#So this independence day! I implore you to look into our history!

[cute-as-buttons]

76 YEARS AND WE'RE STILL GOING!!!!!

[incoherentbabblings]

Take Back the Cake, Burn the Shoes, and Boil the Rice (1/11)

Within two months there have been two murders of Gotham newlyweds moments after the ceremony. The only connecting factor was both brides wore the same designer's work. Needing to establish who exactly is behind the crimes, Bruce enlists Tim and Stephanie to have the biggest wedding Gotham high society has seen in decades, putting a target on their heads not just for the killer, but Gotham society too. It goes about as well as you'd expect. 

Ao3 link here!

Hey, @thatblondeperson​ @our-happygirl500-fan the odyssey begins, huh? Thank you both for your help with this, I imagine I will keep bugging you with questions and pictures of pretty dresses going forward.

“No way.”

“Batgirl.”

“No! Are you serious? Look, I did the trip to England – even though I have a life here and didn’t want to – because it was like only for a semester and it was to help people… but this? No.”

“I agree.” Red Robin chimed, bolstering Batgirl against Batman. He pulled back his cowl, revealing the tired young man underneath. He didn’t look wholly invested in anything Bruce had to say. “Can’t you fake it? With Selina or… I don’t know. Zatanna or…” Tim shrugged uselessly. “I’ve already had a fake engagement! One’s enough, thank you.”

“No-one is going to believe Bruce Wayne’s engagement… They know it will all fall through.” Dick chimed up. He was sat at the batcomputer, feet up on the keyboard, eating chunks of mango and watermelon and looking completely indifferent to the outraged faces around him. He looked briefly at Bruce. “No offense.”

“Well you do it then!�� Stephanie argued. “You’re a…fully grown adult. No-one would blink an eye if you and Babs got engaged! Everyone knows you’re sweet on each other.”

Dick slowed the chewing of his fruit. Looking Steph straight in the eye, he spat out seeds over the edge of the ground down in the depths of the cave. Tim watched out of the corner of his eye as Bruce folded his arms, exasperated. Finally, after a tense stare off, Dick grinned.

“Can’t. Going off world on Friday. Can’t get married if you’re not on Earth. And this case really needs to be closed asap.”

It was a shit eating grin, one that made Steph want to instinctively slap it off his face as she felt increasingly crowded into a corner. Tim meanwhile screwed up his lips.

“You seriously think the designer has something to do with it?”

“Two murders at a wedding in two months. Both bride and groom.”

“No such thing as a coincidence?” Asked Stephanie. She tugged off her cape, hair getting caught as she did so. After a brief fight with the cowl, she tossed both aside and spun back to look at Batman.

“No. Not in these instances.”

“But what’s the connection?”

“Both brides were wearing the same designer.”

Tim nodded, catching on. “So… someone either has it out for the designer and wants her life to collapse… or she’s a wedding dress designer who hates happy couples.”

“Potentially.” Bruce walked towards Tim, seeing he was less aggressively opposed then Stephanie. “All you have to do is pretend. Hire her for the dress, plan the wedding. I’ll find the truth.”

Stephanie was not moved. “Using us as decoys? Really? And with what spare time am I supposed to plan a wedding? This is my final year of college… I can’t drop it all for the sake of a lie.” She looked to Tim, hoping to implore him to side with her. Bruce couldn’t make them both agree, surely.

To her growing distress, Tim was frowning off to the side, pulling his usual thinking face when he was musing something over.

“We’d seriously have to go through with it? Like from engagement, planning…wedding. All of it?” Something sparked in Tim’s eyes, and Stephanie’s stomach dropped.

She shook her head at him, unable to beg out loud. Bruce’s large chest heaved up and down with an exaggerated breath.

“It would have to be public. We’ll be making you targets. Big ones.”

If anything, this seemed to further motivate Tim, rather than placing the pressing guilt that had formed in Stephanie’s lungs. He looked to Bruce, expression serious and earnest.

“But we’d be potentially redirecting it from innocent people.”

Dick blinked, his somewhat sadistic enjoyment of their discomfort shifting as he too noticed Tim’s expression. A sort of desperation that Stephanie recognized in a way that made her breath short.

Panic went through her then, and she blurted out a, “What if I say no?” She tried to put her foot down, but instead it came out quiet and pleading.

“Then I won’t do it either.” Tim said, looking her in the eye for the first time since the idea was brought up. “I don’t want to. Not without her.”

Dick’s expression morphed into what only could have been described as pity. Tim and Stephanie were not dating, hadn’t been for years, but everyone knew from watching that they still knew each other inside and out, better than most anyone else. For all Tim had been drifting in and out of closeness with Bruce and Dick the past three years, it seemed he had only relocated positions within the family. Always to Cassandra first, his sister in every way that counted, and, despite his initial reservations, also to Stephanie, who had taken every effort to move past the worst of their adolescence with open arms.

They had grown closer (still not close enough in Tim’s opinion) but a level of shyness, of fragility remained. One wrong step and the false peace they had put together the past few years would crumble and reveal structural faults that neither could fix.

For all Tim wanted a partner to ensure that his loneliness would depart from him permanently; for all Tim wanted Stephanie to be that partner – Stephanie in all her hard fought and earned independence – Tim knew he couldn’t force her to do anything. Neither could Bruce. Not anymore. That lesson, they had both learned a long time ago.

He had been treading on eggshells for some time now, desperate to not upset her, even if it came at the cost of his own happiness.

Stephanie knew all of this. She had watched him argue with himself and twitch in a way that indicated he wanted to move closer, and she had watched him refuse to verbalise any of it.

He wouldn’t speak; therefore, she wouldn’t speak. Ergo, their relationship was at a dead end.

Unless he could get her to agree to lie with him.

Which would make her miserable. Because he wouldn’t be talking to her. Not truly.

And the uroboros of a Catch-22 situation would continue to eat its tail.

Bruce watched the naked relief play out on Stephanie’s face that she had Tim’s conditional support. He gave another sigh, and Dick watched from his seat, knowing that Bruce was about to play dirty.

“I do not trust anyone else to follow this through.”

Tim groaned, and hung his head down, and Dick knew Bruce had won. Stephanie meanwhile, for a lack of a better term, flipped out.

“No.” She said, and she began to tear off her uniform until she was only in her black tank top and leggings, stomping barefooted back up the stairs.

Trying to not take it personally, Tim rushed to the changing area to get into his shirt and jeans and socks. Maybe if he just caught her…

Dick watched the pair go, chewing loudly on a crunchy piece of fruit.

“Sometimes you’re really cruel.”

“…I know.”

Stephanie rushed into one of the drawing rooms, grabbing her bag she had left resting on a seat to pull out her shoes, collapsing to the expensive rug. Her little purple car was parked out front, so she could make a quick getaway.

Tim practically fell into the room, having thrown on a checked shirt and jeans that made his butt look good.

Stupid Tim.

“Steph.” He breathlessly plead. She tied her shoelaces, ignoring his tone. Finding the expensive cream rug much more interesting, she aggressively tied knots in her shoes.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“We could end up saving a lot of people down the line and –”

“You know that throwing yourself in front of a bullet isn’t going to make daddy love you any better, right?”

Tim stopped breathing, and she knew instantly she had crossed a line. She slumped forward, head banging against her knees. Tim watched her shoulders heave with silent sobs. Instantly he moved to be level with her, curled up on the floor, hidden out of sight from Alfred, or Bruce, or anyone.

His hand hovered, wanting to stroke her hair, but instead he settled for her bare forearm. He felt her muscle spasm under his cold fingers and watched as goosebumps appeared on her arm. She was looking paler than normal.

“Steph I won’t... I won’t force you to do it. But, if we can make ourselves targets then we could be saving someone else, and if Bruce closes the case before we even get to the alter… It doesn’t have to be serious...” He murmured the last part, trying to hide the paranoid part of him that believed Stephanie was reacting so strongly to the idea of being tied to him again – even temporarily.

“Tim, if this were five years ago, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. And not just because there’s no-one else I’d rather do this with...”

Tim smiled, despite the general mood of the room. Stephanie, with her head pressed to her knees, did not see.

“But I’m not going to be fake marrying a nice boy from down the road.”

“What do you mean?”

She finally looked up at him, and her eyes were dry and clear.

“Your name, Tim. Bruce’s name.”

He blinked, still not comprehending. Her fingers crept forward, absently stroking the fabric of his shirt.

“If you were me... If you were just an average Gothamite, and you saw that one of the richest and most handsome guys in Gotham, the one who spends his life in the public eye... If you saw he was marrying a girl who has a father on death row, and a mother who has a history of drug abuse. A girl who he hasn’t publicly associated with before outside of days where his sister was present... A girl who got pregnant at fifteen... How would that look? A two-month engagement?”

“I’d think it was none of my business.”

“And then the marriage breaks off after a month. Or they don’t even make it to the marriage stage. What do you think happens to that girl? How do you think her life is going to be afterwards?”

Tim couldn’t help it, with his free hand he reached for one of hers. Tangling their fingers together, he felt her trembling. She squeezed back tightly, their fingers turning a little purple.

“Bruce and I wouldn’t let anything like that happen.” Tim swore.

“You can’t promise that.”

Still so jaded, under all that optimism. Still so doubtful of how kind the world actually was.

“Yes, I can. I can.”

“God Tim, you’re so naïve!”

She tried to pull away, but Tim held tight, not letting her leave. She stared at him outraged, as he tried to convince her.

“Please Steph. Bruce doesn’t make mistakes about this sort of thing. More people are going to die unless we do something.”

Pale blue eyes stared into indigo, and a long moment passed in silence, the clock on the mantle providing the only noise. Some garden birds chirped outside, and the fluttering of their wings past the window made Stephanie flinch out of the moment. She breathed unsteadily. Tim tugged their conjoined hands closer to his chest.

“You’d honestly rather do it with no-one else?” He asked, smiling crookedly.

She blinked, unable to stand the vulnerability anymore, frowned and looked out the window. “You said the same thing downstairs.”

He blushed, and she tugged her hands finally free. Tim tried not to grimace at the feeling. Steph was always warm, a beacon of tanned skin and golden hair. Without her, his fingers quickly grew cold.

He had run home once, on a cold Gotham day, when he and his dad had spent an afternoon playing catch outside. His parents had been home for two months that time, and he had run in to find his mother and beg for a hot chocolate. He had been only six, and Janet had been sat in front of the computer, dark red hair piled up in a messy bun. Tim remembered her always looking well put together, even in her messier more relaxed moments.

“Mom, mom!” He had cried, cheeks flushed red from the temperature. His mother’s stress lines had disappeared when she spied him coming her way, and she held out her arms to catch him. She had been in a good mood that day. Ready to indulge him.

She pulled him up onto her lap, and Tim had laughed.

“Feel my hands!” And he had put his frozen fingers on her cheeks, causing her to gasp exaggeratedly.

“Frozen solid!” And she had kissed and kissed and kissed him and with each kiss he felt warmer and warmer. “Cold hands mean a warm heart though Tim. That’s the most important bit.”

And his father had entered the room, and the smile had slipped from Janet’s face, and the soft moment with his mother had been over. The warmth fled him, her and the house.

Fifteen years later, Tim wasn’t sure he believed Janet’s little saying anymore. Steph was just plain warm. From her head to her toes, her golden skin gave off warmth like she had been laying in the sun all day. Like she held the sun in her chest, and her hair was the yellow rays escaping. His mother and father’s warmth had come and gone with their moods. Stephanie’s was ever present. Even when she was angry, even when she was being cruel, she seemed incapable of being cold whilst being so.

Tim blinked, realising he had completely drifted off and away from the present moment, and was daydreaming again. Stephanie sat with her legs splayed out, still upset but more reserved than before.

"I’m going to go home.” She declared. “And I am going to think it over. Give me a day.”

“You gonna talk to your mom?”

“If I do go through with it, she’ll need to know.” Stephanie shifted, putting on her other shoe. “You’re already on thin ice with her you know. Have been for years.”

Tim was going to tease her and ask why it mattered what her mother thought of him, but like Steph said, he was treading on thin ice. Even getting her to consider it was a victory in his eyes.

She said her goodbye and got up, Tim remaining sat on the floor. Impulsively, she tugged at his hair playfully. Tim may have imagined it, but he felt her hand stroke his hair, like she used to when he’d rest his head on her stomach. It had started when she had pulled him down in her room, on her little bed, to see if he could hear or feel her baby move. It had continued long after the baby had been given up for adoption. She had said his hair was nice to play with.

Stephanie paused, looking down on him.

“You really won’t do it with someone else? Just me?”

“Promise.”

She sighed and went to go. She stopped, blond hair swinging round her shoulders, and looked like she was going to say something else. She thought better of it, and gave a half-hearted wave.

“See you tomorrow.” She uttered, then she was gone.

Tim remained sat on the floor long after she left. He heard her car switch on and roll off, and he remained on the carpet. His mind was racing.

Bruce eventually found him. Out of costume, in a white t-shirt and black trousers, he sat on the loveseat by Tim.

Keeping his head down, Tim spoke.

“She said… she wanted the day to think about it.”

“Okay.”

Tim stared off, knowing Bruce was waiting for him to ask the burning question.

“Why us?”

Tim heard the frame of the seat creak as Bruce shifted. Neither man was looking at the other.

“As I said. I trust you two will do a good job.”

“And no-one else.”

“You work well together.”

“Do we?”

“Tim…”

“She said that she was afraid of how people would react. Poor girl and a rich boy get hitched quickly and all that.”

Bruce’s response was firm and immediate. “I won’t let people think of her that way.”

Tim tilted his head to look at his father, comforted by the protective nature in his tone. “That’s what I said. She didn’t believe me.”

“Hnn.” Bruce placed a hand on Tim’s shoulder, and squeezed reassuringly. “She’ll help. She won’t turn away from people in need. I’ll leave you to deal with the… nitty gritty of it all.”

He got up to leave, allowing Tim to brood alone on the floor.

“Bruce?”

Bruce turned, looking at him expectantly. Tim swallowed.

“You honestly think we work well together?”

Bruce chewed his tongue, thinking of how best to respond. “I remember, how happy you made each other, and I trust her with you. You’ll both do well in this.”

And that was all. Tim stared at the now empty doorframe, unsure of what to make of Bruce’s statement. His fingers twitched, craving the warmth of Stephanie’s grip once more.

He couldn’t decide if he was being selfish or not for wanting her to agree to such a silly idea. A silly idea that could save several people down the line. Maybe. Or maybe he just wanted an excuse to spend time with her outside of the costume. Only if she wanted it though. He wasn’t that cruel. Falling forward to the floor, butt up in the air, Tim grumbled to himself about how lovesick he was.

Stephanie meanwhile had to pull over halfway home, so emotional that she needed to catch her breath.

This was what was going to bring Tim and her together once more? Another lie?

She couldn’t bare it. To have to pretend to be happy and in love when really what she would be was miserable. But still in love.

She’d never stopped. She still craved his eyes on her (and only her), to hear him say how proud he was.

No.

No, she was past that. That was the point. The point of Batgirl, the point of returning to Gotham.

She rubbed aggressively at her eyes, sat on the layby of the road, and called her mother, unable to wait until she reached home. She put on the speaker, and set the phone on the dashboard.

Her mother had the next three days off, so with some luck she would catch her.

“Hiya Stephie.” She answered. “All good?”

“Yeah. Just driving back.”

“Then why’d you call?”

“I… mom… I’ve been asked to do something. For work.” She clarified. Her mother would understand. “And I’m not sure I should.”

“Why?”

Something in Stephanie snapped, and three years of grief came pouring out. Her mother listened, saying nothing. Stephanie knew that her mother was wary of Tim, of Batgirl, of the whole thing, but she was also the one who could give a somewhat neutral response. As she ranted, Stephanie grew more distressed. She knew from the outside she must have looked like a mad woman, arms flailing and legs kicking. As she drew to a close, Stephanie rested her forehead on the wheel of her car.

“...But I want to help people. And I want to be with him. And I don’t know if that makes me weak.”

“It makes you lovesick.”

Her mother’s tone was soft, sad, and empathetic. Stephanie didn’t know which emotion was comforting and which was upsetting. She sniffed loudly, pressing the heel of the palms of her hands so tightly to her eyes that she saw stars. Crystal was silent, letting her daughter think her rant through. A minute passed, and Stephanie lowered her hands from her eyes, feelings slowly clicking into place.

“Thanks mom.”

“You made your mind up?”

“Yeah.”

Turning her engine back on, she picked up the phone once more. “Gonna be a bit longer until I get back. We need anything from the shops?”

“Another two cartons of milk wouldn’t hurt.”

“’Kay.” She buckled her seatbelt on. “Love you. Bye.”

“Love you too, Stephie. Glutton for punishment that you are.”

Stephanie laughed, then hung up. The smile quickly faded, and she stared at her home screen. Closing her eyes, taking a breath, and flicking her indicator on, she got back on the main road, looking for a place to do a u-turn.

Alfred opened the door to find Stephanie hopping up the steps to the front door, having let her back through the front gates. She smiled bashfully at the butler.

“I’ll inform Master Bruce that you’ve returned.” He said, ushering her inside.

“And Tim?”

“Of course. Make your way to the kitchen, Miss Stephanie. There are some baked goods cooling. You can take some home for you and your mother.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Alfred.”

She perched herself on one of the breakfast bar stools, staring at the banana muffins on the cooling rack. They smelled very good.

Tim arrived first, Bruce following behind. Both men looked expectant.

There was a brief pause as Stephanie collected her words.

“I’ll do it.” Bruce nodded, and Tim, betraying himself utterly, smiled broadly. It made something in her gut jerk, and she continued despite herself. “Only to help you solve the case. You promise to protect me from bad press?”

Bruce’s eyes tightened. “We’ll need a lot of publicity to ensure we capture their attention.”

“Good publicity.”

“Yes.” Stephanie’s eyes flittered to Tim as he moved closer to her, only partially listening to Bruce. “You’ll both have the family clout behind you. Use it.”

“Fine.” She nodded one last time. Tim opened his mouth to say something, but Stephanie turned away to grab one of Alfred’s muffins. Sensing the mood of the room, Bruce left, passing ownership of the task to the two young adults.

Tim moved closer than she would have preferred, close enough to feel his warm breath move her hair, but she still couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Stephanie…”

Taking a large bite, she inspected the granite worktops, finding the little silver glimmers fascinating. Tim saw she was going to be unresponsive. Hating himself a little, he began to dictate their plan going forward.

“We’ll go on a few dates first. People have seen you, me and Cassandra hanging out, so it won’t be a total shock. When do you next have a spare afternoon?”

She bristled at being told what to do in the manner Tim had slipped into, but she answered quietly.

“Thursday.”

“I’ll pick you up from campus. We’ll go to Robinson Park.” Colour rose to Tim’s cheeks as he got lost in his own head. Stephanie continued not to look at him, finding Alfred’s baking less upsetting. He was looking at her longingly. She knew that look well enough that she could sense it on him.

“Sounds good.” She said around a mouthful of muffin.

“You still want me to teach you how to ride my skateboard?”

That got her to look at him. She shook her head, trying not to give in to his puppy dog eyes.

“Tim, not like that. Not with everyone watching.”

This is what she had been dreading. Things she wanted, things she craved, but built on a foundation of lies. She and Tim weren’t going on a real date, so why should she do something she wanted for real? She was fine with lying, she did it every day of her life, but not for this. Not when half-truths were thrown in with Tim.

Tim seemed confused. “You said it just the other day. This is a good as reason as any.” He pushed his way closer into her personal space. Frustratingly, she wasn’t unnerved by it. “Steph… It gets easier. Those guys being around taking photos... Bruce has so much hold over them they don’t come near any of us.”

“Frightened of the big bad bat?”

“More like the billionaire with a big pocket for legal fees.” Tim snorted. “Honest. You’ll forget they’re there.” His tone turned a bit more serious, a bit more somber. “I know the whole thing is…less than ideal. So, let’s try and have some fun, yeah?”

Tim thought he knew that Steph knew that he still loved her. He’d said as much. But that was years ago. He’d also tried to kiss her. But that was also years ago.

Okay, so maybe being forced to get engaged and married wasn’t the best foundation to start a genuine courtship, but Tim could make it work.

So he smiled at her, and Stephanie smiled back. It was genuine.

He could make her happy.

“Okay.” She picked up two muffins to take home. “I’ll see you Thursday then.”

Tim’s smile widened as he watched her go. Mind racing, he twirled around in the kitchen, smacking his hands repeatedly off the counter.

“So… you’re going to tell her that you want to pursue a genuine relationship once this is all over or…?”

Dick’s voice drifted over from the doorway. He was leaning against the frame, one foot resting on his other ankle. His body language was casual, but his expression was deadly serious. Tim dismissed his concerns.

“Won’t need to. I will…show her that I am emotionally ready to get back in a relationship with her, and I know she still loves me so… by the end, the lie can be over, and she can ask me.”

“She has to ask you?”

Dick sounded so unapproving that Tim’s hackles rose. He walked around to the other side of the counter, further separating him from his elder brother.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Tim shook his head, baffled. “Because I’m the one doing all the work.”

Dick tilted his head, frustrated with Tim. “Define ‘work’? Buying her a nice dinner counts as work?”

“No! But I… She’s frightened. I’ll prove she doesn’t need to be.”

Dick’s eyes tightened. Like Stephanie, he thought Tim was being awfully naïve. Tim grumbled to himself.

“Just… go do your space adventure. When you come back in two months… you’ll see. We’ll catch the bad guy, innocent people will be saved, the press will love Steph as much as I do, and we’ll be on our merry way to getting out all the bad air between us.”

“By…not talking about the bad air.”

“We’ll talk! She… she has to start it. ‘Cause I did all the talking in the past. It’s her turn now. That’s all.”

Dick chewed on the inside of his cheek. Tim picked up a muffin and threw it at his brother, unable to bear the condescension. “You have no room to judge. I’ve loved her for half my life. I’m not going to have a mission be another nail in the coffin.”

Dick caught the muffin, ripping the top off and inspecting the inside. He turned to go, knowing he would get nowhere with Tim. Once the boy had made his mind up, it took a plan exploding in his face to realise he’d done wrong.

“No,” Dick said, nibbling as he walked away. “You want a lie to be the kiss of life.”

Tim stood in the kitchen, his loneliness creeping up on him. Looking desperately around, he grabbed his own baked good, then rushed downstairs to take his car back to his apartment.

He could make this work.

[geekprincess26]

Smarter than Robb

By now, the office scene from Episode 1 has been analyzed and discussed ad nauseum on the interwebs, and from almost every possible angle.  So many brilliant Jonsa authors have posted so many brilliant metas that I found myself 1) in awe and 2) so proud all over again for the millionth time to be a part of this intelligent, thoughtful, productive fandom!

However, I noticed one angle that has not been discussed much as of yet, and it’s one that stood out to me because Jon and Sansa’s office scene reminded me so vividly of their argument on the battlements in the first episode of season 7, where Sansa implores Jon, “You have to be smarter than Father.  You have to be smarter than Robb.”

Ah, yes, our dear, departed idiot Robb Stark.  We all remember him for being such a bold and brilliant general that even the Lannisters with their great, sprawling army could not defeat him in battle.  He defeated Jaime Lannister, the greatest swordsman and possibly the greatest general in Westeros, using an elementary distraction technique, and then captured him to boot.  Jaime’s father Tywin’s efforts to regain his son and defeat the upstart boy who had so humiliated him proved so vain that Tywin had to resort to treachery and subterfuge to bring Robb down.

However, Robb Stark was more than just a great general, and more even than the first King in the North in three centuries.  Sansa, both in the books and on the show, saw him as more than that.  To Sansa, he represented both hope and humiliation.   Humiliation, because this is what happened to her every time Robb won another battle but refused to send Jaime Lannister home to save her:

But for a time, Robb also represented Sansa’s best hope, because had he not helped to bring about his own undoing (more on that later), he may have been able to storm King’s Landing to rescue Sansa from the Lannisters - and, aside from that, he certainly had the power to negotiate a prisoners’ exchange for her release.  Even after Joffrey had Ned killed and threatened to give Sansa Robb’s head on a platter, her faith in her brother remained steadfast:

But, of course, Robb refused to send Jaime Lannister home, and by the time Jaime did arrive in King’s Landing due to Catelyn Stark’s disobedience against her son’s orders, Robb had failed his sister for a second time: He renounced the marriage alliance that may just have given him the key to defeating Tywin Lannister and rescuing the little sister who awaited him, and chose to marry another woman (Jeyne Westerling in the books, Talisa Maegyr in the show; I’ll refer to Talisa for the rest of this post because I know much more about the show than I do about the books).  Instead of marrying the woman who would bring his Northern countrymen the power to cow Tywin Lannister and win Northern independence for good – all elements he sorely needed in light of the debacle with Lord Karstark – he married a foreign woman who offered him and his men no additional warriors, no old Westerosi family name to tie to his crown, and no means to end the war swiftly and send his men home to a secure, independent North where they could live in peace with their families again.

It was a decision that gave Robb the love of his life in the short term, but cost him both of their lives and the lives of Catelyn Stark and most of the Northern army, as well as plunging the North into further bloodshed at the hands of the Boltons, in the long run.  Walder Frey and Roose Bolton were not exactly the best of men, and Robb may well have had problems with them down the road, but they were problems he could have handled from a secured and powerful throne had he not provoked them so badly that they would rather work with Tywin Lannister than continue to serve a king whose actions indicated that he cared more for his own gratification than he did for the peace, security, and independence of the North.  Of course, we as viewers know that that viewpoint was not entirely accurate.  We know that Robb meant well.  He agonized later over the consequences of his actions, apologized personally to Walder Frey, and did all he could to make amends for breaking his promise.  But for his frustrated allies his remedies were too little and too late.  They saw only a king who had failed them.

And Sansa, who had by then spent years being beaten, humiliated, threatened, and forcibly married to a Lannister, didn’t know he meant well, either.  She didn’t understand the reasoning behind his actions any more than the Northern lords did.  All she knew was that Robb, her beloved big brother, had refused to help her when he could.  He had failed her completely.

By the time Sansa reunited with Jon, her other “big brother,” she’d learned the hard way to trust no one, especially men, to protect her.  If she wanted someone to advocate for her interests, to protect herself and the North (as she saw it) from the Boltons, she knew she would have to do it herself, as she informed Jon the day they got back together.

But Jon joined Sansa, albeit reluctantly.  He did what Robb and all the other Northern lords had failed to do, first when she was trapped in King’s Landing with the Lannisters and then when Ramsay Bolton held her captive: he protected her in every way he could.  He threw himself wholeheartedly into persuading the Wildlings and even a few of the Northern lords, who were understandably skeptical about House Stark’s ability to defeat Ramsay Bolton and to serve the North’s best interests before a foreigner’s, to join their cause.  When Sansa reminded him just how little he knew about Ramsay Bolton, he listened to her in his own dense way.  And when she told him she’d kill herself if Ramsay won the battle, he swore to protect her.

But by then, Sansa had seen far too many people, including Robb, fail to protect her.  Paradoxically, she did for Jon what Robb never did for her: she made an enormous sacrifice to save him by going back into the debt of one of her most dangerous abusers, and she used that abuser’s army to save her “brother.”  And he, in turn, showed her a level of respect to which she was entirely unaccustomed: he restrained himself from killing Ramsay Bolton so that Sansa could mete out the justice she (and Rickon) so richly deserved.

Fast-forward to season 7, which began with Jon keeping his promise to protect Sansa to the point where it appeared to annoy her, as she expressed during their argument on the battlements of Winterfell in the first episode.  Sansa’s mannerisms, though, speak to her happiness at finally having the other big brother in her life do what her first big brother had failed to do.  He stayed with her to co-rule the North, despite his reluctance at being named its king.  He gave her the Lord’s chambers and a seat at the high table with him.  He acknowledged her right to rule at his side, and he didn’t abuse her for expressing her opinions.  He was the first man to treat her with true gentleness since Joffrey Baratheon murdered her father.  She was safe with him, safe enough to express her opinions and disagreements and, yes, that annoyance at his overprotectiveness.

But then Jon left the North.  He left despite the Stark family’s history in the South, despite his people’s protests, and despite the Northern lords’ unease over yet another King in the North leaving his people behind and marching off to fight a great military campaign in the South.  This unease was particularly ominous because it was expressed through the mouth of Lord Glover, who in season 6 had refused to fight for Jon and Sansa because House Stark had proven itself untrustworthy: Robb Stark had wandered off to the South and allied himself through marriage to a foreign woman, which much of the North saw as a direct betrayal of their interests.

And Jon left despite the frantic pleas of his sister Sansa, who, despite the reasons he sprang on her at the last minute shared, must have been terrified at the prospect of another big brother leaving her and heading off to form an alliance with a completely unknown foreigner.  He’d protected her, treated her gently, given her safety, given her plenty of opportunities to smack the concept of politics and negotiations through his thick head – and now he was about to leave her.  Granted, she was in Winterfell with Brienne and her allies, not in King’s Landing with the Lannisters and their cronies, but when a sharp reminder brings a past trauma rushing to the forefront of one’s brain, that brain often reverts to panic mode, and that’s what Sansa’s mind clearly did here:

Watch it again.  Listen to her voice shoot up by an octave.  Look at that flinch, that widening of her eyes, those darting glances off to the side, that vulnerable stare she couldn’t quite contain.

You’re abandoning your people.  You’re abandoning your home, she accused him aloud, trying to mask her sheer terror.  You’re abandoning me, she was silently begging Jon to hear, but he didn’t.  By his own admission, he was “consumed” with their enemies beyond the Wall – in fact, in his mind he was probably protecting Sansa better in the long run by going South and getting allies to defeat an enemy who would otherwise destroy her and all of Westeros to boot than he could by staying in Winterfell.

In other words, Jon meant well.  But all Sansa saw was another “brother” leaving her.  The only man who had consistently protected her, loved her, given her kindness and safety, and never left her side since her father’s death had decided to march South and risk throwing the North back into chaos and violence.  That doesn’t mean she didn’t understand his reasons; she knew Jon was only doing what he felt was best for her and the North.  But he’d still chosen to leave, reviving all of Sansa’s old demons of fear, loneliness, and abandonment.

But Sansa, with her skin of steel, waved Jon off dutifully and went about strengthening the North’s armies and food supplies.  She ruled it brilliantly and, even when he’d been gone for months and the Northern lords grew impatient, she refused to take Jon’s crown for herself, despite the fact that she probably shared their worries over the possibility that he might not return.  

Then Jon did return – only for Sansa to find that he’d done exactly, to all appearances, what Robb had.  He’d made an alliance with a foreign woman – not yet a marriage alliance, but after her fateful conversation with Littlefinger in season 7, Sansa had every reason to believe Jon would arrange to marry Daenerys.  Worse yet, this foreign woman was not an altruistic Volantene healer, as Robb’s wife had been, but, as Sansa probably suspected from her first conversation with Daenerys and certainly knew after their meeting in the great hall, a capricious, unpredictable war leader with a violent streak, two fully-grown dragons, and an utter disregard for the havoc they might wreak upon the North.

Jon may have meant well by bringing home the only ally who could give him a chance of saving Westeros, and, more importantly, his family from annihilation.  His laser focus on serving his temperamental queen, which initially had me distraught and angry, shows just how committed he is to defeating the dead no matter the cost, and his increasing discomfort around Daenerys shows his awareness of just how high that cost is becoming.  

But Sansa, like the Northern lords, didn’t see any of that.  She only saw was Jon’s willingness to placate a potentially nuclear time bomb to the detriment of his family and his people.  The little girl inside her who had waited and waited in vain for one big brother to show up and protect her, only to see him abandon her for his foreign interests, was now watching the other brother – her confidant, her protector, her co-ruler, her partner in crime, the only man with whom she could let her guard down and be Sansa rather than just the Lady of Winterfell – do the same.  We, as the viewers, got to see a more complete picture (albeit still a murky one) of Jon’s motives, but Sansa did not.

All she could see what that her brother and best friend had betrayed her.  

No wonder she snapped out the news about Lord Glover to Jon.  No wonder she stalked across the room to get as far as she could from him when he finally sought her out.  No wonder she didn’t bother concealing her disdain for Jon’s actions.  His apparent betrayal brought all the old insecurities roaring back tenfold - the old fear and panic and hurt from before, when Robb had left Sansa to the not-so-tender mercies of the Lannisters, and Sansa, already bearing the heavy burdens of leadership and of worrying over what Daenerys or her dragons might do next, couldn’t quite mask her feelings as well as she had when Jon had first left Winterfell.  She got snappy and sarcastic and cutting – and hurt.  Jon had promised to protect her and keep her safe – he even had, for a time.  She had been his beloved sister, the most important and cherished person in his world, someone with whom he could share all of his vulnerabilities and reassure her about hers, and now she had been abandoned in favor of a volatile tyrant who couldn’t feed her own army, much less refrain from threatening Sansa’s.  Completely apart from any romantic feelings that may or may not be involved (I can see where others think Jon and even Sansa have those feelings, although I personally don’t believe either of them acknowledges those tendencies at this point, especially given the way they were raised), Sansa had just been betrayed by her best friend, one who until recently was the only family member she had left in the world.  And despite her repeated warnings, he’d failed to be smarter than Robb.  He’d been even less smart, if possible, and Sansa found herself once again holding the bag and paying the price.  And if in the next few episodes Jon doesn’t get over himself and confide in her once again, the price could have deadly consequences – for Sansa, for the Starks, and for all the people Jon loves the most.

We know Jon is smarter than Robb.  But Sansa needs to know, too.  She deserves to know.  Until she does, Jon is just another brother who betrayed her.  She and Jon can’t rule the North, can’t play their roles in saving it and their family and Westeros, and can’t effectively rebuild the North together after the war is over by marrying each other to create the alliance Jon can never have with Daenerys and finally find the love they deserve with each other if Jon doesn’t clear the air and make it possible for them to trust each other, and, in the future, love each other the way Ned and Catelyn did.

[minyoongijjangjjangmanboongboong]

Ephemera Chapter Nineteen (END)

Ephemera: In art, transitory written and printed matter (receipts, notes, tickets, clippings, etc.) not originally intended to be kept or preserved.

Alternatively, things that exist or are used for only a short time.

Description: Nobody knows who Vante really is. Everything about the popular artist is shrouded in secrecy: from his face to his name to everything in between. After years of working for his art gallery, Y/N feels she may just be the closest thing he has to a friend. Between her success at work and her relationship with campus hot-shot Jeon Jungkook, Y/N’s life has never been better. But is Jungkook truly who he says he is? And who will Y/N protect now that she knows Vante’s livelihood may be on the line?

Genre: Romance, Drama, Fluff, Angst

Pairing: Jungkook x (f) Reader x Taehyung

Word Count: 7.0k

Tags: Non-Idol!Au, Gang!Au, Art History Student!Reader, Film Student!Jungkook, Art Student!Taehyung

Warnings: Swearing and mentions of alcohol, although infrequently

A/N: GUYS THE ALBUM!! THE MV!! JAMAIS VU, MAKE IT RIGHT, DIONYSUS!! TRULY THE BOPS OF ALL BOPS I CANNOT BELIEVE THE LEVEL OF ARTISTRY! EVERY TIME I THINK THEY’VE GOTTEN AS GOOD AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, THE DO SOMETHING BETTER!! God, I loved it. Anyway, this chapter! Haha we’ve finally reached the end of our journey! I can’t believe it, really. Anyway, please don’t be shy and send feedback, critique, questions, theories, and comments my way. I’ll be sure to respond to all asks I receive within a day of receiving them! Links will be added later, so for now check my masterlist to find previous chapters!

And again, if you want to follow my Twitter, my username is @/plzpunchmebts. I’m super active over there and hopefully in the future I’ll do some livestreams/chats with you all! And concert videos!!

ALSO BIG UPDATE: I’ll be taking a couple weeks off from writing series’ until after the BTS concert on May 4. I don’t want to get into a posting routine only to have to throw it off for that weekend. That said, I’ll be working on finishing REALLY OLD requests that I haven’t gotten to yet, so I’ll be posting! Just not series. (Although, I do have my next series planned and started. If you guys want spoilers for that, plz send me an ask hehe)

- Mercury

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

Masterlist

Weekly updates: Sunday, 1PM (PST)

My daughter,

I’m sure this letter comes as a bit of a shock to you. It’s a bit of a shock to me as well. I don’t know exactly where to start.

Leaving you was the hardest decision I ever had to make. But now that you’re older, I hope you can understand me. Even just a little. You were the biggest hope in my life, but I didn’t feel worthy of you. I didn’t want to raise a daughter whose only mother was dependent on someone else to support her. I didn’t have any options in the countryside, but I thought if I went to Seoul and came home successful…maybe you’d grow to respect me.

It sounds selfish writing it down. It was selfish. I am selfish.

To be honest, I didn’t intend on reaching out to you. As it stands, I’m working for a small company as a web designer. Not exactly the lofty dream I had when I left. I didn’t want to face you until I’d made something of myself, so you’d understand why I had to leave. But…well, things change over time I suppose.

I keep a close eye on the tabloids in Seoul because of my job, and when the news about Vante dropped I was intrigued. Truthfully, I’d been trying to get in with him for years. Ever since he showed up in the art scene. I wanted to help him market himself online.

I was perplexed, however, considering the fact that he seems quite reclusive and yet had a female companion with him in almost every photo. For a while, I was trying to figure out who that girl was so I could reach out to her. And as it turns out…you know the rest.

I don’t want you to think I’m exploiting you. I’d never want to do something like that. I’m really glad you were the girl, and not just for career aspects. I was shocked when I found out, and I immediately called a PI to find your address. It wasn’t cheap. But being able to speak with you after so long is a blessing.

I’d love to meet with you in person. Catch up. Talk about what you’ve been up to all these years. You’ve grown into such a beautiful young lady, and you’re doing so many exciting things. I’d love to hear all about them.

Please meet me at the address below on Sunday at 1 PM if you can. It’s a little coffee shop I like. I think it might be a nice place to reunite.

And I apologize for not writing a return address. I’m not sure how you’ll receive this, and I don’t want any legal trouble should you decide this letter is worth litigation.

Hoping to see you there.

Sincerely,

Mom

I’d read and reread the letter enough times to burn the script into my mind forever. If I shut my eyes, her words still floated around on the blacks of my lids. I’d never expected to hear from her again, and was content living my life independently from hers. Perhaps some deep, dark part of me was hoping to rub my success in her nose somehow, but…not like this. The nerve of her. To reach out to me after all these years…

Just because I knew Taehyung.

Something about that stung me in a place that was too tender to look at closely. I didn’t know why the pain was so visceral, but it felt deeper than just a blow to the ego.

I stared at the letter sitting on my coffee table, wrinkled and worn from my chronic folding and unfolding. It had only been a day, and my mind was still swimming in the letter. What right did she have to disrupt my life this way? Who was she to me anyway to be able to affect my waking hours? To consume my thoughts?

I sighed and flipped it over so I only saw my address. What a joke. She thought I might hand over the letter to the police or something? Everything about the letter disgusted me.

So why was that address now burned in the back of my mind?

I touched my pointer finger to my necklace, the ruby one Taehyung had given me so long ago, as I waited in the Sanyo Industries reception room. Yoongi sat beside me, playing with his hands. As decided during our meeting, Yoongi and I were dressed sharp: him in a nice pair of slacks and a pressed button-down, and me in my work skirt and a blouse I had to steam to get the wrinkles out. The reception area was vast, a wide room with wide windows and lots of empty space. The employee behind the desk eyed us now and then, and it was clear by the way she’d received us that she knew exactly who Yoongi was. She’d practically stuttered out her greeting as we entered the modern-looking office.

“Why should the son of a CEO have to wait in the reception office?” I mumbled under my breath with a sigh.

I hadn’t bothered asking Yoongi if he’d gone to meet Nara like I suggested, mostly for his own sake. Emanating from Yoongi’s very core was a jittery sense of anticipation. His eyes flashed wildly around the room, toward the elevators, toward the front doors, toward the marble floor. I’d never seen him so visibly nervous. He was always like Troy, impregnable. But it seemed his father was his own Trojan Horse, his undoing. I eyed him, awaiting a reaction, but none came. Almost like he didn’t hear me at all.

I gave his arm a poke and raised my brows as he jumped and looked at me with wide eyes. “Huh?” he asked, swallowing hard.

I sighed and crossed my arms. “Yoongi, you don’t look so good,” I said, tone softening as I watched him with furrowed brow.

He inhaled sharply and held his breath for a few seconds before letting it out in a puff that startled the receptionist. “Sorry,” he said quietly.

I smiled, attempting a gentle pat, but he was so jumpy that the touch of my palm on his shoulder almost made him shout. “If this is too much, you can go. Honestly, we mostly needed you to get me inside,” I said, then rolled my eyes and glanced out onto the street where Namjoon stood, smoking a cigarette. “Well, me and that idiot.”

Yoongi shook his head and braced himself on his knees, knuckles white as he held on to the tops of his knees. “No,” he said, shutting his eyes with a steadying breath. “I’m not here just to help you guys.”

I nodded. “Listen…you wanting to take responsibility — for yourself and for Nara — it’s really noble. I respect it. But…well, if you don’t mind me being a little nosy, you seem super rattled. I don’t know if this is the best move for your sake,” I said, watching him for any reaction.

He only opened his eyes and nodded, somber. “It’s probably stupid,” he said with a humorless laugh. “But…after spending so long with my head in the sand, I guess the guilt of it is catching up with me.”

“Guilt?”

He shrugged. “How many innocent people have had their lives ruined by my dad’s business? How many people like Nara have I just…left behind? Because it was too much responsibility?”

I raised my brows. “This is the first time I’ve heard you talking about reformation. You seemed a bit ambivalent,” I said, then shrugged. “Like Seokjin.”

“Neither of us are ambivalent, Y/N,” he said seriously, finally meeting my eyes head-on. “We both grew up seeing all the corruption and didn’t see any ways of making it better. Rather than ambivalent…we became cynical.”

I smoothed down my skirt, thinking. “I bet you’re not the only ones to become disillusioned,” I said, recalling that letter on my coffee table with a scowl. “Sometimes all we can do is accept that things are messed up and try to do the right thing on our own.”

He shook his head. “But what if I can’t accept that anymore?” he asked, brows knit as he implored me with his tender gaze. “What if I’ve been accepting it to avoid doing the right thing? Because the right thing is hard?”

I blinked at him, disarmed by the vulnerability in his eyes. “Yoongi…”

“I don’t deserve a free pass,” he said, serious as he scanned me. “Not when people are getting hurt.”

“What do you plan on doing?” I asked, raising my brows.

He settled back against his seat and his jitters slowed, knees stopping their anxious bounce. He anchored his gaze on something far away, perhaps something not physically here at all. “I’m gonna fix it.”

“Fix it?”

“The company,” he said with a steady nod. “From the inside. I’m gonna make it so that people don’t get hurt anymore. Like Ori.”

I watched him for a long moment, watched the way his jaw went staunch against his neck, and couldn’t help but admire his determination. Righteous outrage and a little bit of guilt. I exhaled in a puff and smirked, eyeing him sidelong. “Min Yoongi,” I said, and he glanced at me. There was an innocence in the rounds of his eyes, in the expectation in his parted lips. “You’ll do great,” I finished with a smile. I gave his shoulder a pat and nodded once.

He met my eyes and, slowly, a halfway there smile touched his features and he returned my nod. “Thanks,” he said, chuckling once, sharp.

“Excuse me?” called the receptionist, sounding uncertain. She had risen to her feet and was staring at us with her hands clasped in front of her stomach. She gave a smile I recognized from wearing it myself at work. “Mr. Min is ready to see you.”

I nodded and gave her a bow before catching Namjoon’s eye outside and jerking my head toward the elevator. He quickly stomped out his cigarette and rushed inside, smelling strongly of nicotine. I gave him a grimace and he responded with a smile, resting his hand on the small of my back and leading me down the hallway toward the elevator.

“Ah! Do you need help finding the office?” the receptionist called, craning her neck to peer after us.

Yoongi chuckled and shook his head, waving at her as he called for the elevator. “I think we’ll be okay. Thank you,” he said with a smile her way.

She blinked a few times before adjusting her hair and bowing, her head disappearing back around the corner. And, in silence, the three of us entered the elevator.

The CEO of Sanyo Industries was not the imposing man I was expecting. Perhaps I’d built him up as some sort of malevolent deity, but looking at him sitting in a chair that looked several inches too big for him, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, it was hard to see Mr. Min as the ruthless businessman I knew he was.

The office was spacious, like the reception area, and decorated with classic mahogany browns and deep reds. It looked like the sort of office you’d see in a rich man’s mansion. But Mr. Min himself didn’t quite match it. Mousy in the face with sallow skin and salt-and-pepper hair, he looked like someone’s quiet uncle, the one you only see at family get-togethers who you have trouble even making small talk with.

He cleared his throat and stared up at Yoongi and I, raising his brows. “Son,” he began, then chuckled, rubbing his nose bridge and shutting his eyes. “Is this some sort of marriage announcement?”

Yoongi sighed. “You’d know about any marriage before I would, Dad,” he said, eyes going dull.

“Well then, what brings you two here?” he asked, eyeing me. “And furthermore, who are you if not a fiancé?”

I glanced at Yoongi, waiting for him to speak. But he simply kept his eyes ahead, perhaps trying to tether himself to reality somehow. It wasn’t a part of the plan for me to be too vocal. And besides, I wasn’t so sure it was safe to speak much. If what yoongi said about his father was anything to go by, I’d be smart not to oppose him.

Namjoon had planned everything pretty meticulously. For the first time since arriving, I felt concerned that I’d mess up my role. And with Namjoon himself waiting outside the office so as not to spook Mr. Min right off the bat, I felt ill at ease with all of his attention squarely on me.

I played with the pendant on my necklace. “Uh,” I began, meeting the CEO’s eyes once more. “I’m, uh…I…work with Yoongi.”

He cocked a brow and smirked. “Ah, another criminal?” he asked, scoffing. “Really, Yoongi, when are you going to come to your senses and get serious?” His tone had taken a shift. Gone were the fleeting moments of jest and teasing. In its place was nothing short of frightful intensity, his gaze on Yoongi, boring into him through thin-rimmed glasses.

“Today,” said Yoongi, facing his father. “If things go well.”

Mr. Min leaned back and coughed a little, one of those innocuous old-man sounds that once again threw me for a loop. Was he any suburban dad you might see at the Han River or was he a cutthroat criminal?

“That’s…very good news,” he said, then eyed me with a scowl. “Although if you’re looking to get your friend a job, I can confidently say not a chance.”

I was nearly hurt by his comment before remembering just what sort of company he ran. I took my bruised pride and, clearing my throat, crossed my arms. “I’m not looking for work,” I said.

He hummed. “Well, Yoongi, I can’t say I’m unhappy to hear about your change of heart,” he said, giving Yoongi the ghost of a smile.

Yoongi cleared his throat and rubbed his palms together. “There’s a condition.”

“Condition?” asked Mr. Min, his expression darkening.

“Call off your hit on Ori.”

He chuckled. “You think having you under my wing is worth letting my biggest competitor go?” he asked, raising his brows. “That’s shockingly confident. Even for you.”

Yoongi shook his head. “No,” he said, locking eyes with his father. “I know that’s not enough.”

“Then what’s the rest of your bid?” he asked with a smirk. “You know you can’t prove I’ve got a hit on Ori.”

I cleared my throat and took a step forward, rifling through my bag to grab my phone. “That’s,” I began, but had to pause since my phone was hidden beneath my wallet. I chuckled to myself, nervous, and continued once I had my cell phone in my hand. “That’s where I come in.”

Mr. Min stared at me, but his teasing once again halted. Quietly, I pressed play on my cell phone. The recording played and I took the moment of respite to lean back, inelegant and unceremonious, to knock on the door twice, alerting Namjoon to his cue.

Mr. Min’s gaze went hard like obsidian and it locked on me. “That’s Kim Seokjin?”

Yoongi stepped forward, crossing his arms. “Take action against Jin and we’ll release the recording and tell the press. You might not be aware, but Y/N has become pretty intimately familiar with news outlets these days, being Vante’s secret woman and everything.”

Mr. Min’s face flushed and his eyes skittered between us like a cornered animal. “You’re her…,” he said with a nod. He rubbed his temples and an almost childish smile touched his face. Shutting his eyes, he nodded again as the door opened and Namjoon stepped inside. “You’ve outplayed me, haven’t you?”

Yoongi adjusted his cuffs and cleared his throat. “Sorry, Dad,” he said, sighing. “But I can’t sit back and watch you ruin people’s lives anymore.”

His father opened his eyes and they were sharp, angry, but there was a margin of respect in them. “So this is your offer? You come on under me and you don’t air Sanyo’s dirty laundry?”

Yoongi nodded once sharply. “Yes.”

He smirked and glanced at Namjoon who had taken the spot at my other side. “I suppose you’re here to discuss the logistics,” he said, chuckling. “You two can leave. This is a discussion between businessmen.”

Namjoon grinned and pulled out the plush chair in front of Mr. Min’s desk before settling in. “It is,” he said, turning around to smile at Yoongi and me. “I’ll meet you two downstairs when we’re done here,” he continued. Yoongi and I each turned halfway toward the door, and as my fingers clasped around the doorknob, Namjoon called, “Oh and Y/N?”

I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Yes?” I asked, eager to leave the intimidating place.

He smirked. “Have your friend send her resume to my secretary. She’ll schedule her for an interview with my hiring department.”

A small smile spread across my face as I opened the door. I nodded and he returned it, grinning. “I will,” I said, leading Yoongi out into the hallway once more.

I awoke to pounding at my front door. Groaning, I rubbed my eyes and pushed myself upright on the couch. I must have fallen asleep shortly after returning home from Sanyo. Namjoon had emerged two hours later with a big grin and a new contract with Yoongi’s father stating neither company would attack the other moving forward. And although Namjoon hadn’t been the one to strike first, his strategic prowess had proven extremely useful as by the end Mr. Min was offering a collaborative project. Namjoon wouldn’t tell me whether he’d accepted the project or not, but I suspected I knew his principles well enough to know exactly where he’d told Mr. Min to shove that offer.

Yoongi had stayed behind to hash things out with his dad, and he told me not to worry about him. Of course, I worried anyway, because as his back retreated back toward the elevator, he looked so small. Too small for this big corporate world.

But my worries were quickly assuaged as he turned slightly before entering the elevator and shot me a playful smirk and a wink. As I moved to respond, he quickly hopped into the elevator and that was the last I saw of him.

Once I’d gotten home, I’d practically fallen into a puddle on the couch, turning on the TV and letting whatever cable show was on play as my mind wandered away from me. I wasn’t sure when I’d fallen asleep or how long I’d been out, but the knocking was incessant and demanding.

Groggy, I wandered toward the door and opened it without checking the peephole, rubbing the back of my head with a groan. “Hello?”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

I pried my eyes open and saw Taehyung fuming in the doorway. I furrowed my brow and blinked at him. “What time is it?”

He sighed. “It’s midnight. Why are you still dressed up?” he asked, finally scanning me before shaking his head and waving his hands. “No, that’s not important! Why did you keep this whole plan from me? Don’t I have the right to know?”

My senses had returned to me and, gently, I took his forearm and led him inside the apartment. He followed, albeit unwillingly, and pouted down at me. He was dressed in leisure wear, likely having run here from his apartment once Namjoon told him what happened without so much as grabbing a jacket.

I sat him down on the couch and smiled. “I’m sorry,” I said.

He opened his mouth to say something but shut it quickly with a sigh, gripping his nose bridge. “Shit,” he mumbled. “I can’t scold you if you apologize first.”

I laughed and nodded. “I know,” I said, then shook my head. “I really am sorry, for what it’s worth.”

He eyed me from between his fingers and cocked a brow. “Why didn’t you tell me, though? Really?”

I rubbed his arm with a smile. “I didn’t want you to take this on too,” I said. “With everything that happened with the gala…I figured you’d do something unnecessary again. You’d handle things on your own and demand I stay out of it,” I began, pausing to rub my hands together. “I know it’s annoying, but I thought that there had to be a way to fix things without someone sacrificing themselves.”

“What about your friend? That Yoongi kid? Didn’t he sacrifice himself?” he asked.

I chuckled, remembering that mischievous wink, that boy with his head in his computer, that guy who saved a stray dog and bought expensive food for it. “No,” I said, smiling. “He’s found something new to be passionate about.”

Taehyung sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I hate that I can see your point,” he said, shaking his head. “I wish I could’ve helped you more.”

Gently, I touched the pendant on my collarbone and smiled at him. “You did help, Taehyung,” I said, and his eyes flashed toward me. “More than you can possibly know. You showed me that I’m stronger when I speak out. That I have what it takes to advocate for myself.”

His shoulders slumped with a sigh and he glanced toward the coffee table where Mom’s letter still sat, wrinkled. “You would’ve figured it out on your own eventually,” said Taehyung with a pout.

I smiled. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think I would have.” I sighed and watched the letter as if it might change the longer I looked at it. “It took you to shake it out of me.”

“Well…that’s one contribution at least,” he said with a sigh.

“It bothers me.”

He sat upright and stared at me wide-eyed. “Huh?”

I shook my head. “Not that you’ve been helping me, but that it took someone else pushing me for me to finally get myself together,” I said, brow furrowed as I leaned back against the couch cushions. I crossed my arms and stewed over it, still staring at the letter. “I feel like everything I’ve done has been because of either you or Jungkook.”

Taehyung stiffened. “Wait, what?”

I sat up and frowned. “Yeah. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get,” I said, thinking about that stupid letter. If not for Taehyung, I probably would never have heard from my mom again.

“Y/N, you just got home from blackmailing a billionaire CEO,” he said, raising his brows. “I don’t think any of that had to do with me or Jungkook.”

I shook my head. “I dunno,” I said, trying to name the gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Taehyung sighed and leaned into the couch, glancing up toward the TV. “What’re you watching?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, reclining beside him albeit uneasily as my thoughts kept swirling.

We both watched the screen for a moment and I felt the call of sleep beckoning again. Why with Taehyung did I always fall asleep? Perhaps he was a comfortable person. Our relationship had after all began when he left me trinkets while I slept at work.

“My agent wants me to start thinking about doing a documentary,” he said, like the thought couldn’t remain in his head.

I hummed. “Weird,” I said with a nod. “About you?”

“Yeah. Since public interest is so high right now, she thinks it might be a good time to start working on something,” he said, then shook his head. “But I don’t wanna be followed by a big film crew that I don’t know and everyone she’s suggested has been awkward.”

“Hm,” I said, resting my head against the back of the couch, eyes fluttering shut.

“I just want a small company, you know? If I’m going to do it, that is,” he continued, but his voice was growing more and more distant.

And before I knew it, I was asleep.

“Hey-wait, what the fuck?”

“Oh…sorry.”

“I…you…what are you even doing here?”

“I fell asleep.”

“Why were you here late?”

“Because I-…ah, forget it.”

I groaned and rolled over, tumbling off the couch and onto the rug. I stared up at the front door, the source of the noise, and saw Jungkook in the doorway. Smiling, I gave him a wave and pushed up to my bottom.

“Morning,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes.

Jungkook gave me a pout. “Don’t give me that cute face,” he said, jerking a thumb at Taehyung who, by that point, I’d only just begun to register as being in my apartment at all. “What’s he doing here?”

“He came over last night to scold me,” I said, standing to my feet with the help of the coffee table. My fingers brushed Mom’s letter and I recoiled like I’d touched a hot stove.

“Scold you?” asked Jungkook, eyes round. He tuned to Taehyung and frowned. “Why were you scolding her? And why didn’t you do it during business hours?”

“Jungkook,” I said, laughing as I approached. I gave his shoulder a pat before breezing past him into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I’d slept in my work skirt and blouse, so both were horribly wrinkled now. Great, and I still had to get to work in a few hours. “What are you doing here, Kook?” I called out into the hallway.

But to my surprise, both boys had followed me in to the bathroom and were beginning to cram themselves into the small space with me. I shouted as Jungkook shoved my pelvis into the countertop with his hip so he could perch on the toilet seat. Taehyung left a more reasonable distance between us and lingered in the doorway.

“I heard about what happened with Yoongi. Jin told me Yoongi’s leaving Bangtan and gave me an out too,” he said, then gave Taehyung a cautious look. “Can I talk about this with him?”

I chuckled and nodded, swishing my mouth with water. “Mhm,” I said.

Taehyung hummed. “So you’re leaving the shady business?”

Jungkook, his defenses lowering, nodded and returned his eyes to me. “Yeah. I want to do what I love instead.”

“What do you love?” asked Taehyung.

“I wanna make movies,” said Jungkook with a soft smile. “I bet you’d get it, being an artist and everything.”

Taehyung smiled and nodded. “Boy do I,” he said with a sigh. “Deciding to leave home and go it alone was really tough, but once I did it I never regretted it. Not even for a second.”

Jungkook grinned. “That’s comforting to hear, at least.”

I glanced between them a few times as the beginnings of a scheme began working in my brain. “You two are actually really similar, now that I think about it,” I said with a nod.

Jungkook scoffed. “No way,” he said with a snort.

I shot a warning glance at him and he quieted down. “I mean it,” I said. “You both see beauty in the ordinary and want to capture that.”

Taehyung raised his brows. “Is that something you’re interested in, Jungkook?”

He pouted and shrugged, watching the floor. “Yeah, I guess.”

Taehyung chuckled. “Man, I wish I would’ve known sooner! I take photos, so if you ever want to go and get some material, I’m free.”

Jungkook glanced up with wide eyes. “Huh?” he asked.

Taehyung nodded. “Yeah. Video is really dynamic, but I don’t have an eye for it. I’d love to see your process.”

Jungkook smiled, just a little, and sat up straighter. “Wait, you mean it?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Taehyung with a laugh. “Give me your number and we can plan something.”

I smiled knowingly and leaned back against the wall so the two could exchange contact information. “You know,” I began, rubbing Jungkook’s shoulder. “Jungkook’s working for a film company now.”

Jungkook stiffened. “N-Not yet! I just sent off my video, but-,”

“But you’re in. I saw that video, Kook. And, as an art curator, I’m telling you it’s good,” I said.

Taehyung’s eyes went wide. “For real?” he asked.

Jungkook shrugged, his knees spread wide as he sat slumped slightly. “Yeah. Probably, anyway.”

Taehyung scoffed. “Well…I might have a really big project for you guys if you’re interested.”

Jungkook stiffened. “What?”

“Let’s chat about it today. Y/N, do you mind if I steal him for a while?” asked Taehyung.

I smiled and gestured toward Jungkook with both hands. “He’s all yours.”

Jungkook glanced up at me, wide-eyed. “Wait, what’s happening?”

I chuckled. “Meet me after work, okay?” I asked with a smile, patting his shoulder as I slid past both of them to get ready for my shift.

As I was getting ready to leave work, I noticed a few text messages on my phone from while I was working. Smiling, I unlocked it and read over the text.

Nararawr: I’ve got an interview with Ori.

Nararawr: The receptionist said I had to interview properly if I wanted the job, no handouts.

Nararawr: IDK you did, but…thank you. I’ll be sure to do my best!

Nararawr: Yoongi came by my class on Monday. I assume that’s also your doing :P

Nararawr: He said he had some things to explain to me, so we’re meeting up on Friday to talk about everything. Methinks it’s a…*gasp*…DATE?!

Nararawr: At any rate, thank you. I won’t waste this opportunity. Thank you for letting me get this myself. I appreciate you more than I say.

I ran a finger along my screen and chuckled. Of course he’d gone. I knew he would. Gently, I typed out a response.

Y/N: Hey, I didn’t do much. I’m just glad everything worked out. Let’s meet up on Saturday to chat! I’ve also got some things to explain to you. And besides I wanna hear about you…*gasp*…DATE?!

I smiled and slid my phone into my purse, removing my ascot and stuffing it inside along with it. The shift was quick, quicker than usual as I’d been scheduled during a busier time of day. The midday rush had died down by the end, and Areum gave me a four-fingered wave goodbye as I made my way back toward the exit from the break room. But as I stepped into the hall, Mr. Kwon jogged up behind me and grabbed my shoulder. I jumped a little and spun around to face him.

“Y/N! Thank God I caught you,” he said with a breathless laugh.

I smiled and gave him a bow. “Is there anything I can help you with, Sir?” I asked.

“If you have time, I’d love you to join me for a meeting right now,” he said.

“With who?” I asked.

“It’s-,” he began, but paused with a chuckle.

He grinned and glanced over my shoulder as the elevator dinged and out walked a few familiar faces. No way. Two of the Japanese philanthropists I’d sold paintings to all those weeks ago. It felt like a lifetime. I bowed deeply at each of them.

“Hello,” I said once I stood upright once more.

“Ah! Are you going to be in the meeting as well?” asked one man with a smile.

I took a peek at Mr. Kwon who gave me an encouraging nod and a smile, and turned back to the philanthropists. “Um…yes,” I said with a smile.

“Wonderful!” he said. “I was telling Mr. Kwon that we’d love to have you.”

“Have me…?” I began, but Mr. Kwon simply laughed and shuffled me back into the gallery, leading all of us to his office.

I stared at the letter on my coffee table, now dressed in my favorite turtleneck and the same skirt I’d worn to meet Jungkook for our study date, months and months ago. Any minute, he’d show up in his car, awaiting my arrival so we could go somewhere. Anywhere.

And still, here I was. Staring at that stupid letter. What did I think would happen if I kept looking at it? Would it suddenly sprout wings and fly away? Would it burn up in flames?

My phone buzzed and I knew he was here. I leapt to my feet and, without thinking, swiped the letter and pocketed it before rushing out the front door to meet Jungkook downstairs.

Jungkook and I sat beneath the dome stars, resting on a blanket in the grass at a park by my apartment. One I hadn’t been to in a long time. Neither of us was saying much, not after the initial flood of information exchange. How he was going to be in touch with Taehyung regarding that documentary, how the two are actually pretty compatible, how everything had gone with Yoongi at Sanyo.

Now there was just silence. The comfortable kind.

I knew I had to tell him about what had happened in the meeting today. If anyone needed to know, it was him.

But I let myself indulge in the silence for a moment longer. “My mom wrote to me,” I said, resting on my palms as I stared up at the fresh, cloudless autumn night sky. Stars splayed out like paint splatters.

Jungkook glanced at me, eyes wide. “She did?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. She wants to meet me.”

“She…she does?”

“Yeah,” I said with a chuckle. “I thought…I thought I might feel really vindicated when this moment finally came, but I kinda just feel…empty.”

“Empty…,” repeated Jungkook softly.

I nodded. “Because she wants to meet with me to get to Taehyung,” I said with a nod. “Isn’t it a little pathetic? Reaching out to your estranged daughter once she can benefit you?” I chuckled. “And what’s more pathetic is that I’m actually considering going.”

“Y/N,” said Jungkook softly, chiding. “I’ll support whatever choice you make,” he said, eyes boring into me intently.

I smiled and leaned toward him, giving him a chaste peck, and nodded. “Thank you,” I said with a sigh. “You know, it’s been bothering me for a while now,” I said, touching the ruby necklace where it met my skin. “I wonder what I’d be on my own. Who I’d be. Without you or Taehyung or Dad or Nara or anyone supporting me.”

“That’s a sad thought,” said Jungkook softly.

I shook my head. “It’s not,” I said. “I wanna know, Jungkook. All my life…I’ve been holding on to people so tight that I forgot I’m also a person worth holding on to. I forgot that I’m a person at all.”

Jungkook reached out and laced our fingers gently, inching closer. “I understand.”

“And I appreciate you for that,” I said, chuckling. “But…I wanna know what I’m made of when I’m on my own. Up until now, the only thing making me move forward has been circumstance. I haven’t done anything by myself. I haven't grown because I actively wanted to become better, but because I’ve been forced to through my relationships with you. With Taehyung. With Namjoon. With…everyone.”

Jungkook nodded. “You wanna stand on your own two feet.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna see what you’re capable of,” he said, smiling.

I smiled too. “Which is why I’m gonna take a job offer in Japan.”

Jungkook coughed a little, sputtering, before staring down at me with wide eyes. “Wait, what? Where the hell did that come from?”

I laughed. “Today, my boss at the gallery offered me a year-long position at a new gallery they’re opening in Tokyo. He’s been having these talks with a bunch of philanthropists who I sold paintings to. I guess they really wanted to have me on the team at least for the first year to train new employees. I’ll be done with my degree in a few months anyway and I’ll be a manager,” I said, watching his expression change from shock to something like respect, mingling with a tinge of sadness.

“I…Y/N, that’s incredible,” Jungkook said, laughing as he swept me up in his arms. “I mean, I’ll miss you like hell but this is an amazing opportunity. You’d be crazy not to take it.”

I smiled and held on to him tightly, inhaling the sweet, gentle scent of his cologne, feeling the firm expanse of his chest. He rubbed my side, tender, and pulled back to press his palm against my cheek, smiling. “Let’s call it…our test period,” I said with a grin. He raised his brows. “After everything that happened, I can’t say I trust you one-hundred percent.”

He nodded. “I get it.”

“So…this year abroad,” I began, resting my hand atop his as he smoothed his fingers against my cheek. “If we still feel the same way about each other when I get home, then we can start again. For real this time.”

He swallowed hard and smiled, his thumb rubbing circles into my warm skin. “A test period,” he repeated with a nod. “I know I’ll pass.”

I laughed and gave his stomach a poke. “Don’t get cocky. I also have to pass,” I said with a smile.

“I’ll make sure you pass,” he said with a wink.

I shoved him away and stuck out my tongue, miming gagging. “We’ll see,” I teased.

He smiled. “I’m really proud of you,” he said.

I raised my brows. “You are?”

He nodded. “A few months ago, you wouldn’t be able to take this opportunity. You would have held yourself back and let it go to someone else.”

I blinked at my lap as I thought. “I…I guess so, huh?”

“The you from before…I don’t think the you today would like her much,” he said with a chuckle. “Do you?”

The letter suddenly felt heavy in my pocket, like it was burning a hole. Without another word, I pulled it out and stared at it, off-white, worn at the corners. And I took it in both hands before yanking each corner, tearing it clean in half. And again. And again. And again and again until the pieces were small as confetti. Then I opened my palm and let the gentle, chilly breeze carry the scraps away, gone forever into the streets of Seoul.

“That was brave,” said Jungkook from beside me, rubbing my back.

I smiled, a sense of ease washing over me, and turned to him. “I’m about to do something braver,” I said, meeting his curious eyes with a smirk.

I reached out and clamped both hands on his cheeks. He gasped a little as I yanked his face down to meet mine. I tried to convey with a kiss exactly what I needed him to understand. That he wasn’t a bad person, just lost for a while. That he deserved to be happy. That he was strong and smart and talented and so full of potential. That what I felt for him wasn’t something transient, like receipts, like a memo. That it was forever.

He leaned into the kiss, deepening it slightly with a tilt of his head. His lips were sweet with chapstick and soft, never pushy, gentle always. And as I slowly let my fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck, I felt him growing flushed, the heat from his face reaching mine through the small fraction of space between us.

Slowly, I pulled away and met his eyes, smiling. “I love you, too,” I said finally.

His eyes glittered with growing moisture and he smiled slightly, scoffing. “Jeez, baby,” he said, wiping his eyes. “You surprised me,” he mumbled.

I chuckled and reached around to the clasp on my necklace, removing it and holding it in my fingers. Slowly, I took his hand and flipped it palm up. I dropped the necklace and smiled at him.

“What’s this about?” he asked, eyeing me.

I closed his fingers around the necklace and patted his fist. “Hold on to that for me,” I said. “And don’t give it back to me until I come back from Japan.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll only take it back when I’ve proven that I can stand on my own two feet,” I said with a nod.

He furrowed his brow before meeting my gaze once more. “You want me to keep this for a year?”

I smirked. “It’ll also keep other girls from getting too cozy if they see that in your room.”

He gaped. “Y/N!” he shouted. “You really think I’m gonna be seeing other people while you’re gone?!”

I shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Wait…are you gonna see other people?!” he shouted, pointing an accusing finger my way.

“I dunno,” I repeated, giggling.

He frowned and leaned down to press a pouty kiss to my lips. “You’d better not or I’ll fly over there give you an earful.”

I laughed, ruffling his hair. “One year…are you sure you like me enough to hold out that long?”

His expression softened and he took my hand in his, pressing a kiss to my palm. “That much and more,” he said gently. “I’ll wait as long as I have to.”

And with that, I smiled and gave his hand a squeeze. I didn’t know where life would lead us, or what might change in a year. I wasn’t sure how I’d tell Dad, how I’d tell Nara. But I knew enough. I knew that the people in my life were good, that they deserved to be beside me. I knew that the ones who walked away from me weren’t meant to stay, and that they weren’t meant to come back either. I knew that the person I was becoming was someone I could finally believe in. And I knew that I could trust the people I loved to be there, always.

[ojpovkjopsk]

I slashed one man’s face open when he laid his hands upon me, and rode through the others

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[newstfionline]

Friday, February 12, 2021

House managers wrap up case against Trump (Washington Post) House managers on Thursday wrapped up their case against former president Donald Trump, imploring the Senate to convict him while warning that he could stoke violence again. Trump’s legal team is poised to respond on Friday, arguing that he should be acquitted. They are expected to use only one of two allotted days. A verdict could come as early as the weekend. The developments came on the third day of an impeachment trial in which Democrats have charged Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the Jan. 6 violent takeover of the Capitol.

California Is Making Liberals Squirm (NYT) California is a remarkable place. It also has the highest poverty rate in the nation, when you factor in housing costs, and vies for the top spot in income inequality, too. The median price for a home in California is more than $700,000. As Bloomberg reported in 2019, the state has four of the nation’s five most expensive housing markets and a quarter of the nation’s homeless residents. In much of San Francisco, you can’t walk 20 feet without seeing a multicolored sign declaring that Black lives matter, kindness is everything and no human being is illegal. Those signs sit in yards zoned for single families, in communities that organize against efforts to add the new homes that would bring those values closer to reality. Poorer families—disproportionately nonwhite and immigrant—are pushed into long commutes, overcrowded housing and homelessness. Those inequalities have turned deadly during the pandemic. There is a danger—not just in California, but everywhere—that politics becomes an aesthetic rather than a program. It’s a danger on the right, where Donald Trump modeled a presidency that cared more about retweets than bills. But it’s also a danger on the left, where the symbols of progressivism are often preferred to the sacrifices and risks those ideals demand.

6 killed in 130-vehicle pileup on icy Texas interstate (AP) A massive crash involving more than 130 vehicles on an icy Texas interstate left six people dead and dozens injured Thursday amid a winter storm that dropped freezing rain, sleet and snow on parts of the U.S. At the scene of the crash on Interstate 35 near downtown Fort Worth, a tangle of semitrailers, cars and trucks had smashed into each other and had turned every which way, with some vehicles on top of others. The ice storm came as a polar vortex — swirling air that normally sits over the Earth’s poles — has moved near the U.S.-Canada border, resulting in colder weather farther south than usual, said Steve Goss, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

History of abuse for Mexican police unit in migrant massacre (AP) When state police in northern Mexico allegedly shot 19 people, including at least 14 Guatemalan migrants, to death in late January near the border with Texas, it was a tragedy that critics say authorities had been warned could come. In 2019, prosecutors charged that the same Tamaulipas state police unit, then operating under a different name, pulled eight people from their homes in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, posed them in clothing and vehicles to make them look like criminals, and shot them to death. Now, a dozen officers of the 150-member Special Operations Group, known by its Spanish initials as GOPES, have been ordered held for trial on charges they shot to death at least 14 Guatemalan migrants and two Mexicans on a rural road in the border township of Camargo. The bodies were then set afire and burned so badly that three other corpses are still awaiting identification. Authorities had ample warning of the problems in the unit, which was created last year from the remains of the special forces group accused of the 2019 killings and other atrocities. A federal legislator even filed a non-binding resolution in Mexico’s Congress in early January to protest beatings and robberies by the unit. “If back then they had done something, if any attention had been paid, perhaps today we would not be mourning the deaths of 19 people,” said Marco Antonio Mariño, vice president of the Tamaulipas Federation of Business Chambers.

Brazilian ballerina born without arms soars with her attitude (Reuters) When Vitória Bueno’s mother first dropped her off at ballet class, she worried about her five-year-old fitting in. Born without arms, Bueno’s dream of being a dancer seemed painfully unrealistic—especially in a small town in rural Brazil. But Bueno, now 16, focused on her assemblés, pirouettes and other technical challenges. She took up jazz and tap as well. Now a regular at the ballet academy in her hometown in the state of Minas Gerais, Bueno’s talent has made her a social media star and an inspiration to many. Watching her glide across the wooden stage, synchronized with her colleagues in a dazzle of green and white, it is easy to forget she dances without arms. More than just realizing a dream, the strength and flexibility gained through dance have proven crucial to Bueno, who does everything from brushing her teeth to picking items off the supermarket shelf with her feet. “There are things she can do with her feet that I can’t do with my hands,” said her stepfather, Jose Carlos Perreira. With over 150,000 Instagram followers, Bueno is glad to be a role model for others too. “We are more than our disabilities, so we have to chase our dreams,” she said, flashing a broad smile.

German children suffer from psychological issues in pandemic (AP) A new survey of children in Germany suggests that the stress and depravations of the coronavirus pandemic are taking a toll on their mental health, especially among those from underprivileged families, researchers said Wednesday. The study by the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf found about one in three German children are suffering from pandemic-related anxiety, depression or are exhibiting psychosomatic symptoms like headaches or stomach aches. Children and teenagers from poorer families and those with migrant roots are disproportionally affected, according to the study. “Children who were doing well before the pandemic and feel sheltered and comfortable within their families will get through this pandemic well,” said Ulrike Ravens-Sieberer, the head of the study and research director of the children’s psychiatric clinic at the university hospital.

Koo d’etat (Foreign Policy) Indian lawmakers are threatening to abandon Twitter in favor of Indian lookalike app Koo amid a dispute with the Silicon Valley company. The Indian government has ordered the removal of hundreds of Twitter accounts and posts in recent days over claims that users are spreading misinformation about ongoing farmer protests. On Wednesday, Twitter announced it would not comply with some takedown orders as it deemed them in contravention of Indian law. India’s IT ministry posted its displeasure with Twitter on rival app Koo, as a number of Indian leaders, including Trade Minister Piyush Goyal encouraged a Twitter exodus. The Koo app has seen a ten-fold increase in downloads as a result of the spat—a total of 3 million in the past two days.

They were accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government. The evidence was planted, a new report says. (Washington Post) Key evidence against a group of Indian activists accused of plotting to overthrow the government was planted on a laptop seized by police, a new forensics report concludes, deepening doubts about a case viewed as a test of the rule of law under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. An attacker used malware to infiltrate a laptop belonging to one of the activists, Rona Wilson, before his arrest and deposited at least 10 incriminating letters on the computer, according to a report from Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensics firm that examined an electronic copy of the laptop at the request of Wilson’s lawyers. Many of the activists have been jailed for more than two years without trial under a stringent anti-terrorism law. Human rights groups and legal experts consider the case an attempt to suppress dissent in India, where government critics have faced intimidation, harassment and arrest during Modi’s tenure. Sudeep Pasbola, a lawyer representing Wilson, said the Arsenal report proved his client’s innocence and “destabilizes” the prosecution case against the activists. On Wednesday, Wilson’s lawyers included the report in a petition filed in the High Court of Bombay urging judges to dismiss the case against their client.

China to pull BBC News off the air, state broadcast regulator says (Washington Post) China’s broadcasting regulator has moved to pull BBC News off the air in the country over a “serious content violation,” the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported Thursday. China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) said in an announcement on its website that the broadcaster, which is partly funded by the British state but editorially independent, had “undermined China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.” The announcement, which arrived with the Lunar New Year holiday in China, followed recent disputes between Chinese officials and BBC News. It also came just a week after Britain’s media regulator pulled the Chinese state-run television channel CGTN off British airwaves because of alleged errors in an application to transfer its license to another company. In December, BBC News produced a report that alleged the forced labor of ethnic minority Uighurs in China’s cotton industry in Xinjiang. Chinese state media bristled at the work, calling it “fake news” and accusing the BBC of political bias.

Racialized surveillance (Foreign Policy) Following numerous reports of Chinese firms, including Huawei, singling out Uighurs in facial recognition, a Los Angeles Times/IPVM investigation found that Dahua, the world’s second-largest security camera manufacturer, provides Chinese police with “real-time warning for Uighurs” and informs them of “Uighurs with hidden terrorist inclinations.” In many parts of China, being Uighur is now effectively criminalized, with the few remaining Uighur residents of cities outside Xinjiang reporting routine harassment by police. The arrival of Uighurs, even mothers with children, in a new city or town prompts the arrival of the police and actions ranging from warnings to stay in their hotel or apartment to deportation back to Xinjiang. Dahua is rolling out its race-based systems to other countries, which may have their own least favored minorities to target.

Biden Announces Myanmar Sanctions (Foreign Policy) U.S. President Joe Biden has announced U.S. sanctions against Myanmar’s military junta, ten days after the military seized absolute power and arrested members of the country’s democratically-elected leadership. Biden is to freeze $1 billion in Myanmar’s state assets held in U.S. banks, with further sanctions expected to follow against a “first round of targets” this week. But Myanmar’s generals have endured sanctions before—including recent ones over the ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya minority—and so whatever the international community can muster is unlikely to dislodge them.

Digital siege: Internet cuts become favored tool of regimes (AP) When army generals in Myanmar staged a coup last week, they briefly cut internet access in an apparent attempt to stymie protests. In Uganda, residents couldn’t use Facebook, Twitter and other social media for weeks after a recent election. And in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, the internet has been down for months amid a wider conflict. Around the world, shutting down the internet has become an increasingly popular tactic of repressive and authoritarian regimes and some illiberal democracies. Digital rights groups say governments use them to stifle dissent, silence opposition voices or cover up human rights abuses. Regimes often cut online access in response to protests or civil unrest, particularly around elections, as they try to keep their grip on power by restricting the flow of information, researchers say. Last year there were 93 major internet shutdowns in 21 countries, according to a report by Top10VPN, a U.K.-based digital privacy and security research group. The list doesn’t include places like China and North Korea, where the government tightly controls or restricts the internet.

Japan Olympics chief who said women talk too much will resign over remarks, reports say (Washington Post) The head of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee is set to resign, Japanese media reported on Thursday, after an uproar over sexist remarks he had made about women at a meeting last week. Mori, an 83-year-old former prime minister with a record of insensitive and sexist pronouncements, had tried to justify the lack of women at a senior level in the Japanese Olympic Committee by saying women talk too much at meetings and make them run on too long. The following day he apologized but showed no apparent remorse and said he had no intention of resigning. The comments provoked an unprecedented reaction in Japan, with more than 146,000 people signing an online petition calling on him to step down. Nearly 500 Olympic volunteers withdrew, and one poll found less than 7 percent of respondents thought Mori was qualified to continue in his role. The World Economic Forum ranks Japan 121st out of 153 countries in terms of gender parity, with the largest gender gap among advanced economies.

20 UN peacekeepers injured in an attack in central Mali (AP) An attack on a United Nations base in central Mali has injured at least 20 peacekeepers, the U.N. mission spokesman said Wednesday. The temporary U.N. base in Kerena, near Douentza, was the target of direct and indirect fire early Wednesday morning, Olivier Salgado said in a statement on Twitter. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group stage regular attacks on U.N. peacekeepers and soldiers.

Salesforce declares the 9-to-5 workday dead, will let some employees work remotely from now on (The Verge) Cloud computing company Salesforce is joining other Silicon Valley tech giants in announcing a substantial shift in how it allows its employees to work. In a blog post published Tuesday, the company says the “9-to-5 workday is dead” and that it will allow employees to choose one of three categories that dictate how often, if ever, they return to the office once it’s safe to do so. The company joins other tech firms like Facebook and Microsoft that have announced permanent work-from-home policies in response to the coronavirus pandemic. “As we enter a new year, we must continue to go forward with agility, creativity and a beginner’s mind—and that includes how we cultivate our culture. An immersive workspace is no longer limited to a desk in our Towers; the 9-to-5 workday is dead; and the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks,” writes Brent Hyder, Salesforce’s chief people officer. “In our always-on, always-connected world, it no longer makes sense to expect employees to work an eight-hour shift and do their jobs successfully,” Hyder adds. “Whether you have a global team to manage across time zones, a project-based role that is busier or slower depending on the season, or simply have to balance personal and professional obligations throughout the day, workers need flexibility to be successful.”

At first cat lawyer was embarrassed. Then he realized we all could use a laugh. (Washington Post) As far as courtroom disclosures go, this one was unique: “I’m not a cat,” a Texas attorney claimed as his Zoom square displayed a fluffy white feline. At a routine civil forfeiture case hearing in Texas’ 394th Judicial District Court, Presidio County attorney Rod Ponton accidentally signed on with the cat filter, making the flummoxed attorney look like an adorable kitten. The 34-second clip of Ponton’s brief appearance as a cat immediately amused many and is becoming a viral hit. The prevalence of video chat platforms for court appearances has led to other unusual moments: A defendant in Sacramento appeared from a barber’s chair, a Florida burglary suspect tried to flirt his way out of trouble with a judge, and a lawyer in Peru was caught on camera naked after he stripped to have sex. But Tuesday’s video was the cat’s pajamas to many. Even Ponton, once he recovered from cat face and mortification, found humor in his proverbial 15 minutes of fame. “At first I was worried about it,” Ponton, 69, told The Washington Post on Tuesday, “but then I realized as it was going viral if the country could take a moment to laugh at my cat moment at my expense, I’ll take it. We’ve had a stressful year.”

[varun-krishnan]

High School: Good Luck Keeping Your  Cool

        Are you reading this because you have to or because you want to? Do you have the self-control to finish reading this paper if you wished? Or do you have the ability to rebel against reading this paper if you’re only looking at this sentence through obligation? These questions about control, rebellion, and independence are what thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche to W.E.B Du Bois implore us to answer. I don’t claim to have answered those questions; instead, I have explored them through the context of my life and the paradigm of cool. After all, in our society, the word cool is like a cellphone, people use it every day but have no idea of its inner workings. But by reflecting on the thoughts of those who have studied the word, and relating it to my own life, I can hope to unscrew the casing and at least glimpse what lies underneath.

        I grew up in a high school that viewed class participation as a God, and everyone from the teachers to the students worshipped it as such. Your grade hinged on how you acted in class, and if you couldn’t speak up, you were going to be lacking a certain vowel on your transcript. Most of my peers and I were happily oblivious to our grades throughout middle school, and so class involvement was just an abstract idea floating beyond the horizon of reality. But as we walked into the jaws of high school, the pervasive stench of college applications began to affect everyone. Soon, I noticed that the classroom was a jungle of outstretched hands swaying back and forth for the teacher’s attention. People were making noise just for the sake of making noise so that subconsciously the instructor would think they were participating more. And don’t even get me started on how much “funnier” the teacher’s jokes suddenly got. I felt like I wasn’t surrounded by my friends anymore, but these alien life forms whose mission was to capture as much of the teacher’s attention as possible. The worst part is...I started turning into those unrecognizable creatures as well. I begin to tune out the material taught and instead, solely focused on what I was going to say next. I stopped refining and re-refining my thoughts in my head and instead, blurted half-baked thoughts as they spawned into my consciousness. I used to prize ideas that I contributed, but now I simply jumped from concept to concept without being committed to any of them. Perhaps worst of all, I hated all of it. I was despised and ashamed of how shallow and artificial I was, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to jump off the train because I had no idea where I’d land. Now I know, however, that I would have landed in the cool.

        The rejecting of my individuality and acceptance of superficiality is profoundly uncool. Just look at Oscar Wilde who said “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation(De Profundis).” And he’s right. My classmates and I didn't love trigonometry or enjoy discussing some long-forgotten battle, but we sure acted like we did. Our thoughts sought to mirror that of our teachers and hence, we were no longer ourselves. And this hollow imitation we lived, through the lens of Oscar Wilde, was uncool. Oscar Wilde was far from the only person who recognized the importance of one’s identity. W.E.B Du Bois wrote about how his racially discriminated peers “shrunk into tasteless sycophancy(The Souls of Black Folk)” and how they failed to realize that for one “to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another(The Souls of Black Folk).” Were my friends and I too not tasteless sycophants seeking to flatter our way to a better grade? I, like many of Du Bois’ audience, thought I had to slip into the skin of someone else if I was to fit into the world. But Du Bois, just like Oscar Wilde, drew from the wells of cool to preach the importance of remaining true to yourself.

        I gave up another aspect of myself during my high school experience: self-control. And in the bible of cool, there’s no greater sin than relinquishing control. For example, Robert Farris Thompson in his studying of the aesthetic of the cool argues “Control, stability, and composure...seem to constitute elements of an all-embracing aesthetic attitude(An Aesthetic of the Cool).” You would see none of those traits if you walked into my high school classrooms. I learned that being composed meant being unable to contribute your thoughts amid my unconstrained peers continually trying to make sound. Our class discussions were as shifting as the tides, and new waves steadily erupted as people tried to change the topic to what fell into their minds. And hence, I lost all self-control. I could no longer prevent myself from foregoing my tendency for careful thought and instead, succumbing to the mindless chatter around me. As Thompson would say, I no longer exhibited “the intelligent withholding of speech for the purposes of higher deliberation(An Aesthetic of the Cool),” and hence, I no longer fit into the definition of cool. Nietzsche too held the same notions about control when he said: “Virtues are as dangerous as vices in so far as one lets them rule over one as authorities and laws(The Will to Power).” Nietzsche argues that, just like how authorities and laws can control you, so do virtues. Being able to involve myself in school was always taught to me by my friends, my parents, my teachers, almost everyone really, as a beneficial value I must adopt. But as the German philosopher acutely points out, virtues can exert great control over you, and if you’re not careful, it can leave you like a marionette with loose strings for anyone to seize.

        I’ve spent most of my life never rebelling, and I can never hope to find even signs pointing to the highway of cool if I haven’t shown defiance. I grew up in a household that revolved around risk, specifically how best to eradicate it. My father taught us that predictability would lead to success, which, in his eyes, meant doing well in school, becoming a doctor, and safely investing your money till retirement. He wanted to ensure our financial stability as we grew older and beseeched us to follow the well-beaten route to the top without getting distracted by the side trails continuously dotting the path. And hence, when faced with the choice to either jump in the boat with my classmates to float safely to an A, or to bid farewell and strike out on my own to explore the turbid tributaries, I, of course, chose the former. But that is wholly uncool.�� 

        The authors of Cool Rules put it succinctly when they wrote “Cool is an oppositional attitude adopted by individuals or small groups to express defiance state to authority(Cool Rules).” My injected sense of caution couldn’t have led me farther from the attitude Pountain and Robins are describing. The problem with defying authority is that it is inherently risky, and you never know the consequences of such an action. The thought of disobeying my teachers scared, and still does scare, me because you’re no longer on the surest path to success. But being in a “private rebellion(Cool Rules)” is critical to the art of cool, and without it you are, as Nietzsche would say, “a herd animal, something eager to please, sickly, and mediocre(Beyond Good and Evil).” And that’s a pretty accurate way to describe my classmates and me. Herd animals that are corralled by the teacher and graze on her approval. This sentiment is furthered by Oscar Wilde’s assertion that “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made(The Soul of Man Under Socialism).” For Wilde, disobedience is an integral part of humanity that has helped us continuously propel the wheel of progress forward. In his eyes, there was no progress in our classroom, no one was pushing the teacher to be her best self by questioning her, and in turn, no one was pushing us to become better by questioning us. Everyone simply said what everyone else wanted to hear, and as Wilde predicted, neither the teacher nor the student grew as a result. And if you can’t even find a way to grow in life, how do you expect to be cool?

        Too many people say that they were the coolest when they were in high school. And yet, from studying the true meaning behind the word cool, I would say they couldn’t be farther from the truth. My high school ran off with my individuality and left me with only a threadbare blanket of superficiality with which to shamefully wrap myself. And, as both W.E.B Du Bois and Oscar Wilde described, individuality is central to a person's being. Furthermore, I lost my ability to control myself and was instead forced to sing a song I despised. This loss of self-control, in the eyes of Nietzsche, bound me down just like any law or authority figure would. Thompson too valued self-control, stating that if you can’t even teach yourself how to stay quiet, you can never hope to become cool. Finally, my dad’s instruction to always color in between the lines left me passive and obedient, adjectives that, in the eyes of Cool Rule’s authors, would be noticeably absent in any cool man’s dictionary. Hence, no matter how cool I, or any of my classmates, thought we were in high school the thinkers who actually analyzed the essence of the word would only smile(well maybe not Nietzsche) and shake their heads in dissent.

[theartoflosingcarkeys]

The Art of Losing Car Keys

September 4th

I awake from a dream about my father at 3:06 a.m.  I have had this very dream before.  In my dream, my father is younger than River is presently, and I am somewhere in my 20’s.  Somewhere familiar. Somewhere intimate. Somewhere close.  My mother is also still alive in the dream and she tells me frantically over the phone that my father is lost and that I need to find him before the colder weather draws in from the distance before nightfall. I cannot recollect when I started driving, but I am in the truck I drove in high school (94 Ford Ranger) and I searched, turning along Riverside and Peoria.  The roads should be familiar, I should be able to recognize where I am but somewhere in my mother’s hysteria it occurs to me in the dream that I am drunk.  Each road I turn down, each side road I venture I am more lost. A great numbness feeling washes through me and I know he is out there, and I cannot protect him from what is heading his way.  By the end I finally stop the truck and realize my father is out there and I am unable to find him in all those familiar roads, and all those side streets I have ventured.  Somewhere in all that distance.  Somewhere in all my familiarity.  Somewhere in my inevitability.  I am still out there lost.  I wake up and Jackson’s breathing sounds congested. 

Jackson wheezes through night so at 4:45 a.m. I message every mother in the history of the world, this message, “Jackson is slightly wheezing, it is freaking me out, should I be freaked out?”  The coalition of; Mothers Keeping Neurotic Fathers Calm’ message me suggestions and feedback.  I watch Jackson for 30 minutes without blinking.  Afterwards, I step on Kayla while looking for my phone charger, her eyes dart and shift like a rodent sifting through trash when unexpectedly you flash a light on, in a finger flicker, illuminating the area and those sharp eyes peer back at you, so you apologize for interrupting, and vow to be more cognizant of their privacy.

Like George Orwell’s ‘1984’ River’s mind is boggled in new school bus procedures, tearing his 6-year-old mind to pieces, and placing them back together in new shapes from the schools choosing.   We role play these procedures in different masks pretending to be different people, in different scenarios, knowing fully one day we may wake up as different people that we do not recognize with all our concealment.  They say wearing ‘Masks’ is the new wearing under garments.  They say ‘Purging’ is the new ‘thinking thin’.  They say homeschooling is the new craze.  They say public school is the new ‘alternative learning’.

Bus Procedures: All students must wear a mask.  Always wear the mask. Never not ever ever, ever not ever, never take off this MASK. And in bold italic in the public-school handout, “Masks are the new letterman’s jackets” Masks are the new personality the manual implores.  Masks are the new humiliation the procedures declare.  Masks are the new individuality of the procedure manual scribes. 

MASK CLUB

First rule of wearing masks, is you do not take of your mask.  2nd rule of wearing mask, you do not take off your mask.  Third rule; Get on the bus and look straight at the camera and state your name. 4th Rule: if you do not have a name, describe your mask, and that will be your label.  River’s mask has an array of superheroes depicted, so he goes by the new label, from the new shapes in his tiny mind the school has chosen, and his name is, “Captain American” until college.  Before Captain America gets on the bus, before the procedures funnel him in like drones and cattle, I almost cry seeing him off to school but I remind him, “Hey forest, I will be right here waiting for you when you get off.”  And with the winding belch like squeeze from the school bus door, Captain America is gone.  I watch the bus until it decreases into the great wide-open horizon.  I am your Forest Gump and Captain America is my Forest Gump Jr.  Phoenix pulls on my shirt as I have this imminent imagery running through my head, and I say, “Okay, you can be Forest Gump the 3rd”

My time with Phoenix without River is strange.  My time with Phoenix without Jackson is odd.  I realize him being my middle son, if it were not for getting sober, I would have never realized how independently unique he is.  He is wild and beautiful.  Perhaps the most beautiful of all the wild that remains.  We play games together, we mostly talk trash back and forth, and other than the dimple in his chin that they say looks like mine, it is in this jargon of gibberish back and forth banter that I know we are related. 

Everything around the boys and I is changing and evolving and adjusting and adapting in the first week of our new roles.  In many ways it is like America, everything is happening too quickly.  (I think Hubbard wrote that line in the Way We Were… we will keep it in because let us get real, Robert Redford has an amazing narrative and flowing blonde hair.)

We have upgraded cubicles for lockers, and masks for identity.  We have upgraded an absent father to a present co-parent and fictitious names of our own inventions.  Behind those masks are the real versions of us, yet we all wear so many masks and walk into and out of so many different worlds; Some days we are the last beautiful remaining wild things.  Other days we are Captain America.  There are days we are absent, and there are days we are present. Sometimes we fall, and other days we are strong.  But behind all these different masks are versions of us searching and seeking for something.  Purpose maybe.  Love of course.  For some of us we are searching for redemption.  Searching to make things right from our past.  Some days we are so remarkably close, and some nights we lose our fathers on the familiar roads, fading off into the distance of our dreams.

[ourhomesnotnursinghomes-blog]

Dear Alan Feinstein,

               After reading your letter to the editor in Newsday, I was compelled to respond.  My name is Erica Mones and I am a 21-year-old college student and I have a developmental disability called cerebral palsy.  Although I am physically disabled, I have been able to be relatively successful: I was accepted to  16 of the 20 colleges I applied to, my senior year of high school I was on a town-wide task-force for disability rights, last year I interned as research assistant for a history professor, in October I was elected and currently serve as a senator on my school’s Student Government Association, and most recently, I landed an internship at my school’s Center for Community Service and Justice.  On the surface, I am a successful go-getter, someone who makes the most of her situation, however, much of my success can be attributed to luck.

               I was diagnosed with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy when I was just two months old.  My mom describes the day as the “scariest day of [her] life” because she did not know what my future looked like.  Doctors warned her that I may never be able to speak, walk, feed myself, or be fully independent.  One of these predictions came true—I am not and will never be fully independent.  But I am constantly reminded of how fortune I am to be able to live within my community.  Some of my closest friends have significantly more pronounced disabilities than me; many who cannot walk at all or feed themselves, many others who cannot keep traditional jobs because of behavioral and mental disabilities.   Many of them do not have the privilege of living in their communities.  What my mom feared most for me is a reality for many of my friends.  

Many people with severe cognitive and/or physical disabilities are forced into institutions because they are thought to be a burden on society and dangerous.  Your letter exemplified this perfectly, as you asked that the town to consider the safety of the residents on your street.  I am sure that your concerns are valid, but why do disabled people not have the same right as their non-disabled peers to exist in mainstream society?  The alternative to group homes is putting people in institutions, where they are often vulnerable to neglect and abuse.  A prominent case occurred in Queens in 2012 when an autistic man named Rasheen Rose was killed by a staff member at one of these institutions.

While group homes are not much better than institutions (an investigation in Oregon revealed low-level neglect at many facilities), keeping group homes segregated from neighborhoods can only ensure that neglect is more likely to go undetected.  Disabled people need to be a part of their community in order for them to be safe.

I also implore you to remember that regardless of disability, people who do not have a history of endangering others should not be locked away just because children live close by.  Children would benefit from being exposed to disability.  People can only learn the most important about disability from encountering it—that disabled people are no less human.  It is difficult to discern whether someone is dangerous before even meeting them, and not giving them a chance is prejudiced.  My hope is that the children on your street will not have to learn these prejudices, and instead be open-minded about disability and other forms of human diversity.  People like you and me are no better than those with severe disabilities, so we have no right to let our misconceptions about disabilities prevent others from living in our communities.  Thank you for your time.

 Erica

[mitchellkeat-blog]

I hope that all of you enjoy the fireworks and time with your families, I really do. I'd just like to take a moment right now on our Independence Day to remind you that not everyone here is free. In fact, for many marginalized groups of people, it seems that there is no justice and no peace. When the holiday is over and you've had your fun, I'd implore you to take a good look around you and ask yourself, "Is this country really as perfect as it seems? Does everyone REALLY have all of the important civil liberties that we take so much pride in?". I think if you open your eyes and can be brutally honest with yourself, you'd realize that the answer is no. Especially if you're white, like me. You'd realize that while we've been soaking up the American Dream, others still struggle to survive. Others fear being beaten by police. Others are raped. Murdered. And we just sit on by, pretending that it isn't happening. Pretending that America is just this utopia, the really cool place that our history classes made it out to be. But it's not. Yeah, I know what you wanna say. "But, you have no idea how easy we have it! We have more freedom than anywhere else in the world." Even if that is true, that does not excuse the injustice. That does not excuse the bad parts of our history and our present day shortcomings. We HAVE come a long way from where we started, we really have. Not gonna deny that one bit. But you are mistaken if you think that the marginalized citizens of this nation are just gonna take our "freedom" for what it is and be content with it. They deserve more. And we owe it to them, without a doubt. #independenceday

[sepiadice]

In defense of alignments

I avoid homebrew systems. I’m more than happy to sit down for homebrew settings, or accept any limitations you wish to introduce, but as soon as you begin tweaking with or adding mechanics, I’m out. Further, I will not touch your heartbreaker with my standard issue ten-foot pole.

Mostly because I prefer systems designed to be as intuitive as possible,[1] as simple and user friendly as possible, and so adding new mechanics, mostly only noted down for the GM’s eyes, so I don’t even have a standard issued reference book.[2]

Also, most of the time, the presented selling points are either:

Hey! I fixed the magic system![3] Hey! I fixed/got rid of the alignment system!

On that last point… well, fair play if you just ditched it. I personally like it, but plenty of systems function perfectly fine without it.

Still, the odd vitriol felt for alignments always confused me. It’s possibly a feeling grandfathered in by grognards and outdated GMing philosophies, which deserves to be challenged and considered.

I believe the biggest misunderstanding is simply thus:

Alignments are a starting point and basic reference for a character’s motives, not the be all end all of them.

Like introducing someone as a vegetarian, it just gives a general thrust of their personality, but they probably possess more depth than not liking meat.[4]

There’s a reason alignment is kept in the same box as Name, Race, and Class: they’re important to know, but it’s flexible trivia.

Yes, my character may be a rogue, but Trix has never stolen a thing. She’s a stage magician.

Alignment does have a few mechanical components, but such spells only tell you what team they’re generally on.

Besides, it’s always a super fun discussion topic to debate where characters fall on the chart.[5]

Just because a character is Lawful Good doesn’t necessarily mean they’re unmovable goody-goodies.

I mean, take Sam Vimes as an example. He’s a man that believes in Law, with a capital L, and is steadfast in bringing justice the proper way, even when other means are simpler. Yet he is rough and tumble, very suspicious of those around him, and believes, at all times, that deep down he is not a good person, despite every action showing otherwise. He is a Lawful Good Character that is conflicted and complex.

Heck, Even Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, a near textbook goody-goody, who resolves child gang conflicts by introducing them to football and a ridiculous scouting set up, still has a sense of cunning to him. He memorizes the law book, to the punctuation, and thus knows it well enough to exploit Exact Words.

The best advice I’ve heard about playing a paladin, the paragon of Lawful Good, is not to play them as men avoiding the breaking of their vows and falling. The best way to play a Paladin is with the knowledge that, as with apples and birds, even those with a higher purpose must someday descend. The question isn’t If they’ll fall, but When. The paladin must always be asking themselves ‘Is this the cause worthy of me sacrificing my powers and position?’

Maybe they’ll be lucky, and the answer is always no, and they reach their ends days as a paladin.

But they must always be ready to consider it. The final weapon in the Paladin’s arsenal.

AD&D instituted a vow of poverty on paladins not as a limitation, but to tell the player that, hey, your character can’t put their own glory and profit above the cause. They serve their god and the people, willing to sacrifice what’s necessary, including their very Paladinship.

Returning to the broad concept of alignments: with the right consideration, alignments don’t even limit a character’s narrative role.

One of literature’s most famous antagonists is arguably Lawful Good: Inspect Javert. ((the song “Stars” is an example of a wrong-thinking paladin, and is thus beautiful)) Heck, Javert could be played as a wrong-thinking paladin, and still be impressive. At least, based off my knowledge gleaned from the Movie and the 25th Anniversary concert of Le Mis.

Javert’s main belief is that law is the only path. Now, that may sound like Lawful Neutral (and I admit is a valid reading), but his solo, “Stars”, makes it very clear that Javert equates abiding the law with being a good and pious person. He doesn’t follow the law because there’s no other way, he champions the law because he views it as wholly good.

It’s why Javert takes Valjean as his nemesis. Valjean is a scofflaw, lies his way to power, and flees the law. A good man, Javert believes, wouldn’t do such things. It’s only after several chance encounters, over the course of years, maybe decades, for Valjean’s true nature to be crystal clear to Javert.[7]

Because, until their final encounter, Javert could always be suspicious. Always know that Valjean’s morally good acts must have some devious intentions. Valjean becomes a mayor for power. Adopts the daughter of a dead woman as a cover or to con money from people. He’s at the barricades because he’s an anarchist.

It’s only when, alone with one another, and Valjean being able to kill Javert without any possible repercussions, able to rid himself of the one man who knows Valjean’s history and will not cease hunting him when possible, that the truth becomes clear. With nothing to gain, and when it is tactically disadvantageous, Valjean spares Javert.

And Javert’s realization that law and goodness can be independent of one another shocks Javert so deeply, so thoroughly, that Javert can no longer bare to live. His Lawful Good alignment is so core to him, that he ceases once it breaks.[8]

Javert is solidly Lawful Good.

In Pratchett’s Night Watch, as it is subtly parodying Les Miserables, Sam Vimes is essentially cast broadly as Javert, taking only the barricade from Valjean. This is because, as a Lawful Good Character, Vimes can only don the boots of another Lawful Good character.

Comparing Javert and Vimes also showcases a nice bit of fidelity to the alignment system: how the character internally defines the terms, and how resolutely they hold it.

Javert believes Good comes from the Law. When the two are opposed, Javert’s rigid beliefs allow him to only crumble.

Vimes believes the Law serves the Good. When they are opposed, the Law must be redefined to support Good.

So, when building a character, maybe consider how an atypical alignment might feed into story roles.

Admittedly, it’s hard to make a Chaotic Evil hero. I can think of no perfect examples, with only Belkar Bitterleaf (who’s a supporting protagonist) coming close. Sure, they can be protagonists, moving the plot forword by their actions, which 8-Bit Theater showed us with Black Mage, but a protagonist is different than a hero.

A hero has to have admirable traits. It’s literally in the definition. It’s hard to admire someone who, by their alignment, is entirely selfish and focused on disorder.

Lawful Evil at least has a code of ethics, so with the right plot, they can be forced to do right if it suits their purpose. Even neutral evil can swing that way. Chaotic Evil might be locked out of the Hero badge. But I’d be happy to hear arguments against that idea.

Honestly, the only alignment I find restrictive is, ironically, Chaotic Neutral. Because that means you’re solidly dedicated to anarchy and so forth. Good for comedic characters, certainly, but not for much else. Even True Neutral can be moved into various positions based solely on the need for survival, but CN is bound by the need to justify their chaotic label.

Again, in a straight comedy, or a comedic bit character, that’s good. They can even be used to incite conflict. But it’s hard to tell a compelling, serial narrative without being forced by character growth to position the CN elsewhere.

So, for those of you who dislike D&D’s alignment system, that’s fine. Feel free to disregard it. It’ll leave no damage.

But I implore you. Don’t just put in a different alignment system. That’s just being petty. Either eschew it, or embrace it. And let those of us who like it have our fun.

Thank you for reading. If you want to see more content from me, please consider supporting my patreon. I’m intending to expand the scope of my tabletop output, and money would help that along immensely.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting!

[1] See: my many snipes at (and one full essay about) my hatred of Shadowrun. [2] For those who want to snark about my love of GURPS: that’s a system whose necessary components fit in a 32-page document, and that’s still bogged down by overwritten text. Heck, it can be distilled down to a single sheet of paper. [3] Possibly an essay topic for another time. [4] Maybe that is the full extent of their personality, but I probably don’t want to be their friend. [5] Maybe if literature classes brought that aspect into analysis, I’d make fun of the subject a little less.[6] [6] Or maybe they’d find a tedious way to ruin it. [7] Javert’s delayed realization can be easily justified by the two figures having very rare direct interactions with one another. At least in the movie, the two just kinda bump into one another occasionally, and have to just deal. [8] The miniseries adaptation, by the way, modifies the sequence by having Valjean present for the suicide, then smiles as he walks away from the man who just drowned himself.[9] [9] That’s the only thing I saw of the miniseries, and it instantly murdered Valjean’s character. Dude, a man killed himself, stop looking so triumphant!

[gibsongirlselections]

Rod Serling Couldn’t Have Predicted This Twilight Zone

Screenwriter and Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, who died 45 years ago on June 28, was a shrewd appraiser of human behavior and of the American cultural milieu. But could he really have predicted what the country is going through right now? Maybe, maybe not.

But it’s doubly disappointing that SyFy Channel has decided to forgo it’s annual Independence Day Twilight Zone marathon this year—we could really use the fun house mirror turned on ourselves, to remind us of ourselves, during this strange time of both social isolation and civil strife. It’s somehow comforting to settle in for a TZ episode and sense the continuity: while many of our fellow human beings are craven, crass, untrustworthy and downright unsavory, there is always hope and transcendence, of speaking one’s mind, of seeking the truth. Of good people doing the right thing.

There are a number of episodes that writers have noted are especially prescient. One, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” (1960) is about a pleasantville neighborhood, the kind Donald Fagan sings about in “I.G.Y”…the future looks bright…on his seminal album The Nightfly. Dads washing cars, moms cooking, kids buying ice cream from a man in white pressed pants on the corner. A bright light—and then—all the streetlights and appliances go dead. 

Then a teenager touches it all off with a comic book kernel of fear: it’s the aliens. And they may be among us. He might as well be the alien himself, because his words spark such dissembling, neighbors turning on neighbors, glass breaking, a man shot. It’s savage. One mild-tempered character pleads, “let’s not be a mob!” but the mob takes off without him.

Two aliens sit far up on a ridge by their spaceship. When deprived of power, says one, “(humans) pick the most dangerous enemy they can find and it’s themselves. All we need do is sit back—and watch.”

The old divide and conquer. Serling, who wrote the episode, was particularly pessimistic, but we can see today how much this kind of scapegoat hysteria works: neighbors literally turning on neighbors over not wearing masks, demanding that people wear masks, so-called Karens who call the cops, Karen-hunters stalking middle-aged women with cell phone cameras, Nextdoor posts that snitch on teenagers congregating in the park, runners breathing hard without masks on the bike path, chalk-writing in the street. The very worst is the shopkeepers and workers harangued, assaulted and harassed while doing their jobs during COVID, or beaten and looted during recent violence in our cities.

We can also sense familiarity in “The Obsolete Man,” (1961) in which a future fascist state arbitrarily decides who is essential or not, and if the latter, liquidation. “Like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace,” Serling informs us in the opening narration.

 Romney Wordsworth is a librarian in this state. The chancellor is in charge of pending “obsolescence.”  

“Since there are no more books, Mr. Wordsworth, there are no more libraries. The field investigators in your sector have classified you as obsolete,” announces the chancellor from a high perch, judge and jury.

He goes on: 

“And of course it follows that there is very little call for the services of a librarian. Case in point: A minister. A minister would tell us that his function is that of preaching the word of God. And, of course, it follows that since the State has proven that there is no God, that would make the function of a minister somewhat academic, as well.”

“Lie! No man is obsolete!” Wordsworth roars back. “I am nothing more than a reminder to you that you cannot destroy truth by burning pages!”

The chancellor gets his comeuppance in the end, as the little librarian, played by the always capable Burgess Meredith, cleverly shows that the state, like all tyrannies, is brittle, and will eat its own to survive. The chancellor is later attacked by the rabid brown-shirted mob after he himself is declared, “obsolete.” 

For Serling, it is simple, “any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man—that state is obsolete.” 

It is easy to make the connections to today’s “burning” of history, of statues set aflame, flung down, disappeared. An ever growing mob-like organism fueled by the backlash against police violence, erupting racial fury and toxic self-righteousness, seems to think that by vanquishing symbols of the past, pushing them down the “memory hole,” we will erase the injustices of their time, but as Wordsworth said, “if i speak one thought aloud that thought lives, even after I am shoveled into my grave!” 

James Pinkerton noted in these pages this week, that the stories of the men whose visages in the form of Congressional portraits or statues are being tossed away, will indeed live on. Yes, but in the endeavoring to vanish them all, we risk making it too difficult to remember, for our children to learn from the mistakes of the past. If the mob is strong enough it will be successful in supplanting the old and creating a new society that is more fragile, more authoritarian, prevailing over a spoon-fed, infantile populace. Just look at Communist China today, a mere half-century after the cultural revolution set out to “destroy” that country’s history. There is a reason that George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four is not banned there, but any review or analysis comparing it to modern China, is.  

But to a young Rod Serling in 1959, he could not have conceived that it would be the progeny of the counterculture that was just awakening with the dawn of the New Frontier that would be the very thing he prophesied in “Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” “Obsolete Man” and a handful of other Orwell-inspired episodes. 

While conservatives see the counterculture as the beginning of the end of American civilization, what Patrick Deneen has called the failure of liberalism, in TZ’s time (1959-64) it meant something quite different. There was a growing appreciation afoot for independent thinking, of imagination over conformity and the stifling conventions of American middle class life (authors like Ray Bradbury were opening up fissures with their own work on this subject), which included the dumbing down and homogeneity of society spurred on by mass consumption and technology. It also meant pushing back on suburban malaise, industrial pollution, and racial segregation. It especially eschewed Big Brother and the previous decades of snitches, spooks, and black lists. They had enough of war.

Things were happening and seeping into the prime time line-up. Serling was far from “alternative,” but TZ was reflecting some exciting things happening at the margins, and the series mainstreamed these issues enough for the entire family to embrace.

It’s cliche to say things were simpler then—they weren’t. There were just different monsters under the bed and enemies outside the garden door. As we know, things got carried away, and social movements that were supposed to make people more free and equal seem to be ceding control to the extremes, which focus more on control, retribution, payback. Instead of “coming together” as The Beatles implored, we got more tribal. Today, instead of a marketplace of ideas and open debate, news organizations are caving to the prevailing winds and deciding what is and what isn’t in the “sphere of consensus” or “legitimate” topics of conversation. In other words, deciding what we read, watch, and how we are supposed to think. A “cancel culture” has made sure that those who do not conform, even on their own side, are liquidated.

One thinks it would be difficult for the Serling of 1960 to have anticipated any of this. In his view, the burgeoning societal shift was rooted in the values of the Declaration of Independence: the dignity of the human being, liberty, and equality. Maybe when he died in 1975 he was already seeing the project going in an unanticipated direction, what conservatives would say, “off the rails.” Decades later, the landscape is unrecognizable, and it really feels like we are on a precipice, between the America we knew and something looking like Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Maybe at last, as Serling would say, we are truly entering into…the Twilight Zone.

  The post Rod Serling Couldn’t Have Predicted <i>This</i> Twilight Zone appeared first on The American Conservative.

[mzhong2014]

Trip to Banff

While planning how to best exploit my company’s alt-travel policy this summer, I chose Banff as a destination for a meditative weekend trip to find a peace of mind from the hectic quotidian. I had solo traveled plenty before this trip, but never while hiking. Given my clumsy disposition and lack of street smarts, my one rule had been to never hike alone. However, nobody was free to accompany me and I couldn’t resist the temptation of the beautiful glacier melts and Canadian mountains. I also figured that since I’m traveling to Kazakhstan alone to hike around Almaty, I should ease into solo hiking with a highly frequented national park where someone would at least know within 24 hours if I were to fall off a cliff and break my neck – which probably won’t be the case in Kazakhstan (note: I checked Alltrails and their most popular hike has 3 reviews… one of them is in Russian.) Additionally, I had hoped that in undertaking this trip, I would become empowered by my independence and ability to disconnect from those whom I heavily rely on for support. This hike would be about me, myself, and I, with nobody to catch me if I fell.

Ironically, while I had looked forward to a trip of complete silence and solitude, I found myself constantly surrounded by people, which I was grateful for as I still greatly depended on the generosity of others.

I woke up in Calgary on a Friday morning and went on a quick six-mile jog to enjoy the refreshing Canadian climate. When I returned to my hotel room and pulled out my key card to unlock the door, I realized that I had lost my driver’s license and credit card during my run. I didn’t panic and proceeded to retrace my steps, figuring that they probably fell out while I was checking the mileage on my phone. Thirty minutes passed by and I still hadn’t found my license and credit card. Okay, this is problematic, I thought while trying to stay calm, considering how I need my license to rent a car for my drive from Calgary to Banff. I called Chase to cancel my credit card and rummaged through my brain for alternative options to get to Banff. Turo? Potentially, but risky if the owner asks to check my license in person. Bus? Possibly – but highly inconvenient given my limited schedule and distance from Calgary to Canmore, where I was staying.

Then I realized that one of my colleagues was also in Calgary since he was driving to National Glacier Park for the weekend. Overflowing with promises to do literally any favor he ever needs in the future (“If you are ever abandoned in Antarctica, I will rent you a helicopter to rescue you”, to which he replied, “uh… that’s oddly specific”), I asked him if he would put the rental car under his name, while asserting that he shouldn’t agree if he didn’t feel comfortable carrying this liability. Since he is an angel, he agreed to rent the car for me, so long as I promised “not to make him regret being a nice person.” He also watched me endure a mini heart attack when the bill for the car rental came out to be twice the price quoted online. That day, I literally only ate a medium Domino’s cheese pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to trim a few dollars here and there.

Less than 24 hours in Canada passed by and I had already lost my license and credit card, but I was on my merry way to Canmore, where my hostel was located. As I drove west towards dusk, the warmth of the falling sun embraced the alpine mountains that welcomed me into the countryside, captivating me with their majestic beauty. These were the moments I had been craving while planning my trip – when the noise in your mind trickles down to a hum, and for a second, you can clearly see beyond your minute existence. Compared to the chasms of tectonic plates, epochs of construction and destruction to summon up these staggering mountain peaks, you realize that the scars on your heart are but mere lines in the sand awash in the narrative of human existence. These are the quiet, timeless, ephemeral moments that I so cherish. When I arrived at Canmore, I soon passed out so I could wake up at 5:30 am for an hour-long drive to Banff.

Groggily setting out for Banff at 5:45 am, my amazement at the natural landscape only heightened as I was met by one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever witnessed. Whereas in the SoCal desert, sunrises paint the sky with vivid hues of pink and purple, they are much more subdued in the North. Rather, the sun peeks out from behind the mountains and the sky brightens so gradually that you hardly realize that it’s no longer pitch black.  

For my Saturday hike, I decided to summit Cirque Peak via Helen Lake, a 10 mile hike estimated to take about 7-8 hours. I knew that I wanted to peak a mountain while at Banff, but unlike Mt. Rundle and Cascade Mountain, the scramble at the end did not require advanced technical experience. I am also an adrenaline junkie and could not resist the challenge of completing one of the most highly rated “Hard” trails on Alltrail.

When I got to the trailhead, I saw a group of girls around my age and asked if I could join them as I was deep in bear country. They were kind enough to let me walk with them and even offered their coffee and oatmeal. The girls were from Mexico and had just finished a season of apple picking in Canada, so they were doing a cross-country road trip. The nice thing about internationals is how they don’t feel the need to constantly talk to feel connected with one another, giving me the mental space to soak in the beauty of the surrounding nature while enjoying their company. We stayed together and reached Helen Lake but went our separate ways as I hiked towards Cirque Peak.  

When I started the scramble to Cirque Peak, I became nervous as I couldn’t clearly identify the trail. The entire peak was made up of loose scree with steep 90-degree drop-offs and two feet wide paths. I felt like I was walking on eggshells and the walkway soon disappeared. The weather looked dreary as clouds swarmed in with no opening insight. A couple ahead of me began to turn back, and I asked them for their diagnosis. They told me that the route looked sketchy and that there was no room for error with the incoming weather. I was torn since I really wanted to summit a mountain and knew that I wouldn’t have time on Sunday. It takes me considerable will power to turn away from goal once set. However, I decided that it wasn’t worth the risk.

As I walked back, I met a group of spritely college students who were also assessing the situation. By then, I had already decided to turn back, but as the sky opened up with a small patch of blue, I saw them move forward with the hike. I couldn’t resist this opportunity since I didn’t know when would be the next time I’d be in Banff, so I decided to follow them. They warmly adopted me into their group, likely realizing that I had no idea what I was doing. I was grateful for this, especially when the walkway disappeared and we had to climb over the ridge to get to the switchbacks leading up to the peak.

However, the good weather did not last long. Once we climbed over the ridge, the winds resumed to blow forcefully at us and it started raining, making the last mile of switchbacks look even more daunting. We powwowed to discuss whether or not to continue, and they eventually decided to turn back before the weather got worse. I, however, was determined to summit because I had already paid $320 for a rental car to get to Banff. There was another couple ahead on the switchbacks, and I figured that if I could catch up with them, then I wouldn’t be alone on the trepidatious route back across the ridge. I began to power through the switchbacks, but the weather worsened with no openings in sight and I was quickly losing steam. When I looked up again to identify the couple, they were at least 30 minutes ahead of me and I didn’t want to climb across the slippery rocks alone. Resigned to defeat, I ran back and caught up with the group for the hike back.

In the end, I probably could have summited Cirque Peak as the weather eventually cleared up, but the group’s infectious energy buoyed my spirits after this disappointment. They were extremely kind, curious, and vivacious, and we discussed everything from our college experiences to Nacho Libre, “one of the best movies in history,” second only to Hot Rod. These refreshing experiences challenge my deep-seated cynicism in human nature, making me wonder whether I should have more faith in humanity.

After the hike, I parted from the group and drove back to Canmore for dinner. I was exhausted and starving, so I went to a local café (Graze Food) to grab a quick bite. When I asked for a table for one, they told me that there was a wait since they moved everyone from the patio indoors due to the weather. I began to look for other restaurants when two Canadian ladies offered to let me join their table if a table for four freed up. A table of four did free up before a table for one or two, so I joined these ladies for an incredibly charming dinner. Their friendliness was so quintessentially Canadian, although I like to think that their kindness reflected more their choices as individuals than cultural upbringings. They shared their Caesar Cocktail to prove that their Canadian version of the Bloody Mary was far superior. They showed me pictures of their hike and insisted that I let them know when I next visit so that we can go hiking together. At the end of dinner, they even added me on Instagram so that we could stay in touch and have since implored me to visit again.

In contrast to my first day in Banff, I was mostly alone during my second day. I set out for Lake Moraine at 4:45 am – painfully so as I had gone to bed around 11 pm to finish packing. One of the downsides of Banff’s magnetic beauty is how it draws in herds of crowds, all vying to see the hot spots, e.g., Lake Louise, Lake Moraine, etc. The entire drive was pitch black, and with no stores open, I could not rely on coffee to give me an extra boost of energy. The only thing keeping me from falling asleep at the wheel was sheer will power and blasting Guns N’Roses at the highest volume. Despite my early morning drive, when I got to the parking lot at 6 am, it was already full. Luckily, I caught a car pulling out of the parking lot and snagged a spot. I immediately napped for 30 minutes in my car, and when I woke up, I just caught the tail-end of sky transforming from night into day.

I was initially skeptical of whether Lake Moraine would be worth the early wakeup call, but when I witnessed the raw beauty in all its vastness, I felt immediately redeemed. I climbed down the rocks and sat in complete peace, reflecting on all that I had learned this past year, the breathtaking beauty of the present, and paralyzing uncertainty of the future. I continued my meditations while kayaking at the lake, mesmerized by the cerulean blue waters of glacial melt.

For the rest of the day, I frolicked around Johnston Canyon and the Inkpots. It is incredible how there is such a variety of terrain within a single park, from waterfalls to alpine forests, lakes to barren mountain peaks. I had to leave Banff in the afternoon to catch my flight at 7 pm, so I savored every minute of the mountain scenery. I was sad to leave Banff, and in fact, on my drive back, a rainbow appeared in the sky following a rain shower. I dropped off the car at the rental location by the airport and lugged my dusty backpack to check-in at the airport. The trip was everything I had wanted and more.

I went to a self-service kiosk and punched in the confirmation code for my ticket, but an error showed up. I tried again multiple times and figured that there was something wrong with the machine, so I go up to an agent at the help desk to check into the flight.

“Check-in has closed,” the agent tells me while returning my passport.  

I look at her in complete shock as I am just an hour early to my flight.

“I’m an hour early to my flight, what are you talking about?”

“The system won’t let me check you in. There’s nothing that I can do.”

This was the last flight back to my client site that day and rebooking my flight would cost $300.

“How is this possible if I’m an hour early to the flight? The flight is delayed.”

“Check-in closed five minutes ago even though the flight is delayed since the plane can be switched at any time. Also, five minutes is a really long time for us,” she retorted.

After managing to get myself to and from Banff despite losing my license and credit card, the 5 am drives, and solo hikes in bear country, I broke down into tears when I realized that there was nothing I could do to get onto my flight. I had traveled here to prove my self-reliance, and during the moment when I truly could not depend on anyone but myself, I crumpled. It didn’t matter that I had enjoyed such breathtaking beauty -- all I could think about was how lonely it felt to be truly responsible for your mistakes. By missing my flight, I had to stay an extra night in Calgary and show up to work two hours late, further burdening my team after my colleague had just saved my ass with the rental car. I even began to feel meta-feelings about my failure to react gracefully to the situation. I was in a privileged position where I can afford to throw away $300. I was healthy and nobody was dying. Why was I so upset? I was determined to not let this ending sour my trip, but I couldn’t help my feelings of bitterness and injustice at the world (even though it was really my fault for not checking-in on time).

Despite my attempts to be spontaneous and detached from the trivial pains of life, I was still deeply vulnerable to the minute ups and downs of life. A peace of mind isn’t something that you stumble upon through merely changing your external environments, but an attitude that must be deeply engrained regardless of your surroundings. I enjoyed a pleasant reprieve from my personal life and work, but I never escaped myself and all of the baggage that comes with being me. Fortunately, I am very thankful to be surrounded by people (and even strangers) who are willing to put up with me for some miraculous reason. I stayed the night at Calgary and woke up the next day $300 poorer, but a smidge more humbled by nature’s beauty and rigid rules of the airline industry.

[fullertonbailbonds969-blog]

A Bail Bond Can Be Revoked

Expense Ryan Bail Bonds

Its too late for Lorena Gonzalez. She made too many promises to @SEIU that union members could replace 3,000+ Licensed Bail Agents at CA Taxpayers expense $3.9 Billion/yr. Another Bait and Switch in the name of public safety.

SB10

— Bail Bond Woman (@SDBAILBONDWOMAN) August 3, 2018

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If this were 20, 10, and even 3 years ago the undeniable response to this would have been that the function of this was just to obtain someone from jail. This would be the obvious and also right answer to this inquiry. I should make a declaration though. When you are a bail bondsmen you see many awful circumstances. Oftentimes you see the very same people over as well as over once again as well as they are generally in as well as out of jail as a result of alcohol and drug related offenses. I feel it would be secure to claim that these people have a particular problem with medication abuse. The only issue is that they are never supplied any kind of kind of assistance apart from the occasional abuse from loved ones and also justice systems. Also still, this scolding provides no remedy for the addicted and also they are undoubtedly not obtaining any type of much better when they wind up in jail. Exactly how Does It Compare to Other Earnings Models? For anybody considering a career as a bail bondsman, income is, naturally, vital. Depending upon place and other factors, the ordinary bail bondsmen income will differ. What Factors Affect the Potential Bail Bonds Salary? Before approving a placement, it's essential for bail bond representative work applicants to understand the distinction between a bail bondsman salary-based job and also a setting that pays a per hour wage. Bail agents that deal with salary may be asked by their employers to function as numerous hrs as the company calls for the workers' solutions as well as will normally not be eligible for overtime. Nonetheless, some companies pay bonuses for premium efficiency, instead of overtime. On the other hand, staff members who are paid per hour will be spent for the exact variety of hours they function as well as are normally eligible for overtime. What Determines Independent Agents' and also Employees' Earnings? Just How Are Independent Agents' as well as Employees' Earnings Similar? Salary degree, per hour wage, or revenue level for independent agents are as dependent on the variety of clients an agent or company can attract as they are on the representatives' skill at writing great bonds.

Jim promptly provides his, yet John asserts to have left his ID in your home. John is in a hurry to obtain the offer done, so the notary public just instructs both Jim as well as John to sign the title, after which the notary signs or notarizes their signatures. However the individual claiming to be "John" is really John's roommate Steve. The real John is away vacationing and also had no intent of selling the cars and truck. Do you assume this John is a satisfied camper? Had the notary refused to witness the deal due to the fact that Steve didn't existing recognition, John would still have the title to his car. As a public authorities, the notary public in this instance violated the public trust by stopping working in their duty to verify identification. John draws on sue against the State where the deal occurred for his loss, due to the fact that the State was negligent with its designated representative. A notary bond is a guarantee of payment to the obligee (the State) ought to a loss occur for a penalty amount of the bond. Notary bonds are usually provided by a guaranty company (normally an insurance coverage provider).

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An entrepreneur have to be trustworthy and credible and also have an action of stability when working. If you wish to interact these qualities to your consumer, what far better method to do that compared to taking out a guaranty bond policy as well as provide the protection as well as assurance they should have? Some organisations also utilize the guaranty bond as a marketing point to communicate a particular picture to the general public. Marketing the truth that you are bound will certainly give the customer a feeling of depend on in you and also your company. It allows them recognize that you are not doing this on your own but for them, as a surety bond just covers as well as shields the consumer and also not you or your business. Some business are required to be bound relying on the sector or profession they might be associated with such as the building industry. When you look for a guaranty bond, ensure that your financial house is in order first. A guaranty bond calls for an exceptional credit history score and accurate financial reports. It enters into underwriting as well as is just like applying for a lending for your business.

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[placetobenation]

Happy (sort of) Independence Day to all! As we discuss in this space every year, yours truly is a man of traditions and there is no tradition greater than crushing hot dogs all day and night during a summer cookout, meaning the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest is as peak tradition as it gets. And I am here for you to review this epic event each and every year! As usual, we are coming to you live (via tape for me now, natch) from the home of the contest and the original Nathan’s Famous in Brooklyn on Coney Island. And this year, ESPN has moved the full replay of this event to ESPN+, so I had to sign up for the free trial of that grift just to do this. You’re welcome.

We open up our coverage with one of our usual epic intro packages, this one putting some focus on the greatest carnival barker of all time: George FUCKING Shea. I say it every year, but if you are to watch this thing for one reason, it should be for George, who we see high above the masses on a pulpit pitching his pitch for this contest of kings. That is followed by a look back at the key players and their history with the contest and their path to today. That includes the infamous 2015 battle where Matthew Stonie knocked off the GOAT Joey Chestnut, handing him his only loss over the past 11 years. And last year, Chestnut broke his own record with 72 dogs taken down. This recap tries hard to make us think Stonie and Carmen Cincotti have a shot today but time will tell.

Adam Amin and Rich Shea officially welcome us into Coney Island and narrate us through the arrival of the competitors. Amin is new to the show, replacing our old friend Paul Page. I assume Pauly must be in a hospital somewhere because I can’t imagine how that guy would miss this event. Page compares Chestnut to other sports legends and the titles they have won. We also check out the historical hot dogs eaten chart for the career of Chestnut.

We then visit with our intrepid sideline reporter Melanie Collins, who is back for year #4. And just in case you forgot what we are working with there, here you go…

Hi, Mel. Melanie chats with Chestnut, who is fired up and says he won’t be lazy today and is interested if Cincotti can break 70. Melanie breaks down the conditions for us and its possible affect on Joey. What a fucking pro. And while we talk about Matt Stonie’s YouTube success and dramatic drop off here in Brooklyn over the past two years, let’s just pay tribute to our favorite Nathan’s Famous sideline reporter of all time. The First Lady of Salty, Cobbled Together Meatlike Products Consumption Contests, the gorgeous Renee Herlocker.

Renee is gone. I’m pouring beer out for my shorty who ain’t here. Give it up for my shorty. Renee. We get more talk pushing the cases of Cincotti and others, as Adam and Rich think this is the dopest field we have seen in quite some time. I will believe it when I see it, boys.

After a break, we check out some clips from promotion work the competitors have done and it is really clear that Cincotti is getting the Jesus Push as the top contender yet again this year. It is a lot of pressure and the biggest story of the day may be whether or not he can hold up. That is followed up by a look hyping the women’s competition, focusing on our reigning champ Miki Sudo, who has won the last four Mustard Belts after dethroning Sonia Thomas. We transition right into brief highlights of the women’s battle, which featured very little drama. Sudo won it again, outpacing second place by nine dogs but also matching her second lowest total of her run. The heat certainly played a role there, I am sure.

Congrats, Miki! Hopefully they can find a legit challenger to her soon before she just keeps piling up these straps. We do find out that her family was in attendance for the first time today, so that is cool. Mel chats with Miki, who says she knew she had a strong lead and just kept pace enough to win. She joins Chestnut and Kobayashi as the only five time champions here in Brooklyn.

Melanie returns and walks us through a video profile on Cincotti, the local hero done well. Of course, fittingly he was born on the Fourth of July and has risen the ranks of competitive eating as the years have ticked along. We get words from his family, including his mom, who wasn’t happy that she funded his college tuition and then went into competitive hot dog eating, but she seems proud nonetheless. Today on his 25th birthday, he goes for the gold.

Upon returning from a break, we get a plug for American Cornhole League action and then get an in depth package on Mr. Chestnut himself, including talk about all his head-to-head wars with Kobayashi. That is immediately followed by a hype piece on Japanese import Max Suzuki, a YouTube sensation that prefers Ramen noodles as his gluttonous delicacy of choice. He qualified for this contest by knocking down 42 dogs in the Las Vegas qualifier and credits Kobayashi as his inspiration and hero.

And after a break it is now time for the competitors to enter… and as always, I implore you to watch this part for yourselves because no man can do the Immortal George Shea justice as he does his thing. The field:

Matt Hazzard: Qualified in Valdosta, GA by finishing off 22 dogs and buns

Derek Jacobs: A weightlifter that won a Kroeger Contest and for some reason, he is barefoot

Juan Neave: Won the San Antonio qualifier and has a multicolored mohawk

Adrian “The Rabbit” Morgan: #7 in the world; Acme Oyster eating champion, killed 42 dozen in eight minutes

Pablo Martinez: Wearing a Lucha mask for his entrance and is a paranormal investigator

Eric “The Red” Denmark: Habanero eating champion of the world; Won the Portland, OR qualifier

“Buffalo” Jim Reeves:”His good cholesterol is low, his bad cholesterol is high and his BMI is borderline Presidential”

Steve Hendry: #16 in the world; 28 dogs and buns in Viejo, CA; has eaten 144 chicken wings

Juan “More Bite” Rodriguez: #12 in the world; personal trainer and won the Des Moines qualifier

Ronnie Hartman: Debuted in 2013 while on leave from Army duty in Afghanistan; training to be a pro wrestler

George Chiger: A massive dude and a rookie who qualified on his fourth try

Nick Wehry: Odds on favorite for MLE Rookie of the Year; won the Citi Field qualifier

Gideon Oji: Ranked #6; Kale eating and green chili stew champion of the world

Eric “Badlands” Booker: The Fucking Man and he and Shea do an awesome combo freestyle rap

Rich “The Locust” LeFevre: #13 and 74 years old; Shea basically says is on his deathbed; Spam eating champion of the world and oldest competitor in 101 year history of the contest

Max Suzuki: #1 in Japan; Has eaten 20 pounds of Ramen

Geoffrey Esper: Pepperoni roll and pizza eating champion of the world

Darron Breeden; Uses the “Tallahassee Two Hand” method

Matt Stonie: #2 in the world; 2016 Nathan’s Champion; Shea is fucking amazing here too

Carmen Cincotti: “He was born on the Fourth of July but this day is a vessel of pain”

Joey Chestnut: The GOAT

This was all worth watching just for the Booker & Shea freestyle battle. What a fucking moment. We also get a neat scroll of all the records Chestnut holds. A true legend of space and time. And after this next break, the 101st Nathan’s Contest will kick off!

We return with one last hype video including a Badlands Booker rap and then it is officially time to light this candle. The clock winds up and away we go! Chestnut is burying processed meat off the bat as we learn that Joey has his own dedicated camera on ESPN3 like the fucking legend he is. Everyone is chugging along at a solid pace to start as usual, with Chestnut setting the pace as usual. The announcers discuss how relaxed Stonie was this week and that could come into play and toss out a potential comparison of Nick Foles beating Tom Brady. Stonie, Suzuki and Cincotti have all passed Chestnut but that is short lived, natch. Stonie is on fire here as we tick two minutes in. Some of these dudes have earbuds in, which is pretty cool. They should do a segment on what they prefer to listen to. Stonie and Chestnut are neck and neck now, and this is a nice bounce back for Matty after a weak showing a year ago.

As we duck below seven minutes, Cincotti is struggling, perhaps crumbling under all the hype and birthday expectations. Joey is at 27, averaging about 7.75 per minute. He has now opened up a six dog lead over Stonie, who is fading quickly. We are closing in on five minutes and this may already be over as Chestnut is leading Esper by seven with Stonie and Cincotti in sniffing distance. Halfway through, Chestnut is at 37 and Melanie tells us he is behind the pace he figured he needed to break the record. We get some insight on the humidity as Chestnut now leads by 11. Amin is rambling about Liv Tyler as this thing is all but over, leaving the record as the only point of question. Shea talks about Chestnut’s training and prep this week, which is more interesting than the contest. Chestnut is at 48 with three minutes to go so he will need to rally pump some meat down to take this record.

Stonie and Cincotti oscillate for second but are trailing by deep double digits now. Shea wonders how many eaters can hit 50 and reminds us that those beyond the winner also get prize money, so finishing high means more cash. We are under two minutes and Joey is sitting in the mid-50s, he has some legit work to do to get the record, but we can never count him out. Amin and Shea are all over the place as we hit the final minute. Chestnut is at 58 and leading by 19 with 60 seconds to go. “The esophagus of a champion, the stomach of a warlord” says Shea, and who can argue with him. Joey is destroying the field but is only at 62 with 15 seconds left so the record looks safe for this year. Time bleeds out and Chestnut locks up his 11th title with a 19 dog win. What a master of his craft. Cincotti finished second at least, so nice rally there.

We wrap things up with Mel chatting with Chestnut, who talks about battling the humidity and says the judges were a mess and couldn’t keep track but he fought through. We also now find out that Chestnut actually wrecked 74 hot dogs, which would be the record. Looks like that unofficial tracker was way off then. Chestnut celebrates while Amin and Shea wrap us up and we are out.

This was a lot of fun as always thanks to George Shea and the production but we need some legit threats to both belts at some point. Seeing Chestnut smash records is fun, but without a real foe the contests are anticlimactic. And we didn’t even get to enjoy the buzz of the record falling this year because of the judge and tracker issues. All that said, this is still one of my favorite events of the year and I am already prepping for 2019! All hail Joseph Chestnut, the once and future king of processed meats!

[wethepeoplesnews]

  I was scrolling down my news feed and came across this story from very left-leaning, Newsy:

First, this “socialist” is already dreaming of President Trump having to deal with her.  If she wins why would President Trump have to deal with her? What political power does she think she wields? She obviously does not believe in the rule of law.  She must also know nothing of American history. We are neither a Democracy nor Socialist! We are a REPUBLIC “At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787,  Franklin was queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation. In the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention,  a lady asked Dr. Franklin “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.”  Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.”

John Adams wrote that “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide,” and James Madison wrote in Federalist 10 that “Democracies have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

The reason pure democracies fail is that majorities learn that they can legally take property and/or liberties away from others. Those subjected to abuse can be anyone outside the majority coalition, and their minority status can be based on race, religion, wealth, political affiliation, or even which city or state they reside in. Demagogic leaders become adept at appealing to the emotions of jealousy, avarice, and entitlement. They also denigrate opponents in order to justify prejudicial actions taken by the majority.  Soon, oppression of minority classes causes enough conflicts to collapse the democratic process

Think about that for a minute. Is that not what the left thinks? They accuse those who fight to keep our Republic, Freedoms, Rights, and Constitution of those very same things, but in fact, the Republic is what gives the minority a voice. The little guy the Demonocrats always say they are fighting for. If they destroy the Republic on the Federal level would the LGBT Community have a voice? After all, they are only 4.1% of America as of 2016.

Let’s see if what our “self-proclaimed Expert” said saying is true or lies!! 

Daniel Guerrero “Democratic socialist. Big difference. She doesn’t want to get rid of capitalism. Look up the terms. Get acquainted.”

     He after all seems like an expert telling others to get acquainted. He said there is a big difference between Democratic Socialist and a Socialist. He claimed that Democratic Socialists do not want to get rid of capitalism. Why aren’t they called Democratic Capitalist, is the first question that comes to mind?  Anyway,  I looked the words up (it took approx. 2 minutes).  Question Boldly!!

 Socialism: Wikipedia

     Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production[10] as well as the political theories and movements associated with them.[11] Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity.[12] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[13] though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.

Democratic Socialism: Wikipedia

     Democratic socialism is a political philosophy that advocates political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production[1] with an emphasis on self-management and/or democratic management of economic institutions within a market socialist, participatory or decentralized planned economy.[2] Democratic socialists hold that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the democratic values of liberty, equality and solidarity; and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realization of a socialist society. Democratic socialism can be supportive of either revolutionary or reformist politics as a means to establish socialism.[3]

The term “democratic socialism” is sometimes used synonymously with “socialism“, but the adjective “democratic” is sometimes used to distinguish democratic socialists from Marxist–Leninist inspired socialism which is viewed as being non-democratic in practice.[4][5]Democratic socialists oppose the Stalinist political system and Soviet economic model, rejecting the authoritarian form of governance and highly centralized command economy that took form in the Soviet Union in the early 20th century.[6]

Democratic socialism is further distinguished from social democracy on the basis that democratic socialists are committed to systemic transformation of the economy from capitalism to socialism whereas social democracy is supportive of reforms to capitalism.[7] In contrast to social democrats, democratic socialists believe that reforms aimed at addressing social inequalities and state interventions aimed at suppressing the economic contradictions of capitalism will only see them emerge elsewhere in a different guise. As socialists, democratic socialists believe that the systemic issues of capitalism can only be solved by replacing the capitalist system with a socialist system—i.e. by replacing private ownership with social ownership of the means of production

     In other words. They want the mob to decide how much you can have and what to do with your wealth if you have too much!! What could go wrong with that? 

Well, well Mr. Guerrero is wrong and they do want to replace capitalism with socialism. Hell, why didn’t our Founding Fathers think of that? Because they knew as anyone else that looks at the facts that Capitalism has been the ONLY system to raise people out of poverty. Why do those fleeing from non-Republics want to change our system of government when they find refuge in it?  If the form of government is so great where these “immigrants” at the border come from why come in the first place?

Newsy, is one of the sites I bring the fight to these lying liberals, but I am on another 30-day mandatory vacation from Facebook and have no idea why!! This is my 4th one this year already, yet they could not find the “Russians” that “played” in our elections until after the election. HMM. I am being censored because I bother to research and expose lies by the mainstream media and their crony’s on social media!!

When liberals lie about Democratic Socialism remind them of how the Nazis started ” Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist rhetoric”  Sound familiar? I implore my fellow citizens to go into this Digital Civil war armed with the Truth and Facts.

The Demoocrats seem to want to escalate their treason and Anti-American efforts and may even resort to violence and harassment as stated in recent rhetoric by many Demonocrats lately. Stand Your Ground!!! No More Silence. They will come Demanding this and that which is mob-rule (democracy).  This is not our system of government thus trying to change it makes you a Traitor plain and simple!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.!!~RJH

If you agree Please, Share!!

P.S. I get called a lot of names on Newsy. 🙂

      What Is The Difference Between Democratic Socialist and a Socialist?   I was scrolling down my news feed and came across this story from very left-leaning, Newsy: