#and i had to politely explain to the poor operator on the end of the intercom that i'm fine and was just trying to dry my hands

[hairtusk]

i love disabled access spaces where it's blindingly obvious NO disabled people were consulted in the design

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"These calls for “getting tough” also generated debate and bitter exchanges between different groups claiming to represent African Americans. Some critics insisted that “law and order” operated as a euphemism for anti-black and anti–civil rights sentiments. Leonard De Champs, chairman of the Harlem Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), excoriated the NAACP, calling it “oppressive and Nazi-like for its Fascist proposals regarding law and order in the streets of Harlem and New York City’s other Black communities.” He charged that

Vincent Baker’s love for mandated jail sentences and tightened-up parole procedures conclusively proves that the NAACP is an effective enemy of the 1.2 million Black people in this city.

Floyd McKissick, a longtime civil rights activist and another leader of CORE, claimed that the NAACP’s punitive recommendations reflected the interests of the black middle class. He wrote that

the arguments used in the report of the NAACP smack suspiciously of the Ronald Reagan-George Wallace school of repressive ‘law and order,’ at any cost. They appeal to the fears and prejudices of citizens who have even a little bit worth protecting.

He pointed to “a gap of understanding between middle class and poor Blacks along economic lines” and explained that

we should know by now that the addition of more white cops in the ghetto solves nothing. The ones who suffer more from such measures are the poor blacks; not necessarily the guilty ones.

Instead of harsher punishment, McKissick called for community control:

The ghetto must be safe for its citizens, but it cannot be made so by police state tactics. All efforts must be directed toward the ending of conditions which breed crime and chaos; all efforts much be directed toward the development of a Black-orientated, Black controlled law enforcement agency—an agency dedicated to the aid and protection of Black people, not to their suppression.

During this period, a host of community groups and organizations set up treatment programs, many of which received New York City and state funds, intended to be more directly accountable to thecommunities in which they were embedded. Some grew out of churches and established community groups, while others were connected to more radical political organizing. For example, in March 1969, eighty volunteers and twenty-two drug addicts took over a three-story building in Harlem and set up a drug-treatment program. They hoped to bring attention to “the inadequacy of the state’s narcotic program and the entire health program for the black people.” The addicts involved told the New York Times that they had faced a maze of waiting lists and applications in their efforts to secure treatment. One had never heard back from a program he had applied to three years earlier in 1966. The journalist reported that all of the patients interviewed complained that the state’s drug addiction programs were “more punishment than rehabilitation.” One addict asked if “I should turn myself in to the state and be locked up for rehabilitation.” They contrasted the civic degradation of the state treatment programs with guerrilla programs, claiming that in the latter, they “talk to you like a man, not a statistic—the people really want to help you and it makes you want to help yourself.” After a police eviction order, the center was closed and the patients transferred to an “underground hospital.” In subsequent years, other groups also established treatment programs. The Young Lords, a radical group dedicated to Puerto Ricans’ self-determination, were integral to establishing a detox program at Lincoln Hospital.

Drastic fluctuations in policing further intensified frustration within urban communities. In 1969, the city initiated a major intensification in street-level enforcement of drug markets. At a press conference in September, Mayor Lindsay announced that the police department intended to shift the narcotics division’s 500-person force to the pursuit of upper-level drug arrests and direct the entire remaining patrols to prioritize narcotic arrests at the street level. This sweep produced a considerable uptick in narcotics arrests in New York City: they jumped from 7,199 in 1967 to 26,378 in 1970. Then, in 1971, at a high point in the surge of heroin use, the NYPD abandoned their campaign of intensive street-level drug policing. Police officials claimed that the policy was ineffective and expensive and resulted in low conviction rates because the court system did not have the capacity to process the arrests. The result was a dramatic fall-off in arrests. New York City police conducted over 24,025 felony drug arrests in 1970, 18,694 in 1971, 10,370 in 1972, and 7,041 in 1973."

- Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017. p. 57-59.

[somber-sapphic]

Hate of all kind will be deleted, antisemitism and islamophobia are not tolerated here

Written on 2/14/24

I do not normally post "political" content. Political being in quotations because I do not consider this a political issue but the world does.

The genocide of the people in Gaza has been going on for 130 days (+75 years). It is estimated that 20,000+ Palestinian civilians have been killed with presumed thousands unaccounted for buried under the rubble.

This is collective punishment and it is a war crime. Collective punishment is a war crime.

I waited so long to speak on this here because I wasn't really sure how to. Before Oct 7th, had no clue of what was happening between Israel and Palestine through every fault of my own. I have been reposting from creators on other social media platforms but I was unsure how to do so here.

That being said, this is my most followed platform by hundreds of people. I will continue to post my usual content, but you will also more than likely be seeing more of this.

People To Follow:

All of these are on Instagram but many (such as Bisan, Mansour, Hind, Motaz, and Plestia) have accounts on FB, TikTok, and Twitter.

@ dr.haya.gaza

@ hindkhoudary

@ alijadallah66

@ byplestia

@ saleh_aljafarawi

@ dr.ghassan.as

@ wizard_bisan1

@ motaz_azaiza

@ hatem.h.rawaghone01

@ lama_jamous9 (the youngest journalist in Gaza, a 9 year old girl)

@ wael_eldahdouh

@ dahman.eyad

@ nouralsaqa

@ youmna_elsid

@ alhelou.y

@ chalanhamza

@ mansourshouman7

If you have other people to follow please let me know, these are just the people I could think of at the moment who I am following. There are I'm sure hundreds more that I'm unaware of and would love to know them.

For boycotts:

BDS Movement Official Website

"BDS aims to end international support for Israeli violations of international law by forcing companies, institutions and governments to change their policies. As Israeli companies and institutions become isolated, Israel will find it more difficult to oppress Palestinians." - BDS website

Another company to boycott is Starbucks, they are not on the BDS list but a grassroots boycott has been started. This is because the company filed a lawsuit against a union of Starbucks workers who posted pro-Palestinian content. They are also very well known for mistreating their employees so it's really worth not going for multiple reasons. Support local coffee shops, they taste better and cost less money :)

I would like to finish this off by saying again that hate of any kind is not tolerated on my platform, it will be deleted and you will be blocked. 

Operation Olive Branch

They are an account on TikTok who has created a spreadsheet with the GoFundMe's of Palestinian trying to leave Gaza. On the spreadsheet you can see how much progress the family has made with their fundraising, why they need help, and can allow you to connect with that family or their representative via their social media. You can find Operation Olive Branch on TikTok with the handle @ operationolivebranch or on IG with the same handle. (Forgive my poor explanation, there's a lot more too it that is better explained on their page.)

[abirdie]

Gael García Bernal: Just Another Homeless Young Star

Article from the New York Times, 19 September 2004 (x)

By Ginger Thompson

MEXICO CITY - THE lunch rush has ended at a popular, upscale cafe, and one of the most attractive and acclaimed young movie actors in the world hobbles through the room of empty tables on crutches. He's so rumpled and heavily bundled up it looks as if he's spent the night on the street. Blushing and taking off his cap, he explains that he's just had hernia surgery. "I have been lifting heavy suitcases up and down a lot of stairs," he says. "I don't have my own place yet, so I stay with different friends." Unloading a big floppy satchel and laying his crutches on the floor, he shrugs, pulls off his jacket and takes a seat. Then, he makes eye contact. Gael García Bernal, it turns out, is a divine sight even in a post-operative state.

And if his life seems to be in a bit of disarray, his career is not. He's got two big films opening soon: The Motorcycle Diaries and Bad Education. Bad Education, which will be screened at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 9 and 10 before its commercial opening on Nov. 19, moved Mr. García into the coveted circle of Pedro Almodóvar (Mr. García had to learn to walk in high heels and wear mascara for his role as a drag queen). In Motorcycle Diaries, which arrives Friday, Mr. García plays the legendary revolutionary Che Guevara, who, as a young man on a long ride across South America, is awakened to the political injustices he fought to his death.

Mr. García isn't afraid of a fight. Unlike most young actors, he is driven by an agenda that goes beyond red carpets and glossy magazine covers: he has shown modern Mexico in all of its sometimes ugly, always complicated glory. The characters he has played cross lines, challenge taboos and reveal secrets, in a deeply Catholic country that prefers to keep public conversations polite. And his acting has helped bring international acclaim to films that are rescuing this country's stale movie industry.

At the same time, he's established himself well beyond the Mexican border, but he's not sure he wants to cross.

Hollywood can't get him to return calls. (He suggests they stop sending scripts with characters called, he says, "Chico From the Barrio.") He may be looking for his first grown-up apartment, but he's not going to be filling it with movie-star loot.

Mr. García blushes again. He explains that he's only 25, and he's been living a whirlwind. "I had a place when I was studying in London, but I couldn't pay for it, and so my solution was to stay with girlfriends," he says. "Then I began moving around so much I didn't need a place."

Those who know him say it's a rising star's way of keeping himself grounded, by not acquiring anything that cannot be stuffed into a backpack. Beyond Mr. García's smoldering good looks, there's a smart, well-read, cultured human being who rejects the superstar syndrome and has something to say. In a two-hour interview in Spanish, it becomes clear that roots mean more to Mr. García than roofs.

It's rainy season in Mexico City, and as the clouds roll in, the cafe turns dim. Mr. García's greenish-brownish-bluish eyes change with the light as he retraces his journey from Mexican soap operas to big, bold art films. He was born in Guadalajara, in the north of Mexico, and grew up here, where his parents worked as actors. Mr. García has said that he followed his parents into show business so that he could spend time with them. As a teenager, he got into the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Then he came back to Mexico City and won the starring role in Amores Perros, by Alejandro González Iñárritu, the film that would return his country to prominence on the international cinema circuit.

Mr. García played a poor city kid who wants so desperately to escape his lot in life and run away with his brother's wife that he enters his Rottweiler in barbaric, back-alley dogfights for money. The movie, which was nominated for the best foreign film Oscar, revealed unsightly sides of Mexican life that hadn't been seen before on film. But it was Mr. García's next role, as a sensual young man in Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También, that won him fans.

Again, it was the story of a road trip, but it was also a love triangle and a coming-of-age narrative about two teenagers overwhelmed by their own hormones. Its sex scenes struck a chord with moviegoers around the world -- everywhere, that is, but here, where audiences were put off by Mr. Cuarón's frankness. "That is why Mexican films can be so dry," Mr. García said. "In this country, everyone wants prostitutes to be poets, young people to speak like philosophers. But that's not the way movies should be. That's not real."

Mr. García's next film led to national protests here. In The Crime of Father Amaro, directed by Carlos Carrera, he played a predator priest who has an affair with a teenager and sends her to her death in a clandestine abortion clinic. The Catholic church pressured the Mexican government to ban the film -- which might have worked as recently as a decade ago. But in 2000, Mexicans ousted the authoritarian regime that had controlled the government for most of the last century, and they are less willing to tolerate censorship. Protests against Father Amaro by religious groups succeeded only in drawing more people to theaters.

"For so long they told us we were not ready for democracy," Mr. García says, speaking about the government. "We were always ready. And that's what people said over and over again, when they went to see Father Amaro. A lot of people who saw it said they thought it was a bad movie, but they were glad a movie like that existed."

In a way, that seems to be the thinking that drives Mr. García's free-agent film career (despite enormous demand, he's made almost no commitments to future projects). He says he gravitates toward roles that challenge him and that tell untold stories, or those that have been forbidden. Take his two latest films. Che Guevara is right up there with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as one of the most widely recognized, least understood figures in the world. The goal of The Motorcycle Diaries, he said, was to demystify Che. "In the end," Mr. García says, "he comes down to the same common denominators we all share at 23. We have all traveled and discovered ourselves in new places."

Walter Salles directed Mr. García in the story of the cross-continental road trip through labor camps and a leper colony that slowly transformed a starry-eyed Argentine medical student named Ernesto Guevara into the fierce revolutionary called Che. In a telephone interview from San Francisco, Mr. Salles says Mr. García immediately felt an affinity with an image of Che few people would recognize -- and some might not like. Mr. Salles's Che is not the lion depicted on posters and T-shirts. He's naïve, sickly, socially awkward and so painfully uncertain of himself that he's overshadowed by his dashing travel companion, Alberto Granado (played by Rodrigo de la Serna).

"It takes courage for an actor to portray an Ernesto Guevara who is introspective, who is living with his doubts, not with certitudes," Mr. Salles says. "This is the story of a young man who rebaptizes himself from the beginning to the end of a journey. At the beginning he is one man. At the end he is another. Gael had the capacity to understand the dimension of that arc." Mr. Salles continues: "He moves us in gentle strokes. In the end it's like walking two hours in the gentle rain. You're soaking wet, but you don't really know why."

Mr. García dropped everything to do Bad Education, he says, because of the "illusion of working with Almodóvar." There were lots of rumors about bitter disagreements between the actor and Mr. Almodóvar during the making of the film, in which Mr. García plays a drag queen who was abused by a priest as a boy. Some reports said that Mr. Almodóvar stopped filming at one point and demanded that Mr. García lose weight for the role.

Mr. García is discreet, but clearly, making the film was a trying experience. Colonial attitudes toward Mexico remain alive and well in Spain, he says. "When I arrived there to prepare for the movie, many people told me to take off my accent," he recalls. "Everyone said the same thing to me, I swear -- even journalists and Almodóvar, himself. They would tell me to take off my accent, like it was something dirty I had to clean up. I told them, 'What do you mean, take off my accent?' I told them I was going to put on a Spanish accent."

If Mr. García expresses some qualms about Mr. Almodóvar's methods, he's no less impatient with Hollywood's. "Hollywood has made some of the best movies in the world," he says. But then he goes on and on about how shallow it seems: "Poor, poor directors that make films in the United States. The big studios only allow them to make films if they meet certain conditions. And if those conditions ruin the integrity of the film, then the film is ruined, and it's a huge waste of time."

He says that no matter where he travels, he intends to keep his base here. This country lives an almost eternal identity crisis, he says, set as it is between one of the poorest corners of the world and the only remaining superpower. It makes for lots of great stories to tell. In fact, Mr. Garcia and his friend and Y Tu Mamá También co-star Diego Luna have been talking about producing a series of films from each of this country's 32 states. And his homeless days may finally be coming to an end: he's made a bid on a house. "This is the place that excites me," he says. "I have a strong itch that keeps me here, to be a part of this place. I think that if I abandon it, I'll become just another actor, like all the rest."

[rodeodeparis]

recently read a book about peoples temple/jonestown/jim jones here are thoughts etc

for obvious reasons this story always really related to me & my experiences. i've been interested in looking up high-demand groups or just very stringent political ideologies people get themselves caught up in for whatever reason i guess as a way to understand how i grew up.

peoples temple always really resonated because, even though it's always compared to stuff like charles manson's cult, peoples temple had a good public standing, and members were attracted both by their real needs and by their best qualities.  a good portion of those who ended up in jonestown were elderly, widowed black american women who escaped jim crow laws only to live on meager pensions in redlined districts. they came to jonestown because they would be guaranteed the full-time care they needed but were barely able to scrape together back in the states. that's just one example of what peoples temple was to those they served (and all the more reason jones was able to prey on them). peoples temple members who weren't destitute usually wanted a better world through socialism.

but i don't think that this squared with the peoples temple being a cult for most people. today, the popular perception of jones' victims is that they were "brainwashed" and had no choice over their actions, and phrases like "don't drink the kool-aid" reduce what happened to some sort of frivolous joke. there's several conspiracy theories that either the jonestown deaths were instigated by the cia (because the biggest concern of american intelligence at the time was a few random citizens establishing a socialist commune in another country; worth mentioning that the black panthers championed this theory after the events unfolded) or that jones was cia or fbi himself and jonestown was a part of mk-ultra or something similar (you'd think they'd keep something like that more secret, no?), which diminishes those deaths to spectacle even further.

for all i know, jones could've been cia, but does it really matter? peoples temple was a leftist group that appealed to people by operating on christian and leftist principles no matter how you slice it. whether or not jones was serious or it was all just a big conspiracy doesn't erase that it happened and it was real to those who believed in and were served by it. even more, remembering the members of peoples temple primarily through their affiliation with the group and their being victim to jim jones, whether it's out of love or hate, is an affront to their memory.

what draws people to theories like this is a simple, set belief in the way the world works based on personal experience. in this case, it's like something like an opposite of the just-world theory. though that sort of thinking often comes from some sort of real fear, it can just as easily break people down. (that's one of the main points where it ties to my experience - both my parents and a guy i met at a leftist group who i had to explain to that middle eastern jews exist were like this.) the peoples temple really did a lot of good - how could an organization like that not be involved in something so horrible without the involvement of some third party? even if they're still responsible for spreading conspiracy, i don't blame the black panthers for taking that position. it hurts to be taken advantage of like this. but this is also why jones' followers often stuck with him - no matter how much they'd detest the demands put on him, it's all for the cause. none of this would've happened if the us cared more about its own poor citizens and citizens of color. something else - the only other option - seemed better than nothing.

in reality, no idea, mindset, or way of life, even if it has evidence behind it, will absolutely save. nothing's perfect and there will always be problems. some ideas are more exploitative than others, sure, but there's bound to be exploitation in every word of something if you look hard enough. trying to find out which is the best is like chasing your own tail. max stirner said something along the lines of, "i believe in socialism, but not sacred socialism", and i think this is what he meant.

i don't know. it's really sad that this is the sort of thing that's happened to this event. it's just some sensational true crime tale or bullet point to serve whatever agenda now. i don't doubt that most of the laity being black and/or poor had a lot to do with it. it's not the first thing like this to be turned into shock value and it won't be the last, but still...

[unhookedcandles]

Notes on my fic ‘if you can’t walk then run’- First Year: Peter

- This chapter took a suuuuuper long time to write but that was mostly bc of work and traveling-- it was really fun and the actual writing and editing didn’t take too long

- one thing im struggling with a bit is trying to describe things/settings in a way that accurately conveys my vision to the readers while also staying in the voice/pov of the characters. For example I was trying to describe the gryffindor common room in the way that I envision it, but I had to do it through Peter’s eyes. I wanted to use the word ‘opulent’ but when I was editing it felt so out of place because what 11 year old boy describes things as opulent??? This is smth Im trying to navigate right now but im v excited to explore and work on!!

- prefect kingsley my beloved

- is remus and peter in the back of the group of first-years while james and sirius at the front a heavy-handed metaphor? Maybe, but I couldn’t help myself

- also i love remus having absolutely no concept/sense of how he’s percieved by others because his self worth is so dogshit rn. poor boy

-i added a little explanation about my headcannons regarding the slytherin house in this chap, which is hopefully helpful for understanding a bit of how i envision the political climate of the wizarding world at that moment

- i also love blunt remus-- peter is freaking out because he was almost sorted into gryffindor and he plans on keeping this a secret, but remus just comes out and is like ‘yeah the hat mentioned slytherin for me. i guess i could see it.’ which immediately makes petey feel better about himself. His bluntness is one of the reasons why peter is immediately drawn to remus

- I talked about this a bit in one of my past posts, but peter’s character is really interesting to me simply because he is one of the only gryffindor death-eaters. I think that the way that he can be a gryffindor while also being a death eater is the way that he will debase himself so entirely for a cause greater than himself. A lot of the slytherin death-eaters sacrificed things for power, but Peter sacrificed all of his friends, his life as a human for however many years, and his own flesh for Voldemort. Slytherins preserve themselves and their families at all costs, but Peter would give up himself for power. This is why he is a gryffindor. 

- Peter is a gossip, and a bit chatty in this fic. He shows his love for his new pal Remus by trying to gossip with him about the Black and Potter families

- My fav lines are :“Should we knock?” [Peter] asks Remus. “It’s our room too, isn’t it?” Remus says, pushing the door open without any more discussion.

- I just think it shows a lot about the characters in a short lil blurb

-Touchy James is another one of my fav headcannons

- Sirius and Remus immediately bonding over being traumatized lil guys while Peter and James that have had really chill upbringings are just like.... whats going on?

-OKAY another part that i struggled with was I wanted to show just how instantly Sirius and James clicked. I feel like they would immediately begin bantering and joking with each other like they’ve known each other forever. I think that they also, inadvertenly, leave out Remus and Peter. They don’t explain to Remus and Peter what happened on the train, why Sirius owes James a galleon, why Sirius is so dejected, etc. Part of this is their young arrogance and the other part is ignorance. They like each other’s company so much, feeling like they have finally found another person operating on the same wavelength, that they can’t be bothered to slow down and help others catch up.

- Sirius and James are rich and they don’t know just how rich they are. Surely this will cause them no problems in the future. 

-”The colors look good on you, mate” Im crine poor sweet Sirius. 

-Yay that’s the end!! Please give “if you can’t walk then run” a read on ao3 and tell me what you think!!!!

[hazelenergy]

웃 :  An existing character you’ve played in the past that you miss?

I have cycled through a lot of characters in my now almost a decade of playing ttrpgs. There are a handful I long to play again, but wonder if I will be able to capture the joy of playing them the first time all over again.

So for sake of simplicity and time, lets stick with VtM characters.

I have made a few other character blogs for Vampblr, but often they are not nearly as active (nor were they as fleshed out as Hazel was when she joined).

But I do miss Eli and Aliza, my toreadors. Eli was a character I built to play as a guest character in Chicago by Night. They had a blog url set up and everything, pre- porn bot 2021/22 invasions. I ended up not doing anything with it. Eli was a second attempt at making an "older" vampire, since I had royally flubbed making a 70 yr old sabbat. Eli was an interesting spin on a Toreador because they preferred to operate in the shadows. Their work was meant to be experienced and viewed, not them. They often felt more at ease among the Nosferatu and others who dwell in the shadows, and aimed to paint themself the trustworthy toreador among these clans. This would amass more Camarilla political influence, and let them ascend up the ranks. But the poor thing was often set to their bane -2 penalty, because the trigger was "bad lighting"... which was the majority of Chicago streetlights and subway cars.

Aliza was also "not like other Toreadors" tm. I had the concept of building a Feral toreador, feeding off on some of the artist energy I carry within myself. There's really no good way to explain it except when you have 0 concept of what you are doing yet know in full confidence that what you will attempt to create will 1) work, 2) be slightly convoluted, and 3) make a few people upset that it worked. I had a more concrete story of what was going on around Aliza, but no real motivation for her other than "let me continue being chill and paint with my dogs." Aliza had political ties, but didn't have to fight for them like Eli- til now. She had been living the easy unlife on her sire and grandsire's coattails, creating beautiful paintings and grooming potential students/ghouls for said sire/grandsire. So when grandsire finally declared they've had enough of the Anarchs in the city, Aliza's actually gotta play her emissary role...and do it well. I didn't yet have a great sense of what the political pressures between the Anarchs and Camarilla could look like especially when you've got weird familial infighting going on just under the surface. Honestly now having read the Mind's Eye Theatre Laws of the Night books, I feel more confident.

I'd like to one day revisit both and bring them out to play with you all, but there aren't enough hours in the day. I barely have enough time to manage Hazel.

Maybe one night soon, vampblr.

[lawassociate45]

A Morticians Magnificence Secrets

I very politely explained that there was no way for her to suit into that costume and requested that they select something else, however the family insisted. I defined that even when we reduce the gown, which we generally do if we want to fudge a number of sizes, the legal guidelines dictating the conservation of volume would forestall their mom from becoming into it. They remained adamant, so we did the best we may to shoehorn this poor lady into it. It turns into a very delicate balancing act between giving the family their space and getting your job done in a timely method. Fourth, discount companies can also be a “fly-by-night” operation, as a substitute of a reputable agency with professional funeral directors that has faithfully served a community for decades. There is little doubt that your funeral director is there to assist you earlier than, throughout, and after the funeral service for your beloved.

A funeral director and mortician explains on TikTok a few of the merchandise and procedures used in funeral properties. The median annual revenue for funeral administrators in the US is over $52,000 (with the annual salary in New Jersey averaging above $79,000). Regulations range funeral home secrets state by state, but right here in New Jersey we are embalmers/funeral administrators and are licensed to handle all aspects of the funeral . In other states they've separate licenses for funeral administrators and embalmers.

Even though you’re possessed, the work of a mortuary assistant should go on. One of the first duties is to report abrasions and marks on the corpse and enter this data into the Record System database. The very first thing you need to understand is that funeral facts in your mortuary duties, you should stay conscious that you’re possessed. And this demon will slowly start to mess with you the longer you spend on the shift. “If corpses have a lungful of air, then shifting them causes it to release.

This startup, founded by ex-Google and Palantir staffers, makes use of AI to generate practical voiceovers. Here's the 14-slide pitch deck ElevenLabs used to boost $2 million. Daytona Beach police mentioned the couple deliberate for the spouse to kill her husband and finish his struggling but mortician facts that she "couldn't undergo with" suicide. Get the latest tales in hedge funds, PE, fintech, and banking — delivered every day to your inbox. Get the most recent tech news & scoops — delivered daily to your inbox.

But whereas it would look good on the end, the work creating that appearance can be grisly. Small spiked cups are also inserted under the eyelids to maintain the lids closed and the eyes from caving in. Sign Up NowGet this delivered to your inbox, and more data about our products and services. The Master Gardener from Heaven above / Planted two seeds within the backyard of love. / And from them grew rosebuds so small / That by no means had time to open at all / For God in His good and all wise way / Chose these roses for his heavenly bouquet.

/ I will not be distant for all times goes on / So should you need me, call and I will come. / Though you can't see or touch me, I'll be close to / with all my love round you delicate and clear. / And then, when you should come this fashion alone, / I'll greet you with a smile and / "Welcome You Home". Time can't facts about funerals heal the emptiness / Or fill the empty chair / The one that’s within the household room / I see it empty there. / Or the chair that’s at the desk / Where together we would dine / Although I sit there nonetheless, / The only hands that pray are mine.

[tvckerwash]

I didn't go too deep into it in my tags, and what I did get into I did a poor job of explaining, but I 100% agree that recovering Freelancer’s technology and equipment was a big focus of the Recovery force, but considering Wash and South had two completely different objectives assigned to them while both being members of the unit, I see it as a multi-purpose task force scrounged together by the Director and the Counselor from the remnants of pfl following Tex’s break in.

I'm going to do a bit of Lore DumpingTM to better explain my reasoning behind that conclusion so I apologize for this being a bit long lols.

To begin, it’s important to understand what exactly was going down with Freelancer in the background while Wash was busy dealing with the Meta, and even more importantly how the program ended up in that position. 

As we know, the agents of Freelancer were told they were fighting Insurrectionists through s9 and s10, but in reality they were actually fighting against Charon Industries private security force. Charon Industries was an independent contractor for the UNSC that specialized in technology, most notably the discovery and reverse engineering of alien technology.

An official investigation into Freelancer was likely started following the destruction of the Bjørndal Cryogenics Research Facility at the start of s9, or if not there then it was definitely started after the Director fired a MAC canon at Charon’s downtown headquarters and had that guy with the briefcase assassinated. 

At that point, Project Freelancer was labeled as a terrorist group, which led to the engagement at the start of s10 between the Mother of Invention and the Staff of Charon. It would not be the first time the UNSC decided to deal with terrorists by dropping a HAVOC nuke on them, as they’ve done so in Halo canon. Nukes are still a VERY big deal in the 26th century, so that should establish just how much of a threat the UNSC thought Project Freelancer was.

Of course, due to other more pressing matters at the time—Namely the war being waged against the religious alien conglomerate trying to eradicate humanity from existence, of which humanity was losing—The investigation into Freelancer was put on the back-burner until the UNSC had the resources to deal with it. 

This is where Project Freelancer is in s6, the war was over, and with the survival of humanity no longer the primary objective the UNSC could finally deal with the Director’s rogue black-ops project, and upon doing so they found that nothing was adding up with what Project Freelancer was supposed to be doing on paper, and what they were actually doing.

Throughout s6 the Director was essentially stalling the progression of the investigation by refusing to cooperate (which we see in his letters with the Chairman), this included hiding information and personnel who could blow their operation in any capacity—Such as keeping Private Walter from the beginning of s6 (a survivor from Outpost 17-B who had contact with Tex and Omega) in Freelancer Command, where they could better control the UNSC’s access and presumably coach him or something. This also included things like sending Tucker and Donut away on an excavation mission, having Wash investigate the incident at Outpost 17-B and deal with the Meta by getting into contact with the reds and blues (who had experience dealing with AI), and locking down the crash site at 17-B to the point where even Wash, who had level 0 clearance, had to sneak his way in.

With all of the above in mind, I hope why I consider the Recovery Force a multi-purpose unit makes more sense. If I had to describe what it’s purpose was it’s a combination of these two categories of operations conducted by ODSTs, which I’m just going to copy-paste from halopedia:

Direct action (DA): Short-duration strikes and other small-scale offensive actions conducted as a special operation in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments and which employ specialized military capabilities to seize, destroy, capture, exploit, recover, or damage designated targets. Direct action differs from conventional offensive actions in the level of physical and political risk, operational techniques, and the degree of discriminate and precise use of force to achieve specific objectives.

Personnel and special equipment recovery/capture: The recovery/medical treatment of friendly personnel in combat environments, as well as the capability of capturing high valued individuals and any equipment.

The rvb fandom ignoring the fact that there's the implied existence of at least 7 other recovery agents we know nothing about is wild to me.

[teaveetamer]

The saddest part about Three Houses is, it reveals once more just how prevalent and accepted colonialist mindsets still are in Western culture, even in some otherwise progressive circles.

"Well, but they made people's lives better by bringing them technology etc." - shut the fuck up. If that would have been the goal of colonizing an independent group of people, they wouldnt have conquered and colonized them. They would have met them on the same level, talked, exchanged viewpoints, and maybe become friends instead of kings ruling over those formerly independent groups of people whose culture they did not even understand because they didn't make the effort and instead just categorized it as "wild", "uncivilized" and "backwards".

Colonialism is fucked up on every possible level, and it's sad to see that even though the political aspect has been mostly (but not even completely) abolished by now in most Western cultures, the mindset has survived and is not only prevalent, but considered acceptable to the point where certain parts ("oh, we're just helping the poor people get cultured and civilized" - when they HAVE a culture and civilisation, it just isn't operating based on Western rules) aren't even questioned and instead, those who do question them are sometimes deemed... Well, questionable.

I absolutely agree (not sure what you mean by the political mindset but the rest I get). Colonialism and imperialism are always done for the benefit of the colonizers. Everything else is just propaganda, because you can justify almost anything so long as you explain that it's for the greater good. Even genocide, as we just saw, is justified by certain people in this fandom as ok, actually, as long as you had a really really good reason for it.

And I'll call it what it is. At least in this space, it's a Terminally American Mindset. Because we've always been socialized to believe that we are the good guys, spreading freedom and justice wherever we go. And if we do something bad, well then of course we did it for a really good reason! Because that's what the "good guys" do. It's cultural brainwashing and we are all victims of it, so our leaders and our government and our corporations can continue to commit atrocities with a clean conscience and with our approval, and we are not going to start healing from it until we start acknowledging it for what it is.

I had more to say but I think it's summed up nicely by this C.S. Lewis quote here:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under of robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some points be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

[delimeful]

neither calm nor quiet

BTHB: Trapped In A Net

warnings: miscommunication, past familial and domestic abuse mentions, injury, violence, terrible decision making skills

-

When Virgil finally decided to brave shallower waters, it had already been nearly half a moon cycle since Logan had vanished.

He’d made excuses at first, telling himself that the dread he felt was just his normal brand of overwrought paranoia. For the first few days, he was half-convinced that his curiosity-prone friend would appear at any moment, probably lugging some sort of stray litter or ‘interesting human artifact’ along with him to explain why he’d been late.

Things would be normal again. Virgil would find some rocks for them to sun on and Logan would ramble on about the potential uses of his find, and maybe Virgil would teasingly suggest some outlandish way the trash was secretly a violent human weapon, just to hear Logan thoroughly refute it.

After another three days passed with no sign of the other selkie, Virgil was forced to let that fantasy fade. Logan had never been this late before, not even that time he’d managed to carry an entire minifridge along with him for Virgil to identify.

Something had to have happened to him.

He’d spent the next week scouring the currents for any sign of his missing friend, even approaching other pods and asking around, requesting that they keep an eye out for any signs of Logan. He didn’t expect much from that; the two of them didn’t socialize with other selkies often enough to make any friends, and their two-person pod was too small to spare any food during winter, so there was nothing for the other pods to gain by helping them.

Virgil knew better than most how selfish pod politics could be.

Every few days, he would return to their meeting spot and catch a few hours of sleep to keep himself from crashing, always naively hoping that Logan would be there when he woke. He never was.

In the end, he had to face what he’d already known from the beginning: either Logan was dead, or he’d gone onland and gotten himself bound by a human.

He didn’t want to believe Logan had decided to brave the human world even after Virgil’s many, many warnings against it, but believing the alternative was even worse. So, he steeled himself to do the one thing he’d sworn to never do again, and headed for the cold, rocky shores of the nearest human settlement.

Naturally, he spent so long swimming back and forth between different stretches of beach, trying to force himself to take those literal first steps, that he didn’t notice the woven fibers dancing in the water until he’d plowed right into them.

A fishing net, dyed skillfully to blend in with the water, and large enough that when he tried to twist out of it, he only became further entangled.

Panic set in, then, clouding his mind and leaving him thrashing ineffectively like a simple animal. He couldn’t help it-- he couldn’t breathe underwater in either form, had no gills to keep him steady as he was dragged along by the current. He couldn’t untangle himself while adrift, couldn’t find solid ground while tangled. He would drown.

Between one blink and the next, he found himself in open air, gritty sand pressed against his face. Waves crested gently around him, a sharp contrast to the headache pounding around in his skull.

He never thought he’d be relieved about blacking out and beaching himself, but then, he’d never been worried about drowning in his own element before.

Okay. There weren’t any humans around to see the stupid idiot seal stuck on the beach. This was still salvageable.

Taking a deep breath, he attempted to bite through the netting with his incisors, and got a mouthful of sore gums for his trouble. The dyed fibers seemed to be woven around a base net of fishing wire, because of course they were. He let his head thunk back to the sandy ground, groaning at the new surge of pain the motion caused.

Sun-warmed saltwater continued to wash over his tail, and he blinked slowly, measuring his breaths. He could figure this out. He wouldn’t dry out. He just needed a moment to put himself back together. He could… He…

His eyelids grew heavy, and everything went dark.

-

Roman thought the guy was a pile of garbage at first, to be quite honest.

Not on purpose, of course! But, come on, when one sees a mound of mystery washed up on shore, it generally ends up being a bunch of tangled old fishing nets wrapped around half-rotted driftwood, not a bunch of tangled old fishing nets wrapped around beautiful strangers wearing expensive-looking fur coats!

His next thought, once he’d gotten closer, was that the beautiful stranger wearing the expensive-looking fur coat was dead, and that a body had washed up on his little strip of shoreline. Pallid skin, blue lips, and deep shadows under their eyes-- the beautiful stranger wasn’t exactly giving off an aura of vim and vigor.

He’d spent a few moments staring at his contact list, trying to figure out what in the world he was supposed to do about a body. Should he call 911? … Should he call Remus?

Before he could make a decision either way, he finally picked up on the shallow rise and fall of the beautiful stranger’s chest, and realized that they were still alive! Potentially not for much longer, laying out in the cold all soggy like that, but Roman could work with mostly alive!

And so, he found himself here, carefully carrying the small but surprisingly dense stranger up to his home by the cliffs, and risking looking like a total serial killer doing it.

He couldn’t help but theorize as he walked. A beautiful stranger in expensive clothing, tangled in nets with what appeared to be a head wound… It read like an old unsolved case in a detective novel, where the mysterious stranger in question got in too deep with some dangerous people and ended up clubbed over the head and dumped into a river to tie up loose ends.

“Except you managed to survive, obviously,” Roman said to them, mostly to reassure himself. He really had to stop eavesdropping on Remus’s true crime podcasts. “And you made your way to me! Excellent choice, I’m great at nursing people back to health. Probably. I don’t have much practical experience, but, you know, I’ve read extensively about this exact thing. In romance novels. As one does.”

The beautiful and mysterious stranger continued to be unconscious. Roman was starting to feel grateful for it.

His house was empty, thankfully, since his brother had work to attend to today. He fumbled with the keys for a moment before pushing the door open and carrying the stranger inside, sighing with relief at the warm air.

“That’s got to feel much better, hm?”

He sat the stranger down in the foyer, removing his shoes to go grab some scissors from the kitchen.

“First order of business,” he announced in his best announcer voice, “getting all that netting off of you. While I’m sure you could rock fishnet leggings, fish nets on their own just don’t have the same je ne sais quoi, you know? Also, they look very uncomfortable. You’re great at staying still, so just keep that up.”

He carefully cut his way through the looser parts of netting, pulling it off piece by piece until all that was left were the abrasions where they’d formerly cut into skin. Roman had no idea how they’d even managed to get that tangled up, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. It couldn’t have been pretty.

In the process of removing the net, however, he’d noticed another rather pressing matter.

Going by the flash of thigh he’d accidentally witnessed while shifting the net around, the stranger definitely wasn't wearing anything under that fur coat of theirs. Like, nothing.

(Exactly what kind of situation had the stranger been in before this?!)

Even so, leaving them in a sodden coat couldn’t be good for their constitution. Or his poor couch’s upholstery.

Roman spent a few moments puzzling the situation out before coming up with a brilliant solution. He retrieved the fluffy gold comforter from his bed and draped it over the stranger, covering their front half with it. Then, he carefully worked their arms out of the coat’s sleeves, very pointedly not focusing on the adorable freckled shoulders this operation revealed. Finally, he tugged the entire coat out from behind them, wincing at the slight furrow that appeared in their brow.

“Sorry, sorry, I know the cold floor can’t be comfortable…”

Soggy coat removed, he was free to continue bundling the rest of the comforter around the stranger’s back, therefore making it easy for him to pick them up in a neat little bundle of blanket and deposit them on the couch. No nudity awkwardness required!

Pleased with his solution, he draped a fluffy towel over the stranger’s head and carefully dried some of the dampness from their hair. Next, he wasted no time in stoking the fire higher in his hearth, sending waves of warmth into the room and making it so the stranger’s skin didn’t look quite so clammy.

Once he’d cleaned up the mess left in the foyer and grabbed the first aid kit from under his sink, he planted himself in a chair next to the couch, feeling ready to handle anything.

“Okay, Google. How do I treat a head wound?”

-

Virgil felt as though he’d woken to a nightmare.

He was in the wrong body, surrounded on all sides by heavy fabric and warm air, and his coat was missing. That list of facts alone was just about as bad as any night terror he’d had.

The humming was unusual, though.

A soft tune, occasionally broken up by a half-muttered lyric or two, carried through the air, voice completely at ease. His mother had never sung to him in front of others, and it sure as hell wasn’t his father.

He tried to remember where he’d been last. The back of his head stung… he’d ended up on a beach? The tide had been turning, from high to low… He must have dried out up there, changed into his less durable form. And now he was warm and dry.

He clenched his fists weakly and grit his teeth, knowing that a human had found him and stolen him away. Just like his mother. He’d come to find Logan and lost himself before ever even starting. Typical.

“Are you with us, Sleeping Beauty?” a bright voice asked.

The humming had broken off while he was absorbed in his thoughts, and now he could hear the shift and rustle of movement next to him. He opened his eyes, already aiming the coldest possible glare at his captor.

He was sort of surprised to find that the human sitting at his side wasn’t holding his coat. His father used to make a point of handling his mother’s coat at any opportunity. He’d liked to watch his mother stare at it, resting assured that so long as he held it in his possession, she could do him no harm.

This human was much younger than his father had been, probably around as old as Virgil was now. He had dark skin and soft eyes that reflected the firelight, and he was smiling hopefully at Virgil.

“Hello there! It’s excellent to see you looking a little more lively! I was starting to think about actually calling the hospital, heh.”

Wordlessly, Virgil slowly shifted to sit up, shoving the thick blanket out and shaking the cloth from his head. He looked down, confirming what he already knew. No coat. The human hadn’t even bothered to dress him up in human trappings to ‘make up’ for the absence.

“Ah, yeah... I sort of basically pulled you out of the ocean and what little you were wearing was completely soaked.” The human rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “I figured it’d be less of an invasion of privacy to just let you get dressed yourself once you woke up?”

Oh, the human was worried about his privacy? What a joke.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, truly!” the human continued, oblivious to Virgil’s rising ire. He gave a mocking little bow, pretending to respect the one he’d abducted. “My sincerest apologies.”

He was done playing along with mind games like these. Better to let the human know where they stood right off the bat.

“I’m going to kill you,” Virgil promised, and then lunged for the human’s jugular.

To his genuine surprise, he actually made contact, hands clamping onto the junction between collar and throat. The human let out a high-pitched yelp as his chair toppled over, taking both of them with it.

Virgil landed knee-first on the human’s sternum, and paused to blink down at the wheezing stranger, who apparently had been so confident in the weakness of his victim that he hadn’t bothered to bind Virgil from harming him in advance.

Unless.

His grip loosened slightly, just in time for the human’s fist to catch him squarely in the mouth. He threw himself backwards, rolling with the force of the motion to get some distance and hunkering in a crouch. It had been too long since he’d been active in this form, his sense of balance was in shambles.

The human scrambled to his feet, and grabbed the back of the chair, eyes wild. He thrust it out between them like a barrier, as though it could prevent any more strangulation attempts.

“What is wrong with you?!” he shrieked, voice cracking as his gaze flickered back and forth between Virgil and some far off point. “I tenderly nursed you back to health, and your response is to try and murder me? Unfair! Cruel! Rude!”

“Where is my coat?” Virgil replied, voice hoarse and split lip stinging. A test, because humans were tricky and loved to lie.

“Your— your coat?” The human pulled up short, head tilting slightly in a bewildered manner. A convincing actor, if nothing else. “Is that what all this is about? I put it on the coat hanger to dry! I know better than to try and wash someone’s fancy fur coat without permission, yeesh.”

A low warning growl in the back of his throat, Virgil turned his gaze from the current threat and followed the gesture the human had made.

Sure enough, there it was. His freedom, draped on a peg in the open with all the rest of the human’s fabric outer layers like some common garment.

“Do you… want me to get it— eep!” The human lifted the chair back up in paltry defense as Virgil snarled at him. He rose up and crossed the distance to his pelt in five wobbly strides, before the human could try and return it to him and lock them both into a loveless marriage.

Some of the tension eased from his shoulders as he quickly wrapped his second skin around him, that grounding weight settling back where it belonged. He still couldn’t shift back, not here, but the ocean was close enough to taste in the air.

The human was still huddled defensively by the fireplace, looking indignantly bewildered and not at all like he knew he’d just given up the perfect opportunity to control Virgil.

Which meant that-- barring some incredibly convoluted scheme-- he really had no idea. And Virgil had tried to strangle him, even if under false pretenses. He drew the edges of his pelt closer around him, rolling the beginnings of an apology around in his mind.

-

The mysterious stranger was still glaring at Roman like they were contemplating continuing to try and strangle him to death at any moment.

He’d brought a half-drowned stranger into his home and tenderly treated their injuries, and what had he received in return for his efforts? A murder attempt, which now that he thought about it was maybe an outcome he should have considered earlier. Remus would never let him live this down.

Assuming he lived long enough for his brother to give him shit about it, that was.

The stranger seemed to at least be a little calmer now that their reclaimed coat was thoroughly wrapped around them, rendering them more lump-shaped than person. Roman felt much more secure in glaring back, too.

He set his impromptu shield/chair down firmly on the floor. “I have no idea what your problem is, Gloomy B. Jones, but where I’m from, the response to someone saving you from dying of hypothermia is ‘thank you’, not a strangulation attempt!”

The murderglare intensified. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

“Yes,” Roman said, disbelieving, “because you were too busy being unconscious. On the beach. In 40-below temperatures!”

“That’s my problem, not yours,” the stranger responded snappishly.

Roman threw his hands in the air, but his impending frustrated rant was impeded by the sight of a stifled flinch running through the stranger. Feeling a stab of guilt, he lowered his arms slowly before continuing.

“It seems I made it my problem when I dragged your soggy self all the way to my house, so--”

“Great news for you, then: I’m leaving.” Baring their teeth in a distinctly unfriendly manner, the stranger turned to do just that.

“Hold it!” Roman called, alarmed. “You’re going into town like that?! People will think you’re a flasher!” Even his brother wouldn’t go out dressed in nothing but an oversized coat. ... Probably.

The stranger paused, squinting at him warily. Roman took it as a cue to continue.

“Look, clearly we got off on the wrong foot here. Several wrong feet. Let’s try again. I’m Roman Faroe, I work for the local newspaper, and you are…?”

“None of your business,” replied the stranger, with all the stubborn petulance of a toddler digging their heels in and refusing to move whilst smack dab in the middle of an overcrowded supermarket.

“Would you like me to call you ‘Almost-Corpse-I-Dragged-Off-The-Beach?’ Perhaps make up a thematic nickname or two for you? Because let me tell you, this is exactly how you get called--,”

“Hold on,” the stranger cut him off, a realization seeming to dawn on him, “did you say you worked for the news?”

“Yes, I mean, the newspaper not the news. Although I’m sure I���d make an excellent anchor,” Roman gestured to all of himself for effect, “my true passion lies in my carefully curated romantic advice column!”

“So, you get all the information in town,” continued the stranger, who had a strange glint in their eye.

“I mean, if you want to be a nerd about it.”

“How about this.” The stranger stepped forward, straightening out of their defensive slouch for the explicit purpose of being just tall enough to loom over Roman. “You want to know my name? I’ll tell you, if you help me track down something important that I lost.”

An investigative quest for a mysterious MacGuffin? Roman swallowed, feeling his heart flutter wildly with what felt less like intimidation and more like excitement. He could totally keep his cool, he just had to open his mouth and say something suave.

“I also want to know your origin story,” he opened his mouth and babbled instead.

The stranger narrowed their eyes for a moment, and Roman belatedly remembered the near-strangulation. Perhaps he shouldn't be agitating a femme fatale type, what with all the emphasis on the fatale.

To his surprise, it only took a moment before they capitulated, sticking a hand out. “Fine. After my thing gets done.”

Roman shook gladly, trying not to shiver at the cool touch. Had they checked to make sure the stranger wasn’t hypothermic yet? “It’s a deal, then.”

“Great.” They twisted on their heel, stalking to the door. “Let’s get this over with, already.”

“Hold on there, Surly Temple.” Roman called, hand on his hip. “I hate to break it to you, but if you go into town mostly naked, the only news we’ll be hearing about will be your immediate arrest.”

The stranger glanced down at his attire, and then released the door handle with a low sigh. “... Pants first?”

“Pants first.”

[antoine-roquentin]

obliquely, this is in reference to how formerly working class bastions in the midwest that used to elect socialists now elect republicans. if we all gave up the theory that LGBT people are normal, we might once again go back to the days where we elected socialists across the country. thomas frank, what’s the matter with kansas:

But its periodic bouts of leftism were what really branded Kansas with the mark of the freak. Every part of the country in the nineteenth century had labor upheavals and protosocialist reform movements, of course. In Kansas, though, the radicals kept coming out on top. It was as though the blank landscape prompted dreams of a blank-slate society, a place where institutions might be remade as the human mind saw fit. Maps of the state from the 1880s show a hamlet (since vanished) called Radical City; in nearby Crawford County the town of Girard was home to the Appeal to Reason, a socialist newspaper whose circulation was in the hundreds of thousands. In that same town, in 1908, Eugene Debs gave a fiery speech accepting the Socialist Party’s nomination for president; in 1912 Debs actually carried Crawford County, one of four he won nationwide. (All were in the Midwest.) In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt signaled his own lurch to the left by traveling to Kansas and giving an inflammatory address in Osawatomie, the onetime home of John Brown.

The most famous freak-out of them all was Populism, the first of the great American leftist movements.* Populism tore through other states as well—wailing all across Texas, the South, and the West in the 1890s—but Kansas was the place that really distinguished itself by its enthusiasm. Driven to the brink of ruin by years of bad prices, debt, and deflation, the state’s farmers came together in huge meetings where homegrown troublemakers like Mary Elizabeth Lease exhorted them to “raise less corn and more hell.” The radicalized farmers marched through the small towns in day-long parades, raging against what they called the “money power.” And despite all the clamor, they still managed to take the state’s traditional Republican masters utterly by surprise in 1890, sweeping the small-town slickers out of office and ending the careers of many a career politician. In the decade that followed they elected Populist governors, Populist senators, Populist congressmen, Populist supreme court justices, Populistcity councils, and probably Populist dogcatchers, too; men of strong ideas, curious nicknames, and a colorful patois....

For a generation, Kansas has been the testing-ground for every experiment in morals, politics, and social life. Doubt of all existing institutions has been respectable. Nothing has been venerable or revered merely because it exists or has endured. Prohibition, female suffrage, fiat money, free silver, every incoherent and fantastic dream of social improvement and reform, every economic delusion that has bewildered the foggy brains of fanatics, every political fallacy nurtured by misfortune, poverty and failure, rejected elsewhere, has here found tolerance and advocacy.

Today the two myths are one. Kansas may be the land of averageness, but it is a freaky, militant, outraged averageness. Kansas today is a burned-over district of conservatism where the backlash propaganda has woven itself into the fabric of everyday life. People in suburban Kansas City vituperate against the sinful cosmopolitan elite of New York and Washington, D.C.; people in rural Kansas vituperate against the sinful cosmopolitan elite of Topeka and suburban Kansas City. Survivalist supply shops sprout in neighborhood strip-malls. People send Christmas cards urging their friends to look on the bright side of Islamic terrorism, since the Rapture is now clearly at hand.

Under the state’s simple blue flag are gathered today some of the most flamboyant cranks, conspiracists, and calamity howlers the Republic has ever seen. The Kansas school board draws the guffaws of the world for purging state science standards of references to evolution. Cities large and small across the state still hold out against water fluoridation, while one tiny hamlet takes the additional step of requiring firearms in every home. A prominent female politician expresses public doubts about the wisdom of women’s suffrage, while another pol proposes that the state sell off the Kansas Turnpike in order to solve its budget crisis. Impoverished inhabitants of the state’s most scenic area fight with fanatical determination to prevent a national park from opening up in their neighborhood, while the rails-to-trails program, regarded everywhere else in the union as a harmless scheme for family fun, is reviled in Kansas as an infernal design on the rights of property owners. Operation Rescue selects Wichita as the stage for its great offensive against abortion, calling down thirty thousand testifying fundamentalists on the city, witnessing and blocking traffic and chaining themselves to fences. A preacher from Topeka travels the nation advising Americans to love God’s holy hate, showing up wherever a gay person has been in the news to announce that “God Hates Fags.” Survivalists and secessionists dream of backyard confederacies out on the lone prairie; schismatic Catholics declare the pope himself to be insufficiently Catholic; Posses Comitatus hold imaginary legal proceedings, sternly prosecuting state officials for participating in actual legal proceedings; and homegrown terrorists swap conspiracy theories at a house in Dickinson County before screaming off to strike a blow against big government in Oklahoma City.

the problem with this simple story is that social liberalism actually grew in lockstep with an economic policy tailored to the poor. in the 70s, the most common place to get gender reassignment surgery was at a catholic hospital in small town colorado. in 2010, in response to deep opposition in the town, the practice was forced to move to california. the second most common place was at a baptist hospital in oklahoma city, where such surgery was viewed as routine until a number of religious leaders decided to oppose it in the 70s. at the same time, many other religious leaders spoke out in favour of the surgery, saying that it comported well with religious tenets.

likewise, colorado legalized abortion in 1967, as did states like kansas, missouri, georgia, and north and south carolina prior to roe v wade. today, these states are considered anti-abortion and anti-lgbt hotspots, yet prior to the late 70s, compassion for such people was viewed as paramount in the life of america’s christians. so what happened? it clearly wasn’t an emphasis on the social aspects of poor american lives that shifted the political arena in favour of religious conservatism. rather, as thomas frank points out in the same book:

Nobody mows their own lawn in Mission Hills anymore, and only a foot soldier in its armies of gardeners would park a Pontiac there. The doctors who lived near us in the seventies have pretty much been gentrified out, their places taken by the bankers and brokers and CEOs who have lapped them repeatedly on the racetrack of status and income. Every time I paid Mission Hills a visit during the nineties, it seemed another of the more modest houses in our neighborhood had been torn down and replaced by a much larger edifice, a three-story stone chateau, say, bristling with turrets and porches and dormers and gazebos and a three-car garage. The dark old palaces from the twenties sprouted spiffy new slate roofs, immaculately tailored gardens, remote-controlled driveway gates, and sometimes entire new wings. One grand old pile down the street from us was fitted with shiny new gutters made entirely of copper. A new house a few doors down from Esrey’s spread is so large it has two multicar garages, one at either end.

These changes are of course not unique to Mission Hills. What has gone on there is normal in its freakishness. You can observe the same changes in Shaker Heights or La Jolla or Winnetka or Ann Coulter’s hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut. They reflect the simplest and hardest of economic realities: The fortunes of Mission Hills rise and fall in inverse relation to the fortunes of ordinary working people. When workers are powerful, taxes are high, and labor is expensive (as was the case from World War II until the late seventies), the houses built here are smaller, the cars domestic, the servants rare, and the overgrown look fashionable in gardening circles. People read novels about eccentric English aristocrats trapped in a democratic age, sighing sadly for their lost world.

When workers are weak, taxes are down, and labor is cheap (as in the twenties and again today), Mission Hills coats itself in shimmering raiments of gold and green. Now the stock returns are plush, the bonus packages fat, the servants affordable, and the suburb finds that the princely life isn’t dead after all. It builds new additions and new fountains and new Italianate porches overlooking Olympic-sized flower gardens maintained by shifts of laborers. People read books about the glory of empire. The kids get Porsches or SUVs when they turn sixteen; the houses with asphalt roofs discreetly disappear; the wings that were closed off are triumphantly reopened, and all is restored to its former grandeur. Times may be hard where you live, but here events have yielded a heaven on earth, a pleasure colony out of the paintings of Maxfield Parrish.

america's workers and small farmers were saved by the reforms of the 1930s, as frank explains, then crushed as the wealthy found out how to squirrel away their taxes (in part thanks to the collapse of the british empire), accumulate wealth away from prying eyes, lobby the government for preferential treatment, and between 1976 and 2000, triumph completely in the political domain. mission hill donates more money to politicians than the rest of kansas combined. unions are swamped in state politics, and see declining fortunes. as a result, neoliberal social atomization takes effect, which sees even workers demanding beggar-thy-neighbour policies. and when thy neighbour is socially distinct from you, it becomes easier to justify voting for such politics based on a survival instinct. the majority of the working class tuned out and do not vote any more. among the rest, low skilled working class jobs in highly stratified and inequitable cities vote democrat, hoping for some patronage from the white collar creative class voters they serve, while blue collar skilled workers tend to vote republican, devoid of any examples of class politics in their lives with the death of unions and hoping to keep their share of wages against their only opposition, the tax man.

ultimately, any socially liberal politics sustained by donations from rich big city donors is unsustainable. on the other hand, the notion that “woke” politics is holding back leftism is, save for a few clearly absurd situations (robin diangelo, for instance) also wrong. economic leftism leads to social leftism, because respect to the working class leads to respect for its identities. neoliberal atomization is a much deeper force than can be surmounted at the ballot box, even in a primary, but it is always an economic force first and foremost.

[jessikast]

Leverage: Redemption thoughts

Now that I have - joyfully and with complete delight - watched the eight episodes we’ve been graced with:

I adore it. The first episode, in particular, felt almost like fanfiction in the best way. Our characters were BACK. (Except one, and I don't think anyone really misses him.) The banter, the references to the original show (I teared up at the first over-head group shot), the vibes and character dyamics - perfection.

I'm really surprised that - in a show that is otherwise quite progressive and very aware of the world it's operating in - that unless I've missed something we still don't really have any canon queer characters. (I mean yes, obviously, there's our OT3 which is only word-of-god canon, and in my heart everyone in the crew except Nate was totally bi, but the only character I can think of was that lady detective in two episodes of season 4 who was lesbian and who *may* have had an excellent lunch date offscreen with Sophie.) Breanna said something about wanting to fit in in terms of 'who we love' in The Card Game Job episode, but I don't think that was anything explicit.

Sophie's grief at the start of the first episode was amazing. Gina Bellman's acting was so lovely.

I really miss having more Hardison, but I like Breanna more than I thought I would. I was prepared to bristle at her cockiness and defend our precious baby Alec, but I think the show did a really good job introducing her - allowing her the technical skills she needs to be genuinely useful to the team, and also showing that she is explicitly being mentored and taught. If she went the route of many other 'annoying kid genius' characters she'd always be haring off, getting herself into trouble and in over her head, but I love that she LISTENS to the others - and they're respecting and listening to her too. (And do we know how old she's meant to be? She's sort of introduced as 'Hardison's kid sister', but she also talks about having day gigs so she must be old enough to be out of school and working. Late teens/early 20s?) I thought it also worked really well how explicitly they drew the parallels between Breanna and Hardison (and Parker) at the start of Leverage, both for endearing us to her character and for showing us how much our original team have matured and grown.

And how lovely is Hardison's new career direction?! He's hacking, like, the GLOBAL POLITICAL SYSTEM.

I was a bit confused by the way Sophie's leadership of the group wasn't really addressed a lot. We knew - from the end of the original series and from the 'what we've been up to' summary in the first ep - that Parker has been masterminding the trio, and yet very quickly after Sophie's return she just takes control. It's addressed really briefly but not resolved, and then in the eighth episode it seems like Parker has purposefully stepped back to allow Sophie's leadership as part of them supporting her through her grief, but I feel like we missed a step there. Not that I WANT conflict between our faves!

How amazingly, completely gorgeous is their new building? The outdoor courtyard area? The bar and the high, stained glass ceiling?! That cool stables (?) entryway??! (Do they actually live there? What happened to Sophie's inital reluctance to leave her home and Nate's things?)

I do wish that we'd seen some of our old favorite side characters, or at least heard how they're doing. Obviously the focus in the first set of episodes needs to be establishing the new characters and team, so I'll cross my fingers that we get Maggie, Sterling (possibly as a couple), and Taggert and McSweeten AT LEAST. I also have a big soft spot for Hurley and Peggy. Even just a throw-away reference to how they're doing would make me happy! Also the other 'shadow team' - i.e. Archie and Chaos etc. would be fun.

I have to admit - and it's just my personal bias - that I expected more from The Card Game Job episode. The whole ren faire was fun (and 100% worth it just for seeing Elliot as a knight) but I thought that we were going to get more of the cut-throat world of competitive collectible TCG tournaments etc. And I know that this show requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, BUT: an amazing, special, one-of-a-kind card and it's not even in a sleeve?!?!

I liked the idea of the The Mastermind Job, but I did think it was a bit thin explaining how this guy had SO MANY details about their cons - was IYS actually tracking Nate so closely, or did Nate spill a LOT of stuff at the bar? And I wish that the revelation that Nate had elided Sophie's role as a way to protect her privacy had come from HER rather than the random fake-Nate somehow figuring it out mid-showdown.

I liked the way that having some new team members meant the 'are we the bad guys? is this a tad morally dubious?' questions got asked.

Finally: Sophie misspoke when she said Nate's heart gave out, right? Was there any way we don't think it was his liver? His poor, poor abused liver?

Anyway, I'll probably have more collected, coherent reponses later, but overall I am SO happy to have this show back.

[ohwaitimthewriter]

Shev’la (Silent)

Pairing: Paz Vizsla x earthling!reader

Warnings: mention of violence (not explicit), a losing hope feeling, mention of abuse (not explicit), if you see anything else, let me know!

Summarize: Three years ago, The Empire got a grip on Earth resulting in an event called The Purge. The aim was to kidnap earthlings to enroll them as stormtroopers and those who didn’t fit in the quality of being soldiers, ended up as slaves. When the owner of a bar on Nevarro bought you from the Empire, you knew you’d never see a glimpse of your home ever again. But you could never forget the face of your last hope.

Words count: 1.287

A/n: Hello there everyone! So here is... a new series! And I’m so excited about it that I fear I’m the only one who is this happy about it 😂 Let me say a few words about it. This series is special because it is related to another one: Ner naak (Din Djarin x earthling!reader). But NO WORRIES you don’t need to know about Ner naak to understand and enjoy Shev’la! Now for those who already know Ner naak or who are interested about it, Shev’la happens after Ner naak. Let just say that Ner naak explains why and how Shev’la happens. Therefore, if you read both, you’ll read about two on going series that complete each other without being dependent on the other. It is the 2021 project I was talking about earlier and I don’t remember being this excited about writing project!!! A tag list will be created if needed!

I hope you’ll enjoy the ride and, enjoy your reading!

Shev’la Masterlist. // The Mandalorian Masterlist. // Masterlist.

Days were no longer counted. It has been a long time. So long. You had stopped counting the days when you had lost hope that you could one day find the warmth of your home again. But you couldn't remember the day you stopped hoping. 

Six hundred and seventeen days. That was the last number on your wall. How long had it been since then? You weren't sure anymore. In the shoebox that served as your bunker, you were waiting for someone to come and get you. Or rather, you were waiting for the bracelet that was bolted to your ankle to vibrate, indicating that it was your turn to go and be a stooge for the owner of the bar that had bought you from the Empire. 

Bolted to your ankle. Yes, they couldn't think of anything better to guarantee the monitoring of their "service agent", as they liked to call you, than to bolt this electronic bracelet to a bone. You were happy to have it on your ankle. Some people had it on their wrist or knee and sometimes even on their elbow. The ankle was certainly the least annoying. The most bearable in movement. You still stumbled because the bracelet greatly reduced the range of motion of the joint but you managed to get used to it.

After all, humans always ended up getting used to everything. Or should you say, earthlings. 

When the Purge had arrived, when the Empire, that Galactic Order, had simply decided that Earth would be its harvest field, many people thought that Earth would recover. Spoiler alert, it had not. 

Despite the armies, despite the sudden agreement of all the countries of the world to face a threat bigger than the very world you were living in, it hadn't been enough. How could it have been enough? Fighter planes against over-equipped spaceships with technology that was beyond any earthly mind? Even the nuclear bomb would not have been effective. In fact, they never had the guts to use it. You almost thought that they didn't really want to protect Earth and that this destructive bomb was only intended for the poor little earthlings that you were.

But that was a long time ago. And you had stopped being angry at them. You had spit out the bitterness that had settled in the back of your throat and you had kept quiet. In the truest sense of the word. How do you know what a body can do in response to a trauma like that? You couldn't know until it happened. And shutting yourself up in silence had never, before, crossed your mind. You who loved to talk so much. You who loved to share laughter, stories and stuff with others. And you, who was said to be the most "spontaneous chatterer" as your loved ones liked to define you, you were walled up in silence the day the screams of pain from the drill that had fixed that bracelet to your ankle. Because the Empire didn't bother to anaesthetise the areas that needed to be operated on. 

Pain had been your last words and until today you had never wondered if one day you would hear the sound of your own voice again. You didn't even know what it sounded like anymore.

It has been a long time. It has been such a long time. And when the vibration of your bracelet activated, you took off your coat, the only earthly thing you had left, to come out of your bunker in a more than ridiculous outfit. A slave outfit. Designed to be seen, designed not to be able to hide or protect yourself, simply designed to be devoured by others. No matter if you had a problem with your body, you could be sure that there was at least one creature in this filthy galaxy that would love it. 

And you couldn't look at yourself in the mirror anymore. Not because you had been soiled, but because of all the blows you had taken to defend yourself when one of them wanted to lay his hands on you.

None of them had succeeded but you were punished each time. And maybe until now you had just been lucky. Maybe none of them had been stubborn enough to insist. But today, the marks on your body discouraged anyone who would have had the idea. 

Maybe that's why the Empire had sold you to that owner? Because here too, you didn't fit in on the good slaves. Not a good soldier. Not a good slave. So what were you good at? 

You walked along the narrow corridor that would lead you to the kitchen. And after the kitchen, another corridor. And after that corridor, the bar. 

When you appeared, the owner... what was his name again? Bara Qongg, that was it, beckoned you to come closer before he stuck a tray of Spotchka glasses in your arms. 

"Back table. Hurry up. "he said. 

Always so kind, that one. Although, politeness was a right you had lost since The Purge.

You simply nodded and walked to the back of the room. You didn't look ahead, you never looked ahead. It was forbidden. And it was a rule that had been painfully ingrained in your skull. But you might as well skip the details. You preferred to forget them. That's why you were able to avoid getting your foot caught on purpose, but you couldn't avoid hitting the hardest, coldest metal that had ever come into contact with your skin. 

And all you could see was three glasses bursting on the ground and panic rushing through your veins. You froze. Because you knew it was coming. You were already getting ready to receive them and your hands were clutching the tray until your knuckles turned white. And you waited, you waited for something to happen, but nothing happened. 

Suddenly you realised how silent the room had become and the shadowy presence next to you, the one you didn't want to see, became clearer in your field of vision.

A deep blue armour. You needed the courage to lift up your head to realise that this person was wearing armour from head to toe. His helmet was leaning towards you. You couldn't see his face. The visor was so dark that you couldn't even see his eyes. And he was impressive. You had never seen anyone like him before. He was so strong that you were already anticipating the pain that a blow from him could inflict on you. And you were afraid of it. 

You took a step backwards, hardly swallowing and you couldn't understand why no one, not even Bara Qongg, would react. You could hear your heart beating in your temples and suddenly you heard his voice, muffled by his helmet. 

"Is everything all right? "he simply said.

And there was no trace of anger, no grudges, no hidden meanness behind it. His voice was calm. You wouldn't say that he was really interested in your well-being, but it's been a long time since someone had spoken to you in such a ... normal way. 

And he could see you were completely lost.

That's when your owner stepped in. 

"Mandalorian! To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked.

In a few seconds, he had just drawn the attention of this "Mandalorian" to himself. You watched him walk away from you, not without a glance back, as if he wanted to make sure that physically, you had nothing broken before carrying on a conversation that no longer reached your ears. 

And you were far from suspecting that it wouldn't be the last time you would see this "Mandalorian".

[overwatchredemption]

The first meeting [Part 3]

This is the events of the first Overwatch Redemption meeting as told through the recounting of Dr. Angela Ziegler, part 3 of the retelling.

The next Hero to arrive was Zarya, who said nothing as she walked in, sitting down towards the front on the left side where Talon was sitting a few rows back. She said nothing until Sombra came over and began talking to her. I could hear them definitely talking about something to do with Volskaya Industries and Zarya's involvement in the Russian Defence Forces. They ended up talking for quite a while, which left Symmetra to work in peace. She looked like she needed it.

Next to arrive all the way from Egypt was Pharah. I was very glad to see her, so I personally went over to greet her. Pharah, my assistant, and I had some catching up to do since my work in Egypt, and I was glad to see she was able to bring her Raptora equipment. Brigitte was very excited to see it in person, so I allowed them to get to know each other as I finalized my things for the presentation. Pharah also went around getting to know the other heroes before taking a seat.

Following not long after Pharah was Baptiste, who apologized several times for being so late. I happily told him he wasn't late and he seemed relieved. Despite his smile, I could tell Baptiste was nervous. If I were previously on the run from most of my new co-workers, I think I would be nervous too, so I can't say I blame him. He stood up on the stage with all the other healers, and I nodded to each of them.

"Alright everyone, let us get started!" I said into the microphone. It was a bit louder than I meant to have it, so I adjusted the volume as everyone turned to look at the opened auditorium doors. Tracer had just zipped into the auditorium, and into a seat next to Winston. "Sorry I'm late everyone! Had to pick up the old folks." She smiled, as two old friends of mine walked in the door: Soldier 76 and Ana Amari.

He had his gun on his back, and a visor mask covering his face, but I knew that body language all too well. "Good to be back folks." He said before sitting next to Reinhardt. Rein greeted him warmly, as did the others who had worked with him previously. He waved and nodded politely, but saw that we were attempting to start so he didn't speak much. I could tell he was being cautious, I couldn't hold that against him in an unknown environment like this. This whole operation was balancing on thin trust, but it was all we really had.

Ana quickly jogged through the doors, waving briefly to Pharah as she climbed onto the stage. "Sorry we are late, poor Lena had to pick us both up." She explained as she hugged me softly. It was a warm hug I had rather missed, and she looked as healthy as ever. Ana broke the nod as I happily forgave her for being a bit behind, and I moved back to the podium, checking the last box on attendance.

"Please quiet down, there will be plenty of time to catch up in the following days. Now, let's finally start this shall we?"

Everyone was here now. Project Overwatch: Redemption actually had more people than originally planned for, and I could not have asked for a better turnout of future heroes. After all, the world could always use more heroes.

This is what happened prior to the meeting, and if it is requested, I will discuss the specifics of the meeting.

Mercy, signing off.

- Mercy [Angela Ziegler]

[oftenderweapons]

Apple of My Pie — Jin

A Small Town Swoons story

Chapter 1.

Pairing: Kim Seokjin x reader (nicknamed Buttercup)

Wordcount: 3.5k words

Genre: non-idol!AU, Baker/Café owner!Seokjin, University student!reader Flatmates!AU, Friends To Lovers, Fluff, slightest angst.

Rating: suggested 18+ (there are brief apparitions of dirty thoughts, also future episodes will contain NSFW material)

A/N: Hello my sweet poppies! Welcome to the Small Town Swoon Universe! 🥰✨

In this episode: Jin and Buttercup met when she was nothing but a scared, homesick first year student. Four years later, the two share an apartment close to her university and his bakery and café, and are the best of friends, sharing the house, several meals and, most importantly a sacred breakfast ritual. However, as far as sharing goes, Seokjin’s heart has belonged exclusively to Buttercup for four years. Exhausted, Jin finally decides to let go of his unrequited feelings, or at least try.  

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Oh, this is chill. Light swearing, heavy infraction of The Silent Roommate Code (aka don’t do the nasty with your bf when your roommate is sleeping in the bed at the other end of the room. Especially if she’s a virgin, first year and very homesick). Also, there is a quick flash image of breast worship, sorry.  

Remember to vote for next prompt (check the link in my bio) and in case you need it, here’s my masterlist 💜

In case you need it, here is the music companion

Enjoy! ✨💜

Navi: Chapter 1 — Chapter 2 — Chapter 3 — Chapter 4 — Chapter 5 — Chapter 6 — Chapter 7 (7/7)

It was a slow morning at Jin’s café, only a pair of clients sitting at the small table in the corner, two girls who always met there on Sunday morning, at an illegal hour for the weekend. They had outdoor equipment with them, and probably it was just a stop for a quick breakfast before going skiing or trekking, which was strange considering the disastrous downpour outside, but who was he to debate.

Plus the usual early birds were late too, probably because of the university bonfire the night before.

Seokjin yawned and silently cried over his lost hours of sleep. He was ready to sit down, tip the back of his head against the wall and sleep — actually, rest his eyes —, when the bell at the front door dinged, announcing a new customer.

He inhaled and wore his best smile, standing up. “Good morn— Oh my god, sweetie are you alright?” He asked, seeing a drenched young girl stand at the door.

“I might use a friend.”

That girl was you, running away from your roommate and her boyfriend fucking in your dorm room. Right in the bed beside yours. With you there. And they didn’t even bother keeping quiet.

Seokjin was awestruck. You were soaked like a stray kitten left out in the rain, your hair sticking to your face, your eyes wide and your lip trembling, speaking of several degrees of trauma. “Poor thing.” He murmured, “wait, I should have a blanket back here.”

He dashed for the small cot he had in his office, in the back of the shop, gripping the fleece blanket and bringing it back to the counter, jogging around it and opening the blanket wide as he stared at you. “It’s better if you take off your robe. It’s dripping wet.” He said discreetly.

The girls at the front stared at the scene, a bit worried about you but mostly endeared at the cute barista taking care of you.

“May I use the restroom? The shirt underneath is, uh, thin... Oh, god this is so embarrassing.” You hid your face in your hands.

“Of course,” Jin blushed to his ears, offering you the blanket. “Would you like some coffee? Tea? Cocoa?”

Your lip wobbled, eyes watering and not for the rain. “Cocoa?”

“Yes, sweetie. Go get changed, the restroom is over there.” He pointed at the door.

“Thank you so much.” You said, placing the blanket in front of your chest.

Seokjin rushed behind the counter, grabbing a rag to dry up the wet patches you had left on the floor before someone slipped. Next he got your cocoa ready.

In the quiet morning, through the background music and the gentle chatting of the other two clients, he could hear you using the hand dryer, glad that it was set on hot air so that you could hopefully warm yourself in the process. He even thought of bringing you in the actual bakery, where he had a small traditional stove operated by firewood, other than the big oven working for croissants and banana bread and brownies and pies.

You emerged from the bathroom a little more composed, bundled up in his blanket.

It smelled good. Like raw sugar, butter and apples. A tinge of raisins.

It smelled domestic, like your granny.

You missed your granny.

You missed home.

Your lip wobbled again.

“Come sit”, he said, pointing at a chair in a private corner of the room, somewhere you would be a bit protected from the rest of the shop. It was also conveniently close to the counter, so he could check on you and ask you if you wanted to talk about what had happened. His first thought was that you were a teenage runaway with very bad planning skills, considering that you had run out in your pyjamas and a jacket, your shoes definitely inappropriate for the weather outside, holding only a pair of keys and your wallet in your hands, placing them on the counter once you sat.

“I’m Seokjin.” He said kindly, offering you his hand.

You caught his hand and introduced yourself.

“So, what brings you here with this devil weather so early on a Sunday morning.”

“Running away from my roommate and her boyfriend.” You said, hugging the blanket tighter around you.

“What hap— Nevermind, I think I got it.” Seokjin said, blinking repeatedly. Goodness, people were nasty. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked, placing the cup of cocoa in front of you. “Cream? Cocoa powder? Cinnamon? Chocolate sauce? Marshmallows?” He asked.

You teared up. “Marshmallows.”

He poured an abundant amount of them as he pouted, noticing you had become even more upset.

“There you go, Buttercup.” He said, smiling at you so kindly.

“Thank you,” you said, your voice weak and your forehead creased as you desperately tried not to let your tears spill.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked, delicately letting his hands move toward yours, moving slowly to see if you took it away. “May I?” He asked, his fingers hovering over yours.

You nodded. While your left hand held the blanket close to your chest, your right ended pressed between his warm palms, the one on top rubbing your knuckles.

“How old are you?” He asked, worried. He wore a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, you look very young, I’m just asking to see if I should call your parents or anyone adult.”

“I live at the dorms. I’m in college.” You said, frowning a little.

“As I said, you look very young. And there are some underage students here so...” He explained, his deep, dark eyes breaching through your bad mood.

“I’m a first year. Nineteen.” You said.

“Poor darling, that must be so hard on you.” He said softly, still patting your hand.

You nodded. “I miss my family. My granny.”

“Oh, buttercup.” He cooed.

If you were in a sane state of mind you would have snickered at yourself and at how miserable you looked.

Still, you were grateful for the kind and gentle Seokjin. And how easily he had brought you back home, with the scent of his café, the taste of the cocoa and the specific brand of marshmallow that your grandmother always got for you when you were little.

“It’s a three hour drive. And it’s tough here.” You said, hiding your face as you dried one tear.

“Do you have any friends here?” He asked.

You shook your head. “Not really.”

Seokjin smiled, his eyes becoming even kinder as his cheeks became round and puffy. “From today, I’m your friend.”

Seokjin, you are a strong-willed, honest man. You are a gentleman. You are a good human. He kept repeating in his brain.

You are a polite, friendly, reliable. You are her friend. He repeated as a mantra.

Still, his brain was completely drowned with thoughts of you in the shower.

The two of you had become flatmates in rushed circumstances after you found an apartment ten minutes away from your university, which allowed you to walk there without having to take the bus or end up in the decrepit dorms, sharing a room way too small with someone way too rude or too loud.

Seokjin still didn’t know what had convinced him to share an apartment with you. It was hell. And heaven too, when he didn’t keep reminding himself that you weren’t his girlfriend, that you would never see him like that, and that he shouldn’t be playing house with you.

It was torture and bliss. Bliss on your Sunday mornings, when you could have breakfast together, or random nights when you would have movie marathons together and you would fall asleep against his shoulder, when he would cook for you and you would have dinner together over a glass of wine, laughing and making jokes. The more he spent time with you like that, seeing you drink your morning cup of coffee while still half asleep, on those days when he had someone else doing the morning shift — which was extremely rare — the more he realised you were absolutely perfect for him.

And then torture.

In moments like this, while you were under the shower, when you got out of it and as usual you walked around the house clad in nothing but a towel, absolutely comfortable in your skin, or when you thought he wasn’t home and he could hear your breathy moans and little whimpers, and then again on those two or three nights you had taken somebody home — in those circumstances he felt like he was paying for an ancient crime he didn’t know he had committed.

You had convinced him to move in with you since the apartment — being close to the university — was also incredibly close to his shop, and once he saw your eyes glimmering, your pretty face begging him to accompany you to visit the apartment, he couldn’t really say no.

So, he had said yes.

And once he saw the building, and the warm, domestic ambience, he realised that even if he would never be your lover, the least he could allow himself was to live this small daydream with you.

A week later you and him had signed the papers to rent the place. And everything had escalated from there. You had become the closest of friends, trusting and leaning on each other in every moment, through every difficulty.

However, the more he got to know about the men you dated, the more he realised you would never be attracted to him.

They were all fancy preppy boys who very likely knew the entirety of the Oxford dictionary and could probably recite Shakespeare sonnets impromptu. One of them could easily have been grandson to a duchess or a marquise. And he was pretty sure the first boy you had dated — second year university — had even a trust fund.

It was basically unreal for you to look at him with anything but friendly appreciation.

In an attempt to silence his thoughts, he got out of bed and headed for the kitchen, starting the coffee machine and getting your breakfast ready.

Maybe you would have completely ignored it being January and you would have simply climbed the barstool by the counter wearing your bathrobe, your hair still wet, and the two of you could have had breakfast just like that, without any kind of embarrassment.

As soon as coffee started brewing, your nose appeared from the bathroom door, barely ajar as you slipped out in a soft-looking white t-shirt.

As he threw a glance in your direction he knew immediately that you had very likely stolen the undershirt from his freshly washed laundry.

You slithered out of the bathroom and with stealthy footsteps you occupied your regular spot in the kitchen, watching as he prepared all the necessary material for a respectable breakfast.

“Good morning.” He said as he saw you perched on your favourite seat.

“Morning.” You replied, your feet bare, your toes gripping the small bar connecting the two front legs of the chair. “I thought you were at the café.” You said, pushing your hair away from your face. They weren’t dripping, but they were still a bit damp, especially since you had stopped drying them as soon as the smell of hot coffee reached you in the bathroom.

“Lara is covering the morning shift. I’m doing tea time today. The ladies love me and Lara can’t stand them asking about her boyfriend. I can’t have her kiss and grind on her girlfriend in the middle of my distinguished bakery out of spite.” Jin placed some apple slices on your plate, together with a quite large piece of apple pie.

In a small bowl, he poured some dry fruit before placing it on the table.

“Petty, angsty thing she is.” You said, clicking your tongue. “A true hero.”

He snickered. “Not surprised you’re friends.”

“I am patience made person.” You said, playfully offended.

“Like that one time you smashed a plate on the floor because you had burnt yourself when taking it out of the oven.”

“It was an accident. I dropped it.”

“Like it’s hot.” Seokjin murmured under his breath, lightly swaying his hips as he finished aesthetically placing your food on the plate.

“What?” You asked, comically confused.

“Nothing.” He said, stopping altogether before pouring you some coffee, adding a spray of whipped cream and decorating it with caramel and crushed caramelised almonds.

Jin asked himself how many more times he’d be able to cook you breakfast; how long until he would have to teach someone else, until you would move out with another person and you start your day with crappy industrial food instead of homemade pies and organic apples and his grandmother’s dried hazelnuts and almonds and freshly toasted chestnuts when the season was right.

Whenever he was home, he spoiled you with homemade breakfast. It was the only way he truly allowed himself to show you how desperately in love with you he is. Anytime he cooked, love simply seemed to pour out of his body through the powerful way he kneaded biscuit and pie batter, and the delicate gestures he used to place each part of a dish to form beautiful works of art: crimson red wine risotto on white porcelain plates; juicy cuts of meat, perfectly cooked in that wondrous oven of his, with a deep brown layer on the outside and the most tender dark pink in the middle, laying on the freshest bed of lettuce with a thin dribble of balsamic vinegar and crushed green peppercorn on deep blue rectangular plates.

And every Sunday was sacred. Every Sunday morning he woke up like he had spent all Saturday night courting you and making love to you — minus the obvious relief and satisfaction that come from spending all night on a bed with the person who is your partner and your lover at the same time. Sunday morning was his favourite ritual. Waking you up with the smell of your favourite hot chocolate — the one you seemed to be addicted to, and that he used on you and against you very wisely — and then cake, a different one every week, and again fruit and sometimes, in summer he would go to the closest farm, buy the milk directly from the farmer, a friend of his grandmother, at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, bring it home, pasteurise it so that it was ready for Sunday morning, when he would use it for the healthiest of smoothies.

He loves you. He has loved you for years. And after two years of living together, losing hope was a possibility.

A possibility a bit too vast at the moment. Actually — hopefully — reality.

Today would be like any other day if it weren’t for one small fact.

Two days ago it had been four years since he first realised he had fallen for you. And two days ago he had decided he would stop chasing after you.

Therefore, he had decided that from then on, he would let go of you, even if that meant losing a part of himself. And today he would actively start walking a new path.

Once the table was ready, he arranged both your and his plate there, without passing you your cup of coffee — as he usually did — and waiting for you to come to the table.

You moved your hair out of the way as you sat down, taking your fork, not even noticing Seokjin’s first sign of petty detachment. You immediately stabbed your fork inside the apple slice and bit into it.

“Do you have lessons today?”

“Romantic Philology in the afternoon.” You replied munching, pushing your hair behind your shoulders, accidentally exposing two wet patches on the front of your t-shirt.

Actually, Seokjin’s t-shirt, but you decided he didn’t need to know that: you had simply forgotten to carry your clothes to the bathroom and once you heard the bustle going on in the kitchen, you managed to find a pair of pyjama pants in the clean laundry, but not a shirt. And you had stolen one of Seokjin’s. Not like it was a big deal.

“Romantic as in love?” He asked.

“No, as in 1830s, German, English and Italian. We’re looking into Byron and Shelley. Sometimes it’s outright boring, but our professor is so hilarious, she sees right through all those pompous arses.” You said, getting started on your masterpiece of a coffee.

“Oh.” Seokjin said. One more point for the preppy kids.

“No, it’s just academic stuff. Nothing that is actually worth something in real life. Some days I just wish I could give up on Goethe and Scott and the Brontes so I could bake cookies without a care in the world.”

And every day he wished he could give you just that. Turn his bakery into your sanctuary, hold you there, half guest, half hostage.

He decided to halt his thoughts there. No more.

“So you have teatime. Do you want me to make dinner tonight?” You asked.

“Actually no.” He said casually.

You stopped munching on your food. “Oh. It’s not Tuesday, though. Are you out with the guys, random meet up? Is Namjoon in town?”

“No.” He glued his eyes to the plate. No, he had not noticed your hardened nipples, a vague halo of dusty pink appearing from underneath the thin, wet white cotton. No. He would not let his mind wander. No, he would smash the thought out of his mind. 

Smash you. 

No! The thought. His mind. Out.

Like the colour didn’t remind him of fresh raspberry ice cream, like he hadn’t imagined dragging frozen raspberries against your oh-so-responsive buds, only to warm them with his mouth afterwards, pinch the small fruits between his fingers, crush them until tiny droplets of ruby juice landed on your lush breasts, his tongue lashing out to collect the liquid and lave your luscious curves.

But this time the thought did not enter his brain. This time he let it wither and dissolve into fine, sterile dust.

“Are you having dinner with your granny? And you didn’t invite me?” You said, pouting. “Her roast-beef is—” You stopped and swooned. “The definition of perfection.”

“I’m out on a date.” He said briefly and simply.

You frowned and quickly lifted your eyebrows, not letting the confusion show. “You sure you still know how those work?”

“It’s not like I’m celibate.” He said shrugging with his humongous shoulders. Lifting all those sacks of flour… And helping at the farm— You frowned again.

“Cinnamon?” He asked, knowing that the spice sometimes bothered you.

“No, no...”

“Do you need assistance, for your date? You sure you don’t mean the exotic, typically Egyptian fruit?”

“I mean I’m going out with a girl.” Seokjin started growing impatient.

“Who is it?” You asked, out of curiosity. In two years he had never brought a girl home. And in four years you had know each other, you had never seen him with a female friend or an actual girlfriend. You didn’t even know what is his type.

“Her name is Grace. She’s been a regular at the café for a few months now. She asked me out and I thought it would be rude to say no.”

Your interest poked, you placed down your fork. “Did she invite you?” You held your coffee in your hands, trying to keep yourself from gesticulating nervously.

“No. I did.” He said, finishing his pie and starting to eat all the hazelnuts in the small cup.

“I mean. Plenty of girls give you their phone number on a weekly basis. I literally find them everywhere. There’s around thirty on top of the washing machine alone, because I can’t do your laundry and have all those pieces of papers disintegrating and infesting our laundry and the drain. Why didn’t you ignore her like all the rest?” You asked, a bit upset.

“Because she seems a nice person,” who could love me back, which you don’t. He replied, leaving half the motivation silent in his brain.

“Cool.” You said, finishing your coffee before standing up and placing the cup in the sink.

“Cool,” he replied, neutral, watching as you left all the almonds and dried banana slices in the cup, the pie on your plate. “You’re not done with breakfast.”

“I’m late with my homework.” Which you weren’t, but you felt like your breakfast had been poisoned. Maybe that’s why you felt sick in your stomach.

Seokjin pouted and finished his food before placing your leftovers in small boxes. He knew you would come back hungry from uni and finish the food you had abandoned.

He didn’t read too much into your reaction. He was done trying to understand you.

Today he was finally done being stuck at a crossroad, and although your path in the woods felt and looked lovely and smelled even better, he opted for the safe, trodden and charted way that led out of the woods, into the uneventfulness of the ordinary.

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Navi: Chapter 1 — Chapter 2 — Chapter 3 — Chapter 4 — Chapter 5 — Chapter 6 — Chapter 7 (7/7)