#after five years of straight brand recognition it's time for a change

[herawell]

allegoriesinmediasres -> herawell

Signal boost!

[comfy-whumpee]

Birdhouse: The Talks

Whumptober Day Two: Talking is Overrated. TW: dehumanisation, slavery, BBU, bad decisions in therapy.

@neuro-whump, @rosesareviolentlyread, @whumper-in-training, @mylifeisonthebookshelf

The new rescue was called Roman. Not by himself, but by whoever had taken the initiative to name their brand-new captive. He hadn’t yet told her who had give it to him, but he had assured her that he was still happy to be known by the name.

Sunita Kaur had been providing therapy to his those like him for years now, in varying capacities, and he was the newest addition to her caseload. She spent the Wednesday of her working week privately commissioned to support the residents of the Birdhouse Shelter, and with the fee its proprietor paid her, she was able to do the rest of her work completely pro bono. That was the way Avis Jacobitz worked. She paid you what she thought you were worth to her household.

Each new rescue came with new strengths and new challenges. Roman had escaped himself, which often gave them a head start, but not always. He was also in good physical condition, which made sense; the Birdhouse specialised in complex emotional needs more than physical ones. Not that any ex-pet came without their chronic pains and weak immune systems. Roman was prone to dizzy spells and took iron tablets daily.

He was sitting on the comfortable chair with his hands resting on his knees and his back straight. To be sitting on the chair in his first session was another strength. But then, not all ex-pets had been banned from furniture.

“My name is Sunita Kaur. I’m a trained practitioner of counselling for pet industry survivors.”

She didn’t miss the way Roman’s lips moved faintly to echo that term. Pet industry survivor. It was difficult to talk about those labels without reinforcing them, but she had settled on one eventually.

“That’s you, Roman. A survivor of the American organisations that attempt to brainwash and remake people.”

There was no sense of recognition in Roman’s eyes as he thought about that. He didn’t reply.

Sunita gave him a moment to think, and then offered, “How do you feel about that description?”

It’s several seconds, unmarked in their passing, before Roman ventures, “I like being called a rescue.”

“Can you tell me why?” Sunita asks, keeping all reaction clear from her expression. If she so much as twitches a nostril, an ex-pet will pick up on it.

Roman glances down shyly, smiling. “Because I was. There was a new cleaner and she called someone to help me, and now I’m here. I like thinking about her.”

Every word was delivered in the faintest whisper. Sunita was straining her ears.

“Why do you like thinking about her?”

His hands sit perfectly still on his unmoving knees. Only his expression changes. “Because she was nice. And she helped me even though she was a stranger, and I like knowing – strangers can help you.”

Sometimes she wondered at the ability of her patients to love people who had been cruel to them. Sometimes, it wasn’t even that. Sometimes, ex-pets loved people in general, through some innate hope and fortitude all their suffering had failed to tarnish.

She was going to enjoy working with Roman.

-

Florence never made eye contact. Their gaze drifted around her face and off again. They sat in the comfortable chair, leaning slightly against its side, long hair tumbling off one shoulder and an arm stretched out to show the curving line of their body in what had to be an uncomfortable position. They looked like an art piece. They played with their skirt. Sunita was used to this. Florence liked textures.

“I don’t mind,” they said. “Avis has lots of people to care for.”

Sunita nodded. It was something that Florence was already dealing with. Avis split her time with equity as her guiding principle, offering the right amount of support to everyone who needed it. Florence was used to their time with Avis waxing and waning depending on the needs of the others in the house.

‘To each according to their need’ was a powerful concept, unless one of your rescues was always desperate for attention.

Sunita hummed in acknowledgement. “So how do you feel about Roman getting lots of help?” They were the one who had brought it up, after all. There was something there.

Florence ran fingers up and down their silky turquoise skirt. Their gaze flittered across the window. “He’s funny. He acts different.”

“Different how?”

There were no birds in the sky, but Florence’s eyes moved as if there were. “He doesn’t have anyone he loves.”

-

“Of course I love them.” Kamala lifted her chin, hands folded on her lap, the picture of dignified confidence. The neat edge of her hijab was broken only by the lightning-bolt pin she had used on one side. She sat on the very edge of the chair. “The Birdhouse is like my family. We look after each other. That’s not particular to Florence. They just like spending time with me.”

Sunita nodded, showing that she was listening, but didn’t interrupt, hoping Kamala would keep going.

“It’s not wrong to give more time to someone who asks for it,” Kamala continued after a moment, smiling earnestly. “Florence is used to being the centre of attention. It makes them happy. And it makes me happy to help them.”

“We’ve touched on this before, Kamala. You derive a lot of happiness and fulfilment from what services you can offer others, how you can fill their needs. I think you know what I’d like you to think about.”

“My needs,” Kamala answered with a pretty smile. “I understand, Mrs Kaur. I took more time to myself this week, although it was hard. I reread some of the comics I got when I first came here, in my bedroom. I haven’t done that in a while.”

She spoke with perfectly believable sincerity, underlined with a hint of eager-to-please nervousness, of am I doing it right?

“That sounds positive, Kamala. How did that feel, to be spending time on yourself?”

“It’s hard, Mrs Kaur. I don’t like myself very much. But I know it’s what will help me in the long term, so I do my best. If you practice self-care, it will become second nature.”

Sunita was sure she had said those exact words to her before. “That is the goal.”

-

Tenten’s twitch was worse today, jerking his shoulder and running down his arm as he spoke. He didn’t make eye contact, but not in the way that Florence didn’t, always busy looking elsewhere. Tenten kept his eyes averted. His limbs were drawn close together, arms on his knees, as if he was unsure how to sit on something soft.

“I don’t, I don’t want-t t-to, to-to make anyone ss-sad. But I did, m-made her, upset-t, I t-t-t, t-t, I c-c-could see. She was.”

“That’s alright, Tenten. Take your time.” She kept her voice soft and soothing. “I’m not going to think any different of you. I will still be your therapist.”

Tenten made an uncertain noise, his shoulder jumping like a livewire. His foot tapped. “You, but you’re her c-c-counsellor too. I don’t want-t, I might, if I say somet-thing she didn’t want you t-to, to know.”

“I understand your concern. Remember, this is confidential. I will never use what you tell me in my sessions with the others.” She smiled kindly as his eyes flickered to her and away shyly. “But do remember that I talk to Avis before I start sessions, to make sure I’m aware of anything significant. I may already know about the conflict you’re thinking of.”

Tenten’s shoulders hunched, “C-c-con, conflict, huh?” he echoed. “What do you th-think it is?”

She made sure to smile gently. “I’d like you to tell me what happened in your own words.”

He swallowed, his throat bobbing under the maroon neckerchief he always wore. He took a breath. “Okay.”

-

“We’ve been here for forty minutes, Avis, and you still haven’t said a word about yourself.”

Avis leaned back in the armchair, frowning at the wall. “I know,” she admitted. “I know we always end up here. I start talking and it’s about how Roman’s settling in, or Florence’s new night terror, or Kamala and Tenten getting into another argument, or… Boo. Everything about Boo and their – situation. It’s just, I spend my whole life looking after those guys. Even when they’re doing something else, like Therapy Day or tutoring, there’s five of them now, so there’s always something.”

Dr Cerasale showed nothing but patient understanding. It was true, that this often formed the bulk of the sessions he held with Avis. It had been improving for a while, before she’d accepted the new rescue.

“And I know, I find fulfilment in my work, that’s not a bad thing, and some people live with different professional-personal balances. And for my kind of job, there’s not much distance between them. But…”

She stopped, still frowning at the wall.

“What is the downside of that?” he prompted her.

Dark eyes flashed his way. “Do you mean me not having any time to myself, or me seeing my son in every single one of them?”

All patients had their challenges. Avis had a unique living situation and a very unusual career path, but the underlying causes of her mindset were very normal.

“Let’s talk about guilt,” he said, and she broke eye contact.

[everlarkficexchange]

The Archer and The Wrestler.

Written by: @thegirlfromoverthepond

Prompt 90: The Olympic committee is selling sponsorships and heavily advertising the upcoming games. The most photogenic of each sport is asked to pose for pics and attend functions, film commercial together, do some interviews. What sports represented by Katniss, Peeta, others? Required to look cozy? Animosity behind those smiles? Competitiveness? Banter? Any secrets? Do they have a “breakfast club” ending? by @567inpanem

______ 

Summary: Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark meet in the office of Trinket Advertising, where they have to shoot pictures for sponsors.

____

Thank you @567inpanem for the prompt ! I had fun writing it :) PLus I could place it in my country which is always a plus. I hope you won’t be disappointed … 

My deepest thanks to @sunsetsrmydreams for pre reading and betaing.

To @xerxia31 and @javistg thank you for hosting such a nice event … and So sorry for the delay !

__________________

  I should be practicing, she thought, instead of pacing the long, white, corridor of Trinket Advertising.

  Katniss still had a ton to do for the Games. Be sure to be fit, to be healthy, to be accurate. To shoot straight.

  She really didn’t want to spend her afternoon waiting for some photographer to ask her to act natural in front of a camera. But she was just glad she didn’t have to shoot with someone from the team, as she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to focus with the constant bickering between Johana and Gale or how Haymitch, their trainer, would “Sweetheart” this or that. 

  Still no clue as to why she had been picked to be the representative of her sport for the sponsors and advertising. She wasn’t really sure she knew what it entailed, how much time she would spend parading around the media instead of practicing. She knew archery wasn’t such a popular sport in the States, preventing her from spending huge amounts of time in talk shows, or interviews. 

Plus, seeing the recognition made Prim, her sister, so proud and happy, Katniss hadn’t been able to turn down the offer when it came. 

  “Kathy Everdeen? You’re up next.” The assistant’s piercing voice echoed in the long corridor. Katniss closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to not correct the woman.

  “Welcome to the Strange Name That Can’t Be Taken Seriously Club.” Another voice, male this time, made her open her eyes. 

In front of her was a man of around her age, wearing the male version of the US Olympics shirt she had on..

  Only his was stretched across his broad frame, where she was glad hers was loose around her lean body. 

  He extended his hand.

  “Peeta Mellark. Wrestling. Founding member of the club.” She stared at his hand, before moving a step forward to shake it. “You’re the archer ? Katniss right?”

  She stopped mid-movement. How could he know her name ?

  “I saw your name on the list, so I figured you’d be next ?” He said, almost shyly, as if he had offended her, or invaded her privacy.

  She saw the movement of his hand, that she had left unshaken, going to his hair, his fingers raking through his mane of curls.

  He had done nothing wrong, she realized, just tried to clear the air. She took a breath, before extending her own hand in front of her.

  “Yeah, I’m Katniss. Archery. How much is the subscription to the club?”

  He laughed, before shaking her hand.

  “How about tea after you’re done ?”

  “Too bad I only drink coffee … but I guess if you can wait a bit, that’s doable.” Katniss almost smiled when Peeta started to laugh.

  “Oh my goodness, I have a genius idea !” A voice froze their handshaking. “We are going to do pair shootings! Mix the sports together, along with the portraits. It’s going to be legendary !”   

  A woman with very pink hair matching her very pink outfit stood in the entrance leading towards the studio. As soon as she stopped talking, a flock of what Katniss could only think were assistants came in view, all clapping their hands or praising the Pink Lady.

  “Effie, this is another grand idea! We should start right now with these two!” The woman that had misspelled Katniss’ name said, “as they are both here.”

  “What are you waiting for, Octavia, take her to make-up right now! I need to call Plutarch, I am having a ton of ideas ! Hush hush, now come on, quickly!” 

  Katniss saw the assistants moving as one, starting to circle her and Peeta, moving them forward inside the studio, where a couple were checking their cameras and the large umbrellas reflecting the lights.

  “Cinna, Portia, I had an epiphany!” The Pink Lady walked towards the couple as quickly as her pencil dress and very high heels allowed her, while Katniss was ushered to the make-up table. She noticed that Peeta was following right behind her, with the other half of the assistants. She met his gaze, saw him shrug before he was taken to another table, shielded from her view by the different makeup and hair artists around them.

  “We’ll start with you, Kathy!” Octavia said a few minutes later. Katniss took another deep breath, calming her temper. In just a few minutes, she’ll be gone. Archery wasn’t high on the list of sponsors, nobody cared about them, but for the bow and arrows brands. 

  Katniss didn’t have time to muse as the sound of Octavia’s heels on the tiling started again. She rose from the chair, following the young woman towards a dressing cabin.

  “You’ll find your uniform inside. You’re a S, right?”

  “How do you know?” Katniss asked, surprised that the woman guessed correctly.

  “I have an eye for that. Plus, it’s written on your card.”

  She repressed another eyeroll, trying to keep in mind that Octavia was only doing her job, before she entered the dressing cabin. 

White pants, blue polo lined with red, and a white undershirt to protect her arms. The standard equipment.

  Yet, it was something to see it, to realize she would represent her country in the most important tournament there could be, that she had achieved one of her goals. To be an Olympian.

  She took the polo, turning it slowly, almost afraid to read what was on the back.

  Everdeen.

  Her father’s name, embroidered in the cotton of the shirt.

Pride rushed through her veins as her fingers traced the letters.

  “I did it, Papa. I’m going to the Olympics.”

  ______________________

  It was now official. She hated photoshoots. First, because it was taking an awful lot of time, then because you had to smile. All.the.time. That Katniss hasn’t screamed yet or ran off the door was entirely due to her willpower gained from years of training.

  The photographer, Cinna, wasn’t a talker. He was taking his time to snap picture after picture, never acknowledging Octavia or Effie’s advice for her to smile this way, or that way. Because there was apparently a way to smile properly.

  She could feel her anger rise with each passing minute, the incessant chatter of the women, the silence of the photographer, the heat from the spotlights, the wind from the huge fans, the itching from the label of the polo on her neck… 

  “I think it’s time to pair them up.” The photographer’s voice calmly said, silencing the two women.

From being Effie and Octavia, Peeta made his way towards the scene where Katniss was standing. 

  Before anyone could say a thing, Cinna turned to Effie and his assistant.

“Ladies, can you please check if we have athletes that can be paired tomorrow too? I’m sorry to ask in such short notice, but I think Effie’s idea is something we have to work on.. of course it will mean you change all the schedules..”

  “Oh, my, Cinna, but yes, of course! If you think so ? But will you be able to manage with these two?” Effie Trinket asked. Katniss could feel the sharpness of her gaze as the older woman looked at her.

  “If there is the slightest problem, I’ll make sure Portia comes to get you.” 

  “Yes, please. Because if we can manage to pair Brutus and Enobaria, we might be on something, right?”

  “Right.” Cinna nodded, before moving towards his material, his back to Katniss as he rummaged through his material.

  She looked at her partner in the photoshoot, who seemed as lost as she was. He kept running his hand in his mane of blond hair, before shoving them in his pockets. Seconds after, he was doing the same movements again. She realized she was doing the same, undoing the end of her braid before redoing it, over and over again.

She really couldn’t wait to be out of the studio.

  “Will you two stand back to back, please?” Cinna’s voice startled her, even though it was barely over a whisper. “Portia, can you please close the door?” 

  That’s when she realized how silent the place was without Effie and Octavia. Without their neverending chatter, their disapproving tongue clicks, or their exaggerated sighs.

It almost felt … good.

  Almost.

  She started to move then, turning her back to Peeta, before crossing her eyes, hoping he would take the hint to do the same. The sooner they were done, the better. She had her bow waiting for her, after all.

  She felt the fabric of Peeta’s polo on her arm, yet, never his weight on her back.

  She looked at Cinna, who nodded approvingly, before starting to take pictures. 

  “Should we smile?” She heard Peeta’s deep voice right behind her, asking the question she didn’t dare ask.

  “Do what you want, don’t mind me.” the photographer answered behind his material.

  “What we want?” Katniss echoed, unsure she had heard correctly. The previous hour had been filled with recommendations on what to do, on poses to take, on how to smile … 

  Cinna lowered his camera.

  “I’m not Effie. Beauty is everywhere, it doesn’t have to be faked by poses or false smiles. Just do what you two want.” He shrugged before checking something on his camera. “I’ll need a few minutes to fix this, try to relax.”

  Katniss turned to her partner in shooting, to realize he had already moved and was facing her.

  “You told me you were a coffee girl, right?”

  “Yup. Black, no sugar.”

  “I don’t take sugar in my tea, either. See we have something in common.” Peeta put his hands high. “Oh, no high five ? We’re not close enough yet.”

  “Definitely not, singlet boy.”

  “Ouch, that hurts. Know, Miss Everdeen, that a lot of women find that uniform .. appealing.” He raised his eyebrows, wiggling them explicitly. 

  “I bet they do. The main question is, do you have to shave your torso, so your opponent won’t have the opportunity to pull at your chest hair ?”

  Katniss didn’t know what came to her to ask such a question.  It was like Peeta made it easy for her to talk, when she usually wasn’t famous for speaking or making her voice heard without shouting.

  It was like he had a calm, soothing temper, like a lazy river, ready to cover the fire that was in her.

Maybe they made a good pair.

  “Yeah, the worst is the wax under the armpit.” He deadpanned, not even letting a smile on his face.

  She could totally imagine him taken down to “Beauty Base Zero” as the woman at the beauty parlor had told her the only time she went there. It included all sorts of treatments, each worse than the others. She even told her sister to not gift her with that kind of torture anymore.

  “Ouch.. I hope your girlfriend covers you in aloe after that …” 

Katniss knew she wasn’t the most girly woman around, yet she sometimes put on mascara or had her legs waxed from time to time, mostly for competitions when she had decided to wear the short-skirts or the long bermudas. 

  “Well, meet Hanna, my girlfriend.” Peeta said casually, showing his right hand, wiggling his eyebrows - again.      

  It took Katniss a few seconds to catch up on the double-entendre.

  “Oh, my, you’re disgusting!” Her words couldn’t completely hide her smile. There was something to this man that somehow made her want to talk, to speak, to even trust him. 

  “I bunked with Finnick Odair at the Youth Olympic Games. That was disgusting! He shaves himself ! the room was full of his hair!”

  “Well, you could have collected them before putting them on Ebay. You’d be rich by now.”

  “I should have, yes. Dam, why didn’t I know you back then to give me good advice!”

  “I wasn’t at the YOG.”

  “I know, I would have noticed you.”

She looked at him, with questions in her mind. His eyes were blue, so clear nothing was shadowing them, she was left without words.

  Click.

  —-

  Katniss couldn’t believe she was at the Olympics. In Paris, France. That her childhood dream of bringing a golden medal home was nothing but a few arrows away. A lot of stress, too. She raised her bow, lining the target with her eye, throwing  a quick glance to the small flags lining the area to check the wind, took a deep breath, before letting go of the arrow.

  She knew right away that it would miss the center of the target. A breath of hair on the right, still not enough to get full marks. She had underestimated the wind on this large, open area that the Esplanade des Invalides was.

  “Not too bad.”  She jumped at the voice behind her. Maybe some kind of volunteer that had been allowed inside the arenas for training. She needed to focus on the target, on the little golden area that would make her mark a ten in the competition.

  She took another arrow from the quiver on her left hip, slid it in the bow, looked at the wind, took a deep breath, lifted her weapon, aimed at the target. With the next exhalation of air, she let go of the arrow, knowing right away it would hit the center. 

  She had never been able to explain how she knew, each and every time how her arrow would behave. It was a feeling, a sensation, deep inside of her. 

  Thunk !  

  She looked at the target, saw that indeed the arrow was in the yellow area. She almost let a smile show on her mouth, when the same voice distrubed her again.

  “You might win if you shoot like that.”

  Katniss closed her eyes, letting a sigh escape before turning to face whoever decided to disturb her training. 

  “Peeta!” She felt a smile forming on her face. “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged. “I was practising, then decided to go for a walk. It’s Paris after all!”

  “Here?” Katniss was pretty sure she hadn’t seen any other sport on the green grass in front of the Invalides.

  “Oh, not here here, over there!” Peeta turned, his right hand moving over his shoulder, showing the Eiffel Tower. “Wrestling is on the Champ de Mars, at the feet of the tower”

  “Really? You’ll have to tell me when you’re in the tournament. So I can come and see you.”

  Peeta’s hand went to his head, his fingers raking through his mane of golden curls.

“You’re sure ? If the press sees you there….”

  “I’ll tell them I came to support a friend.”

  “But you know how the paparazzi are …”

  “We’re in France, not the US, nobody cares about archery or wrestling - no offense intended.”

  “None taken.” 

  Peeta looked around, before coming closer to the barriers surrounding the archery arena, then leaning slightly on them, giving Katniss the opportunity to see the muscles in his forearms. She wondered briefly if he already had his waxing treatment.

  “Something on your mind, Everdeen?”   

  Who was he again? A mind-reader ?  She quickly turned her eyes  from his arms, not lingering on the broad expense of his chest, or how bright his eyes were.

  “Yup. I have to finish training if I don’t want to look too ridiculous when the competition starts.”

“What do you say we try one of these cafés when you’re done?” he casually asked. Katniss could see something in his eyes - was it hope ?

  Damn, was he playing unfair by throwing coffee into the mix. As if she was known to refuse a cup. 

  “I still have a few minutes of practice, maybe a raincheck?”

  He shrugged, before looking around. “I’m in no rush. I can wait. Patience is a virtue, young grasshopper.”

  She nodded, before taking another arrow out of her quirrel. 

   “Yes, Sensei.”

  The arrow hit the center of the target.

  ———————–

  Katniss knew she shouldn’t be there. Not that she didn’t want to, but after  pictures of her and Peeta laughing in a small café had hit the stands, her phone hadn’t stopped beeping, demanding a confirmation if there was something going on between the two of them. That, perhaps, all the rumors that had been born after the photoshoot with Cinna, were not rumors at all.

  Effie Trinket was, of course, delighted. Jo wouldn’t stop asking about LoverBoy, Gale was threatening to beat the shit out of Peeta (Katniss was almost ready to let him try to do that), and Haymitch kept on asking her if her little romance would damage her results in the field.

  Everything was peachy.

  Yet, she couldn’t find it in her to regret the time she had spent with Peeta. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so much, that she had been able to confide to someone as she had done with him, how he had been open to her too. Like two old friends rekindling a friendship after spending years apart. 

  Friends they could have been, they had realized when discussing their native places. They had grown up about a hundred miles apart, in the same district of West Virginia. They could have crossed paths about a dozen times, sharing memories of the Meadow Park, where they both had spent time, Katniss had even worked there when they were younger. 

  Sometime during their afternoon chat, a photographer had spotted them, recognized them, and snapped pictures.

  That was a trending subject on Twitter minutes later, before someone even created a ship name for them. The hashtag #Everlark trended for more than a day.

  Katniss had pushed her phone away, blocked all the numbers she didn’t know, called Peeta to apologize, before focusing solely on her training.

  Her perfect plan had crumbled in hours, when Peeta had caught her in the Victor’s Village Cafeteria, explaining how he was sorry for everything, as the idea of coffees had been his. 

They had ended up sharing a meal with Gale and Jo, as well as some of Peeta’s teammates, who kept joking about the Everlark hashtag. In a matter of two hours Katniss was laughing with them, the pain of Effie’s scheme forgotten.

  That was why she was currently in the corridors of the Arena where Judo and Wrestling competitions were being held. Her own tournament was starting in two days and Katniss would rather watch sports she didn’t understand, then stay in her room, anxiously waiting for her turn to compete.

  Maybe it was time for her to play team mate too. She had put on her US Team attire, gotten her accreditations cards, before jumping into one of the buses that led her to the Champ de Mars. 

  She hadn’t seen Peeta since breakfast the morning before, when she had forgotten to ask him if he was still okay for her to come.

  The building was elegantly sitting on the green grass. In the back, she could see the Eiffel Tower, all dressed up in her beauty and dignity.

  In a few minutes she had found the hall with the wrestlers, and a seat in the ranks reserved for athletes. She recognized Thom and Thresh, two of Peeta’s teammates, who waved at her. She talked to them for a few minutes, learning their categories were competing in the coming days.

  “Peeta should be in two matches.” Thresh informed her as she sat on the plastic seat. “He should make it to the quarters easily. After…”

  “After?” She asked, unsure what THresh meant.

  “After, in the quarters he should face Katø, the Russian. A beast. “

  “A beast?” 

  “Yeah, 164 pounds of malice and nastiness.”

  “Charming… Maybe someone will eat this Katø first ?” 

  Thresh shook his head.

  “Na, not with this draw. His first worthy opponent will be Peeta.”

  She looked at Thresh, thinking back to the afternoon she had spent with Peeta, remembering what he had told her.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so much, her cheeks still hurt. They had walked away from the Olympic Archery range, following the banks of the Seine, looking at the amazing monuments, walking by the Musee d’Orsay that Peeta had told her he wanted to visit. 

They had crossed the river on a wooden bridge only for pedestrians, walked along the Louvre, until they had found a small café near the Palais Royal where they were still sitting.

  “You all have bread names? Why? “

  Peeta shrugged,  before leaning down a little on the metallic table, as if he was about to confide his deepest secret.

  “We own a bakery, back in Panem. Maybe one day, I’ll tell you my real name …”

  She laughed, leaning over the table too. She felt bold enough to run her hand on his definitely toned forearm, letting her finger wander up to his shoulder.

  She saw the color of his eyes change from crystal blue to a darker shade, heard him take a breath in.

  But Katniss was on a mission.

  She leaned closer to him, her hand coming closer to his neck, her nimble fingers playing with the collar of his shirt.

  She could feel him tense under her touch, and lifted her eyes, to find his locked on her, as if he wanted to get lost in her. It took Katniss a few seconds to return to her task. With a movement of her wrist, she grabbed his accreditation cards, pulling them over his head before leaning back into her seat.

  “That’s disappointing, actually. Your name is Mark ? Mark Mellark ?”   

  “Because your name is really Katniss?”

  She put down his accreditations, took hers from around her neck, holding them out to him. He took them with a smirk before looking at the name written on them.

  “Your name is really Katniss?”

  “Yep. My mom’s Lily, my dad is Alon, and my sister is Primrose. You’re a bread family, we are a plant family.” She snatched the cards from his hands. “ You’re lucky you didn’t bet a thing, Mark Mellark.”

  “Don’t call me Mark.” He grumbled, leaning back onto his chair.

  “Well, then if you don’t want the world to call you Mark, you know what’s left to do, Mellark!”.

  She casually put down his cards on the table, taking her time to lean back too.

  “Oh? And that would be, Sensei ?”

  “Easy, Grasshopper. Make sure you don’t get a medal.”

  “That, Robin Hood, is not an option.”  

  The steadiness, the certainty of his voice made her shiver. Or maybe it was the wind, coming from large trees nearby. Surely the trees, she thought.

  “I mean,” he started “ we all came here for a reason, and it’s not to give someone else our place on the podium. Plus with all the visibility we have this year, we have to give it our best, right?”

  She nodded. That was what they had to do, what they had trained for, what they were in France for.

  “Katniss?” Thom’s voice took her out of her memories. 

  “Sorry, I was lost in thoughts.”

  “Look down, on the mat. The guy in blue? It’s Katø.”

  “That’s a man? He looks like a mountain of muscles …” 

  “Well, he is a mountain of muscles … “ The referee interrupted Thom’s sentence with the start of the first period. “That won’t take long, he isn’t known for dancing around.”

  Katniss watched as the blond man, so different from Peeta rushed into his opponent, pinning him on the mat in a few seconds.

  “Told you. That lasted 25 seconds, he won’t be tired for the next round.” Thom said. “Peeta’s next.”

  Katniss nodded searching the ground until she spotted him, wearing a red singlet. 

  “Why is he wearing red ? Blue is a better color for him.” She asked, her eyes trained on the now familiar figure walking towards the mat. Damn, these singlets left little to the imagination. To say they were fit-forming was the understatement of the year. She could see all the lines of Peeta’s muscles moving as he approached the fighting zone.

  “Because he’ll be the first one called. It’s the rules.” She turned towards Thresh, who had the biggest smile on his face she’d ever seen him don.

  “Why are you smiling?” She was wondering what had been so funny in her words.

  “‘Blue is a better color for him’ - you sound like -” 

  “Be careful, Thresh. She shoots arrows…” Thom interrupted. “Now if you want to see Peeta wrestle, maybe you can look at the mat ?”

  With a last threatening glance towards Thresh that was met with another huge smile and air kisses, Katniss turned towards the arena, noticing how different Peeta’s posture was from Katø’s. 

  “He’s going to tire the Georgian who isn’t as flexible as he is. And as soon as there will be an opening, he’ll go for it.” Thom explained, as she watched the complicated dance of joint locks, takedowns, and other things she had no idea what they were.

  “This must be exhausting…” she whispered, as she saw Peeta finally going for the pin, immobilizing his opponent on the mat.

  “Well, it’s not crochet that’s for sure!” Thresh chimed into her thoughts as the crowd applauded the winner of the match.

  This was going to be a long day.

  __________________

  She needed to focus, now. Forget she was in the final of the Olympic Archery Tournament. Forget her dream was an arrow away. Forget she needed a nine to win the gold.

  She had to remember the wind, how it came lightly from the right to the left, how she needed to bend the trajectory just a little. She had to calm her beating heart.

  To forget Peeta was in the stands, watching. Katniss had cheered him on as he won his own gold medal two days ago, but now it was her moment.

  She needed to forget. 

  The way he had chased her when she tried to make a quiet exit.

To forget how they had kissed.

Their own celebration.

  She had to clear her mind of all this. 

Forget. Focus.

  A deep breath. 

Visualizing the arrow hitting the center of the target. 

  The chronometer was ticking. Tick. Tock.

  It was her last arrow. Her concurrents had already shot their own.

  She needed a nine.

  Only twelve seconds remain.

  She rose her bow.

Eleven seconds.

  Remembered her father’s proud look when she had won her first trophy.

  She let the arrow fly.

  She knew it would be a ten.

  She had won the gold.

  She fell to her knees, feeling the tears pooling in her eyes.

  “I did it, Papa, I won … I hope you’re proud..”

  The applause around her made her lift her head, then stand up, before she ran towards the stands, her bow still in hand, her eyes fixed on a figure that was coming down the stairs, towards her.

  She felt his arms around her as he hugged her over the bleachers, felt his hands going to her face as he looked into her eyes.

  “You remember to shoot straight, Grasshopper…” he whispered, for the two of them only.

  “Yes, Sensei”, she replied before kissing him.

  Click.

  FIN

[burnsopale]

🏝 Share your favorite description of a setting.

I got two requests for this one, so here's a whole fic! After reading Night Watch, I was thinking about who, other than Vetinari, might recognise Keel in the present...

Title: Recognition Characters: Sam Vimes, Fred Colon, Reg Shoe Words: 700 Summary: The Watch House of Treacle Mine Road is rebuilt.

There was a tremendous cheer as the lamp was lit for the first time, creating a pool of golden light that pushed the settling twilight back from the brand new stoop. The band struck up a march, and people began to mill around to get their sausages and beer, laughing and chatting.

Vimes stood looking up at the rebuilt Watch house of Treacle Mine Road. It had been his workplace for many, many years after the revolution, and yet it was that fateful week that seemed to rise in his vision now. The air was heavy with the scent of lilacs (Was it a coincidence that it had taken a year to finish the rebuilding? It was hard to tell with Vetinari). He half expected the old ghosts to come walking out of the open door. The bricks and timber were new, but what do you know, they’d managed to make the doorframe crooked this time too.

“Eh, Reg?” said Fred behind him. “You alright, man?”

Vimes turned to look, and met Reginald Shoe’s shocked, wide-open eyes. Two tears ran down the zombie’s cheeks, unnoticed. He was staring straight at Vimes.

“S-sergeant?” Reg stammered, voice raw with confused emotion.

And Vimes realised that the scenery had conspired against him. Framed against the old Watch house, with the lilacs blooming in the darkening yard and the lamp shining over the door, he was himself a ghost, and Reg, who was connected to the past by a body that had stood still since his death, recognised him.

Vimes glanced at Colon, but he didn’t look to be picking up anything, thankfully. Just to be sure, though, Vimes grabbed Reg by the arm and pulled him some distance away. “Now, Reg, this isn’t-”

Reg’s eyes kept darting up and down him until Vimes feared they would pop out of their sockets. “You-! How can you be-?”

“I know what it looks like-”

But then Reg looked up at him and drew a sobbing breath, and big fat tears began to roll down his cheeks, and he closed his eyes and grimaced as the weeping took him, his shoulders shaking, and what could Vimes do? Not lie, that was for sure.

“It’s alright, lad,” he said. “I get that it’s confusing.”

“I thought I was back.” Oh, how much horror could be contained in five short words.

Vimes grimaced; he knew the feeling. “It was the incident up at the university, when we were chasing Carcer. I’ll explain it some other time, but you don’t have to worry about it, Reg; I’m Sam Vimes. Always have been.”

Reg wiped his grey cheeks with shaking hands. “And you let me into the Watch, even knowing how I ...” He sniffed. “I just hope I make a better watchman than I did a revolutionary.”

Vimes patted him awkwardly on the back. “You do, Reg. Already do.”

“You were right, back then.” He sounded ashamed. “What did we win? I should have gone for the hardboiled egg.”

“No!” Vimes grabbed his shoulders, made the man meet his eyes. “It isn’t wrong to fight for change, Reg. Alright, so Snapcase was more of the same, but ...” He looked around to make sure the Patrician was nowhere around to hear. “Then we got Vetinari. Change did come.”

“But not because of me,” Reg said, smiling through his tears.

“Then you start today. We may not be dying under a paranoid psychopath anymore, but we’ve got plenty to do. We’ve got crimes to stop, lives to save, and you’re a watchman now, Reg, so it’s your job.”

Reg sniffed again, took a breath, stepped back and saluted. “Yes, Sir.”

“And for the love of all things buried, don’t tell anyone. Not Fred, not Nobby, no one. They don’t need to know.”

Reg nodded.

Vimes cleared his throat. “Now come on, you old sop, let’s go see what it looks like inside.”

They picked up Fred and Carrot and Angua and Cheery on the way, and Fred took Reg off Vimes’ hands and lent the man a hankie.

“Aye,” Fred said, patting Reg’s back and getting misty-eyed himself. “It gets you like that.”

Yes, it does, thought Vimes, as he stepped across the threshold into their new old Watch house.

[wishingforatypewriter]

Between Us (Chapter 10)

Summary: Yukihira Souma is ever caught between his girlfriend and his rival. (Full story here)

During prep, there had been a social energy flowing through the kitchen, charged up with banter and music and off-color jokes. But as soon as the first orders arrived from the front of the house, it became a battleground. 

The only sounds that could be heard were the manipulation of ingredients—sizzling oils and simmering sauces, inching towards their brief windows of perfection—and quick exchanges between the staff. During his first stagiaire with Chef Shinomiya, Souma had found this kind of atmosphere pretentious and intense, but now it was as ingrained in him as the jovial proceedings at the diner throughout his childhood.

“Check, chef?” One of the line cooks showed him her preparations of the vegetables that would accompany a duck entree.

“Looks good,” he said, offering a small grin. “Finish it.” 

“Oui, chef.” She beamed at him, then quickly returned to her workstation. 

If anyone had told him five years ago that he’d be opening  a fine dining restaurant in the middle of Paris, he would have said they were out of their fucking mind. But here he was, risking his entire reputation in a venue so far removed from the Sumiredori Shopping District that it felt like a different plane of existence.  

The pre-open was going smoothly. The kitchen kept pace with the orders, line cooks and sous chefs moving together like clockwork, and the front of the house staff kept the customers plied with wine and facts about the humble ingredients that came together to build their avant garde plates. 

But then, an hour or so into the shift, the maitre d’ came into the kitchen, panicked. “Chef Yukihira, the Nakiri heiresses have arrived.” 

For a moment, a slight buzz could be heard throughout the kitchen, as even the back waiters knew well the power of the Nakiri family. Souma, for his part, just shrugged. “Tell them I said hi,” he replied. “And tell them to stay for shift drinks if they want to hang out later.” 

The maitre d’ — a man blond man in his early thirties — looked shocked beyond words at Souma’s familiarity, but quickly cleared his throat and recovered. “Right. I’ll pass the message along. But as to why I’m here—when Julia went to take their orders, Madame Erina Nakiri said, and I quote ‘Tell him to surprise me.’ I-I don’t know what we should tell her.”

Souma sighed, though a reluctant grin was spreading on his face. He could almost sense her presence out in the dining room, haughty and queenly, just daring him to try and impress her. Leave it to Nakiri to make him go off menu on opening night. He rolled his shoulders. “Have the wait staff bring her a bottle of the ‘05 cabernet, and tell Nakiri to give me twenty minutes.”

“Yes, chef.” 

Once the maitre d’ had gone, Souma asked his sous chef to take over for a while. 

“Of course, chef,” she said. “But what will you prepare to satisfy Madame Nakiri? I have heard many times that her palate is legendary.” 

Souma smirked then, the idea coming into his head as he scanned the ingredient shelves. “A croque madame.” 

The sous chef stared at him blankly, imagining a ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top. “Er...chef. Are you sure this will be suitable?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, adjusting his apron. “I’ve been fighting with that tongue of hers for years now.” 

“You’re terrible, Erina,” Alice said, laughing behind her hands. “You’re seriously going to order off menu in the middle of his opening? If you tried that with me, I would have killed you!” 

Erina glanced down at her nails apathetically. “Anyone who talks as big as Yukihira should be ready at all times.”

“I don’t know.” Alice leaned forward, studying her cousin. “I think you’re just trying to get his attention.”

“E-excuse me? In what universe does Nakiri Erina covet the attention of others, let alone some upstart from high school?” 

“You tell me, E-ri-na,” Alice sang. “Anyway, that poor waitress is probably back there having a heart attack because of you.” 

“She kept herself very well composed,” Hisako said, swirling her wine elegantly. “We’ll have to tip generously.” 

“We will,” Erina said, just before the girl brought her a bottle of cabernet. 

“Chef Yukihira says that your dish will be finished in twenty minutes, Madame Nakiri.” 

“Is that all he said?” she asked as a glass was poured out for her. There was a slight change in the server’s expression then, as though she’d remembered something amusing. 

“Chef...Chef believes that you will be satisfied, madame.” 

At this, Erina simply took a slow sip of her wine. “Wouldn’t he like to think so?” 

When their table’s entrees were ready, Julia presented first Alice’s grilled lamb chops and then Hisako’s Sole meunière, but Erina’s dish was brought out by none other than the owner-chef himself. 

Between the sight of Yukihira Souma and the presence of a dish featured nowhere on the menu, every eye in the dining room was fixed on their table. 

“You never make things easy, Nakiri,” he said to her, grinning once he’d approached. 

“That’s what I was saying,” Alice interjected, after which Hisako kicked her softly under the table, warning her to stay quiet. 

Erina tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “If you wanted easy, you should have admitted defeat years ago.” 

“Never that.” He put the dish down in front of her. It was a souffle of some kind. Erina could tell just by looking that the crust would be flaky and buttery. Curiously, though, it was topped with a perfectly done poached egg. “You’re gonna be the taste tester for the new secret menu item, Yukihira-style croque madame souffle. Enjoy, Nakiri!” 

As the scent of leeks and truffles, cheese and ham and spices wafted up to her, Erina knew she would be in trouble. But she kept her face impassive as she cut into the pastry with her knife and fork. The scent grew stronger, and she nibbled at her lower lip in anticipation. 

The first bite raised goosebumps on her skin, and the second brought color to her cheeks. Then she broke the egg, and a new world of deliciousness revealed itself. Erina’s eyes rolled back, and a breathy sigh escaped her as she drifted into a daydream of a waltz up in the clouds. 

She was brought out of her reverie by none other than the chef who’d put her there. “So how does it taste?” he asked, smirking. 

Erina quickly composed herself, clearing her head and righting her posture. “Don’t you have a kitchen to run? If you have time to chat me up all night, it must be because you have three Michelin stars already.” 

“Alright, alright, message received,” Souma said. “But I’m gonna get a straight answer out of you one day, Nakiri. I won’t stop until you say it’s delicious.” 

“Don’t hold your breath on that one,” she said. “But you can try.” 

Once he was back inside his kitchen, Erina was free to savor the dish as fully as her elegant upbringing would allow. 

“Megumi, who is that woman in the black?” her mother asked, after the whole restaurant had watched her boyfriend come out to serve Nakiri Erina. “Have you seen her before?”

Megumi found her throat clogged with profound irritation and wounded pride, and it took her a moment to regain her voice. “That’s Nakiri-san, mother. She is a friend from high school who comes from a very important family in the culinary world.” 

“Oh,” her mother said, sounding somewhat placated. “So she’s someone who can make sure the restaurant does well?” 

“She is,” Megumi replied. “Nakiri-san’s reviews can make or break any chef’s career. They call her palate the god tongue.” 

“The god tongue?” her grandfather repeated, looking amused. “You make it sound like she has superpowers.” 

“In a way she does,” Megumi explained. “She can correctly identify salt from any part of the world with just one taste.”  

“Ah. So that’s what makes her so special?” her mother confirmed, shooting one more questioning glance at Erina’s table.

At this she sighed, glancing down at her plate, at the bœuf bourguignon that hearkened back to the start of them. “I suppose so.”

Megumi spent the remainder of the evening trying not to be upset with him. After the last of the guests were in their cars — her mother and grandfather safe in the towncar she’d rented to take them back to their hotel —  she congratulated her love with open arms and warm kisses. She stayed for shift drinks and posed for pictures that would end up in all the culinary magazines come morning.  

On the drive home, she reveled in the sensation of his arm around her shoulder, and drowsy with wine and fine food, she felt the tension leaving her body and the frustration parting from her soul. 

And then his phone rang. 

And once she heard, “Yo Nakiri,” over the bluetooth, it all came back a thousand fold. The call was brief this time, the stuff of key critics and brand recognition and next moves — yes, on opening night, he was discussing next moves — and by the time he parked the car in front of their apartment building, Megumi felt sick to her stomach. 

As soon as they were in the house, she washed off her makeup and got dressed for bed, tossing the red dress that he hadn’t noticed into the laundry basket. 

“Megs, you alright?” Souma asked her when he came out of the shower and found her tucked in bed. He ran a hand up and down her back in a soothing gesture. “You’ve been quiet all night.” 

She rolled over to face him and smiled weakly. “I’m fine, Souma,” she said. “Just a headache.”   

“I’ll bring you some aspirin,” he told her before leaving their room again. He returned a minute later with two pills and a glass of water, and started rubbing her neck and shoulders. “Why didn’t you say something before? I could have brought you home earlier.” 

“It’s no big deal.” Megumi sighed as his gentle touch softened her once again. “The interviews are important, so—”

“You’re more important, Megumi.” 

She said nothing in response, just leaned into his touch, and wondered despite herself whether he knew he was lying.

[fridayfirefly]

Picture Perfect Chapter Two: #Adrinette

Masterlist | AO3

By the time the Gabriel catalog came out, Marinette had almost entirely forgotten about the photoshoot. So much had happened in the past five months, that the summer photo shoot was the last thing on her mind. Marinette and the rest of her class started their first year of lycée. Marinette designed and created a whole new wardrobe for herself and created an online store after some of her designs started getting attention. Nathanial and Marc finally started dating. Yet despite all these changes, so much had stayed the same. Adrien and Marinette were still just friends. Lila was still manipulating the class with her lies, and Adrien and Marinette still had no plan on how to stop her from lying.

Marinette spent her winter break designing, and it kept her so busy that she completely missed the Gabriel catalog drop. It wasn't until she got a phone call from Adrien at five o'clock on New Year's Day that she realized that the photos from their summer shoot had been released.

The phone rang while Marinette was in the middle of hand-stitching her dress for the upcoming girl's choice Valentine's Day dance. It wasn't for another month and a half, but Marinette knew that once the new semester started, she would have no time to sew. Marinette answered her phone on the second ring, her caller ID telling her that it was Adrien who was calling. "Hey, Adrien," she greeted.

"Marinette!" Adrien exclaimed through the phone. "You haven't checked your twitter recently, have you?"

"No? Why?" Marinette was already logging on to twitter on her laptop, curious as to what had Adrien so frantic. Then she saw it: #Adrinette is trending in your area. "Oh. I'm going to call you back." Despite Adrien's protest, Marinette hung up the phone. She had some tweets to read.

It took twenty minutes of digging to find the original twitter thread that caused the catastrophe:

Marinette finally called Adrien back, half an hour after she hung up on him. He picked up on the first ring.

Marinette didn't hesitate in getting straight to the point. "What do we do about this?"

"Father already coordinated the PR Department to release a statement telling my fans to stop making inquiries into either of our personal lives. The next step is a little more complicated. Father would like for you and your family to come over for dinner so we can discuss it."

"What is there to discuss? Shouldn't we just tell everyone that we're not dating and be done with it."

Adrien hesitated. "It's complicated. I don't really approve but my Father insists that we at least discuss it."

"What is it?" asked Marinette, exasperated at the way he kept dodging around the point.

"My Father wants us to fake date," Adrien blurted out. "Which is a silly idea, I know, but he wouldn't listen to me."

"Why does he want us to fake date?" Marinette was absolutely blindsided by this development. Of all the things Adrien could have said, fake dating was at the bottom of her list of possibilities, right under her secretly being a princess and an alien invasion.

"He thinks that it would be good publicity. I tried to convince him to just forget about it, but he's insisting that he speaks to you and your parents about it."

"Okay. What time should we come over?"

Marinette quickly got herself ready for dinner, picking out a dress made of midnight blue velvet, one of her own creations, for a commission that canceled on her when she was half-way through making the dress. Marinette had been furious at first, but she channeled that rage into turning the dress into something that she could wear herself and be proud of. She finished getting ready by braiding back her hair and putting on a light coat of makeup. That was the easy part.

The harder part was informing her parents of the situation, a task that took Marinette almost twenty minutes to fully explain. From the photoshoot over the summer that they vaguely remembered signing a permission slip for, to the catalog that came out that morning, the rumors and speculation that blew up on twitter, and the invitation to the Agreste Mansion - they had a lot of ground to cover. Sabine and Tom were both concerned, primarily for their daughter's safety.

"You haven't been harassed, have you?" asked Sabine.

"I haven't checked my DM's yet," Marinette admitted. "I'm just going to turn my account to private and ignore them. I'm sure people are saying terrible things about me, but I don't really care. It doesn't bother me that they're jealous of a relationship I'm not even in."

"If you see anything that does bother you, or if anything threatens you, make sure you report it," urged Sabine.

Marinette nodded. "I will."

"Marinette, can you finish closing up the bakery while Sabine and I get ready for dinner?" asked Tom.

"Yep." Marinette made her way down to the bakery and started tidying up. She put ingredients away, took leftover bread out of the display case, wiped down tables, swept the floor. The menial tasks soothed her overstimulated brain, allowing her a few minutes to process everything that had happened in the last hour. Once she finished cleaning, Marinette got out her phone and started mindlessly scrolled through twitter as she waited for her parents to get ready. There were a lot of opinions about her and Adrien's 'relationship', some of them better than others.

"Marinette, are you ready to go?"

"Yep." Marinette glanced up from her phone. Her parents were both dressed up for the dinner - Sabine in a dark green dress that Marinette had made for her mother to wear to a wedding six months ago, Tom in a suit with a matching dark green tie. "You both look nice," Marinette complimented.

"Only because I'm wearing your creation. Gabriel Agreste had better take note of your talent before he loses you to another fashion company."

The Agreste Mansion was only two blocks away, so Marinette and her parents walked there, rather than taking a taxi. The sidewalks were icy, and Marinette was glad that she chose to wear flats over heels. Breaking her ankle on the way to break up with her fake boyfriend would be enough to push Marinette over the edge. She already wanted to hole up in her room and never come out again, as it was.

The Dupain-Cheng family was welcomed into the Agreste Mansion by Nathalie, who gave Marinette a sympathetic smile. "I'm very sorry for the trouble that social media has been causing for you and Adrien."

Marinette shrugged her sympathy away. "It's certainly giving me some trouble, but it's not the end of the world. Once we get the word out that Adrien and I aren't dating, I'm sure the public will stop obsessing over it.

Nathalie's smile turned into a frown. "I must warn you, Mister Agreste is going to try to change your mind on the matter."

"Let him try. I've already made my decision."

"I admire your conviction, Miss Dupain-Cheng. Follow me, I'll take you all to the dining room."

The first thing Marinette noticed when she entered the dining room was the worried expression on Adrien's face. The second thing she noticed was the absolute lack of expression on Gabriel Agreste's face, though that seemed to be normal for him.

"Welcome to my home, Mrs. Dupain, Mr. Cheng, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng."

"Thank you for inviting us over," said Sabine.

"Were this about anything else, I would allow the pleasantries to go on. However, this pertains to the safety of our children, so why don't we get down to business."

Sabine nodded. "From what I understand, speculation has been circling the Internet about a relationship between Marinette and Adrien, due to the nature of the photos released in the 2020 Gabriel Catalog."

"Oscar Perrin, the director of the photoshoot, paired Adrien and Marinette up to be featured in photos together. The Internet has mistaken the pictures to mean that there is something more between the two of them."

Nathalie approached the table and set a Gabriel catalog down in from of Marinette's parents before taking her own seat. Marinette glanced over at the catalog, and in all honesty, she understood where the speculation had come from. Though her crush on Adrien had faded to almost nothing at the time of the photoshoot, there was a genuine fondness in both of their expressions.

"This is fairly incriminating evidence," Sabine noted as she flipped through the catalog. "It won't matter though, not once their lack of relationship is officially confirmed by your company."

"That's the part I brought you here to discuss. I do not want to publicly discourage the rumors. If anything, I would like to encourage them."

"Why?" Sabine narrowed her eyes, a look of distrust that Marinette very rarely saw on her mother.

"There is already a lot of attention around Marinette and Adrien dating, especially from people their age, the demographic that the Gabriel brand has been targeting for the past year. If their relationship is confirmed, and Marinette start showing up with Adrien at Gabriel function and appearing in photoshoots, it would be incredible advertising for the new lines of clothes we are releasing for young adults."

"I understand your motivations for keeping them together, but why should Marinette agree. She's already receiving harassment online, and the speculation has only been around for less than a day."

"Marinette is interested in fashion design, is she not?"

All eyes turned to Marinette, who gave a small nod of her head. "I am."

"The Gabriel company does not currently offer a lot of opportunities for young designers, but that could change. Should you and Adrien be in a relationship - fake or real, whatever you decide between the two of you - you would have access to all of Gabriel's resources. I could set up an internship with one of my top designers. Additionally, as a designer, you would begin your career in the fashion world with name recognition as a former model."

Hesitantly, Marinette interrupted. "Former modeling? I thought that I wound just be fake dating Adrien. I understand that I would be going to some functions with Adrien and being seen out in public with him, but how does modeling fit into this?"

"I want you to replace Lila Rossi. She has not endeared herself to Adrien's fanbase and has been causing more trouble than she's worth within the ranks of the Gabriel brand models. I had considered replacing her for quite some time and recently terminated her contract after I found out that there have been quite a few complaints lodged against her from both designers and her fellow models."

"That's... a lot to consider." Marinette didn't want to give her answer yet, because quite honestly, she didn't know whether or not she wanted what Gabriel Agreste was offering.

"I'm not requiring you to make a decision yet. However, until you make a decision I will not engage with any of the fans making speculations about the relationship between you and Adrien. Until you make a decision, the rumors will only increase. The longer we wait to engage with the media about this, the more difficult it will be to discourage speculation afterward, should that be the route you wish to take."

"We'll be giving Marinette all the time she needs to make her decision," Sabine said, her narrowed eyes staring down Gabriel, daring him to disagree with her.

"Of course," Gabriel agreed. "I'm just making sure that Marinette knows all of the possible consequences of her decision. It isn't one to be made lightly, after all."

"Hmm," Sabine didn't let up with her interrogating gaze. Marinette had faced it only a few times before in her life, times when Marinette lied to Sabine about important things. The most recent time Marinette had faced her mother's interrogation was when she tried to hide Lila's bullying from her parents. It had worked for a few weeks until Tom walked in on Marinette sobbing over her own helplessness in the face of Lila's lies. Her parents had called a family meeting and urged Marinette to tell them what had caused her breakdown, but it wasn't until Sabine started putting pressure on Marinette that she finally admitted the truth to her parents. Of course, they would have found out eventually, no matter what. Lila made sure of that when she framed Marinette for assault and theft, getting her suspended until Adrien forced Lila to reverse her lies and reverse Marinette's suspension.

As they ate dinner, making small talk that Marinette wasn't invested in, she weighed the pros and cons of her decision. There were certainly a lot of pros: making connections in the world of fashion, getting to model again, and especially, spending more time with Adrien. However, there were cons: lying to her friends about the relationship, being harassed online, dealing with Lila when she was certain to spin a story about how Marinette 'stole' her spot as a Gabriel model.

In the end, it was Adrien who was the reason behind what she chose. He caught her eye mid-way through the dinner and shot her a hopeful smile. Marinette hadn't gotten to spend much time with Adrien that school year - he was busy with modeling and fencing and she was busy with schoolwork, making commissions, designing her own clothes, babysitting Manon, her duties as class president, and above all, her responsibilities as Ladybug. Without her crush on Adrien pushing her to spend time with him, they only ever saw each other outside of class in group settings. It would be nice to spend some one-on-one time with Adrien, with her friend.

"I've made my decision," Marinette announced as soon as the dessert plates were taken away. "I will agree to go through with the fake relationship."

"A wise decision, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng. I hope that we get to know each other better as your relationship with Adrien progresses," said Gabriel Agreste as he looked Marinette in the eyes.

Though his expressionless face was slightly off-putting, Marinette maintained eye contact with Gabriel and gave him a nod of acknowledgment. "I hope so too."

"One last thing before you leave. I must make sure that you are aware that you may not tell anyone about the nature of the relationship between you and Adrien. No one may know that it is fake - not even your friends."

"I understand."

"Good. Adrien will see you and your family out the door. Until next time." Gabriel exited the room swiftly, the sound of his footsteps fading away as he left the room.

"Sorry that he can be so... aloof, sometimes. I really do look forward to this. I think that it'll be fun to get to hang out with you more." Adrien's bright, hopeful smile reassured Marinette that she made the right decision. "Do you want to get together tomorrow to figure out all the details of our fake relationship?"

Marinette nodded, her own smile tentatively forming. "Sure. Meet me at the bakery?"

Adrien nodded. "It's a date." His wink revealed that it was just a joking quip. However, the tiny part of Marinette that still harbored a crush for Adrien absolutely jumped for joy at the words she never thought she'd hear him say to her. Marinette crushed that tiny part down as best she could - the beginning of a fake relationship was not the place for her crush to reemerge.

Marinette fell into bed that night utterly exhausted by the day she had experienced. As she closed her eyes to fall asleep, she remembered one last important detail - she had forgotten to tell Tikki about everything that had transpired that day. Crap.

[stickvoice1]

Sarms Uk.

Distinguishing Between Archaeological Lamb As Well As Goat Bones Using A Single Collagen Peptide

Content

Sarms Are This Year's Large Muscular Tissue Drug However Are They Secure?

Uk Neqas Guildford Peptide Hormones.

Peptides Are Not Nearly Enough.

Organic Role As Well As Category Of Amps.

In comparison to the firmly dealt with framework of vancomycin, a straight peptide needs to embrace a bioactive conformation upon binding to its target. Typical modes of macrocyclization revealed for the example of a common peptide chain consisting of 2 cysteines, a lysine, and also a glutamic acid. The peptide foundation is given up orange, carbon in black, nitrogen in blue, oxygen in red, as well as sulfur in yellow.

Is Ostarine a drug?

Enobosarm, also known as ostarine or MK-2866, is an investigational selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM) developed by GTx, Inc. Enobosarm.Clinical dataLegal statusUS : Investigational New DrugPharmacokinetic dataElimination half-life24 hoursIdentifiers20 more rows

It is tempting to believe outcomes for people with heart failure could be improved by titrating therapy to BNP degrees. Trials were conducted in specialist clinics, used a selection of BNP tracking approaches, and also did not identify a BNP target to deal with. This research study is promising, however additionally assessment of which individuals with cardiac arrest could benefit is most likely required before this becomes basic technique. BNP surveillance could be effective for younger clients with decreased ventricular ejection fraction. Nonetheless, the populace with cardiac arrest that is tough to take care of is often older and also usually have various other ailment besides cardiac arrest.

Sarms Are This Year's Large Muscle Drug Yet Are They Risk-free?

The Bachem Customized Synthesis Team can supply in-depth recommendations on custom-made peptide alteration of color classified peptides. For maximum cause FRET evaluation, the Trend Fluor ™ dyes should be combined with the exclusive quenchers of the Tide Quencher ™ array. The discharge ranges of the Trend Fluor ™ dyes have a great overlap with the excitation spectra of the advised Tide Quencher ™ acceptors, causing a reliable relieving process. Recommended combinations of Tide Tide Fluor ™ dyes with Tide Quencher ™ peptides as well as their compatibility with other dyes are noted in Tables 1 as well as 2 below.

October 2014 saw the magazine of a study, launched by Andrew, of the result of bread fermentation time on the intestine germs of people with Short-tempered Bowel Disorder. This is the initial component of a wider examination into the under-researched issue of how breadmaking approach affects digestibility and nutrient accessibility. Bread Issues plays an advisory function in this work, which will supply robust evidence for public-health-led development in milling and also baking innovations. Yet it's not likely to supply on any one of the benefits provided above unless lactic acid germs have fermented the dough for numerous hours. Bread is typically avoided by those affected by weight-gain and also metabolic disorder-- appropriately, maybe, in the case of industrial white loaves with a high glycaemic index.

Uk Neqas Guildford Peptide Hormonal Agents.

The 2010 National Cardiac arrest Audit approximated that one in 100 individuals in the UK has cardiac arrest. It has a poor prognosis; around a third of individuals admitted to healthcare facility with heart failure pass away within one year. Administration currently sets you back the NHS around ₤ 625 million a year.

Bikes deal with healing requirements as well as clinical applications that can't be gotten to with existing treatment techniques. , Intrinsic adaptability and structural flexibility of Plasticins membrane-damaging peptides as a strategy for practical adaptability, Eur. , Secondary structure and rigidness in model proteins, Soft Matter, 2013, 9, 9548 RSC. Recognition of elongation factor G as the preserved mobile target of argyrin B, PLoS One, 2012, 7, e42657 CrossRef CAS. The facility of one or perhaps numerous constrained cyclic concepts helps to decrease this unfavorable thermodynamic account of a peptide. Obviously, this advantage can just end up being evident when the applied mode of rigidification does not conflict with binding (e.g. through steric clashes), providing the logical style of suitable loophole frameworks a hard, yet, rewarding endeavor.

Peptides Are Inadequate.

The research study does not show up to sustain a change to scientific technique. The 2010 NICE guideline on the administration of chronic cardiac arrest suggests that BNP (or its derivative N-terminal pro-Btype natriuretic peptide, NTproBNP) is determined in people with believed cardiac arrest that have no history of cardiovascular disease. information BPC157 France as well as echocardiogram evaluation are advised for those with a BNP degree above 400pg/ml. Levels below 100pg/ml are stated to make the medical diagnosis of heart failure unlikely. In the associate research study, the total fatality price was 142 clients per 1,000 per year.

is presently being activelydeveloped by GTxas a therapy for muscular tissue squandering in lung cancer people.

This does highlight the need for many years complete of competitors testing.

I assume in pharmaceutical terms the idea is to utilize SARMS instead of androgens at times, as you explain they can be precisely adjusted to develop tasks in different ways to androgens.

Though there's no way to recognize simply how many of us are purchasing them, evaluation of London's well-known "fatberg"-- the mass of oil and raw material located in the resources's sewers-- discovered SARMs existing in greater quantities than both MDMA and also cocaine.

I would certainly suggest that anabolics aren't observable for months however, numerous will certainly have a very comparable time program to ostarine, relying on the dosage as well as method of administration.

Over the past five years, on-line look for SARMs (or "careful androgen receptor modulators", including andarine and ostarine) have been increasing steadily.

The number of instances is expected to increase with the ageing population. The study was restricted by the quality of the previous tests, the availability of information and the deficiency of monitored clients generally technique. Furthermore, there was no obvious mechanism found that could describe the little benefit. So, these findings should be considered tentative and are not definitive adequate to sustain a modification in method. Various other research study is underway that might much better define the location for this examination. The significance of over expression at the mRNA degree is confirmed by redetection of picked TUMAPs from action 3 on tumour tissue and also additionally by quantification of the TUMAPs themselves.

Biological Duty And Also Category Of Amps.

Absorption enhancers are the elements which momentarily disturb the intestinal barrier to enhance the drug permeabilization. Instability of peptide results from the proteolytic bosom of the peptide foundation. NIHR is the country's largest funder of wellness and also treatment research and also offers the people, facilities and also modern technology that enables research study to thrive. GREAT assistance advises the measurement of BNP in individuals with new-suspected cardiac arrest; even more, plasma NP levels usually drop after therapy.

What does MK 2866 do?

Ostarine (MK-2866) (Enobosarm) This selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM) has been studied and proven to improve lean body mass and physical function. It also increases tendon strength, ligament health, bone density and encourages collagen turn-over.

High levels of c-peptide with a low level of blood sugar could be an indicator of insulin resistance, either type 2 diabetic issues or Cushing's disorder. Reduced levels of c-peptide and also high blood glucose degrees can be a sign of kind 1 diabetes mellitus.

Strategic management of a treatment area needs difficult choices to be made concerning which programs to buy and also which to allow go. Recognizing the quickly transforming competitive setting for your medication prospects is a key input right into these choices. It is easy to lose track of the broader image when a clinical program is in progression as well as obtain blindsided by external events. Bicyclic peptide villains of the serine protease plasma kallikrein preventions have potential application in genetic angioedema-- a dangerous illness characterised by neighborhood swelling in subcutaneous cells and also body organs. Delivering comprehensive remedies to support medication compound and also medicine product development programs.

Long-distance runner Kiranjeet Kaur fails dope test - Sportstar

Long-distance runner Kiranjeet Kaur fails dope test.

Posted: Wed, 04 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Death prices were higher in the BNP-monitoring team than in the BNP-testing as well as never-tested teams. This possibly mirrors that this tiny group were sicker than other clients. BNP-guided treatment had no total result on danger of fatality from any type of cause (hazard ratio 0.87, 95% self-confidence interval 0.73 to 1.04). Sub-group analysis discovered it minimized death for participants matured less than 75 years (Human Resources 0.70, 95% CI 0.53 to 0.92) however not for older individuals.

This programme of work laid out to evaluate the scientific and also cost-effectiveness of BNP-guided therapy for people with a brand-new diagnosis of heart failure between January 2007 as well as March 2013. Cardiac arrest is a condition where the heart can not pump blood effectively sufficient to satisfy the needs of the body. It has many reasons, generally, previous heart attack or hypertension.

" I have actually used JPT's peptide pools (PepMix ™) for several years now, with wonderful complete satisfaction! First CMV acquired peptides and now likewise EBV. Until now, we have actually published data in one magazine as well as plan several extra in the near future." Biobetters and biosuperiors are based upon existing drugs however are not identical to them. peptides uk Canada bpc157 how does it work is packed with essential features improve upon the original as well as can in some cases be extra reliable whilst offering fewer negative effects. They are likewise taken into consideration less of a commercial risk than developing a brand-new drug. Zentraxa needs to day demonstrated their biosimiliar capabilities with Teriparatide and Zadaxin - drugs used primarily to treat Weakening of bones and Hepatitis B specifically. They leveraged this experience to design, develop as well as check 'bio-superiors', medicines which have improved medicinal residential or commercial properties, greater task, minimized adverse effects and reduced immunogenicity than the producer drugs they look for to improve upon.

XPRESIDENT, an innovation system initially created in the laboratories of the pioneering immunologist Hans-Georg Rammensee and also coworkers at the University of Tuebingen, and continuously boosted at the spin-off immatics biotechnologies. displays the targeting ligand for binding to a mammalian receptor.

A C-peptide test is a blood test which is carried out to find out just how much insulin your body is generating. This may work for figuring out whether you have type 1 or kind 2 diabetes or whether you have insulin resistance. DNA inoculation through RALA nanoparticles in a microneedle delivery system generates a potent immune reaction versus the endogenous prostate cancer cells stem cell antigen. DNA vaccination for cervical cancer cells; a novel technology platform of RALA mediated genetics shipment using polymeric microneedles. Scancell is establishing unique immunotherapies for the therapy of cancer cells based upon its ImmunoBody ® as well as Moditope ® technology systems.

in the ideal ratio with phage preserves the tumour specificity of RGD4C/phage-based gene delivery vectors while improving the genetics delivery efficiency. Distinguishing between historical sheep as well as goat bones using a solitary collagen peptide.

[cake-writes]

Fire Breather (Part Six)

Pairings: Steve x Reader x Dark!Steve, Implied Steve x Peggy

Chapter Warnings: Deceptively Dark!Steve, Endgame Spoilers, Angst, Alternate Timeline, Reader Has Powers, 18+

Summary: It all made sense now why he wanted to go alone, why he’d been so distant with you lately. Steve had planned this. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision like yours. And yours, well – it changed everything.

Part Five / Master List

It all happened in a rush. One minute, you were in a jail cell, locked up for crimes unknown and the next, you were back in your bedroom. Well, it wasn’t yours, exactly, but it wasn’t not yours, either.

Tony was extremely chatty as he led the way from lock-up, asking all sorts of questions about where you came from, to which you provided mostly vague answers. You’d already given away too much information in telling him that he’d died because of Thanos. The truths of your own timeline weren’t something that you thought that anyone here should know. You weren’t purposely being secretive, but you didn’t want to cause any more damage than you already had. 

Steve’s hand was warm and comforting on your lower back as they escorted you through the same halls you’d been through a thousand times – but here, only twice.

At first, you couldn’t help but flinch when Steve touched you. He’d hurt you in so many ways. He’d left bruises on your arms and your heart. He’d been so angry and bitter and spiteful with you over the last two days that it took you by surprise when he was finally gentle – and in that moment he seemed so much like your Steve that you found yourself letting your walls down.

It was naïve.

He immediately went to pull away, like he’d overstepped – and truth be told, he kind of did – but you just gave him a small, reassuring smile as if to tell him that it was okay. His eyes were the softest, kindest blue upon yours and, when you felt his hand against your lower back again, you found yourself missing him, missing this.

His affection. His tenderness. His care.

It had been a few weeks since you’d been treated so kindly by him, and even if he wasn’t your Steve, his palm radiated heat through the thin fabric of your shirt all the same.

“Why can’t I access any files?” you finally got enough nerve to ask at the end of your journey, when you arrived at your bedroom. “My clearance was denied.”

The question had been lingering on the tip of your tongue since FRIDAY refused to answer anything in the middle of the night, and you’d been wondering what crime this timeline’s version of you had committed. It must have been bad enough to revoke your security clearance, let alone have you thrown into a jail cell.

Tony’s chatty demeanour disappeared in an instant, and Steve’s hand instinctively slid to your hip, where his fingers dug in, as if to hold you in place – an act of desperation, almost. It didn’t hurt, but it was uncomfortable, just like the sudden change in atmosphere.

You still loved it – and him. Just not this him.

“Why don’t you get settled,” Tony suggested, clearly avoiding your question.

You frowned, before you turned your eyes to Steve, hoping he might offer an explanation. The second your eyes met, though, he looked away, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. He said nothing. Instead, he brought his hand back to his side.

You immediately missed his warmth.

“I guess it has been a tiring couple of days,” you acquiesced, eyeing Steve once more before you turned the handle to your bedroom door. “The meeting’s at eight?”

“Right! Right,” Tony spoke quickly, almost like he’d forgotten all about it. The others would need an update on the situation, and he’d invited you to come along just so that everyone was on the same page. The shock of it all had the team out of sorts, and he knew he’d have to answer your question eventually. The meeting might provide a good forum for that.

“I’ll see you at eight, then,” you told them both.  

“See you soon,” Tony promised.

Only when Tony pointedly cleared his throat did Steve finally look at you again, and all he offered was a terse, “See you then.”

It was a tense and awkward way to end a conversation, but you nodded once and then shut the door behind you with a soft click. When you turned around, you felt the anxiety start to creep in again. Everything seemed so familiar, and yet not. It was eerie. Even your towels in the bathroom were the wrong shade, just slightly – but, surprisingly, when you went for a shower you discovered that your soap and shampoo were the same brands you used at home.

Home.

So many things were the same, but the slight differences everywhere you looked were a constant reminder that this wasn’t your home.

At eight o’clock on the dot, you strode into the meeting room with all the confidence in the world. Well, not exactly. It was a façade, but you needed to exude confidence otherwise you’d shatter to pieces.

The others in attendance had been having conversations amongst themselves, but the second you walked in, all chatter came to a screeching halt.

It was too quiet.  

Tony had sent out a quick email stating that you weren’t a threat, but he hadn’t gone into more detail than that because everyone deserved to learn why straight from the source. That was what this meeting was for.

All eyes were on you, and you shifted uncomfortably at the front of the room. You knew every single person here, but you also didn’t. It was unsettling.

“So, uh,” you started, “I guess you could say I’m not from around here.”

You glanced from Natasha, to Bucky, to Wanda, searching for some hint of recognition from your closest friends, but you found nothing – so instead, you focused on Steve. His eyes were so familiar and so, so blue, and even if he wasn’t your Steve, just knowing that he was there offered some small amount of reassurance. In fact, his presence was stupidly calming. He was still a stranger.

“What I mean is, I’m not from this timeline. Let’s just say that this wasn’t my intended destination,” you continued, nervously fidgeting with the long sleeve of your dark grey t-shirt – something you’d never wear, just like the rest of the tight, dark, form-fitting clothing you’d found in your closet. “I don’t really know what happened to the ‘me’ that you all know, and I was hoping to get some clarity about that during this meeting. FRIDAY won’t tell me anything, and—”

“You died,” Clint interrupted.

Well, he never was one to mince words. Even still, his blunt statement caught you off guard, and you stared at him. “What?”

“Almost six years ago, now,” Natasha spoke up, and despite her flawless, emotionless mask before, it clearly bothered her to discuss this. She wasn’t the only one; just about everyone in the room shared the sentiment. You could see it plain as day: eyes turned downward in bitter recollection, heads hanging low. 

For some, it would have been much fresher in their minds, all the more an open wound, considering they’d just been brought back after a five year absence. Thanos had happened here, too.

“I’ll get you the files,” Tony told you quietly, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “It might be better if you read about it.”

His implication was that this was dredging up awful memories in the team. Even you could see it on their faces. The realization of it – that you’d died, that you’d been mourned – made your throat go dry.

“I’m sorry,” you offered hesitantly, sympathetic and genuine. “I—I didn’t know.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Steve told you, and you turned back to him to find that he was more upset than anyone. To the untrained eye, he might have appeared fine – a little bothered, perhaps – but he clearly wasn’t. You could just tell.

In that moment, you realized that the two of you must have been together in this timeline, too. There was no other explanation. You could read him far too easily. Even if he wasn’t your Steve, he was still like him in so many ways.

The question escaped you before you could hold it back, and you gestured between you and him. “Were we…?”

This wasn’t exactly the right forum for it, but this wasn’t exactly the right timeline, either.

“Yeah,” Steve responded far too evenly for your liking, and he slowly pulled a small chain out from under his shirt upon which hung two silver rings: a small, delicate wedding band coupled with a larger one to match. He didn’t have to say who they belonged to. “We were.”

The two of you were married. Married. Not just dating like in yours. 

It was another level of commitment that you would have reached one day, maybe, if Steve – your Steve – hadn’t been so selfish and made such a stupid fucking decision to go back into the past to be with his first love. That new knowledge shook you to your core, but more than that, it made you angry. 

It hurt, too. It stung to know that while your Steve had abandoned you, this one hadn’t. No, instead you’d been married, and then you died—

“It’s her all right,” Bucky said, then, and it drew you out of your reverie. When you looked over at him, you noticed the sweat dotting his brow, and Wanda’s, and Bruce’s – and then you caught Steve’s gaze once again, and you nearly forgot how to breathe. His eyes were a stormy blue, but you knew in an instant that it wasn’t because he was angry, too; it was because he knew.

Somehow, he knew about what happened in your own timeline. You vaguely recollected rounding on him when you first arrived, spitting some vicious words about Peggy. Not much. Then you mentioned her again to Bucky. Still not much. 

Still, he knew.

“Sorry,” you said again, almost robotically this time, before you made your way to the door. “I just… I need to just…”

You couldn’t even finish your sentence, instead opting to shove open the glass door and exit the meeting room without a shred of the faux confidence you’d displayed before. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t think. All you could focus on was how much you wished that this was your timeline. 

Even if you were dead, here, you knew you must have died happy.

Now, you were anything but. You were a mess, upset and distraught and hating yourself for it. 

When you left, you took the sweltering heat with you.

Part Seven

Tags:  @jennmurawski13​, @stupendousshepherdloverpony​, @flowersbound​​, @mom---nicole​, @clevercamijo​, @argonclearhero​, @unlikelygalaxygiver​, @justendlesssummerfeels​​, @hayleymoondance​, @patzammit​, @fairytaleprincess8314​, @kali-rogers​, @blameitonthecauseway​, @m00nlightandmagic (I can’t tag you! :( ),  @isysen, @clevercamijo, @reerrrrskillz, @titty-teetee, @awkward117, @sebabestianstan101

[jaspitch]

Five Nightguards At Freddys

Night 1- Storm's Archives

Somehow she knew she had to do it. Make it through the night running around the pizzeria, nobody with her, without any power, or a damn flashlight. Storm had never wanted to work at this shitty pizzeria. But oh no, "We gotta stay to keep Michael safe!" Since when had September ever actually cared about Mike anyways?!

So after surviving only three and a half hours on limited power because the generator wasn't worth crap, Storm found herself in complete darkness. When Freddy had started thumping his way towards the office, Storm knew she couldn't just die like this. So, what's the next best thing? Yep, running into party room four and hiding under a table. It was easy, especially considering she was a short stack, 5'4 to be exact.

However, her special uniform seemed to illuminate her. The jacket, which was oversized and a dark blue due to her ranked status by Henry (Executive manager's first aid), had kept her warm, sure. However, because of her small frame, it would hang right before her knees. Which not only meant it caught on things when she moved, but tripped her up, and the blue was somehow seeable in the pitch dark.

Longing for the original, but less warm, baby blue and gray uniform, seemed stupid. And it would be, if Freddy wasn't currently staring at her, his hand having moved the tablecloth up, and Storm trying her best to untangle the end of her jacket from some ribbons that had been swept under the table. As the brown bear reached over, Storm finally untangled the damn sweater and bolted from underneath the table, running for the entrance to the party room.

Man, weren’t Wednesdays just the best? She kept running down the hallway, hearing the metal of most likely Freddy follow her at a decently slow pace. She turned down another hallway, just to be met with a dead end: the janitor’s closet. Now sweating buckets, Storm started to frantically look around. Something caught her eye in the corner. Looking to it with her dark blue eyes, a small ray of hope blossomed in her chest. It was, by far, the most beautiful thing to be stowed upon her. A vent. A vent that could hold someone at least 6′6 with a weight of 350 lbs. Thank the Lord.

When her hand touched the metal, she drew it back. It was fucking burning hot! The heater was supposed to be off after hours! Her only guess was that Fritz left it on again. Regardless, Storm sucked in a deep breath, and then pulled on the metal, which surprisingly gave in and came off. Dropping the damned hatch, Storm jumped a bit and climbed into the large vent. At first, she felt as if she were burning alive, but that almost went away within ten seconds. Almsot as if on que, Freddy passed by, his eyes glowing a light white. They were pupil sized and had black floating around them. Since when had his eyes not been blue? That just fueled the thought of the pizzeria being haunted.

Eventually the mascot walked away, creaking and groaning as he did so. Sighing, she squinted at her black watch, which lit up with a green light when she tapped it twice. The bright light dialated her pupils and aggrivated her eyes, but she got over it. The time was 4:38. Great, it’s only been what, an hour or so? Staying in the vent wasn’t possible, along with her body heat and extra warm uniform, the heater was starting to overheat the nineteen year old. After checking to make sure the coast was clear, Storm jumped out and placed the vent hatch back on. That, of course, took a good ten minutes because the thing kept turning sideways and not sitting straight.

Finally free from her heated domain, Storm went flying towards the office to try and find the flashlight she had dropped when Freddy had entered the room. After searching for a few minutes, she found the flashlight, noticing the glass had a small crack in it. Whatever, Henry could fix that after he found her dismembered body inside one of the mascot suits. It wouldn’t be a surprise if she didn’t see sunlight. Deciding that staying in the room would be smart, Storm sat under the table, dusting a few cobwebs from her jacket as she glanced from under her hiding spot. This place was the abolute worst, especilly in the dark. Fuck, forget the creepy atmosphere when the lights were on.

With plenty of time to think, Storm started to think of the people in her life. Tall, slender, September Charles. He was the best friend a person could ask for. Despite being self-centered and a total introvert, he did anything Storm asked him to do. Play video games all day despite both of them having work? Sure. Going to a party with only druggies, alchoholics, and underage kids? Yep, perfect. Aside from that, he was especially handsome. That thought made a light blush dust Storm’s cheeks. September had somewhat messy, yet silky, shoulder length ginger-brown hair and stunning bright orangish-brownish eyes. He had thin-framed green glasses that sat beautifully on his lightly tanned face. Everything about him was amazing. 

Who else was there to think about? Mike, alright, her mind flew to Mike. He was her other best friend, who by the way, was in some sort of rivalry with September. Beautiful black hair that was shoulder length, matching his bright blue eyes. He was more of an outrovert, but still kept to himself because of how judgemental people were. Storm remembered the first time she saw him at college- struggling with a math course in the multipurpose room. She had been reading a baking guide for lullaberry pie when she had noticed the taller male run a hand through his silky black hair in frustration. Scooting closer, she noted the advanced algebra course he was taking. Which happened to be the same one she had taken last year. “Hey, need some help?” Storm finally asked, making the blue-eyed male look up. “What?”

“Do you need some help? I’d be happy to, that math course is a bit difficult, huh?” Although Mike had been hesitant at first, he eventually got used to her helping him every Monday and Friday. So when she had graduated after taking a one year Doctorate course, Mike had been left alone. That is, until he got her number and address and started doing zoom calls. Of course they sometimes showed up at each others places. Storm had been laughing her ass off when Mike stepped into her large house, his eyes had widened and jaw dropped. Due to her mother being insanely wealthy (and also gone all the time after divorcing Storm’s dad), she had left all of her assets to her after dying. 

It was almost as funny when September and Mike had met. While chilling at a caffe, Mike walked in, catching the eyes of Storm. September noticed this and raised an eyebrow, asking in his deep, monotone voice, “You know this guy?” She nodded and got up, skipping over to him. After inviting him to her table and paying for his carmel macchiato (He complained about her paying but she didn’t care), they both sat down. A flash of recognition crossed both men’s faces before they both gave eachother a glare. She found out that day that September had been one of the people who had completely ignored Mike all while making him look bad. They had both been in the library when they met, standing in line to check out science books. When somebody who had been goofing around behind Mike pushed him, he knocked into the brunette (who was part of the ‘popular clique’) and pushed the books out of his hands.

Turning around with a fierce glare, September recognised Mike from his science and law classes, then picked up his books, looked back to the black haired male and said, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, Retard? I don’t want to contract your disease. “ After that, whenever Mike tried to say anything, even ‘sorry’, September would only say one word. “Disease.” That eventually went away when they were forced to get along. Didn’t mean when she wasn’t around that they wouldn’t be at eachothers’ throats.

A creak forced Storm from her thoughts, making her look up. Two orange three-toed feet were walking past, the weird ‘ahHaRgHhA’ sound coming from withing the chiken’s beak. She no doubtly had her head to the side, twitching and spazzing out. Just as she thought her luck could get no worse, the bell rang and the lights flickered on. Storm, now sick and tired of this shit, scrambled from her hiding place, flipped off Chica, and ran towards the doors. William with his beautiful red bow that held his equally gorgeous purple hair was just unlcking the door as Storm rushed by. “Fucking fix this,” is all she said before handing the flashlight over.

After a one hour drive to her property in a brand new red comaro (Yeah, she’s rich and is only working for fun, duh. Jk, she’s just working there until Mike quits, which means she and September can quit, and then move onto software design.), the small female ran into her house, changed into some comfy sweats and a t-shirt, then fell into her silky soft bedsheets. As soon as her head hit the pillows, she fell asleep, snuggly and warm.

Storm’s Archive ends here. 

[auxgod]

Top 25 Best Rap Logos Of All Time

The great rap logos from the history of hip-hop acted as cultural co-signs, and for every great artist or label there is a memorable stamp of approval. For the past 30 years we’ve seen artist develop a logo the minute they arrive and we’ve seen others get one 3 albums down the line. 

We made a list of The 25 Greatest Rap Logos of all time. Let us know who you’d add

25. G-Unit 

Like the signature Coca-Cola logo, G-Unit’s script font stood out the moment “G-Unit Merch” was officially for sale. It was simple, It was clean, and it was effective with how they had a script to take over the entire music scene in 2003-2005

24. Outkast 

The Atlanta duo Outkast exploded on the hip hop scene in 1994, packed with a logo that immediately let the general public know the South Had Something To Say. Outkast dropped five classic albums that all featured the original logo in some capacity–an impressive feat, considering how unique each cover is compared to the others.

23. Marino Infantry

Marino Infantry may be the newest establishment on this list but they sure deserve the recognition. What ASAP Ant has been able to do with the rap culture/skate culture has been impressive to watch proving there’s no limit to what you can do with shades of the classic “No Limit Logo”

22. 2Pac

The best logos don’t have to be elaborately designed by the world’s greatest artists, but they do have to be recognizable, memorable, and unique to the artist. 2Pac accomplished all of this, despite arguably having the most basic logo on this list. 

21. Sick Wid It

E-40 gets little respect when it comes to content and longevity but his logo says it best. He’s been cashing out and going Ham since the late 80′s and even in 2020 Forty Water takes no days off.

20. Ear Drummers 

With the way MikeWillMadeIt hit the scene in 2011with towering 808′s, this logo fit his “Ear Drummers” brand to a T

19. Eminem 

Similar to 2Pacs logo, it’s minimal but the backwards E would forever standout leading up to Eminem’s success solidifying him and his brand

18. Hypnotize Minds 

With Three 6 Mafia taking the rap game by storm in the 90′s and mid 2000′, one thing that always stood out was the Hypnotize Minds Logo. The Grim Reaper with the Pendulum was always iconic.

17. Young Money (1997)

One of the Newer and underrated logos, Young Money mimicked the New York Yankees logo and made it their own. It works because knowing the History of the Yankees being one of the Richest baseball teams, Wayne using that logo to symbolize their a mini version of them was always raw

16. Odd Future

Odd Future hit the scene and slowly started to change the game. As their cult following started to grow, more fans were buying merch and the Pink Donuts were everywhere in 2010-2013

15. UGK

The Underground Kings have a logo that fits their sound perfectly. Old School, straight to the point and regal. When you saw this logo on the front of an album cover you knew you were Gonna be blessed with some gems.

14. Freebandz

Future hit the ground running. The music, the visuals, and the branding was all the there. The FreeBandz eagle similar to the Diplomats was inspired by the Ramons

13. KEY! 

KEY! is your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper and can definitely be regarded as one of the pioneers of the new wave of Atlanta artist. Whether it be his image or his music, KEY! came out the gate a goat with his one of a kind logo matching his name with a Key of Coke.

12. Young Jeezy

There was a time when a snowman didn’t mean much of anything. But in 2005, Young Jeezy had people like myself getting suspended from school for wearing shirts with this very logo saying “Can’t Ban The Snowman”. Though Jeezy hasn’t used the Snowman in a while, no one will forget wondering just what was going on when it first came out.

11. N.W.A.

Words can not truly explain how iconic this logo is. NWA has been an acronym for a few great things but the Niggas With Attitude changed the atmosphere and those 3 Letters will forever be intense.

10. SoSo Def 

JD and SoSo Far were really one of the best companies who actually had a mascot for their logo. Kanye would later 

9. Bad Boy 

One of the first rap logos i can remember, the Bad Boy baby has been around for some legendary artist. Biggie, Mase, Black Rob, Shyne, Diddy has always has a great roster but could never duplicate the same success he shared with BIG.

8. Death Row 

Death Row Records logo fit their entire demeanor, The Stories told about Suge Knight and various studio sessions along with the incredible Source Awards Speech, Death Row was nothing to be fucked with.

7. Kanye West

One of the best things about “Old Kanye” was seeing “Drop Out Bear” and anticipating how Kanye would apply him into the album artwork some how. Sadly after the Graduation, Ye stopped using him for whatever reason.

6. Run DMC 

The Queens New York Trio Run DMC might honestly have the most replicated logo of all time. This Logo has been copied countless times but it’s mainly because of how trendsetting Run DMC was during this time.

5. Cash Money

You can’t say legendary logos without mentioning Cash Money. The dollar sign along with the Cash Money Records text would be the image rap fans would have to get use to from 1996 til now but mainly in 1999-2000 where the Cash Money Millionaires were virtually impossible to ignore.

4. No Limit 

No other logo would best represent what Master P and the No Limit Soldiers were about to do better than this Army Tank. P bringing out the Gold Tank in the Make Em Say Uhh video use to be a moment you literally couldn’t afford to miss because P was really setting the bar high

3. Diplomats 

Growing up you either wanted to be in No Limit, Cash Money, or the Diplomats. Cam’ron and the Diplomats started to take New York by storm and this logo began to pop up everywhere. Adding Guns to the Talons for the merch, the logo alone was the finishing touches to solidify the Diplomats as one of the best groups of the 2000′s

2. Wu-Tang 

The Wu-Tang “W” is the hip-hop equivalent of the McDonalds Arch. The legendary classic logo represents an entire Clan and their brand of Kung Fu-influenced Staten Island rawness. Even if you don’t listen to their music, this logo may be the most recognizable.

1. Rocafella Records 

While Wu Tang may have the most recognizable logo, the most iconic to us is the Rocafella Logo. Not only the artist, the plan Jay, Dame, and Biggs established, or the way they went about their business, it was the legendary diamond along with the Rocafella chain itself. Watching Kanye get his at the end of the Through The Wire video is still one of the best moments in music history.

[rsballiance]

Be careful, online games may turn out to be the main channel for hacker assaults in the near future

Because of the outbreak of the brand new crown epidemic, many people need to stay at home, and playing games is among the most main method of recreation. With the increase of the game market and people's extreme investment in video games, hackers have targeted video game players. Compared with January of this year, in April, the amount of people blocked from going to game-related malicious web sites or browsing such websites from game-related websites (forums) increased by 54%. IN-MAY, the indicator showed a downward development: it was down 18% compared to April. The number of blocked attempts to access phishing websites using video game themes has increased. It is particularly worth mentioning that from February to April, the amount of notifications from bogus web sites on the Steam video gaming system increased by 40%. The games most regularly attacked by attackers are Minecraft, Counter-Hit: Global Offensive, and TheWitcher 3: Wild Hunt. The users most subject to such attacks are from Vietnam (7.9%), Algeria (6.6%), South Korea (6.2%), Hungary (6.2%) and Romania (6%). Information from various sources indicate that gamer activity has increased dramatically because of the coronavirus pandemic. In accordance with data from gamesindustry.biz, inside March, both computer and game gaming console game sales increased significantly.

Game sales development during the 7 days of March 16-22 In April, the amount of Steam downloads and the amount of online gamers attained record peaks. The next Steam user activity graph (which includes in-video game and client-only installation) (data from the Steam data source) implies that users have the most activity on April 4th. Since then, the activity started to decrease and the rate also slowed up. In addition, through the epidemic, gamers have already been online for a long period.

Steam users each day These circumstances reflected inside the figure are understandable. To begin with, people have more free time to enjoy games. Statistics collected by Nielsen Games (within normal surveys of gamers) confirm this argument:

Gamers from different nations/regions save money time using video games Second, obviously not really everyone who wants to spending some time playing video games includes a computer that allows them to play games. You can understand this by looking at the hardware stats shown on the Steam site. Invest the a closer consider the graph that contains the graphics cards information used by Steam customers, you can observe a clear transformation on the graph, that is completely smooth before March 2020. Up to now, the sales ratio of Nvidia, Intel and AMD provides increased significantly. Since the beginning of the quarantine, the talk about of Intel and AMD images cards has grown significantly. Before you understand that there were more than 20 million Steam customers, this raise was within 2%, which appears trivial. Put simply, the amount of products with Intel and AMD images cards has elevated by hundreds of thousands. Considering the features of images cards from various manufacturers, we are able to safely assume these hundreds of products were delivered to office at home computers through the quarantine time period, and folks installed Steam without the bosses viewing them.

This is also confirmed by the sudden change in the ratio of Intel and AMD processors in the chart (Intel also began to grow from isolation); the amount of cores used by players (atypical development in the proportion of 4-primary and 2-primary processors) ):

Needless to say, cybercriminals haven't noticed the upsurge in the amount of gamers and enough time they spend in the game. For a long time, gamers have already been the favourite targets of attackers, that are mainly thinking about the login title and password of the game account. Now, with the raise of work apparatus in the home system, the attacker's attack on the player will not only straight have the attack income, but also take the opportunity to understand the business's infrastructure. Because house networks have a lower degree of security defense than corporate networks, it is possible for attackers to monitor players' devices. In the first five weeks of 2020, the amount of vulnerabilities discovered on Steam has exceeded the amount of vulnerabilities discovered in earlier years. This reality implies that attackers are significantly thinking about discovering like vulnerabilities.

Because you can remember, at the end of April 2020, Valve discovered the foundation code of popular online games CS: GO and Group Fortress 2. The attacker is most likely already attempting to parse their code to find something that may be used for attack purposes. Loopholes. It is important to recognize that these are not really offline video games, but online games that require connection to video game servers and frequent updates. This makes their customers more vulnerable to assaults because their products are obviously generally online, and gamers are always ready to install "updates" in order never to lose the latest ability to play games. However, even if there are no zero-day vulnerabilities available, the attacker still includes a broad attack space, because as the number of players raises significantly, there will certainly be a large numbers of common vulnerabilities used by security novices. The logic of the attacker is: as the number of players increases, the likelihood of a phishing attack increases. Kaspersky Anti-Phishing and Kaspersky Safety Network (KSN) confirmed this. Compared with February, the amount of clicks on thousands of the most popular phishing websites with the term "Steam" in their titles has increased significantly, and this attack peaked in April.

Compared to February 2020, the amount of hits on phishing and Steam-related topics provides increased Anti-virus detection data for web sites using game designs has increased significantly, for example, including the titles of well-known video games and gaming platforms.

Number of cyber attacks using game designs from January to Might 2020 All sorts of malicious programs have many malicious links, such as malicious software that steals passwords, ransomware, and mining software. As generally, they counterfeit free of charge versions, updates or extensions of well-known video games, and deceptive programs. An identical situation can be seen in malicious documents that make use of game-related titles without being noticed. Use game-related subjects as attack channels These statistics usually do not take into account threats such as hacker tools, which are usually installed by customers themselves, but may be used for malicious purposes. We include remote control access clients, visitors analyzers, etc. in this type. This type is interesting right here because contemporary deception programs frequently use the same techniques as malware, such as memory injection and exploiting vulnerabilities to bypass defense. If we add this recognition to the stats, it'll occupy the first place with a 10% share. According to the stats obtained from our network antivirus, the attackers are usually most concerned about the use of Minecraft. "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" in addition has entered the top 3 most developed games.

Number of assaults on online games from January to Might 2020 Based on monitoring the dynamic shifts in the reaction to the hyperlink containing the game name, we figured from April in order to early Might, the attacker utilized multiple games as the target of attack whenever they attacked. In particular, "Overwatch" and "Unidentified Player" are employed the most. If you look carefully at the image below, you will see many parallel peaks.

Make use of Overwatch and PUBG designs for cyber attacks Attackers inside Vietnam can simply use game-related themes to attack. In this country, almost 8% of system antivirus detections occur on websites named after video game themes. As shown in the amount below, from January to May 2020, the top 20 nations in the attack efforts with the theme of online games.

he top five countries after Vietnam include Algeria, South Korea, Hungary and Romania. In general, the top 20 includes many nations in North Africa, Asia and Europe, specifically Southern and Eastern Europe.

Summarizing the speedy development of the game industry through the epidemic, of course, attackers took advantage of this pattern, and we found that attempts to change to game-themed phishing web sites have increased significantly. However, it must be remembered that is not entirely to be blamed for the attacker, but also because of the user's carelessness. They are obviously fake emails sent to the game service, or they're searching for hacked customers, or seeking to crack some well-known versions. Games and deception programs. Unfortunately, generally, cybercriminals do not need technologically sophisticated answers to launch successful assaults.

[ammar-b-shakir-blog]

Edison’s Life &  Its Inventions

An article about Edison's life and its inventions:

Admiz Melton writes: One day Edison bought all of Faraday's writings and sat down to study the height and slept there. When my eyes opened in the morning, he was sitting and reading. We were both going to a hotel about a mile away for breakfast. What Edison did read was his mind wandering. Somehow he told me, Adams, I have so much work to do, and life is so short that I have to hurry so badly that I have to go to bed. Started running Most of the things we often use in our daily life are ancient and modern inventions of science. Behind all these inventions is the hands of great scientists and inventors who worked hard and achieved a high standard. One such name was Miss Elwid Yason. Edison was probably the greatest inventor in history. He attended school for only six months, but the invention of his bulbs and phonographs changed the lives of millions of people. Edison has patented 1,000 inventions in his life. In reference to Edison's great service to humanity, Henry Ford once suggested that distant life should be called the Edison covenant. Edison praised extraordinary intelligence in these words: a verdict on the idea and a nascent decision on a sweat. He proved this belief by working all the time that he was just at meal time. Edison seemed to find everything strange. He experimented with pharmaceuticals and proposed a program for people's comfort. He was very close to the invention of the Red U. and he used nuclear energy. Predicted about Edison always strives to create things that can work under normal methods without spoiling and easily repair and improve the inventions of other

Early Life:

Edison Milne was born on February 5, 1847 in Ohio. Samuel Edison and Nanny Edison were the seventh child. Edison's grandfather was Judith Holland and mother was from Canada. The family emigrated from Amsterdam to the United States in the 8th century. Seeing the boy's curiosity and passion, his family called him Elva. Elva used to ask them questions constantly. How does the bird escape from the chicken poop? What makes the bird fly? Why does the water extinguish the fire? His school teacher couldn't even answer some of his questions. If no one was able to answer his question, he would try to get the answer from his own experience. One day, Elva learned that bubbles fly because they have gas. So he sent a boy to sidelight. Feed three sauces of safflow Elva was convinced that when the boy's stomach was full of gas he would start flying. But instead, the boy fell sick and lay on the ground, and the world began to feel him spinning.

At the age of seven, Elva moved with her parents to Ho Chi Minh, where her parents started a grain and litter business. Elva entered a public school and hurried the teacher to ask a lot of questions. The teachers used heavy leather keys to kill the children who asked them questions. One day, Elva told the district school inspector Ho Edna's son, Hoyna, is dirty and unable to study. Elva ran home and told her mother. She would go straight to the teacher and tell her in incredible words (Elva is more intelligent than the teacher's entire body in little swallows) and she dropped him off from school. Thus, the regular recognition of Elva Edison lasted only three months. His mother intended to teach him by playing the game, which was unusual at the time. His mother made education a game for him. At first he was surprised at it, but very happy later. He began to learn so fast that his mother could not teach him any more. When Elva was nine years old, her mother introduced her to a book written by Richard Babe Parker, a well-known teacher of the mid-nineteenth century. Elva Edison refused to accept her writings. She repeated each experiment to prove the author wrong. Elva had more than a hundred smells of different chemicals. She had poisoned all the smells to keep her family members away from them. Charles Bachelor, a friend of Elva's, says: "One night I returned, and I was sitting at the dockside, and in front of it was a pile of alchemy and other books, some as high as five feet." He was studying all day and night. In a few weeks, he had looked at all the books and prepared a volume based on his abstracts. He also did many experiments on farms. From the age of nine to twelve, he spent many years in the history of Hume, England, the rise and fall of the Empire, Potter's Discovery of the Senses, and Tuton's Principal of Teacher, Fla. Now it was fall. At the age of twelve, he got a job as a train boy in a grenade trunk train. He used to save newspapers, candy, tea, and peanuts in the train (which runs between Port Huron and Detroit). Was. In his spare time, he experimented with merchandise and chemicals in an empty container. He bought a press and started publishing his own newspaper (the Herald Daily). Due to its unique nature, it began to go hand in hand. It was the first newspaper to be published in a moving train.

Chemical experiments in Elva's train hit him hard. One day, a fire broke out in the foreshore pen, causing a flare in the train's car. At this point, the conductor hit the powerful Elva's ear. Received and threw her out of the box with her chemicals, printing on it and other things. The incident caused Elva to become deaf. However, Elva attributed her deafness to another incident. While she was trying to board a moving vehicle, the conductor pulled her by the ear and brought her to the platform. Edison said a few years later (I He felt something break in his head.) My deafness started from then on and it only increased.

Edison, though not completely deaf, but in the last years he could barely hear the screams. His depression could have ended with a concussion, but he refused to have surgery. Edison did not mind being deaf but thought of an easy way to get one. Edison escaped Barmouth's mouth because of his ear impairment. It happened that Edison bought a large pile of old books in doodler and he took it and left for the house at three o'clock in the night. In fact, a watchman saw him and ordered the thief to be considered. Jason couldn't hear because he was deaf. The guard fired the bullet, but the bullet passed through Edison's ear. Thus the great inventor survived the target. After the train wreck, Elva started to save the newspaper at the stations. One day at the Clemens Railway station, Elva noticed that a freight train was moving towards the station at Mulla Zam's son. Elva rescues the baby in a timely manner. Thanks to the station, Mulazam taught Elva to use a telegraph in return.

.Early Inventions:

1868, In Boston, Edison worked as a telegraphist in Boston. He completed his first invention, which he sought to sell. It was an electronic voting machine that resembled a machine used in legislative assemblies in various states. It recorded the votes of members of the legislature on a large board. Elva Edison took it to Washington and Congress A committee heard it, but the chairman of the committee told him that the machine was not in the Congress's priority: it takes about 5 minutes to attend. Your machine had to make it work. Elva Edison was very angry with this behavior and said that no I will not invent anything that is not needed. And he kept the words of his words. After that time he committed himself to these words in urgent need of the world. Elva Edison emigrated from Boston to New York in 1940. She had nothing and obtained permission to sleep in the futures of an employee of the Goldandecar Company. Elva Edison used her time to understand the stock ticker most of the time. The telegraph was the kind of machine the company used to tell brokers about the price of cocaine. A few days later the stock ticker broke and Edison surprised the manager by fixing it because everyone else had failed to fix it. At that time, the manager offered him $ 5 for a supervisor job. It was great. Edison's busy brain continued his experiments on the stock ticker. It made it so much better that the president of the Goldland Stock Telegraph Company, Jazel Marcel Lefferts, expressed his interest. The leaflets sent Edison a payday and asked what amount he would take to patent his stock. Edison made a decision that he would say $ 5 and accept up to $ 5. He hesitated and said, "Well do Jazel Fur, you offer me .....", Leffer Toss thought for a moment and then said, "Do you accept 3 dollar  ? For a moment Edison found it difficult to control himself. He grabbed the desk to keep himself upright and said gently yes! I think it will be fine.

Magic of Menlo Park

23 years ago Edison established his first workshop in Newyark, New Jersey, with money from Lefferts. It was there that he began to manufacture his own stock-ticker. In the year 2, he modified the typewriter's steel components with wood. It also corrected the intonation and ink distribution of words. Edison Improved Typewriter It was possible to write with machine speed much faster than Yes. Edison Menlo came in. That same year, he improved the telephone by adding a car bin transmitter. This was a very important step in making the telephone workable. Before this change people had to smell the telephone very loudly. Edison's inventive phonograph or record player has been named the most innovative invention in the world. In this regard, no one had ever made a practical model of phonograph, and the specimen was brand new and untouched. Edison has always called phonograph his favorite invention. The idea of ​​a phonograph came about when he was trying to find ways to automatically record telegraph messages. He wanted to record messages on a rotating plate on paper pads. That disk is like today's phonograph. He was walking around. Edison learned from his telegraph analyst how the diaphragm is being made or how the discharge is triggered in the disc that reacts to the sound waves. He made an opening or one that had a caffeine attached to the cabin. On his neck, one of the elbows was opened in which the opening had been cut. I went or mine! Six o'clock baby eats. And I have promoted a ton of wood. Edison decided that he could recapture those moles rather than give them something. Then he can make the word abusive by saying that he has two. Edison made a note and ordered his cousin's footman to take a cue from Crowley or make it. Croatia did, however, confused her, but he confused her. He was asked to make something that was neither alchemy nor evil, but it was mica goodness. On the contrary, Edison did not destroy anything that could be completely mica-good. C could not imagine who used Edison to make this device but he took it and built it. When the C-C, the cylinder-shaped machine comes with Z. Edison's wings or you ask what it is. Edison unintentionally said, "Oh, this machine will smell. He wrapped the fort's foil on the cylinder's neck! The baby at six o'clock eats. He smelled this alphabet in the machine's silence. The machine gave Edison's words every chance. The croc's face turned white with movement. Edison, however, remains a diamond.

Electrical light (BULB):

Light bulb (bulb) Didn't I like the style of the new photo shot? Many two-headed people worked on this concept for years. The Russian-born Michael Najnier Paula Jiblo was persuaded by Pir's family to be archery at the time, but Edison wanted younger boys and girls who could be used at home and at home. Coin - in fact, it was the gas of the heart that was the main source of energy. In 1879 AD, Edison brought out a successful soliloquy of LED light. He did just that for the second time to observe all the flame minutes, which could illuminate the roaring light. The employee was sent to Azzone and another to the jungles of Japan. He had tried about three thousand things for a minute. On 19 October 1879 , after several attempts, Car Edison's fibers were finally able to be applied to the filament bulb. The bulb gave great light. By the morning of October 7, the precious bulb was burning. Finally on October 7, at 2:30 pm, Edison decided to raise two latches, which caused the bulb to burn. On the 5th of September Edison's lightning flashed a new invention of light. Edison became known all over the world as the magic of Menlo Park. Edison won the patent for electric light in January. Edison did more than 3 experiments for the invention of the bulb. In 9 AD, Edison moved to New Jersey, the large and modern Libya rotary of the West and Najj. He spent most of his time working on his new inventions. He organized many companies to develop his inventions. By the end of the decade, Edison began producing animated films and films. He made a comedy based on the inventions of George Eastman and others. In 2 AD Edison combined phonographs and cameras to create spoken pictures. The machine showed some flaws and Edison put it aside. Other people later fixed the flaws. At first people thought of animated films as a toy, but Edison saw them with the hope that it would be through education. He predicted that one day it would change other ways of teaching. Some of his later inventions and distortions include storage irons Tissimeters, cement mixers, duct phones and photocopying machines. From his first patented invention (Golden Artificial Plant to Artificial Rubber) to Edison's society Participation continued at the same pace. He died in the West and Najj on 18 October 1931 at the age of 84.

Edison’s Friends:

Edison had no special close friends. He often liked to be with Henry Ford, Harvey Fairestone and John Barrows. But he worked hard for hours, not having much time for friends. Used to be Throughout Edison's life, his work has always been a joy and a friend to him. Edison was a musician. Despite being deaf, he claimed he could hear the speaker of the phonograph with his skull. Edison was not a religious man but he believed in great intelligence. One time he told his friend that although he is known as a great inventor in the world, he cannot create even the simplest of life. Edison's most important work for the world was not only to invent electric light, but also to map the world's first power plant to reach millions of people. Edison received so many awards for his achievements that he had to say that I needed a mole to produce them. In 1956, Edison's laboratory was declared a national heritage. In 1959, her house was also declared a national heritage. The fact is that not only in life but also after death, the honor and fame that came to the part of Edison, which is very fortunate.

[onwesterlywinds]

Nothing to be Feared

Ashe cursed at herself for wearing white. Now that she was in the Undercity with the coat she'd picked out that morning, she felt rather like she was glowing throughout her trek into the waterways; without any indication of who might have been watching her, the sensation was unnerving. Less importantly, she'd already received some sort of grease stain on the front of her coat, and the smear did not inspire any confidence in her own preparedness as she arrived at the proposed meeting place.

She did not have to wait long for Hawthorne, whose arrival was audible only from the barest movement of fabric. The man strode into view straight-backed, with the result that Ashe, not recognizing him in the dim lantern light without his customary slouch, very nearly made to ready her gun.

"Oddly appropriate location," he said by way of greeting. There stood between them an ancient table, perhaps more than six fulms in breadth, and Hawthorne approached it with long and languid strides. "Apologies for asking you to come alone. But - one of us does have a reputation for grandiose... 'retaliation.'"

Already she was uncertain which of them he was referring to.

"And," he continued with a slight nod, "I in particular am not sure how this conversation will go. Good to see you're well, however."

"Why should this conversation go poorly?" She winced slightly at her own tone of voice, at the way its high pitch carried along the brick-lined tunnel. She continued in a whisper, "You said you may have need of a favor?"

His letter hadn't requested a favor outright, but she knew Hawthorne. She knew, too, that she yet owed him much - not only for the role he'd played defending the Undercity during the day of Ala Mhigo's liberation, but for the guidance he'd shown her throughout the past year at the least. "...I wouldn't outright refuse a favor for you, of all people."

Hawthorne gave a slight wave of his hand, coupled with a shrug. "The 'favor' is that we came to talk at all: a request that you pull away from your work and your business and your friends - pleasant as I am to talk to." Before she could compose a response to his sarcasm, he went on, "This is about your new position within Gyr Abania's brand-new circle of representatives. ...So maybe you're not pulling yourself away from work. Regardless, we'll start with a premise: do you know of any men named Lodewijk?"

She mulled the name over but shook her head.

Hawthorne pulled out a chair from the table and invited himself to sit in it. He performed the gesture with such self-certainty that Ashe found herself somewhat in awe: it was as if the scene around them - the dimly-lit nook, the stifled air, the clandestine meeting - molded to him rather than vice versa. He might as well have crafted that table with his own hands. He looked as though he belonged in the Undercity, and she envied him for it.

"Lodewijk Silverbrand," he clarified. "He does not make himself particularly known except to those who garner his attention. And, with everyone and their third cousins axed off at the hands of Ala Mhigo's many pitfalls, that's gotten a bit easier. Which is also particularly why you're talking with me, and not my father. It could well be believed that all the Alliance aether in the air would abysmal for the old man's health." He smiled. It was not quite a kind smile. "Gods know my father's estate was sodden with the air of 'valiant efforts' for several months, after he asked your father over for tea to discuss his actions at the Temple of Rhalgr."

Her gut clenched at the mention of the Fist's destruction. "I take it he wasn't fond of my father." The words felt trite at once. Anyone who remembered twenty-five years of Ala Mhigan history would have great cause to despise the name Riot.

Sure enough, Hawthorne shook his head. "No, no. It's that it's quite difficult to be fond of a man that keeps putting his foot in the family business." He leaned back in his chair and gave a quiet chuckle, counting off on his fingers. "No smuggling - king's orders. No trafficking - king's orders. No substance abuse, no highwaymen, no prostitutes. No downtrodden scavenging their way through life, or unlucky fellows working for the tithe. Though he did thank Ashley for gifting me more free time. And that's mostly what he's seeing now. One Riot, the hand of the King, working to make a more able working class. And now, Riot Junior, the 'spokeswoman for the Undercity', looking to..."

Hawthorne trailed off, raising an eyebrow in her direction as he let the pause linger, and linger it did. Anyone less skilled in the art of enduring difficult conversations might have withered under the weight of that silence. It was a silence fit for the Undercity.

"You are not your father," he said at last.

And thank the gods she was not.

"Can you tell me first what you anticipate to come of shoving the Undercity into the light?"

Even with the full intent of his gaze upon her, she summoned an almost definitive answer. She had prepared it. "I do not seek to bring the Undercity to any public notoriety. However, I wish to ensure that its people are given a voice in the city's future, and that they will be accounted for if the city needs to be defended again. Anyone who knows of the Undercity knows that the moment the Garleans set foot in its cellars was the moment Ala Mhigo was truly lost." She cleared her throat and continued when Hawthorne did not interject. "And in the event that someone seeks to control the Undercity as a tyrant would - as has happened in the past -" It was as direct of a reference as she could make to the things that she had heard from her father about the assassin Blackram - the man who had killed her grandmother. "-council recognition of the Undercity would enable swifter and more direct action to be taken."

Hawthorne only nodded - a simple token of acknowledgement that revealed nothing.  "Well," he said, "that is a venerable cause," He leaned away from the table, twisting his brawny frame to rest an arm against the back of the chair without breaking his eye contact. "And are you equipped to handle any retaliation that may suggest, say, cutting off this den of thieves at its head? Lyse and Raubahn both have hearts that stretch further than their gaze, but I do not expect the citizens of Gyr Abania's townships to want to put in protection for the kind of people that would beat their brothers and toll their caravans. When most people learn about the Undercity... they see it as an invitation to rid their livelihoods of the men and women that tend to cut short a life. Your father, notably." And then he smiled - a dangerous smile, not directed at her or at anything in her vicinity, which made the expression all the more unsettling.

"At the risk of being overly sentimental," she interjected, "what of the countless, untold children for whom the Undercity is the only life they will ever know? Plenty may succeed as cutpurses or even as honorable people in their own right, but-"

Hawthorne cut her off with an exaggerated gasp, lurching forward in his chair so suddenly that she nearly startled. "Children?! I didn't know there were children in the Undercity!"

She continued as though he had not interrupted her. "I am, of course, prepared to defend the Undercity's traditional and varied ways of life as I possibly can. And I have no intentions of becoming its savior in any sense."

"Yes, we all know how the infallible charity of adoption centers and foster homes of the overworld can be. But... I would urge you to work on your rebuttal. I'm not wanting to get into any kind of mock argument with you about how much easier the governing of a new Abania would be, were we rid of all the deceit that goes on only underground, and never in the governing house or the homes of 'good' men. But those whose hearts fill with light are always rapt with retaliations that show only how much they care. For the good men, of course." He cut himself off abruptly, only for a much sterner expression to cross his face. "Tangents aside, I'll move on. And, trust, I do intend to get to the point somewhat quickly. How much of the Undercity then do you know? Do you know the roads? The gates? Family names outside of 'Silverbrand'? Do you know things like the Undercity's cant, or bespeakings of passageways? Or all the little bureaucratic intricacies that dark hearts are obsessed with?"

"I know more of the passages than one might think." How much of it can be attributed to her father, not even she knew, but she could suspect that it was a fair amount. "I know that the magicks binding doors and gates are called sigils, and that their keys are shared either through a spell or a relic or both. I know of the Duskwight clans living in their own caverns and the limestone quarriers and others; I know of the underground market that changes location with each meeting. I don't remember as much of the cant as I used to, though I believe I knew more of it as a child. And I know of some... relatively recent histories. Dark things hidden in the catacombs that my father put to rest. I believe you helped him in that regard, did you not?"

Hawthorne let out a loud laugh - the first thing he'd done to betray the secrecy of the atmosphere that had been lain for their meeting. The laugh echoed, crashing agains the walls and the motley of boxes around them, following into the deep and dark that surrounded them where they sat. "I have never helped Ashley Riot with a thing in his life," he said, still grinning. "And whether or not your old man attests to that, I can promise I will only ever continue to be that proverbial thorn in his side.

"Now, Ashelia, Grand Steward of the reformed and not-aligned-with-the-crown Riskbreakers, helping hand in the liberation of Ala Mhigo, Fiend to the Imperials and Spokeswoman of the Undercity - you're gaining quite a lot of titles, aren't you? - I am going to urge you tonight that you put your best into getting very very good at lying."

The word gnawed at her heart, but Hawthorne continued before she could so much as open her mouth.

"A woman whose soul aches for the many impoverished that exist beneath the salt, but does not know the entryways. The cant, the families. Of course everyone knows Silverbrand, and of course everyone's met one or another soul that's climbed their way out. But in short, however good you get at getting people to believe there is some spark of this world worth saving, the reason we are having this conversation tonight is because my father is quite concerned for the city's safety. Do you understand you are a threat?"

"I understand," she replied, before the word and its possibilities could begin to settle on her. "And I can imagine that it won't be as simple as convincing him of my 'good intentions,' or that I'm nothing to be feared."

"Many people with good intentions fuck it up," Hawthorne pointed out. "I have no belief that you are going to come rushing down, gun in hand, to set a city right after you have gained the trust of any of the suffering. Nor do I believe that you are looking to weave your way into the ranks of politics and 'accidentally' light a fire that would see Ala Mhigo cleansed of every man's suffering. But a smart man puts just as much fear on a crusader with a righteous vision and an axe as he would on a capable young woman who probably has too much experience with deep waters and getting into things over her head."

He smiled at her again - this time an encouraging smile, the sort of smile that made her want to smile back. Before she could do so, it dropped from his face like a hundred-tonze weight.

"What I mean is, should anything happen in the Undercity - even should the Resistance place one foot too far - it would be all too easy to tie it back to you, truthfully or not. A lapse in speech, a political suggestion worded a bit wrong. The wrong person noticing the wrong thing about the girl who wants to save the villains but treads to odd places at night. And then, well... you and I would be having an entirely different kind of conversation about that."

Once again, she could only ponder his words. "I'd like to thank you for your... candor." Perhaps that was the wrong word, given that so much else yet remained for him to divulge. "Given everything you've told me, do you have any recommendations for how I should proceed? Aside from dropping all involvement with the Council and never setting foot in the Undercity again, that is."

Between Gisfrid's reemergence and a thousand other tiny threats, she had too many things clamoring for her attention - too many people asking for her favor with the new government. It had already become exhausting, nigh on overwhelming, and yet she would have to manage so much more of it in the days ahead.

Hawthorne leaned forward again and crossed his arms atop the table. "Steel yourself." He stared up at her. "Not against Garleans or horrors, but against the good-meaning people of Gyr Abania, above and below, who want only to keep their families safe. And maybe, too, against your morals. As I said, there's worth in what you want, and even my father can agree there can be benefits to him as well from this..." His head tilted, like a visual discard of one or several words that he rifled through quite quickly before landing on one. "...new opportunity for the Undercity."

"If-"

"Those we can talk on at a later time. But you will be the subject of no shortage of scrutiny from any angle, and you will need to be ready for what is asked of you. Work on your rebuttals, polish up your lying, pretend you don't know anything; that will put you at a good headstart from both your political opponents and my father's ire. But, do be aware, after all that gets cleaned through, if your head is still where it should be on your person, Lodewijk will also have requests of you and your representative position that will be a lot harder to counterpoint than the ones I am sure you are already receiving. And I suggest you make ready for that, in whatever way you best see fit."

"You're saying I should... act as if I know nothing about the Undercity." The proposal felt counterintuitive, particularly since she was still doing her best to learn more about it day by day; she doubted she could feign ignorance while searching out more answers about the passages beneath Ala Mhigo and those who lived there.

"You cannot accidentally reveal information you do not, figuratively speaking, know. If you are explaining the need of, say, children, to use your example... you hear about them all the time. You have friends who came from that life. You have children at the Sandsea who you have found stranded in the mountains that have such an affinity with locks or a strange way of talking about things. 'But, no Lyse, I do not know what they're saying, or exactly where they were found. The mountains are big, after all, and I grew up in Thanalan.' You know the Undercity is ripe with drug addicts who are looking for recovery because you have met them here in the Ala Mhigan Quarter, and they only want a chance at hope. But, where had they gotten their supply? 'No, I do not know. They are making a strong recovery and it would be unsafe to reopen wounds.'" Hawthorne nodded at the understanding surely dawning on her. "You might get kickback about being a shortsighted upstart who needs to do more research into the causes she's helping, but you can tell them you're guided by your heart and all that flowery, earnest talk they love. After all, you're the one who raced into a fight against Garlemald headlong. I think the image is fitting."

She nodded again. His words offered a reassurance - a tenuous one, but even so. "And as for Lodewijk, I should simply keep to my own business and hope that he does the same?" It felt presumptuous in a way that she was not comfortable with; relying on chance and leaving her wellbeing in another's hands had never been her preferred strategy. Yet perhaps her only other choice would be to launch a full-scale surveillance initiative against one of the most notorious men in the Undercity, and not even she was that reckless. "That should be simple enough." She smiled a little wider, though she could not suppress the barest hint of a smirk. Hawthorne mirrored the expression. "Was that all? I am grateful to you for your guidance, of course, but I was under the impression that you had summoned me here to discuss a way in which I might help you. Unless that's simply by keeping my nose clean."

"That is precisely it. That, and the favor of allowing me to to talk uninterrupted and at length, a task which at least your father loathes." She giggled. "At least, he makes it seem very tasking. If anything my father does needs to concern you, you will be told about it. Otherwise, as everything else, my suggestion for him is that you keep yourself in the dark and remember that I do not have my sister's blessed disconnection from my family. Very many things still reach my ears, though I am just an old and out-of-date man with too many plates in my house and too many adventurers trapping about my ceiling."

"I think you have the perfect amount of plates," she teased.

Hawthorne laughed, and stood in a single movement. "Focus on your politics, and a public image - and the Silverbrand family will continue to see that the Undercity both thrives and serves its own."

Ashe inclined her head in a gesture that was almost a bow, and when she looked up, the former monk was gone. Only once she was back in her house did she start to wonder if she made a mistake in meeting him in the Undercity of all places.

[processproductionsophielindsay]

SUZANNE LACY

Suzanne Lacy, Prostitution Notes (1974)

https://www.suzannelacy.com/prostitution-notes/

Suzanne Lacy, Three Weeks in May (1977)

https://www.suzannelacy.com/three-weeks-in-may-recreation/

Suzanne Lacy, Crystal Quilt (1985-1987)

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern-tanks/display/suzanne-lacy-crystal-quilt

Suzanne Lacy, Alterations (1994)

https://www.suzannelacy.com/alterations-1994/

Suzanne Lacy, The Life and Times of Donaldina Cameron (1977)

https://www.suzannelacy.com/the-life-and-times-of-donaldina-cameron-1977/

Childhood

Suzanne Lacy was the first of three children born to Larry and Betty Little Lacy in Wasco, California in 1945. She described her father's heritage as "a very poor Tennessee hillbilly environment," while her mother was white Canadian Scottish. Larry had a military background and flew bombing raids over Germany during the World War II before becoming an insurance salesman. Betty worked as a clerk in a gas company. Suzanne's brother Philip was born in 1947 and sister Jean in 1962.

From a very young age, Lacy had a heightened conscience, stating "I was interested in social issues as a child. At first, it was homeless and hungry cats, but after five I began to understand, in some primitive way, injustice." She read magazines and was interested in the Salem Witch trials. She would come to learn that women were not seen as equals to men and that Jewish people and the black community were badly treated.

In 1963, Lacy became the first in her family to seek further education when she enrolled at Bakersfield Community College. She excelled, winning a scholarship to the University of California in Santa Barbara in 1965. There, she obtained a degree in zoology while also studying art and modern dance. Her initial intent was to train as a medical doctor, specializing in psychiatry, and she went on to study psychology as a postgraduate.

In 1968, she joined Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) where she started to become politically engaged. She found great inspiration in the Civil Rights Movement dealing with class inequality. She recalls, "We were concerned with how working-class boys were sent to Vietnam and how farmworkers in the Central Valley were being mistreated."

Early Training Lacy's experience as a female growing up amongst the Californian counterculture of the time shaped her beliefs. She would continue on to Fresno State College to further her studies in psychology and while there gained a reputation as "that angry woman." According to her, "I suspect I was quite formulated by that moment in ways that have lasted: my relationship to my body and to physicality, my commitment to social change, equity, my lifelong interest in cross-cultural friendships, understanding difference, my general resistance to tradition. I can't say that I've come to reject much of that at all."

It was at Fresno that she met artist Faith Wilding with whom she felt an instant connection. Lacy says, "She was probably the only other person at Fresno that knew anything about feminism. We proceeded one day to stick up signs all over campus saying, 'Feminist meeting tonight.' There must have been over thirty or forty women who showed up. Faith and I sat there dumbfounded and looked at each other and said, 'What do we do now?' We did what has become, I think, a kind of strategy. We began talking about sex." Together the pair started organizing groups to discuss women's liberation.

In 1970, the artist Judy Chicago arrived at the school to teach art and sculpture and began to build the seminal Feminist Art Program. But when Lacy tried to join she was rejected because of her lack of artistic background. Lacy recalled, "[Chicago] said, 'You are on the career track for psychology, and I'm only interested in working with women who will become professional artists.' I didn't know what on earth she was talking about, but I did know I really wanted to be in that program. So Faith and I proceeded for the next several months to strategize how to get me into the program, which we eventually succeeded in doing...I love to tease Judy now, because I'm probably one of the most successful of the artists from that time, along with Faith. We've always teased her about what bad judgment of character she has."

When the Feminist Art Program transitioned to the California Institute for the Arts in 1971, Lacy followed. She worked as a teaching assistant to artist Sheila de Bretteville and studied with Performance artist Allan Kaprow. Inspired, she began producing her own unique brand of what she called "new genre public art," utilizing a mixed media smorgasbord of visual art, film, performance, installation, public practice, and writing. As biographer and art historian Sharon Irish said, "This variety indicates her ceaseless experimentation and challenges her critics and audiences both in labeling her art and in knowing what to expect with each new work."

Yet regardless of medium, Lacy's intentions toward affecting real social change would sit forefront in all of her burgeoning art and activist endeavors. For one early effort, which was inspired by the late '70s Hillside Strangler murders and other acts of violence against women, Lacy and Leslie Labowitz set up the woman's network Ariadne, a group that brought together women in the arts, media, and government to promote feminist issues and act as a voice for the underrepresented.

Mature Period

Achieving recognition as a female artist in the 1970s was no simple feat. Lacy met with all the usual gender discrimination, saying, "People don't always recognize what it was like then, particularly given that there are so many women in the art world now. While there's still a lot of discrimination (men's art prices are higher, they are better recognized, etc.), at that time there were very few women at all recognized or exhibited." Much of Lacy's work was produced in collaboration with other female artists, at times attracting aggression. On one occasion, as she performed with Chicago and Wilding, she uttered something so provocative to one of the men in the audience that he jumped up on stage and tried to strangle her.

This devout feminism enhanced by perpetual curiosity, and a mission to exhaustively research, analyze, and present the results of her never-ending lust for aiding activism and social justice efforts within our society dominates Lacy's public persona. Not much is known, or written about, her social or personal life as she has continued to travel widely for her work, both inside the United States and internationally to places as varied as Vancouver, Canada to the United Kingdom to Quito, Equador. She says, "I just go where I am invited, and where I will learn something. I like traveling and working in a place different to the one I grew up in. I am quite curious about new environments and people."

Because the nature of her work is typically performance-based, Lacy's pieces cannot be archived in the traditional sense. This has resulted in a lack of solid documentation representing her oeuvre. But the connections she has fostered and relationships she has built are timeless. Through these associations, she has sought to leave a legacy for Feminist artists such as the work she did in her early role as a cofounder of the Women's Building, the center of study and activism for women artists that grew out of the Feminist Studio Workshop, established in 1973 by Chicago, Arlene Raven and Levrant de Bretteville. For her 1979 work International Dinner Party, a tribute to Chicago's legendary The Dinner Party (1979), Lacy organized more than 200 women to host dinners worldwide, including artists Mary Beth Edelson, Ana Mendieta, and Louise Bourgeois.

Although Lacy has found critical international recognition for her work, it has not been a lucrative career. As Sharon Irish said, "Lacy made substantial sacrifices in terms of opportunities, income and fame." Her works - often expensive and complicated to organize - have been largely funded through foundations and corporations, leaving her without a straight-forward commodity to sell to a collector or gallery per se. As such, she has consistently supplemented her income through teaching, arts administration, and critical theoretical writings on her art, her process, and art's place in social change.

Current Work

Lacy's artistic practice continues to thrive and influence the next generation. A recent project titled "School for Revolutionary Girls" orchestrated at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin saw Lacy working with twenty teenage girls over a ten-day period. The "workshop" had the young women explore their own relationship to the 1916 rising of the Irish Revolution and its connection to their own lives growing up as females in contemporary times. After the consciousness-raising process, the girls presented their own "manifesto," for some the first endeavor at practicing, and experiencing the power, of their own "public" voices.

The Legacy of Suzanne Lacy

In 2019, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts simultaneously presented the first full retrospective of the artist's 50-year career. Titled Suzanne Lacy: We Are Here, the exhibition was, in her own words, "reactivated" for a contemporary audience. The curators explained, "Her work resonates very much with our current times - given her focus on issues such as the rights of women, the role of media in criminalizing youth of color, the importance of dialogue across divides of gender, age, race and class - these are of central importance everywhere today, including in museums, and we expect it will continue to resonate for the foreseeable future." As art historian Bridget Quinn pointed out, it is a "somewhat depressing commentary on social progress" that Lacy's work is still so relevant today.

After visiting the retrospective, Quinn described, "Maybe it's coincidence, but the further into the exhibition I went - passing pieces on animal cruelty, aging, plastic surgery, rape, and other forms of violence against women - the fewer people were with me. By the time I reached the back wall, only two other women were still looking. One said, 'Let's change, Joyce. This is dealing with some very heavy subjects,' and they went back the way we came."

The power of Lacy's work has undoubtedly been in its ability to effect real social change. For example, her works focused on sexual violence in the 1970s helped end societal silence toward acknowledging rape and improve police response. The feminist art historian Moira Roth has discussed Lacy's impact in terms of her status as both "witch" - the messenger who highlights taboo subjects which otherwise would not be spoken - and "shaman" - a figure standing at the center of society, observing in order to hold benign healing space.

Lacy's reach can be seen in the work of a new generation of politically engaged artists such as activist artist Eric Millican, performance artist Cindy Rehm, and painter and sculptor Mabel Moore.

[d-s-winchester]

Salem

(gif credit to the creator)

Part Five

Master List

Pairing: Misha x OFC Word Count: 1,690 Warnings: None? Language probably A/N: Part five is here ladies and gents! Thank you all so much for your support on this! I’ve been holding on to this for a while, wanting to wait until today to post it because it’s OC Day! A HUGE thank you to Nicole (aka @iwantthedean) for betaing this for me, without her this story would never see the light of day. Anyway, feedback for this is awesome! :)

The day Ophelia returned to work after recovering from the flu, Christine walked into the shop looking more pissed off than Ophelia had ever seen her. She ignored Ophelia’s greeting, not even bothering to look at the other woman as she walked to the back to store her bag and jacket. After a few minutes, Christine emerged from the back room and went straight to balancing the shelves. After working in silence for a while, Ophelia decided she couldn’t take it anymore.  

 “You okay?” Ophelia asked.

 “Yup,” Christine replied curtly and still without a look in Ophelia’s direction.

 “Did something happen?”

 “Nope.”

 With a frustrated sigh, Ophelia ran her fingers through her hair. She would rather send Christine home than deal with this treatment all day.

 “Did I do something to you?” Ophelia pressed.

 Christine just shrugged and moved on to another shelf.

 “Seriously, Chrissy, what the fuck is up with you?”

 With a huff, Christine stopped balancing the shelves and turned to face Ophelia, crossing her arms over her chest.

 “You can spend the last three days hanging out with Misha, but you can’t come to work?” Christine bit out.

 Ophelia’s eyes grew and her brow nearly hit her hairline. “What?”

 “You heard me. I’ve seen him going to your house every night since you got sick!”

 “So what? He was coming to keep me company, why does that bother you so much?”

 “It doesn’t -- I just think if you’re feeling well enough to hang out with some guy all night, then you’re well enough to come to work and not leave me in the lurch during the busiest time of the year for us.”

 “Us? Really?” Ophelia scoffed. “I own this place, and you’re not even on the payroll. You come and help out. There is no us and if you’re so pissed off about it, then you can leave.”

 “Fine. I will.”

 Christine stomped into the back room to grab her things before storming toward the front of the shop.

 “And for the record, all we did was watch movies!” Ophelia called out after her, not entirely sure why she felt like she needed to justify herself or any part of her life to Christine.

 Christine flipped Ophelia the bird before letting the door slam behind her. Ophelia let out a frustrated groan and went to finish balancing the shelves. She wasn’t worried about having to deal with the rush of customers by herself; she’d done it plenty of times before. What she was worried about, however, was not having a single minute to herself for the entire day.  

 ***

 By the time lunch time rolled around, Ophelia was ready to close the shop for the day and go to bed. She knew she couldn’t just up and close during such a busy time, though, so she continued to help the endless myriad of customers that walked through the door. About the time Misha walked in, Ophelia was ringing out one customer and motioning for another to wait with his question until she could help him. It was the same time Misha always showed up to do his research, but this time the place was far from empty.

 Ophelia acknowledged his presence with a small smile as she finished ringing out her customer. Misha returned the smile and walked behind the counter just as the customer stepped away with her purchase.

 “It’s crazy in here,” he commented. “Where’s Chrissy?”

 “She left,” Ophelia said, rolling her eyes as another customer walked up to the register. “We got into a fight, and she stormed out.”

 “You’ve had to deal with all of this all day alone?”

 “Pretty much,” she replied, ringing the customer up while one of her regulars not-so-politely reminded her that he still needed help on the floor. “Give me a minute, Alan!”

 “Do you need some help? I don’t know much about the stock but I do know how to work a register,” Misha offered.

 “Really?!” Her petite features flooded with relief.

 Misha nodded. “Yes, really.”

 “You’re a godsend, thank you!” she exclaimed, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Finish ringing this guy out, if you don’t mind. I have to help Alan before he loses his mind. He’s been coming in here once a week for years -- you’d think he’d know everything by now.”

 Misha chuckled as he watched her make her way across the shop. It took him a minute to figure out the register, but once he got the hang of it, he was able to get all of the customers rung out with ease. Within an hour of his arrival, the shop had emptied out. Finally, Ophelia was able to close for lunch.

 “You want something to eat?” Ophelia asked, slumping against the front of the counter. “I’m fucking starving.”

 “I could eat,” Misha chuckled. “Want me to go grab us some pizza or something?”

 “Nah, I’ll go get it,” Ophelia said, forcing herself to stand upright. “I need to get out of this place, even if it’s only for ten minutes. If you wouldn’t mind straightening up a little while I’m gone, that would be great.”

 “Yeah, no problem,” Misha smiled.

 Ophelia smiled at him and went into the back room to grab her purse and jacket.

 “Pepperoni okay?” she asked as she came out of the back room and pushed her arms through the sleeves of her jacket.

 “Perfect.”

 “Okay, I’ll be back in a few.”

 She gave him a small smile and asked him to lock the door behind her. He followed her to the door, waving a little as she started the short walk to the pizzeria a few doors down from The Hexbag. She placed her order, then took a seat by the front window of the restaurant while she waited. As she watched the people walking by, a man standing across the street stared at her; his gaze caught her attention. A short wave of recognition passed through her brain, and her heart stopped. There was no way she could be seeing the man she thought she was seeing.

 Ophelia didn’t have time to think about it, though, as the man behind the counter announced that her pizza was ready. She paid him and quickly made way out of the pizzeria to find the man she had seen on the sidewalk. She wasn’t quick enough it seemed; he was already gone. She took light steps back to her shop, and by the time Misha unlocked the door and let her in, Ophelia’s entire body was shaking.

 Misha noticed instantly the change in her demeanor. Though relief had started to relax her muscles when she left, she was now tense all over again, not to mention white a sheet and looking as though she may faint right there in front of him. Just in case, he made quick work of placing the pizza on the counter and helping her onto a stool before going back to lock the door again.

 “You okay?”

 “Yeah,” she answered, clearing her throat when her voice came out too weak to be convincing.

 “You sure?” he asked, concern furrowing his brow and make his bright blue eyes a shade darker. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

 “I very well might have,” she said, taking her jacket off. She had stopped shaking, but now felt as though the room was overheating.

 Misha cocked a curious eyebrow at her.

 “You go ahead and start eating,” she directed. “I’m gonna throw this stuff in the back and then I’ll explain everything.”

 Not wanting to stress her any further, Misha went back to the counter while Ophelia stored her things in the back room. She returned seconds later and grabbed her slice of pizza. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Curiosity nearly got the best of him, but Misha held on to his questions while she ate, certain that she would offer answers when she was ready. Sure enough, when she was not quite done with her pizza, she wiped her mouth with a napkin before clearing her throat a second time.

 “I thought I saw my dead boyfriend,” she stated, cutting straight to the point. “For a couple weeks after he died, I thought I was seeing him everywhere, but I knew it was my mind and grief playing tricks on me. Christine told me she saw him, too, and agreed it was our minds and grief -- after all, Christopher was her twin brother. This time, though, it was different. He looked so...real. He’s been dead for six months so I probably sound crazy, but I’m sure it was him.”

 “You don’t sound crazy,” Misha assured. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did he die?”

 Ophelia sighed and took another bite of her pizza before continuing. “It was sudden. A brain aneurysm. He was there one second and gone the next.” She had to pause then to fight the oncoming tears. “I’ve spent a lot of time over the last six months trying to get over him, and I was finally there -- or I thought I was. But now, all of those emotions seem brand new. I’ll be fine, I’m sure. Once I convince myself it wasn’t really him, that is.”

 “I’m sorry, Lia,” was all Misha had to offer, besides a squeeze of her hand.

 “Thanks,” she sighed and went back to eating her pizza.

 Misha did feel sorry for her for having to go through the grief and confusion again, but he would be lying if he selfishly found him concerned for other reasons at seeing Ophelia so upset. His feelings were undeniable; they had come out of nowhere, it seemed, but they were stronger than anything he had felt for any other woman he’d been involved with before. Between Ophelia’s certainty that she had seen Christopher walking around town -- and more than once -- and his recent research on necromancy, his mind ran wild. The possibility of Ophelia’s ex-boyfriend coming back from the grave would surely only work to once again erect the walls Misha had worked so carefully to break down.

Forever Tags: 

@iwantthedean @ellen-reincarnated1967 @atc74 @chelsea072498 @easelweasel @xtina2191 @charliebradbury1104 @growningupgeek @girl-next-door-writes @beacon-hills-chance-harbor @smoothdogsgirl @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @iwriteshortstuff @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @swimlola13 @mrswhozeewhatsis @illisea @bookyholic @neagansgrimes @dauntlessdiva @like-gabriel-and-castiel @anokhi07 @emoryhemsworth @teamfw67

Castiel/Misha Tags:

@sandlee44 @kristendansmith

Salem Tags:

@tiffanycaruso @supernaturalismalife​

[tatastreehouse]

Watch "The Wethouse" on YouTube

Penny Woolcock



THE WET HOUSE (2000)

I hate walking past homeless people on the street as most of us do. I feel embarrassed, ashamed and helpless. So I decided to close the distance between us, look people in the eye and have them look in mine. Initially my idea was to make a documentary about rough sleepers (which I did 10 years later – see On the Streets). My assistant Rachel Das and I did wander around the streets and parks for a couple of weeks and I can’t remember how we heard about Providence Row, a wet house in Bethnal Green. A wet house is a hostel that does not require residents to stop drinking, offering safe accommodation and meals to those who can’t or won’t stop. Most of the residents at Providence Row were fragile and would have died quickly if they were left outside but there is a school of thought that by allowing the residents to drink all day they will die sooner than if they are on the streets. I don’t know what the answer is.

Our first visit was unforgettable. Rachel and I were taken towards to the main communal area but as we approached the door a tall skinny man with badly fitting false teeth and a crooked toupee – we later knew him as Willy the Wig - staggered up to the doorway declaimed, “Bah bah bah bah bah,” as his trousers dropped down to his ankles.

Willy lurched off and we emerged into the large communal room to see Jimmy unsuccessfully trying to stand up, Belfast Tommy yelling abuse, Jamie Blue sucking at her blue glue bag with her sweet face and doleful eyes and Michael Chandler a man with a hideously charred face and hands burnt to black claws stumbled up gently took my hand. His nose was dribbling. I can’t remember anything he said because I was in shock. I looked to one side and saw Rachel frozen, staring into space next to me.

A residents meeting was called a few days later to see whether in principle they were interested in being filmed.

Chairs had been laid out in rows for about thirty residents. I had prepared a speech but with the men yelling at each other and falling off their chairs I stuffed it in my pocket and kept it simple. “I would like to make a film about you for Channel 4. If you don’t want to be in it I promise not to film you. Rachel and I want to spend some time getting to know you first. Does anybody have any questions?” There was a rumble of agreement and Rob’s hand shot up with a question. He stood up. “Yes I have a question. I like the cunt and not the arse!” There was a wave of disapproval and demands that he sit down. “But I do!” Rob protested but sat down.  There was a unanimous show of hands and we were on.

We spent the next two months at the Wet House, getting to know people and making sure they understood what we were doing while Providence Row went through a lengthy process to see whether they would give us official permission to film. The a challenge was getting informed consent from people who were always paralytically drunk.

Rachel and I took the Central Line to Bethnal Green every day and then a five minute walk up the road. By the time we caught the tube in the evening we could clear a tube carriage, even at rush hour. The chairs that lined the big room where we spent most of our time had soft cushioned seats that soaked up piss. We’d sit down and slowly our trousers would get damp and then very wet. People who are very, very drunk tend to fall over a lot which means they have no front teeth and that means they spit a lot when they speak. And there’s a lot of snot flying around too. Personal hygiene is not high up the list of anybody’s priorities. So by the end of every day Rachel and I were liberally coated in spit and snot and reeking of piss . I remember saying to Rachel early on, “I must tell you that you stink.” “So do you”, she retorted. At the beginning we had to overcome our instinct to recoil but as time went on we both moved through those scarred, injured faces into a recognition of our common humanity. I looked forward to going in every day.

Our standards dropped. In the tube one night I asked Rachel, “What’s that green line on your fleece?” “Nothing,  Willy the Wig licked my back”, she said airily. I nodded and we continued talking about something else. Others were not so understanding. When I visited my son I was banished straight into the garden and not allowed to hold the baby. So I’d go home, straight into the bathroom, drop my clothes and stepped into the shower.

I loved my two months at the Wet House and formed close relationships. Michael Chandler was a lovely man – his story is in the film so I won’t tell it here but he was haunted by a set of photographs. Jamie Blue the glue sniffer was destroyed by her habit but there was a sweetness about her that was irresistible. Uncle Tony, the Brickie, Belfast Tommy and Carpark George all live on inside me and in the film. They are all dead now. We left Annette on a high note, sober and shiny but years later I was told that when she watched the film she fell off the wagon, went back to the booze and died. I had made a special extra filming trip to film Annette clean when the film was almost edited so she could be proud of seeing the change she had achieved. If it was the film that destroyed her, what was it about seeing herself as chaotic as she had been that drew her back? There is a stone in my heart. And Annette is dead.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I thought I had been careful and fair.

As I said the issue of how to secure informed agreement from people who were paralytically drunk was crucial and I trusted that people were capable of making that decision. We spoke to people individually and eventually I decided to ask everyone to sign a release form – something I rarely do as when you film over a long period consent is clearly implied. But I wanted to be sure that the residents thought about it properly. I explained that although they might not care whether strangers saw them on television their families, children or brothers and sisters might see the film and be shocked to see the state they were in. I remember Big Sean replying, “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m a tramp and I don’t care who knows it.” We learnt that his sister really wanted him to move in with her but he wanted to be free to keep drinking Tenants Super with his friends. A few weeks later Sean turned bright yellow and died while we were still filming.

A couple of men were clear they didn’t want to feature from the start and we made sure that we continued socializing with them. But Jock, a former soldier, had a think after signing his form and said he had changed his mind because he didn’t want his sister to seeing him like this. I ceremoniously tore up his form in front of everyone and then made a point of continuing to talk to him so people would know there were no consequences to making that choice. Jock turned yellow and died before we started filming. Like many of them Jock had been in the army, a heavy drinking culture with all your needs catered for that doesn’t prepare people for life outside. Men like Belfast Tommy and the Brickie had been in the UDA, loyalist paramilitaries from Northern Island and they drank to deal with the PTSD – late at night Tommy would punch the air, fight invisible enemies and talk about bodies and guns he had buried. I later realised that boys who are in care often go into the army because they are not equipped to deal with civilian life. And when that’s over they have nothing. War. What is it good for?

We shot the Wet House on super 16mm film over five consecutive days (apart from the extra day we filmed Annette in her rehab). After five days I knew I had a film and I didn't just want to keep filming people dying. I think it’s my only film that came in under budget and we gave some money back to Channel 4.

Brand Thumim and I edited it over 8 weeks. (Or six, I can’t remember exactly.) We started off with some of the quieter, moving scenes but it was unwatchable and depressing. The key was found by Brand who suggested we start with a cheerfully chaotic scene, less shocking than my first visit to the Wet House but still with a voyeuristic allure, a kind of car crash. And once we had reeled in the audience, lured them in with disaster porn, we were able to humanize those they were gawping at.

One of the big revelations of this film was that far from being a danger to anybody else street drinkers and homeless people are attacked by others, those they call members of the public. We often flip things around – seeing those we persecute as a danger to us so we don’t have to feel guilty about what we are doing to them.

The film was chucked out with no previews at 11.30pm but still managed to gather massive viewing figures and scored very high with young audiences, in the top ten that year. It was referenced in a Ben Elton novel and Damien Hirst gave away 100 dvds to his friends. I mention this because there is still a prevailing belief among schedulers that young people only want to watch other scantily clad young people cavorting around.

They don’t.