#Zia's a quick study though.

[tuinendraws]

My gift for @bastionbabble in this year’s secret santa event at @supergiantsecretsanta.  Happy holidays, Babs!

(Watercolours, 24 cm x 32 cm)

[ziaxghazali]

Zia Ghazali is a non-mutant who has been in new york for 1 week where they spend most of their time as a Bodyguard. when i think of them, i think of open fields, tire swings, and scrapped knees. they are in support of mutants.

BASICS

Name: Zia Ghazali

Nickname(s): Z

DOB: October 17th, 1969

Age: 28

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Sexuality: Pansexual

Traits: ( + ) Patient, Kind, Bubbly, Steadfast, Determined, Motivated ( - ) Immovable, Bossy, Quick-tempered, Worrisome

Occupation: Bodyguard

Family: Isik Ghazali (Father) — Living, Ana Ansari (Mother) — Living, Haris Ghazali (Older Brother) — Deceased

APPEARANCE

Height: 5′8

Eye Color: Brown

Hair Color: Brown

Ethnicity: Pakistani

Nationality: American

Aesthetic: Cowboy boots and black leather pants, sunglasses, maroon, acoustic guitars and the smell of smoke. 

Tattoos: A peach on her left tricep

Piercings: Double Lobes, Nose stud on right side

BACKGROUND

Zia is a tried and true Georgia Peach. Born and raised in Dublin, Georgia which lives smack dab between Macon and Savannah, she grew up on enough land that she could get lost in her own backyard. She had been mucking stalls and doing yard work since she was tall enough to hold a rake, and had callouses on the bottom of her feet from running around barefoot so often. Her family was picturesque: Father, Mother, and Older Brother who all got on as well as family could, and were well respected members of the community. 

Zia will be the first to tell you, though, that she learned everything she knows in life from her Older Brother. He was six years older than her, and a God among men as far as Zia was concerned. She aimed to emulate his every move, and learn everything she could from him so she could grow up to be just like him too. And, for the most part, it was for her own betterment that she mimicked him so closely. He was an upstanding citizen with good grades, friends, and a strong work ethic. There were was not a bad word to be uttered about Haris. 

He took his little shadow in stride, too, teaching her everything he could about life. Why everything deserves respect, why it’s important to be a good person and a hard work, and why it was important to be strong. He made sure she knew how to stand up for herself, helped her study, and even went as far as to teach her about how to be there for the people who needed it most. For the people who couldn’t stand up for themselves— whether it be because the threat was far beyond their scope or simply not having a ‘Haris’ to teach them how. She was ten when she learned about mutants for the first time. 

Haris was a part of Activists clubs at school. He was wildly in support of the mutant cause regardless of how small it seemed to the rest of the world at the time. His girlfriend in his last years of High School was a mutant. He passed all he had learned from them down to Zia, and Zia held on to every word he said as she always did with Haris. 

Her parents didn’t seem to notice her new found morals in support of the Mutant cause until she was thirteen, and the Presidential Address broadcasted. Where her parents saw great strides in the way of humanity, Zia could only feel this odd festering in her soul. ‘He didn’t even do anything’. She had exclaimed, much to the surprise of her parents. And, off she went on a rant about how ‘words would never be enough’ and ‘meaningful action’ was the only way to pave the path to change. 

Of course, all eyes turned to Haris, who’s ‘radical behavior’ as some might have called it was not so well hidden as Zia’s. Her parents ripped in to Haris about his influence over Zia, and what kind of ideas he was putting into her head. They wanted Zia to be a happy little girl, not a radicalized activist with a nose piercing and fishnets. It was the only time she truly witness her family fight, and she just couldn’t understand why. Her parents had always told her that doing the right thing was important. But, it seemed to her, they meant doing the nice thing. Because, if she had learned anything from Haris, it was that the right thing wasn’t always easy or nice. 

Haris moved out soon after that fight. He said it was time. He was twenty now, and needed to see the world and really start his life. He had gotten a job working on a campaign as security guard of some sort, and promised that he would send back letters and call whenever he could. He was going to see even more of the world, and bring it back to her, so she shouldn’t be sad. 

And Zia tried not to be. She threw herself into the Activist Club, taking over where her Brother had left off. She worked hard for change on the level of her school, taking action on the President’s empty words if he wouldn’t do it himself. It was her senior year when word was sent home that her Brother had been killed on the job. Some unidentified attack that they couldn’t give out details on. It sent Zia into a tailspin. Not the ‘drugs’ and ‘alcohol’ kind of tailspin, but the kind where she hardly slept or ate, focusing almost all her efforts into anything but accepting the death of her Brother. When graduation came, and life finally stopped, she was left with no choice but to face the fact that there was nowhere left to hide. 

She’s far from healed from the loss, but Zia dedicated herself to living as a person her Brother could be proud of. She forewent College to become a Bodyguard herself. She remained a dedicated activist around Georgia fighting for the mutant cause, and learning as much as she could from the community that had been built there. She bounced all around Georgia guarding different types of people. Actors, Politicians, Journalists— the one line she never crossed was guarding an anti-mutant. If she was going to live a life her Brother could be proud of, she’d have to hold her integrity in the highest regard. 

She had watched everything happening in New York unfold across her TV screen. Between reports of riots, rising terrorist organizations, and the Mutant School owned by Charles Xavier, it was a lot to take in. But what really grabbed Zia was the Exposé by the Mutants who had escaped from Essex house. She had remembered crying through the whole thing, astounded at the things human beings were capable of. 

The next day was when she got the call from the family of one of those very same Mutants requesting her services. And, when they had shown such bravery in putting a target on their back, how could she say no? That’s how Zia ended up in New York City, a place far removed from her Georgian farm life, in charge of the life of one Monique Washington. Who knew how that would go?

[longitudinalwaveme]

Random Flash Rogue Headcanons

Ideas that pop up a lot in my fanfics and fanart: 

-Mick Rory was a farm kid. 

-Roscoe Neyle Dillon is the son of Reginald Norton Dillon, a well-to-do banker, and Rosa Nicole Dillon, his rather pliant, weak-willed wife. Reginald held his son to punishingly high standards and was quick to criticize, berate, and threaten his son when he failed to live up to them. Rosa never intervened. 

-Roscoe grew up in North Ridge, a suburb of Central City. He is on the autism spectrum, but grew up before it was widely recognized. He was constantly bullied by his peers and was disliked by most of his teachers because of his odd behavior. He had a number of special interests but the most prominent was, of course, tops. 

-Roscoe is one of only three Rogues to attend high school and one of only two to have attended college. Lisa and Hartley also both graduated from high school, and Hartley also went to college. Roscoe studied (possibly has a degree in) physics. 

-Roscoe’s parents currently live in Bridgeville. 

-Mark (Marco) Mardon is the son of Patricia (Paloma) and Matthew (Matias) Mardon, and the younger brother of Clyde (Claudio) Mardon. His parents immigrated from Guatemala when he was a month and a half old and Clyde was about a year old. Both parents were college-educated, which made the process simpler than it otherwise would have been, and the family initially settled in Dunhurst, a suburb of Central City. However, they were never accepted there, and they eventually left the town after persistent harassment from the Clan of the Fiery Cross. 

-They resettled in Bridgeville, and Matias and Paloma went to great pains to hide the fact that they were immigrants, Americanizing their names and refusing to let their sons speak Spanish outside of the home. Patricia became the head of the local library, and Matthew took a job as a teacher of geography at the local high school. The family eventually settled fairly comfortably in the middle class. 

-Clyde was only 11 months older than Mark, so they were always in the same year at school. He was handsome, intelligent, popular, and athletic. Mark, by contrast, was painfully average. He couldn’t live up to the standard set up by his parents’ golden child, and eventually, he stopped trying, knowing that he would never measure up. He and Clyde were very close, but their relationship was often strained by the fact that Mark was so often compared unfavorably to Clyde.

-Mark dropped out of high school at 16 and ran away, eventually drifting into petty theft due to his lack of direction. Clyde, meanwhile, graduated high school early and earned a degree in meteorology. He started work on the Weather Wand when he was still in college, but didn’t finish it until he was 23. He died not long after of congenital heart failure, and then his shiftless younger brother strolled in and took the wand for himself. 

-Samuel Joseph Scudder was born to Percival and Martha Scudder. Unfortunately, Percival contracted cancer a few months before Sam was born and died when his son was only 7 months old, leaving his wife with dozens of medical bills. The Scudders had never been particularly well-off, so Martha was forced to move into an apartment complex on Baker Street, colloquially known as Skid Row, where she would raise her young son. 

-Martha was a talented seamstress, so much so that she was eventually hired by the Rathaways. While this provided steady work, the Rathaways were extremely demanding employers, and so Martha wasn’t able to be at home with her son as much as she would’ve liked.

-Young Sam loved cowboy movies and superhero comics. He was especially fond of the JSA and gathered a collection of JSA comics that he still owns (currently, he hides them in the Mirror Realm so the other Rogues won’t find out about them). He was also a boy scout and eventually became an Eagle Scout. He was highly intelligent and generally did well in school, and he was close friends with Jennifer Conners, who lived in the same apartment complex he did. When they entered high school, the two started dating, and even fantasized about getting married. 

-Unfortunately, life on Baker Street was less than ideal. Sam was embarrassed by the shabby state of his clothes and possessions, had to watch as his mother tried to figure out how to pay their bills, and was surrounded by violence. Fights were common in the apartment complex where Sam lived, and, when he was 15 years old, he and Jennifer bore witness to Jennifer’s father being brutally shot as they came home from school. Both were traumatized. Jennifer began a years-long struggle with PTSD, and Sam’s anxiety levels went through the roof. Not wanting to burden his mother and knowing that they didn’t have enough money for therapy, Sam turned to cigarettes, and then alcohol, in the hopes of relieving his anxiety. As he spiraled into addiction, he got mixed up with the school’s party crowd, and dropped out at 17. He drifted into a life of crime and was sent to prison at age 19 for robbing a convenience store. In this prison, he would mostly break his alcohol addiction, but his smoking habit only got worse. More importantly, however, while serving his sentence for this crime, he would discover the Mirror Realm. 

-Sam loves his mother, but he avoids her because he knows his actions disappoint and worry her. His ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Conners, though continually struggling with PTSD, managed to graduate from both high school and college, and currently works as a school counselor. Sam avoids her, too, but still holds a bit of a candle for her. 

-Mrs. McCulloch’s first name is Eva. She is devoutly Catholic, and, as a result, Evan is also devoutly Catholic (albeit a very confused Catholic). He goes to Mass at least once a week, believes priests are basically infallible, and will threaten to kill you if you so much as look at a nun funny. He goes to Confession at least once a month and would probably go more often if each session didn’t last three hours. 

-Giovanni Giuseppi (James Jesse) is the son of Helen and Alessandro Giuseppi, both of whom are the children of Italian immigrants. He has a very, very, very large extended family, most of whom are in the circus with his parents. Many of them speak Italian; while James isn’t fluent in the language, he can understand it quite well and speak it well enough to get by. The whole family is very emotionally demonstrative and physically affectionate, which is part of why James has no concept of personal space. His relatives include his Zia Catalina (who runs an Italian restaurant), his Nonna Gianna, his Nonno Antonio, his Nonno Aberto, his Nonna Lucrezia, his Zio Luca, his Aunt Stella, his Zio Angelo, his Zia Loretta, his Zia Lucia, his Zio Armani, his Aunt Karen, his Zia Bianca, his Zio Rocco, his Zio Romeo, his Aunt Olivia, his Zia Etta, his Zio Dante, his Uncle Fred, his Aunt Susan, his Uncle Harold, his Aunt Lydia, his cousins Bobby and Susie and Maria and Carly and Matthew and Frank and Julia and Freddie and Joseph and Lucy, and his cousins’ kids, Angela and Charlie and Stefano and Gian and Marsha and Rose and Kaitlyn and Steve. He’s not entirely sure how he’s related to most of them. James’ family is all technically Catholic, mainly because they’re all Italian, but only about half of them are practicing Catholics. 

-James invented the airwalker shoes when he was 13 years old. 

-There was a very large age gap between Leonard and Lisa’s parents when they got married. This is because Larry/Lewis Snart was a 40-year-old creeper who got a 15-year-old girl pregnant. Shirley married him because she had nowhere else to go; her parents kicked her out when she got pregnant. She dropped out of high school soon after, and, after several years of abuse, she ran away, leaving Len and Lisa alone with Larry/Lewis.

-Len is about 5 years older than Lisa; he dropped out of high school at 14 so that he could support her and left home at 18. He continued to send money to her after he left, even after she became a professional figure skater. 

-Lisa’s teenaged years were one long nightmare. She was a beautiful young woman, but because of her background, her mother’s reputation as a loose woman, and her father constantly calling her nasty names, she was demonized by the “nice, proper” people of her neighborhood as a temptress, someone who would lead their sons astray. (This in spite of the fact that they were often the ones making advances on her.) Her father also became increasingly abusive towards her, as Leonard had left the home and, as she got older, Lisa started to remind him of his wife. In response, she threw herself into her figure skating and tried to shut the rest of the world out. By the time she was 16, she was already one of the most talented skaters in the Midwest, and when she was 17, she left her father’s house and moved in with another girl on her skating team for the rest of high school. She graduated with a B+ average and was promptly snapped up by a professional figure skating team. Lisa had managed to escape-at least physically. Her teenaged years left her convinced that her beauty was something dangerous; something evil, and it took Roscoe over a year to break down her defenses when they met. However, once he did, she fell deeply in love. Finally, she had found someone who would never abandon her. 

-Roscoe, for his part, was equally in love. After years of being seen as a socially awkward weirdo, he had found someone who thought he was sophisticated and intelligent; someone who didn’t laugh at his tops and who didn’t seem bothered by his quirks. It was intoxicating. 

-Geraldine is 20 years younger than Hartley; she was born to replace him as the heir to the Rathaway fortune. 

-Hartley’s parents were in their thirties when he was born. Both of them came from long-established “old money” families; their marriage was more the result of a business deal between Hartley’s grandparents than any sort of romantic relationship. Prior to her marriage, Rachel was a Kane. Her uncle was the father of Jacob Kane (father to Kathy Kane) and Martha Wayne (nee Kane), making her the first cousin of Bruce Wayne’s mother. Red hair runs in the Kane family, and she passed it on to both of her children. 

-Similarly, Hartley’s paternal grandmother was originally a Queen before marrying into the Rathaway family. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg: Hartley’s at least a distant relative of most of the wealthiest people in the DCU. 

-Geraldine is on the autism spectrum; she’s able to mask her symptoms well enough that her parents haven’t decided to pull the “let’s fix her with expensive surgeries” trick that they used when Hartley was born deaf. 

-Hartley’s parents engaged him to a girl named Kathryn Kendell, the heir to a fast food corporation, when he was 18; nothing came of it because he got himself disowned before the marriage could actually happen. 

-Hartley’s parents are intensely controlling and basically make all the decisions in their children’s lives without actually asking them for their opinions. 

-Len Snart is prone to ulcers.

-Albert and Rita Desmond have an infant son named Alan. He likes to chew on his father’s Philosopher’s Stone. Alvin adores his “astral nephew” and kept showing up at Albert’s house uninvited to see him. Eventually Albert got tired of Alvin breaking in and put him on their baby-sitting list. Rita is less than thrilled by this but is at least pleased that Alan keeps Alvin from trying to ruin Albert’s life. 

-George Harkness has two half-brothers: an older brother named Tom Harkness, the son of Agnes and Ian Harkness, and a much younger brother named Walter Wiggins, the 12-year-old son of W.W. Wiggins and his wife. (All these characters are canonical, but it’s never actually been officially stated that this is the case.) 

-Jai West idolizes Jay Garrick and plans to take up his costume someday. 

-Josh Jackam-Mardon’s weather-controlling abilities are directly tied to his mood. When he’s happy, it’s sunny and he makes rainbows. If he’s cold, the temperature will increase. If he’s hot, the temperature will drop and it might even start snowing. If he’s sad, it rains. If he throws a temper tantrum, it creates a thunderstorm-and if he’s really upset, a tornado will form. 

-When Barry Allen was 13, he paid the admission fee that was required in order to meet the members of the JSA for both himself and a 9-year-old Sam Scudder. It’s one of both men’s fondest memories, and neither realizes that the other was the boy who met the JSA with him on that day. 

-Axel Walker is the son of Alan Walker and Alice Strickland. His father is a used car salesman who left his wife for Axel’s stepmother, Barbie, when Axel was 7 years old. Axel does not like Barbie and isn’t particularly happy with his father, either. Axel’s mother is Jewish. As such, so is Axel (although Axel doesn’t practice his faith much, if at all.) He can read a bit of Hebrew and speak a bit of Yiddish. 

-Eobard Thawne is convinced that he is an expert in 21st-century technology. The result: “This is a historical device called a toaster. It served as a primitive form of climate control!” 

-Abra Kadabra, by contrast, spends most of his time in the 21st century baffled by the devices used by these primitive savages. What sort of communication device doesn’t send a perfect three-dimensional copy of your body to the person you’re talking to? What kind of food-preparation device takes twenty minutes to cook a meal? Why don’t their hygiene devices instantly clean their bodies of dirt and odors instead of requiring water that’s never a comfortable temperature? HOW DO YOU OPERATE THIS ‘REMOTE CONTROL’? This makes him a very annoying house guest. 

-Mick Rory is an accomplished cook, home repairman, and knitter. 

-Albert Desmond is often so lost in thought that he puts his keys in the refrigerator. 

-All of the Rogues are more scared of Iris Allen than they are of Barry. And with good reason. 

-Owen Mercer is good friends with Joan Garrick. 

-Sam is developing the early stages of emphysema but refuses to admit it because it would mean having to try to kick his smoking habit. 

-Mick Rory’s body is covered by third-degree burns, and his voice is unnaturally raspy because of all the smoke inhalation he’s undergone over the years. 

-Mark Mardon is a horrible klutz. If he can trip over something, he will end up doing it. This is part of why he likes being able to fly so much. 

-Len Snart and Sam Scudder are huge fans of Central and Keystone City’s sports teams. Linda Park-West is among the few who can rival their civic pride in this regard. Evan and Digger are both big fans of rugby and cricket. Hartley is solely a baseball fan; the other Rogues don’t much care about sports unless betting is involved. 

-Mark Mardon watches the weather channel solely so he can make sure that the reporter’s predictions are wrong. 

-Digger loves the great outdoors and can hike for hours.

-Mark Mardon is terrible at cards but gambles constantly anyway. He’s lost more money than he’s ever stolen trying to win bets. James, by contrast, is a master cardsharp. 

-Sam and Roscoe spend more money on clothes (and more time in the shower) than the rest of the male Rogues combined.  

-Dexter Miles knows the birthdays of everyone in the Twin Cities. No one knows how he knows this, he just does. When it’s a Rogue’s birthday, the museum opens a exhibit exclusively about them for a few days. The Rogues don’t know this is intentional and it’s really starting to freak them out. 

-When the Rogues found out that the Flash Museum hires people to dress up as them and teach young visitors about science, Sam Scudder waited for a day when the museum’s ‘Mirror Master’ called in sick and showed up in his place. All the visitors to the museum that day were agreed that he was the best “Mirror Master” the museum had ever had. 

-James once went to the Flash Museum in full costume and stood right by one of the statues of him. He even posed in exactly the same way. He was immediately informed by a patron that he was much too blonde to be the real Trickster. James found the whole experience very amusing.

-Roscoe insists that all the statues of him at the Flash Museum make him look fat. Lisa thinks that’s ridiculous and says that they’re almost as handsome as the genuine article. Len agrees that the statues make Roscoe look fat and thinks it’s hilarious. 

-All three of the Flashes have, of course, been to the Flash Museum while in costume. Like James, they are often told that they don’t look anything like the real Flashes. Barry and Jay are baffled by this; Wally thinks it’s funny. 

-Mick Rory donated his chili recipe to the Flash Museum’s diner. It’s one of the more popular dishes amongst people who love spicy food. 

-Wally is trying to convince his wife to get the kids a pet cheetah. “Come on, honey! It’ll be good for the twins to have a pet who can keep up with them!” 

[thethreemages]

Neeeew batch of boys coming in to join my Three Mages cast~! Took me a bit to finally get them all down but I’m glad I pushed myself to complete their looks and bios! :D Hope you all enjoy! 

More info about their characters can be found below~

-Antoyn is Fevrier Ballastine's robotic butler companion, and joins his young master in acting as a protective bodyguard back in St. Ravilda's. Created and commissioned around the same time as Fevrier's accident by the boy's parents to give their son some better protection, Antoyn started off as just your average subservient android with a variety of talents to both entertain and nurture the then-younger Fevrier. But then... a few years down the line there was an incident where Fevrier's mother accidentally released a soul of a deceased Bard from one of her jarred collections (a common practice of hers as a Necromancy mage)... and the soul ended up embeding itself deep within Antoyn's body. While Fevrier's parents at first wanted to get rid of this soul from the robot... little Fevrier remained insistent on letting his best friend keep it since he saw how much it made Antoyn "happy" to get a moving, working body again. So, after some consideration they decided to respect their son's wish and modify Antoyn even moreso to let him feel at least somewhat more "human". And now, several upgrades later Antoyn is more than just a dedicated butler... but also a wise, collected, and pretty snarky mentor figure to the now brattier Fevrier. When he's not spending his days at his master's side trying to make sure he doesn't get into trouble... he also likes to practice a variety of other hobbies like fencing, puzzle-solving, sprucing up on his lute-playing again, studying up on all the recent historic events that he missed in his deceased years, and occasionally trying to smooth-talk some of the "charming" single-mothers he comes across here and there... to his master's embarrassment. -Zephyr Platyna is among one of the newer students of St. Ravilda's, joining in the same year as Zia, Noira, Frevier and Mila. Being a universe traveler, he often comes between both Clock Diamond; his actual home, and Graystone (the main setting of "Three Mages"). His gothic-like appearance may give him the impression like he's a villainous rebel type, but in actuality he wants to change that perspective for the better ("Heroes can be Goth too" being his main motto whenever the subject's brought up to him). He's one of the rare specialty mages to hone more than one element, being both metal and ice (creating some pretty "wicked" magic displays whenever he's asked to give demonstrations during class). Though some teachers wondered if this could be too much to handle since it's not very common for them to get dual-magical mages like that (let alone who dressed so "scarily", in Professor Barnaby's words)... Headmaster Auran (who was usually accepting of all students) and Professor Devonna (being a fellow goth mage herself) urged the others to give Zephyr a chance once they saw how much the boy wanted to use his powers for good. During school hours, Fevrier has formed a bit of a rivalry with Zephyr... both in the field of mastering metal magic (and Mila's eye of affection), which seems to be more to Zephyr's favor as the elven boy is not only more "courteous" of his magic, but also more genuinely considerate of Mila's timid tendencies since the two of them met on his first day at school. Sensing how lonely she was from most others, he offered to be her friend and steadily they've seem to lean more to "deeper" levels for how protective and caring he is towards her. Even Zia and Noira seem to want to nudge Mila into asking out the boy... but combined with Mila's shyness + the Zephyr & Fevrier rivalry, it's bound to not be an easy task as the school year goes on. -Kalybir Shelrovet (also known as "Kaz") is a former student of St. Ravilda's who was once the main leader of the "A-Lister" group there. The sole heir to a mana stone mining/jewelry-making company called "Shelrovet Dreams", Kaz grew up to carry a big ego and a haughty attitude towards most of his peers... even Prince Kain and Prince Elas weren't really safe from his showboating since every student at Ravilda's was treated equally regardless of their backgrounds. Things got especially tense with Kaz and Kain in particular since the latter was also pretty full of himself too... leading to them establishing themselves as "sworn enemies" for quite a few years (in one instance, a big magic fight between them lead to Kaz losing one of his teeth, now replaced as a shiny gold one). Towards other students, Kaz didn't change much of his attitude around them either... any number of "friends" that he did have seemed to most likely only hang out with him for his money. The only one that stood out from this was Ana White... an equally haughty popular girl who often had an off-again/on-again relationship with Kaz up until things went quiet between them post-graduation. There might still be some signs of some "lingering flames" between them though... given how Ana tends to get so blushy and surprisingly docile/flustered upon hearing his name. In terms of magic, Kaz controls the power of a "Poison Mage"... giving him abilities of producing acidic liquid blasts to melt through obstacles, stinging his foes back with illness/burns, and/or trapping them in place via-melting the ground to quick sand-like levels. -Hoagen Blanchard (likes to be called "Zeppelin" as a stage name) is the son of St. Ravilda's teacher Ms. Blanchard, younger brother of Beau (who's part of the King's Elite squadron) and a current member of Argent's underground metal band. Though for many years he was known for being a dorky, kinda clumsy nerd... following around the time of his father's passing, he felt more inclined towards the gothic subgenre (specifically for himself, as a "steampunk" goth) to start hanging out more with the likes of Argent. Granted, he's still generally pretty dorky but nowadays he likes to play himself more "confidently" when it comes to the stage... trying to nudge for Argent to be more sociable now and then (though it doesn't always work) as well as being pretty friendly and open to their current fan following. On his off-time, Hoagen likes to partake in hobbies such as comic collecting, sprucing up on some his favorite action movies, trying his best to hide his not-so-secret "crush" on a certain traveling singer while failing each time she gets brought up, and also just generally sprucing up more and more of his goth look to be "cooler". As he used to go to St. Ravilda's, Hoagen's main magical skill involves controlling the power of a "Storm Mage"... being able to create thunderous lightning clouds to engulf his foes as he wishes. Though for Hoagen, this type of magic is generally kind of dangerous to get a hold of... so he tends to just limit it to some cool "stormy" effects for the bands' stage performances.

[toushindai]

The Matter of the Crystal Barrette

Title: The Matter of the Crystal Barrette Rating: T Relationships: The Kid (Bastion)/Zia (Bastion) (F/F version) Characters: The Kid (Bastion), Zia (Bastion), Rucks (Bastion), Zulf (Bastion) Other Tags: Everyone Is Trans AU, but also fairly canon-compliant?, Post-Evacuation Ending, POV Second Person, Trans Realization, Dysphoria, Character Study

[ Read on AO3 ]

In which everyone on the Bastion is trans--it’s just the kid hasn’t realized it yet.

There are a few additional notes and warnings on the AO3 version, might be a good idea to check that if you need to. Otherwise... enjoy?

You know exactly what you mean when you offer Nacie’s barrette to Zia, but you pretend not to when she hesitates to take it.

“Wasn’t she…” The singer searches your face as if the right word might be hidden in your eyes. “…a friend of yours?”

She was almost that, although it was Falen, Nacie’s older brother, that you’d really known. You only saw Nacie when she came to visit him. She was pretty, and gentle, and kind. You never found her body after the Calamity. Or Falen’s either.

“She was always happy,” you explain to Zia. “She used to bring my friend gifts from home. I don’t think she’d want me to hold onto this just for the sake of being sad. It’ll suit you.”

You want her to have it. More than that, you want to give it to her, and it’s hard to give presents now when almost everything on the Bastion is shared between the four of you. Besides, you do think this’ll look pretty against Zia’s jet-black hair.

But she tucks the barrette back into your hand with a quiet smile on her face. “I think you should keep it,” she says. “It means something to you, right?”

“It does, but…” You open your hand to look at the purple crystals. “I don’t have any use for it. I can’t wear it.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Zia teases impishly.

You peer at her, her suggestion not adding up. It’s a girl’s barrette. For girls to wear. But she answers your confusion by taking the barrette from your open palm and touching your chin lightly to turn your head to the side. With a deft twist, she curls a lock of your short hair around her finger and pulls it back from the temple. She opens the barrette with her free hand and leans in to slide it into place against your head. Up close like this, she smells like the soap you all use.

“There,” she says, snapping the barrette shut with a muffled click. She looks you over and nods approvingly. “See? I think it looks nice.”

You shoot her a dubious look, so she pulls a handheld mirror out of her pocket and shows you.

Looking down at it, you find your own image strangely unrecognizable for the briefest of moments. It should look like you: there’s your clay-brown skin and the scar on your cheek, your brown eyes, your shock of white hair that always got you in trouble back in school. But the way Zia has pulled your hair back with the barrette transforms the way your face is framed. It makes your cheekbones and even your jaw look softer, makes your eyes look wider and more anxious. Your heart thumps in your chest, like something’s got you worked up.

Then Zia says “See?” again, and you blink, and you realize that you’re just a guy with your hair pulled back by a girly barrette. Zia’s got funny sensibilities is all. Just think of that anklegator.

“It looks weird on a guy,” you tell her, and you pull it free without opening the clasp. A few strands of your hair go with it, yanking out of your scalp with pinpricks of trivial pain.

“I don’t think it looks weird,” she protests as you pick the strands out of the barrette’s teeth impatiently.

“Well, I do.” You offer it to Zia again. “It’s for a girl. You should have it.”

But she shakes her head and closes your hand around the trinket one last time. Her hands are warm when she clasps them around yours.

“We all have so little left from before,” she tells you. “Don’t be so quick to give your mementos away if they’ve got good memories attached to them.”

“…All right,” you mutter, and give in at last. You get tongue-tied when Zia talks to you sometimes. You know why, but you pretend not to.

*

Everyone’s always told you that you grew up too fast.

But you had to, didn’t you? They didn’t usually take volunteers on the Rippling Walls younger than thirteen, but you were twelve and you needed to start making your mom some money rather than costing it, and you were good with your hands. So your mom agreed to lie, with a little convincing, and the overseers paid more attention to what you could do than the exact details in your records. A grouchy man in clothes finer than you’ll ever wear helped you set up your salary to go straight home. You started working.

The other Masons—volunteers and convicts alike—thought you were pretty funny. Called you “Squirt,” “Pipsqueak,” “Brat.” “Kid,” like Rucks does now. None of it was mean, though, just amused, and you liked most of it better than your real name anyway. Still, you knew what kind of cruelty could be hidden under teasing, just waiting to be uncovered. You were earning as much money as any of them and couldn’t afford for them to think you weren’t pulling your own weight. So you worked hard, and you learned how to be a man by watching them. You laughed along at their crude jokes, even the ones that went over your head or made you flush with shame; you took shots of smuggled-in alcohol with the rest of them, even though they burned going down and made your stomach roil. You learned to boast, inflating your production rate with a sneer and then pushing yourself until you could match your own claims. They challenged you to wrestling matches as a joke, and you kept fighting until you could win. You got brash. You got strong. You thought all that was growing up.

You realized, when you went home and found your mom dead and buried, your childhood home looted and empty, that it was all just playground games on a different playground.

That’s when you grew up.

You went back to the Walls because it was what you knew how to do. But this time, you made sure your money was going somewhere where you could keep an eye on it, and this time, you did less joking and boasting and more working. You didn’t make as many friends—Falen was about it—but you got stronger than ever. Your hard work was rewarded with attention from the Marshals, and they sent you out beyond the Walls to scout, and that’s where you were when the world ended.

Maybe you did grow up too fast. But if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be growing up at all, and even if you’d survived the Calamity you would never have been able to find the cores and shards to fix the Bastion. So that’s how things worked out, in the end.

*

Even so, Rucks thinks you grew up too fast, too.

“I don’t need any help, kid,” he says when you follow him down to the Bastion’s heart. “It’s just a little tune-up to keep things runnin’ all right. You oughta relax.”

“I’m plenty relaxed,” you answer, a little indignant. “Will you teach me what you’re doing? I’d like to learn.”

He looks at you with one eyebrow raised, then turns back to whatever he’s adjusting with his wrench.

“Haven’t given any thought to how to teach this yet. Maybe next time.”

“Can I watch, at least? I’m pretty good at learning from example.”

“Bet you are, though it won’t help with this much.” Rucks rests his palm against the Bastion’s whirring chassis, listening for something. Then he adjusts something with his wrench again. Listens again, adjusts again. When he’s satisfied, he walks around the platform and does the same thing on the other side. Around the chassis, he says, “Watchin’ is all well and good, kid, but don’t you go tryin’ to fix anything without my instruction, got it? The Bastion takes precision. And who knows how long we’ll all be living on it.”

He mutters the last sentence, irritation in his voice. You pretend not to hear it. Apparently the Bastion has its own ideas about what counts as a safe place to land, and it hasn’t found anything yet. As the architect behind the floating structure, Rucks seems to consider this a personal failure on his part. You don’t. You’re pretty sure Zia and Zulf don’t, either. This isn’t a bad life, up here in the clouds. You’re patient enough. You just wish there were more you could do.

You tell Rucks that last part as he finishes whatever he’s doing and takes a seat on the edge of the platform, legs draped over the side. The expression that crosses his face in answer is one you can only describe as “old.”

“Kid,” he says heavily. “You’ve already done more than enough.”

“Not when there’s still stuff that needs doing,” you protest. “That’s why I want to help look after the Bastion. You shouldn’t have to do it alone.”

“Oh, is that why? And here I thought you might be afraid I was gonna keel over any day now.”

Leaning back on his hands, his joints creaking as much as the old wood he’s sitting on, he almost looks like he might. Almost. You know better. Still, it seems like as good a time as any to bring out a little liquid rejuvenation. You sit down next to him and offer him your flask, and he snorts before taking it.

“What’s in here?” He sniffs it. “This the bourbon? Well, sure, why not.”

He takes a swig and then offers it back to you. You take a sip as well, and you trade back and forth until the flask is dry.

Before he hands the empty flask back, Rucks eyes the Mason crest engraved on it. “Kid,” he says, “is there anything I can say to convince you that you deserve to rest?”

“I do rest.” You get plenty of sleep, you chat with everyone, you look after Zulf. “But I can’t just… do nothing all day.”

“If you gave it a try, you might find that you could,” Rucks retorts. Then he sighs. “Ah, who am I kidding? I was the same way at your age. All the energy in the world and determined to do something with it. There certainly wasn’t no stoppin’ me.” He hands the flask back.

You tuck it into your pocket. “That was during the war, right?”

“Yep.”

You half-expect him to stop there; he doesn’t often reminisce except in bits and pieces. But he must be in a funny mood, or maybe he thinks his stories will prove a point to you, because he keeps talking.

“I left home at fifteen to enlist. Truth is, they were lookin’ for sixteen-year-olds and up. But there were… certain aspects of my upbringing, you might say, that I was eager to escape. So I slapped on a fake mustache and showed up.” He snorts. “They didn’t question it too hard.”

The similarity to your own story leaves you grinning. “Caelondia never turns down a hard worker.”

“No it doesn’t. And the City gets you thinking that’s all that matters, your hard work for its benefit. That’s how it got to be as great as it was.” He fixes you with a sharp stare. “But Caelondia ain’t that anymore, so there’s no more need for any of us to go workin’ ourselves to death.”

You bristle at the way he turns it back around into the same lecture. “I’m fine,” you insist. “I just want to be helpful.”

“Yeah, I know. But listen—”

Rucks opens his mouth to say more of the same, but you’re tired of hearing it and he has no right to go on about this anyway, not with the way he bossed you around after the Calamity and not with the way he’s lived his whole life. You change the subject, bluntly.

“Rucks, I need your advice on something.”

He shoots you a look. “I’m givin’ you advice,” he points out, but then he obliges you. “What?”

“I don’t know what to do with Nacie’s barrette.”

Another look, this one incredulous. “That shiny thing? Now where did that come from all of a sudden?”

To be honest, you don’t even know. It’s been on your mind since the other day—since you tried to give it to Zia and she wouldn’t take it—so it’s what comes out when you need a random change of subject. But now that you’re on the topic, you mean it. You tell him what happened, leaving out the part where Zia tried putting it in your hair. “I don’t want it to go to waste,” you explain. And then, discouraged: “I thought she’d like it.”

He eyes you for a long second before sighing. “It ain’t going to waste if you’ve got memories attached to it, kid.”

“That’s what Zia said,” you complain, and you don’t tell him that your memories of Nacie have gotten strange lately: that you keep dreaming about her except half the time you are her and the rest of the time you’re sitting next to her in a warm, safe room and she’s playing with your hair for some reason. You wish Zia hadn’t put that barrette on you, even if she was just joking around. Now it’s all you can think about when you look at it, and you find yourself looking at it an awful lot.

“I just think Nacie would want me to do something useful with it,” is all you say to Rucks.

It’s the story you’ve been telling yourself, but hearing it out loud now, suddenly you aren’t so sure you believe it. Rucks doesn’t seem to either, but he just shrugs. “You may be outta luck, kid,” he says practically. “Ain’t no one alive who can force Zia to do something she don’t want to do. And I can’t take it off your hands because I don’t figure it would go with this nice mustache I’ve worked so hard to grow. Now, it might suit Zulf, in certain moods, but I imagine he’d have the same objections that Zia did. You might just have to accept that that barrette is yours now—to look at, if you ain’t gonna wear it. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

You scowl halfheartedly at the unwanted advice and ask, “Since when do you know Zulf well enough to start speaking for him?”

On one level, it’s a way to dodge the lecture that you sense baked into Rucks’ answer: that the barrette doesn’t have to be useful and you don’t have to be useful either. But it’s a genuine question, too. The tension between Rucks and Zulf hadn’t just evaporated when the Bastion took off. They’d spent a few weeks furiously ignoring each other (and making mealtimes pretty awkward in the process). But they seem to have patched things up at some point, somewhere out of your sight. And you can’t help but be curious how it happened.

Rucks is in no hurry to relieve your curiosity. “Since recently,” he says, a uselessly literal answer to your question, and for a moment you think that’s all you’re going to get out of him. But then he tips his head back and looks at the gears and machinery that make up the Bastion’s heart. “He and I… sorted things out, while you and Zia were busy flirtin’ with each other.”

Color rushes to your face and you try to stammer out a defense. “We haven’t been…” But he raises a knowing eyebrow in your direction, and you figure there’s not much point in finishing your sentence if he can see right through you. You still wish he hadn’t said it out loud, though.

“I wish you two all the best,” Rucks assures you, almost too sarcastic to sound sincere. “But you have to admit, leavin’ me and Zulf alone to circle each other like dogs in a fight coulda been a disaster. I thought it was gonna be. Spent more time than I should’ve convincin’ myself he probably still wanted me dead.” He’s looking up at the Bastion’s heart again. “But they’re funny, ain’t they? Zulf and Zia both, and maybe all the Ura. They get into their heads that things should be a certain way and then they just keep on insistin’ on it. And Zulf, he thinks I should be forgiven.” He pauses for long enough to swallow. “So I’ve been tryin’ to be.”

You look at Rucks, and then down at the clouds below you.

You don’t really know what to say to that.

There’s something about him right now that’s just… beyond you. A heavy weight on his shoulders that comes of living four times longer than you have, worries and memories and self-reflection all worn into the crevices in his forehead and around his eyes. He’s still looking up at the whirring machinery above you, but you get the feeling that he’s seeing something much farther away.

Finally, he gives a sigh and looks back at you. “You did a good thing, savin’ his life,” he says seriously.

The sudden praise and the weight of his gratitude leave you feeling awkward. You lift one shoulder in a shrug. “Anyone would have.”

He laughs, low and gravelly. “Kid, I sure am glad you think so.”

*

Rucks thinks you’re naïve, you realize when you replay the conversation in your mind later. Which is funny when he also insists that you’ve grown up too fast. Well, whatever. You think you grew up at the right rate, or at least at exactly the rate you had to.

But sometimes you do wonder if everyone’s right, or at least on the right track. You’ve always felt, somewhere deep inside of you, that something went wrong in the growing. On the Walls you could work hard enough to keep the feeling from coming to the forefront—most of the time, at least. But it was always in the back of your mind, and sometimes it came out when all the men sat down around a fire to brag and trade dirty stories. On nights like those, something that was usually connected inside of you came loose; it seemed like everyone you knew was just scrabbling to win a petty game at the expense of others, and you couldn’t remember why you were even playing. You didn’t ever want to be a man like them. But if you tried to step away from the group on nights like that and headed to bed early, your dreams got weird. Soon you learned to keep your head down and keep drinking until the group dispersed.

Then the Calamity happened, and you didn’t have time to sit around and wonder about things like that. And that was fine with you. You’ve always found it easier to breathe when you’ve got a goal in front of you and a tool in your hand. Rucks and Zia, they appreciated the work you did for the Bastion, and you knew how you fit into the world.

But there’s nothing left to work at now, and the feeling’s coming back and making itself known. You feel unsettled, like your own body doesn’t make sense to you anymore; frustrated, like you aren’t being heard. Your dreams have gotten weird again—so weird you can hardly define them to yourself, let alone tell someone else. The ones in which Nacie’s playing with your hair, or Zia is, are the tamest of the bunch. They just get stranger from there.

Maybe it’s survivor’s guilt, you think.

That sounds like it could be it.

That’s the story you decide to tell yourself.

*

You ask Zia, in her tent one afternoon, who she misses most from before the Calamity.

With a heavy sigh, she pulls her knees up to her chest. “Am I allowed to say my father?” she asks ruefully.

Your eyes slide over to the journal on the ground next to her bedroll—Zulf gave it back to her when she went with the other Ura. She still can’t read all of it, as much as Zulf’s tutoring helps, but now you all know just what kind of secrets are contained within. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be her—daughter to the man who designed the Calamity by hand because he wasn’t given any other choice.

“You’re allowed,” you reassure her, but at the same time she opens her mouth again and says, “Maybe—”

You both hesitate, and you gesture for her to finish her sentence. “Sorry.”

“No, I was just going to say… maybe I didn’t even know him well enough to say that I miss him.” She picks up the journal and rifles through it, and you can see that she’s added her own little notes in a different color of ink. “He used to say he loved me, and Zulf says he wrote about it, too, but he never… shared anything with me. He was never around to. And I never would have thought he was the kind of person to…” She nods down at the technical diagrams scribbled into the journal, pain in her eyes. Then she closes it without saying anything more. You sit down next to her, offering her your arm, and she exhales slowly as she nestles into your embrace. You can feel her heart beating in her chest.

“What did you know about him?” you ask.

She closes her eyes and remembers. “He was stern,” she tells you, “and serious. I don’t know if he was just born a sad person, or if the City made him that way, but he was sad most of the time. I hardly ever saw him smile. When he did smile, though, it was mostly at me. I know he loved me. I know he wanted what was best for me, and he was afraid he’d never be able to provide it, with the way things were.”

For a moment, your own mother’s face flashes in front of your eyes. She’d wanted that, too—wanted you to have the best life possible, despite her illness, despite her lack of money and your trouble at school. She’d begged you not to go to the Walls. But you wanted her to have the best, too.

Zia sighs and sets the journal aside, but she doesn’t pull away from your arm in the process. “He did everything he could, I think,” she says quietly. “Or at least he tried to. When I told him I couldn’t stand to be a boy anymore, he didn’t argue with me. He just moved us across town so I could start fresh with new people who didn’t know me. But I guess that looked pretty suspicious to the Marshals, too.”

Your brow furrows and you feel suddenly off-kilter. “What do you mean?”

“Well, they thought me being a girl was part of the treason plot—”

“No, not that part.” You know what happened with the Marshals, and how much it hurt Zia. You wouldn’t make her spell it out again. “Your dad was raising you as a boy to begin with?”

Now confusion and worry flash across Zia’s face. She searches your eyes before speaking, and when she does, she sounds more hesitant than you’ve ever heard her before. “Well, that—that’s the way I… You didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

Pink creeps up her cheeks. She takes a deep breath, and then meets your eyes and says evenly, “I was born a boy.”

Silence, for a long moment. You can feel your blood pulsing in your veins and you don’t know why; you let go of Zia so that she won’t be able to feel it too. “What?” you ask again, starting to feel like a broken record.

With your embrace gone, Zia wraps her arms around herself. She can’t seem to decide whether to meet your gaze or let her eyes wander the room. “I was born a boy,” she repeats, her voice quivering a little, “but I couldn’t do it, it just felt wrong. Every time someone called me a boy it felt like I was suffocating. I-I thought you knew, couldn’t you… tell?”

Tell how? She looks like a girl to you, with her long hair and pretty eyes, and all the Ura have softer faces than the Cael to begin with. And she’s only ever called herself a girl, so why would you doubt her? You’ve never met anyone who said they were something different from what their body was. You’d heard about people like that from the other Masons, a little, but they described deviants, objects of disgust. The things they said about those people made your heart lurch. Zia isn’t anything like that. You’re sure of it.

“How did you change?” you ask her. “From a boy to a girl, I mean.”

“Well, like I said, my father moved us across the city… I grew my hair out and introduced myself to everyone as a girl from then on.” She sees the doubt in your eyes, and adds in a mumble, “That’s all the changing I’ve done, I haven’t done anything… physical.”

Your heart is still pounding, and you get up to pace the tent. You’re upsetting Zia, you can tell, and you want to stop; but the questions keep pouring out of you. “So you get to just… say you’re a girl? Just because you want to be? That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Fair?”

“I mean…” You feel the words tight in your chest. “If people could just say they’re girls, wouldn’t everyone? No one would be a guy if they had a choice!”

“But Rucks did, didn’t he?” Zia stands as well, all at once, and she raises her voice a little. Her face is splotched with pink, but her eyes are bright and determined. “Rucks chose to be a man!”

“What’s Rucks got to do with—wait.” You stop pacing for a second. “Is he the same way? Or I guess—the opposite?”

The wince on her face is all the answer you need. That, and remembering what he’d said a few days ago, about certain aspects of his upbringing that he was eager to escape. About the fake mustache he wore to get into the army.

You swallow, but it’s hard to. You feel trapped. You feel stupid, like Zia’s expecting you to know something that no one’s ever bothered to tell you before. “So you get to just… decide to be something you aren’t?”

Zia’s face pinches up. “I am a girl,” she says, louder than she has to, and you realize again that you’re hurting her and you don’t want to. You growl in frustration.

“OK, fine, you are a girl! I’m not doubting that!” You ball your hands into fists, stubby nails digging into callused skin. “I just don’t get why you get to—how come you can just—”

Why can’t you get the words out? Why is your chest so tight? Your vision stings, but it’s still clear enough that you can see Zia’s eyes bright with the threat of tears. You’re the one making her cry, and you hate yourself for it.

“Never mind,” you say, and it comes out like a snarl. “Forget I asked anything, forget all of this.”

And before she can object, you push back the tent flap and storm out of her tent. You cast a dark glance around the surface of the Bastion, but fortunately Rucks and Zulf are both somewhere else right now. If they see you, if they find out about the argument you just had with Zia, they’re going to be angry and they’ll be right to be. You’re angry at yourself. Your heart is pounding, pumping adrenaline through your body, and it makes you feel like you’re going to be sick.

Instead you stalk over to the far end of the Bastion—behind the arsenal, out of sight of Zia’s tent—and you plop down on the edge, feet dangling over nothingness. You’re sulking. You know you are. You’re sulking because there’s still a lump in your throat, because you don’t know what kind of answer you were expecting from Zia and you don’t know why you kept asking her those questions in the first place. Something feels unfair. Something feels painful. You dig into your pocket and pull out Nacie’s barrette and for a second you’re tempted to throw it off the Bastion as hard as you can. You don’t know why. You don’t. You don’t.

(But now you know why it was so easy for Zia to put it in your hair, why she thought nothing of it at all.)

You don’t throw the barrette.

Instead you lie backwards with it clutched between your fingers, and you hold it to your chest, and you look up at the sky while the Bastion putters along underneath you.

*

Your dreams get worse. If you’re not Nacie in your dreams, you’re Zia, singing and combing your own fingers through long black hair; if you’re neither of them, they’re together and calling out to you, asking you to join them in something vague and undefined. Something always stops you from joining them. You wake up and you feel wrong in your body, like it belongs to someone else, like it’s never been the right body for you, and you’ve felt this way all your life but until now you’ve always had some way to distract yourself.

Waking life isn’t much better, either. You don’t know what to say to Zia and every time you think of trying, you have to bite back the same questions as before. So instead you don’t say much to her at all. Meals get awkward again, more awkward still because she must’ve told Rucks what happened. You can feel him eyeing you as you keep your head bowed over your stew.

Only Zulf stays out of it, quiet and subdued like he’s been ever since you brought him back. Like he thinks he doesn’t have the right to comment on anything. You don’t want him to feel that way, and anyway at this point he’s the only one you can go to for advice.

So you find him in the kitchen one afternoon, chopping up some vineapple while the squirt watches. Even from behind, he looks tired, his once-stately posture stooped and the movement of the knife slow. “Want some help?” you offer, and he starts like he didn’t hear you come in. He straightens his posture when he turns to look at you, his eyes conflicted. But there’s nothing he has to feel conflicted about. Before he can answer, you say, “C’mon, give me that.” You walk forward and take the knife from him and start chopping.

“…Thank you,” he mutters, and retreats. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch him sit down on the bench against the wall, even stiffer than Rucks is. He was standing too long, probably; you wish you’d come a little sooner so he hadn’t had to push himself. But you’re here now, at least, and faster with a knife than he is. You finish with the vineapples in a few minutes.

“What’re these for?” you ask Zulf.

“Applesauce.”

“What’s the next step?”

He makes like he’s going to stand. “I can—”

“Nope.” You position yourself between him and the chopped vineapples like you’re guarding them. “What’s next?”

With resignation in his eyes, he sinks back down onto the bench and instructs you: spices, apple cider, a dash of citrus juice, and sugar, all set in a pot to simmer. “You’ll want to mash them occasionally,” he says, apology in his voice.

“I’m pretty good at mashing things,” is your cheerful answer, and so instead of joining him on the bench you hover by the pot. But first you pluck out three slices of vineapple: one for you, one for Zulf, one for the squirt. Once you’ve swallowed yours, you sigh. “Hey, Zulf, can I ask you something?”

The Ura’s face is aiming for serious as he eyes you, you think, but it settles on gloomy. “Certainly. What is it?”

“Did you know about Zia?”

“…What about her?”

That she wanted to be a girl so people just let her, you think, but what you say is, “That she was born a guy.”

“Oh.” The caution softens out of his gaze. “Yes.”

“And Rucks? That he was a girl to start with?”

“Rucks, I wasn’t sure about right away. Because I didn’t grow up looking at Cael faces, I suppose. But he does joke about it sometimes…”

This mustache I’ve worked so hard to grow, you remember Rucks saying to you through a crooked grin, and you wonder if other quips like that have just flown right over your head. With a grunt, you pick up the masher and have a go at the vineapples. They’re still pretty solid. Makes them more satisfying to mash.

But you can feel Zulf watching you, his dark, analytical eyes on your back, and you feel like he knows you have more to say. So, a minute later, it bursts out of you: “Am I just stupid or something? I had no idea, I didn’t even know that was allowed!”

You hear a sigh from behind you, and a creak from the wooden bench as Zulf stands. He puts one hand on your shoulder and relieves you of the masher with the other; picks a spoon off the hanger on the wall and stirs the vineapples slowly.

“You’re not stupid,” he assures you, his voice placid against the way you seethe. “It isn’t a common thing, among the Ura or the Cael. And I think it’s often… received poorly.”

“…Yeah, I guess,” you admit, remembering with another painful turn of your stomach the way your fellow Masons used to leer at the mere idea.

Zulf taps the spoon on the edge of the pot and puts it down. “Sit with me?” he suggests, and you do, crossing your arms and legs and feeling more like a petulant child than you want to. Sure, you came to Zulf for advice, but now that he’s so calm and methodical about it, you feel stupid for getting worked up. You don’t even know why you’re so worked up. But you sit, your shoulders hunched and your chin tucked into your chest. Several times, you take a deep breath like you’re about to start speaking, only to sigh it out again through your nostrils, aggressively.

You get to your feet again and go back to the vineapples, and Zulf doesn’t stop you. “It’s not like I wanted to be a guy,” you sulk, but on its own the statement is too—too something, so you hurry to add, “Guys are awful. Most of the Masons I worked with were guys and they were all assholes.”

Zulf makes a sympathetic hum behind you. “I’ve known a few decent men,” he proposes as a counterargument.

You grunt. “I don’t mean you, you’re fine.”

“Am I?” he asks.

Your heart sinks and you whirl towards the Ura, ready to reassure him. But he’s… smiling. Almost. There’s something sad about it as he sits with his hands in his lap, eyes averted. It cuts your protest off before you can even begin, and he speaks instead.

“I spoke of harmony and tolerance, and I thought I believed in them—but when I found my patience tested, I turned to revenge. Easily. Without questioning myself.”

You look away, too. “I mean,” you say awkwardly. “You had a good reason to be angry.”

“I did. But I’m not sure that translates into a good reason to seek revenge.” He looks at you sidelong and then sighs. “Perhaps that doesn’t have anything to do with the question of being male, though. I apologize for pulling the conversation off-course.”

“Zulf…”

“If you wanted to be a better man than the ones you hate, I’m sure you have it in you,” he says.

You shift awkwardly under his certainty. “I dunno,” you mumble, thinking of everything you did to fix the Bastion. You can’t pretend that you’re above violence. You learned how to be a man from the Masons, and then you went right ahead and used those lessons, didn’t you? You aren’t any different from them.

You turn back to the vineapples and get to work mashing them. There’s a long silence, during which you can’t tell whether Zulf is waiting for you to say something or just thinking his own thoughts. Finally, Zulf speaks. “Maybe I’ve said the wrong thing,” he says hesitantly. “Do you not want to be a man at all? Like Zia?”

“No. I mean—no,” you answer immediately, trying to ignore the flush creeping up the back of your neck. “That can’t be it. I mean, Zia is so sure about it. She said she couldn’t stand to be a boy anymore, and I mean… I’ve lived my whole life this way. I can stand it.” Here you are, standing it. You’ve hardly even thought about it until recently.

“What if it isn’t something you have to withstand, though?” Zulf suggests. Your mind balks at the idea of answering, so you just… don’t. Another brief silence filters through the kitchen. Then, in a quiet voice, Zulf asks, “May I share something with you?”

You turn your head just enough to look at him. His face is serious and deliberate, his hands folded tight. For a moment, there’s a part of you that wants to say no. There’s been so much weighing on you lately. But you don’t ever want Zulf to think he’s not forgiven for bringing the Ura to the Bastion, and if listening helps reassure him, then of course you’re going to listen.

“What’s up?” you ask, turning away from the applesauce once more.

Zulf inhales and exhales quietly and looks down at his hands. “For as long as I can remember,” he says, “I’ve had the occasional days when I wake up and I feel like I’m a woman.”

Your heart starts pounding and you feel like your face is hot, but Zulf doesn’t need you to respond yet. He keeps talking.

“It’s difficult to describe. It’s partially a bodily sensation, partially a mental one. But it’s very clear, as long as I let it be.” He raises his eyes to look at you. “I’ve spent a long time not letting it be clear, though.”

You swallow to try to wet your dry throat. “What do you mean?” you ask.

“The Cael missionary didn’t understand. He thought I was making it up, I suppose, so he wouldn’t let me dress in girls’ clothing or introduce myself as a girl on those days. And I trusted him, and trusted in his love for me, so after a while I convinced myself that he was right—that I wasn’t feeling what I was feeling. I managed to convince myself that it was nothing more than a vague, temporary discomfort that I couldn’t do anything about.”

You don’t say anything, but you couldn’t have looked away from Zulf if you tried. His eyes, locked on yours, are peaceful and certain.

“It’s thanks to Zia and Rucks that I’ve started to remember what that feeling is. And thanks to you that I have a chance to, of course.” He inclines his head in an expression of gratitude that’s never obligatory. “I still don’t know if there’s a moral judgment one can or should make about the phenomenon, but… if the three of you are willing to forgive me for what I did after the Calamity, this seems like a much smaller thing to forgive, in comparison. Which I suppose may be selfish,” he finishes with a self-deprecating smile. “I’m sorry.”

“…It’s OK,” you say, because you can’t imagine treating this as something that needs to be forgiven.

Another nod of gentle, sincere gratitude, and Zulf is silent. You turn back to the applesauce to stir it, thinking about everything Zulf said. It all feels far away, as if it will ensnare you if you get any closer. Your mind wanders back to Nacie’s barrette instead, and belatedly, you make a sudden connection. You look at Zulf over your shoulder.

“Rucks knows?” you ask.

Wariness passes over Zulf’s face. “He does,” he says slowly, and stops just shy of asking for an explanation.

You provide one anyway, digging the barrette out of your pocket. “I’ve been trying to—to figure out what to do with this,” you say, “because Zia won’t take it, and Rucks said it wouldn’t go with his mustache. But he said you might like it ‘in certain moods.’ I didn’t really think about what he meant at the time, but I guess he was talking about you being a woman sometimes?”

Tension draws tight across Zulf’s face for a long moment, but a deep breath smooths it out again. “I guess he was,” he says, tired irritation in his voice. “Rucks talks too much.”

“Yeah, he does,” you agree, though that’s not what’s on your mind right now, and you offer him the barrette in your open palm. “D’you want it, then?”

For the first time in days you feel a bit of hope that you’re comfortable calling hope. Maybe Zulf will take the barrette from you and you’ll stop having to think about any of this. Maybe you can put all of this behind you and get back to work.

But he looks down at the barrette sadly, then back at your face. “It belonged to someone you cared about, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but—” It hasn’t made you think about Nacie in weeks now.

Zulf can’t know that. “Keep it,” he encourages you. “You’ll be glad you did.”

“But…”

You don’t have anything you can actually say, though—not without voicing it all—and just then the squirt leans over the simmering applesauce with an eager chirp. You scoop it into your arms quickly, before it can fall in, and the conversation between you and Zulf turns to the subject of cooking, leaving the matter of the crystal barrette—and everything before that—behind. You don’t make any effort to turn it back, and eventually your pulse stops racing in your wrists and you breathe easily again.

*

In your dream,

you’re back on the Rippling Walls.

It’s all so familiar, but you feel a sinking in your chest, heavier than the hammer in your hands. Your lifelong friend. It’s been with you, this whole time.

“I thought I was done with this,” you mutter, and a faceless overseer looks your way as if that has nothing to do with him.

“Get to work,” he orders.

You do.

You know this. That makes it easy. Hammer, meet brick. Repeat. The other Masons work around you and you let the sound become your heartbeat as your body moves in its old rhythm. Work hard enough on the Walls and you start to be too tired to think. You know this. You remember.

You see Zia waiting up ahead, sitting on one of the foundation stones, playing an old Caelondian work song on her harp-guitar. Nacie’s with her, both of them smiling at each other like they’re sharing a private story. Your hammer starts to fall in time with Zia’s melody as you work your way closer and closer to her.

When you’re finally close enough, she looks at you instead. Her playful smile is gone. Instead, she’s serious.

“Let’s go,” she says. “Let’s get out of here. We have to know who we are.”

You remember when she left with the Ura of her own free will. You remember finding her, abandoned by them, too.

“There’s no point,” you say. You’ve paused in your work and that’s given the pain a chance to catch up to you; suddenly you’re weary, your arms aching. You hoist the hammer over your shoulder. It doesn’t help much. “I have to keep working,” you tell her.

“Why?” Nacie asks, like she always did when Falen told her he couldn’t goof off. You always thought it was sweet: you hoped she’d never have to learn what it was like to have someone else control whether she got to work or rest. You’d shoulder all the labor yourself if she got to stay innocent.

Your answer is the same as it always was: “I have to build the Walls.”

“You don’t have to,” Zia protests. “You can do whatever you want.”

You can’t. That’s never been an option for you.

“Come with us,” she says, urgently.

“I can’t.” You chose this, and you must have had a reason to; you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. “I have to build the Walls.”

“We have to go,” she says to you,

“They’ll come undone—”

And they do:

The ground rears up like a living thing and throws your whole world into the sky.

You have nothing when you come to: no hammer, no Walls. No overseer. No city crest to lead you and no stranger’s voice to follow. It’s just you on a rock in the sky. All alone with nothing but your own body, but it’s softer than it’s ever been, rounder—

—right.

For a moment, all you can do is look down at the gentle curve of your chest, wondering why it doesn’t feel surprising or strange in the way your normal body sometimes does. It just feels natural. Like it’s supposed to be exactly like this.

When you’re finally able to tear your eyes away, you look up. In the distance you can see the Bastion; waiting on it, you can see Zia and Zulf and Rucks. They’ve all made it there already and they don’t need you to save them anymore. They’re all waiting for you. You feel yourself smile. A skyway opens at your feet, and you give yourself to the wind.

*

You wake up in your bedroll on the Bastion in the middle of the night, and this time it’s all too clear to forget. Too clear to deny. You lie there, staring up at the stars in the sky above you, your jaw clenched with the effort of keeping your lip from trembling. But your blanket can’t keep you from shivering, because the problem isn’t the cold.

You get up.

You take one more look at the stars as if they might guide you, you check your pocket, and then you go to the lost-and-found.

There’s nothing left in here; the Bastion is far away from anything that it might sweep up to be fixed. Zulf has suggested that you turn it into a storehouse, and you probably will once the Bastion’s gardens are producing more than the bare minimum. For now, though, it’s empty and quiet. When you light a lantern, the firelight bounces off the back windows and you can see your own reflection. It’s not something you go out of your way to look at; you’ve never been too fond of your face. But right now, it’s what you’re aiming for. You fish Nacie’s barrette out of your pocket and for a long moment you stare into the crystals, remembering her, remembering what your life used to be like.

Then you rake a section of your hair back with shaking fingers and snap the barrette into place around it. You screw your eyes shut for a long, bracing moment, and then, when you feel brave enough, you look towards the reflection in the window and you see—

You.

Just you, the same as ever.

Just you, wearing a barrette that’s too dainty for your face, let alone the shoulders of a Mason and a murderer. Anger rises like bile in your throat. You don’t look like a girl. The anxiety that’s plagued you for weeks, seeping into your dreams, eating away at you—did you think this stupid thing had some kind of magical power, that it was going to transform you? Did you come in here thinking you were going to find answers?

—You did.

Your reflection’s face crumples and then you can’t look at it anymore; you bring clenched fists up to your eyes and you start to bawl like you haven’t in years. You cry so hard you can barely breathe. You’ve been afraid, you realize, you’ve been terrified of this stupid thing because you’ve thought that it was going to tell you something you couldn’t bear to know. But it’s just a trinket. Just a memento of someone you lost. It doesn’t have any power, and now that you’re seeing that you’re just the same as always, you feel like your heart is breaking.

You wanted it to make you into a girl. You wanted it to, and it didn’t work, but what does it mean that you wanted it to? The answer makes you sob, curling in on yourself as your shoulders shudder. Something pulls at your scalp as you do: the barrette, almost falling off because you don’t even know how to put it on right. You pull it out of your hair roughly, angrily, and it takes everything you have not to let out a wail. This thing can’t make you a girl. Nothing’s going to just make you a girl, nothing, nothing—

But what’s going to stop you?

You catch your breath at the dizzying thought.

If nothing stops you—if Zia and Zulf and Rucks all say it’s OK—what if you get to just have this? What if after all your work looking after your mom, all your work on the Walls, all your work for the Bastion—all those years spent living under other people’s definitions of you—you get to decide what to be on your own?

What if…?

*

Dawn is only a pale gray line on the horizon when you creep out of the lost-and-found and towards Zia’s tent. “Zia?” you call, not loud enough to wake her if she’s sleeping, but you hope she’s not.

You get lucky: there’s a rustle from inside the tent, and then she pulls back the tent flap. “What is it?” she asks, as quiet as you are.

Her face is wary, but truthfully you hardly look her in the eye right now. In her light nightclothes—without the many layers of traditional Ura clothing—you can see clearly that her chest is as flat as yours, her hips without curve. She catches you looking and wraps her free arm around her torso to hide its shape. Her mouth pinches into a hard line. “What?” she says again.

“Zia, I—”

You meant to just tell her, to see what happens when the words leave your mouth and someone else hears them, but now that you look at her you can’t get the words out. You can feel your heart pounding in your throat, reminding you that you’ve been an asshole to her for days and you don’t deserve anything from her. With effort, you manage to squeeze out, “I’m so sorry—”

And then more tears are spilling down your face and the way you sniffle doesn’t keep snot from dripping out of your nose, and Zia’s pulling you into her arms and into her tent. You wrap your arms around her in return, helplessly, holding onto her tight even though you’re embarrassed to be crying this hard, again.

“Zia—” you croak, and it’s easier to get the words out with your face buried in her shoulder than it was when you were looking her in the eyes. “Zia, I th-think I’m a girl.”

You’re terrified of the moment it’ll take for her to understand you, the horrible wait between you confessing it and her telling you that you’re wrong, or even that you’re right, or that she doesn’t care at all—

But her arms tighten around you before you even finish speaking, and she answers right away with a gentle, firm, “OK.” She kisses your temple softly. “OK, kid.”

You start sobbing all over again, overwhelmed. Exhausted. You’ve spent years not knowing this, hiding the desire from yourself so that you didn’t have to feel the ache of its impossibility, and now Zia’s accepting it like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like it can be true just because you want it to be. Just like that.

She rubs your back as you soak her pajamas with your tears. “You want to sit down?” she asks, and you nod with a long sniff, and the two of you sit down together on her bed. “Do you have that barrette with you? Is it okay if I put it in your hair?”

You dig it out of your pocket, and with the same unassuming gentleness as the first time she twists a lock of your hair back and fastens the barrette into place. She pulls out her mirror and lets you see yourself, her head leaned affectionately on your shoulder.

“There you are,” she says with a smile that lights her whole face.

You hold your breath and look down at the mirror—and this time, your reflection looks a little better, the barrette tucked halfway behind your ear. Maybe you just didn’t put it in right before; maybe that was all. Your shoulders shake with something between a laugh and a sob. But your reflection looks like it’s smiling.

All of a sudden, Zia wraps her arms around you again and squeezes your shoulders. “I have so many questions,” she confesses, and you think you hear excitement in her voice. “I’ve never met someone like me before. Rucks is fine, but he’s been living like he wants to for so long, and his life has been so different. Did I make you realize it?”

You don’t have the energy to be as eager as she is, and the smile you answer with is a bit more like a wince. “Yeah, kind of,” you admit. “Ever since you put this thing on me…”

The delight fades from her face as she hears your answer. “I’m sorry. Has it been painful?”

You shrug. It’s been what it’s been, and you’ve gotten through plenty of hard stuff before. Only this time you didn’t have any defenses to put up, and it wasn’t exactly an issue you could solve by pulverizing it with your hammer. …It certainly hasn’t been fun.

Zia doesn’t make you explain. “Want me to save my questions for later?” she asks. “It’s a lot, isn’t it?”

You swallow. “Yeah.”

“OK.” She looks you in the face and traces her fingers over the barrette, her other hand cupping your chin. “Are you happy now, though?”

For a minute, you’re not even sure. You’ve been running for so long: throwing yourself into duty after duty, working yourself into exhaustion, giving yourself up to others’ orders so that you’d never have any time alone with this knowledge. And now there’s no chance of running anymore. But that also means there are no duties to fill, hardly any work to do at all; there’s no one here on the Bastion who’s going to stop you from being what you want.

Now you’re just a kid with your own life to live. And it’s terrifying, but you think you’re going to be able to face it.

“I think…” you say, “I think I’m gonna be happy.”

“Good.” Another one of those stunning smiles. “I think you are too.”

She lies back on the bed and then, with a tug on your hand, invites you to lie next to her. The two of you wind up on your sides, facing each other, and your heart pounds as you dare to hope for one last impossibility.

“Zia,” you say—you mean to murmur it but you’re hoarse from crying so it comes out unevenly. “Can I kiss you? Even if I’m not a…”

You trail off when you see a smile spread up her face, her cheeks tinted pink. She leans in, hesitates—then leans in just that last little bit and brings her lips to yours. It’s gentle, and kind. Everything you ever hoped a kiss would be. Everything you hoped you might have a chance to be, someday.

You feel like you’re blushing when you pull back. “So… it’s OK?” you ask. “Even if I’m not a man? I don’t want to force you…”

Zia gives her head a little shake. “That doesn’t matter to me,” she says. “And… I’m not really surprised, actually.”

Alarm crosses your face as you wonder how you could have given yourself away without realizing the truth yourself, and Zia gives a little chuckle.

“After our fight,” she explains, “Rucks… thought this might be the case. Because you said that everyone would be a girl if they could. Apparently most people don’t feel that way, so he thought that just maybe…”

Now you’re definitely blushing. “Rucks talks too much,” you grumble, and it’s embarrassing, but it’s a bit of a relief, too.

“Yes, he does.” She wraps her arm around you and pulls you closer. “He’ll be happy for you, you know. Zulf, too.”

Yeah, you know they will.

That’s how things are here on the Bastion.

*

The four of you have quite a conversation over a breakfast of vineapplesauce that morning.

It just so happens that Zulf is having a female day, so when Zia helps you explain yourself, Zulf tells Zia about herself as well. Rucks gives a sarcastic groan: “Are you tellin’ me I’m outnumbered today?”

“You’ll have to get used to it,” laughs Zia, who isn’t alone anymore, and you think you even see Zulf smile.

You stack everyone’s dishes as they finish eating, and Rucks casts an assessing gaze your way. “So that’s why you never minded me callin’ you ‘kid,’” he muses. “You lookin’ for a new name?”

It hadn’t occurred to you that that might be an option. “I don’t know where to begin,” you say.

“I might be able to dig something up, if you’re interested. There are some fine lady heroes in the legends of the motherland.” He cocks an eyebrow at you. “Unless you’d like to take a look through some of my books yourself.”

“Nope, no thank you.” Any name you have to study to find would not be a good fit for you to begin with.

Rucks’ mustache twitches with a smirk. “Well, suit yourself.”

You try to stand, to take care of the dishes. But Zia catches your hand before you can and pulls you back down next to her. Once you’re seated again, she still doesn’t let go of your hand.

So you lean against her, and you relax.

[lostsoulspress]

Jonathan’s Note: Among the many things in the path of Florence, the tropical storm that battered North Carolina in September, were coal ash dumps. A lot of folks don’t know what those are, or why they are cause for concern. So I’m running this long excerpt from River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster to shine some light on the issue of coal combustion waste. 

To drive west out of Farmington is to travel through the borderland, where the northeastern edge of the Navajo Nation melds with the non-Indian world. It’s a cultural and economic mishmash. Here’s a sex store next to a plumbing supply shop across the highway from a sprawling automobile burial ground not far from a Mennonite church. Justalaundry, Zia Liquors, Family Dollar, and numerous little booths or shacks where Diné sell kneel down bread or tamales or piñon nuts to passersby. And the “quick cash” joints that have sprouted like weeds in Gallup, Farmington, and other reservation border towns, preying on the poor, the desperate, and the “unbanked” with their thousand-percent interest loans. It’s just an update of the exploitative pawn shops of yore. “It’s a border town, and tribes around it constitute economic colonies,” John Redhouse, who grew up in Farmington, told me, adding that things haven’t improved that much since the 1970s.

Trailers perched on cinder blocks, tires on a roof. An old man in a recliner, sipping a tumbler of warm whiskey, selling his junk. Down in the lush Jewett Valley a sign pointing to an old metal building reads: “RABBITS GOATS CHICKS AVON AT DOUBLEWIDE.” Just up the road, the Original Sweetmeat Inc., aka “Mutton Lover’s Heaven,” a slaughterhouse and butcher shop, sits alongside the highway and the Shumway Arroyo.

A few miles north looms the San Juan Generating Station, built in 1973 in the arroyo. Eight miles away, on the Navajo side of the river, sits the older, larger Four Corners Power Plant.

The Original Sweetmeats is owned and run by Raymond “Squeak” Hunt, a tall, gruff man prone to muttering inscrutable aphorisms, who deals mostly with mutton, or sheep (as opposed to lamb), and sells to a mostly Diné clientele. “You may think I’m one hard, mean son-of-a-bitch,” Hunt told me when I first met him in 2002, as he unloaded a trailer full of sheep, bound for slaughter. “But it hurts me every time I kill one of these animals.”

I wasn’t there for the sheep, though. I was visiting because Hunt is surely the most stubborn—if unlikely—thorn in the corporate side of Public Service Company of New Mexico, the operators of San Juan Generating Station and the supplier of electricity to the entire state. That doesn’t make him unique; hundreds of activists have agitated against the air pollution from the two coal plants’ smokestacks over the decades. But Hunt was one of the most ferocious fighters against a rarely noticed form of pollution spilling out of the plants: the slag, ash, and dust left over from burning coal, otherwise known as coal combustion waste.

Hunt has lived here, along the banks of the Shumway Arroyo, for much of his life. Prior to 1973 the upper reaches of the Shumway contained water only after rains. Once the arroyo reaches the San Juan River Valley near Hunt’s place, however, irrigation return and groundwater resulted in the arroyo’s transformation to a perennial stream. The stream was a source for both domestic and livestock water for early settlers of the Jewett Valley, including Hunt’s family.

When construction began on the large, mine-mouth, coal-burning power plant a few miles upstream alongside the arroyo, the arroyo changed. Coal power plants require vast amounts of water to function, and when SJGS went on-line in 1973, the plant dumped its wastewater and just about everything else into the Shumway. From that time on, the previously dry arroyo became a perennial stream from the plant to the river. Downstream users in Waterflow, in the meantime, continued to drink out of wells fed by the arroyo’s flows and their livestock kept drinking straight out of the stream.

Like the slightly larger Four Corners Power Plant, which was constructed a decade earlier, San Juan Generating Station’s smokestacks were subject to virtually no regulation. During its first decades of operation, Four Corners became notorious for the black plume of smoke—hundreds of tons of sulfur dioxide and fly ash each day—that it sent into the region’s previously crystal clear skies. One account says that one plant produced more smog than New York City. With the addition of SJGS, the air quality in the region deteriorated, vistas were cut short by smog, and the one thing that remained visible from far away were the plumes emitted by the stacks.

It did not take long for citizen groups from around the region to protest the deterioration in the quality of their air. General citizen pressure and lawsuits forced the 1977 Clean Air Act to include a policy preventing the degradation of air quality. In 1978, San Juan Generating Station installed controls to reduce smokestack emissions and Four Corners followed in 1980. Air pollution from the plants was significantly reduced. Other pollution was not.

When coal is burned the carbon reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. But coal is a lot more than just carbon. It’s got sulfur in it, which becomes sulfur dioxide during combustion, the main cause of acid rain. It contains a host of other elements, most notably arsenic, mercury, and selenium, some of which waft from the stack as smoke and particulates. Most end up as solid waste of one form or another. Each year, power plants in the United States collectively kick out enough of this stuff to fill a train of coal cars stretching from Manhattan to Los Angeles and back three times. It’s stored in lagoons next to power plants, buried in old coal mines, and sometimes piled up in the open. It is the largest waste stream of most power plants, and a study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that people exposed to it had a much higher than average risk of getting cancer.

“Anybody who knows anything about coal ash chemistry knows that when you burn coal, what you have leftover is dramatically different from what you had originally,” Jeff Stant, a geologist with the Clean Air Task Force, told me back in 2002. Coal ash can contain seventeen metals. Some, like mercury or arsenic, are already toxic, others become more so during combustion.

Because every pound of pollution kept out of the air ends up in the solid waste stream, the pollution control methods in the stacks only made the problem on the ground worse. The solid waste consists of fine and dusty fly ash; a gravelly, gray material called bottom ash; and the relatively benign glassy clinkers or boiler slag. The stack scrubbers that pull sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide out of the smoke create perhaps the most malignant material, called scrubber sludge. All of that was typically piled up near the plant, where it could blow into the air, or get washed into an arroyo, or leach into the ground. In San Juan Generating Station’s case, the stuff was dumped right into or near Shumway Arroyo—an echo of the hardrock mining tailings that had been similarly dumped for decades one hundred miles upstream.

In the early 1980s, people who lived along the Shumway Arroyo and drank from wells began getting sick. Hunt suffered from muscle spasms, lost sixty pounds, and had a cornucopia of other problems. “I looked like a POW after World War II,” he said. His wife and kids got sick; his neighbors, too.

Though Hunt’s illness was never definitively traced to a specific cause, he and other activists are pretty sure some of the stuff in coal combustion waste made it into his water. Around the time Hunt got sick, researchers found extraordinarily high levels of selenium—which tends to be highly concentrated in coal combustion waste—in the Shumway Arroyo. His symptoms match those of selenium poisoning. His illness may have also come from ingesting too much lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, or sulfates, all of which are commonly concentrated in coal combustion waste.

Whatever the poison, it soon became clear that the water was tainted. Those who were sick sued the Public Service Company of New Mexico, which operates the plant; the company never admitted fault, but ultimately settled with the affected families. It also tightened up its waste disposal, becoming one of the first power plants in the nation to go to a zero discharge permit, which means it can’t release any water onto the land. After a lot of legal wrangling, Hunt settled, too.

Hunt, however, remains convinced that the power plant continues to sully the water in the arroyo. He says that water leaks from retention ponds, coal-washing, and dust-control spraying, and even if it’s clean, it picks up and remobilizes contaminants in the sediments of the arroyo, left by the dumping in the 1970s and ’80s. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, 1,400 of Hunt’s sheep, all of which had drunk from the Shumway Arroyo, got sick and died or had to be killed. Hunt blamed Public Service Company of New Mexico, or PNM, the state’s biggest electricity provider. The utility said negligence on Hunt’s part killed the sheep, with the help of minerals occurring naturally in the arroyo and the water. The utility and Hunt have been at loggerheads for years in very public ways. On their way home from work every day, the power plant’s employees have no choice but to see a giant billboard erected by Hunt on his property, bashing both PNM and New Mexico’s environmental regulators. A smaller sign above the big billboard reads: “WAKE UP you bunch of NUTS we ALL live DOWNSTREAM.”

Hunt’s fight isn’t limited to his own situation, though. He’s also worked to shine a light on the coal combustion waste issue in general. Despite the magnitude of the waste stream, and its potentially deleterious effects on human and environmental health, coal combustion waste disposal is regulated much like normal landfills are. The EPA has for decades worked on new rules, implementing some, letting others fall by the wayside.

“I hope you have a cast-iron stomach,” said Hunt as we walked over to the little stand by the road where a Diné couple was selling, along with jewelry, bowls of extremely hot chili and kneel down bread. The lamb sandwiches inside looked good at first, but after a tour of the slaughterhouse and witnessing a sheep get stunned, decapitated, and dressed, I opted for the chili. We sat in a shady spot next to the parking lot and watched a steady stream of customers go into the butcher shop and haul out racks of lamb and mutton, chops, and something a Diné man called b’chee, little strips of meat or fat wrapped up in sheep intestines that Hunt’s wife prepared.

After eating, as the afternoon clouds moved in along with a stiff breeze, we climbed into Hunt’s truck and he drove us to the south side of the river, toward Four Corners Power Plant. We followed a dirt road skirting Morgan Lake, in the shadow of the soot-stained smokestacks of the plant. Each year about nine billion gallons of water are brought up from the San Juan River to form this reservoir, then it’s circulated through the plant to cool the massive generators and for other purposes. The hot water is discharged back into the reservoir, so Lake Morgan is warm and steamy, even in winter, making it a popular, if surreal, windsurfing and fishing spot.

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When early provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act first were being implemented in the early 1970s, the smokestacks looming over Lake Morgan kicked out more than four thousand pounds of mercury each year, along with thousands of pounds of selenium and copper and hundreds more pounds of lead, arsenic, and cadmium, not to mention sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants. Thanks to federal air pollution regulations, and to activists who push the government to enforce those rules, emissions have decreased considerably over the years. Now, with only two of five units still in operation, the plant puts out about 150 pounds of mercury and 520 pounds of selenium each year, along with varying quantities of other toxic metals. Most of these pollutants are then deposited in the surrounding water, on the land, and on homes. For years, rain and snow falling on Mesa Verde National Park—its backside visible from the shores of Morgan Lake—have contained some of the highest levels of mercury in the nation, and elevated levels have even been found on Molas Pass, just south of Silverton. The mercury is then taken up by bacteria in lakes and rivers, which convert it to highly toxic methylmercury, which then enters the food chain. Mercury messes with fishes’ brains, and even at relatively low concentrations can impair bird and fish reproduction and health. It’s not so good for people, either.

We continued out into the desert toward the Chaco River and the Hogback, and as we came over a rise an incongruous scene unfolded before us: a flat-topped, uniformly shaped mesa, its dusty soil gray and smooth, with eerie-looking deep-orange water pools on its surface. Nothing was growing there. I wondered if maybe it was this that I needed a strong stomach for, not the chili.

We were looking at the Four Corners Power Plant’s dump, made up of ash impoundment piles, decant water, and evaporation ponds, containing some forty years’ worth of accumulated coal combustion waste—tens of millions of tons of it—from three of the plant’s five generators. At the time, Four Corners was burning about 8.5 million tons of coal each year, some 3.3 million tons of which were leftover as coal combustion waste, dumped both here and back into the nearby mine. A trio of unlined sludge-disposal ponds sat less than five hundred yards from the Chaco River, which empties into the San Juan River a few miles away. Two miles upstream is the Hogback Outlier, a Chacoan-era pueblo. A crescent-shaped structure known as a herradura—a piece of AWUF associated with Chacoan roads—sits atop the Hogback nearby.

Darker clouds headed our way and the wind kicked up, whipping the fine, gray ash and dust off the top of the piles and into the air, reducing visibility to thirty feet or so. When the dust cleared we saw a sign stuck into the base of one of the piles. It read: “No Trash Dumping. Walk in Beauty.”

For people who worry about coal combustion waste and the way it’s regulated, this place is Exhibit A. “My first thought when I saw this,” Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice, told me, “was, this can’t be the United States.”

Like the Shumway Arroyo which runs past Hunt’s home, the Chaco River downstream from this complex of ponds and piles has contained extremely high levels of selenium, as does the groundwater beneath the ponds. When ingested, selenium can adversely affect reproduction in fish, birds, and mammals. Fish along this stretch of the San Juan River often contain elevated levels of mercury, lead, selenium, and copper. In 1992 a U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist surveyed fish downstream on the San Juan River from the Four Corners Power Plant to Mexican Hat and found that a majority of them had lesions, damaged livers, deformities, or other signs of disease. While the culprit appeared to be bacteria, the particular strains need the fish to be otherwise impaired, by contaminants, for example, in order to invade.

When I returned to Hunt’s place in 2007, he gave me the same tour. Nothing had changed, but the spokesman for the plant’s operator, Arizona Public Service, assured me that they were no longer dumping their coal ash in the piles Hunt and I toured, and that the company planned to clean up the nasty piles and ponds and replace them with lined impoundments. Since then, the piles have been covered, and the old ponds removed. Dumping continues here, but under more controlled conditions. Ash is also dumped back into the nearby coal mine, which has been owned by a Navajo Nation-owned company since the end of 2013. This alleviates some of the problems associated with dumping, but doesn’t solve all of them, critics say. Chemicals can still leach into groundwater (though it’s less likely here, where it’s so arid), and unless the ash is covered, it can still blow around in the air, settling on nearby homes.

Arizona Public Service, which is owned by Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, sells electricity to nearly 1.2 million people across Arizona. The corporation raked in over $400 million in profit in 2015. At the same time, it lobbied hard to change state rules on net metering, which determine how much the utility must compensate homeowners for electricity generated by rooftop solar panels. They’ve managed to chip away at the incentives, thus discouraging people from installing their own panels and generating a bit of their own electricity.

As we drove back around the plant, seemingly to provoke the security guards, Hunt treated me to another rhetorical geode. “It’s just like asking Patty Hearst’s mother what happened…all you get is a bunch of excuses,” he said. “These are some nasty sons-a-bitches. It’s all about profit. They don’t care about anything or anyone, they just care about their profits.” As crude as the delivery might have been, it was hard to refute the concept.

When we arrived back at Original Sweetmeats, the after-work rush was on. We hung back by the truck and watched. It was late afternoon. The cottonwoods cast long shadows on the ground. “If I’m lucky, one day I’ll die of a heart attack,” Hunt said.

After a pause, he perked up to tell me about the petroglyphs that are pecked into the sandstone cliff band that runs up and down the San Juan for miles. I looked out at the valley, sliced up by the four-lane highway and the big transmission towers, and wondered why the Pueblo people would leave such a place, and I tried to imagine what the first Diné people, coming from the North, out of the cold mountains and across the parched high desert, thought when they came upon the silty river and the trees and the willows on its banks. It must have felt like home.

Up on the desert on either side of the valley, the plants chugged on, each burning twenty thousand tons of coal per day. They’ve brought jobs and industry to a once-impoverished and undeveloped place and keep the people in faraway cities cool in the unforgiving summer heat. They each send millions of dollars of property taxes and royalties to various governments. They also spew out thousands of tons of toxic waste each year. Power is not free.

An old pickup truck pulled into the parking lot, several cages holding roosters in the back. A large man tumbled out, wearing safety glasses and a dirty jumpsuit, his face spattered with some kind of black soot: a power plant employee, selling his chickens after work.

��Five dollars for the little ones,” he told a man and wife who were inspecting the birds. Then he turned to Hunt and me and told us about how he can no longer smell anything after years at the plant, and about how his friend who lived nearby had to clean his television screen daily to wipe away the buildup of fly ash.

“I won’t make it to sixty, I can guarantee that,” he said, matter-of-factly. His wife sat in the cab of the pickup, smiling and quiet.

The haze seemed to be getting thicker in the west, the sun taking on an orange glow. Under my breath, to no one in particular, I said, “Looks like it will be a nice sunset tonight.”

***

Want to read the rest of the book? Get a copy of River of Lost Souls.

“(Thompson) combines science, law, metallurgy, water pollution, bar fights and the occasional murder into one of the best books written about the Southwest in years.”

— Andrew Gulliford, historian and writer, in The Gulch magazine. 

"This can't be the United States": An excerpt from River of Lost Souls #coal #pollution #waste Jonathan's Note: Among the many things in the path of Florence, the tropical storm that battered North Carolina in September, were coal ash dumps.

[365-money-diary]

DAYS 98 - 104

DAY NINETY-EIGHT

8:30 AM - I don’t wanna go to work. I don’t wanna go to work.

8:50 AM - I stop to get gas on my way to in. $24.16

11:30 AM - We go get Even Steven’s as an office. $8.51

2:00 PM - Work sucks. I can’t focus.

5:00 PM - I head over to an old colleague’s house to help her with some Facebook work. I wasn’t planning on invoicing her, but the project took longer than I thought it would, so I will probably do that and cash in.

7:00 PM - My sister facetimes me while I run through the Del Taco drive through. I get two 8 layer veggie burritos with no cheese no sour cream and cheese and an order of hashbrowns. $6.52

8:30 PM - We watch the NBA summer league games but end up falling asleep shortly after. I think we both forgot what it feels like to have a proper Monday.

DAY NINETY-EIGHT TOTAL: $39.19

DAY NINETY-NINE

8:00 AM - I wake up to my period. Joy!

9:05 AM - I arrive at work, pour myself a toddy, and make some toast. I end up pouring my last glass from my stock, so I make some more.

10:30 AM - My dad’s birthday is today. I end up buying him a hydroflask on Amazon. I also buy a new laptop stand for DJing. Even though I’m all vinyl, it’ll only be a matter of time before I incorp digital elements to my sets. Since I have credits from doing that Facebook study, they’re both free.

11:00 AM - It’s also 7/11 day. We hit up a Vietnamese restaurant and then fill up our slurpee cups. $10

12:30 PM - My DJ friend’s birthday is on Friday. I coordinate with another one of his good friends to chip in for a cake. I paypal her $15. $15

4:00 PM - The issue with eating so early is that I unfortunately am so hungry by 4:00. I make a slice of toast with melt butter and nutritional yeast.

5:45 PM - Home from work! I eat some chips, salsa and hummus and drink a La Croix.

6:45 PM - I meet BFF at a new hangout spot in Downtown Phoenix called Gracie’s Tax Bar. Grace herself greets me at the door with a big hug. Super excited to make this place a regular spot. I get an old fashioned and it’s only $5! $7.17

8:15 PM - I come home from my hang out sesh and eat a frozen burrito.

10:30 PM - Basketball and Zzzz

DAY NINETY-NINE TOTAL: $32.17

DAY ONE HUNDRED

9:00 AM - I drop my car off at Firestone for an oil change. It’s long overdue and I opt for the synthetic oil which apparently means I only have to get it done about once a year. Here’s to hoping this will be the last oil change I have to get before I cash in on my new (used) car.

12:00 PM - I stop by Sprouts for lunch and pick up a sandwich and a package of organic blackberries. $6.32

3:45 PM - The entire office starts talking about ice cream. I am still menstrual so this sounds really rad. I walk with my coworker to Sprouts and buy coconut ice cream sandwiches. Then we go to Circle K and she gets the rest of the office dairy ones. $5.58

5:15 PM - I pick up my car. They sell me a $20 air filter too. $100.27

6:00 PM - I eat some chips and salsa while we watch NBA summer league. The “Suns” win!

7:00 PM - I practice beatmatching.

8:00 PM - We go to Tilt to play pinball. I don’t do very good at all on the Metallica machine but I kick major ass on Ghostbusters and Walking Dead. My card still has over 50 points on it, so I probably won’t have to reload it for a couple more visits.

10:00 PM - Home! I make a salad for dinner out of leftover sandwich ingredients from earlier this week and eat some Ritz crackers.

DAY ONE HUNDRED TOTAL: $112.17

DAY ONE HUNDRED ONE

8:00 AM - My boyfriend wakes me up to move my car for him so he can go to work.

9:00 AM - On time for work today! I make toddy and toast and end up answering support questions for the better half of the morning.

11:30 AM - Even though all I want is something healthy, I opt for something cheap. The colleagues and I head to Taco Bell. I get three crunchy bean tacos. $4.50

3:45 PM - After writing a blog post to bash productivity journals, I have decided to buy one. What that does to this blog series? I am unsure. But I’ve made it 100 days and that rules. I bought this using Amazon gift card credits. Thanks Facebook!

4:00 PM - I also buy a 32 oz Hydroflask with my Amazon money. I hate myself today so retail therapy is helping.

6:00 PM - We order Jimmy Johns for dinner while we watch the NBA Summer League. $17.99

9:00 PM - We drive to Mesa to go to a further out Zia, but end up stopping at the one closer to our house on the way home because they have a record in-stock that I’ve been looking for. I buy HEALTH’s DISCO 3. $25.93

DAY ONE HUNDRED ONE TOTAL: $48.42

DAY ONE HUNDRED TWO

8:30 AM - I wake up next to a very cuddly Katy Perry. I get ready quickly and head out to work.

9:00 AM - My coworker calls and asks if I want anything from Dunkin’. I tell her I’ll take an order of hashbrowns.

9:20 AM - The month is almost half over and I’m doing an “okay” job at pacing. I am going to bring lunch for the rest of the month, so hopefully that will even it out.

12:00 PM - We decide to grab Even Stevens but it’s packed, so we go to Morning Squeeze. I get a scramble potato thing and a sangria. $23.70

1:00 PM - I am DJing tonight so I start planning my sets. I am playing two one-hour sets, so it should be super easy. I accidentally end up building four sets. Whoops.

3:00 PM - I practice beatmatching for a half hour. I seem to be getting worse?

4:30 PM - I actually pull the records for my sets. I grab some extra indie pop favorites just in case people are dancing and want to continue to do so.

6:00 PM - I eat a frozen Sweet Earth burrito and some chips and salsa.

7:00 PM - Boyfriend and I run to AZ Mills to do a quick lap. We get back by 7:50 and I rush to change and pack the car.

8:10 PM - I pick up my DJ Friend and we head to The Grid. There is a good crowd tonight! We set up shop, and I play my first set complete with a cider.

10:00 PM - My boyfriend shows up. We play a couple rounds of pinball. We’re both getting better. This time he smashes Ghostbusters and I kill all the walkers in Walking Dead.

12:00 AM - I play my second set also accompanied by a cider. Sound guy told us to cut it at 1:15 so he could go home. We get paid $100 each.

1:45 AM - We stop at Taco Bell on the way home. DJ Friend buys me a fresco bean burrito.

2:15 AM - I’m so sleepy. Why do I have to load in gear? Ever since I bought my Technics 1200s I’ve been really good about it because my entire setup is worth $1500. My neighborhood is relatively safe and the case weighs over 120 pounds, but it has wheels so it only takes one determined person to move it and you just never know.

DAY ONE HUNDRED TWO TOTAL: $23.70

DAY ONE HUNDRED THREE

5:00 AM - Dog wakes me up wanting to go outside. I guess boyfriend forgot to open her doggie door when he got home and I didn’t notice it when I came in either. Sorry Katy!

8:30 AM - My dad calls both me and my boyfriend to grab boyfriend’s birthday, so they can pay for the trip for us to go to Omaha for Thanksgiving. Boyfriend says he’s awake now, but I am not. My head is pounding and I feel hungover even though I had two waters and two drinks over the course of 5 hours plus a small portion of food?

11:15 AM - Now I’m ready to get out of bed. I still have a lingering headache which blows.

12:00 PM - We stop by Cartel and Einstein’s. I pay for coffee today. Boyfriend gets the bagels. $8

12:30 PM - We stop by Sprouts to get groceries. I am definitely bringing lunch every day next week, so I get a block of tofu and some mustard to make eggless salad for sandwiches. I also get ingredients to make baklava burritos/cigars but they don’t have any filo dough, so I’ll have to make a separate trip for that. I also get some cherries, green chili almonds, and a couple Sweet Earth burritos. $34.12

1:00 PM - Neither one of us are faring well in this heat so we head home. I start the dishes, clean out the fridge, and put away groceries. Boyfriend does a load of laundry in the meantime. We lay down for a bit and relax. It feels super good to chill. I also take a look at some of my bills and investigate Costco’s prescription site. They seem to have not refilled my birth control even though it’s on auto-refill. I order the script manually and pay for it using my normal checking account. When this charge hits, I count it as a monthly expense anyways.

1:30 PM - I transfer $100 from my #NOTSIMPLE “Safe To Spend” section to the goal I have set aside for my future Pioneer DJM-S9. Only $1325 left. AKA 10 - 15 gigs left until I can buy it!

3:00 PM - I get a second wind and end up putting away the dishes, loading them up again, doing the counters, sweeping the carport, and dusting the living room. It feels really good to have a clean house.

6:00 PM - We meet MRCH (they’re a married couple and that’s the name of their band) for dinner at TC Taco. It’s so so good. I pay for our tab. $25

7:30 PM - We then proceed to AMF and bowl our hearts out. I get second place the first round because my boyfriend decides to somehow bowl 175. I win the second game. Boyfriend pays for our games and shoes.

9:30 PM - We end up at home and are happy to be here. Boyfriend downloaded a new game on his XBOX and starts playing. I read some of Theft by Finding and ultimately turn in. Before going to bed, I decide that I’m going to re-read Harry Potter, so I download the first book and fall asleep on the 10th page.

DAY ONE HUNDRED THREE TOTAL: $67.12

DAY ONE HUNDRED FOUR

10:15 AM - I am having a dream about crying at the dentist because I don’t get enough time off of work to do anything when my boyfriend wakes me up.

10:30 AM - My sister and her boyfriend Facetime me while I eat a slice of bread.

11:00 AM - Boyfriend is engulfed in his game from last night, so I get dressed and buy us coffee and bagels. Coffee is free today because ASU Grad Friend is working. I still tip $2 and then buy the bagels ($4.54). $6.54

12:00 PM - NY Friend and his girlfriend officially moved away from NY. They’re staying in Northern AZ right now but are visiting the valley off and on. We have plans to go to a D-Backs game next Sunday, so I buy tickets for me and my boyfriend even though I don’t know if boyfriend will actually go. This month is expensive! $68.50

2:30 PM - I am engulfed in Harry Potter, which I decide to read for the 8th time and my boyfriend is knee deep in his video game, so I offer to buy us Jimmy Johns. $20.47

6:00 PM - As the sun goes down, I mow the grass.

6:30 PM - I return to reading for a bit.

7:00 PM - I make eggless tofu salad. It turns out weird, but it’s packed with protein and will definitely pair well with lettuce, tomato, and onion, so I accept it as a wash. I make a snack with a toasted piece of bread and top it with the salad.

7:30 PM - I read for the rest of the night flip flopping between Harry Potter and Theft by Finding. I find this is a good strategy as Theft by Finding doesn’t have a plot so it’s easy to zone out.

9:45 PM - A couple police officers stop by on a welfare check, but someone gave them the wrong license plate number // it wasn’t us, so it was very confusing.

10:45 PM - I eat a fig bar and some nuts for dinner.

1:00 AM - I finish Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and fall asleep way too late.

DAY ONE HUNDRED FOUR TOTAL: $95.51

[atticusblog2016-blog]

New Post has been published on Atticusblog

New Post has been published on https://atticusblog.com/millions-of-pakistanis-get-messages-warning-against-blasphemy/

Millions of Pakistanis get messages warning against blasphemy

Millions of Pakistanis had been receiving textual content messages from the authorities warning them against sharing “blasphemous” content material on-line, a move rights activists said might inspire greater vigilante assaults.

It comes amid a surge in mob violence connected to accusations of insulting Islam which include three attacks within the past month

“Uploading & sharing of blasphemous content on the Internet is a punishable offense under the regulation. Such content needs to be pronounced on information@pta.Gov.Pk for legal action,” read the SMS despatched by way of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to all mobile cell phone subscribers.

A comparable is aware become posted at the enterprise’s website in Urdu

A PTA spokesperson stated the agency turned into appearing on a court docket order.

Blasphemy is an extremely touchy problem in conservative Muslim Pakistan, with unproven allegations leading to dozens of mob assaults or murders on the grounds that 1990. The law was at the start inherited from Pakistan’s former colonial masters Britain, but reinforced with the aid of former dictator Zia-ul-Haq in 1986 to consist of a provision for capital punishment in instances of insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Activists stated the initiative would probably inspire lynchings, together with the killing of a 23-year-old student known for his liberal perspectives on the hands of loads of fellow students last month.

“This mass messaging will handiest similarly gasoline hatred amongst one-of-a-kind sects and segments of the society. It is a very very awful circulate,” virtual rights activist Shahzad Ahmad told AFP.

“PTA’s mass texting on ‘blasphemy’ smacks of insincerity & political exploitation of religion; it’s going to embolden public to extra violence!,” tweeted famous television anchor Moeed Pirzada.

Last week a 10-12 months-vintage boy become killed and 5 others were wounded when a mob attacked a police station in an try to lynch a Hindu guy charged with blasphemy for allegedly posting an incendiary photograph on social media.

Weeks in advance a mob attacked a mentally sick guy claiming to be a prophet at his nearby mosque. He changed into later stored by using the police.

The difficulty of blasphemy got here to the fore in January when 5 secular activists known for their outspoken perspectives against nonsecular extremism and the powerful army disappeared, presumed to be abducted by using country companies, in step with opposition events and global rights organizations.

How to Rack Up Millions of Miles

If only you’re a millionaire, perhaps then you can come up with the money for to tour around the sector in luxurious. Travel fees have been at the upward push these days and it seems daunting to hunt for something that falls beneath your finances but does not threaten your comforts.

Using air miles is, in reality, the nice way out of this. Racking up miles might appear like a lifelong challenge, however, there are lots of ways you could do it easily. Travel hacking over the past decade has made me come to the realization that miles may be easily earned in large quantities. Here’s how!

1. Flying around the world

Let’s check the most apparent of those. The extra you fly, the extra miles you earn. When you fly greater, quite a few possibilities open up for you instantly and you discover better approaches to redeem air miles via the partners. But your mile gains do not stop here. There are plenty of other approaches miles can be earned apart from getting a aircraft price tag.

2. A Co-Branded Credit Card

If there is one way you can emerge as a Mileage Millionaire that honestly needs to be investing in a co-branded credit card. You’ll locate plenty of alternatives, however, choose the precise one in opposition to your program requires in-depth studies. Not all of these could work well in step with your desires.

Firstly, the signup bonuses are quite extraordinary. Even after that, any spending through your credit score card robotically provides to your mileage account. If you want to earn an incredible quantity of miles quick, applying for a couple of playing cards works well. When you sign up for the credit score card, make certain which you are not paying a hefty annual fee or any more prices.

3. Eating and Drinking

How cool is that! Probably the perfect, and through ways, the most favorite approaches to racking up air miles is thru consuming and ingesting at the dining packages affiliated with the common flyer application. Every program has one, and although you may power out of the way to search for one, it’s miles a promising way to earn more miles. With eating out, you aren’t doing something beyond your comfort degree. Even in case you are doing out on a dinner where anybody swimming pools, be only to pay through the credit score card. It may be worth it!

4. Buy Miles

There can be times wherein no matter all that you’ve finished earning miles; you’re nonetheless brief of some to make your journey dreams come authentic. What happens next? You put off your plans for a better time that seldom comes.

Airlines regularly make it difficult to earn air miles. To do the great at times is to shop for miles via dependable assets. This often works out manner less expensive than in case you were to get an enterprise class fare for the entire fee.

Deleted Text Messages and Cheating Spouses

Of all the emails that I get asking about clues points to cheating, text messages are via ways the maximum not unusual topic. People want to know if deleted textual content messages are a sign that shows probably cheating. They need to recognize if they are able to study texts that have been deleted. And, they need to understand if there may be any logical and legitimate reason that an innocent spouse could need to delete texts that are absolutely appropriate. I will talk all of this stuff inside the following article.

Why Text Messages Can Be A Cheater’s Best Friend: Spouses who cheat love generation. They specifically love text messages due to the fact it’s far and smooth, cheap, and immediate manner to connect with or speak with the individual that they are cheating with. (They love picture messages also.) There’s something playful and inviting approximately sending a text or image and getting a nearly on the spot response. Plus, you could right away delete something which you don’t need your partner to study.

View my text messages

Almost anyone has a cellular phone today and maximum people carry them with us everywhere we pass. So, it is now not all that suspicious on your spouse to be sporting one with them and/or messaging and checking electronic mail on it. This is a behavior that they desire and anticipate will not convey your interest to their cheating.

But what they do not anticipate is that usually, even the maximum laid again partner will finally suspect that something is wrong or off. And, as soon as that little voice inside the lower back of the trustworthy partner’s head starts to speak and ask questions, then unexpectedly they’re noticing every out of vicinity or recurrent or immoderate behaviors – and that includes your mobile.show my inbox messages.

Plus, even if the cheating partner is very careful to hide their texting, that is the logical first location that maximum suspicious spouses are going to appearance. Other than your electronic mail and net trash can and recycle bin, your textual content message out, in, or despatched container is one of the first logical locations to test.

Inbox 2 messages

Why A Deleted Text Message Doesn’t Mean That You Can’t Catch Their Cheating. You Can Usually Read These: The very crafty and sneaky partner will typically assume that they have gotten rid of all evidence of their beside the point texts by merely hitting delete. This can give them a fake experience of safety and they may maintain right on messaging to and fro and leaving a path even though they count on they are flawlessly secure.

But, hitting delete is not the stop of the story

There is software to be able to get those texts and snapshots back and allow which will examine and notice them without a password or even if they’ve been erased for a long term. This may be very very useful because typically all the gloves are off in those messages. Since the dishonest partner assumes that this message is deleted all the time, they communicate freely. This is precisely what you need to read.

I understand that now and again spouses will swear that their deleting their texts is perfectly harmless. They will tell you that they have been just cleaning out their documents and leaving a room. Or they will inform you that they simply wanted to get rid of things from paintings which might be old now. Well, any reasonable latest cellular phone will automatically delete messages as soon as the files get full. This is genuine of even the most inexpensive smartphone.

Hives – They May Be A Warning Signal!

If you’re like most of my patients, you’ve got probable skilled an outbreak of hives at least as soon as on your life. They are fairly not unusual responses to something you came in touch with that you had been either slightly, or badly, allergic to in food, medication, or something in your environments like dirt, pollen, weeds, and insect chew. They can affect each person, young or vintage, and show no preference for race or gender. They may even be brought on by using pressure or extra perspiration!

They appear as raised pink welts that resemble a mosquito bite and might itch or burn. They normally display up in clusters of 2 or more and are an end result of the frame liberating histamine – a chemical agent your body produces whilst it comes in contact with something foreign and/or simply doesn’t like. Let me share some important information about hives as they may be a crucial caution sign to you!

Types of Hives

There are numerous styles of hives that you need to be aware of in case of a virus. They include:

Weather warnings and watches

•Acute urticaria – these are the hives that the majority get most frequently. They are raised, little crimson bumps on the skin that itch. They are generally very short-lived in their outbreak, and can be due to a few food (chocolate, eggs, nuts, fish, clean berries, uncooked produce, milk) or pills (ibuprofen, high blood stress medication, ache killers like codeine), an insect bite, or a few illness (just like the flu). •Chronic urticaria – this type of hives is longer lasting and may be accompanied via diarrhea, shortness of breath, and sore muscles. The actual motive of this form of hives is regularly unknown and can be a symptom of an underlying illness. •Physical urticaria – those hives seem approximately 1 hour after physical stimulation to the skin from bloodless, warmth, vibration or strain, or rubbing towards the region. •Dermatographism – these hives form after some deliberate touching or scratching of the pores and skin.

Treatments for Hives/Angioedema

When I even have sufferers are available in with a virulent disease of hives, remedy with an antihistamine is the first order. Hives are typically innocent however imply that the frame is touchy, and/or allergic, to something contacted. Some hypersensitive reactions on the first presentation are mild with maybe simply hives/itching as a symptom. If this initial presentation is omitted and left undiagnosed, you can are available in contact with this agent again and feature a far more excessive 2nd-time response, or even anaphylaxis, an intense, allergy.noaa warnings and watches.

For instance, an affected person of mine had to go through an x-ray of her kidneys wherein they had to inject comparison dye. A few moments after receiving the evaluation injection she started out to increase hives on her face and arms. The radiologist stopped the check right away and referred her to a dermatologist who examined her for comparison dye hypersensitivity. It became found that, certainly, she did have an extreme hypersensitivity to the iodine in assessment dye that she become not conscious that she had. In this way, hives are the frame’s warning indicators that you can have anywhere from just a normal allergic reaction to a life-threatening one!

Another patient broke out in hives on his face on every occasion he cleaned his residence! Again, after allergic reaction checking out, it was shown that he had a moderate/mild reaction to dirt mites (which many human beings do). Very crucial is to determine, if viable, the cause of the hives on the time they break out, especially in case you get away in a pattern. A distinctive question and solution session between you and your medical doctor may be vital to tease out the purpose of your hives.

The best treatment for averting an endemic of hives is to avoid contact with the supply of the reaction within the destiny. However, like my affected person with the dust mite hypersensitivity, it is not continually feasible to avoid the allergen, particularly in public. So, commonly an as-wanted treatment with antihistamines is in all likelihood what your medical doctor will recommend.tornado watch vs warning.

Depending on the severity of your hypersensitivity, antihistamine products can variety from over the counter antihistamines along with the old, favored well known, Benadryl (diphenhydramine), to other prescription antihistamines. You may be able to take those simply at the time the hives arise or may also be on a low, continual dose, to make sure that the hives outbreak is suppressed. My affected person with the dust mite allergy consists of an over the counter % of Benadryl on him to take whilst wanted.

While looking ahead to the hives to clean, you may follow cool compresses, or maybe ice wrapped inside a washcloth, to the affected areas. This will assist take out the edge and itch as well as shrink the hives to provide you some alleviation.

[thethreemages]

For the mothers in your cast, how did their pregnancies go?

Meradyth’s pregnancy went smoothly at first (though it wasn’t easy for a warrior like her to adjust), but around the late trimester she started feeling bouts of nausea that prompted her to be bedridden for the most of the time. This definitely made Luka fret with worry, but Meradyth always reassured him that she’s fine and he should get back to work.

Milana’s pregnancy was kinda tough on her body at some points since she’s always been rather weak-bodied growing up (part of a blood disorder she was born with), but she remained a smiling and happy mama-to-be regardless. She especially loved to rest back in her favorite arm chair and caress her stomach, whispering how her day went as if baby Tula could already hear her. Ivor still has some home videos of her making little morning vlogs for their baby girl.

Mei’s pregnancy was a tranquil one of her constantly meditating, singing her favorite melodies to baby Aevri, and bringing little Elody over to feel her sister and talk about what it’d be like to bring a new baby in the house.

Elianne’s pregnancy was one filled with constant studying of baby books, excited chatter about the future development for lil Elas, and writing down letters to instill on her boy for when they could one day visit her homeland together (which, unfortunately never really came to fruition since she died before he was old enough to venture to the Asterian mountains :c)

Sienna’s pregnancy was generally a miserable one in her eyes, not really being the motherly type but out of obligation going through with it anyway despite how much she hated being away from certain rich foods/drinks she enjoyed. By the time Kain was born, she’d prefer to hand him off to Ofira than stay any close to him for too long.

Devonna’s pregnancy went by pretty peacefully, though she had some rather odd cravings throughout it that’d gross out some of her colleagues (like dipping peanut butter crackers in tomato soup, cheese bells with red jello, etc.). Whenever her husband Alastair was around he’d be quick to nuzzle near her and massage Devonna’s feet/shoulders when she got too tired.

Rhea’s pregnancy was a calm and uneventful one... though it was moreso her husband Ferian who put up more of a fuss to make sure everything went perfectly. Not wanting her to move around too frantically when her belly got too big, ordering for more room service to keep her in bed, and always calling in countless doctors to check her condition. As flattered as Rhea was by the attention for the most part, even she had to put her foot down to let her hubby know that she can still handle herself fine (which could often lead to him just pouting more)... but luckily once the last few days of pregnancy past and baby Zia was finally born, Ferian felt a great sense of calming relief for the first time in awhile... especially whenever he looked into Zia’s big green eyes 💚 (which Rhea was quick to capture on home video and the baby book ;p)

[thethreemages]

Got around to making some new Three Mages characters to spruce up the verse a bit~ ;p More info about them can be found below:

-Noira is Princess Zia's best friend and confidante from St. Ravilda's, the calm and collected second-in-command behind Zia's sneaky lil' schemes. Another fellow genius who found a kinship in Zia after they've been isolated from everybody else for being too smart, and thus the two became quick friends in both bothering their classmates and Zia's cousins (Elas and Kain). Usually prefers to keep to herself and only really speaks up if others are speaking to her (otherwise she'd just let Zia do the talking), but rub her the wrong way and she'll gladly tell you off in her own blunt, snarky tone of voice. She's currently an Water mage-in-training, but can't really summon much aside from puddles and bubbles (to her embarrassment). -Raider is Noira's older brother and a graduate of St. Ravilda's. In his early school years Raider was kind of an awkward, "jittery" kid who most tend to find too "weird" and annoying to be around for too long. Outside of his little sister, he didn't get much attention from the rest of his family so it only left him more attention-starved as time went on. Finally though, he was able to get a break when one of the more "popular" girls in his class was able to take pity on him enough to help him get a new look and style... allowing for him to gain more popularity and respect by the time he graduated. Now Raider likes to channel his wild energy through performing daredevil-like stunts in-between his Mage quests, earning him a decent amount of followers who just can't resist his spunky charm. One of his true goals right now though, is to reconnect with the same popular girl who was able to change his life so much for the better... as sadly the two of them went their separate ways by the time they graduated awhile ago. His Mage abilities specialize in Electricity/Lightning-based magic, which not only give him some special shock attacks but could also increase his speed like a bullet when in combat. -Jada is a graduate of St. Ravilda's and an old friend to the main Three Mages girls. As the sole heir to her family's old Mage shop business "Riverglade Ponderies", Jada has made it her new duty to put aside the traveling Mage life to help keep her family business running. A classy and laidback girl who's always been drawn to the finer, "glamorous" things in life... but at the same time can still always be loyal and patient enough to be relied on for either new Mage equipment or advice for missions. While she's pretty friendly with all three of the main Mages, with Prym she's got more of a history with since the two had a period of crushing on eachother when back in school... but eventually they just couldn't click enough to fully date for too long. It's unclear if there's any kind of lingering feelings left between them, but either way the two girls made it a point to not let it get in the way of their friendship. Though she's not that active in the Mage scene, with Jada specialized magic dealing with air and clouds it gives her a decent advantage in terms of evading/throwing off potential foes. -Ana is a graduate of St. Ravilda's and an infamous "Little Miss Perfect" by the Three Mages. A sickeningly sweet and graceful perfectionist who seemed to always be one step ahead of everyone else, with even the teachers propping her up as an "excellent" example of what a "true" Healer mage should strive to be like. Obviously leading to some bad conflicts with Aevri as Ana seemed to always push it in her face how "flawed" she was as a Healer mage... which overtime felt less like well-meaning criticism and more like condescending mocking. Yet it never seemed to get into Ada's head that she herself is anything less than "perfect"... and that anything that deviated away from old traditions (aka, Aevri and her friends) were simply not worth anyone's time. Because of her natural talent in healing, Ana was gifted an extra mana stone by her parents to assist her in her traveling Mage duties, which she currently dons as a set of earrings (to the envy of some other beginning mages). -Finn is a graduate of St. Ravilda's and was actually Elas' old school buddy. In contrast to his uptight friend, Finn was always alot more relaxed and sweet-natured to be around... finding more of a fascination studying how the magical world worked instead of fussing too much about stuff like combat. He still tried his best to make due as he joined Elas in a traveling mage group after they graduated, though after awhile things got cut short there due to some undisclosed drama in the group. So by now Finn and Elas went their separate ways as Elas has gone on to go train as a future king of Graystone, while Finn is currently studying in his hometown's medicinal college in hopes of using his nature studies to better help his community. His magic, though used more subtly compared to some other mages, specializes in magically connecting to the earth through the ground and plants.

[365-money-diary]

DAYS 43 - 48

DAY FORTY-THREE

8:45 AM - Wow. Determined to not spend a boatload of money this week. I picked the wrong time for a coffee subscription to kick in as well as buy IKEA stuff AND go to Costco. I grab my brown rice from the fridge and head to work.

9:10 AM - I arrive at work, pour myself a toddy, and make some toast. I pour the last batch so I make more for the rest of the week.

12:30 PM - I walk the long way to Sprouts and grab a cucumber and two avos which are on sale. I bring them back to the office and make salad with the rest of the stuff I have lying around and eat that with my broth & rice. $1.72

3:00 PM - My period is definitely approaching because I can’t stop craving something sweet. I grab my assistant and we head to Starbucks and I buy a coffee Frappuccino with coconut milk. I’ve got a gift card from forever ago, so it’s free!

4:00 PM - I ask boyfriend about dinner. He says, “we’ll see,” which means we’re probably going out to eat. My hyperness has lead me to the vegan baking part of Pinterest and I realize I have almost everything at home to make carrot cake.

4:50 PM - I dip out a little early and walk to Sprouts. I buy powdered sugar, a tub of Tofutti cream cheese, nutmeg, and apple sauce. $9.70

5:45 PM - While the cake is baking, I eat a pita with some butter slathered on it.

7:00 PM - CAKE! I fucked up the frosting though and consult a vegan Facebook group for tips. I try again it comes out much better. I peel off the old frosting and add the new.

9:00 PM - We haven’t eaten dinner yet and while I’m not actually hungry, I go with it. We run to Chipotle really quick and I get a salad with black beans, veggies, corn, pico, and guac. Boyfriend pays.

10:30 PM - Today’s weird eating habits make sense to me because my period is finally here.  

11:00 PM - Boyfriend and I fall asleep watching a rerun of the final Celtics v. Wizards game.

DAY FORTY-THREE TOTAL: $11.42

DAY FORTY-FOUR

8:30 AM - I wake up feeling like I was hit by a brick, usually my periods aren’t too bad but since this urinary tract stuff, it’s been very unpredictable. I hop in the shower and am excited to try the new conditioners I purchased from LUSH last week. I follow the advice of the lady who sold me the products and use the samples first.

9:15 AM - I arrive at work and I decide that I like the conditioner! My hair smells like baby powder and it feels nice and soft. The only thing I am worried about with this stuff is the cost and that it overall might not be worth it to me. I pour myself some toddy and toast some bread and spread some avocado on top.

11:15 AM - My 11:00 cancelled and my office wants to try the Chicken Chips from Taco Bell. Taco Bell is an exception to eating out Monday - Thursday since it’s so cheap. I get a Crunchwrap Supreme sub beans, no cheese, no sour cream and a water cup. $3.55

2:30 PM - I keep thinking about all the carrot cake I have at home while I dig a little deeper into my Discover Weekly playlist. There is a jam by Psychic TV, so I look to see the cost of the record and it’s $40. A little rich for my blood, so I decide to listen to the entire thing to see if it’s worth it.

4:45 PM - I roll up to QT on below empty. $24.64

5:00 PM - Home! I eat so much cake. Boyfriend calls and asks if I have it in me to go to Tucson to see Conor Oberst and I definitely am! It’s been years since I’ve seen him perform.

6:00 PM - We head to Tucson for the show and end up taking my car just in case boyfriend gets tired so I can drive us back. (He drives a stick and I don't know how to drive it.) His company booked the show so we don’t have to pay for it. Double perks because he also used to work at the venue the show is happening at and left on great terms, so everyone is super friendly to us.

8:30 PM - We arrive at the show. Boyfriend needs a water so we stop by concessions. They give it to him for free. He doesn't have cash so I offer to throw in a buck for tip. $1

10:00 PM - The show is amazing! I run into a friend from Omaha (my hometown) who is selling merch for Conor and she gifts me with a engraved commemorative harmonica. So sweet of her.

12:30 AM - We are home! I eat blueberries, applesauce and a half of a pita and pass out.

DAY FORTY-FOUR TOTAL: $28.19

DAY FORTY-FIVE

8:30 AM - I am so wiped, but driving to Tucson was so worth it!  

9:15 AM - I arrive at the office and pour myself a toddy and make a piece of toast with Earth Balance. I sit down to my desk and see that I have an invitation from Facebook to participate in a research study and will get a $100 Amazon gift card if they pick me. I reply quickly and fill out the NDA.

10:30 AM - I work on my stuff while continuing to listen to that Psychic TV album. Only half of it is on Youtube and it’s not on Spotify, so I might just cave for the sake of “obscurity.” I take a chance one one of the listings which allows sellers to make an offer. It’s listed for $44 and make an offer of $35. The seller instantly accepts and I am still paying $40 including shipping, but hey at least that’s the median price it sells for and not $10 more. $40

1:00 PM - I walk to Sprouts super quick and grab a Big Sur Breakfast Burrito and a giant tub of nutritional yeast (It will last me 6 months.) which are both on sale so I save $6.50. $22.09

1:30 PM - I eat my burrito with some broth & rice. Facebook emails me back and wants me to do the research study. Yay $100 (upon completion)!

5:45 PM - I arrive home and see that my dress from Etsy came. I try it on and it’s a total winner! I eat a small slice of cake, watch the East Coast Finals with my boyfriend, and dip out to meet some friends for dinner.

7:30 PM - I meet my friend and his new girlfriend at Noodle Bar downtown. We take our time dining and it’s really fun and super nice to see my friend with someone who seems to be evenly paced with him. He bought me a record in LA so I pay him back for it. $8

9:00 PM - Our server cashes (apparently that’s not a word) us out. Food’s 9 something but I feel weird tipping anything under 3. $12

10:30 PM - My boyfriend shows me the first episode of Trailer Park Boys and I get it now, but I still think it’s stupid.

DAY FORTY-FIVE TOTAL: $82.09

DAY FORTY-FIVE

8:45 AM - I refill my half gallon mason jar with broth and head to work.

9:15 AM - Toddy and toast. Same old routine.

1:15 PM - I’ve spent three hours straight in meetings. My boss heads to Even Stevens for food and offers to buy mine since I make a cringy face about spending money on lunch Monday - Thursday (and because I kicked our last meeting in the butt!). I get the Jackfruit Torta. It rules.

4:20 PM - Broth life with brown rice. Will this keep me from eating more cake when I get home? Probably not.

5:30 PM - Cake. I eat some applesauce too.

7:00 PM - My boyfriend is feeling pretty good after the launch of ticket sales for the new venue his company is opening, so we go to AZ Mills. We’re surprised to find that the entire Nike Store is 40% off. He ends up buying two pairs of shoes, a pair of basketball shorts, and a ridiculous shirt with Michael Jordan on it for me.

8:30 PM - We stop by Zia to look at records. I don’t find anything, but I’m also not complaining.

9:00 PM - I am up for whatever in terms of food, so I let boyfriend pick and we end up at Chipotle. I get my usual -- a salad with black beans, veggies, corn, pico, and guac with medium salsa on the side. We take home our food and I drizzle a little ranch on top -- I know, sounds gross but don’t knock until you try it. I cover our food. Dang Chipotle is cheap! $14.05

9:30 PM - We spend the rest of the night watching really ancient basketball games. I pass out a little after 10.

DAY FORTY-FIVE TOTAL: $14.05

DAY FORTY-SIX

9:20 AM - I arrive to work a little late this morning on account of having to shower badly. I pour myself a toddy and skip the toast. I’m still really full from last night. I have a ton of really tiny things to do today which is the least favorite part of my job. I sit down, make a list, and start plugging away.

11:45 AM - Office decides to grab lunch at Olive & Ivy. I get a salad with couscous, almonds, onion, and tomato and decide to jump the gun and try a sangria. I wasn’t going to drink until next Friday but I’ve been missing it so bad. $25.59

1:30 PM - I’m not sure if that sangria was worth it and I’m probably still too sensitive. I take some Midol which should calm my bladder down because it feels a little agitated.

2:00 PM - My first MistoBox subscription has arrived! I have 1.5 more pounds of super old coffee to go through before I can start using the new stuff, but it smells so good and I’m very excited!

3:00 PM - Phew! Feeling better. I also heat up some broth for good measure.

5:45 PM - Home from work! I make plans to grab dinner with a friend who just graduated from ASU. She basically put herself through school with no parents (literally) and is planning to move to Chicago. I cut her a check to help with the move and to congratulate her. I’ll also treat her to the dinner place of her choice. $100

6:00 PM - My friend arrives at my house. We head to Phoenix and dine at Crescent Ballroom where my boyfriend actually happens to be working. We don’t really see him because, you know, he’s working. Our food takes a while to come out and it gets comped. I make our server charge us for something so I can tip the shit out of her. She charges $1.09 for the chips and I tip $15 on top. $16.09

8:30 PM - We head back to Tempe and grab a drink at Casey’s. My friend doesn’t drink and grabs a ginger beer. I decide to take another chance and get a cider with a water. $10.50

10:00 PM - I drop my friend off and head home. I spend the rest of the night finishing season 2 of LOVE and texting my boyfriend who seems to have gotten stuck working the later event at Crescent which is a Beyonce vs. Rihanna DJ tribute night. Apparently tons of sassy ladies in stiletto heels are getting thrown out left and right!

DAY FORTY-SIX: $152.18

DAY FORTY-SEVEN

9:30 AM - I am surprised to find that my boyfriend is already awake. I thought we’d be sleeping until 11 because of his hectic week, but he is ready to hit the town. We head to Cartel and get a tiny hookup on our drinks from a new employee my boyfriend has made friends with. $6.50

10:30 AM - We head over to combo Einstein’s Caribou to grab bagels. Boyfriend pays.

11:00 AM - Since the Nike Store was 40% on Thursday, we head back over to AZ Mills only to discover they’ve changed it to 30%. Boyfriend buys two pairs of kicks, and then we head to the Adidas Outlet. I buy a shirt there. $18.95

11:30 AM - We head to Central Phoenix stopping at a couple record stores and bookstores, but both come up dry.

2:30 PM - Boyfriend wants Sweet Tomatoes, and I’m okay with it. I eat so fast and feel like death. He covers the tab and I leave a couple bucks on the table. $2

3:30 PM - Post Sweet Tomatoes nap because it’s basically mandatory.

5:00 PM - I wake up and make my way to the kitchen and eat the last piece of cake because I’m groggy and don’t have an excuse. I look outside at the weeds and start to get stressed. The dishes are piling up, dust is literally settling, and we haven’t folded laundry in what feels like a decade. But then I see while scrolling through Facebook my favorite local hardcore band (Gay Kiss) released its final 7”. I buy it. $9.50

5:15 PM - Why did I eat that cake?

5:30 PM - I clean the counters, do the dishes, and take out the trash. Boyfriend wakes up and we fold laundry together while watching the first half of the GSW v. Spurs game.

8:00 PM - We head out to grab some dinner. Originally we planned to hit La Santisima, but it’s too busy so we run over to Phoenix Public Market. We both get their veggie sandwich and he gets fries. I cover the tab. $31.06

9:30 PM - We end up going back to Zia in Central Phoenix and spend a long time browsing through movies. We end up finding the very expensive Criterion section and we both pick some titles and split them. I get Rosemary’s Baby and after a 20% coupon and using my points, it comes out to a more reasonable price. $16.28

10:30 PM - We arrive home,  I make some popcorn on the stove, and we watch Moonrise Kingdom together -- neither of us had seen it before. It was so good.

1:00 AM - I browse for Suzy dresses on Etsy and pass out.

DAY FORTY-SEVEN TOTAL: $84.29

DAY FORTY-EIGHT

11:00 AM - We leave the house and pick up coffee, (Boyfriend pays.) and head to Zia to kill a couple minutes before meeting our friends at La Santisima for lunch.

12:00 PM - I get the fried avocado taco and a gandhi vegan taco. It’s nice to catch up with friends -- they invite us to go for beers after but my boyfriend comes up with an excuse because he’s not feeling well.

1:30 PM - I have been working on this e-commerce project for a while and saving up to launch it. My designer finally sent the revised designs earlier this week so I spend the rest of my afternoon making ref files and learning my way around the Live Paint Tool in Illustrator.

5:00 PM - Designs sent! Wow I hate Illustrator.

5:30 PM - We watch the Cavs v. Celtics game and order Jimmy Johns. At half time, I get bored so I make snickerdoodle cookies. $17.99

8:00 PM - Celtics hit a three at the buzzer and they win! Plus the cookies are great. Boyfriend and I each eat three.

9:00 PM - We head to Bookmans in Mesa but both leave empty handed.

10:00 PM - We end the night by watching a 30 for 30 documentary about Wayne Gretzky.

DAY FORTY-EIGHT TOTAL: $17.99

[supergiantsecretsanta]

@bastionbabble

My gift for @bastionbabble in this year’s secret santa event at @supergiantsecretsanta.  Happy holidays, Babs!

(Watercolours, 24 cm x 32 cm)