

Until things got real with you.

She buys some simple (but probably expensive) gift and some flowers and picks you up with her car.

She takes you out to watch some movie and then to her place, where she’s fixed a candlelit dinner.

That way, you have more privacy and focus on each other. 

Alicia likes spoiling you, even if she doesn’t admit so out loud.

That’s why she looks so smug as you open the wrapping paper to the piece of jewelry she brought.

The gift she got from you, she carefully places in her living room, where she can look at it all the time. 

After dinner, you spend the night at her place.

You won’t be sleeping much, tho… ;)

Bruce

Bruce sees Valentine's Day as a chance to impress you.

Sure, you're already his, but he still wants to seduce you. 

He’ll have you sleep over the night before, and wake you up with breakfast in bed, and also give you the gift he’s brought. 

Might not be the best food, but at least he made it with love lol

Literally spends the whole day pampering you, making you feel like a royal, which is his only goal.

And you do the same for him.

Which is pretty easy. A couple of kisses, and you’re all his.

Which is why he got so emotional when you gave him a gift too.

The day is spent with home spa, watching movies, making out, and either ordering food or takeaway. 

Basically just a day where the two of you relax together and do other fun stuff, happy to have found each other.

Cameron

Due to her last relationship, she’s not that fond of valentines day.

She doesn’t see the point in being extra affectionate once a year, when you can do so everyday.

Still, you buy her a valentine's gift and surprise her with flowers.

She’s stunned at first, then flustered, and then smiles, pulling you into a kiss. 

As a thank you, she takes you out on a date.

Together, the two of you like adrenaline and action.

So of course, you either go to an amusement park, or go sightseeing on her motorcycle, with you sitting behind her, hands wrapped around her hips as she speed drives through town.

The rest of the day, you explore random places together, taking pictures and making memories. 

Cameron can’t help but just stare at you, feeling so incredibly lucky to have you.

You go to some cozy restaurant to eat. 

Once going home, it’s getting dark. 

The two of you can’t keep hands to yourself during the trip home

So you end up doing that at the most random place

Afterwards, you are cuddled up and stargazing. 

Although you’re supposed to watch the stars, you and Cameron only has eyes for each other, tbh <3

[alarici]

matthalle, tbc?? (1,300 words)

(some was already posted) @neallo sorz im late

Nothing happens at an expensive pub in South London. The lights are low, dark wood and frosted glass. Vermouth distilled in the 80s. Loafers and calf leather Oxfords.

Matt’s chilled lager sweats in his hand.

Halle stares out the window. Another odd Tuesday. They’re both three drinks in.

It’s fine company.

—

Thing is, Matt has always been taken by vicious blondes. Call it a character flaw, a rule of his life. Since Mary in the first grade. Linda, Mello. Maybe the Amane chick was a bit of a departure, not so vicious, but just barely. A change of pace but not of theme.

And really, who could blame Matt’s blue balls, six months in a one-room with Mello. Lockdown, for the detox and even more for the mission, for fancying Amane’s pigtails and perky tits.

Halle is another beast altogether. Matt’s learned about her three older brothers. Military father, granddaughter of a minister. All-girl’s finishing school in Massachusetts, Oxford, Cambridge, UN, Interpol. Matt imagines she’s the type to wear vintage La Perla under her pantsuits. He knows her heels have red under soles, and that her perfume is worth more than his two year lease in Covent Garden.

She hasn’t let him verify the panties hunch. But to be fair, he hasn’t tried and hasn’t asked. They get along. Every elephant in the room can be shut out with booze, or blow, or chatting about this case or the weather in Nairobi, the coups in Bolivia, the semiconductor shortages, the latest episode of Doctor Who.

—

Nothing happens at the bar. Amongst the suits and the highballers, they talk. It's difficult to find someone else who's been through the same shit as you, these days. They're all dead.

Halle knew Mello. Matt knew Mello. Halle's beautiful. Matt's got a tender spot for beauty, being a mediocre creature of god surrounded by chosen ones and manmade smiles.

Something does change when Halle offers to take him running. Him. Running.

Asthmatic kid on the playground. Five years out from a coma and a collapsed lung and a bullet dug out of his thigh.

She says she'll go easy. He imagines she just wants to see him in pain.

So be it. His doctor tells him he needs to exercise. He's entered the latter half of his twenties. Things stick out, and his skin folds where it didn't used to. Which is great. But the Ritalin work the same anymore, and he's tired all the time.

Mainly, he just wants to watch Halle run in front of him. What is he without someone like that—running ahead, egging him on, prodding him or leading him until he's blue in the face. Blood on his tongue. Her firm ass far below eye level.

She smiles, and they set the date for Sunday. 9 AM. The devil's hour!

Matt, his beat up trainers, ratty gym shorts from the charity shop, long-sleeved T-shirt, Hyde Park.

Halle, gym shorts, hair in a tight ponytail, sports bra, no tank top.

It is August. It's also London—overcast, sky considering an afternoon shower.

At 9 AM, it's cool enough to bother with a shirt if she’d chosen to.

So Halle's first one-uppance is her abs. Matt hasn't had abs since he was wasting away in a hospital bed in Tokyo, still blissfully unaware that his friend-lover-boss had died. And still, those were coma abs. But Halle has her tanned skin in England. She smiles at him. He studies a freckle on the back of his hand.

"One lap. If you stop, I'm throwing you in the pond, Jeevas."

The case of the month involves a series of bodies washed up on the banks of the Thames. A rare one close to home. Matt's on standby—they don't need tech work for this, and he has a contract that says he doesn't have to do anything in the field. If Near doesn't dare venture out of his tower, why should he? He’s bored. Bodies in the Thames—what else is new?

The momentary crack of sunlight is oppressive. Halle's pace is punishing. The doctors in Japan had done a great job, so his English doctors said, at repairing the muscle in his inner thigh. They'd also told him, he, “wouldn't be running any marathons any time soon."

Halle knows. She's a bit of a cunt, Matt's learned.

He trots along.

If there's one thing two years semi-sober have taught him, it's that pain offers no worthy gain. It just sucks—but the alternative is what? Admitting defeat.

Matt’s been waving a white flag since he was twelve. This is supposed to be his second chance. A life. Standing in the presence of someone undeniably better, but still standing.

Ten meters before the end of the lab, he doubles over and hurls into a flowerbed, turns, and smiles up at her.

"Happy, you fucking übermensch?"

"I don't speak German." As though übermensch isn’t a loan word.

"You went to grade school there." Matt knows the gist of her story—military family. Childhood all over the world, and the dead sister. From an old German family that came to the U.S. at the dawn of World War Two.

"You don't speak Japanese." She counters. She knows he spent some time there. It’s not in his need-to-know file, but most of the group knows the outline of how he ended up working with Near five years after the end of the Kira case.

"I was only there for, like, a month. おはよう."

"Also, I went to grade school in the states."

"You can’t be German and work for the C.I.A," Matt quips. She’s American.

"I had noncitizen coworkers."

"Like, spies and defectors?"

"Yeah. If you can talk, you can run, Jeevas. We're going around again."

—

It happens, inevitably, when Matt’s still weak in the knees. He’s just taken a shower at Halle’s place—a beautiful loft with a waterfront view—and he’s sitting awkwardly on the edge of her bed wearing her—“my old boyfriend’s clothes.”

Her old boyfriend was clearly at least half a foot taller than Matt. His loungewear does not fit, but it’s clothes, and she offered a shower and clean towels.

When she gets out of the shower, she hasn’t changed.

He gives her the once-over.

“Man, you can just ask.”

“Good boys don’t talk back, Jeevas.”

“You didn’t say any—”

She drops the towel and smiles. “Aw, you’re still shaking from our run.”

He offers a lopsided smile, and stares at her breasts. They’re better without the fitted blouse, he decides. Her abs, still damp, are fun, too.

“So, what’s the safeword?” He asks, on the verge of reaching out to touch.

Halle looks about to slap his hand away. Instead, she smiles. Her K-9s are sharp. No surprise.

“My dog is well trained, no?” She reaches for his face, instead. Unchipped French nails gentle at his cheek.

“You decide.”

And that’s that.

—

Through their three month (and no longer) tryst, Matt learns that he likes being choked—of all the things, Mello never choked him. That the post-runner’s jitters—the endorphins—collide with the sex endorphins and leave him just plain happy. Halle makes fun of how much he smiles during scenes. When she’s choking him, when she’s on top of him, setting the pace, giving him nothing.

The best time is in Monaco. Matt tagged along on one of her assignments. Intel—it’s always intel. For a week, they look like the wet dream of a young couple on holiday. She picks out his clothes, dresses him like a fucking douchebag. Sends him to get a haircut.

They don’t go to any races. They only visit one casino, and that’s strictly business. The only place to take a jog in Monaco is the hotel’s luxury sports center. They pick side by side treadmills. She isn’t able to reach over to up his tempo. But she does give him a withering look when he slows. He doesn’t mind.

After dinners at hotel steakhouses or casino bars, they retire to their room. There is no being tied to bedframes or hot candle wax. Halle never uses anything besides her two hands. Long nails. Soft fingers, pressure points. Give and take.

They're both clever enough to know it can never last, but that's the fun part.

[harryshairclippy]

I just realized there is absolutely no way I would be able to make an end of the year fic rec because it would just be tooooo long. I'm splitting things up for the first half of the year!!

I'll Fly Away - @juliusschmidt - 122K

Harry and Louis grew up together in Lake County, Harry with his mom and stepdad in a tiny cottage on Edward’s Lake and Louis in his family’s farmhouse a few minutes down the road. But after high school, Louis stuck around and Harry did not; Harry went to Chicago where he found a boyfriend and couple of college degrees. Six years later, Harry ends up back in Edwardsville for the summer and he and Louis fall into old patterns and discover new ones.

ft. One Direction, the local boyband; Horan’s Bar and Grill; families, most especially children and babies; Officer Liam Payne; many local festivals and fireworks displays; and Anne Cox, PFLAG President.

I Don't Wanna Face The Music - @hereforh - 95K

Louis likes to think he's a pretty normal, typical lad. He likes spending nights at the pub with his mates, he loves football and is very close to his family. So when he moves to London for uni, he doesn’t think much will be different.

Until he makes these new friends who are nothing like his mates back home and change his life for the better - and this one boy who messes with his head from the get go and makes him question everything he has ever thought about himself.

Stranger Stars - @sunshineandhisrainbows - 212K

Five years ago, Africa offered a grieving Louis Tomlinson an escape from an England he couldn't tolerate. Now it's become home as he leads overland tours across the continent with his best friend and driver Zayn Malik. What's meant to be just another ordinary six-week trip from Cape Town to Nairobi turns into anything but, when future lawyer/current photographer and songwriter Harry Styles and his friends join Louis' latest set of passengers.

Mine Would Be You - @crinkle-eyed-boo - 114K

Louis blinks his eyes open, his eyelids fluttering as the room swims around him. He takes several gulps of beer once he confirms that he’s definitely not hallucinating, that the very first portrait Harry Styles ever painted of him is hanging on that wall.

Louis stares at the wall, his heart jackrabbiting in his chest as he realizes that there’s not just one painting of him, there’s five, the portraits lined up like they’re some sort of storyboard depicting the rise and fall of his deepest love. His greatest heartache. A pain that cut him so deep that he left the fucking country, severing all ties with his life in New York, now suddenly surrounding him as if he’d never left.

Fucking shit motherfucker fuck.

Louis returns to New York City five years after he left it – and the love of his life – behind. He didn't intend to see Harry again, but fate has a funny way of pulling them together, whether they like it or not. After making a begrudging truce, they both start to wonder: Would it be so bad if history repeated itself?

Perfect Storm - @cherrystreet - 80K

What do you do when your best friend asks you and your (now) ex to be the best men at his destination wedding? You can either tell him the truth, tell him you’re not together anymore, and deal with the consequences, or you can pretend you’re still together and roll with it, just pray you don’t spiral. Fake it ‘til you make it. You know, for the sake of the wedding.

Harry and Louis choose the latter.

Golden - @sunshineandhisrainbows - 128K

Harry is fully dressed when Louis returns to the room. He’s slumped on the edge of the bed, fingers twining awkwardly around the edge of his pink flounces. “Can I come?” he blurts when Louis opens the bathroom door. Louis freezes. “What?” “North. With you,” Harry clarifies. “If you’re going north, could I come too?”

On a rainy night in Auckland in the middle of his world tour, popstar Harry Styles loses his ability to carry on. Instead of continuing to Sydney and the rest of his tour, he seeks sanctuary with Louis Tomlinson, a man with a macadamia nut farm and a mysterious past.

Sun Means The Sky'll Be Blue - @moonhusbands - 91K

As the only singleton under thirty attending his cousin's five-day wedding, Harry is desperate to find a date, or at least a reason to get people's questions about his love life off his back. So when Louis, Harry's old uni roommate and fellow wedding attendee waltzes back into his life, Harry seizes the opportunity, pretending Louis is his ex-boyfriend and that it's a sore subject not to be mentioned.

If it's a little bit closer to the truth than Harry would like, well, he's a master at living in denial.

So cue a mess of trudged-up feelings, past misunderstandings, a rekindled summer romance and a whole lot of sexually-charged bickering.

Being of the Jealous Kind - @louisandtheaquarian - 24K

A-list actor Louis Tomlinson and his partner fashion photographer Harry Styles weather the storm that is Louis’ fake relationship with his costar in the lead up to this year’s Academy Awards.

Featuring a fluffy teenage meet-cute, an angsty wine drunk Harry melting down over pap pics, Louis habitually overusing the word “baby,” and cameos by a vintage Umbro sweatshirt, the peace ring, and one hell of a Larry hug.

Or the justice for To Be So Lonely fic. Based on the lyrics to TBSL and a prompt where “Louis has to fake date some celebrity, while his boyfriend Harry sits at home.”

Late Night Talking - @kingsofeverything - 53K

Louis Tomlinson has a new album coming out and a second world tour on the horizon. Promo season gets underway with a stop at Late Night Talking, the late night show hosted by Harry Styles, and Harry Styles just happens to be the man who blew a chance to date Louis a decade ago.

With A Little Kindness - @jacaranda-bloom - 33K

The man lays his hand on Harry’s forearm and Harry looks up as the stranger leans in. “I just wanted to say,” he whispers. “Can I cover your bill? I’m a big believer in paying it forward and I can see you’re struggling. It’s none of my business, of course, but I’d really like to help.”

OR the one where Harry is a struggling single parent who doesn’t have time for relationships and Louis is a generous stranger who is unlucky in love, until fate decides to step in and bring them together.

Loved By Your Mother - @gaymoustache - 31K

Harry stretches out like Venus with her lover, growing sleepy in the late afternoon light with a baby growing inside her. Perhaps not literally, not physically. Not exactly.

or

Harry struggles to come to terms with wanting to have children, and what that means for their relationship. Canon compliant, set a few years into the future.

you taught me how to love (i taught you how to stop) - @thedevilinmybrain - 50K

"I was always better at hand to hand than you," Harry growls, even as he leans his weight into the blade. It's small, sharp, has a handle of gold roses.

"I don't know about that." Louis moves his arm forward, makes the presence of the barrel of the gun fit snugly to Harry's hip. "I think we just play differently."

"You going to shoot me?" Harry asks, those wild eyes tracking over Louis' face. "Do it."

"I think I've put enough scars on you," Louis answers, means it about the stretch marks still lining the sides of Harry's stomach, but it lands a little too raw. There are other scars on Harry's body that Louis blames himself for, scars inside too.

your memory over me - @shimmeringevil - 64K

Three years have passed since Louis last saw him, but all it took was a few minutes in Harry’s presence for him to be relegated to the desperate twenty-one year old that was practically begging his boyfriend for an ounce of reassurance that he still cared about him.

Harry shouldn’t be here. He’s brought too many unresolved feelings with him, that Louis thought he’d never have to face.

It’s Harry’s apparent apathy that’s the most difficult to come to terms with. Anger, he could handle. Regret, he would welcome. But Harry’s amiability, and carefree demeanor can only be born from indifference.

He’s moved on. He doesn’t care. And that is something Louis doesn’t think he’ll ever be strong enough to face.

-

OR - The worst heartbreak of Louis’ life walks right back into it when his parents invite their family friends on an all-expenses-paid trip for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Facing a past that he tried to bury long ago, Louis learns that some people have a way of sticking with you even when they’re gone.

knock knock, i love you - @beautlouis - 86K

“Well,” Louis says, searching for something to relieve this tension. “I think if a bloke gets kicked out of his stats exam for a knock knock joke, he deserves to hear the punchline, yeah?”

“Oh!” Harry says, beaming. “I forgot where we left off, what was it again?” He looks overjoyed to be exchanging a shit joke.

“Ah, you said knock knock, then I said who’s there, and then you said Noah,” Louis supplies helpfully. He hates that he's actually curious about the rest of the joke. “So, Noah who?”

“Oh,” says Harry, in a much different tone, dragging out the syllable. He looks bashful now. Louis cannot keep up with this boy, it's going to kill him. “Right, well.” He shuffles his feet. Fuck, what kind of knock knock joke gets a boy nervous? “Noah a good place we could get something to eat?”

[Harry and Louis get kicked out of a statistics exam for passing a knock knock joke note, and subsequently fall in love. Harry's a virgin, there's a cat, a hot cocoa date, a lot of sex, even more knock knock jokes, and everything is lovely and happy.]

i'm a captain on a jealous sea - @thedevilinmybrain - 15K

It’s not that Louis doesn’t like Nick. He is, if he’s being honest, kind of indifferent. Louis gets that Nick is just doing his job most of the time, being loud and prying, not having boundaries. But it’s just a little too much for Louis’ taste. Louis, who has learned over the years, when to be loud and when to know that coy is the game. But, it doesn’t matter really. He’s not required to like everyone, doesn’t have to make nice with them outside of having a camera shoved in his face. He can let Nick be Nick and it shouldn’t affect Louis at all.

Except.

What Louis actually has a problem with is the way Nick Grimshaw looks at Harry.

One More Time Again - orphan_account - 232K

Harry looks down to where Louis is cradling his hand between his own. Louis' hands are slender, the bones delicate, the nails bitten short. The 2-8 on the backs of his fingers is gone, but the faded scar from a skateboarding mishap in Year 7 is still there.

Harry's hand is awkward, knobby-boned and naked, no rings, no tattoos. It's too big for his wrist and his wrist too big for his arm. Yet it still somehow fits in Louis' in the painfully perfect way it always did.

He blinks back the sting in his eyes.

On the morning of his second sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden, Harry wakes up to find that he's sixteen years old, on The X Factor, and that he has a chance to make things right.

A canon-compliant fix-it fic (sort of).

Darling, so it goes - @disgruntledkittenface - 195K

Harry Styles is a world-famous actor at the height of his career but a personal low point when he meets His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Monaco by chance. He doesn’t think they’ll ever see each other again, but after striking up a correspondence, it turns out they have more in common than he thought. Then they start to fall for each other. Louis is different from anyone Harry has dated before and their relationship moves fast as Harry realizes he’s ready for a change. Soon Harry finds himself adapting to an entirely new life, in a country where he doesn’t know the rules, the customs, even the language. Harry is used to people underestimating him, and he’s more determined than ever to prove them wrong.

He just needs Louis to meet him halfway.

Grace Kelly AU.

Sweetest Devotion - @brightgolden - 61K

After his divorce, all Harry wants in life is to provide a stable, loving environment for his three-year-old daughter, Evie.

Never in his wildest dreams has he ever considered that life might come with the presence of his teenage crush — Gemma’s friend from secondary school, Louis Tomlinson.

Luckily, Harry isn’t still pining over him.

Or so he thought.

Went Down In Flames - @itsnotreal - 26K

Louis was in an absolutely shit storm. He had let it go on for too long. Let it go too far. But he had a plan. And tonight, said plan was going down. He was going to tell the boys he was proposing this weekend. ‘Harry’ would turn him down, albeit gently, and Louis would play the heartbroken boyfriend. He’d gotten this far. All he had to do was lock himself in his bedroom and cry a little. He’d been in a few plays growing up. Piece of cake.

Except. It didn’t go that way. Of course, it didn’t. Because the universe, the beautiful chaotic bitch that she was, just had to have an actual Harry Styles and he just had to be Niall’s best friend.

[theliterarywolf]

Idk if I said it once before, but AI could have been such a great tool for artists, especially comic or animation artists. You have to do the exact same elaborate hairstyle 50 times because you're drawing your comic? Well now YOUR AI-tool can put the hairstyle on the drawing and you don't have to spend hours on it. You need to animate something, but you're tired? Do half the frames than you normally would have, use YOUR AI-tool you trained on your animation and artstyle and have it do the frames

Yes but, remember:

Between the snarky, 'adapt or die, peasants' attitude that the vast majority of AI Bros have and the fact that one of the largest AI software companies is maintained by a company in Nairobi paying their employees borderline slave wages, it was never about making anyone's life or jobs easier.

It's all yet another ploy for the neo-aristocrats of Silicon Valley to create a world where they can sit on their asses, enriching society... While the rest of us sleep in pods and work in gulags.

[blueguitar]

FRANKIE SAY, “RELAX”

          If I tell you that where I am people are not wearing their own shoes, they are wearing cheap cotton slippers, that should tell you something.  Wearing your own shoes here is a privilege that is earned and even then, you are not allowed your shoelaces.  Most people are wearing their own clothes, but some are wearing only bathrobes and pajamas.  This means we are not in prison, we are in a mental health facility.

     I am wearing my own shoes with their shoelaces, but I have been warned before that under no circumstances, for any reason, am I to give anyone here my shoelaces. No matter how persuasive their reasons may be. I am grateful that I am wearing my own shoes and grateful for the tag on my shirt that reads “VISITOR”. Aside from these details, you cannot tell me from the people who are here because they are crazy. I also know that I should not call these people crazy.

     I am here to visit my mother who is also not crazy, but a nurse in this facility. My mom would have a fit if I were to use the word crazy; these are only people who need a little help. My mother reminds me constantly that there is nothing wrong with needing a little help, which is exactly why I am here today. I am going to lunch with my mom where I intend to ask her for a loan. To which she will probably reply, “Are you crazy?” using the word in the other sense, meaning I just loaned you some money a month ago. Money I haven’t paid back yet.

     My mother was expecting me for lunch, but an emergency had come up right before I arrived and I am waiting for her, sitting on a couch with other people who need a little help, contemplating the bright blue shoelaces that weave into my Nikes just so - shoes that my mother calls “moon boots”. I am grateful for theseshoes, apparently the only thing separating me from the rest of the room. My mother tells me 3 out of 10 people will eventually spend time in a mental health facility, most of them by their own choice. Sometimes I think she’s talking about me.

     There are three of us sitting on this nice but not especially comfortable sofa and half a dozen others sit on matching chairs scattered around the television set. We are, each of us, watching or not watching “Jeopardy”. The woman at the end of the couch stares at nothing and sighs deeply at the odd occasion. One man reads the newspaper and mutters quietly to himself. The man across from me is playing along with the game show out loud, but answering with questions that are completely wrong. If the correct reply is “What is Oslo?”, his question is “What is Nairobi?”. If it should be “Who is Abraham Lincoln?”, his reply is “Who is John Wilkes Booth?” This means he is either crazy or stupid, or both. At any rate, his enjoyment of the game seems unimpaired.

      The man next to me seems normal - an old guy, completely average in all respects. He has the air of some sort of salesman, which later I find out is true. He is a realtor.  He says to me, “They think I'm nuts.” 

      I think to myself, “Duh... you're here.”

     The man playing “Jeopardy” blurts out, “Who is Ringo Starr?” but “Who is Frank Sinatra?” is correct. The man next to me makes a coughing, clearing-his-throat noise that expresses his disgust.  At what I'm not sure.

     “They think I’m a fucking joke,” he says, “I got a joke. You wanna hear a joke?”

     I reply noncommittally, “Hmm?”

     “Do you want to hear a joke?”

     “OK,” I say.

     “There are these two guys from Jersey and they’re in this bar watching Frank Sinatra’s funeral on TV. The one guy turns to the other and says, ‘Frank Sinatra? I hate him - I’m fucking glad he’s dead!’ The other guy says, ‘Man, don’t say that! Frank Sinatra was a great man!’ ‘Aw, who is Frank Sinatra to you?’ The other guy says, ‘I’ll have you know, Frank Sinatra saved my life!’ ‘Frank Sinatra saved your life? How the hell did Frank Sinatra save your life?’ ”

     “Well, a long time ago, I was in Las Vegas. I’d won a lot of money and was walking through the parking lot at the Sands when these two goons jumped me, took my money, and started beating me up, kicking me in the head. I thought I was a goner, but Frank Sinatra walked up and said, ‘Hey guys, I think he’s had enough!’ ”

     The joke takes me by surprise. I actually find it funny and laugh, though I know this will only encourage him. “People think Frank was with the Mafia.”

     “I know,” I reply with some annoyance. I really hate it when people explain jokes.

     “The truth is much worse,” he says. “Frank Sinatra’s not dead, you know.”

     “Oh, he’s dead,” I say, “He was like 80 or something when he died.” My mother has always told me you should just talk reasonably with the patients.

     “No,” the guy says, “He faked his death. Frank Sinatra is not the sort that could just die the normal way. I don’t know what it’d take to kill him. He’s a vampire, you know.”

     OK…

     “I know you don’t believe me.”

     “Well,” I say, “you realize vampires are fictional. You know, like Dracula?”

     “I didn’t say he wore a cape. I didn’t say he was all ghost-y white. It wasn’t like the movies; I just don’t know another word for it. Frank Sinatra is a vampire!”

  “You mean, Frank Sinatra is like a vampire? You mean, metaphorically?”

     “No, I mean he’s something that’s not dead or alive that kills people and drinks their blood.”

     “Oh…” I deadpan, “Well, that’s a vampire.”

     “I know you don’t believe me, but I saw! with my own eyes.”

     He goes on, “Hear me out. Believe me, if I wasn’t sitting here… if we were at a bar and I was telling you this over a couple of drinks, it’d be different.” Immediately, I wish this were true. At a bar, it would be easy to get away from him.

     “OK, this was 1965. Back then, I was a security guard at the Sands. I was probably the same age as you are now, maybe a little older, I don’t know. That was a good job for me. I didn’t want to do nothing then and that’s pretty much what a security guard does - nothing! Walk around, take a nap after midnight, jiggle a few doorknobs…”

     “The hardest thing I had to do was toss out a drunk. I mean, I carried a gun, but it never left its holster. Not once.”

     “Vegas must’ve been something then,” I venture, “Classic.”

     “Hey, it was Frankie’s town back then. Hell, it was my town, too. Easy job, I didn’t pay for drinks, and the ladies were free and easy…” He sighs.

     “You know, I could go to the shows for free. I was supposed to pay half, but you get to know people…”

     “Frankie was headlining every other week then. Man, if you wanted to make it with the ladies, you’d take them to a show and Frank Sinatra was the best! He’d like, hypnotize the girls. He’d croon a few bars of “Old Devil Moon” and you could practically hear them pussies moisten! He’d hypnotize them - that was his power.” He chuckled low and nasty to himself, “I’d take a girl to see Frankie, let him work the magic, sneak them up to an empty room, and they just about drop to their knees.”

     All I’m thinking is “Ick!” I mean this guy is seriously creeping me out. You just don’t want to think about old people and sex, even if he was my age when it happened.

     He clears his throat again. “All that was before I found him out. I can’t even listen to his music anymore - gives me the creeps.”

     “Makes two of us,” I think or did I say that aloud? No matter the old man goes on.

     “All I’m saying is what I saw. I was up on the penthouse floor doing my rounds. The door to Frank’s suite was ajar - open, like a few inches. It shouldn’t have been and it was my job to find out why. Maybe someone was trying to rob Mr. Sinatra.”

     “I opened the door, but the lights were dim. The lights were dimmed in the hallway too; that’s how they were supposed to be when Frank Sinatra was there. You see how this is adding up? I couldn’t see much right away. I got out my flashlight and shone it around the place. I spot two women on the sofa… and they’re naked, hanging all over each other. I’m saying, ‘Oh sorry, ladies,’ and all, ready to close the door when I see something isn’t right. That’s when I noticed the blood, all the blood.”

     I’m listening, watching beads of sweat break out on the old guy’s forehead.

     “There was blood because their necks were all torn up. There was blood spattered on the wall and a dark puddle of it under one of the girls’ feet.”

     “All of a sudden my adrenaline kicks in. Everything gets real clear; I notice everything all at once. I see the looks on the girls faces - eyes shining and wide open, them smiling like nothing’s wrong at all. I hear the shower running in the bathroom, see the light spilling out from the crack under the door. I smell the blood and underneath all that, I smell water and Ivory soap.”

     “Then, the shower cuts off. Now, I can hear the music playing real soft on the hi-fi - his own fucking records. Some fucking ego on that guy!”

     “The bathroom door bangs open and there he is - Frank Sinatra, himself - completely naked, toweling his hair dry.” He says, aside, “He’s got a BIG dick on him!”

     I don’t know - I must’ve made a face or something. The old guy says, “I’m no fag! It was so big anybody’d notice. Porno big!” he says holding his hands about ten inches apart.

     “Anyway, the second I saw him, I was afraid, so afraid I was shaking. It’s hard to explain; I don’t know if I can explain. This wasn’t the same Frank I saw at his shows or in the casino.”

     “He looked younger, renewed. Something about him seemed bigger or stronger or… I don’t know, wild like an animal, like a lion or tiger.”

     I bite my lip to keep from adding, “Or bear. Oh, my!”

     “And his eyes sort of glowed. We just stared at each other for the longest time. I was so afraid I pissed myself like a scared little kid.”

     “Then, Frank picks a coin up off a dresser and flicks it at me so hard I had a bruise in the middle of my forehead for weeks, a backward impression of the Lincoln Memorial. He says, ‘A penny for your thoughts…’ ”

     I’m looking at the old guy’s forehead and it seems there’s a small divot in the middle, the bottom rimmed in yellowy sweat.

     He says, “I just sort of stammer, ‘Please don’t kill me. I swear I won’t tell anybody.’ and Frank just laughs. He fucking laughs at me!”

“Frankie says, ‘Relax. I’m not hungry anymore and anyway, I like the ladies,’ hitching a thumb at the dead girls on the couch. ‘Tell whoever you like,’ he says, ‘Who are they gonna believe - some pissy little kid or Frank Sinatra? Now get the fuck out of here!’ I stumbled out of the room and I could hear him laughing as I ran away.”

     “In the elevator I threw up - shrimp and beer and cocktail sauce all over the place. I snuck out the back way and called my boss from

home. Told him I had gotten sick. Entirely true, I guess.”

     “Three days later, Frankie left Vegas and I went up to his suite. There was a new sofa and the wallpaper behind it was a shade lighter than the rest of the room. I knew I wasn’t crazy. I quit that job a week later.”

     The old guy continues, “You can read it in the papers! I did for years. If page one says Frankie’s in town, page three is dead hookers. And Frank was right, nobody believes me - but I know what I saw.”

     “I don’t believe that fucker ever died either! Probably had plastic surgery. He’s Harry Connick Jr. now. Or what’s his name? Puff Daddy?”

     Just in time, my mother walks into the room and “Jeopardy” has become “Wheel Of Fortune”. I look at the guy and say, “Uh, I don’t know. Look, I gotta go.” My mother is zipping up her jacket and says to me, “Is Pizza Hut good for you?”

     In the car, she turns to me and asks, “He told you his story, huh?”

     “Yeah, pretty damn… ” Shit! I almost say “crazy” and my mom interrupts me and says, “I believe him. He‘s an alcoholic, not delusional.”

     I don’t say a word.

     “Oh, I don’t think Frank Sinatra’s a vampire… but Frank Sinatra and some dead prostitutes? That I believe. Rich people can do what they want!”

     So, we had a Pepperoni Lover’s pizza and I borrowed fifty dollars from my mother.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

#15yrsago Elderly woman prohibited from photographing empty swimming pool “to prevent paedophilia” https://web.archive.org/web/20080726021844/https://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html

#15yrsago Living on the Edge: Danny O’Brien’s talk about moving our personal info off Web 2.0 and onto our computers https://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2008/07/24/video-from-living-on-the-edge-opentech-2008/

#15yrsago Cameraheads in Seattle protest CCTVs in public places https://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/in_case_you_forgot_the_city_is_recording

#15yrsago Yahoo Music shutting down its DRM server, customers lose all their paid-for music the next time they crash or upgrade https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/07/drm-still-sucks-yahoo-music-going-dark-taking-keys-with-it/

#15yrsago British ISPs sign up for surveillance and throttling of accused file-sharers https://web.archive.org/web/20080908081432/http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4387283.ece

#15yrsago Brit academics call for Bletchley Park funding https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7517874.stm

#15yrsago New York Yankees ban sunblock “to fight terrorism” — sell replacements at $5/oz https://nypost.com/2008/07/22/sunblockheads-at-the-stadium/

#10yrsago Machine vision breakthrough: 100,000 objects recognized with a single CPU https://ai.googleblog.com/2013/06/fast-accurate-detection-of-100000.html

#10yrsago Book-scanning brings the 19th century to life https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/07/22/how-google-rediscovered-the-19th-century/

#10yrsago 14-year-old girl who was called a “whore” for her pro-Choice sign expresses disappointment in adult world https://web.archive.org/web/20130723222641/http://www.xojane.com/issues/billy-cain-tuesday-cain-jesus-isnt-a-dick-so-keep-him-out-of-my-vagina

#10yrsago Goths of Kenya https://thinkafricapress.com/goth-nairobi/

#10yrsago 3-Bee printing: tricking bees into making wax sculptures https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/film-80-000-bees-work-together-in-a-mould-to-make-a-3d-sculpture

#5yrsago Half a billion IoT devices inside of businesses can be hacked through decade-old DNS rebinding attacks https://www.armis.com/blog/dns-rebinding-exposes-half-a-billion-devices-in-the-enterprise/

#5yrsago Europe fines four electronics companies $130,000,000 for price-fixing https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/24/europe-fines-asus-denon-marantz-philips-pioneer-for-fixing-prices.html

#5yrsago Liberaltarianism: Silicon Valley’s emerging ideology of “disruption with economic airbags” https://www.wired.com/story/political-education-silicon-valley/

#5yrsago Court orders carriers to remotely brick phones that have been smuggled into prisons https://apnews.com/article/ccd7b6429a7f43228f88c17ca469c92c

#5yrsago Voice assistants suck (empirically) https://www.nngroup.com/articles/intelligent-assistant-usability/

#5yrsago Illinois’s “anti-corruption” Republican governor handed out $300,000 in cash at a campaign rally https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/23/illinois-governor-rauner-cash-giveaway-736244

#5yrsago America’s economic growth has come from subprime borrowing by the poorest 60% https://web.archive.org/web/20180724011828/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-consumers-insight/mortgage-groupon-and-card-debt-how-the-bottom-half-bolsters-u-s-economy-idUSKBN1KD0EM

[reverics]

KATIE DOUGLAS + NINETEEN ⸻ it's just been another long week in boring - ass hawkins . is that right , LORELAI COOPER - HENDERSON ? shit , i guess they can't hear me over THE REFLEX by duran duran playing through the headphones of her walkman . it looks like they're going to be late for work at FAMILY VIDEO . did you know LORI has been in hawkins for two weeks ? yeah , her family and friends describe them as steadfast , but i've seen them be impetuous too ! i would also  say  they  remind  me  of  fishnet  stockings  peaking  through  ripped  jeans  paired  with  crop  tops  and  dirty  black  converses  ;  loud  music  being  turned  up  louder  to  ignore  the  shouting  from  the  other  room  ;  a  dodgy  caravan  on  the  outside  ,  but  a  warm ,  home  made  of  the  inside,  but  is  that  weird  ?  i  guess  nothing's  too  weird  for  this  little  town,  huh  ?   ⸻ as treasured by PEACH.

        |          NAME:     lorelai juliette cooper - henderson.

        |           AGE / DOB:    nineteen / october 30th , 1967.

        |           NICKNAMES:        lori , rory , ellie.

        |           MOTHER:      agatha cooper. fifty three

        |           FATHER:      mr henderson - name undecided.

        |           BROTHER:      dustin henderson. twenty one.

        |           SISTER:      greta cooper. twenty seven.

𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

100 - 85 % - max mayfield ( stranger things ) , lorelai gilmore ( gilmore girls ) & veronica fisher ( shameless ). 84 - 65 % - nymphadora tonks ( harry potter ) , nairobi ( money heist ) & ferris bueller ( ferris bueller's day off ). 64 - 50 % - oberyn martell ( game of thrones ) , beth dutton ( yellowstone ) & ginny weasley ( harry potter ).                                  |             based on this quiz here !

lorelai cooper - henderson grew up in a relative relaxed life , her mother was an artist , paint stains and overalls were her calling , her father ( while rarely home ) was a business man , packed up his briefcase early each morning , kissed his kids and wife goodbye before heading into work , what he did , she had little idea , nor did she really care . for as long as she could remember it had really only been the four of them , though her sister was a result of their mothers first marriage , greta ( though years older now ) was her closest friend and confidant . life was easy , life was kind , there was never anything to worry about really .

lori had always been a family girl , often preferring the comfort of her own home to that of the girls who invited her to sleepovers , preferring to be around her mother and sister , and father when available , it was your white picket fence , suburban family , two kids and a dog with roses in the windowsill . the travesty that occurred at hawkins was nothing more than a whisper on the news , it never even licked at the sides of her home , hours away from the destruction . that was until one night , she heard her parents arguing .

at sixteen , though she still loved her family deeply , she was no longer the type to spend her days at home , always with one leg out the window ( she'd taken a tumble out of said window a time or two ) and sneaking off with her friends , dating boys her parents would not approve of and avoiding as much trouble as possible , though that wasn't often easy .

her parents had been fighting more , the news displaying your fathers home town , HAWKINS and the mess that had occurred and then she heard the mutterings of her brother ( half brother ) and though greta had told her to leave it alone , it wasn't her business , lori could not . too curious , too adventuresome , she was now determined to find her brother .

she'd told her family she wanted to travel america , to see the country before she went to college , and so with the savings of pocket money and the odd job as she aged , she sneakily rented a van in the hawkins trailer park and found herself a little job at family video . not prepared to be sucked into the mess of hawkins , indiana.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

lori is a rough nut , while she grew up in a pretty well off suburban family , she has no care for the fancier things , all her socks have holes and she refuses to buy more ... but she's a very down to earth ( bit of a pothead ) girl , works at family video and loves her little van in the trailer park ... has only been in town for two weeks , barely knowns dustin , but will protect him with her life . she's like 5' and while fight anyone ( like little dog syndrome ) she can be quite aggressive when needed ... but get on her good side and she will love you forever !!

[writingwithcolor]

More on Kenya, English, and Global Englishes

I just want to say you guys blew me out of the water with this one! I am so, so pleased to present the commentary to this post:

Kenyans are Ridiculously Multilingual

(as well as most other people in postcolonial African nations)

@story-on-stage said:

Many if not most Kenyans speak *three* languages with varying levels of fluency (Swahili, English, and their tribal language), and deftly switch between them as needed to get their message across. I was at a wedding in Nairobi where an elderly woman stood to speak and asked someone to translate her Luo into English. Halfway through, she (inadvertently) started speaking English, and her translator gamely flipped languages.

@threewinterssnow said:

I just want to add that at least in some areas in Kenya, they go to school in both Swahili and English. I believe half the day is taught in Swahili and the other half in English, and then at home, they would speak a tribal language. I was in a pretty rural area in northern Kenya, so not everyone went to school, but those that did were fluent in 3 languages. So someone from Kenya may have been speaking and using English most of their life.

@carlfriesen said:

Maybe a minor point, but I work with Kenyans, and few of them have Swahili as a first language. For most, their first language is their tribal language, such as Luhya or Kikiyu. Then they learn the regional East African language, Swahili, which is pretty wonderful because it’s spoken everywhere from the eastern DRC to Zanzibar. Then many learn English on top of that. I’m always amazed at that, they think it’s normal.

@sarahduke said:

Hey. So just my two cents, but I'd say that he would be fully fluent. I'm from a neighbouring country to Kenya and our education systems are fairly similar. This means that your character would have started learning English at nursery school and by late primary level all his lessons would be in English. (I'm my case, when I moved to the U.K at age 10, I was consistently at top of my class in both language and grammar for this reason 😅). However, when speaking to other Swahili speakers it would make sense for him to mix and match languages as this what non monolinguists do

What can Kenyan English look like?

(as well as the Englishes of most other postcolonial African nations)

@anothernameofmine said:

The place I work has a Kenya office. My Kenyan coworkers have Kenyan accents when speaking, but their emails are indistinguishable from my US coworkers'. We all use the same "American business speak" style of writing. Some could be full-time English speakers, others might mainly use it at their jobs, I don't know. But people get good at the language(s) they use most often, and corporate-speak is just another "type" of English. Fluency is very context-specific.

@quantumcretin said:

Adding to considerations of the global situation of English learning specifically-- English has become a sort of lingua franca from much of the world due to its spread through colonialism and additional emphasis dude to its association with economic power. Because of that, many, MANY places in the world where it is common to learn English as an L2 language or for use in school or government have their own dialect of English. Kenya, for example, has Kenyan English which is systematically different (in grammar, lexicon, pronunciation) than the version of English it branched off from (British English). And they have this widely used dialect of English because, as I understand it, in most of Kenya English is the primary medium of instructions from about middle elementary school on. That will take you back to the questions regarding class and education above, and also this characters relationship to those concepts. I'd also like to echo that the way you are approaching this privileges the monolingual perspective as standard, when in reality the majority of people on the planet are multilingual. I would encourage you to look into translingual pedagogy and theory to get some digestible insight on the way that multiple languages can function together in someone's brain.

@ghostlycherries said:

I'm Kenyan and I gotta say this is a really good answer. Our English accents, grammar and familiarity differs according to age, region, level of education and just how often you need to speak English. We speak different languages with different people but most of the time, it's going to be a mixture of Swahili and English. So we do forget English words sometimes, even when we're technically fluent in the language. Or we find that a Swahili word passes the message along

Yes yes yes I am giving you all virtual candy and donuts and gluten-free brownies

Glad this helped, OP :) OP and everyone please also check the other reblog comments & tags for many multilingual folks' experiences, you guys are SO AWESOME

~ Rina

Not all Second-Language Speakers are Made Equal.

@waltzshouldbewriting asked:

Hello! I’m writing a story that features a character who’s first language is not English. He’s East African, specifically from Nairobi, Kenya, and is pretty fluent in English but it’s not his primary language, and he grew up speaking Swahili first. I’m struggling to figure out if it’s appropriate or in character to show him forgetting English words or grammar. From what I’ve researched, English is commonly spoken in Nairobi, but it wouldn’t be what was most spoken in his home. For context, this is an action/superhero type story, so he (and other characters) are often getting tired, stressed, and emotional. He also speaks more than two languages, so it makes sense to me that it would be easier to get confused, especially in a language that wasn’t his first. But I’m worried about ending up into stereotypes or tropes. For additional context: I’m monolingual, I’ve tried to learn a second language and it’s hard. A lot of how I’m approaching this comes from my own challenges correctly speaking my own, first and only language.

Diversity in Second-Language English

You seem to have an underlying assumption that second language acquisition happens the same for everyone. 

The way your character speaks English depends on so many unknown factors: 

Where does your story take place? You mention other characters; are they also Kenyan, or are they all from different countries?

Assuming the setting is not Kenya, is English the dominant language of your setting? 

How long has your character lived in Kenya vs. where he is now? 

What are his parents’ occupations? 

What level of schooling did he reach in Nairobi before emigrating? 

What type of school(s) did he go to, public or private? Private is more likely than you think. 

Did his schooling follow the national curriculum structure or a British one? Depends on school type and time period. 

Does he have familiarity with Kenyan English, or only the British English taught in school? 

Is this a contemporary setting with internet and social media?

I bring up this list not with the expectation that you should have had all of this in your ask, but to show you that second language acquisition of English, postcolonial global English acquisition in particular, is complex. 

My wording is also intentional: the way your character speaks English. To me, exploring how his background affects what his English specifically looks like is far more culturally interesting to me than deciding whether it makes him Good or Bad at the language. 

L2 Acquisition and Fluency

But let’s talk about fluency anyway: how expressive the individual is in this language, and adherence to fundamental structural rules of the language.

Fun fact: Japanese is my first language. The language I’m more fluent in today? English. Don’t assume that an ESL individual will be less fluent in English compared to their L1 counterparts on the basis that 1) it’s their second language, or 2) they don’t speak English at home. 

There’s even a word for this—circumstantial bilingualism, where a second language is acquired by necessity due to an individual’s environment. The mechanisms of learning and outcomes are completely different. 

You said you tried learning a second language and it was hard. You cannot compare circumstantial bilingualism to a monolingual speaker’s attempts to electively learn a second language. 

Motivations?

I understand that your motivation for giving this character difficulties with English is your own personal experience. However, there are completely different social factors at play.

The judgments made towards a native speaker forgetting words or using grammar differently are rooted in ableism and classism (that the speaker must be poor, uneducated, or unintelligent). That alone is a hefty subject to cover. And I trust you to be able to cover that!

But on top of that, for a second language speaker, it’s racism and xenophobia, which often lend themselves to their own ableist or classist assumptions (that those of the speaker’s race/ethnicity must be collectively unintelligent, that they are uneducated or low class due to the occupations where they could find work, or conversely that they are snobby and isolationist and can't be bothered to learn a new language). Intersections, intersections.

If you want to explore your experiences in your writing, give a monolingual English speaker in your cast a learning disability or some other difficulty learning language, whatever you most relate with. And sure, multilingual folks can occasionally forget words like anyone else does, or think of a word in one language and take a second to come up with it in the other language. But do not assume that multilinguals, immigrants, or multiethnic individuals inherently struggle with English or with multiple languages just because you do.

~ Rina

[stylinai]

Interview: Every Brilliant Thing with Mugambi Nthiga

Mugambi Nthiga holding his Kenya Theatre Awards for best Male Solon Performance Every Brilliant Thing, the play that scooped Best Storytelling Production and Best Male Solo Performance at last year’s Kenya Theatre Awards, is back by public demand. Helmed by Kenya’s own decorated thespian and filmmaker Mugambi Nthiga (Nairobi Half Life, Lusala), the monologue received rave reviews for cleverly…

[motherearthday]

Fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-4).

Plenary at the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-4) taking place from 23-29 April 2024 at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa, Canada.

In March 2022, at the resumed fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5.2), a historic resolution was adopted to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.

The resolution (5/14) requested the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to convene an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to develop "the instrument," which is to be based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastic, including its production, design and disposal.

The INC began its work during the second half of 2022, with the ambition to complete the negotiations by the end of 2024. The first session of the INC (INC-1) took place in Punta del Este, Uruguay from 28 November to 2 December 2022, followed by a second session (INC-2) from 29 May to 2 June 2023 in Paris, France, and a third session (INC-3) from 13 to 19 November 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya. The fourth session (INC-4) will take place from 23 to 29 April 2024 in Ottawa, Canada.

[depressopax]

Promise

Nairobi/Ágata Jiménez x gender neutral reader

Fandom - La casa de papel/Money Heist

⚠This fanfiction includes spoiler for LCDP season 3-5!⚠

Pairing: Nairobi x gender neutral reader Genre: Fluff, hurt/comfort Warning(s): Spoilers for La casa de papel season 3-5! Character injury, mentions of scars, blood and death. Just domestic life with Nairobi. Reader is gender-neutral.  Words: 1K Summary: After the second heist, Nairobi and reader get their happy ending, together.  English is not my main language, if I make any spelling mistakes please let me know so I can improve my writing! <3

|| AO3 link || Masterlist || Request ||

Promise

The kitchen smells of dish-soap and you hum softly to the radio in the kitchen, whilst cleaning the dishes from tonight's dinner. The bedroom door squeaks and Nairobi sneaks out of the son, Axels room, softly shutting the door behind her. She lets out a sigh and walks up to you, putting her arms around your waist and pulls you close. The engagement ring on her long fingers shine in the dim lighted kitchen, and a smile creeps up on your face, despite the exhaustion after a night of no sleep. You still can’t believe you’ll get to marry her one day. 

“He’s finally asleep?”

“Yea. He’s too damn obsessed with those video games.” she murmurs, her breath warm against your shirt. 

“Aww, poor thing.” 

“Need help with the dishes, amore?” 

You look at the mountain of dirty plates and glasses and sighs. And you thought you were almost done.

“Yes, please.” 

She puts on some gloves too, and playfully nudges you to the side with her hip. You grin at her, and together you take care of the house. 

Half an hour later, you’re cuddled up on the couch. The traffic from outside fills the silence in the room, and a soft breeze from the open window strokes your face. You lean against your fiancées shoulder, nuzzling your face against her neck, inhaling her scent. Moments like this makes you both forget the chaotic life you live.

It’s been two years since the heist against the Bank of Spain, and the memories of it are fresh. You all got out safely, as according to the Professor's plan, but it was a close one. You still wake up at nights, sweaty and out of breath, when thinking of it all. It’s always there, in the back of your mind. For Nairobi, too. The worst part was almost losing her. You try to shake off the memories, and continue holding the woman you love. Your hands stroke her soft skin, until finding the scar on her stomach. The bullet that almost killed her. Almost. 

“You alright, darling?” Her voice is soft and sleepy. God, she’s perfect. As you stare at her beautiful face in awe - the dark eyes and crooked nose, and those lips - you forget to reply. 

“Hey?” 

“Hmmm?” 

She grins.

“Someones distracted?” She kisses your cheek and neck, causing a shiver to run down your spine. 

“No. I was just… Thinking.” 

“You look tired.” She strokes your cheek and her expression turns concerned. “You’re thinking of the heist.” 

“No.” But there's no point in lying to your fiancée. She can read you like an open book. Nairobi knows you better than anyone else. 

“I’ve been having nightmares.” you swallow down tears threatening to well up. Noticing how frantically you’re blinking your eyes, her face softens.

“Hey…” she pulls you in for a hug, and you allow yourself to sob. 

“We’re okay.” Nairobi whispers. You seek her warmth, her comfort and love. She’s like a drug. 

“I almost lost you.”

She tenses a bit, before continuing to rub your back soothingly.

“But you didn’t.” she tries. 

You look up at her, but it’s hard to look mad when she gives you that sheepish smile. 

“I’m right here.” Still not having convinced you, she sighs “And I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Promise?” 

She wipes the tears from your puffy eyes and looks at you. Her dark eyes meet yours, and you can almost see your own reflection in them. 

How many times have you not had this conversation? How many times have you woken up in panic, thinking she’s gone? How many times has Nairobi panicked, thinking she doesn’t deserve you, nor her son? Promise. That has become your mantra. A word the two of you repeat, time after time, whenever shit gets rough.

“I promise.” she says, and you let out a shaky, yet relieved exhale. From Axel's room, soft snores can be heard. You giggle.

“He’s such a damn heavy sleeper. Like his mama.” 

Nairobi laughs and squeezes you tight to her chest.

“I’m not! And I don’t snore.” 

Your face says it all, and she grins.

“Alright! Maybe I do.” 

You sit on the couch, cuddled up for a long time, a comfortable silence falling between the two of you.

“I love you.” you whisper.

“I love you too.”

You look at her again, and almost lose your breath. You’ve been through hell and back with her, and sometimes it’s hard to believe that you’re both sitting here, safe and sound. She’s breathtakingly beautiful, like the first time you saw her, in the Toledo House before the first heist. Now, years later, she’s still the most beautiful woman you’ve laid eyes on. 

“I can’t wait to marry you.” you whisper, totally in awe of her. 

“I can’t wait to marry you either. And then, you’ll be mine forever.” 

Now it’s her turn to look at you intensely. She doesn’t say it out loud, but when she looks at you, she can see the future in them. She hates the sense of familiarity those puffy eyes gives her. She’s seen you cry many times. The only thing that hurt more than getting shot, was seeing the panic and devastation written on your face. The pain as you screamed her name and begged her to stay alive. And then it was the tears of relief when she woke up after the surgery. It is something Nairobi will never forget. 

She’s made a promise to herself, too. To keep you - and Axel - safe no matter what. After everything she’s been through, she finally has hopes for the future, thanks to you.

“Forever, huh? Sounds good.” You give her a playful grin. “Promise you’ll love me forever?”

She rolls her eyes, but still can’t resist your playful charm. Nairobi leans closer. With her lips against yours, she whispers:

“I promise.”

This story was based on request:

Thank you sm anon for the request! And I'm so so glad you like my fanfictions! It makes me so happy ahhh 😭💕 And HOLY SHIII- you're so real for this request 🥺 I'm still in pain from THAT mf scene :( I hope this can take some of the pain away lol 😭 And I hope you like the story! Have an amazing day. <3

Hey uhm just so you guys know, this is the canon ending.

NAIROBI IS ALIVE AND WELL!!!

(I have a whole ass OC dedicated to dating Nairobi and giving her a happy ending - I'm not kidding <3)

[magdalenamimo]

In my Business?

Do you know your neighbors? Better question: do your neighbors know you? Well, mine does, against my will. I love keeping my nose to myself by maintaining minimal contact with them. But some long-nosed neighbors make it hard to do it.  

I remember the first time I moved into this apartment; everything was awesome. I was in paradise – everyone was a stranger, and I was a stranger to them. As a freelance writer, my residence area and work office are in my tiny house. I rarely come out, and I know that has bothered a lot of nosy neighbors. What does she eat? How does she take care of the bills?

Who will answer them? No one.

Two years later, almost half of the neighbors know me. Not a good thing. Time to move. Time to move out.

But, this story is about one neighbor who decided to mind my business openly, and I made it my business to ensure the business he was minding was concerning. He got my number, texted me, and we got to talking. Like others, he tabled his concerns that he doesn’t know what a jobless person like me survives. I must have a provider husband. That is when I realized that someone was concerned about my business. Let the circus begin.

“My life is easy. I am a ‘sugar baby,’ and my providers are many.”

“That is not the right way to live.” He countered.

“Well, the aim is to fight poverty by whatever means,” I replied. He began joking about it and asked me to share some cash with him. I refused because “this is my hustle as much as you wake up and leave for a job.”

Later, the topic changed. “how do you survive alone in the house? Loneliness must be killing you.” He asked.

At this point, I had already figured there was a high probability that I must have been a pillow-talk story with his partner. It was time to juice it. I am not a boring neighbor; I have to keep them engaged.

“I do not like people. I do not like people invading my space because they are visitors. The only people I allow in here are my family members.”

“And why is that?”

“I am a mean person. I hate how visitors make me uncomfortable. Also, It means I will have to go out of my way to cook for them, which will consume my time and resources. Unless they come with groceries and packed food, I will gladly serve them.”

“you are mean.” He replied and added that he now believes that there is more to people than what meets the eye.

I asked him to explain that, but he couldn’t and said it was just an observation.

True to my words, my siblings came to visit me last Saturday. They are kids. We must stay with them for this week leading up to Christmas Day. With them, I have to go out of my way and do things I do not normally do, like feeding them three times a day.

So, after the neighbor realized I had company, he began a conversation. Ooh, I remember where the context began. So, I am a big fan of memes. I posted this post that said, “Everyone deserves love. But to me, I deserve money.”

He replied below that post that now I am becoming greedy. Honestly, sometimes I feel that my encounters with him are boring. He is a boring human being, and I fear for his girl. He does not distinguish between seriousness and jokes; I feed off that. My joy.

I replied, “I do not care; I deserve money.” This conversation moved to the extent where I said that I was broke. I am confusing my enemies. Fun.

He asked if my sugar daddies were not satisfying my financial needs. I told him they were only two, and come the following year, my strategy was to increase the number to make them five. I touched the nerve I wanted. He responded, “Well, I understand we are in Nairobi and provided the kids with basic needs.” I quickly knew that he believed that these were my kids, which, according to him, justified my means to take care of them. After this conversation, I realized I live next to a nosy neighbor. Tell me how he knew there were kids in my house before 24 hours could end after their arrival?”

Playing dumb, “what kids?”

“Or do they belong to the neighbors?”

I left the conversation on read after deciding that I would not feed his nosy self with more pillow talk stories. So today, he texted that my house is full of joy. I said yes, as it should be.

“If you have children under your care, you must make a good mum.” He continued.

I told him that “they,” I did not say who, decided that I should practice caring for children and gaining first-hand experience. I thought that that would put the conversation to rest.

If wishes were horses.… And so, the dance continued.

Out of the blues, “I am sorry for the kids because you are only feeding them wifi,” he said. I did not understand how he came up with that. I thought he was joking, but no, he wasn’t. In the apartment, I am the only one with an internet connection, which I recently began sharing with some teenagers living in the house just below mine. I cannot shake the conviction that he also wants a share in my connection. If that was not the case, then the direction of that conversation blew me big time.  

I subtly replied, “You would be surprised how it satisfies.”

“Be serious. These are kids; they are not electronic gadgets. Wake up and make them an omelet!” Whoaa, a neighbor is concerned.

Mark you, we were already awake, and I had made breakfast for them. When alone, I do not make breakfast; it is not my thing. I am more of a one-meal-a-day person, and he knew that from a past conversation that resulted from his reply to my meme update. I posted a meme with a picture of an apartment at night. In this apartment, only one house had lights on. The caption read, “Me cooking at 3 am. Anytime hunger creeps in, I do not care what the time is; I am cooking.” He replied, and I told him I am not too fond of cooking. Honestly, I cook because I am hungry, not because I am a lady and should cook. That is part of why I dislike visitors: I will be out of my comfort zone.

My siblings are not visitors; they are my responsibility, and I go out of my way to satisfy them.

To reply to him, I said that if I am not hungry, why should they be? I was in my house and am the boss, so things will be done as I wish. He protested how these were just kids; they were not me and should not be subjected to such hunger.

“They should get used to these hardships. It is the way of life.” I replied.

“You do not have a heart.” That was the response I got.

So now it bothered me how some few minutes ago I could potentially make a great mother since I had these kids under my care to now being heartless. His response to that concern was that I had decided to starve them and make them “eat” WIFI. He proceeded to ask if I get my children, will I starve to hunger? He doesn’t know, but siring children is not on my to-do list, but I was unwilling to begin that conversation with him. The best thing to do was to say they would have to wait until I get psyched up to cook for them. After all, I am their mother and must live as I wish and want.

By this point, I knew he was overwhelmed by what he could learn about me. I made it my business to make sure that the picture he had of me in his head was concerning. At least I am fueling his social and love life by giving him stories to tell about a strange and heartless human being who cares less about the children living under her roof. Imagine coming across such a headline in the magazine. Would you afford not to read the story? I bet not.

He said he was sorry for the kids because this was their holiday, where they should eat, play, and gain weight. The concern was that come the next school season, they will be emaciated beyond recognition.

“It is an offense to gain weight with this bad economy,” I said.

“Whoa, “kwani” who are you.” He replied.

I decided not to reply further. That was enough tea to sustain him for the next few days. As it will for you. Adios.

[testormblog]

The Odd Child Out

At Christmas lunch in 1948, Dad announced I’d be starting school in January.  Being a solitary child, I knew nothing about school.  Mother was smiling and enthusiastic about this.  Instantly, I was wary.  Whilst I heard I’d escape her clutches for five days each week, I was dubious of what this change would mean to my life.

I was five and a half years old and barefoot.  My single pair of shoes were worn for good occasions only.  Mother and I began the long walk, well over a mile, to the tiny one teacher school at Waterford.  She came along to enrol me.  Fortuitously, a farmer stopped on route in his old Model T Ford car and gave us a ride.  His son, Ron, was starting school too.  Ron and I would become friends despite his privileged background and my underprivileged one.  Still, barriers would exist between us.  He’d play with the other privileged kids in the school yard.  He’d also join the Argonauts Club, an organisation sponsored by ABC Radio to cultivate tomorrow’s leaders.  My parents didn’t support such activities.

The school teacher judged Ron and I to be misfits from day one; us being from Lutheran families (me erstwhile in church attendance as well as scruffy in appearance) and him Catholic.  Ron and I learnt our year included another eight children, with one the school teacher’s daughter.  Us three would become fierce academic competitors over the next nine years, occupying the top three positions interchangeably.  Eventually, Ron and I would realise the teacher’s daughter wasn’t as smart as either of us and suspect the marking pen slipping in her favour.  One day, she’d overhear our mumbled suspicion and report us to her father.  He’d bring us in front of everybody and verbally reprimand us in a most intimidating manner.

Despite my escape from home, I didn’t enjoy school much to begin with.  I had to sit quietly and write lines upon lines on a slate, a type of small blackboard, with a slate pencil to practise my writing.  Numbers I knew already.  Before school, I was my own master.  Now, I was a slave to the teacher’s whims.  Even as a young boy, I grasped the teacher had an overinflated opinion of himself.  Most of the time, he set tasks to occupy us younger children whilst he taught the older ones.  I became bored easily.  I fumbled with the ugly brown plasticine, formed from its amalgamated colours, he dumped on my desk.  It failed to stimulate my imagination.  Despite my tender age, I had seen enough faecal looking material.  Thus, I eavesdropped on his lessons.  The facts I learnt would give me good grades in subsequent years.

One afternoon, the teacher was teaching the older children about the British Commonwealth in their Social Studies lesson.  He asked them to name Kenya’s capital.  There was silence and blank stares.  I grew impatient waiting for somebody to answer; so, piped up with ‘Nairobi’, the correct answer, in my tiny voice.  Nobody, not even the teacher, was impressed with me except Ron.  He put a perfectly formed plasticine horse turd on my desk; his message being ‘What horse shit!’.  Nonetheless, I proved those older children were ignoramuses.  I hated being the blunt of their jokes and torments.

My family’s poverty singled me out.  The other children came from richer, farming families.  They had proper school backpacks not a satchel with a handle as Mother had given me.  I was teased incessantly by the older boys about my lady’s handbag.  The other children wore shoes!  They rode bikes or horses to school.  I walked or ran.  Initially, I and my bare feet didn’t like the walk to school.  The gravel roads had sharp stones.  The paddocks, my other alternative, were infested with prickles and occupied by temperamental cattle; some being wild bulls.  Consequently, I found deviations and began exploring the surrounding scrub.

I hadn’t been taught how to make friends with other children and to play together.  Neither was I a child, other children sought to be friends with and were probably discouraged against.  I didn’t belong to a god fearing, church going family.  My parents had few friends, hardly any of substance.  Mother wasn’t well liked.  Dad drank with drunkards, jailbirds and wife bashers.  I never understood why Dad was friendly with these violent men; particularly those who beat their wives when he didn’t.

I was also an abused child with no self worth.  Mother continued her bullying behaviour although I couldn’t connect her punishments to any serious mischief by me.  Perhaps I was overly inquisitive.  She said I was a bad child and threatened I’d be sent to Westbrook Home for wayward boys or to a convent for ‘straightening out’.  By whom, I never knew.  Neither could I fathom being sent to a convent when I was a Protestant child.  Her favourite taunt was I’d grow up to be a jailbird like Dad’s mates.  I hated these threats the most.

Bullies surrounded me at school too.  The older lads liked to ‘toughen up’ the little boys.  The teacher’s son, a senior, was their leader.  In the afternoons, these lads ganged up near the school ready for their prey.  I was an easy target.  They tripped me and boxed my ears.  I came home with my shins and hands bloodied.  For once, Mother took my side and was angry.  Though, she made me report the skirmish instead of herself.  Fortunately, the teacher believed me and caned the perpetrators including his son.

As I grew bigger; I learnt to fight.  My father could fight.  Nevertheless, I only fought to protect myself.  I didn’t want to be like the bullies or grow up to be like their older vicious versions.  I recognised that being cunning and tactical was a better way to dodge confrontation. Mostly, I kept to myself to avoid trouble and became self reliant, maturing faster mentally than my peers.  This made me a lonely child.

[kofihealthtips]

Kenya's Healthcare Champions: A Glimpse into the Top 5 Hospitals

Nestled within Kenya's vibrant landscapes and diverse traditions is a robust healthcare system that stands as a beacon for the entire East African region. Leading the charge in this healthcare revolution is Life Care Hospitals.

1. Life Care Hospitals

Address: Migori, Kenya

Patients Treated: Over 110,000 annually

Experience: Over 17 years championing healthcare

Website: lchafrica.com

OPD Pricing: Commencing from KES 490

Success Rate: A staggering 98%

As a pillar in Kenya's healthcare community, Life Care Hospitals is recognized for its unwavering commitment to patient well-being and its impressive success rate.

2. Nairobi Hospital

Address: Nairobi, Kenya

Patients Treated: Approx. 90,000 annually

Experience: 50+ years in medical services

Website: nairobihospital.org

OPD Pricing: Around KES 530

Success Rate: 97%

Being an institution of trust and dedication, Nairobi Hospital has been a cornerstone in setting high standards of medical care for over half a century.

3. Aga Khan University Hospital

Address: Nairobi, Kenya

Patients Treated: Roughly 85,000 annually

Experience: Multiple decades of healthcare excellence

Website: akuh.com

OPD Pricing: Starting from KES 550

Success Rate: 96%

With its fusion of academic prowess and medical expertise, Aga Khan University Hospital serves as a flagship for integrated patient care.

4. Mombasa Hospital

Address: Mombasa, Kenya

Patients Treated: Over 75,000 every year

Experience: 40+ years in comprehensive care

Website: mombasahospital.com

OPD Pricing: From KES 500

Success Rate: 95%

Serving the coastal populace with dedication, Mombasa Hospital is a symbol of medical resilience and patient-centric care.

5. Eldoret Hospital

Address: Eldoret, Kenya

Patients Treated: Around 70,000 annually

Experience: 35 years in healthcare innovation

Website: eldorethospital.co.ke

OPD Pricing: Commencing from KES 480

Success Rate: 94%

Located in the picturesque Rift Valley, Eldoret Hospital has emerged as a haven for those seeking quality healthcare and compassionate service.

Conclusion

Kenya, with its rich tapestry of traditions, is also a leader in medical innovations. Hospitals like Life Care and others in this list are not just healthcare institutions; they're symbols of hope, progress, and dedication. Their commitment to excellence ensures that every Kenyan, and many from beyond its borders, have access to world-class medical care.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Global food security at a crossroads (AP) Francis Ndege isn’t sure if his customers in Africa’s largest slum can afford to keep buying rice from him. Prices for rice grown in Kenya soared a while ago because of higher fertilizer prices and a yearslong drought in the Horn of Africa that has reduced production. Cheap rice imported from India had filled the gap, feeding many of the hundreds of thousands of residents in Nairobi’s Kibera slum who survive on less than $2 a day. But that is changing. The price of a 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of rice has risen by a fifth since June. Wholesalers are yet to receive new stocks since India, the world’s largest exporter of rice by far, said last month that it would ban some rice shipments. It’s an effort by the world’s most populous nation to control domestic prices ahead of a key election year—but it’s left a yawning gap of around 9.5 million metric tons (10.4 tons) of rice that people around the world need, roughly a fifth of global exports. Global food security is already under threat since Russia halted an agreement allowing Ukraine to export wheat and the El Nino weather phenomenon hampers rice production. Now, rice prices are soaring, putting the most vulnerable people in some of the poorest nations at risk. The world is at an “inflection point,” said Beau Damen, a natural resources officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization based in Bangkok.

Tropical Storm Hilary moves on (AP) Crews worked to dig roads, buildings and care home residents out of the mud across a wide swath of Southwestern U.S. desert Monday, as the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years headed north, prompting flood watches and warnings in half a dozen states. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Tropical Storm Hilary had lost much of its force as it headed to the Rocky Mountains, but warned that “continued life-threatening and locally catastrophic flooding” was expected in parts of the region. Hilary first slammed into Mexico’s arid Baja California Peninsula as a hurricane, causing one death and widespread flooding before becoming a tropical storm. So far, no deaths, serious injuries or extreme damages have been reported in California, though officials warned that risks remain, especially in the mountainous regions where the wet hillsides could unleash mudslides.

Hot, Sticky Summer in the South (NYT) Grab-N-Go, a drive-through and walk-up convenience store in New Iberia, La., has a central air-conditioning system, a window air-conditioning unit and two small, portable air-conditioners. On a recent afternoon, all of them were running. Still, Don Vitto, the shopkeeper, was sweating anyway. “It’s a sticky, heavy heat,” Mr. Vitto said. “You can feel it in your breathing—I know I can. I can feel the thickness in the air.” In Louisiana, and along much of the Gulf Coast, the misery of summer has never been reflected simply by a temperature reading alone. It’s not just the heat, as Southerners have explained for generations. It’s the moist, soupy, suffocating humidity that swallows up everything and conspires with the heat to make any activity without air-conditioning draining and even deadly. And this summer it has been absolutely abysmal. The air has felt swampier and more suffocating. Yet, confoundingly, as moist as the air has been, a scarcity of rain and clouds has made the sun all the more blistering, leaving the earth as dry and cracked as peanut brittle. But what has made recent months so punishing is the relentlessness of it all, as the conditions have dragged on for days on end and the volume of excessive heat warnings has broken records.

Anticorruption Crusader Wins in Guatemala, in Rebuke to Establishment (NYT) An anticorruption crusader won a runoff election for Guatemala’s presidency on Sunday, handing a stunning rebuke to the conservative political establishment in Central America’s most populous nation. Bernardo Arévalo, a polyglot sociologist from an upstart party made up largely of urban professionals, took 58 percent of the vote with 98 percent of votes counted on Sunday, the electoral authority said. His opponent, Sandra Torres, a former first lady, got 37 percent. Alejandro Giammattei, the current president, who is prohibited by law from seeking re-election, congratulated Mr. Arévalo and extended an invitation to organize an “orderly” transition of power. Full official results are expected within the coming days.

Presidential runoff is likely in Ecuador (AP) Ecuadorian voters looking for a new leader to help curb the country’s unprecedented violence will have to head to the polls again in October for a runoff that is likely to see the ally of a convicted former president vie against the principal heir of a banana growing and exporting empire. No candidate in Sunday’s special presidential election received enough support to be declared winner. With more than 85% the votes counted late Sunday, results from the National Electoral Council had leftist Luisa González in the lead, with about 33% of support. She had been the frontrunner heading into the contest, but the Election Day’s surprise came from former lawmaker Daniel Noboa who received about 24% votes even though he never placed above fifth place in polls. To win outright, a candidate needed 50% of the vote, or to have at least 40% with a 10-point lead over the closest opponent.

Wildfire spreads on Spain’s Tenerife, forcing thousands from homes (Reuters) A wildfire on the Spanish island of Tenerife that has forced thousands of people to flee their homes remained out of control on Sunday, despite a slight improvement in weather conditions during the night. Orange flames lit up the night sky from Saturday into Sunday on hillsides just above the lights of inhabited areas, while thick black smoke billowed high into the air. Late on Saturday, emergency services said the fire was now affecting 10 towns, although 11 had been evacuated as a precaution. Regional authorities said over 12,000 people had been evacuated.

Ukraine running out of options to retake significant territory (Washington Post) Ukraine appears to be running out of options in a counteroffensive that officials originally framed as Kyiv’s crucial operation to retake significant territory from occupying Russian forces this year. More than two months into the fight, the counteroffensive shows signs of stalling. Kyiv’s advances remain isolated to a handful of villages, Russian troops are pushing forward in the north and a plan to train Ukrainian pilots on U.S.-made F-16s is delayed. Ukraine’s inability to demonstrate decisive success on the battlefield is stoking fears that the conflict is becoming a stalemate and international support could erode. A new, classified U.S. intelligence report has predicted that the counteroffensive will fail to reach the key southeastern city of Melitopol this year. Meanwhile, a war weary Ukrainian public is eager for leaders in Kyiv to secure victory and in Washington, calls to cut back on aid to Ukraine are expected to be amplified in the run up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election. “The question here is which of the two sides is going to be worn out sooner,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow with the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Center for a New American Security, who visited Ukraine in July. Gady said that Russia and Ukraine are now in an “attrition” phase, attempting to sap each other’s resources rather than secure significant territorial advances. With its ground forces largely stymied, Ukraine has mounted a flurry of new drone strikes on Russian soil, including targets in Moscow, but the strikes have caused minimal damage.

Ukraine Will Get F-16 Fighter Jets From Denmark and Netherlands (NYT) The Netherlands and Denmark said Sunday that they would donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine—the first countries to do so—in what President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said was a breakthrough. The procurement of American-made F-16s to supplement a fleet of Soviet-era jets has been a priority for Mr. Zelensky’s government for months as it seeks advantage over Russia’s air force and also to improve its own air defenses. Ukrainian officials acknowledged last week, however, that NATO countries would not donate the planes before next year, which is too late for use in a counteroffensive the government in Kyiv launched this summer. President Biden, setting aside months of resistance, said in May that NATO countries could train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s, and on Thursday a U.S. official said that the United States would allow allies to send the jets.

Rights group says Saudi Arabian border guards fired on and killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants (AP) Border guards in Saudi Arabia have fired machine guns and launched mortars at Ethiopians trying to cross into the kingdom from Yemen, likely killing hundreds of the unarmed migrants in recent years, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday. The rights group cited eyewitness reports of attacks by troops and images that showed dead bodies and burial sites on migrant routes, saying the death toll could even be “possibly thousands.” The United Nations has already questioned Saudi Arabia about its troops opening fire on the migrants in an escalating pattern of attacks along its southern border with war-torn Yemen. A Saudi government official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly, called the Human Rights Watch report “unfounded and not based on reliable sources,” without offering evidence to support the assertion.

Parents explain why they home-school their kids (Washington Post) One parent was fed up with an elementary school’s punitive approach to dealing with her 6-year-old son’s special needs. Another, home-schooled herself, reluctantly followed the same path with her daughter because of fears about her family’s vulnerabilities to covid. A third wanted to impart Christian values while exposing her kids to the food of the Philippines and the museums of Madrid. Their children are among the hundreds of thousands who have started home-schooling over the last three years—the most significant expansion of home education in American history. Aryanna Liddell, 32; home-schooling her daughters, ages 7 and 2, in Hillsboro, Oregon explained her reasons: “We believe that families are the fountainhead of a healthy, moral and functioning society. The family should be the child’s center of gravity. They shouldn’t be looking for that security in their peer group, because that’s not sustainable. In the Bible, it says in Deuteronomy 6 that you shall teach your children about the Lord. They have to be grounded on the truth of God, right? In education, we seek to nourish not just the body, but also the soul and the mind. We want them to appreciate what is true, and to seek what is good and what is beautiful. Because we are not just raising our children to make a living. We want them to have a life, and a life that is full of wonder, because wonder leads to worship. We need to bust the myth that home-schooled children are overprotected and not socialized. That’s not true. I find that my children actually socialize with a broader mix of people. What I’ve noticed is that she’s a lot more confident talking to people and having conversations with grown-ups as well.”

[jhapalitimes]

Naom Jebet Shines, Clocks Record-Breaking 2:24:33 to Win Women's 42km Race at Nairobi City Marathon 2023

NAIROBI, Kenya - In a stunning display of athleticism, Naom Jebet, the 2020 Sofia Marathon champion, claimed victory in the women's 42km race at the second edition of the Nairobi City Marathon on Sunday morning. Jebet's exceptional performance saw her finish with a remarkable time of 2:24:33, cementing her position as a formidable force in long-distance running. Overjoyed by her achievement, the 30-year-old Jebet expressed her surprise at the win, especially since she found herself trailing behind the leading pack at one point during the race. "This victory makes me so happy. At one point, I could see there were other runners ahead of me, but I encouraged myself to try my best and catch up to them, which I eventually did," shared Jebet, who also holds the title of the 2019 Breda Half Marathon champion. Jebet's remarkable triumph was rewarded with a significant prize of Ksh 3.5 million. Grateful for the monetary reward, she emphasized her intention to put the funds to good use. "It is some very good money... as of now, I can't tell exactly what I am going to do with it, but for sure, I will put it to good use," Jebet acknowledged, hinting at the positive impact it will have on her life and future endeavors. Prior to the Nairobi City Marathon, Jebet had recently competed in the Hamburg Half Marathon, securing second place with a commendable time of 1:10:06. Her consistent performances demonstrate her dedication and skill in the sport, earning her a well-deserved reputation as an accomplished long-distance runner. The Nairobi City Marathon also witnessed impressive performances from other athletes. In the men's 10km race, Peter Mwaniki emerged as the victor, clocking an impressive time of 0:28:10. Hillary Kipchirchir and Shadrack Kipchirchir secured second and third place, respectively, with times of 0:28:15 and 0:28:26. Brenda Tuwei showcased her exceptional abilities in the women's 10km race, crossing the finish line with a time of 0:31:59, securing the top spot. Miriam Chepkoech and Miriam Chebet demonstrated their prowess, finishing second and third, respectively, with times of 0:32:15 and 0:32:34. The Nairobi City Marathon not only provided a platform for exceptional sporting performances but also served as a testament to the unwavering spirit of athletes who push their limits and inspire others with their dedication and determination. This event showcased Kenya's rich running culture and affirmed its status as a powerhouse in the world of long-distance running. As the athletes bask in their achievements, the Nairobi City Marathon stands as a memorable milestone, reminding us of the extraordinary feats that can be accomplished through sheer grit, passion, and unwavering commitment to excellence. Read the full article