#WE NOW HAVE PROOF THAT HE WAS SANS’S BLUEPRINT | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ssahoodrathotchner · 4 years ago

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There is a Light That Never Goes Out

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader

Summary: you get kidnapped by an unsub and needless to say, it’s not fun

Word Count: 6.9k

Warnings: swearing, blood, injuries, stabbing, panic attacks, kidnapping, hospitals, angst and fluff

A/N: wanted to write something angsty with a happy ending and here we are! the longest thing i’ve ever written

Masterlist

---

In hindsight, things could have gone better. The case itself was pretty straightforward, with the biggest complication being where the hell Michael Robertson was hidden away. However, no man can hide from Penelope Garcia and within six hours of figuring out Robertson was the unsub, she had his location narrowed down to a small farm in the middle of nowhere. Of course, you thought, where else would a guy like him torture and kill seven women.

Pulling up to the seemingly small farmhouse, you and Reid exchange looks before tightening your bulletproof vests. Double—triple—checking your gun, you tune in to Hotch and Rossi giving directions to the team and local PD about breaching the home. Hotch and Prentiss will take the front door, Morgan and Reid the back, while Rossi and JJ have the barn—you’ll take the side door and meet in the middle, easy. Local PD will secure the perimeter and provide backup as needed. Giving Hotch a reaffirming nod, you disperse to your entry points.

Taking a deep breath, you raise your weapon and prepare to bust this door down in hopes that Robertson will surrender peacefully and you can all go home because fuck do you want to get out of Iowa. Hearing Hotch’s signal, you kick down the door in front of you—a welcome plus of your job—and announce your presence. However, you’re met with a hard elbow to the face. Reeling backwards and tasting blood, you only have the sense to cup your now bleeding—and most likely broken—nose with your free hand.

“Motherfucker,” you spit out in pain, the comms in your vest picking up your voice.

“Y/L/N, report,” Hotch demands, voice scratchy through your earpiece.

However, you are unable to respond as Robertson moves towards you and, taking advantage of your dazed state, hits you over the head with a fucking two-by-four once, twice, nope three times before the jagged wood floor is rushing up to meet you as you collapse into darkness. Oh, fuck. You’re out before you hit the ground.

---

As soon as Aaron hears you swear, he knows it’s bad, but one look at Emily has him forging ahead and clearing each room like he is supposed to. Checking in with the other duos, Hotch can’t help but worry when you don’t respond immediately. When he finally gets to the mid-point of the house and the exact spot where you were supposed to rendezvous with him, Emily, Derek, and Spencer, his worries spike exponentially.

“Where’s Y/L/N,” he spits out.

“We didn’t see her,” Morgan answers carefully. “We assumed she found you guys,” he adds, and Hotch grits his teeth.

“Clear in the barn,” he hears Rossi report, and he sighs.

“Y/L/N is missing,” he says, surprisingly calm. “Report to the house.”

Police officers shuffle through the house, and Aaron tries not to let his irritation show. Turning back to the team, he can’t help but notice how worried the rest of them are.

“Our one and only priority is finding Y/N,” he states.

“I’ll get Garcia onboard to coordinate what happens next,” Morgan says, excusing himself from the tension of the farm house sitting room. “Expect some very distressed calls in your futures,” he finishes with a shake of his head.

“Emily and I will re-check the rest of the house, just in case,” JJ supplies, and Hotch nods. Reid, looking uneasy, makes some excuse about double-checking the floor plans of the property before skirting out the door, leaving Dave and Aaron—and some police officers—to survey the bland artwork on the walls.

Grasping the bridge of his nose, Aaron tries to take a deep breath, but he can’t; not with you missing on the property owned by an unsub fucking known for mutilating women.

“Hey,” Rossi approaches from Hotch’s left. “We’ll figure this out. Y/L/N’s a smart girl; she won’t go down easy,”

Hotch can only hope that Rossi’s right, but he trusts you; trusts your instincts as an agent.

---

You come to in bits and pieces. Some part of your brain recognizes that you’re being dragged by your armpits down some rickety stairs and deep into the earth; another part recognizes that your hands are free, which means your gun is no longer in your grasp. Fuck fuck fuck. A particularly harsh blow to your head from the hands of your captor stops any further thoughts. Fuck you, Robertson.

---

Regrouping with the team outside the house, Hotch starts to get agitated.

“What do you mean there’s an elaborate tunnel system beneath the house, Garcia,” he almost yells. “How did you not catch this before.”

“Well,” Reid steps in, “the only plans that include this system are dated between 1910 and 1924 which means that they were built in at least the 1900s and the fact that they do not appear in any property plans since those dates suggests that the subsequent owners either didn’t know about the tunnels, or they actively chose to not include them for some reason which—”

“—which means that we don’t really have a clue as to what the current tunnels look like,” Morgan finishes for him, and Hotch internally blanches.

No, he thinks to himself. I will not lose her like this, not after Haley.

Taking a deep breath, Hotch tries to re-assess the situation, but finds himself unable to breathe deeply. At all. Gasping, he tries to communicate to the team the severity of their situation, but all that comes out is a strangled noise. Vaguely, he hears Morgan clear the room as JJ gently takes his upper arm and steers him out the back door of the house on to the porch.

“Hotch,” he can’t stand to listen to her voice; her calm demeanor only increasing his anxiety about your current situation.

“Hotch,” JJ tries again, harsher this time. “I need you to take a breath; only one, just now, that’s it.”

I can do that, he thinks. And he does; he takes one solitary breath.

“Good,” she encourages, “now do it again, just once.” And so he does, again, and again, for JJ.

Once his breathing is under control and JJ steps back with an appraising eye, he speaks.

“We need to find her,” he gasps out. “We have to; I can’t—” he trails off.

With a softness he has yet to comprehend, JJ looks into his eyes and sighs.

“We’ll find her, Hotch,” she reassures him. “She’s on the property, she has to be, and we’ll find her.”

With a shaky nod, Hotch allows JJ’s words to take hold of him, and he goes back to being the BAU’s Unit Chief. Gazing out on the field behind the house, his resolve is firm; Aaron Hotchner will find you, Michael Robertson be damned.

---

The next moment you remember—thanks broken nose and probable concussion—is your body being roughly thrown into a plastic chair, sans bullet-proof vest, and then your arms and legs being tightly tied down. A rag of some sort is crudely stuffed into your mouth, and you can’t help but gag because fuck does it do nothing to replace the gross taste of blood in your mouth. At least it’s me, you think to yourself, I’d hate to think of anyone else from the team in this position. And with that thought, you drift out of consciousness with Aaron’s face in the forefront of your addled mind. Love, I hope you find me soon.

---

It’s been three hours and Aaron Hotchner is losing his mind. Garcia, to her credit, is working furiously to uncover literally everything she can on Robertson, his family, friends as well as the closest neighboring farms to the one the BAU is currently ripping apart. Prentiss and Morgan have taken to meticulously going through each and every room of the house and barn in hopes of discovering some new and hidden passageway to the tunnel system that resides under the structure. Reid is creating an enhanced geographical profile of the property and those that encompass it, while JJ and Rossi discuss the nuances of Robertson’s profile somewhere with the local cops. Aaron, however, can only seem to scowl at the field of corn behind the house and remember the last moments he had with you before you disappeared.

“Hotch,” he turns when he hears Morgan’s voice. “We’ve got something.”

Heart racing, Hotch nods and follows Morgan out the side door—the one you entered—before stopping just short of the man in front of him.

“Local crime scene techs just confirmed that there’s blood here, and judging from the placement of the drops, it seems that Robertson got the drop on Y/L/N,” he states with a grimace, and Hotch can’t help but scrutinize the ground where your blood has fallen.

“Reid’s got a better handle on what might have happened, but I thought you’d like to see it for yourself,” Morgan finishes, and Hotch nods tightly before moving off in search of Reid. Finding the young profiler in the front room of the farm house, Hotch only has to look at him before he’s revealing all that he’s learned since your disappearance.

“It seems that the blueprints for the house were updated once since the 1920s, which was in 1953, so that’s our most recent map of what the whole underside of the property looks like,” Reid continues. “From what I can tell, there are at least five entrance points, three main walkways, and eight different chambers that appear to function as some form of bunker for the previous owners, and so my guess is that Y/N is being kept in one of the rooms, just like the previous victims most likely were,” Reid pauses. “Not that Y/N will become another victim, I’m just saying that for the sake of the case it appears that—” Emily enters the room and Hotch has never been so grateful for her presence in a room, ever.

“Hey, I don’t mean to disrupt Reid’s briefing, but local PD has found a possible way into the fuckin’ labyrinth out in the barn,” she states, curiously looking over at the map Reid has scribbled onto the property blueprints.

Turning his head sharply, Hotch nods at Prentiss and uncrosses his arms as she leads him out of the farm house as Reid continues to ponder the blueprints in front of him.

---

The next time you rise to consciousness, Robertson is dragging an ugly hunting knife across your collarbones, shoulder to shoulder, and cooing at you to wake up. Weirdo.

“Ah, there you are baby,” Robertson says sweetly. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t wake up for me.”

You let out a groan and through the gag in your mouth—holy fuck does it taste like dirty socks—you attempt to cuss out your captor.

“Now, now, Sweetness,” Robertson chides. “Let’s have some fun, shall we?” and with that terrifying statement, he leans closer to you and pulls the knife across your left shoulder, effectively slicing open your work shirt. Damn, you think to yourself, this was actually one of my favorites. But that’s the last coherent thought you produce because the combination of Robertson’s knife, the searing pain of your broken nose, and your own possibly concussed brain are unable to completely comprehend any more information as the man in question leaves light slices across your upper chest. Thankfully, the rag—sock? —in your mouth muffles your whimpers as you jolt in pain. Aaron, please find me soon you think before the feeling is all-encompassing and your mind shifts to merciful blankness.

---

“I wish I could do more,” Garcia states, but Hotch can only sigh in agreement.

“You’ve done well, Garcia. Let me know if you find anything else,” Hotch states, eyes darting over to the geographical profile Reid is standing in front of, conversing with Emily. The tunnel found by local PD had been a decoy, and they were no closer to finding you.

“Of course, Sir. I’m on it like Sergio on tuna. Garcia out,” and with that statement, the line goes dead.

Putting his phone in his pocket, Hotch walks towards Reid and Prentiss with purpose.

“Reid, have you found anything else about the tunnel system?”

“It appears that there are a series of false entrances that don’t actually connect with the full network of passageways,” Reid states gesturing wildly at the map. “The full system can only be accessed from four different vantage points, but given that this map hasn’t been updated since the 50s, I only have a general idea of where the entryways are given that the buildings on the property have shifted since the last accurate map was compiled.”

“The good news is that two of the entrances seem to be contained within this house, the bad news is that they may have been bricked over by renovations to the building,” Prentiss says with a grimace. “The other two entries are somewhere out in what’s now the fields, so we’ll have less luck finding them, even with all the extra help from the PD.”

Hotch’s shoulders sag under the weight of the new information and he frowns at the agents in front of him. Squinting hard at the blueprints haphazardly tacked to the board in front of him, Hotch tries to make sense of the possible entry points in the house he’s currently standing in.

“Get Morgan in here,” Hotch finally says. “He’s got experience with restoration work and may have a better idea on where the unsub could have taken Y/N from within the house given the structural changes.” And with that, Hotch strides out the front door of the house and leans on the porch railing. Y/N, I’m coming for you, just hold on a little longer.

---

Robertson is a bitch. And he has the knife to prove it.

“So, you’re impotent, that’s why you’re using such a big knife, right?” you taunt him after who knows how fuckin’ long. “You see, we thought you had, mmm, issues, but we didn’t know for sure; this just confirms it.”

He took the gag out of your mouth to hear you scream, but you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of doing so. However, instead of responding to your jabs, Robertson just drives the knife a little bit deeper into your torso and you let out a hiss in retaliation, throwing your head back.

“God, you sure know how to treat a girl, don’t ya?” you grit out between pained breaths. “No wonder a charmer like you had so many lady friends.”

“They didn’t appreciate me!” Robertson yells. “Just like you don’t appreciate me!”

The next slash glances off your ribs and yikes does it fuckin’ hurt. Jerking away as best you can, you contemplate your options. At this point, you know your only way out is to either escape—as if—or to make Robertson see some semblance of reason. Otherwise, you aren’t going to make it out of here alive. Fuck, you think, I’m so sorry, Aaron. I promise I’ll find you. Or you’ll find me. A particularly vicious cut to your cheekbone draws you back to reality, and once again, you are only able to focus on the pain and Robertson’s maniacal laughter. Creepy motherfucker.

---

Hotch has never seen Morgan so focused. Scouring the blueprints with Reid and Prentiss, Garcia on speakerphone, Morgan works to figure out where the hell Robertson could have disappeared to inside the house. With you. Hotch has taken to pacing the length of the house in order to keep his nerves and his temper somewhat under control; he needs to be alert and ready to get to you as soon as possible. Running a hand through his hair and over his face, Hotch sighs which draws the attention of Rossi and JJ who slowly drift over to him from their place by a window.

“Hotch—” JJ starts but is cut off by a hard look.

“We’ll find her, Aaron.” Rossi tries. “You know that she’s here somewhere, probably giving Robertson all sorts of hell.”

“We’ve seen what Robertson does to his victims, Dave,” Hotch retorts. “He basically slices women to pieces and beats them,” taking a breath, he tries to calm himself. “We need to find her alive,” he finishes softly.

JJ and Rossi share a concerned look before Rossi sighs and steps forward to place a hand on Hotch’s shoulder.

“We’ll find her. There’s no way—” he’s cut off by an excited yell and the three of them swing around towards the source of the noise which happens to be Prentiss.

Morgan’s already moving, stalking into another room and Reid, accompanied by Garcia on the phone, hurries to catch up.

“We found the door Robertson most likely used to take Y/L/N and we’re pretty sure it connects to the full system under the property,” Prentiss explains and that’s all it takes for Hotch to stride off after Morgan and Reid.

Head spinning, Aaron fluctuates between hope and hopelessness. He knows they’ll find you; Robertson can’t hide in the tunnel system, no matter how well he knows them, but he’s most worried about you. We’re coming for you, Y/N. I won’t let this bastard get away with this.

---

Your whole body fucking hurts and you’re pretty sure it’s not just because you started off your captivity with a broken nose and concussion. Your mouth tastes like blood again from how hard you’ve clamped down on your bottom lip to resist screaming as loud as you can. Robertson is cruel, there’s no question about that. You’d seen the photos of his other victims, and now you were undergoing the same things those women did in their last moments. Your entire body feels heavy, and if you weren’t tied down to a chair, you don’t think you’d be able to hold yourself up. Between the blood loss and head trauma, you’re surprised your thoughts are still relatively coherent.

Robertson is pacing in front of you, muttering to himself, shooting looks your way, and absentmindedly gesturing with the knife in his hand. Fantastic, you think hazily, he’s most likely devolving and I’m the only one around. Yay. Sucking in a breath, you wince as the action reignites a dizzying pain in your torso. Letting out a groan, you flinch as Robertson turns towards you, eyes shining with something that makes your heart race a little quicker.  

“Now, baby,” he states with a twisted grin—grimace? —that makes you grit your teeth even harder. “I’m not done with you yet, don’t worry. I still wanna hear you scream for me.”

Here we go again.

“Do your worst,” you snarl at him, and while that’s probably the worst thing to say to a devolving unsub, you’re too fed up and tired to care at this point; you can take it, you have to take it so you can survive. C’mon, Aaron. Where’s my knight in shining armor? Robertson descends on you with renewed vigor, and after the fourth slice to your leg, your ears rush and your head drops to your chest as you pass out. Fuck.

---

The trap door Robertson dragged you down can only be accessed by sliding one of the wooden floorboards back half an inch before it clicks into place and the adjoining boards lift slightly, revealing the way into the tunnels. How Morgan, Reid, and Prentiss figured that out is beyond Hotch’s current thought process because how many times had he paced over that exact spot? As soon as the hatch is lifted, all he sees is blood—your blood—sprinkled on the steps that descend into the darkened passageway. He takes a sharp breath and somewhere behind him, he can hear JJ gasp and Morgan swear.

“Medics are on stand-by,” comes Rossi’s voice from his shoulder.

Nodding tersely and setting his shoulders, he turns to the team.

“Stay alert and stick together. We don’t know where Robertson is, so clear the rooms and move on.” His voice is hard and leaves no room for debate.

“Let’s go get our girl,” Morgan adds, and with that, the team takes careful steps down into the hallway, following Aaron.

---

The first room they happen across is empty, as are the second, third, and fourth rooms. Forging ahead, knowing that they’re only closer to where you are, they continue. Turning a corner, Hotch can hear movement and his heart speeds up. Robertson. Signaling to the team to pause, he gauges the best course of action. He doesn’t know what state you’re in, or Robertson for that matter, and so he has to approach the situation with caution. Gun in hand and stepping to one side of the door, he lets Morgan and Prentiss move to the other. Backed by JJ, Reid, and Rossi, Hotch nods and Morgan kicks down the door before moving quickly inside, yelling at Robertson. Prentiss follows him and then Hotch steps through and freezes.

Robertson is crouched over your crumpled and bloody body looking wild-eyed at the agents in front of him. Hotch can’t breathe. You aren’t moving.

“She’s mine,” Robertson snarls, brandishing a knife at Morgan as he tries to get closer. “Mine!”

“Okay, Michael,” says Rossi calmly, “Let’s figure this out.”

“No. She’s mine! I’m not done,” Robertson’s reply is harsh, bordering on a yell.

“What do you mean you aren’t done, Michael?” Hotch’s voice is cold and flat. What more could Robertson possibly want?

“She didn’t scream! I need her to scream for me!” and with that, Robertson runs the tip of his blade down your already bloody cheek.

The team is stunned, but then Robertson raises the knife in the air over your chest and—

He falls.

Looking slowly to the right, Hotch sees Prentiss, gun raised, and then to Robertson splayed on the ground, blood pooling under his head. Vaguely, Hotch hears Reid calling for medics and alerting the local officers to what just happened. Morgan’s already at your side, turning you slowly, carefully, gently on to your back, and that’s when Hotch rushes to you, gun holstered.

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. There’s blood everywhere. Aaron can’t tell if you’re breathing. He chokes back a sob. I’m so sorry, Sweetheart.

“Hotch, she’s alive,” Morgan breathes, and with that, Hotch lets out a sigh of relief and allows himself to fully look at you, blinking a few times to rid his eyes of tears.

Your face is littered with shallow cuts. Your nose is bloody—definitely broken—and there’s already bruising around your eyes. Your shirt is torn and bloodied in so many places, as are your pants. He can see blood leaking slowly multiple places on your thighs, and even more from your arms and midsection. Your eyes are closed.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Hotch presses down on one of the lacerations to your torso, Morgan taking another, and JJ appearing to apply pressure on a cut that’s just a little too close to your femoral artery.

“C’mon, Sweetheart,” his voice shakes. “I need you to open your eyes, Y/N. Have to know you’re okay.”

There’s yelling from down the hallway, medics bustling into the room and taking over. Aaron can’t make himself let go of you, and it takes Rossi’s gentle but firm hand to guide him back and away from you. He can’t stop shaking.

---

You wake, briefly, when you feel yourself being lifted. Squinting, you try to turn your head, as the rest of the world comes crashing back in a wave of sound and movement. Vision blurred, you try and make sense of what’s going on around you.

“She’s awake!” calls a voice from your left, and you can make out the outline of… JJ? They’re here.

You’re shifted around more, and you get the idea that you’re being strapped down to a gurney as medics begin to wheel you out of the hellhole where Robertson held you.

Suddenly, there’s a hand grasping yours, and before your mind can comprehend what’s happening, all you hear is—

“Sweetheart…?” in the most relieved, reverent, adoring, tone you think you’ve ever heard in your life and it’s Aaron holding your hand. He’s here he’s here he’s here. He found me.

“Aaron,” his name leaves you in a sigh. “Y’found me,” you say softly, looking him over.

“Of course, I did, Sweetheart,” he says, just as soft.

“Where’s…?” you don’t want to say his name.

“Dead. Emily shot him,” Aaron answers in a low voice. Good fucking riddance.

You hum and ease back as the gurney jostles you particularly hard. Gritting your teeth, you groan as you head starts to pound even harder. Feeling yourself losing consciousness, you squeeze Aaron’s hand.

“Love you,” and before he can respond, you vision goes black and all is quiet once more.

---

After you get loaded into the nearest ambulance and speed towards the hospital, Rossi confirms that local officers have secured the scene. With not a moment to waste, the team takes off after the ambulance. Morgan calls Garcia to update her on your status and spends a majority of the ride to the hospital convincing her that she doesn’t need to fly over to see you. Hotch stares blankly out the window and replays the entire interaction with Robertson. He saw the damage Robertson did to you—I need her to scream—and can’t help but feel a little bit of pride at the fact that you didn’t give in to Robertson despite the obvious pain you endured.

The SUVs pull up to the hospital, screeching to a halt, before all the doors are thrown open and the team hurries into the lobby. The nurse at the desk looks up to find six disheveled agents crowding around the counter, worry across all of their faces.

“We’re here for Agent Y/L/N, she probably arrived twenty minutes ago,” Hotch states, voice surprisingly calm.

“I can confirm she arrived and that she’s currently being attended to, but I don’t know any more than that at this moment,” the nurse replies, looking at the computer screen.

“Do you know if she’ll be okay?” asks Spencer in a subdued voice.

“The severity of her injuries is yet to be determined, I’m afraid. She has obvious head trauma, numerous lacerations, and possible internal bleeding, but until I get another update, that’s all I can share,” the nurse says with a sad smile.

Nodding, Aaron steps away from the counter. C’mon, Sweetheart.

“Thank you,” comes Rossi’s voice from Hotch’s left, and with that, the team migrates to the largest cluster of chairs where they promptly collapse in exhaustion.

Sitting down heavily, Hotch rests his elbows on his knees and runs a hand over his face. Prentiss drops in to the chair on his left, Rossi settles in on his right. Across from them, Reid and JJ sit on either side of Morgan. Looking down at his hands, Aaron realizes that they still have your blood on them. He glares at them, somehow wishing that if he stares hard enough, it’ll vanish on its own. A hand closes around one of his, and he looks at Emily.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she says softly, then, louder, “You guys too, Morgan and JJ. Let’s go.”

It’s then that Aaron looks—really looks—and sees that like him, Morgan and JJ have your blood on their hands as well. With a nod, they all stand. Morgan and Hotch walking into the men’s room while Emily follows JJ to keep her company. Mechanically, the two men stand side-by-side and turn on the taps, starting the slow process of washing away the blood that’s dried on them. Glancing to the side, Hotch sees Morgan, brow furrowed in concentration, as he scrubs under his nails.

“Thank you,” he says, stopping his own motions to fully look at Derek, who turns at the sound of his voice.

“For what?” Morgan asks, slightly confused.

“For going over the blueprints with Reid, Prentiss, and Garcia. For figuring out where in the house Y/N had disappeared. For going above and beyond to find her and— “

“Hotch, you don’t have to thank me for that,” Morgan cuts him off. “I will do everything in my power to make sure this team is okay, you know that,” and with a small grin, he adds “I’m just happy that one of my hobbies was useful for the case.”

Hotch can’t help but smile a little in return, and with that, they go back to washing their hands in a more comfortable silence.

---

Walking back into the waiting area, Hotch is confronted with the sight of Reid and Rossi surrounded by a pile of snacks from one of the vending machines. He pauses for a second, shakes his head, and then continues back to the chair he was sitting in earlier. Once he’s seated, Reid tosses him a bag of something—chips? —which he dutifully opens under the watchful eye of Rossi. Morgan snags his own snack and then leans against the nearest wall, content to stand. A short while later, Emily and JJ return, Emily’s arm secure around JJ’s shoulders, before they too are digging in to the veritable mountain of food that Reid and Rossi managed to accumulate. Sitting in silence—save the crunching of whatever food they were eating—the team takes a second to contemplate and reassess the day.

The sound of Velcro breaks Hotch out of his trance, and he looks over to see Morgan undoing his bulletproof vest. The vests which the rest of them are still wearing. There’s a scramble after that, to rid themselves of their exterior layer, which are then haphazardly stacked on an open seat. Taking a deep breath for what feels like the first time in days, Hotch sinks back in his chair and closes his eyes, head tipped back against the cool wall behind him.

“Anyone want water?” Reid is the first to break the tenuous silence. There’s a chorus of hums and head shakes before he stands and wanders off, presumably in the direction of the vending machines where he first got the food.

“She’ll be fine, you know,” Rossi says looking at Aaron, whose eyes are now open, staring at the ceiling. “She’s tough, tougher than I think we gave her credit for.”

Hotch sighs in response, but Emily is the next to speak up.

“Robertson said she didn’t scream, which…” she trails off, looking at the floor before meeting Aaron’s eyes. “I don’t think I could have done that, not like that. I can’t imagine what that was like for her...”

“I wish we had gotten there sooner,” Hotch finally says. “I wish—”

“No.” Morgan says, a hard edge to his voice. “Don’t do that to yourself, Hotch. Or any of us. We did what we could and we found her alive.”

“I know, but—” Hotch is cut off by JJ this time.

“But nothing, Aaron. She’s going to be okay.” And with that, JJ moves from her chair to the one next to him and gently puts a hand on his shoulder. “She was awake and talking before they took her away, you know that,” she adds softly.

“Hey guys, so I talked to the nurse and—” Reid returns and with those words, Hotch sits straight in his seat, JJ’s hand falling away as his attention and that of his teammates focus on what Reid has to say next. “—and apparently, Y/N only needed minor surgery to repair some internal damage from three of the stab wounds and the other slashes were relatively shallow, so they just needed to be stitched up. She also has contusions on her head from where I’m guessing Robertson hit her to initially subdue her, and she does have a concussion and broken nose, but according to the nurse Y/N only has to stay here for a maximum of three days to make sure that there are no serious effects from the concussion and to keep an eye on her sutures before she’ll be cleared to leave.” Reid’s final statement hangs in the air, sinking in, and once it does, Aaron hangs his head as tears fall down his cheeks. You’re okay. You’re alive you’re alive you’re alive.

Derek immediately calls Garcia to give her the good news and her scream of excitement can be heard by the rest of the team even though Morgan did not have her on speakerphone. Rossi chuckles to himself before looking over at Aaron and his shaking shoulders. Putting a hand on his back, Rossi doesn’t say anything, but instead, provides silent support to the man who almost lost what little he had left.

“Agent Y/L/N?” comes a voice from the desk, and Aaron wipes his eyes before taking a breath and standing and turning with the rest of the team.

“Yes?” It’s Prentiss who replies.

“We’ve moved her to a room; you can see her now,” and with that, the nurse beckons for them to follow her through the set of double-doors that lead further into the hospital. Coming to a stop, the nurse turns and fixes Hotch with a look. “I’ll warn you now, she looks worse off than she actually is, so don’t be put off by her appearance. She shouldn’t move too much because there’s a risk she’ll rip her stitches, but other than that, she’ll be okay,” and with a nod, she opens the door and ushers them inside.

Aaron’s eyes rush to take in your appearance—butterfly bandages across your nose, a few on your cheekbones and forehead, bandages up both arms, and he’s sure there’s more hidden from view. For a moment, he’s taken back to the last time he saw you laying this still. Crumpled on the floor, bloody and unmoving, Robertson with a knife crouched over you, going to kill you—

Prentiss pushes past him, breaking his train of thought, as she moves to your side and gives a low whistle before gingerly taking your hand. Aaron walks to your other side, bending down to place a kiss on the top of your head, and the rest of the team surround your bed, everyone gazing down at your sleeping form.

---

The first thing you notice is the pain in your head, followed by pain that slowly pulses through your whole body, and for a moment, you remember. Robertson, the knife, slicing, slashing, taunting, yelling, don’t scream can’t scream—

But then you feel it. The familiar pressure of Aaron kissing your head and it clears your head a bit. Not with Robertson, not with Robertson, I’m not with that fucker.

“Fuck,” you groan, mind still hazy, pain more intense, as you return to consciousness. “Wh’re am I?” you slur out next, as you blink away the tiredness in your eyes and try not to squint at the fluorescents or the shadows that are sharpening into your team.

Looking to your right, you lock eyes with Aaron, who pushes hair off of your face before smiling sweetly at you and you try to smile back.

“Hi, Love,” you say, voice low and rough. He leans down and kisses your forehead this time, before gently holding your hand.

Realizing you aren’t alone, you look around at the rest of the team, squeezing Emily’s hand in yours.

“You killed ‘im?” you ask, searching her face. She nods. “Good,” you sigh. “He was such an asshole.”

With that, Derek laughs, followed by Rossi. Emily’s shoulders drop as she lets out a chuckle, Spencer smiles, and JJ rolls her eyes with a fond grin. Almost the whole team.

As if summoned by the power of thought, Derek’s phone rings and he answers the call, Garcia’s voice coming through loud and clear on speakerphone.

“Y/N! My poor, poor, goddess divine how are you?” she questions. You clear your throat and attempt to speak, but before you can say anything Morgan is passing the phone to Aaron, who holds it closer to your face. You shoot him a grateful smile before responding.

“I’m fine, Pen. Just some cuts and scrapes,” you joke.

“That’s a lie, Y/L/N and we all know it. Don’t make me ask you again!” she chastises and you roll your eyes, holding back a wince as pain twinges through your side.

“I’ll be okay, Penelope,” you say softly. Another jolt of pain, this time in your arm, almost makes you whimper, but you bite your lip instead. An action which does not go unnoticed in a room full of profilers.

“It’s nice to see you awake, Y/N,” JJ says lightly before shooting a glance at Aaron and then looking at the rest of the team. “But we should get back to the hotel.”

“Bye my lovelies! I’m happy you’re okay, Y/N. Get home safe, please! Garcia out,” and Derek puts his phone away before smiling at you. Reid give you a small wave and Rossi claps a hand on Aaron’s shoulder before they all turn to exit.

With one last squeeze to your hand, Emily lets go and follows the rest of the team, save Aaron, out the door with the promise that they’ll return later.

When everyone is out and the door shuts behind them, you finally let out a pained breath and scrunch your eyes shut with a groan. You feel Aaron smooth a hand over your hair and you try to control your breathing, but it’s hard when your entire body hurts. Slowly, tears make their way down your face and Aaron’s quick to softly brush them away. Turning to look at him, you allow yourself to breakdown in the safety of his presence.

Your breath hitches as the tears fall faster, your head hurts, your chest hurts, everything hurts and you try not to break into a sob, but the tears won’t stop and eventually sobs wrench from your body and you let them. Aaron has tears of his own falling down his face and he holds your hand in both of his, kissing your knuckles, fingertips, palm, whatever he can as he watches you break. He wants to hold you, wrap you in his arms and shield you from the pain but he can’t because your injuries prevent him from doing so and it pains him to see you this way. So he does what he can.

“I love you too, Sweetheart. I didn’t get to say it before you passed out and—” he pauses to take a breath. “I love you so much. So so much.”

“I was so scared—” you gasp through a sob. “Terrified, Aaron. I couldn’t—” you can’t speak through the force of your tears. Aaron shushes you and kisses your cheek, running his thumb over your knuckles.

“I know, Sweetheart. I know, but you were so brave, so brave and I am so proud of you for being so strong and—” he breaks off in his own soft sob. “—and for staying alive. You’re alive.”

Lifting a hand to scrub at your face, you take a few deep breaths, but more tears escape.

“I can’t—” your breath hitches at what exactly Robertson had done to you. “He wanted me to scream so I didn’t, I couldn’t. I knew what he did to the others, and I just thought that—” you take another breath. “I just thought that if I could deny him that, not give in, it would buy you guys time to find me,” you pull Aaron’s hand to your lips, resting them on the back of his hand and closing your eyes to ground yourself.

“And you did,” he replies softly, gently. “When we found you—” he takes his own steadying breath. “When we found you, Robertson was angry, he said…he said he needed to make you scream, and hearing that…I just,” he moves his hand to cup your face, softly moving his thumb over the bandage on your cheekbone. “You astound me, Sweetheart. Everyday,” he finishes in a whisper.

“I love you,” you say just as softly.

“I love you more,” he smiles, and you can’t help but smile back.

You lean forward, then. And he meets halfway, hand disentangling from yours so he can cradle both sides of your face as he sinks into the kiss. One of your own hands finds its place on his cheek and you sigh into his lips. This. This is what kept me alive, you think when he gently tilts your head. I love you I love you I love you. Thank you. With tears slowly drying on both your faces, you and Aaron revel in the comfort of each other. In the words you don’t have to speak, and the touch of the one you love. Through the worry, pain, and fear of the day, this is how it always ends. You and Aaron. Together. Safe. Loved.

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bikerjongho · 4 years ago

Text

the library of wonder | ateez ot8

genre: historical fiction, horror, adventure, fantasy

characters: warrior!ateez ot8

description: Religious radicals in the Joseon Dynasty, the self-proclaimed Anti-Rhythm Riders cult does everything in their power to destroy anything and anyone that violates their sacred Code of Conduct.

word count: 5.8k

warnings: violence, murder, maiming, ableism, graphic description of a dead body, radical religion, blood

author’s note: what happens when you combine the library of alexandria with ateez? this fic. this is the third addition to the ateez music video series whose masterlist (which lists the rest of them) is here. Also to note that this is part 1 of a series that I will continue later. The subsequent parts will be connected to different music videos.

taglist: @itsapapisongo @mangomingki @irehlevant @blueprint-han @doievoir @bvlnoriyas

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Weapons were a way to show the power of a king. Mounted and gleaming, the spears of King Yoongi of the Joseon Dynasty stood on either side of his elegant and golden throne like guards at the ready. On the walls that surrounded the throne from the left and right were an impressive display of bows and an array of fine arrows to accompany them. On the floor, King Yoongi's head lolled, blood pouring out of its severed end as Hongjoong sheathed the King's sword that was on his wall only moments before.

Beside the King's head and body on the floor, his recently deceased personal guard lay with him. This was thanks to Hongjoong's two best short-distance fighters, Mingi and Seonghwa. The two of them eyed the royally red blood that gushed out of the King's severed neck as they sheathed their swords. The three of them wore nothing more than simple blue hanboks and had their long hair tied up in a topknot at the top of their head, traditional for common men of this age. But with the corpse of the most important man in the Dynasty at their feet and the smell of civil unrest in the air, the plain clothing and ordinary hair was far from an appropriate look for these men in this moment.

The King's sword was now sheathed at Hongjoong's side, but he was not yet finished with the king. Bending down to the severed head, Hongjoong ripped out all of the intricate pins and ties that the King's servants had put in his hair that morning. The King's luscious black hair spilled out at his feet, mixing with his blood and turning it burgundy. Hair was a symbol of status and power. Now that the King was dead, Hongjoong assumed he no longer needed his power. He extracted a dagger from a pocket of his hanbok and began cutting at where the King's scalp ended.

The hair obliged with the blade. Soon, the King's heap of hair rested in Hongjoong's hands, and he promptly tied it to keep the strands together. "Proof," Hongjoong whispered and shoved the hair into his hanbok. "Proof that the wretched King Yoongi is dead."

"May he rot in many Hells," Seonghwa murmured and bowed his head. Mingi followed suit, and then Hongjoong last. There was a method to their madness. They, along with a few other men, were leaders of an ancient group called the Anti-Rhythm Riders. They did no harm as long as no one provoked them. Their laws, while more modest and tight than most groups, religions, or cults, were mostly fair. But the Anti-Rhythm Riders were a bloodthirsty and arrogant group of people that took pride in their faith and murdered anyone that refused to also follow.

"You must understand," Hongjoong had said calmly to a screaming woman only weeks earlier. Despite his attempts to convert her, she wouldn't budge, leaving Hongjoong with only one choice. His eyes had darkened to a lifeless grey as he had stuck his hand into her abdomen and twisted her gut. "This is a death far more merciful than if The Chariot returned while you were still alive and not following Him," he had said, digging his nails into her body while she screamed. "Feel blessed that I have chosen to kill you and spare you of his wrath that is worse than this by tenfold."

The dead King at Hongjoong's feet was one of many who had been adamantly against the Anti-Rhythm Riders. But besides their penchant for murdering those that were not like them, their strict code of honor shaped them into contributing and positive members of society. Their code of laws requested that each member of the group brought forth the best version of themselves at all times. This included dressing appropriately and being able-bodied, so all Riders were in peak health and dressed like they respected themselves. But on the same side of the coin, it was imperative to closely follow the code of honor as a Rider, lest they be murdered in the same way a non-believer would. The Riders, no matter how devoted they were to their cause, could not step out of line.

Top physical health included never becoming blind, deaf, mute, or immobile, except in the cases of old age or a sickness, but even then, those members were socially separated from the rest of the Riders. Old believers and ill people dressed from head to toe in black clothing in order to not bring attention to themselves and their misfortune of owning a frail and weak body.

But King Yoongi had not perished because of his non-belief. Despite his non-belief, most Riders saw merit in a hierarchal leader. They had, with their teeth grit, kept him alive. What had caused his downfall was not a snap decision by a lone Rider. It was caused by The Library of Wonder.

"A man that has lost his way chooses to walk the path to eternal hell," Mingi quoted a founder as he kicked Yoongi's body as he walked by towards the exit of the throne room. Hongjoong gripped the hair in his pockets, then followed Mingi. Seonghwa followed last, shutting the doors to the throne room with a smile on his face.

When they walked outside, they were met with thunderous cries and applause. The rest of Hongjoong's elite and higher-up group stood waiting in the front of it all. Yunho, man with a spear and a smile that was a bit too comforting and cozy; Yeosang, a solemn man with a sword strapped to his side that was anything but that; San, producing an ugly and terrifying grin on his face as Hongjoong removed the King's ponytail from his pockets; Jongho, with his sharp eyes and sharper reflexes, infamous bow and arrows strapped to his chest and back, and Wooyoung, who thrusted his permanently bandaged and bloodied fists into the air and let out a cry of victory that seared across the mass of Riders and raised the temperature of their spirits.

"The King is dead, Riders," Hongjoong bellowed above the roaring crowd. "And now, we ride to the Library of Wonder." He was met with shouts of disapproval for the Library, and Hongjoong's lip curled upward. There was a section for arts and music in The Rider's code. It was allowed, but certain teachings of it, such as allowing it to manipulate emotions, was forbidden.

"There is a disease in the heart of man," The Riders heard all too frequently in their sermons and speeches. "The disease is human emotion."

The Library of Wonder promoted this diseased music. For years they had tried to defund the Library, encourage the King to focus his spending elsewhere, to change the Library so it did not promote these blasphemous ideas, and none had been successful.

"We can't have a King that has allowed such a violation of our code for this long," Hongjoong had said only a month before the assassination, neck deep in plans for the kill. His face had darkened against the flickering fire that was nearby, casting inhuman shadows across his features. The Anti-Rhythm Riders were not a majority in the Joseon Dynasty, and their following was hardly recognized as a religion at all, let alone the Dynasty's main religion - but they were a potent and loud minority.

And over the course of a year, Hongjoong had been collecting and persuading commoners with his silver tongue to join The Riders for the purpose of having an army. An army that would not only be large, but also be relentless and unstoppable. And as Hongjoong stood in front of these thousands of people fueled with anger for The Library, he believed his work to collect them all had been a success. San took over with controlling the crowd, his loud voice carrying over all of the chatter and yelling. He dictated to certain groups in the crowd to certain tasks, such as loading wood onto the backs of their traveling cows or oiling up weapons and lighters. Fire, Hongjoong had decided, would be the ideal move to destroy the library. It would burn all of the texts that he and so many others hated with no hope of replicating them.

Amidst the screams, Yunho saddled up next to Hongjoong. One of Hongjoong's most efficient and silent warriors in the team, he was an asset that had carried them far. He couldn't stop smiling. Hongjoong knew that this day was huge for him - huge for all of them. Killing the King had been a goal point of their plan. Now all that was left was to destroy The Library of Wonder.

"Do you have any hangwa?" He asked, and Hongjoong was mildly bemused at how casual he was. He had just seen him slice the arm off of a palace soldier only fifteen minutes prior.

"I do," Hongjoong answered anyway, shuffling around in his bag before pulling out a packet of hangwa, assorted Korean cookies. He pushed it towards him, and Yunho happily dug in. "Time to rally the troops," he said, starting up a conversation.

"Well, it's easy to do that when persuasion rolls off of the tongue like leaves blow in the wind," Yunho said, mouth full of cookie. Yunho was referring to The Riders' way of persuasion and how it borderlined with magical coercing. In many ways, it was magical. Hongjoong theorized it had to do with how devoted and powerful many of The Riders were. It was The Chariot's doing that allowed his followers the ability of masterful persuasion.

It was also the reason why they had amassed so many people for their invasion so quickly. Many of them had knocked on doors and preached in the streets. As long as someone could hear them, people joined their cause.

The Riders left immediately after their supplies and weapons were loaded into traveling bags and onto the backs of animals. Hours after they had left on their journey to the Library, Jongho was ready to rally the troops for a special tradition. Having just climbed onto a travelling horse, he was raised above the crowd. His long and dark hair flickered around his face as he assessed the mass of walking Riders. The time must have felt correct to him, for he then raised his arms over the crowd, a move he had done many times.

This move caught the attention of many Riders, but his projecting and powerful voice was what roped in the rest. Jongho sang a mid-range note that silenced what little noise was left from the crowd. The Riders stopped what they were doing in order to match his note. Hongjoong and Yunho followed suit out of habit. The earth rumbled with the thousands of voices of the Riders.

There was an air to the main vocalist now that all of the attention was on him. Something lurked in the darker hues of his eyes, something that looked like power, and it showed itself through how he now moved and sang. His voice, still louder than the crowd's, rose up a note. The dissonance of the pitches only lasted for a moment before the crowd went down a note, creating a harmony. Jongho closed the fingers on his left hand into a fist and the women of the Riders adjusted their note. A minor harmony emerged from the chord.

None of the voices were completely perfect, except for maybe Jongho's. But all voices bowed at the command of Jongho's hands that were, in a way, conducting an old vocal ritual created by and for their religion. The choir was used to grab the attention of all Riders, but it was used equally as a morale booster. Hongjoong glanced at Yeosang, his sword gleaming with menace at his side, and raised his eyebrows.

Yeosang caught his eyes and sifted through the crowd to him. "Why is Jongho doing the Chariot Chant?" He hissed under the singing as the swordsman came close to him. He had seen Jongho and Yeosang together only a quarter of an hour prior. And while the choir was mainly for enjoyment, it was sometimes used as a distraction from something that the higher-up Riders didn't want the rest of their group to know about. Hongjoong feared something had come up despite his meticulous planning, and he assumed that Yeosang knew about the problem if there was one. "We didn't plan one. What is he diverting?"

Yeosang, in charge of the artillery, looked at Jongho on the horse. "Some of our artillery is failing," he said, his eyes the color of stone. "Some of our men and women notified me of a few issues our cannons are having. I inspected them myself and have found that they are correct. I assume this was the throne's last stand against us." His frown deepened. "I theorize our original plan for the Library can't be used now."

A smile appeared on Hongjoong's lips, mirroring Yeosang's disapproving frown. The original plan was to partially blow up the library before burning it, suggested by Yeosang, but Hongjoong had been against it. He wanted the library to be aflame as soon and for as long as possible, but he had been outnumbered by most of his group. Hongjoong's method would endanger more Rider's lives at the expense of his selfish love for fire. Unprecedented death of Riders was certainly a reason for Jongho to begin a distracting chant. He wouldn't have started it if he had thought Hongjoong's plan would go to fruition.

"So we go with my plan," Hongjoong smirked at the artillery leader. Yeosang pursed his lips and, for a moment, said nothing.

"I will think about our other options," Yeosang murmured. "Ones that will, perhaps, be less taxing on us. Don't think for a second that Jongho's calling to action means your plan will now be enacted," he said with a hint of irritation. He said no more, sweeping himself back into the crowds towards the animals helping carry the artillery, leaving Hongjoong with his thoughts and a smile still plastered to his face.

Hongjoong was the unofficial leader of the Riders, but he still wanted to deal with decisions diplomatically. So, after an hour of caroling with Jongho, Hongjoong rounded up the seven of them to talk about their plan of attack on the library.

They formed a line as they walked and saddled beside the cattle and horses that carried the artillery. Seonghwa and Wooyoung gravitated towards Hongjoong in the line. The two of them had been the members to agree with Hongjoong's less rational plan of setting fire to the library immediately upon arrival, but they had ultimately been overruled by the other five that had agreed to Yeosang's safer plan.

"So, fire immediately?" Wooyoung asked everyone once Hongjoong explained to them their situation, but his eyes were locked onto Hongjoong. Yeosang raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"Not quite," Hongjoong said evenly, turning his attention to Yeosang, who now had his arms crossed. "Let's see what our artillery man has to say."

"If the First Army successfully purged the library of people," Yeosang said, referring to a subset of the Riders that had left for the library a day earlier, "then we should have a clean and easy shot to do whatever we want to the library. Word won't spread that we invaded it until it's already a pile of rubble." Some of them bowed their heads in appreciation for that statement.

"That being said," Yeosang continued, "we have about half the amount of cannons I'd like to have. We still have swords, but that won't do much against the hard material of the building." He grabbed the hilt of his sword at his side instinctively. "We still have torches and the building is flammable."

"And bow and arrows," Yunho cut in, lifting up Jongho's bow from his back. Jongho glared at him.

"Arrows that can carry flame," Yeosang sighed, and Seonghwa's lip curled up. "I truly have exhausted my thoughts and exhausted them some more. Many weapons from home could have been used for a different attack, but we're too far to turn back now." They were all experienced enough fighters to realize where Yeosang was going.

"Fire," Hongjoong smiled, and Yeosang looked weary.

"Fire," he sighed in agreement.

Wooyoung and Seonghwa exploded into hisses of victory. Wooyoung punched his fist into the air. "Hell yes," he said, shaking his bandaged wrist in front of him.

"Should we tell them?" Yeosang asked, gesturing to the entire herd of Riders that were traveling with them as a few of the members dispersed from the group. Yeosang meant the increased danger that came with their sudden change of plans. Hongjoong adjusted the bag on his back and grinned.

"They know what they're getting into," Hongjoong smiled. "But even if they don't, they'll do it anyway. They love The Chariot too much to refuse to do something." Hongjoong flicked a cocky smile at Yeosang, who could only sigh and nod. While it was not his favorite plan, it was a plan that still accomplished the destruction of the library, which was a goal all of them wanted to achieve regardless of the means.

And while Riders didn't like injuring other Riders, self-preservation overtook any feelings they had for their lower Rider acquaintances. If Yeosang could remain without burn scars and seared lungs while someone else did, then it was simply a means to an end. The library was destined to go down by the careful hands of the Riders, one way or another.

It took another day for the riders to reach The Library of Wonder, and when they did, it was a wonder to behold. Sculpted with stone and wood, it was an incredible feat of architecture in the Joseon Dynasty. Great stone columns supported the front of the building, and a stone statue of a beautiful woman with long hair and a scroll in her hands greeted library goers at the entrance.

Wooyoung yanked out a club from the pockets of his blue hanbok and swung at the lady without warning. He took off part of her chest and her entire left arm and was met with roars of approval and laughter. "At the ready!" Hongjoong yelled over the laughing crowds, and Riders began fishing their weapons out of their pockets. These weapons were mostly bows and arrows, but like Wooyoung, a few clubs were seen. Jongho was among those with bow and arrows, slinging his trusty bow from around his shoulder to the front of his body.

But bow and arrows weren't the correct term for the weapon Jongho and many of the other Riders had. His bow and arrows were of a narrower Korean variety called the singijeon. The singijeon worked much like traditional bow and arrows, but gunpowder was held in the arrows.

He now had his bow cocked and ready and his hands clutched a wooden arrow with a ball of gunpowder nestled close to the tip of the arrow. Jongho pulled back with his left hand and released the arrow. The Riders watched as it soared through the heat of the sun and made contact with the middle of the entry wall of the Library. As soon as the arrow hit the wall, the gunpowder activated and blew a hole in it.

Many more singijeon became useful and created more holes in the Library and smoke in the air. It was almost too easy to destroy the Library. It crumbled more and more with each hit like it was destiny for the great building to fall. Soon enough, the wall was completely gone and the Riders rejoiced in their work.

Mingi appeared at the front of the crowd, a tall presence marked even more visible by the torch of fire he held in his hands. Behind him, Yeosang carried a similar torch and was passing the fire to other torches held by other Riders, who were then passing the fire to others around them like believers in a church service would. There was no fire in Yeosang's eyes despite the lit torch in his hands.

"Riders," Mingi shouted and stepped over the rubbled wall that the Riders had just destroyed. He tilted his head down and grinned while surveying the crowd. Then, he elegantly walked over to the first shelf of the Library and let his torch make contact with the last book on the shelf. It took the fire with no issues, becoming an incendiary in moments. The book was quick to share the flames with the paper around it, and soon the entire shelf glowed with fire. Mingi was quick to exit the library as Riders poured into the Library with their torches and began setting the books aflame.

Yeosang, though his eyes were grim with the disapproval of how the Riders were proceeding, was smiling. While their method wasn't the safest or most practical, the Library that had been up for so long was finally being destroyed. The eight Riders watched a safe distance away as their lesser brethren raced into the Library like packs of overexcited hyenas. Many of them likely didn't know what they were fighting for, but they were moths drawn to flame, entranced by the beauty and cruelty of destruction.

Wooyoung smiled while the fire casted red and orange light on his face. "The Library is not exactly a slow-burn, is it?" He said softly as the fire ravenously ate through the texts.

"It's not," Yunho agreed with him. "Especially with the leftover gunpowder from all of the singijeon. Gunpowder revels with fire."

The eight of them watched the Library eat itself in the flames from a safe distance away. It was comical how some Riders passionately drove into the collapsing Library with a torch in their hands and emerged with burns and much less enthusiasm. Sometimes they didn't reappear at all. That feeling caused a bit of discomfort to some of them, but Hongjoong reveled in their discomfort. It just showed how dedicated they were to The Chariot, and Hongjoong was proud of them for their dedication.

It took a half an hour for the great stone Library of Wonder to turn into a charred and wasteful hunk of rock. The papery books had succumbed too easily to the flames and all that was left on the inside of the Library were ashes and the remnant memories of books lost forever. The fire was less of a roar and more whispery and trapped now, only burning the book it was on and not passing its flame to other books.

San was now on top of a horse and rallying the troops to receive medical attention if they needed any and congratulated them on their efforts. "The Chariot is proud of us, Riders," he said, beaming. Some Riders returned a smile, others were too hurt to acknowledge San. "As our great laws say, the disease in the heart of man is human emotion. These books would have spread that harmful message had we not burned them down. For that, He is eternally grateful for your efforts."

San hopped off of the horse and joined the other seven Riders in preparing for the return trip. Behind them, the last of the flames were dying out. Riders still in the Library were stumbling out of the burned rubble. There were likely bodies of Riders that were dead inside of the Library and others that were alive but had succumbed themselves to imperfections of their physical features. And while they had given a valiant effort in destroying the Library, that was a violation of The Rider's code. They would have to cover up if they wished to remain a Rider.

But something else lurked in the rubble as well. All Riders wore blue, but a man in red was now present behind a collapsing and charred bookshelf. His ethnicity, like the Riders, was Korean, but his skin and eyes held heavy years and knowledge of many more cultures and lands that the Riders could only dream of touching. His long black hair was knotted at the back of his head, and beneath his bulging arm muscles was a lengthy silver sword with a red hilt.

But perhaps his most distinguishing feature was the long scar that travelled from his left eyebrow, through his eye, down his cheek, ending right at the tip of his lip. The scar made the left side of his lips permanently downturned. Such a scar directly violated The Rider's code, but this man was above that religion and the laws that it held. This man was Ares, the god of war. And Ares, who thrived in bloodshed and carried the spirit of warfare wherever he walked, was not impressed with the warfare that had gone on at this library.

Yunho noticed him first. He was surveying the Library's remains when he saw the man's hulking figure amidst the ashes like a phoenix. "Hongjoong," he whispered and nudged him. He nodded his head towards the Library.

Hongjoong, who was overseeing a group of Riders, looked over at the Library. Ares locked eyes with him and Hongjoong's blood ran cold. He had no idea who this man was, but he was someone that could send shivers down Hongjoong's spine. There weren't many people that could do that.

Hongjoong took a step forward to address this man, but Ares was already ahead of him.

"So-called Riders," Ares boomed across the land, his voice easily the loudest in the vicinity yet there was no visible effort on his face to make himself heard over everyone. His thigh muscles rippled as he stepped over what was left of the wall. His face was flooded with unfiltered rage.

The rest of the Riders, who had been focused on returning home, froze in their efforts. All eyes were on the giant and muscular man seething in front of them.

Seonghwa grabbed the knife at his side and glanced at Hongjoong for permission. In any other circumstance, Hongjoong would have let him have it. Instead, he softly shook his head, and held his hand in front of Jongho when he realized he was drawing his bow. There was something about this man that Hongjoong did not want to provoke, but the steam coming from his head was proof that he had already been provoked enough. Hongjoong gulped and tried to calm his racing heart.

"I'm Ares, the God of War," the muscled man thundered, and no one was brave enough to disagree with him. He certainly looked the part. Now that he was closer, Hongjoong could see the long scar across his face and wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"You-" Ares began, but he was cut off as a singijeon arrow flew through the air directly towards his face. Hongjoong turned and saw that it was from a young and male Rider, gripping his bow so tightly that his knuckles were white.

Ares didn't flinch at this unexpected attack. With a practiced and weathered hand, he caught the arrow between his fingers. The Riders were stunned. His hand twitched and the arrow snapped in half. "Cute," he muttered, letting it crumble to the ground in his hands. He turned towards the teenage Rider who had shot the arrow and gave him a smile.

Hongjoong began to step forward. He wasn't sure what he was to do for the boy, he wanted to help - but Ares was too quick. With a flick of his hand not unlike the motion he had done with the arrow, the teenage boy jerked inhumanly backward with a loud crack. With his spine completely in two, he toppled over himself backwards onto the ground. His face was lifelessly frozen in shock, and the clear God of War smiled with satisfaction at the work he had done.

A few muffled sobs prevented silence. "Let me speak," Ares said carefully to the crowd, his eyes traveling over them all like he was sizing them up. This time, no one argued.

"Riders," Ares began. "You've burned down The Library of Wonder and all of the wonders it contained. Do you even understand the weight of that action?"

Ares looked directly at Hongjoong and he felt obliged to speak. "The books hold untrue and unsafe messages," Hongjoong spoke to Ares, his knees quivering underneath his pants. He didn't remember his voice sounding so small. "We had to rid them of this world. They have no place here except as smoke and ash. It is The Chariot's wish and creed."

"And your Chariot is nothing more than a weak and ailing minor god," Ares said cooly back to him. It took everything in Hongjoong's power to not curse him out for insulting his god - but he didn't want to end up like the young Rider.

"I know him," Ares continued. "He laughs at the lengths you do for him. He himself knows he is pathetic, but he enjoys seeing humans like you quiver and worship him. And I normally don't bat an eye to his or your shenanigans, I have better things to worry about, other worlds that are far more entertaining than this one," Ares said.

His eyes darkened. "But burning down my wife's Library broke her. So, in turn, you have to deal with me."

Hongjoong realized in horror what he meant. He idly thought of Wooyoung's gleeful act of smashing the statue of the goddess at the front of the Library. He wanted to throw up. Wooyoung looked like he wanted to throw up.

"So I've made it my personal game to make your lives a living hell," Ares said with a smile. "Because no one hurts my wife." He shifted his attention, not just towards Hongjoong, but to the other seven of his teammates crowded around him. They all froze. Hongjoong felt Mingi tense beside him.

"You Riders are simply too vocal for my taste," Ares glared. "The Chariot gives you the power of persuasion because it amuses him, so you all go around recruiting mindless humans to follow your so-called religion. But it is not funny in the slightest." His eyes swiveled to Jongho and his smile widened. "Doesn't this one sing?"

Hongjoong heard Jongho intake a terrified breath. He heard a sudden movement, and then Jongho had taken off running in the opposite direction as Ares. But Jongho was an ant and Ares was a stone. Hongjoong blinked and Ares was in front of the singer.

Jongho was strong, but he was nothing compared to a god. He began screaming as Ares picked him up by the throat, crying out to the Chariot, to his mother, to Hongjoong, to anyone that was listening, but he received no answer. Tears ran down his face and he kicked to be set free. Only his scream, which vastly contrasted his usual mesmerizing singing voice, cut through the air, and then he was abruptly silenced by Ares.

Ares dropped Jongho to the ground at his feet, and the boy continued his sobs in a crumpled mess. But his sobs lacked the voice, no matter how anguished it would have been right now, that the Riders had grown to love.

"He has no more use for his vocal cords," Ares smiled, and Hongjoong's heart dropped to his feet. Jongho had loved his voice. Everyone had loved his voice. Ares looked at the rest of them, and he realized with horror that he was not close to being done with them. "A shame, isn't it?" Ares laughed and stepped over Jongho's shaking body. "Your law says you are to never become mute, lest you want to remain a Rider. Seems like a bit of an issue, does it not?"

Hongjoong tried to move his legs, but he found himself frozen in place. He wasn't sure if it was his own body trying to protect him from harm or Ares immobilizing him, but he could only stare in sickening awe as one by one, Ares stole the voices of every Rider present. For some, he waved his hand and an entire group of people were silenced. Others, like those in Hongjoong's close team, had a solo maiming in front of everyone. No one was spared from Ares' destruction, especially not Hongjoong.

When he was finished, the sea of Riders were silent.

"Now I won't be interrupted," Ares said cheerfully, worlds happier than he was when he first arrived at the library. The hulking man had taken it upon himself to move Jongho's limp and shaking form back to the other seven of them.

"You eight are especially troublesome," Ares whispered, because there was no voice that could be above him. "For that, you have a special place in my personal hell. And now, I will take you to your own personal hell."

Ares raised his hand, and the library in the horizon vanished from view. For a moment, Hongjoong could see nothing, and then a beige wall of a house clouded his vision.

Hongjoong opened his mouth to cry out, but the attempt was fruitless.

"Your own personal hell," Ares said softly, suddenly beside him. The god placed a hand on Hongjoong's shoulder, a soft gesture that a father might do to a son. "You and your seven other friends are in, what I call, a timeout mansion. It is a place that you cannot leave or escape from, so I advise you to not even attempt that. You will sit and you will gaze at the fine art and architecture that this mansion has to offer," Ares said, his words puncturing. "You will be in aching emotional pain because all of this art is, as you call it, a disease to your human heart." Ares rubbed his back while Hongjoong held back tears. "And you will grow to love it."

The god stood up from beside Hongjoong. "That is your answer to escaping. An answer that you must vocalize and preach if you are to ever leave here." Ares smiled at him, and the scar that touched his eye, cheek, and lip curled up with it. And then he was gone, and Hongjoong's hope left with him.

For a few moments, Hongjoong stared at the floor. Then, shaking, he raised his right hand.

There is a disease in the heart of man, Hongjoong thought and touched his chest over his heart. His heart was racing like he had never felt before.

The disease is in me.

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danganronpa-ea · 4 years ago

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DR:EA2 Chapter 6 Deadly Life - Class Trial

To Read the Prologue click here;

Prologue: part 1 | part 2

Chapter 1 Daily Life: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Chapter 1 Deadly Life: Investigation | CT part 1 | CT part 2 | CT part 3

Chapter 2 Daily Life: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

Chapter 2 Deadly Life: Investigation | CT part 1 | CT part 2 | CT part 3

Chapter 3 Daily Life: part 1 | part 2 | part 3

Chapter 3 Deadly Life: Investigation | CT part 1 | CT part 2

Chapter 4 Daily Life: part 1 | part 2

Chapter 4 Deadly Life: Investigation | CT part 1 | CT part 2

Chapter 5 Daily Life: part 1 | part 2 | part 3

Chapter 5 Deadly Life: Investigation | CT part 1 | CT part 2 | CT part 3

Chapter 6 Deadly Life/Epilogue: Investigation | Epilogue

Anyway, all credit goes to respective owners.

Chapter 6 – Hope of Surviving – Deadly Life part 2

Memory Bullets:

‘Eito’s True Talent’: I was given permission by Sunako-chan to reveal my talent, a talent that I don’t think of much or even thought was bad but now, I’m prepare to accept it.

‘Shizen Resort’s Owner’: Miwa-san is the Shizen Resort’s Owner, she was the one that allow Sunako-chan to built buildings and even went as far as to allow her to bring kids to the resort but it seems she stop for reasons unknown.

‘Medicine on Ship’: It looks like there were medicine on the ship that was meant for Tomohiro-san, meaning that Haku made us kill each other at the start of this.

‘Hamoponi’s true purpose’: Seems like Hamoponi was made as a defense of sorts to protect the resort, along with Sunako-chan saying that this wasn’t even meant to be a killing game but got made into one due to Haku wiping her memories.

CLASS TRIAL – START!

Inoue Sunako: Seeing as we got three people here, I’ll explain what is to happen; this trial has been call to prove the innocent of Hamoponi’s creator or myself. You must prove if I really set up this game or not. Now if I am truly the one responsible then I will gladly turn myself along with Haku Isamu but if not, Haku Isamu will turn in - now let’s begin.

Kabuto Reiji: So you won’t punish yourself but instead allow us to arrest you?

Inoue Sunako: Yes, I don’t like to cause pointless bloodshed – not even for my own life nor have any executions.

Tamon Mayumi: I see then here’s another question; we know that there look to be 6 of you, including Masa-chan and Haku here… what happen to the rest of your class?

Oku Yoshi: Yeah – that’s what I was wondering about. We check over the Shizen Resort and it was mention to be a safe haven by head ups at Future Foundation.

Inoue Sunako: …

Haku Isamu: Simple, most are either dead or left, likely due to them planning to have them all kill each other or worse.

Inoue Sunako: Hell no, I did not plan that at all! Actually, YOU’RE the one that started all this you even attack me and forcefully remove my memory! To make me forget I was the controlling the resort and protect the people from people like you.

Haku Isamu: And look how that turn out – they still all died regardless, you didn’t protect them and ended up killing themselves. I could even predict you place the motives out just to start the killing, huh?

Inoue Sunako: Th-That’s…!

Seems that Sunako-chan might be having trouble trying to explain that and even then even I know his argument has a hole…

Kobayashi Eito: Haku, we know that is bullshit. If anything, you had a lot to do with that one.

Esumi Masa: Exactly, we have-!

CUT IN!

Haku Isamu: Time for a debate!

Haku Isamu: Hmph, you clearly are taking her side just because she’s a child – you know that there are child killers out there, right? I wouldn’t even be surprise if she planned you all to kill each other and watch.

Katou Doi: Like you did this entire time? I rather believe Sunako-chan then some meanie that force us to kill each other…

Haku Isamu: And I’m going to argue with some mentally retarded bastard in a bear costume!

Cross Sword with Haku Isamu – BEGIN!

Haku Isamu: You honestly think I set this up? //slash// I had nothing to do with this and you all accuse me. //slash// You clearly assume things about me haven’t even met me //slash// So if anything, you have no proof! //slash//

Katou Doi: You think we don’t when in fact we do… You’re the very person that started this whole killing game and trying to make us enemies of Sunako-chan!

Haku Isamu: You have the gall to argue against me //slash// you really don’t want to go against her because she’s a child //slash// plus what <proof>< Medicine on Ship> do you have that I did it?

Katou Doi: I’ll claw out your words!

Cross Sword with Haku Isamu – END!

Katou Doi: We sure as heck do have proof you did, in fact we explore your ship when you were out – even discover the medicine that was for Tomo-kun!

Haku Isamu: And you walk in on it without me knowing…

Katou Doi: But it proves that you had try to force us to kill each other since the beginning, you made us kill each other and Tomo-kun and the others wouldn’t have killed each other – plus we have recording of it too so you can’t say we aren’t lying.

Haku Isamu: And? It’s not like he was going to live long anyway – you seem to hold that first trial against me very hard, huh?

Katou Doi: …Even if he didn’t, he wanted to find his way to survive and for that; I’ll find my own way to survive – even if he isn’t here, I’ll live on for him!

Haku Isamu: You really think so? You know how it’s like out there – you really sure you’ll find your way to survive or hell…. You really think that brat is lying about protecting you all.

Inoue Sunako: I am not lying, I clearly made Hamoponi to protect everyone at the resort and get rid of any threat – that includes you!

Esumi Masa: Haku, we know you did this now quit denying and now…

Haku Isamu/Inoue Sunako/Esumi Masa: She’s the mastermind/I’m not the mastermind/Admit your crime!

Three arguments are happening at once – we got to prove which statement is fault… Tomoe-chan, I’m counting on you.

Mass Panic Debate – START!

Argument 1:

Haku Isamu: You really think I’m lying?

Haku Isamu: Even if I did set up those motives keep in mind…

Haku Isamu: I didn’t make Hamoponi, that brat did!

Haku Isamu: I bet <it even has the same functions> as Monokuma too!

Tamon Mayumi: Wow, talk about a bully…

Argument 2:

Inoue Sunako: You all seriously think I want to harm anyone?

Inoue Sunako: Look I even ask Miwa-chan AND Mrs Kimura if I could!

Mori Miwa: I gave her permission and allow her to do as she please.

Haiiro: And trust me, her intentions were good – I can assure you.

Oku Yoshi: I rather take her word over that bastard Haku, honestly.

Argument 3:

Esumi Masa: Just confess to the crime, Haku…

Esumi Masa: You can’t fool us and even I know Sunako-chan is innocent!

Katou Doi: Exactly – you force us to kill each other!

Katou Doi: Even back to the first case, you did all this and more.

Kabuto Reiji: He really is acting desperate… isn’t he?

There looks to be a lot of arguing going on… I wonder if Tomoe-chan has figure it out.

Argument 1:

Haku Isamu: You really think I’m lying?

Haku Isamu: Even if I did set up those motives keep in mind…

Haku Isamu: I didn’t make Hamoponi, that brat did!

Haku Isamu: I bet <it even has the same functions>< Hamoponi’s true purpose>

Argument 2:

Inoue Sunako: You all seriously think I want to harm anyone?

Inoue Sunako: Look I even ask Miwa-chan AND Mrs Kimura if I could!

Mori Miwa: I gave her permission and allow her to do as she please.

Haiiro: And trust me, her intentions were good – I can assure you.

Argument 3:

Esumi Masa: Just confess to the crime, Haku…

Esumi Masa: You can’t fool us and even I know Sunako-chan is innocent!

Katou Doi: Exactly – you force us to kill each other!

Katou Doi: Even back to the first case, you did all this and more.

Kimura Tomoe: I can hear it, the sound of music!

Mass Panic Debate – END!

Kimura Tomoe: I heard enough, I sure know that Sunako-chan is innocent and you’re the cause of this. I even saw that Hamoponi was protecting us from the looks of you!

Haku Isamu: You really going to believe her? Counting she made Hamoponi and it even has the same blueprints as Monokuma, meaning she plan you all.

Kimura Tomoe: And your any better? You set up motives and force us to kill each other, people… died due to your actions but if I know one thing; they all had a will to live and even see the beauty of surviving in this world which you snatch away from them…

Haku Isamu: You really are up your own ass, huh?

Kimura Tomoe: Even then, I rather believe what Sunako-chan has to say over you anyday!

Haku Isamu: Then tell me, regarding the buildings and who she was setting this up for? Clearly she had more people but seems they aren’t here so I bet she killed them as well…

Inoue Sunako: No, that’s wrong! I had set that in fact I plan more people to be here… I even ask someone as well.

Yes, she did ask that person… that person who is in charge of the resort.

Kobayashi Eito: > Shizen Resort’s Owner, there it is!

Kobayashi Eito: She had ask Miwa-san, the Shizen Resort’s current owner – she plan for more people to be here.

Oku Yoshi: I see then… who were these people?

The people Sunako-chan wanted to bring along, it was people that Sunako-chan care for and really wanted to save them from the tragedy…

DREA2 – Hangman’s Gambit Crossword – BEGIN!

Question: Who did Sunako-chan wanted to bring?

----

K---

Ki--

Kid-

Kids

Mori Miwa: I’ve discovered it!

DREA2 – Hangman’s Gambit Crossword – END!

Mori Miwa: I’ll confirm it as the Resort’s Owner but she was trying to save kids, from the elementary school division.

Tamon Mayumi: Wait, the kids? I know my older brother, Hideyoshi was investigation an abuse case but couldn’t do much sadly…

Esumi Masa: Yep, and hell what those kids went through a lot of hell, they enable it - they cover there parent’s asses and even worse likely they got away… right, Sunako-chan?

Inoue Sunako: Indeed, I… saw some of it first hand, almost had moments where I nearly got touch a few times, and… I always kept my head low, pretend to not exist and… I got the hell out of there, I even left my classmates behind, I wanted to give them that chance but they call me a coward and insulted me, I…

Esumi Masa: I’ll be honest with you, Sunako-chan - you did all you could, you were a kid and honestly, I think anyone would have done that in your situation so I don’t personally blame you for taking the option that you did…

Mori Miwa: Hearing that, I… I feel sorry for those kids, I feel if they accepted, they could have gotten a lot of love here and we could of helped them, I’m sorry that it didn’t work out…

Haku Isamu: Do you really think you could of save them, hell I bet they rejected it because you ran away like me - you couldn’t accept the responsibility of not saving them and even ran away, I guess what they say is true… you really are a coward.

Inoue Sunako: …

Kabuto Reiji: You really need to shut up for once, Haku. You ran away for different reasons and even then she was a child; a child could only do and if anything - I believe your more of a coward then she is…

Inoue Sunako: but I still ran away from them, I mean… I wanted to help they didn’t accept and worse they were going to kill themselves, I just… I’m not sure if I could face them again.

It seems that Sunako-chan might still be feeling the guilt of it, she really wanted to save her friends and give them a second chance at life but knowing those five committed a group during the tragedy… I feel sorry for her.

Haiiro: Young Lady Sunako, you gave me life and a purpose - you gave me a home and for that I thank you, I don’t think I would be here without you I… would of despair of dying but I’m still here and with you, that’s all that matters to me.

Inoue Sunako: Haiiro… Thank you.

Seems in a way, she just needed to hear that but I wonder if we can figure this out…

Haku Isamu: Well, seeing as we brought up that, then what about the memory gun? You both had that thing and were using it… clearly you wiped their memory and for what purpose.

Haiiro: Seeing as I was the one that created that thing, I’ll tell you; it was use to make us forget the tragedy and we all agree with it.

Tamon Mayumi: Wait, you… made a memory gun? You can be able to bring back memories?

Haiiro: Indeed… Just let me try to explain it better so you can understand it…

Seems Haiiro-san has figure something out and is going to help, I better leave it to him…

Haiiro’s Sky Mind Patrol – START!

Question 1: Who started the killing game?

-Inoue Sunako

>Haku Isamu

-Third Force

Question 2: What was the intent of putting us here?

-To hide

-To run away

>To protect ourselves

Question 3: What was the purpose of the memory gun?

>To make us forget the tragedy

-To have us kill each other

-To have a restart

Haiiro: I figure the answer!

Haiiro’s Sky Mind Patrol – END!

Haiiro: The thing was the memory gun was made to make us forget about the tragedy, we even agree to have our memories remove as well.

Kobayashi Eito: Yeah, I do recall that…

Kimura Tomoe: We… thought it was a good idea at the time, we… really thought that…

Katou Doi: …

Mori Miwa: …

Inoue Sunako: But now we can face those memories together and survive for the others, right?

Haku Isamu: Man, if you all kept your memories instead of running away then none of you would have been in this situation, huh?

Esumi Masa: But even then - they realize where they went wrong and will face those memories head on, they will not give up! I’m sure they won’t…

Haku Isamu: You sure these guys can handle death? You think they could understand why the tragedy happen? The dead body of the Reserve Course Students? I sure as hell doubt it…

Kobayashi Eito: You think you know us…?

Haku Isamu: Huh?

Kobayashi Eito: Hell, what makes you assume you know us! We sure don’t give 2 damns what happen at that damn school or even care if it’s the symbol of Hope or not… We don’t need to rely on that school for the sake of hope!

Haku Isamu: You really think you can? I mean you’d surely get killed out there - you know that no matter what there is no hope out there in that world so quit denying that there is…

This guy… is really annoying me, he goes on and on about how hopeless the situation, how funny… I almost sounded like him, well no anymore - I’m… going to be someone that I’ll be proud of!

Class Debate - START!

Haku Isamu: You really think you can <survive> in that world?

Haku Isamu: You assume it’ll be <easy> to do that?!

Haku Isamu: Hell it’s bad out there, your just <denying> what’s going on out there.

Haku Isamu: There is no <hope>…

Haku Isamu: Only <despair is left and nothing is remaining> so give it up!

This guy keeps talking, I’m getting sick of hearing him… time to shut him up.

Haku Isamu: You really think you can <survive> in that world?

Haku Isamu: You assume it’ll be <easy> to do that?!

Haku Isamu: Hell it’s bad out there, your just <denying> what’s going on out there.

Haku Isamu: There is no <hope>…

Haku Isamu: Only <despair is left and nothing is remaining>< Eito’s True Talent>

Kobayashi Eito: Shut the hell up, that’s wrong!

Class Debate - END!

Kobayashi Eito: You really think we’re anything like you, someone so pessimistic and doubtful - I sure as hell will say, will be our own hope! Now some damn school that thinks it is!

Esumi Masa: So… seems it’s time, huh?

Haku Isamu: What the hell are you talking about? You realize that it’s best to give up and accept that the world is screw over - you think it could possible…?

Kobayashi Eito: Then… I guess will need to rely on luck.

Haku Isamu: Luck…? What the hell are you going on about?

Kobayashi Eito: With luck on our side, my luck to be exact - we won’t ever give up! We have the luck to survive and the hope to carry on! As I - the Ultimate Lucky Student, will have luck on my side!

Kobayashi Eito’s talent reveal: Ultimate Lucky Student!

Inoue Sunako: That’s right… he’s right, we have each other to rely on; as long as we stick together and no matter how bad things get - we got the hope to survive in this world!

Oku Yoshi: Exactly, if we all keep fighting then will live on!

Tamon Mayumi: Yeah, will fight on and live forward - no matter what is in our way!

Kabuto Reiji: Exactly… now time to put an end to this case, correct?

Haku Isamu: N-No, th-this can’t be the end I… I CAN’T LOSE AGAIN!!!

Esumi Masa: To bad, it’s over! Time to put an end to this - Sunako-chan you know what to do! Discuss the entire case and end this once and for all!

Inoue Sunako: Right then will cast our votes, it’s over Haku!

CLIMAX REASONING CHAPTER 6

Inoue Sunako: Big Sis Fuji…. Hana-chan, …. I’ll be sure to end this, even if you aren’t with me anymore but now… I’ll be sure to keep my memories of you 2 with me, forever…

CLIMAX RETURN CHAPTER 6

Inoue Sunako: This is the truth of the case!

Inoue Sunako: Now will start at the <very beginning> where everyone was alive, we had all agree to <remove our memories of hope’s peak> mostly due to us being <scared if anything> and due to <memory gun> which we use on everyone, however one person had kept there memories…

<Myself, to be exact>…

I had plan to monitor <over the resort and have Hamoponi inact> if any dangers come to be however, <our mastermind> decided to mess with that…

One night, I overheard them talking about <Esumi Masa> which I figure I remove any memory of her so <the group starts to turn on us> so when everyone went to bed - I <snuck out> and remove <any memory of Masa-chan> but <the mastermind> had other plans…

As I <was planning to get rid of the memory> and prepare the memory, suddenly <the mastermind> attacked me and <remove my memories as well> which then… the destroy the memory gun and took a single piece, that’s right… I was <knock and lost my memories> like the rest of you.

After that, I woke up… <not recalling anything either>, I even remember <playing it off like it was nothing> but <the mastermind>… they wanted to begin the killing game, they wanted this.

And now… we have <them>.

CLIMAX RETURN CHAPTER 6 END!

Inoue Sunako: Now that is what happen, that is the whole case… now let’s cast our votes right now.

Haku Isamu: So you… you really think you can face those memories? You just-!

Inoue Sunako: Shut up, I don’t care anymore - just cast our votes and be done!

RESULTS:

Haku Isamu - 9 votes

TRIAL CHAPTER 6 OVER, ALL RISE!

As the trial was over, suddenly Haku step away as he try to make a run for the exit.

As then Sunako-chan shouted. “STOP HIM!” She barked which as then myself, Rai-san, Doi-san, Masa-san, Reiji-san, Yoshi-san and Mayumi’s rush over and dog pile the guy. He scream and yelled as he struggle to get us off.

But he was not moving…

Sunako-chan got off her seat as she walks over which she stood in front of Haku-san who look to be handcuffed but he glares at the little girl. “I can’t help but pity you… truly, you can’t accept that the world is mess up but honestly you done a lot of bad things, so now it’s over and just accept it…” She spoke as she turn away.

It seems… the trial was over and I look at the skies, it was close to morning and with that we took our leave…

#Danganronpa Every After 2 #DR: EA2 #Dangan Fangan #Eito Kobayashi #Rai Nakahara #Doi Katou #Tomoe Kimura #miwa mori #Sunako Inoue #Masa Esumi #Reiji Kabuto #Yoshi Oku #Mayumi Tamon #Isamu Haku

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tillidontneedfantasy · 5 years ago

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‘Future Nostalgia’ - Dua Lipa REVIEW: Changing the game through timeless pop.

Pop music is important. It distracts us, it brings us joy, it makes us dance, it attaches itself to memories forever. This is Dua Lipa’s blueprint for her sophomore release, Future Nostalgia. It’s there in the name; she wants her music to be everlasting, so that it can be branded with one of the fondest descriptors possible: nostalgic.

Quite an ambitious objective, but not surprising for 2019′s Best New Artist Grammy winner. There is great pressure that comes with such a title, but Dua has proved herself worthy of it on Future Nostalgia. She does not just want to be the best new artist, but one of the best artists, period. “You want a timeless song, I wanna change the game,” is the opening line of the album and title track. Luckily, we all win in this scenario; although the song itself might not be the game changer, there are plenty of tracks on the album that are game changers because they have a timeless feel to them, which is not something many of her contemporaries are doing.

Future Nostalgia’s only drawback is that there is not much lyrical depth; despite misconception, pop music can explore profundity, especially considering the subject matters of love and heartbreak, which are prominent themes of the album. However, I can accept and respect pop music that operates closer to surface level as well, especially when it’s done as well as it is on Future Nostalgia; I mean, I’m not complaining.

STRONGEST TRACK(S): “Don’t Start Now,” “Pretty Please”

Has there ever been a lead single as strong as “Don’t Start Now”? Co-writers and producers for the track include Ian Kirkpatrick, Emily Warren and Caroline Ailin, all of whom penned her excellent breakout song, “New Rules” (sans Lipa) in 2017. The song is split into three segments- verse, pre-chorus, and chorus- all of which sound distinctly different from the others, yet feel like such a natural equation. The bongos in the chorus and the later addition of a string section over the synths, leading to a full and rich final chorus just throw you for such an exciting loop, it is impossible to not have fun listening to this song. On top of the melodic genius of the song, its straightforward lyrical message is just as empowering as the music itself. “Don’t Start Now” is Dua’s expression of liberation from the pain of a heartbreak, and a warning to the breaker in question not to come crawling back when he sees how much she is thriving, and boy, is she!

Despite the enormous success of both “New Rules” and “Don’t Start Now,” Kirkpatrick and Ailin only work with Dua on one other track of the album, “Pretty Please,” and it should come as a surprise to no one that it is the next strongest song on the record. Penned alongside singer-songwriter phenomenon Julia Michaels and co-produced by Juan Ariza, “Pretty Please,” a track about needing the sweet relief of a lover, is one of the album’s few breathers. And in it, Lipa is asking for a breather herself: “when my mind is running wild, could you help me slow it down?” she asks, and then the song brilliantly does just that when she sings the next line, “put my mind at ease,” before returning to its original speed. There are other great musical tricks sprinkled throughout the song, such as a sound that mimics the feeling of the line “trickle down my spine.” The track continues to build musically but is never too much, it’s always just right.

WEAKEST TRACK: “Boys Will Be Boys”

She tried with this one. She really did. Look, I love a song with a strong feminist message as much as the next girl, but this one was just a swing and a miss. The first verse of “Boys Will Be Boys” starts off strong, quite accurately depicting the fear women face on a daily basis, the way we have to alter our behavior to keep ourselves safe. But with each verse, it feels less sincere and more contrived, with lyrics such as “in case you needed it mansplained” and “if you’re offended by this song, you’re clearly doing something wrong.” Additionally, it is an odd closer for an album full of fun pop songs; it’s possible it is there as a warning for anyone who might get to the end of the album and think negatively of how she asserts her femininity and sexuality in a way throughout that is universally accepted when men do the same. And while the intended message is indeed important and true, it lacks the necessary delivery.

THE IN-BETWEENS

The delivery on the lust-filled, dance-inducing tracks are much more effective. “Cool,” an incredibly infectious song about losing control around the person you’re into, experiments with Dua’s vocal abilities and range, with pointed squeaks at the end of her words and a gorgeous switch into her lower register at the beginning of the final chorus. “Physical,” the second official single, is an intense and wildly fun song that could work as the soundtrack for a long drive, a night at the bar with friends, or in a workout class. While the album very successful achieves sonic cohesion, it can sometimes get a bit tiresome; “Hallucinate” feels like it was made simply to be played at festivals, and although the lyrical sentiment of “Love Again” is nice enough it could have been a moment for a more subtle musical departure.

BEST PROSPECTIVE SINGLE: “Levitating”

Never thought I’d be such a fan of a song that uses the term “sugarboo,” yet, here I am. No track on the record quite captures the concept of “future nostalgia” as well as “Levitating” does, with its futuristic sounds and lyrics that I can imagine we will be singing forever (yes, even the “sugarboo” bit!). In every way, it perfectly encapsulates the pure elation that comes with meeting someone and feeling a heaven-made connection. Every element of this song makes it a necessary single choice: it’s extremely catchy, it has a perfect tempo for anyone of any age to dance to it, “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!”s, and lyrics in the hook that are perfectly spaced out to remember and chant (”you! moonlight! you’re my! starlight!”). Bruno Mars WISHES he wrote it; it feels like a song for which everyone would get up at a wedding to dance for years and years to come. I, for one, will get up every time, at least.

***

It’s impossible that Dua could have predicted while creating her album that this would be the state of the world at the time of its release. Many artists with new projects have decided to cancel or postpone their releases until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is understandable for a myriad of reasons, from the inability to properly promote the work to feeling as if it just might not be the appropriate time. Although it might feel like there is little to dance about right now with the world crumbling around us, Future Nostalgia gives us reason, now and for the future, when we can hopefully look back and remember an album that provided us levity in our darkest hour. So stay indoors, facetime your sugarboo, and thank whatever the hell you pray to for pop music. Grade: 4/5

DISCLAIMER - REVIEWER’S BIAS: I have been a casual fan of Dua since “New Rules” exploded on Tumblr in 2017, but not much more. However, I have a specific fondness for her, as my favorite client of all time was a huge fan of her shortly after, so when I listen to Dua it reminds me of her. I hope she’s loving this album and that it’s bringing her joy and comfort in this uncertain time. I’m a huge proponent for female pop artists and the meticulousness of their craft, and I think Dua has done an excellent job of taking constructive criticism and improving, utilizing her strengths in a way that blur out her weaknesses. The release of “Don’t Start Now” felt like a turning point in her stardom, and this album is the proof. I really would like to see some stronger lyrical work from Dua, as I feel there are little to no moments on the album where I feel impressed or particularly moved by any line, and although I love and support fun and light pop music, I think it’s also very possible to have upbeat pop music with much sharper lyrics. I think she kind of tried but the few times she did they didn’t quite land. If she had a couple of songs stronger on the lyrical front, this would have been a nearly perfect album for me. But for a sophomore effort, this is great. It feels like a nice breath of fresh air in a time that’s filled with anxiety-ridden gasps, and I’m grateful for it.

#dua lipa #future nostalgia #don't start now #cool #physical #levitating #pretty please #hallucinate #love again #break my heart #good in bed #boys will be boys #emily warren #ian kirkpatrick #julia michaels #new rules

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justforbooks · 5 years ago

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Michael McClure obituary

By Michael Hrebeniak

US writer who saw himself and his fellow Beat poets as the literary wing of the green movement

Michael McClure was one of the six poets who took part in the reading on 7 October 1955 at the Six Gallery in San Francisco that announced the arrival of the Beat generation. Performing his poem For the Death of a Hundred Whales, which commemorated an act of slaughter by bored GIs stationed at an Icelandic Nato base, McClure declared his dominant concern with the animal consciousness in man rendered dormant by industrialisation.

Describing the ethos of that night, a watershed in American culture at which Allen Ginsberg first presented Howl, McClure, who has died aged 87, wrote: “We were locked in the cold war and the Asian debacle. The country had the feeling of martial law … We saw that the art of poetry was essentially dead – killed by war, by academies, by neglect, by lack of love, and by disinterest. We knew we could bring it back to life … We wanted voice and we wanted vision.”

His first book, Passage (1956), testified to his belief that the Beats comprised the “literary wing” of the green movement. The next decade saw McClure in part catalyse the transition from Beat to hippy, frequently writing under the influence of psychotropics and performing Blakean melodies on his autoharp, most notably at the Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in 1967, the apex of the counterculture movement.

“Poetry is a muscular principle and a revolution for the body-spirit and intellect and ear,” he proclaimed on the cover of his 1964 collection, Ghost Tantras. “There are no laws but living changing ones, and any system is a touch of death.” Inside the book lay a blazing series of poems with no prior literary blueprint, representing McClure’s faith in the imaginative act to renew man’s “meat-spirit”, and bring to form a meeting between the realms of ethnopoetics, biology and ritual.

In 1966 he was filmed reading from the work to the lions at San Francisco Zoo, the poet handsome and fearless – “a defining moment in 20th-century poetry”, according to Jerome Rothenberg.

Throughout this era McClure straddled the Haight-Ashbury scene, pulling energies exuberantly towards him and revelling in Dionysian conflict. “JESUS HOW I HATE THE MIDDLE COURSE!” he roared in the poem Love Lion (1970). Accordingly he rode with the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels, fascinated by notions of charismatic allegiance and destructive power, and collaborated with its secretary, Freewheelin’ Frank, on his autobiography.

McClure also co-wrote the lyrics for Janis Joplin’s 1970 song Oh Lord, Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes-Benz, and made an explosive contribution to American theatre with darkly absurdist plays such as The Beard (1965) and Josephine: The Mouse Singer (1980). The former, which orbited a seduction scene in hell between Billy “the Kid” Bonney and Jean Harlow, attracted the charge of “lewd and dissolute conduct in a public place” after its opening performances by the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop in 1965, before moving to Los Angeles, where the police arrested the entire cast every night during its two-week run.

Prior to this, Jack Kerouac had dramatised McClure in his 1962 novel Big Sur as the “handsome but faintly ‘decadent’ Rimbaud-type personality,” Pat McLear, with “a goddamn HAWK on his shoulder”. But a measure of McClure’s appeal beyond Beat limits was the endorsement of his work by the Nobel prizewinning scientist Francis Crick, who acknowledged his shared position within McClure’s “private world of personal reactions and the biological world, [while] in between, above and below, stands man, the howling mammal, contrived out of ‘meat’ by chance and necessity.”

Crick included two lines from McClure’s Peyote Poem (1959) - “THIS IS THE POWERFUL KNOWLEDGE / we smile with it” – in his 1966 book Of Molecules and Men: proof to the poet of “the important, yet little known reaching out from science to poetry and from poetry to science that was part of the Beat movement.”

Born in Marysville, Kansas, Michael was the son of Marion (nee Dixie Johnston) and Thomas McClure. Soon afterwards they divorced, and Michael, partly raised by his maternal grandfather, grew up in Seattle, where he immersed himself in an American wilderness ethic extending back to Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Returning to Kansas to study at Wichita University, he became part of an informal group that included the experimental film-maker Stan Brakhage, the actor Dennis Hopper and the painter Bruce Conner.

After marrying Joanna Kinnison in 1954, he headed for San Francisco, initially intending to study painting with Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko at the Art Institute, only to discover that they had decamped the previous year. Instead he apprenticed himself as a poet to Robert Duncan, a radiant core of the city’s emerging renaissance, and to Charles Olson, then rector of Black Mountain College. Olson spoke of the poem in terms of “speed,” “kinetics”, and “energy transference” from subject to poet to reader, and this awakened McClure’s sense of art’s capacity for healing and liberation. Seizing, too, on Jackson Pollock’s desire to let a work’s “life come through” in the act of making, McClure set about translating his “swinging loops of paint” into the “spiritual autobiography and gesture” of poetry. The results were soon aired at the Six Gallery reading.

McClure joined the faculty of the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in 1971, the year that he attended the UN Environmental Conference in Stockholm, along with the poet Gary Snyder, the visionary technologist Stewart Brand and the naturalist Sterling Bunnell. Having previously collaborated with Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, McClure began working with the group’s keyboardist Ray Manzarek and the composer Terry Riley in a bid to return to a “common tribal dancing ground whether we were poets, or painters, or sculptors”. With Manzarek he released a live album of performance pieces, Love Lion, in 1993.

With the encouragement of his second wife, the sculptor Amy Evans, whom he married in 1997, McClure became progressively concerned with recording of Zen Buddhist states of being in his poetry, words moving as breath and gliding spaciously down a page.

“Many of us who began to write in the 50s were desperados,” McClure later recalled. “And in the teeth of the times we were outlaws. But now anyone with deep human or humane feelings is something like an outlaw.” McClure nonetheless maintained an unswerving commitment to “the discovery of the materiality of consciousness, whether in the sound of a car starting, the tension of a shoulder muscle, or the floating of an owl feather in the breeze,” through many collections of verse, essays and recordings.

He is survived by Amy and by a daughter, Jane, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce, and two grandchildren.

• Michael McClure, poet, playwright and essayist, born 20 October 1932; died 4 May 2020

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Michael McClure

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penniesforthestorm · 6 years ago

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Castle Rock, Part 2

“Be Your Own Hero!”

Episode 4: “The Box” Episode 5: “Harvest” Episode 6: “Filter”

Hello, and welcome to the second part of my Castle Rock coverage! Now that the major expository groundwork has been laid, I want to spend a little time talking about the characters. Let’s start with Dennis Zalewski, the Shawshank guard who discovered The Kid. Zalewski, who has a pregnant wife to support, is unhappy in his job, lamenting to Henry Deaver in a previous episode, “Do you think I’d be working here if there was a Wal-Mart within sixty miles?” At the beginning of Episode 4, “The Box”, we see Zalewski arriving for another day on the job, accompanied by the gritty strains of Tom Waits’ “Clap Hands”. Every time one of the prison’s doors shuts behind him, we realize that he feels just as trapped as the men he’s guarding. Zalewski’s coworkers don’t seem to share his distaste. An oily representative of Shawshank’s new corporate owners pays The Kid a visit, and describes, with relish, how he and his Army buddies tortured an Iraqi prisoner who wouldn’t give up his name. In response, The Kid intones a passage from the Book of Revelations: “He has a name written on him, which no one knows except himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and his name is called The Word of God.” The Kid stands up as he speaks, looming forbiddingly over the other man.

And what’s Henry Deaver up to? First of all, he and Alan Pangborn go up to Bangor, to make arrangements for Matthew Deaver’s coffin to be delivered back to Castle Rock. Henry, hunting for more clues, stumbles across a name in an old news article about his own disappearance—a man called Desjardins, who lived just a mile from the lake. He decides to pay a call on Desjardins, and finds a whole lot more than he bargained for. The house is in utter disrepair—an old piano has crashed through the kitchen ceiling, and there are broken boards everywhere. Its elderly inhabitant, Joseph Desjardins, seems oddly delighted to see Henry. He brings Henry back to his bedroom and digs out a water-stained cardboard box containing Henry’s police file. It’s a relief when Henry leaves unscathed, goes to visit Molly, and ends up spending the night with her. The next morning, though, Henry calls Zalewski and says that he’s leaving Castle Rock. Zalewski had agreed to be deposed at a hearing regarding The Kid, and earlier in the episode, he stopped by The Kid’s cell and promised him that soon, they’d both be free. He even offered The Kid a friendly fist-bump. Now, after listening to Henry’s voicemail, Zalewski goes into his office. He removes his pistol from the safe, climbs the stairs, and shoots his way up to the warden’s office, as Roy Orbison’s “Crying” (another aria, of sorts) swoons over the soundtrack. Henry is there waiting, and Zalewski manages to say, “I want to testify”, before a smoke-bomb goes off behind him and he is shot down by another officer.

Episode 5, “Harvest”, opens with Henry at a clinic in Texas, undergoing a cognitive exam. He is asked to repeat five words, which he does: “Boat, white, church, dog, family.” It’s about the mysterious ringing in his ears that’s plagued him since he was young. We see him cringing in the aftermath of Zalewski’s shooting spree; clearly, having a gun go off right by him hasn’t helped. Back at Shawshank, Warden Porter is getting chastised by her boss. She sighs about being ‘thrown under the bus’; it’s the second time this idiom has been used in her presence. The first time was in conversation with Henry, regarding the late Warden Lacy, when she sneered, “That’s where you throw dead perverts”. Speaking of Warden Lacy, we get a flashback of him and The Kid together down in the cage. Lacy admits that he has always felt some doubt about what he’s done, even though God told him The Kid would ‘drag evil behind him everywhere you went’. He touches The Kid’s hand, then his face, with a gentle, sad expression. In the present, The Kid is released. He undergoes a similar exam to the one Henry had; his five words are, “Face, velvet, red, church, family.” Henry and Molly put him up at Molly’s office, and instruct him to stay hidden. That night, The Kid slips out. He finds a boy's birthday party in progress, and sneaks in to watch, but as he lingers in the shadows, the party devolves into a screaming match between the parents, and a baby wails inconsolably. The Kid retreats into the night, pensive and alone. Now it's time to talk about Alan Pangborn and Ruth Deaver. Scott Glenn and Sissy Spacek have wonderful chemistry on screen—you fully believe that these people are used to each other's rhythms. Alan grouses about having to attend a bridge-dedication ceremony in his honor, and Ruth teases him, her blue eyes full of mischief. At the ceremony, Alan begins a laconic speech, mentioning that he wanted to be a magician, but was hampered by the necessity of 'telling a story' to distract his audience. But he's interrupted by the barking of a large dog, and the sudden realization that Ruth is not in her seat. She's up on the railing of the bridge, and then aloft, heading straight for the river. Henry rushes over and jumps in to save her. And this brings me to the other major character I haven't yet discussed: Jackie Torrance (Jane Levy)—assistant to Molly Strand, sardonic expert in Castle Rock lore. When Jackie heads to Molly's office, she discovers The Kid lurking upstairs, sans clothing. Jackie takes this entirely in stride, rustling up some hand-me-downs and bringing The Kid up to speed on Castle Rock's historically bad luck. She even drops a reference to her uncle, who tried to ax-murder his family, back in the rad, bad old '80s (yes, that Torrance). This spooks The Kid, who flees to the nearest convenient rooftop, and Jackie calls Molly for help. Molly tries to console The Kid, but he tells her mournfully, "I shouldn't be here." The echoes of human misery in The Kid's (and Molly's) mind reach a crescendo. So Molly takes him to the Deaver house that evening, and Henry reluctantly leads him out to the old workshop in the backyard. Inside, on a dusty piano, The Kid suddenly picks out the classic hymn, "O God Our Help in Ages Past". "I remember…" he murmurs. Henry nods in approval and bids him goodnight. But our Kid has other ideas. He wanders out to the woods, and finds himself in direct confrontation with Alan Pangborn. Alan remembers him from the night Lacy claimed to have trapped the Devil in his trunk. Awed and frightened, Alan declares, "I can't remember my own dead wife's face, but I never forgot yours. 27 years, and you haven't aged one day." This seems to spark something in The Kid. He tells Alan he can help Ruth, and then says, "You have no idea what's going here, do you?"

In Episode 6, "Filter", The Kid sends Alan on a mysterious errand to Syracuse. He also continues to explore the environs of the Deaver house, clothing himself in a shabby grey suit and putting on a record. (Keen listeners will notice that when The Kid walks, he's frequently accompanied by the fwip, fwip of a record skipping.) Perhaps most intriguingly, he finds a repository of video tapes featuring Henry as a child out in the woods, clearly filmed by Matthew Deaver. Henry, for his part, has called for his teenage son Wendell (Chosen Jacobs) to come up from Boston, to see his grandmother. Wendell comes off the bus absorbed in his phone, but he's polite and amiable, particularly to Ruth. The three of them are making lunch when Ruth stares out the kitchen window in shock. The Kid is out there, in his grey suit. Something seems to pass between him and Ruth, even through the glass and the distance. In a panic, Henry runs out and whisks The Kid into the car, carting him off to the nearby psychiatric facility. Later that night, Wendell asks Henry why Ruth and Matthew adopted him. Henry mentions that they lost a child some years before, but insists that they are his "real parents". The next day, Henry goes marching off into the woods with the old camera, queuing up the footage of his younger self to see if he can discover what, exactly, Matthew was directing him to do out there. Ruth and Wendell sit down for a game of chess, with Ruth's copy of the famous Lewis chess set—a gift from Alan. (The original pieces, carved from walrus ivory by Vikings sometime in the 12th Century, currently reside at the British Museum.) Wendell notices that some of the pieces are missing, and Ruth relates a significant secret. She believes that she has become unstuck in time. "This conversation—we've been here before. We'll be here again." The chess pieces, scattered through the house, are her way of anchoring herself to the present—her breadcrumb trail. Henry could have used a breadcrumb trail of his own; as the dusk gathers in the woods, the camera's battery dies, and Henry gets lost. He finally discovers a campfire, guarded by another soft-spoken young man with wild eyes. An older gentleman comes out of the trees, and begins signing rapidly, while the young man translates. His name is Odin Branch (Ruth's Norse-mythology expertise would come in handy here), and his jumpy companion is Willie. Odin explains that he knew Matthew Deaver, and that the two of them shared an interest in what used to be called 'the music of the spheres'—a vast, universal sound, that some people hear and others do not. The theory is that the sound is the multiverse trying to reconcile itself—other realities knocking against each other like thunderclouds. Before Matthew's death, he had made a blueprint for a chamber he called 'The Filter'—a noise-proof room where the sound, which Odin calls the Schisma, might be observed in pristine condition. Odin has built a replica in his trailer, and, somewhat less than cordially, he invites Henry to observe for himself, slamming the door after him. The episode ends with Alan returning from Syracuse, to find The Kid sitting on the front steps of the Deaver house. The object Alan was seeking was Warden Lacy's car, and he has arranged for it to be brought down. Then Alan notices that The Kid is bleeding. "There will be a monument,"The Kid proclaims through clenched teeth, "to Warden Lacy, and to all who helped put me in there. Why did you do it, Alan?" Alan rushes past The Kid, up to the house, calling for Ruth. Whatever he finds there, we have the distinct feeling it won't be good.

#castle rock #tv review #part 2 of 4 #prose #CONTAINS SPOILERS

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jobsearchtips02 · 5 years ago

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Her Cellphone Number Used To Be Elon Musk’s. You Can Imagine The Calls She Gets

A couple years ago, Lyndsay Tucker started receiving texts and calls for Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk. It seems AT&T randomly reassigned his old number to Tucker. She assures people she does not work for Musk or his companies.

Jessica Chou for NPR

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Jessica Chou for NPR

There are a lot of people trying to reach celebrity entrepreneur Elon Musk. Sometimes, though, they get Lyndsay Tucker, a 25-year-old skin care consultant.

Tucker, who works at a Sephora beauty store in San Jose, Calif., had never heard of the Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO until a couple years ago, when she began fielding a steady stream of calls and text messages intended for him.

“I asked my mom, ‘Hey, I keep getting these text messages’ — and I was also now starting to get phone calls — ‘for this guy Elon Musk. I don’t know who this is,’ ” Tucker said. “And my mom’s jaw just dropped.”

Turns out, Tucker’s cellphone number used to be registered to Musk. On any given day, she receives at least three calls or texts intended for Musk, whom she has never met.

When told of the traffic to his former number, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, said: “That number is so old! I’m surprised it’s still out there somewhere.”

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

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Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

When told of the traffic to his former number, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, said: “That number is so old! I’m surprised it’s still out there somewhere.”

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

If the maverick billionaire stirs controversy, as he is wont to do, her phone blows up with a torrent of messages. (Full disclosure: I reached out to Musk during one of those controversies, when he threatened to sue the California county that is home to Tesla’s headquarters over its coronavirus-related restrictions. Instead, I got Tucker.)

She has accidentally intercepted far more interesting calls than mine, however. One woman volunteered to go to space with SpaceX. Another person sent a blueprint for a bionic limb. “Which is, No. 1, really cool,” Tucker said. “But I have no idea how it’s built.”

A South African businessman asked about buying 1,000 trucks. The Internal Revenue Service called about a complicated tax issue.

“I assumed I had messed something up,” Tucker said about that call. “It was a huge relief they weren’t looking for me.”

Former Walt Disney executive John Lasseter texted about the Tesla he bought, calling it a “magnificent car!!!” and adding, “The self driving is a trip!”

“I actually ended up going to the same college as his son,” Tucker said of Lasseter.

“I got to talk to him and apologized for never messaging his father back,” she said. “We ended up laughing about it.”

Recently, Jeff Gold, an Atlanta-area inventor, who did business with Musk in the 1990s, sent a text about some coronavirus research.

“He gave me his number a long time ago,” Gold said. “I just went on and tracked down the correct number and resent my text.”

Public records show that Tucker’s number was once associated with a condo Musk bought and sold years ago in Palo Alto, Calif. After Musk got rid of the number, AT&T randomly reassigned it to Tucker. But online, the number took on a life of its own. It was replicated on dozens of listing websites as Musk’s current digits.

“Whenever I see his name pop up in the news, I’m like, ‘OK, I have to actually learn what he said because chances are, someone is going to message me about it or call me about it,'” Tucker said. “Even though I find it funny most of the time, it does get irritating sometimes when it’s like call after call after call.”

Jessica Chou for NPR

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Jessica Chou for NPR

NPR reached out to Musk to see whether he knew about his long-lost number. He replied with a short email.

“Wow,” Musk said. “That number is so old! I’m surprised it’s still out there somewhere.”

Some of those who texted Tucker said Musk himself provided the number to them. When NPR asked Musk whether he gave out that number to people he was trying to dodge, he did not respond.

However people obtain the number, it is often up to Tucker to convince them she is not Musk.

“They say, ‘Oh, how do I know you’re not Elon?’ ” she said. “And they suddenly want proof that I’m not him even though they’re obviously talking to a woman on the phone.”

The incessant calls and texts offer Tucker a rare window into the life of the flamboyant tech CEO, a glimpse she finds “amusing.” Yet sometimes it can feel like a full-time job.

Tucker, who is also an aspiring actress and has listed her contact information on dozens of résumés, is keeping the phone number.

Jessica Chou for NPR

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Jessica Chou for NPR

Tucker, who is also an aspiring actress and has listed her contact information on dozens of résumés, is keeping the phone number.

Jessica Chou for NPR

“Whenever I see his name pop up in the news, I’m like, ‘OK, I have to actually learn what he said because, chances are, someone is going to message me about it or call me about it,’ ” Tucker said. “Even though I find it funny most of the time, it does get irritating sometimes when it’s like call after call after call.”

Though she intends to keep the number, her ability to respond to all the Musk calls and texts changes by the day. To those who think it is Musk ignoring their calls and texts, Tucker has a message:

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t respond if I’m having a rough day. So if you didn’t get a response, it’s probably me, not him,” she said. “Don’t feel too let down.”

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/her-cellphone-number-used-to-be-elon-musks-you-can-imagine-the-calls-she-gets/

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as-breakable-as-glass · 8 years ago

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It was dark. Glass was getting used to coming to awareness in the dark, at least in his dreams he was. “Dings.” Gaster turned at the sound of his voice but didn’t even get the chance to open his mouth before Glass was talking. “I think we have a way to get you out of here old man.” Now Gaster was speechless, mouth still left gaping as his hands stumbled over signs. ‘What?... How? When did you discover this? And… who?’ “Heh, don’t forget the where and why. “A… friend apparently got their Gaster out of the void using the machine their Sans had-” “Will this be safe?” Gaster cut in. Glass raised an eye ridge but shrugged anyway. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” “Ss- Glass.” ‘I do not want you to use it in the chance it starts drawing in energy like before.’ Glass gave a loose laugh. “I knew you’d say that. And believe me old man I don’t want to take the risk either. That’s why I’m still checking the machine out. Other than that, all there is to do is wait.” Gaster nodded, relaxing again somewhat though he still looked worried and deep in thought. “How long…?” “To wait? I don’t know, once I’m sure it’s not going to explode when I flip a switch.” “No… when was the last time you dreamed of me?” “Ah, about a week” It was always hit or miss with these dreams. Sometimes he would go to sleep and dream nothing at all; most of the time he would see dust and bloodstained snow. But then there were the times like these when he got lucky. Glass didn’t know how they worked, and now that the excitement was wearing off, he was once again aware of the fact that he still had no proof that these weren’t hallucinations. By now it really didn’t matter if they were real or not anymore. Now there was a chance he could get him out. After repeating the answer a couple times with his hands, Gaster nodded. “Time… is strange here. It could have been seconds since I last saw you.” He shrugged and smiled thinly before getting that spaced look again. It was… a freaky look on him honestly. The Dings he knew was always thinking and you could always see the gears moving through his expression. “What do you plan on doing when you get out of here Dings?” He prodded. Gaster looked back at Glass, surprised. “I… I have not thought about it.” He admitted, still a slow smile was beginning to spread over his face at the thought. “I suppose I would have to get in touch with my old colleagues, let them know I am back from the dead.” A weak chuckle and a sigh. “After that I am unsure. “Can you tell me about them?” “Who, the guys we worked with?” He nodded. “Alright.” Glass shifted his feet and thought for a moment. It had been a long time since he’s talked about the lab guys, even longer since he’d seen any of them. He decided to start with the basics. “The guys back at the lab were nice enough. Some were complete idiots and got their jobs by luck I swear. Others were smart. They were kind, rude, jumpy, confident; there were a variety of characters there.” He smiled when one specifically came to mind. “Do you remember Ether? Short, black cat monster; kind of hated your metaphorical guts? You thought she was after your job for a while. She wouldn’t stop criticizing your projects even once they were cleared by the king. She was also a real stick in the mud when it came to Core management; which you put her in charge of. Heh, your reasoning behind that are beyond me. “She… was good at her job.” “Didn’t make her any less of a- Hey you remember!” It was such a small thing, remembering an old coworker, but for Gaster it was huge and Glass couldn’t help but feel proud of his old man. “...A bit.” Gaster admitted slowly. ‘She did not like it when I brought you and Papyrus to work with me.’ Glass chuckled. “Yeah she thought we were distractions to you and the other scientists. She was always watching to catch us when we broke the rules. I guess she was okay when I grew up and she realized that I was still going to be coming around, but she had something against kids.” Gaster paused, his eyes getting a far away look as he concentrated. ‘I remember she once stormed up to me... soaking wet?’ He looked at Glass half questioning and half accusatory. He knew that look. Glass cursed inwardly. Out of everything he had to remember that. “Heh, well there’s no harm in an innocent prank.” It had only been water after all. ‘Perhaps. But I think she would have been more kind if you hadn’t antagonized her.’ He signed. “Nah she was like that before I was old enough to balance water buckets on doors. She had it coming for her.” He looked at Glass. Even when stooping slightly, he barely reached Gaster’s shoulders. ‘How did you get the buckets-?’ Yep. Now was the time to change the subject. “Anyway there’s also Griz. He was one of your assistant engineers who had a knack for electric magic. He was alright. He showed Papyrus the blueprints of his machines to keep him occupied. Pap was really into that as a little kid before he became interested in healing magic.” ‘Papyrus.’ “How is he?” Gaster was quick to move on and Glass wasn’t sure if he was letting it slide or he was just easily distracted now. “Good. He changed his name to Gen when I started going by Glass and is training to be a royal guard in Snowdin. He’s even getting sparing lessons from the captain herself, Undyne. “She’s uh, she’s interesting, but Gen likes her at least. She lives in Waterfall so Gen goes there a couple days a week for his training.” ‘Snowdin…’ “Who else do you see there?” “Well there's Bun, the lady who runs the shop and her sister runs the inn we stayed at the first couple days in Snowdin. Gen trades her healing items in exchange for other things like books, spare clothes sometimes, ingredients, and other stuff, but otherwise we don’t see her that often. “Heh, there’s also a hot bartender there. Literally, he’s made of fire. Grillby runs the only bar and restaurant in Snowdin. He doesn’t talk much, but I don’t know, I kind of like that about him. Doesn’t force conversation. Uuh I don’t see that much of him either. He’s always working and I only stop by Grillby’s if I have to. “Then there's the whole canine unit. I hear they’re regulars at Grillby’s and they’re almost always around when I go in there. “Honestly Gen would probably be better at describing them than I would since he sees them the most, but they seem alright.” Glass shrugged a bit. “Gen would probably be better at describing just about everyone in Snowdin. He likes to chat with whoever he run across in the streets and when they part, he always seems to end up knowing half their life story because of how many questions he asks them. “It sounds like a wonderful place.” He shrugged. It was, wasn't it? Glass never though to much about the small town they lived in but it was...nice. It would be nice to show it all to Gaster again. It would be just like when they were kids except their roles would be reversed. He and Gen would be the ones showing him around town and introducing him to old forgotten, friends instead. It was a weird prospect to think of, but Glass found himself actually looking forward to it. He was looking forward to showing the old man how to live again.

((Yaaaaay! At least I know for a fact that I didn’t post this one yet. Obviously this takes place after the first one and after Glass’s party since he received a working version of the time machine by @justanotherpasafrisk‘s Frisk as a birthday gift.

Also! the various random monsters named in Glass’s reminiscences are all ocs I made on the spot. I tried to give them creative nonhuman names but I am the absolute worst at naming things X,D You all saw a bit of Ether already. I think I’m going to use her again sometimem.))

#drable #dream talks #Glasstale #Glass #Gaster #ocs #Griz #Ether #Ether is a meanie #hates kids #even more than I do sheesh

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roominthecastle · 8 years ago

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You seem like someone who isn't new to fandom and I have to ask: have you ever had the experience of seeing a large chunk of a show's fanbase actively campaign against a spinoff? i.e. is what's going down with The Blacklist a unique case?

*rickety grandma voice* I’ve seen some crazy-ass shit, son.

Jokes aside, yes, to me it is rather unique, anon, because TBL/R is a unique creative catastrophe. More rambling and complaining behind the cut, as usual:

I’ve encountered several spin-offs, but their “birth” and transition were never like this. e.g.

Cheers →FrasierCSI → CSI: MiamiThe Practice →Boston LegalJAG →NCISBreaking Bad →Better Call Saul(Daredevil →The Punisher)

These represent different types. Frasier, Boston Legal, and Better Call Saul are the type created specifically to “live on” after the mother show’s passing and are “character anchored”. CSI: Miami, NCIS, and The Punisher (has yet to launch hence the brackets) are the type created to co-exist with the mother show and are chiefly “concept anchored” (The Punisher is a hybrid, imo).

Not one of these did to its beloved “parent” what TBL/R has so carelessly inflicted on TBL, though. No decent spin-off would, imo. I believe this is the main root of the ugly backlash we see in our fandom, most of which is justified (bitterness and quitting) and the rest is most definitely not (e.g. online harassment and bashing of those involved with the show - seriously, get a grip people).

TBL/R was, to push our metaphor, not a result of natural labor but one that was induced repeatedly over a torturously extended period of time. We were standing around, watching on helplessly as the mother show was being turned inside out to give life to something underdeveloped and unworthy. At least Liz had a cute baby at the end of her induced labor. All we got out of this “meta pregnancy” was a lousy spin-off and our favorite show put on life support. In other words, a lot was sacrificed here for very little.

Spin-offs attempt to milk either a successful blueprint/concept or a successful character. TBL/R claims to have both yet has neither. In what universe does Tom count as a charismatic, heroic, layered eyeball magnet creation? I haven’t the faintest, but I’ve always suspected Eisendrath commutes to work from a fucked up parallel reality and now I think I have the ultimate proof).They took an already failing and abused “magic box” format (a conflated, vague “mysterious past” and a tedious, mostly meaningless “search for answers”), planted the shallowest and most repelling character into it, crammed it with clichés and retcons, then sprinkled it with some incest. Who thought this was a foolproof recipe for success and why? TBL has been dragging its feet to reveal its simplest of answers for almost 4 years now, and you’re offering me the watered down version of the same thing sans Spader? Please. Please have some respect for your audience. Spin-offs are potentially lucrative investments precisely bc they aim to draw on the parent show’s established loyal fanbase. TBL/R actively alienates and insults this base, which is so uniquely ass-backwards, they should create a special category for it at the Emmys called “the don'ts”.

Audience sympathy is a crucial element overlooked here as well. TBL has badly undermined sympathy for its own protagonist to make spin-off boy more palatable. She was made to forgive and “endorse” him in the most repelling way (I dabble in some questionable fictional stuffbut heavily pregnant Liz kneeling down in front this Petri dish of human failures will forever live on in my memory as the grossest image I’ve ever seen) while Tom remained just as unworthy and irrelevant as ever (they wrote in the pregnancy just to keep him as “the father” which is the ultimate act of creative desperation as far as I’m concerned).

Other characters were similarly co-opted to similarly alienating results (see Cooper, for example). The poorly executed “strategic demonizing” Red has been subjected to has backfired as well. Despite his various transgressions, Red is the #1 “sympathy earner” of the show bc James’ portrayal oozes pathos. Red is a beautiful sufferer and meticulous self-torturer, so anybody repeatedly kicking him will come across as unsympathetic at best. Stomping on him to prop up a character who has failed to express even a fraction of contrition tanked even before it began in earnest. Now I think it is way over the line, borderline abusive and so nonsensical, fans are understandably angry and scream enough!

On top of that, Tom’s spin-off buddies are also characters Red’s original “code of conduct” would never have allowed to live. Scottie almost killed Liz and Agnes, then shrugged it off and tried to blame Red. Solomon tortured Dembe, poisoned her infant granddaughter, and was about to cut up pregnant Liz in front of Red when Dembe arrived to save the day. He didn’t express much remorse for it, either, yet it was beloved Mr. Kaplan who ended up with bullet in her face while these so-called characters waltzed off into a new show titled Redemption. Fucking amazing. I don’t care about their “redemption” one bit. I was never actually invited to care (see the lack of remorse issue), I was only expected to because… again why? idk. I was, however, invited to expect their swift demise but everything established in S1 is either forgotten or rewritten now, it seems, and TBL/R’s existence is a symbol of this very fact. It didn’t grow naturally out of TBL. It is a parasite that chewed its way through it and now is struggling to stand on its own. Its struggle makes me happy but also sad, to be honest.

Fans - not all but a lot - are upset (do not mistake this for passion anymore, this is just plain anger now) because this is not how spin-offs are supposed to work at all. They are supposed to add to a beloved piece of work, not encroach on it and on characters and relationships we actually love and care about.

#anonymous #the blacklist #musings #anti many things #mostly poor creative choices

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jacobhinkley · 7 years ago

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Google, Blockchain and Ethereum’s Future: Vitalik Buterin Shares His Thoughts at a Private Event Held in San Francisco

Co-founder of Ethereum Foundation and Bitcoin Magazine Vitalik Buterin took part in a small, private event that was held in San Francisco last week. In the framework of this event, speaking to Crypto Congressman Jason Hsu, Buterin revealed his thoughts about the future of blockchain privacy and Ethereum and commented the recent situation with Google that wanted to hire him.

According to Ethereum co-founder, now he is actively working on the proof-of-stake and charting protocols and in general these are two main points that the Ethereum research community is now focusing its attention on. The company believes that proof-of-stake and scaling are really crucial aspects and it has already been done a lot on enhancing the algorithms and addressing the existing limitations.

When asked about the progress on the Ethereum Casper protocol, Vitalik enthusiastically shared about the results of their work on this protocol. He said:

“I think that there has been a lot of frameworks for state channels coming out recently. The Casper protocol is getting much closer to being finalized at this point. It’s just pending review on academic analysis.”

Buterin also expressed his worries about the fact that today the level of sustainable application of blockchain is very low. Though quite a lot of people understand the existing value of cryptocurrencies, the potential of the technology hasn’t been fully realized yet.

Moreover, the expert is quite preoccupied with the lack of necessary privacy on the blockchain and effective ways to ensure it.

“Currently, there are no good ways to use blockchain while preserving privacy. There have been good efforts to solve this using Zcash for example, along with research on top of Ethereum. However, there is still a way to go in terms of preserving privacy on the blockchain.”

The discussion also touched on the regulatory issues. Though some smaller countries as, for example, Malta, are trying to create crypto-friendly environment for traders and investors, such the world’s power as United States still hasn’t found its clear position. Buterin believes that the authorities should focus their work on finding ways that would facilitate the usage of small sums of cryptocurrency for people.

Speaking about the recent developments of Ethereum, Buterin said that he’s quite satisfied with them, especially with progress of state and plasma channels. As for the future plans, he said that their foundation is going to authorize scalable properties and work on achieving high levels of consensus.

It is obvious, that there were some questions about the rumors that Google had offered Buterin a position in one of the company’s mysterious projects. Nevertheless, now Buterin commented the situation the following way:

“I hope we all realize that this was a joke. Some random HR person from Google emailed me, most likely because some machine learning algorithm analyzed my GitHub and saw that I had some high score in the international Olympiad. Apparently, I fit the blueprints as a great candidate to hire at an intern salary.”

The post Google, Blockchain and Ethereum’s Future: Vitalik Buterin Shares His Thoughts at a Private Event Held in San Francisco appeared first on CoinSpeaker.

Google, Blockchain and Ethereum’s Future: Vitalik Buterin Shares His Thoughts at a Private Event Held in San Francisco published first on https://medium.com/@smartoptions

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gibsongirlselections · 5 years ago

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The Democrats Want to Be the Americanist Party

I don’t care what people think, I love political conventions. In an age of deconstructive irony and post-political wonks who think they can graph their way to a better tomorrow, the DNC and RNC are some of our last remaining throwbacks to good, old-fashioned, American electoral camp. That’s true even as they’ve become more scripted, and especially true if you attend in person and venture outside the convention halls, where the activists set up shop. It’s a spectacle that cries out for the gonzo treatment: gulp down a bunch of Quaaludes and sally forth with your steno pad. Alas, the coronavirus intervened, leaving us all stranded on the couch in front of the TV.

So it went with the Democratic National Convention this week. The proceedings ostensibly took place in Milwaukee, though they kept throwing to Democrats all over the country, sometimes to schizophrenic effect: Andrew Yang tossing to Julia Louis-Dreyfus tossing to a calamari supremacist from Rhode Island tossing to Maggie Rogers stranded on the Maine coastline tossing to a man in a Kansas field. It was all very, dare we say, unconventional, which led many on Twitter to disapprove, accusing the Democrats of putting on a glorified infomercial-cum-Jerry Lewis telethon.

Not to defend the party of abortion, but that seems unfair. The Democrats, and the Republicans next week, have no precedent for anything like this. They’ve been forced to start from scratch, and ultimately what the Democrats came up with ended up seeming almost healthy. Despite their perpetual warnings that democracy will die if Donald Trump is democratically reelected, the Zoom-meeting aesthetic of the convention was refreshing. It undermined the hysteria, contextualizing the event as something less important than it otherwise would have been. The election was no longer a clash of the titans before roaring crowds; it was just another browser tab at the top of the screen, a subdued and rather bureaucratic affair. If you believe, as I do, that the nationalization and glamorization of our politics is ruining the country, then this was justice of a kind. Even the Democratic A-listers felt like a B-roll.

First up was Andrew Cuomo, who compared racism and xenophobia to the coronavirus he’d failed to contain and our government to an immune system. Bernie Sanders, who’d once praised Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union, warned that Donald Trump is “leading us down the path of authoritarianism.” Michelle Obama encouraged empathy, a major theme of the convention. Bill Clinton appeared live from Chappaqua, not the Lolita Express, as many were expecting, after photographs published that same day showed him receiving a massage from one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. Dr. Jill Biden strolled into an empty classroom and proved herself one of her husband’s best decisions. Kamala Harris gave a rather banal speech (“there is no vaccine for racism”) from what appeared to be the headquarters of some intergalactic command.

And then it was over to Ol’ Joe. It seems like a stupid thing to say, but Biden was without a doubt the biggest winner of this year’s DNC. That isn’t always the case with presidential nominees: Barack Obama outshone John Kerry in 2004 and Bill Clinton arguably eclipsed Obama in 2012. With left-wing activists muttering under their breath and Uncle Bernie still rattling around the party attic, there was no guarantee that something similar wouldn’t happen this year. Yet while the Democratic convention was nowhere near as personalist as the Republican one is likely to be, while it focused on issues and party history as well as the candidate, I thought the narrative they crafted around Biden was a winsome one. For four nights, the man was all hands-on-your-shoulders empathy, personal grief, hardscrabble Scranton origins, Amtrak trips.

It was a rejoinder to snarky pundits like me, who like to reduce Biden to his supposed senility. Yet the former veep is much more than that. What he lacks in policy detail and verbal continence, he’s always made up for in social IQ, an essential trait for a politician, perhaps even more essential than attention to detail. That personal connectivity was on full display during his speech on Thursday. It was a success, I think, in that it was almost jarring in its normalcy, a reminder of the way politics used to be. This was an utterly conventional Democratic address with all the utterly conventional kitchen-table issues: jobs, unions, health care, equal pay. Amid a radical and surreal year, it felt disarming. The speech was more proof that Biden is, as Curt Mills has argued, the return-to-normalcy candidate, the Warren Harding of this century’s ’20s.

That isn’t to say, however, that the Democrats didn’t succumb to the feverishness of the times. One of the major rhetorical themes of Biden’s speech was literally darkness versus light, with Trump embodying the former and Biden (conveniently) a paladin of the latter. That made me flash back to a nutty San Francisco Chronicle essay from 2008, which declared Barack Obama to be a “Lightworker,” meaning “that rare kind of attuned being…who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet.” (True enough, if you were a Yemeni civilian.) Biden is no Obama but there was still a slightly messianic feel to his presentation. The Democrats have apparently decided that this election is a space opera, a titanic showdown between good and evil, with themselves in charge of saving their country. That might ring true to the average left-wing door-knocker, but it’s also self-flattering to an unseemly degree.

I skipped over Barack Obama’s convention speech before, only because it was the best example of this Manichean tendency. The former president appeared in front of a giant backdrop of the Constitution and proceeded to inform us that our very founding was under threat. Obama’s understanding of the Constitution was reductive; it said nothing about, say, secretly spying on AP journalists or launching a war in Libya without congressional approval. The Fourth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment were not mentioned. Instead it dwelt on a single word (one many of the Founders happened to disdain): democracy. Our founding documents, Obama said, contained the blueprint for a democracy, which Trump is now menacing. America was portrayed as a glowing democratic arrow, pointing ever forward, demanding that opportunity and the franchise be continually expanded.

And that overall was the narrative of the convention, simplistic and incomplete, yet also familiar and firmly in the American tradition. In addition to Obama, it was espoused by, of all people, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who in an otherwise lackluster speech that felt like one of the lesser State of the Union responses, said, “That’s the story of this great nation. Action begets action. Progress begets progress.” Well, there you go. Donald Trump sees America as one afflicted by carnage and crime, which only he can fix (this time for real). The Democrats’ narrative, on the other hand, is one that affirms our history as a sequence of collective actions, of communities working with government to set aside self-interest and better the condition of the least among us. The 1619 garbage was (mostly) taken out; incremental progress was back in. Listening to these people, you would have never guessed that only a month ago the left was playing footsie with a cultural revolution.

The Democrats are thus making a play to be the Americanist party, conflating the United States with its democratic character and painting its president as a sinister and (ironically) almost foreign outsider. Trump next week will have to turn that on its head, to show that Democratic governance in fact impoverishes the marginalized and imperils democracy through chaos. Yet that’s still two days away. In the meantime, the parties have logged off and I’ve been left feeling jilted. I’m no Democrat, but everything I grew up liking about the left—its opposition to the Iraq war, its hatred of the imperial executive, its support for civil liberties—was MIA this week. Tulsi Gabbard wasn’t invited. Foreign policy was subordinated to the greater theme of democracy, as speaker after speaker promised that Biden would push back on overseas dictatorships. Biden himself threatened to break a pool stick over Vladimir Putin’s head.

The Democratic Party has moved on from the mid-2000s. That might be wise politically, but it will always leave some of us looking not forward but back.

The post The Democrats Want to Be the Americanist Party appeared first on The American Conservative.

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years ago

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%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

Cnn news 1st coronavirus case confirmed in Utah, NBA tells teams to prepare for empty arenas

Cnn news

More than 105,000 folks in on the least 100 countries have been contaminated with modern coronavirus amid an outbreak that has despatched countries and states scrambling to acknowledge.

No longer decrease than 3,559 have died, in step with Johns Hopkins College. Nearly the general cases and deaths have been in China, the build the virus turned into as soon as first detected in Wuhan in December sooner than spreading to each continent with the exception of Antarctica. The outbreak of the virus, known officially as COVID-19, has been declared global wisely being emergency by the World Effectively being Group.

South Korea, Italy and Iran have the glorious nationwide totals of confirmed cases in the encourage of China.

Tune into ABC News Dwell at noon ET every weekday for the most modern files, context and diagnosis on the unconventional coronavirus, with the plump ABC News team the build we can strive to acknowledge to your questions referring to the virus.

The form of People recognized with modern coronavirus is now on the least 424, in step with a case count by Johns Hopkins. No longer decrease than 19 folks have died in the U.S. in Washington sing, California and Florida, per ABC News' count.

Globally, more than 58,000 have completely recovered from the virus, in step with Johns Hopkins.

Today time's glorious tendencies:

Dying toll in US rises to 19

New York declares sing of emergency

Italy announces one-quarter of inhabitants to be quarantined

Quarantine hotel in China collapses

Utah, Hawaii, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia, District of Columbia confirm 1st cases

Pope cancels Sunday prayer gathering

Right here is how the problem is unfolded on Saturday. All times jap.

10: 48 p.m. Italy announces massive quarantine

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte supplied early Sunday local time that folk in Lombardy sing in northern Italy will be restricted of their poke by April 3.

The Lombardy sing, whose glorious metropolis is Milan, and 15 provinces (Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Reggio nell'Emilia, Rimini, Pesaro e Urbino, Alessandrio, Asti, Novara, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Vercelli, Padova, Treviso e Venezia) story for about one-quarter of the nation's inhabitants.

"For Lombardy and for the loads of northern provinces that I've listed there will be a ban for everyone to transfer out and in of these territories and likewise within the identical territory," Conte acknowledged in Italian, in step with The Associated Press. "Exceptions will be allowed dazzling for confirmed expert desires, distinctive cases and properly being components."

Italy has been the hardest hit nation by the illness delivery air of China. There have been 233 deaths, the most delivery air China, and 5,883 cases, third-most in the encourage of China and South Korea, in step with Johns Hopkins College.

8: 20 p.m. 1,000 elderly passengers on Worthy Princess

There are more than 1,000 passengers on the Worthy Princess cruise ship, positioned dazzling off the waft of San Francisco, who are over the age of 70, a source told ABC News.

That might perhaps presumably stamp nearly about one-third of the three,800 on board. These who are developed in age or have underlying clinical circumstances are particularly inclined to modern coronavirus.

Cruise line officials are also managing 1,100 separate prescriptions, in step with the source.

Twenty-one folks tested certain for the virus in runt early testing -- those that were regarded as as the most at-possibility -- with 19 of them crew members.

8: 16 p.m. Missouri records 1st case

Marking now 31 states to have a undeniable coronavirus case, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson held a press conference to articulate his sing's first contaminated particular particular person.

The 30th sing to have a case -- Virginia -- turned into as soon as supplied in a U.S. serviceman minutes earlier.

8: 01 p.m. 1st US serviceman checks certain stateside

An American service member has now tested certain for modern coronavirus in the U.S. for the principle time.

"A U.S. Marine assigned to Fortress Belvoir, VA tested certain this day for COVID-19 and is currently being treated at Fortress Belvoir Community Health center," the Pentagon acknowledged in a assertion. "The Marine no longer too long ago returned from in a international nation the build he turned into as soon as on official business."

Two American militia members beforehand tested certain for coronavirus, but both were serving in a international nation. An Military member tested certain in South Korea and a Navy sailor tested certain in Naples, Italy.

6: 24 p.m. 2 more 1st-time positives

Kansas and the District of Columbia both supplied their first cases of coronavirus on Saturday.

Both cases are counted as presumptive certain cases, performed with local testing, and might perhaps presumably presumably silent be despatched to the Centers for Disease Bewitch an eye on and Prevention for affirmation.

Circumstances have now been picture in 29 states and the nation's capital.

5: 37 p.m. CPAC attendee checks certain

The American Conservative Union team acknowledged in a assertion that one amongst its attendees on the Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC) dazzling delivery air Washington, D.C., final week has tested certain for COVID-19.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were among the many discontinue officials who spoke at CPAC, but the ACU says the attendee "had no interplay with the President or the Vice President and never attended the events in the most vital hall."

The ACU acknowledged the Trump administration is "conscious referring to the problem."

That particular person is now in New Jersey, in step with the team.

5: 04 p.m. CDC, Pence change on take a look at kits

The Centers for Disease Bewitch an eye on and Prevention has shipped out ample checks for a minimal of 75,000 folks, in step with FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn.

Of the checks the CDC has shipped, public wisely being labs have been ready to envision more than 3,500 specimens from 1,583 patients, in step with Hahn.

An additional 1.1 million checks have been shipped to nonpublic wisely being labs. The manufacturer, IDT, is distributing them nationwide, but California and Washington, which have reported the glorious form of cases, bought the checks first.

Hahn famed that there have been "manufacturing considerations with the CDC take a look at" that "created complications for expanding decide up admission to for public wisely being laboratories" who would have in another case dilapidated the take a look at. These components have since been resolved, he acknowledged, and the CDC now has "a take a look at that the American folks can belief."

Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged after meeting with cruise ship officials that more than 1 million checks have been distributed and that "we'll be expanding decide up admission to to checks in the weeks forward to each American."

4: 25 p.m. Italian cruise ship rejected amid fears

Costa Fortuna, a luxury Italian cruise line, turned into as soon as blocked from Thailand and Malaysia amid modern coronavirus fears, in step with a assertion from the ship's operator.

The ship, which contains more than 2,000 passengers, none of whom have shown proof of COVID-19, chanced on itself on the injurious facet of modern suggestions both countries set into build hours sooner than its scheduled arrival.

Thailand grew to was the ship some distance from Phuket due to it turned into as soon as carrying 64 Italian passengers who left Italy decrease than two weeks ago, while officials in Malaysia are blocking off all cruise ships from docking in spite of who's on board.

The cruise ship is now headed for Singapore, the build a maritime and port authority official told ABC News it "might perhaps presumably presumably also silent be ready to dock."

"For the time being, there's no such thing as a executive policy which bars any cruise ship from docking at Singapore port," the official acknowledged.

4: 05 p.m. Constituent of Receive. Matt Gaetz, who mocked virus, among fatalities

Receive. Matt Gaetz, R-Fl., acknowledged he turned into as soon as "extremely saddened" to learn of the loss of life in a Santa Rosa County resident. The Floridian's loss of life had been beforehand reported and is fragment of the 19 fatalities, but right here is Gaetz's first time talking about it.

"Please continue to take most vital precautions to decrease your exposure to any illness, alongside with coronavirus," he acknowledged in a assertion.

Ultimate three days sooner than, Gaetz wore a gas veil on the House floor all the blueprint in which by a vote on emergency funds to acknowledge to modern coronavirus.

He also tweeted a photograph of himself in the gas veil, asserting, "Reviewing the coronavirus supplemental appropriation and making ready to scamper vote."

3: 21 p.m. Dying toll rises in US to 19

Two more folks have died in Washington sing, in step with local officials, putting the form of American fatalities at 19.

There have now been 16 deaths in Washington sing, with all but one in King County, in step with the sing's wisely being division.

A man in his 70s, who turned into as soon as a resident at Lifestyles Care Middle in Kirkland, and a girl in her 80s, also a Lifestyles Care Middle resident, were the 2 folks whose deaths were reported Saturday.

Different deaths in the U.S. have been in Florida, the build two folks died, and in California.

1: 45 p.m. Airport screening in Hawaii after sing's 1st case reported

Hawaii Gov. David Ige supplied his sing's first case of modern coronavirus.

The patient is quarantined at dwelling and "doing wisely," Ige added. The patient had traveled on a Worthy Princess cruise ship in early February and contracted the virus.

Screenings are now being conducted on the Daniel Okay. Inouye World Airport by federal authorities.

12: 59 p.m. Quarantine hotel in China collapses with dozens trapped interior

A hotel dilapidated as a clinical commentary center for folk that had contact with modern coronavirus patients collapsed in southeastern China, leaving around 70 folks trapped interior, Chinese language sing media reported.

Authorities officials in Quanzhou, the build the crumple took build, acknowledged in a assertion that 38 folks had been rescued from the Xinjia Resort as of 11 p.m. local time Saturday.

Rescue work turned into as soon as ongoing, with dozens of emergency and fire rescue vehicles, in step with executive officials.

It turned into as soon as now in the end obvious what brought on the crumple. An unidentified hotel employee told the Beijing Early life Day-to-day that the owner implemented "foundation-connected building" sooner than the peril, in step with the Associated Press, but no additional indispensable components were offered.

China, the build the virus turned into as soon as first detected in Wuhan, currently has more than 80,000 confirmed cases on the mainland.

12: 14 p.m. 76 cases in New York prompts sing of emergency

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a sing of emergency after the total form of confirmed cases rose to 76, with 32 modern cases reported in the final 24 hours.

There are now 57 cases in Westchester, 11 in New York City, four in Rockland County, two in Rockland County, and two in Saratoga County, in step with Cuomo. Westchester reported 23 modern cases and New York City reported seven.

The sing of emergency can lend a hand in hiring and buying, with Cuomo calling the problem "labor intensive. We desire the staffing."

He acknowledged that the problem in Westchester "is clearly a anguish for us." He supplied that each one nursing properties and senior citizen centers in the rapid New Rochelle dwelling would suspend delivery air company.

"Nursing properties are the most problematic," he acknowledged. Older adults might perhaps presumably presumably also endure heaps of the burden in the virus' unfold, in step with Imran Ali, a geriatric doctor working with the ABC News Clinical Unit.

Cuomo also criticized the Centers for Disease Bewitch an eye on and Prevention, asserting the agency is slowing all the pieces down and hamstringing states like New York.

The seven modern cases in New York City encompass two who were on a cruise ship and five that perceived to community unfold. One in all those patients is hospitalized at St. John’s Episcopal Health center in Some distance Rockaway.

The Saratoga County cases, in a 57-year-extinct pharmacist and a 52-year-extinct girl who had contact with a particular individual that tested certain for COVID-19 at a conference in Miami, are that dwelling's first to be reported.

9: 57 a.m. 1st U.S. service member in Europe checks certain

A U.S. Navy sailor stationed on the Naval Toughen Job Naples tested certain for modern coronavirus, marking the principle certain reason in the encourage of a U.S. service member in Europe, in step with a assertion from U.S. European Suppose Theater.

The service member is in isolation at their build and receiving sanatorium therapy in step with the Centers for Disease Bewitch an eye on and Prevention, the assertion learn. Someone who had shut contact with the patient has been notified and is in self-isolation at their build.

Their situation turned into as soon as no longer rapid obvious.

8: 50 a.m. 14 People below quarantine in Bethlehem hotel

The Palestinian wisely being ministry in Bethlehem confirmed that 14 American residents are being tested for modern coronavirus and have been quarantined in the Angles hotel in the metropolis of Bethlehem for now.

These American residents were trying to depart the metropolis the day before this day but were despatched encourage to Bethlehem by the Israeli military, in step with the Palestinian wisely being ministry. Folks are no longer permitted to depart or enter Bethlehem, as per a decision made by Israeli and Palestinian authorities after 17 cases of modern coronavirus were confirmed in the metropolis in the final 48 hours.

8: 43 a.m. Houston-dwelling church warns of imaginable exposure

A particular individual that tested certain for modern coronavirus attended the 5: 30 p.m. Ash Wednesday service on Feb. 26 on the St. Cecilia Catholic Church, in step with Harris County Public officials in Texas. The particular particular person bought ashes and had communion in the hand, but did no longer earn communion from the cup, officials acknowledged. The particular person sat in the final pew on the left facet of the church.

Officials are asking someone who sat in the final three rows on the left facet of the church all the blueprint in which by that service to contact Harris Couty Public officials at 713-439-6000.

In the intervening time, St. Cecilia has drained and sanitized the baptismal fonts and sanitized the church's pews, door handles and restrooms and might perhaps presumably presumably silent present hand sanitizers on the total church's entrances. Parishioners are being informed to raise dwelling in the event that they are feeling sick, in step with a assertion from the church.

7: 43 a.m. Pope cancels Sunday prayer gathering

The Holy Gaze press office acknowledged that Sunday prayers would no longer happen in the sq. as long-established, but from the window of the Library of the Apostolic Palace amid the unconventional coronavirus unfold.

The prayer will be streamed dwell by Vatican News and on monitors in St. Peter's Sq. "so as to permit the participation of the faithful," in step with the assertion, which turned into as soon as translated from Italian.

The Overall Viewers, held this upcoming Wednesday, will even be conducted in the identical manner.

These decisions are most vital in sing to steer clear of the possibility of diffusion of the COVID-19 as a result of the gathering all the blueprint in which by the protection controls for decide up admission to to the sq., as also requested by the Italian authorities," the assertion learn. "In compliance with the provisions of the Effectively being and Hygiene Directorate of the Vatican City Remark, the participation of the faithful company in the Loads in Santa Marta will be suspended till Sunday 15 March. The Holy Father will celebrate the Eucharist privately."

3: 46 a.m. Utah will get 1st confirmed case

The form of coronavirus cases and deaths persisted to originate better in the U.S. as officials in Utah reported late Friday evening that the sing had its first confirmed COVID-19 case.

Utah officials acknowledged they deem the sufferer turned into as soon as uncovered to the virus while on a contemporary Worthy Princess cruise.

A completely different Worthy Princess cruise ship is currently dazzling off the San Francisco waft with dozens of passengers quarantined onboard. As of Friday evening, 19 passengers on the ship are confirmed to have modern coronavirus and 46 folks have been tested, Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged at a press conference Friday.

Organizations across the U.S. have been grappling with the technique to contend with the unfold of the virus.

The NBA, in step with ESPN, despatched a memo to groups telling them to prepare to play in front of empty arenas in the shut to future.

The memo, got by ESPN and ABC New York affiliate WABC, acknowledged NBA groups were asked to originate a route of and identify actions required in the event they needed to play video games without followers in attendance and with easiest indispensable team on the field.

Following Friday evening's clutch over the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers significant particular person LeBron James addressed the league’s memo to groups, warning he will now not play in an empty enviornment.

"I ain't playing. If I ain't bought the followers in the crowd, that's what I play for. I play for my teammates, I play for the followers,” James told newshounds in the locker room following the game. “That is what or no longer it is all about. If I picture as a lot as an enviornment, and there ain't no followers there? I ain't playing. So, they might perhaps presumably presumably discontinue what they ought to discontinue.”

The College of Southern California and Stanford College both moved all classes online in step with the Coronavirus outbreak.

Stanford supplied Friday that each one classes would be moved online for the final two weeks of the quarter and USC acknowledged it will probably presumably take a look at some distance flung classes for two days next week.

“Our college desires to be nimble and versatile in the event that now we need to originate any additional changes to the semester,” Charles F. Zukoski, USC Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, acknowledged in a assertion Friday. “We have about 7,000 lecture classes this spring. We need to envision our technical capabilities to originate certain instructional continuity in a web atmosphere might perhaps presumably presumably also silent there be a disruption.”

ABC News' Erin Schumaker, Morgan Winsor, Luis Martinez, Matt Gutman, Elizabeth McLaughlin, Phoebe Natanson, Karson Yiu, Rashid Haddou, Label Crudele, Matthew Fuhrman, Robert Zepeda, Ben Gittleson and Dragana Jovanovic contributed to this fable.

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cover2covermom · 5 years ago

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Hello bookworms!

I know we are only mid-way through October, but it’s time to start thinking about what I’ll be reading in November. I decided to prioritize my physical TBR in November, but need YOUR help to decide which books off my shelves to pick up…

I decided that the best way to do this would be to have 4 categories with a few different options in each category. You can pick ONE book from each category. The book with the most votes in each category will be added to my November TBR!

Science Fiction Selections:

#1 The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut #1) by Mary Robinette Kowal

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.

Elma York’s experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon, as a calculator. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too.

Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.

#2 The Sparrow (The Sparrow #1) by Mary Doria Russell

In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet that will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be “human”.

#3 Ender’s Game (Ender’s Saga #1) by Orson Scott Card

Andrew “Ender” Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.

But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military’s purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine’s abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.

Nonfiction Selections:

#1 Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag”. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes and the will to change it.

#2 Creating Room to Read by John Wood

The inspirational story of a former Microsoft executive’s quest to build libraries around the world and share the love of books

What’s happened since John Wood left Microsoft to change the world? Just ask six million kids in the poorest regions of Asia and Africa. In 1999, at the age of thirty-five, Wood quit a lucrative career to found the nonprofit Room to Read. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “the Andrew Carnegie of the developing world,” he strived to bring the lessons of the corporate world to the nonprofit sector—and succeeded spectacularly.

In his acclaimed first book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, Wood explained his vision and the story of his start-up. Now, he tackles the organization’s next steps and its latest challenges—from managing expansion to raising money in a collapsing economy to publishing books for children who literally have no books in their native language. At its heart, Creating Room to Read shares moving stories of the people Room to Read works to help: impoverished children whose schools and villages have been swept away by war or natural disaster and girls whose educations would otherwise be ignored.

People at the highest levels of finance, government, and philanthropy will embrace the opportunity to learn Wood’s inspiring business model and blueprint for doing good. And general readers will love Creating Room to Read for its spellbinding story of one man’s mission to put books within every child’s reach.

#3 Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime New York Times bestseller about one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.

The eighteen personal essays collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.

Fantasy Selections:

#1 The Last Magician (The Last Magician #1) by Lisa Maxwell

Stop the Magician. Steal the book. Save the future.

In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she’s been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta’s training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

#2 A Curse so Dark and Lonely (Cursebreakers #1) by Brigid Kemmerer

Fall in love, break the curse.

Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she’s pulled into a magical world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom.

Harper doesn’t know where she is or what to believe. A prince? A curse? A monster? As she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what’s at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.

#3 An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

A skilled painter must stand up to the ancient power of the faerie courts—even as she falls in love with a faerie prince—in this gorgeous debut novel.

Isobel is a prodigy portrait artist with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread, weave cloth, or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes—a weakness that could cost him his life.

Furious and devastated, Rook spirits her away to the autumnlands to stand trial for her crime. Waylaid by the Wild Hunt’s ghostly hounds, the tainted influence of the Alder King, and hideous monsters risen from barrow mounds, Isobel and Rook depend on one another for survival. Their alliance blossoms into trust, then love—and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws. Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel.

Middle Grade Selections:

#1 Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger

Twelve-year-old Sophie Foster has a secret. She’s a Telepath—someone who hears the thoughts of everyone around her. It’s a talent she’s never known how to explain.

Everything changes the day she meets Fitz, a mysterious boy who appears out of nowhere and also reads minds. She discovers there’s a place she does belong, and that staying with her family will place her in grave danger. In the blink of an eye, Sophie is forced to leave behind everything and start a new life in a place that is vastly different from anything she has ever known.

Sophie has new rules to learn and new skills to master, and not everyone is thrilled that she has come “home.” There are secrets buried deep in Sophie’s memory—secrets about who she really is and why she was hidden among humans—that other people desperately want. Would even kill for.

In this page-turning debut, Shannon Messenger creates a riveting story where one girl must figure out why she is the key to her brand-new world, before the wrong person finds the answer first.

#2 The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall

The Penderwick sisters busily discover the summertime magic of Arundel estate’s sprawling gardens, treasure-filled attic, tame rabbits, and the cook who makes the best gingerbread in Massachusetts. Best of all is Jeffrey Tifton, son of Arundel’s owner, the perfect companion for their adventures. Icy-hearted Mrs. Tifton is less pleased with the Penderwicks than Jeffrey, and warns the new friends to stay out of trouble. Is that any fun? For sure the summer will be unforgettable.

#3 The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. Why is she there? Where did she come from? And, most important, how will she survive in her harsh surroundings? Roz’s only hope is to learn from the island’s hostile animal inhabitants. When she tries to care for an orphaned gosling, the other animals finally decide to help, and the island starts to feel like home. Until one day, the robot’s mysterious past comes back to haunt her….

Please vote for one book in each category in the comment section below. Even if you haven’t read all or any of the books in each category, feel free to vote for whichever book sounds the most interesting to you!

Voting will be open until October 31, 2019.

Have you read any of the books above? If so, which ones?

Are any of the books above on your TBR?

Comment below & let me know 🙂

YOU Pick My November 2019 TBR! #BookBlog #BookBlogger #Books #Reading #Bookworm #Bibliophile Hello bookworms! I know we are only mid-way through October, but it's time to start thinking about what I'll be reading in November.

#Bibliophile #book blog #book blogger #Book Talk #Book Worm #Bookish #Books #Bookworm #Reading #TBR

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