#and the public’s response is to shut it down because the actor claimed they have ancestry within that group they are playing

[blackfilmmakers]

Yeah it was Nani's actress who lied. At some point she said sge was Native Hawaiian I believe on her dad's side, but it turns out she's just mixed White/Asian & I think she's coming at this from a "I was born in Hawaii so that makes me 'Native' Hawaiian" angle 🤨

I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to make assumptions on this stuff, but also……..yeah, this doesn’t surprise me. Articles just kept on saying she had Native Hawaiian ancestry, but the way they worded it made me skeptical. They put a lot more emphasis on the fact she and her family live there, and her father being Filipino. They were very loose when tracing where the claim she had Native Hawaiian ancestry came from

[snalsupremacy]

2024 Events (So far!)

2022 list

2023 list

And once again, these are not all the events, just the ones I come across with :)

Mickey Mouse is now public domain baby

Tom Scott retires from weekly uploads

MatPat retires

Duolingo bad?!

Toby Fox drew Reigen and Sans for Valentine's day.. A bit early? Eh, maybe it's another country's VD. Also birdie and Spamtom were there

OFMD cancelled

SAG-AFRA signed contract to allow AI voices in video games

Haha! Tumbrl live to be GONE in jan 24th! yahoo!

King charles diagnosed with cancer (we dont know which one) and, wouldn't you know it, Trysha Paytas announces her second pregnancy

Nicki Minaj spirals after Megan Thee Stalion disses her in response to Nicki's constant & blatand shade for her...

Kristen Stewart causing mass gay panic with her roling stone magazine photoshoot

Vtuber agency Nijisanji under fire after mistreatment of employee almost cost their life

Nimona whole movie FREE on youtube!! with captions!!

Popular transwoman tumbrl user gets banned for posting transition pics, causing discussions of tumbrl CEO's incopetence and the porn ban targetting trans people more than actual porn

Nonbinary 16 year-old american teenager Nex Benedict dies a day after getting beat up by students in their school. While the autopsy claims the death isn't because of the injuries, they might be lying. There's also the possibility of suicide, which would still be linked with the bullying and transphobia they suffered. Rest in peace Nex Benedict.

ATLA live action not that good, but from what I hear could be worse!

Minecraft youtuber Wilboor Soot revealed to have abused his ex-gf Shelby, posts terrible "apology"

James somerton posts ANOTHER apology video and I kid you not it's called "A Measured Response" in reference to HBomb's series of the same name

Willy Wonka event is a total scam and it looks awful and there a new character called the unknown that is terrifing also the whole thing was made by a guy using AI

Legendary Mangaka Akira Toriyama passes away at 68, The amount of people in this world that'll miss him... It's over 8000! Rest in Peace Toriyama <3

Stardrew Valley major update

Nickelodion docu about how Dan Shneyder is a total creep and Spencer goated with the sauce

Red v Blue queerbait was acutally going to be canon?!

Tumbrl's april fool's joke this year was the ability to "boop" other users, fun!

guy from firefighter show confirmed bi, yay!

Ziraldo morre aos 91 anos ;-;

Solar eclipse yay yay yay!!

Iran attckas Israel (no bombs reach bc of israel's iron thingy i forgot the name)

Jojo siwa new song turns the internet over. Breaking news: child who grew up in the entertainment industry is a mal-adjusted adult?!?!

ICE ADOLESENCE CANCELLED I HOPE THE MAPPA EXECS GO BANKRUPT

Watcher moving from youtube to a inscription program which is a terrible idea in all ways

New Taylor Swift album. Public consensus: Mid-to-not-good. Swiftie consensus: MASTERPIECE OMG ITS PERFECT

Columbia college taken over by palestinian protests

THEY KILLED THE CW SNIPER

Dan and Phill girlies going insane bc one of them tweeted a orange heart?

May the 4th be with you!

Kendrick Lamar and Drake drama summary here

Eurovision commences

EUROPAPA DISQUALIFIED THE DREAM IS DEAD.

Welp, this year's Eurovision was a shitshow. Same time next year?

Nintendo to announce the new console "this fiscal year"

James Somerton fakes his death then uses an alt to post pics of his private parts TOT

SPN actors Ty olson and DJ qualls are engaged! Mazal Tov to them and to this gay ass fandom!!

(jjk soilers) the brain thing took over gojo's body LMAOOO

KABUSO THE DOGE DOG PASSED AWAY NOOOOOOOO TOT TOT TOT TOT TOT TOT

qsmp coming to an end thank G-d

#april: 3ds + wii u internet shut down (via @chaotixxx337)

I'm severely depressed and can't keep up with anything

that being said, congratulations Thailand for being the first SEA country to legalize Same-sex marriage!!

mario and luigi brothership announced (via @chaotixxx337 )

Gainax OVER ITS JOEVER HAHA GOODBYE EVANGELION THEYRE BANKRUPT

Artfight! yay!

Joost and Kaarija collab?!

Shelley Duvall dies at age 75 TOT

Streamer sketch outed for being previously a gay sex worker

Streamer Dr Disrespect is found out to have in-appropriately texted minors

Genshin back at it again by making entire regions based in places like south/central America and Africa and including everything except the melanin 😐😐can hoyoverse go bankrupt already

Trump association attempt (only hurts his ear)

Biden has covid

BIDEN STEPS DOWN FROM RE-ELECTION

DIZZY, VENOM, NEW CHARACTER, AND LUCY EDGERUNNERS IN GUILTY GEAR STRIVE

(jjk spoiler) nobara confirmed dead

VP Kamala Harris to run for president in US election

Oh uh, famous commentary youtuber Kody Ko definitely had sex with a minor and refuses to talk about it!

What the fuck is book of bill

UZUMAKI COMING SEPTEMBER 28 THE WAIT IS FINALLY OVER OMG

Oh lord the Book of Bill is an ARG

Turns out they really are having technical difficulties. We've been staring at a picture of Soos for days over nothing.

Oh yeah the Olympics ar happening, go sports!

MY HERO ACADEMIA FINALLY ENDED. WE'RE FREEEEEE

Olympics going awesome, highlights is BRASIL MLEHOR PAIS DO MUNDO CAMPEÃO REBECA ANDRADE MINHE RAINHA also a guy who lost the poll jumping bc of his dick

Neil Gaimen, author of famous books like "Coraline" and "Good Omens" is revealed to have been a creepy dude towards young girls

new umbrella academy season is shit

MG announced a new album we are so back

BRAZILIAN MIKU IS LOVE BRAZILIAN MIKU IS LIFE

BRITANY MANSON NOT YOU TOO

[jjk spoiler] NOBARA KUGISAGI IS ALIVE FEMINISM IS BACK ON!!!!!!!!!

Minecraft movie trailer! Good news: Jack black. Bad news: Everything else💀

Nicokado Avocado revealed that he is actually skinny and all the videos were from 2 years ago, which is insane to say the least

Twitter no longer in Brazil. Good luck to Twitter without us there lmfao. We were the best part of that app anyway🙄

Splatoon 3 ended? i didn't even know a game could.. end? why? its so popular tho? i don't get it

Moo Deng the baby hippo

VOLTRON WILL BE TAKEN OFF NETFLIX RIP BOZO

meteor will orbit earth for about a week meaning we'll have a secondary mini-moon :D

babe wake up, Mozart just dropped (insert GTA6 joke here)

Uzumaki bad. 5 years of wait for nothing. the dream is dead.

VOLTRON LIVE-ACTION STARTING HENRY CAVIL

Gayshit Impact voice actors on strike!! Hope they win fr!! fuck hoyoverse so much!!!

Liam from 1D dies at 33

TYLER ANNOUNCED NEW ALBUM CHROMAKOPIA LETS GO

this happened in aug but the CEO of youtube DIED?! how did I not hear of that now?!

SONADOW GENERATIONS IS GOOD GUYS A SONIC GAME IS GOOD ITS GOOD WE DID IT

happy halloweeen!

i was born

vatican anime girl mascot called Luce who is really cute and also a missionary

its us election day and also destiel 4 aniversary

TRUMP WON??????

fucking Santa and Moo Deng are trump supporters what is going on

Arcane S2 yipee

Tony Todd, actor in Candyman, passed away at age 69

DSMP work now downloadable, pretty neat!

idk man a lot of stuff happened i lost the plot... arcane ended... uhh...

mike tyson vs jake paul FDDDDDDDDDDDX1 (my dog just walked on the keyboard mbv) anyway jake paul wins

wicked movie

THEY GAVE SHADOW A GUN

THE SUMMER HIKARU DIED COMING TO NETFLIX I AM ASCENDINGGG

UNC Healthcare CEO shot with bullets that read "Deny, Defend, Depose". Shooter ID still unknown but general public loves him

isuocha canon who cares honestly I hope my hero crashes and burns and horikoshi never has another successful work ever again-qTHEY FOUND THE SHOOTER??

United healthcare CEO shooter id as Luigi Mangioli who among many things has a crhtonic back issue, loves the pokemon breloom, and had a good reads acc

Star trek short that shows kirk traveling realities to be with spock on his death bed

The syrian government collapsed???

GARASHIR CANON?!?

The Luigi situation just keeps getting worse man, this Florida woman got arrested for saying "deny defend depose" on the phone line, he's getting tried for TERRORISM(???) like what is even going on anymore

Former US president Jimmy Carter dead at 100

PANTY AND STOCKING IS COMING BACVK AFTER 14 YEArs

happy new year!!

[atlanticcanada]

Sex worker wins in Nova Scotia court but ruling leaves sex industry conflicted

In a legal decision described as the first of its kind in Canada, a Halifax sex worker successfully sued a client for nonpayment of services, but actors in the industry are conflicted about the ruling's impacts.

Former sex worker Brogan Sheehan took Bradley Samuelson to small claims court after he didn't fully pay her fee, which both parties had agreed to beforehand. Samuelson argued that the agreement was invalid because it is illegal to purchase sexual services, but court adjudicator Darrel Pink said the contract could still be enforced and awarded Sheehan $1,800.

Sex work remains criminalized in Canada, but a 2014 law removed criminal penalties for people, like Sheehan, who sell sexual services. Paying for sex, however, remains illegal.

Sheehan's lawyer, Jessica Rose, says she and her client wanted to expose the court to the "economic realities of doing sex work." As well, Rose said they wanted to raise awareness about "what is needed as far as access to the civil justice system to ensure sex workers are treated fairly by their clients."

"This type of issue had never been addressed before in court," Rose said in a recent interview.

Emma Halpern, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, says the decision empowers sex workers to seek legal remedies to enforce their contracts.

The decision also reflects a changing attitude within society and the law toward sex work, Halpern said. The public is beginning to understand the difference between "extremely harmful, predatory things like sex trafficking, and legitimate sex work by an adult who is a worker, pays taxes, has a business."

As a response to the ruling, Halpern and Sheehan said they planned to hold workshops for sex workers to help them understand their legal rights.

But not everyone in the sex industry sees the court's decision as a step forward. Real change will occur once politicians decriminalize sex work, said Sandra Wesley, executive director of Stella, a Montreal-based organization by and for sex workers.

The vast majority of sex workers, she said, won't seek financial recourse via the court system because sex work is still criminalized in Canada. Going to court exposes a sex worker -- and potentially everyone else she is associated with -- to the justice system, Wesley said.

"Even if there's a chance she can win, there's always a risk of workplaces being shut down, police being alerted to the activity, being evicted, deported," she said. "There are many consequences of being criminalized, even if we win in court."

Wesley says the small claims court decision actually goes against the 2014 federal sex work law, called the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. That law emphasizes the importance of discouraging sex work and denouncing and prohibiting the purchase of sexual services "because it creates a demand for prostitution."

Wesley says, "I hope the minister of justice and prime minister read the decision, read the law, and consider it's time to change it."

And while Pink's decision says that both sides in the court case believe it is the first of its kind in Canada, a legal expert questions its importance on jurisprudence because the ruling was rendered in small claims court.

"The usual court hierarchy doesn't apply," said Wayne MacKay, professor emeritus at Dalhousie University's law school. "Another small claims judge wouldn't necessarily have to follow it, nor a higher court."

And while the decision doesn't have a binding precedent, it could still influence other court rulings, he said.

"The message is out there," MacKay said. "Sex work is work, legal work, and deserves to be treated like other legal work, and if people chose not to pay, they can get a remedy in small claims court."

According to documents filed in Nova Scotia's small claims court, Sheehan charged $300 an hour for her services, and spent seven hours with Samuelson on Jan. 26, 2022. But the next morning, when she attempted to take cash out of an ATM with his bank card, the transaction was denied. After several text exchanges, Samuelson eventually paid Sheehan $300, leaving $1,800 outstanding.

Pink's decision, rendered in April, says public policy requires the courts "not to increase or contribute to exploitation of sex work, and thus favours a regime that gives aggrieved sex workers access to the civil courts when they have a civil claim."

MacKay said the broader social impact of the novel decision may be more important than the technical, legal impact.

"One has to kind of admire the sex worker that decided to test the waters, see what small claims court would do, and succeeded," he said. "That's the way things change sometimes."

Sheehan, who advocates for the decriminalization of sex work, said she wanted to pursue the case in court because she was a victim of human trafficking when she was a minor.

"I feel obligated to not leave things the way that they were," she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2023.

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/mhPY7ES

[bizarrequazar]

Glossary of Names and Terms

This post is made in accompaniment to my GJ and ZZH Updates series to aid people who haven’t been following events for as long, giving a brief summary for the people and groups often mentioned in relation to the two actors, as well as commonly used terms. Presentation is alphabetical. Please let me know if there is an addition you would like me to make or if you have any corrections or concerns.

★ 813 → Short for August 13th 2021, refers to the incident that occurred that day and the events that subsequently followed.

In summary: a photo was spread by online water armies of Zhang Zhehan in front of cherry blossoms from a trip he had taken to Japan in 2018. This was accompanied by claims that he had been there to visit the Yasukuni Shrine—a politically controversial shrine which honors WWII war criminals—and that he held right-wing anti-Chinese sentiments. This photo was later joined by others, all either photoshopped or with falsified context, “backing up” these accusations along with further claims slandering him and his family.

In the days following, Zhang Zhehan lost all of his endorsements, had all of his past works taken down, had all of his social media shut down, and was boycotted by the entertainment industry at large without the chance to defend himself. His name and image were also later banned from social media, he was used as a negative example in schools and on exams, and his name is blocked from registration on some social media sites and certain devices. He and his family have been subject to intense harassment including death threats.

All of the accusations against him have been shown to be false and he is currently pursuing legal action, but he is still unable to speak or appear publicly in any capacity.

For further information and details, see teddyfoxfluff’s blog and the wiki page. A timeline of main events that I made can be found [here].

Primary People and Groups

★ The Brand → EHz.Z, see Xie Yihua. I refuse to name it in my updates posts unless necessary because I have zero respect for it. ♥

★ China Association of Performing Arts (CAPA) → A non-governmental association with ties to many other companies and organizations in China, including social media sites. On 2021-08-15 their live events committee published a notice calling for the boycott of Zhang Zhehan; the rest of the entertainment industry followed suit, believing CAPA to have authority that they do not hold. They have also published a series of lists of “immoral artists” whom they deem unsuitable to be held in public esteem, which Zhang Zhehan was included in on 2021-11-23; the only other two actors included have serious criminal charges against them. CAPA has refused to publicize what their criteria for these lists are nor who the people on the committee behind it are, and the lists are officially stated to not be retroactive.

CAPA came under a great deal of scrutiny at the end of November 2021, spearheaded by Li Xuezheng, which revealed the association to be heavily corrupt. It was found that several of their higher ups have ties to “immoral” companies including soft-pornography, and they are heavily suspected of taking bribes and threatening artists, among a slew of other things. 

In late November 2021, CAPA published a notice that their immoral artists lists are not mandatory. They have yet to make any other public statement in response to Li Xuezheng’s questioning and investigations, nor have they addressed the topic of Zhang Zhehan.

[collected translations and info about CAPA]

★ The Instagram (zhangzhehan_super3) → Zhang Zhehan’s former Instagram account which was deactivated on 2021-08-16, then reactivated on 2022-01-13. Since 2022-04-03, it has been posting photos and videos claiming to be Zhang Zhehan, all of which have been proven to either be photoshopped, deepfakes, digitally edited body doubles*, or old unreleased material taken out of context. It has also pushed products from the brand EHz.Z (see Xie Yihua) and posted things directing hate towards Gong Jun. The account has greatly divided fans between believers and non-believers, especially since the 05-04 deepfake video. Let me reiterate here that it is solidly known by this point that Zhang Zhehan has no involvement with this account.

People known to be directly involved in this account are Xie Yihua, Sophie, and Lingzhi Lexus.

*at least three body doubles are known to exist, one of whom is a man referred to as Hewitt [1] [2]. See also Zhang Su.

[timeline and collected information about the account]

★ Li Xuezheng (aka Uncle Li) → A director affiliated with Beijing Golden Shield Productions, former journalist, and vice president of the China Federation of Radio and Television Associations’ Culture, Art, and Audio-Visual Communication committee. On 2021-11-23 he made a post on Weibo questioning CAPA’s 11-23 list of immoral artists, which led to him learning more about 813 and declaring that Zhang Zhehan deserves a chance to defend himself. He subsequently became the driving force for this, emphasizing that he was on the side of procedural justice rather than Zhang Zhehan—he had no past relation to the actor, and did not claim that he is either innocent or guilty. He also spearheaded public criticisms and investigations against CAPA which gained widespread public and legal support.

On 2022-01-01, Li Xuezheng posted an audio interview between himself and Zhang Zhehan, which was conducted in the presence of legal and government bodies as well as media persons. This is the only confirmed time that Zhang Zhehan has spoken publicly since 813.

Li Xuezheng’s Weibo account was muted on 2022-01-10. He was expected to be unmuted on 04-10, but the account was deleted by Weibo on the evening of 04-08. Li Xuezheng publicly posted a message through trusted sources saying that he would no longer have any internet presence, indicating that anyone claiming to have contact with him should not be trusted.

“The victim has a basic legal channel to obtain assistance. There are many ways to solve problems, please do not be driven by emotions. Offline work is going well, do not be worried.”

On 2023-03-23, there was an attack against Li Xuezheng in something akin to a mini-813, which so far has not succeeded in any substantial capacity. [info here]

[translation archive of Li Xuezheng’s Weibo posts]

★ Sophie → Affiliated with Xie Yihua. One of the main people behind the Instagram account and brand who is also heavily involved in the body double videos and “public appearances” of “Zhang Zhehan” that began in June 2022. She has been caught on film with one of these body doubles (Hewitt), and the footage was handed over to the authorities. Sophie is also known to have impersonated multiple people online in Zhang Zhehan’s fandom spaces, is known to be directly responsible for at least part of the fake girlfriend rumors (see below) that began in April 2021, and has repeatedly led attacks against Gong Jun.

It was previously believed that she was an underling of Xie Yihua’s, however, information was discovered in mid-June linking her to a right-wing nationalist Japanese conglomerate. It is now believed she may have a much larger role in this than previously thought. 

[“Who Is Sophie?” Twitter space notes (06-20)]

★ Water Armies → Paid fake accounts hired en masse to create the appearance of wide support for or against something in order to sway public opinion. These are sometimes used as a marketing tactic, but often are used to spread hate. 

[a video inside a water army company]

★ Xie Yihua (mockingly referred to as 🦀) → Zhang Zhehan’s former music manager who is known to have multiple professional ties to CAPA. Starting in at least January 2022, she began to contact fans privately claiming that she had direct contact with Zhang Zhehan and was trying to help him, using a copy of his ID as “proof”. Since 2022-03-30, she’s been pushing a brand (EHz.Z) of luxury-priced trademarked products with Zhang Sanjian, aimed at Zhang Zhehan’s fans. All profits from the trademarks go to her and her sister [more info]. She is known to have significant direct involvement in the zhangzhehan_super3 Instagram account which claims to be Zhang Zhehan, using this account to further smear his name and push the products. 

[Wiki page] [further info about and relating to Xie Yihua]

I sometimes refer to Xie Yihua and co. as the scam gang.

★ Zhang Sanjian → Originally a WeChat account posting essays claiming to be Zhang Zhehan starting 2022-01-16, which early on posted chest-down videos of a figure playing guitar and photos with no face visible. Its posts included many socially and politically sensitive topics, as well as topics intended to invoke pity. By February, the account started to divide fans between people who believed in it and those who believed it to be a malicious imposter.

Since the beginning of April 2022, this persona has claimed to be the person behind the Instagram account, and its activities have largely moved to there. See the above section on the Instagram.

[Wiki page] [further info about and relating to Zhang Sanjian]

Secondary People and Groups

● 不想匿名 (Don’t Want to Be Anonymous) → A Zhihu account that began posting relatively innocuous photos on 2022-02-13 with habits similar to Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun, leading some to believe it’s one of both of them behind it, though it’s never explicitly claimed to be them. It is not known who runs the account and it should therefore be taken with a large grain of salt, but so far it has not done anything worrisome. Some of its actions seem to shade the Instagram, and Xie Yihua and co. seem to have some anxieties about its existence. [discussed further at the bottom of this post] (I personally stopped entertaining belief in it after a post it made in January.)

● Chen Liying (aka Chen Ahyi) → Affiliated with Xie Yihua. A former business partner of Zhang Mama’s who holds partial ownership of the Shenzhen tea shop and the EHz.Z brand. She has no familial relation to Zhang Zhehan, claims of such are completely false. It was discovered on 2022-08-16 that she is the one who sent the funeral wreaths to the tea shop that Zhang Zhehan mentioned in the 01-01 interview. [Wiki page]

● Kele → The poor ragdoll cat at that the tea shop uses as a mascot.

● Lingzhi Lexus → Affiliated with Xie Yihua. A former acquaintance of Zhang Zhehan’s who claims that they are currently very close. In late May 2022 rumors were spread that the two were in a romantic relationship, only for Lexus to make a post saying he’s straight. Since then, he has been appearing in photos and videos with the Zhang Zhehan body doubles. There is reason to believe he has direct access to the Instagram account. [Wiki page]

● Lufei → Zhang Zhehan’s French bulldog.

● Master Wu (aka Grifter Wu) → A “righteous bystander” (see below) who has claimed to have met Li Xuezheng and often arrogantly posts slander against Gong Jun. [Wiki page]

● Peng Lihu (aka Tony) → A shareholder in Qingdao Golden Shield, who used this shared company name to lead people to believe he had direct connections to Li Xuezheng, also utilizing access he had to the Golden Shield social media accounts and Roving Inspection Team account. (Clarifications about Golden Shield [1] [2]) After Li Xuezheng’s account was deleted in April 2022, he started making implications that he was in contact with Li Xuezheng. In June 2022 he began making posts attacking Gong Jun. 

● “Righteous Bystanders/Passersby” → Refers to people “uninvolved in fandom” who started to seemingly help Li Xuezheng “out of a sense of justice” in his investigations against CAPA around December 2022. In the time since, many of these have revealed themselves to be involved with CAPA, support the Zhang Sanjian scam, and/or engage in slanderous behaviour.

● Roving Inspection Team → The Weibo account of a legal drama that Li Xuezheng produced; since he started to speak up against CAPA, it also started posting about things related to this. Many believed that Li Xuezheng was the person behind a number of these posts, especially in the time since he was muted. The account was muted for “violating community guidelines” on 04-30 then unmuted six months later on 10-30; it reposted a post by Peng Lihu shortly after, confirming suspicions that he is the one behind it. (tl;dr it’s malicious.) All of its posts prior to 2022-11-17 have now been deleted. 

[translation archive of Roving Inspection Team’s Weibo posts]

● Songcheng → An entertainment company under CAPA that many of the planted supporters of the Instagram / Zhang Sanjian have been found to have professional connections to, most notably Lao Ahyi [1] [2]. There are unconfirmed rumors that they attempted to sign Zhang Zhehan to an exclusive contract in spring of 2021, which he turned down.

● Xiao Yu → A childhood friend of Zhang Zhehan’s who worked as his assistant during and after Word of Honor’s filming. So far there is no solid reason to believe he has betrayed Zhang Zhehan; deepfakes, photo manipulations, and a body double of him have been used several times. 

● Wang Peiwen (aka the fake girlfriend) → A woman who was claimed to be Zhang Zhehan’s girlfriend / fiancée in rumors that reached their peaked in July 2021 and have emerged again with Zhang Sanjian. These rumors have been thoroughly debunked multiple times. Wang Peiwen has been impersonated online by Sophie (see above), but the real Wang Peiwen is aware of and complicit with this. [Wiki page]

● Zhang Su (aka Susu) → A childhood friend of Zhang Zhehan’s who briefly worked as his assistant around 2018, who currently does video game livestreaming. He is known to have had a previous professional relationship with Xie Yihua’s sister. Following 813, he did not say anything about Zhang Zhehan until 2022-03-31 when he wore one of the EHz.Z hats on stream, saying that he was “helping his friend” when fans questioned him on it. On 2022-05-20, he made a post unconvincingly stating that he had nothing to do with the 05-04 deepfake video. As of 2022-11-24, there is strong evidence that he is one of the body doubles. [Wiki page]

Further Reading:  -  Flora’s Cast of Characters document  -  Notes from the “Who’s Who” Twitter space (06-25)  -  Zhang Zhehan Wiki

Fandom Terms

★ CPF → “Character pairing fan”, in this context refers to someone who ships* Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan (junzhe) or believes them to possibly be more than friends. It’s become common practice for solos to use CPF to refer generally to anyone who is a fan of both of them. These fans are also known as junzipi (lit. orange peels; aka JZPs, oranges, 🍊).  *Both actors have stated they don’t mind fans shipping them as long as it doesn’t cause issues for them or their families. 

★ Hexagon Rings → A pair of rose gold Tasaki rings that both Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun have been photographed wearing—Zhang Zhehan wearing it is easily explained as he had an endorsement deal with Tasaki, but the same cannot be said for Gong Jun. Fans first took note of these rings after Gong Jun’s was (poorly) edited out of the concert behind the scenes special. Most other sightings are contestable; there was a significant increase in them in the immediate wake of 813. The most recent possible sighting was on 2023-03-28.

★ Kadian → Meaningful numbers, sometimes in that they’re phonetically similar to other words in Chinese and sometimes that the numbers themselves hold significance, such as birthdays—511 is Zhang Zhehan’s, 1129 is Gong Jun’s, 1640 is the sum of the two. In this context, kadian usually refers to the timestamp on social media posts. [more info] They might not always be immediately obvious, for example 10:51 or 11:32 as 511 kadians; more exact ones are of course more likely to be intentional, and generally kadians should be taken with a grain of salt. Both actors, especially Gong Jun, have been known to intentionally use kadians.

★ Lang Lang Ding (LLD) → “Wandering Nails”, a collective term for Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun themselves as well as the characters they played in Word of Honor. Usually but not always used as a shipping term: often used interchangeably with junzhe, sometimes used simply as shorthand to refer to both actors (as with my tag). 

★ Solo / Solo Fan → What it says on the tin: refers to someone who is a fan of only one celebrity. Solo fans of Zhang Zhehan’s are referred to as haizhe (aka jellyfish, ଳ ) and Gong Jun’s as junweixian (aka JWX, mushrooms, 🍄) 

Many solos follow the philosophy that originated in idol culture where being a fan of multiple celebrities is seen as not being loyal to / betraying the celebrity; “toxic solos” refers to solos who get mad at those who don’t follow this philosophy, as well as solos who act hatefully towards other celebrities and their fans. 

★ Whalers (🐋) → A derogatory colloquialism used by the English-speaking fandom to refer to people who have been fooled by / show support for the Zhang Sanjian persona, EHz.Z, etc. They often refer to themselves as haizhe, but most real haizhe do not associate with them.

This post was last edited 2023-04-03.

[orikoaurora]

What Do You Need To Know About The Stop Asian Hate Movement.

Ever since it came to light that the COVID-19 virus originated in Wuhan, China, incidents of hate against Asians in America have been steadily on the rise. According to a study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, there has been an increase of 150 percent in hate crimes against Asians in the US in 2020 — more than double of 2019. These include attacks on people of Asian origin as well as the businesses run by them. The study found that two of the cities, where Asians have been targeted the most are Los Angeles and New York.

Experts such as Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and director of demographic data and policy research non-profit AAPI Data, believe that part of the hatred against Asians has been fuelled by the repeated use of “China virus” and “Kung Flu” by former US President Donald Trump, conservative media outlets as well as his supporters when referring to COVID-19. Commenting on the stereotypes that Asian Americans face in the US, John C. Yang President and Executive Director of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) told CNN, “Unfortunately, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders often are invisible to the public. Or, where we are visible, it falls into a couple of different stereotypes. One stereotype is the so called ‘model minority’ — the suggestion that there are no issues that really affect the Asian American community.”

This hate, marginalisation and stereotype assumed a horrific shape on March 16, 2021, in Georgia which sent shockwaves among Asians living in America and other parts of the world.

What Happend In Georgia?

Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white American, shot dead eight people at three massage parlours in Cherokee County and Atlanta city. Six of those killed were women of Asian descent. Long has been arrested and charged with eight counts of murder — four each in Cherokee and Atlanta, besides charges related to aggravated assault, attempt to murder and use of a firearm. Though Long claimed he was not motivated by the race of the victims and hate crime is not part of the charges against him, many, including Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, believe the mass shooting was an act of hate crime.

Has There Been Any Incident Post The Georgia Spa Shooting?

Multiple attacks on people of Asian origin have been reported across the US in the week since the Georgia spa shootings. A day after the incident, a 75-year-old woman was brutally assaulted in San Francisco. In three separate incidents on March 21 in New York City, a 54-year-old was hospitalised after being attacked, a 41-year-old was attacked from behind and a 37-year-old was assaulted on her way to an anti-Asian violence protest. While a man has been charged in the San Francisco incident, two men and a woman have been charged in the three NY incidents.

What Has Been The Response To The Attacks?

People have been highlighting these hate crime incidents on social media, raising awareness and asking everyone to look out for their Asian American family, friends and neighbours. Thousands took to the streets in New York, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Washington and even Montreal in Canada in the last few days speaking out against anti-Asian hate, calling for police reforms and criticising Trump for his hateful rhetoric against China during the pandemic.

During one of the marches, San Antonio Mayor Juliàn Castro told demonstrators that “For generations, Asian Americans have been discriminated against. I don’t have to tell that to anybody in this crowd.”

Following the March 16 incident, the US House Judiciary Committee’s civil rights committee held a hearing on the anti-Asian bias — a first in over 30 years.

Are Prominent People Speaking Out On This Issue?

In the backdrop of the rise in hate crimes against the community, numerous celebrities have extended their support to rights groups and families of victims while expressing solidarity with Asians in America. Among them are actors Awkwafina, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, Olivia Munn, and Ken Jeong, designers Prabal Gurung and Yoon Ahn, models Mona Matsuoka and Soo Joo Park besides several others.

In an emotional Instagram video after the Georgia attacks, Tony Award-winning Ashley Park of Emily in Paris fame drew attention to the systemic racism that Asians face daily even “starting with children, when every Asian kid should be able to be good at math and play a classical instrument…”

“This racism starts at a very small level. It starts with things that you say. It starts when someone calls a virus that shut down the whole world the ‘Kung Flu virus.’ It also starts when you roll your eyes or make fun of Asian waiters or Chinese food delivery people and the nail artist,” she says in the post calling to stop Asian hate that has been viewed over three million times.

Min Jin Lee, the celebrated author of Pachinko, in support of the Stop Asian Hate movement, tweeted, “In less than 48 hours, we had a historic Asian Oscar moment with multiple firsts in 93 years — then a mass shooting targeting 3 Asian-owned businesses. This is how terrorism works — you’re not allowed to feel safe, accepted, or valued. We can resist. Take up space. Make noise.”

Appearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on March 18, The Good Doctor producer and actor Daniel Dae Kim called for the passage of the No Hate Bill and the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act. Referring to the failure of the bill’s passage last year, he said, “I was disheartened to find that for a bill that required no money or resources, just a simple condemnation of acts of hate against people of Asian descent, 164 members of Congress, all Republican voted against it. And now here I am again, because as every witness in this hearing has pointed out, the situation has gotten worse, much worse.”

He told the committee that even though the country Asians call their home “may consider us statistically insignificant now, but one more fact that has no alternative is that we are the fastest-growing racial demographic in the country. We are 23 million strong. We are united, and we are waking up.”

Many celebrities have been raising the issue of hate incidents against members of the community for a long time. Others who have been vocal about it include tennis star and multiple Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka, who, in a Tweet on February 7, wrote, “The amount of hate, racism, and blame for COVID towards the Asian community is disgusting. The fact that this topic is not very widely covered makes me concerned. I only found videos and information because I was scrolling through my IG feed and by some algorithm it appeared.”

[daloy-politsey]

Palestine was more prepared for the first coronavirus wave than many other governments because the PA’s security forces successfully lobbied the international community to provide them with a public health emergency simulation the previous year. “International donors gave them a workshop, and they modeled it on the basis of a potential MERS [Middle East respiratory syndrome] outbreak,” said Tahani Mustafa, a Jordanian-based research fellow at the London School of Economics.

The exercise proved beneficial, since the PA already suffered from limited logistical options and an obstructed health sector as a result of the Israeli military occupation, which has prevented the acquisition of supplies and equipment and greatly constrained the travel necessary to keep up-to-date with medical training and development, according to a report by al-Shabaka, an independent global Palestinian think tank.

Mustafa explained that the simulation was meant to include a workshop for representatives of the various branches of the security sector first, followed by a workshop for relevant political actors, such as representatives of the Health Ministry. The first workshop in 2019 addressed potential solutions to anticipated problems—which included a novel respiratory coronavirus.

Before the second workshop could take place, Covid-19 hit. With the first simulation fresh in memory, the PA moved fast, setting up a joint operations center where the Health Ministry, the prime minister’s office, and the security branches came up with procedures and rules and then delegated them to each governorate in the West Bank.

“With the first wave, what you had was an instantaneous response as soon as there was an outbreak in Bethlehem,” Mustafa said. “They basically shut down the area, and then a week or two later you ended up having the entire West Bank go into this severe lockdown. They did an OK job in the first couple of months. From what I was told, there was a lot of public consistency, where people were complying with the rules.” But unlike the simulation, the pandemic didn’t end.

Ten months have passed since those early days of relative success, and a different reality has emerged in the occupied territories. Makeshift checkpoints of dirt and stone now divide the towns. Travel and trade with Israel have been restricted even more than usual. And testing kits and supplies have run critically low. All 350 artificial respirators available in the territories had been put to use by July, according to the Health Ministry. At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was pushing for annexation, a threat that preoccupied the Palestinian leadership. With the government overwhelmed, the PA saw no choice other than to look abroad for financial support. But it ran into a roadblock.

In the past, Palestinians relied heavily on US support, which amounted to around $400 million a year, according to a 2018 congressional report. But the bipartisan Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act, which was signed into law by President Trump in 2018, slashed that funding to virtually nothing. According to that law, any foreign entity receiving US aid must consent to the jurisdiction of US courts regarding anti-terrorism claims, meaning the PA would be subject to terrorism-related lawsuits based on American law. Considering that it pays a stipend to the families of Palestinian citizens who are imprisoned in Israel, some of whom are being held on terrorism charges, the PA opted against accepting any US money. When the Palestinian economy shuttered after the first wave of the coronavirus, Washington pledged $5 million in aid—a paltry sum, roughly 1 percent of what had been the annual US aid budget to the PA.

According to data from the Palestinian Finance Ministry Service and an analysis by the London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, since March, the PA has received no aid from Arab countries, some of which signed US-backed normalization agreements with Israel during that period. These cuts arrived on top of a 50 percent decrease in foreign aid from outside the region, with total funding dropping from $500 million in 2019 to $255 million in 2020.

“When we ask how Palestinians are able to live under these conditions, we have to understand that it’s never been much better,” said Yara Asi, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Central Florida who is researching health and development in fragile and conflict-ravaged populations. “For Palestinians who can afford it, they will continue to access higher-quality private facilities or, travel conditions permitting, travel to Jordan, Egypt, or other states for advanced [health] care they are unable to get in the territories,” she said. “Low-income Palestinians will continue to rely on the public health sector, buoyed by inconsistent aid to the Palestinian Authority, as US funding has essentially ended.”

While donors in other parts of the world have filled some of the funding shortfalls, Asi added, many Palestinians will now be unable to access health care altogether while resources run dry and medical facilities and providers remain overworked and understaffed. For example, “thousands of Palestinians are missing needed vision care, as they have not been able to access ophthalmologists for months,” she said. “One report estimated that 1,200 surgical procedures to help restore vision have been canceled since April.”

[ladyreapermc]

Can you please write a smutty smut in Keanu’s POV? How she makes him feel when they are filming a sex scene (they are both actors, first time working together), his body’s reactions, what he wants to do to her later...

Hi nonnie! Here you go. I hope you like it. I definitely got carried away with this and it gave me so many ideas... Anyway... enjoy.

Warnings: smut (public sex); age gap.

You would think that after over 30 years in the business, Keanu would have stopped feeling nervous before shooting a sex scene. Yet, here he was, jittery like a newcomer because it was her. A sex scene with her.

They were keeping their relationship a secret. Neither of them wanted to deal with the press judging the age gap, calling Keanu a cradle robber or claiming she was only ‘doing’ him to climb the Hollywood ladder. They were keeping a secret even from their own families, knowing they would have a hard time understanding it. He was, after all, old enough...

Keanu cut the thought before it could be completed. They had agreed not to think about it. Not to give power to it, because it shouldn’t matter. They were happy together and for the first time, they would also work together and so far it had been amazing.

She was so talented, as he already knew of course, but it was really nice to witness first hand. To see her commitment and attention to detail, her perfectionism... much like Keanu himself. The production team was in awe of her, as Keanu knew they would be. She just needed a shot, so he made sure it would happen. He was just holding the door open for her.

His head snapped up when he heard her voice, the cheerfulness shining through in her tone and in the glint in her eyes as she chatted animately with one of the production assistants, the curves of her body hidden under the dark robe and Keanu had to swallow the lump of anticipation in his throat.

He knew what was beneath that robe. Unlike him, who would keep most of his clothes for this scene, she would be only clad panties and a white tank top, leaving very little to the imagination of the viewer. She was hardly shy of course and had appeared in different degrees of nudity in other movies, but Keanu couldn’t help feeling excited, but jealous.

He had seen all of it, explored every inch of her body, but never in front of cameras. so once again, Keanu felt the surge of uneasiness, but it was quickly washed away when she met his gaze and he noticed her own insecurity shining on them. Keanu wanted to go to her, pull her into his arms, make sure she knew there was nothing to be nervous about. But he couldn’t. Not in front of everyone.

Before he could even consider how to reassure him, the director was kicking out every unessential crew member and calling them to their marks. Keanu took his seat, in jeans and t-shirt, just like the script asked. She took her place behind the door that led to the fake bathroom.

Once the director called action, she stepped through the door and Keanu’s attention shifted to her. The script called for the desire to be written in his eyes and this was something Keanu didn’t have to fake when confronted with her curvy body and the olive tone of her gorgeous skin.

He swallowed the lump of arousal when she climbed on his lap, her eyes hooded and piercing and his hands fell to her ass, squeezing lightly, making her giving him a discreet smile. It was impossible for his body to not respond to hers, even with all the spectators.

Her lips met his in a soft kiss, her fingers threading his hair, tugging ever so slightly and that wasn’t scripted, but she knew he loved it and unsurprisingly, his cock twitched in response, inviting her to grind against it and Keanu had to hold to every single thread of his self-control so he wouldn’t just thrust up.

Instead, he focused on his character’s lines, mumbling against her lips almost in autopilot, while she kept on with her teasing, rolling her hips, nipping his jaw and Keanu was pretty sure none of that was in the script, but it sold the scene so he knew the director wouldn’t mind. Keanu did though because it was impossible for him to fully concentrate when all he wanted was to shove her down in the nearest flat surface, make her regret all of this teasing.

He used the angle of her body, knowing it would block his hand from the view of the camera and the crew, and pressed his thumb against her covered clit, making her arch and gasp and Keanu smirked against her neck, not missing a beat on his line.

They were both toeing the line here, but the danger of being caught seemed to add to the thrill before Keanu was hard as a rock beneath her and from this close, he could smell the sweet musk of her arousal and feel the way her nipples hardened, pressing against his chest.

She pressed her forehead against his, the motion of her body a steady undulation that always brought both of them to the brink. If Keanu was inside her that was. If he was deep inside her, buried to the hilt, filling her up, he would be in ecstasy at the steady quivering of her walls, working him, his tongue deep inside her mouth, teasing and dancing with hers.

As it was, even if the friction was delicious, it was hardly enough to give him release, but he from the flush of her cheeks, the fluttering of her eyes and the low gasps coming out of her mouth, it was working for her. Keanu met her motions, thrusting his hips up, one hand on her lower back, to guide their movements, the other in her nape, keeping her there.

His eyes stared into hers, almost as if saying forget anything else, stay with me and take what you need. Keanu licked his dry lips, his chest heaving with the effort of remaining in control as he watched hers slipping away. Her hands tightened against his shoulders, her body tensed against his and her eyes squeezed shut as she came with a low whine, trying to contain herself. She usually was so much louder.

Keanu sped his movements, playing up the scene and after a couple of seconds, he let out his own groan, a far cry from his grunts and growls when he was actually coming, but it satisfied the director because he called cut showering them both with compliments that neither of them really heard.

“My trailer. Right now,” he growled in her ear, mindful of his mic.

“Yes, sir,” she replied just as quietly before she got up in shaky legs, took her robe once again and walked away.

[palamig]

#junkterrorbill

TW: politics, police brutality

I have been absent from this website for a very long time, and a lot of devastation has happened since then. I hope everyone is doing well, and I hope all of your families are safe. As much as I’d like to be concerned about Covid, the events unfolding in my country prevent me from doing so. 

I’m a Filipino, born and raised in the Philippines. I lived in the countryside before moving to Manila for college and eventually law school. I’m on my last year as a law student, hence my absence. I’m taking the bar examination next year (supposedly this year, but due to Covid, the Supreme Court moved the exam date to next year.)

I’d like to say I’m passionate about my (future) profession. Learning the law has been nothing but enlightening to me in many ways. But things right now are making me question why we’re learning the law, when the people expected to uphold it are the same ones breaking, insulting, and abusing it. 

If you don’t already know, the Philippine Congress has passed the Anti-Terrorism Bill—a bill that will supposedly crack down on the (almost non-existent) terrorist problem in my country. The President certified this bill as urgent, and now it only needs his signature before passing into law. 

The law gives this “Anti Terrorism Council”, headed by our President and some of his closest cabinet officials, the authority to determine who is a “terrorist.” If you are suspected of being a “terrorist”, you can be arrested anywhere without a warrant, and then jailed for 2 weeks or more, without being allowed to contact anyone since the police confiscate your phones immediately upon arrest. Under our law, the police can only detain you for 3 days, after which they have to bring you to a judge. If you’re detained for longer than that, they have to pay you 500,000 pesos (or around $10,000) per day you’re illegally detained. Under the Anti Terrorism Bill, you can be detained for as long as the police want, without the police having to pay you damages if you’re detained longer than what’s legal. 

Under the law, a “terrorist” has a vague meaning: you’re a member of a non-government organization (women’s groups, organizations lead by indigenous people, etc.) that’s known for voicing out your opinions against government policies, or even if you’re just a regular person who has said anything that the government feels will “destabilize” them. They can tag you as a terrorist, tap into your phones and computers, track you down, and throw you into jail.  Worst case scenario, they can shoot you on the spot in the name of “self defense.” For regular people (who aren’t public officers), that’s 12 years to life imprisonment). All that, legal, under this law. 

The senators who are “defending” this law, are telling us that we just have to trust the law enforcement authorities. 

But the thing is, we don’t trust our police. At all. 

The Duterte administration has been notorious for red tagging. The police have been accusing innocent people of being drug pushers, and without the benefit of a court trial, shooting them dead, like wild animals, under the name of this administration. Thousands have been killed in Duterte’s infamous “war on drugs” if you’ve heard it. An author from the New York Times wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning article back in 2016 about the “collateral damage” of our country’s inhumane drug policy. Most of the victims of police brutality are people from the slums, members of the urban poor, who are barely even being paid minimum wage. Because they’re defenseless, they’re the easy and the usual targets of both this administration, and the people who support it. The worst part is, there are people out there actually happy that thousands have been killed. To them, our country feels “safer.” (All thanks mainly to our President’s propaganda). 

Just recently, a few police officers killed a retired war veteran, Winston Ragos, who they claimed was violating quarantine protocols (”violation of quarantine protocols” is their trendy new reason to justify arresting and abusing people). The killed him and claimed they did it out of self defense, even though it was five armed men against one. More importantly, Winston Ragos was mentally ill. He developed PTSD when he served the army. 

We’ve started protesting against this bill both online and physically. This morning, police raided one of our universities (University of the Philippines-Cebu) and arrested students who were peacefully protesting. Police said they were violating quarantine protocols, but couldn’t really explain what part of our COVID law they violated. What the President’s “troll army” has been trying to circulate is that these student protesters are members of the New Philippine Army, a group of communist insurgents which the government has, since the beginning of time, been using as a reason to justify military presence and abuse. They used the imaginary threat of communist insurgency as a reason to declare martial law back in 1972, and they’re using it again to abuse their power and abuse the people.  

I’d like to add that the Philippine National Police are notorious for planting evidence. But a lot of these cases are not being reported. Based on 800+ reports submitted to the UN High Commission On Human Rights, they found that policemen had been planting the same guns in different crime scenes back when they were still implementing the “war on drugs.” But because police officers are almost immune in my country (except perhaps one or two who are sacrificed to save the agency’s face), no one (at least, not in the government) said a thing about it. The rumor back then was that the police were given a quota of kills and get bonuses if they meet the quota. Animalistic. I know some high ranking officials from the national police and from the army who’ve resigned because they did not like the violent way Duterte is leading his men. 

I’m scared. We’re all scared. There is virtually no one in this government we can trust. Not in the Duterte or his cabinet, in Congress, or even in our Supreme Court (a handful of the new justices were appointed by this President). In the government, the voices of the opposition are few and far in between, drowned by the majority who are allies of the President. In the past few years, the government has made a spectacle of silencing and humiliating those who speak out about his human rights abuses.

We’ve reached the point where people actually celebrate when others are killed, humiliated, or when they voice out against injustice. They rejoiced when the government forced one of our biggest TV companies to shut down, putting thousands of people out of work at a time they need to be working and earning money. They bullied and made fun of the actors who spoke out against the shutdown. Reason for the shutdown? Simply because the TV company refused to air Duterte’s campaign ad, and chose instead to air the anti-Duterte campaign ad of an opposition senator which exposed Duterte’s misogny (he always makes rape jokes and even admitted to the media that he molested his helper when he was young) and violent tendencies. Now, they’re rejoicing at the sight of student protestors getting arrested, protesters who are disappearing without a trace. 

I’m sorry this has gotten long and complicated. So many things have happened and I can’t put them all into words, let alone in one post. And I haven’t even started talking about the fuckery that is this country’s response to the pandemic. And the even bigger fuckery that is our justice system. Philippine politics has always been dirty, but at these times, they’re at its dirtiest. They’re blatantly bending our laws to serve their own personal interests. 

For the longest time, I’ve always believed in humanity. I always tried to see the good in people, no matter how naive it sounds. But this administration, this President, has brought out the ugliest, darkest sides of humanity – and people continue to defend and glorify him.

I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe from the virus. We’re doing the best we can to defend our rights and to save our country. Please have my country in your thoughts. 

[cathkaesque]

Historical comparisons have been made with the revolutionary wave that brought down Eastern European dictators in 1989-91, particularly the Romanian uprising that resulted in the execution of tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu just four days after he was first booed off stage by a crowd of angry workers. These comparisons are somewhat premature. Despite the breathtaking speed with which this movement has grown, it is uneven both within and between workplaces, towns and cities.

Some regional centres have surged ahead, with a relatively large cross-section of the population attending protests and a greater degree of workplace organisation. Grodno, an industrial town in the country’s west, has formed a regional strike committee involving twenty different workplaces. And 40,000 of the town’s 370,000 people attended a mass demonstration on Sunday.

Workers from the Belaruskali potash mine in Soligorsk, south of the capital, Minsk, are on indefinite strike. They have shut down one of the four mines, slowed production in the others and mass rallies are being held daily in the city centre. Some workers reportedly say that they are willing to go on hunger strike if their demands are not met. When a company manager implored workers to keep working, they reportedly yelled in response: “There is no other way out! We were deprived of our voice, elections, and then they began to kill our children! Our salary is riot police bullets!”

When Lukashenko tried on Monday to address a crowd of workers at the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant, the largest factory in the city, he was booed off stage to cries of “Go away!”, “Shoot yourself!” and “Resign, resign, resign!”. An empty newsroom was broadcast across Belarus when employees from the state television station joined the strike, demanding an end to censorship. And actors from the Kupalovksy theatre in Minsk all resigned when their director was fired for supporting the protesters.

There are reports of a national strike committee being established by the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions, which before the election claimed to represent 15,000 workers. But other reports claim that the strikes are perhaps losing steam, although there is likely to be rolling strikes in coming weeks. For instance, workers at the Belarusian State University in Minsk, backed by students, have voted to strike on 1 September if their demands are not met.

Striking workers appear to be a minority in the large factories, but they have widespread support. For instance, about 20 percent of workers at the Minsk Tractor Factory have walked off the job, the rest staying but working at a slower pace. More workers might still walk out, but the authorities have been turning the screws to keep people showing up each day. Letters have been sent to state employees, threatening to take away bonuses and even sack people if strikes continue. Considering the extremely low average weekly wage, even by central European standards, it is a difficult threat to ignore.

Lukashenko is far from conceding defeat. On Wednesday, he appointed a prime minister and ministers of government. All security officials retained their posts, including the Minister of Internal Affairs, Yuri Karaev, who has been a target of the mass movement following the early crackdown on protests. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Interior Ministry’s headquarters on Wednesday night calling for his resignation. Following the appointments, Lukashenko convened a meeting of the Security Council, at which departments were ordered to again crack down and arrest protest organisers. Riot police appeared on the streets, blocking some key Minsk workplaces where mass meetings have been held.

For now, Lukashenko retains the support of the state apparatus. No government ministers have resigned, and the security forces continue to loyally follow his orders. This seems to have given him the upper hand. But the official political opposition, organised behind Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, is trying to sew divisions among the state elite, with the hope of organising a transfer of power. This opposition was largely absent during the first week of protests when workers and students led the movement. But as it became clear that it was continuing to grow over the weekend, Tikhanovskaya and her allies have jostled to become the beneficiaries of the outpouring of anger.

Tikhanovskaya is not a career politician; she was a teacher turned stay-at-home mum who entered the presidential race after her husband was disqualified from running in May. But the rest of her electoral team is composed of the established neoliberal political opposition. They are worried about the economic management of the country and their fortunes within it, not the plight of Belarusian workers. The combined opposition’s policy platform contains a familiar collection of neoliberal attacks.

Tikhanovskaya has put together a coordinating council to organise a transfer of power and new elections. At first glance, the membership of 51 looks like a mixed bag of notable Belarusian public figures: intellectuals, athletes, lawyers and medical professionals. But it also includes leading Belarusian capitalists, including Tatyana Marynich, the founder of the Belbiz group and Alexander Shchurko, CEO of telecommunications company Gurtam. The seven-member praesidium elected at the council’s first meeting is dominated by the united opposition’s key political apparatchiks.

For now, the coordinating council is relying on Belarusian workers to pave their way to power. Over the weekend, Tikhanovskaya backed calls for a general strike in a video address from Lithuania. Olga Kovalkova, Tikhanovskaya’s aide and co-chair of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party, called on workers to organise strike committees and negotiate with managers. Maria Kolesnikova, a stand-in presidential candidate for her imprisoned boss, the banker-turned-politician Viktar Babaryka, has been touring strike rallies, asking workers to stay on strike.

Despite the common demands of the workers’ movement and the opposition—oust Lukashenko, recognise Tikhanovskaya as president and convene free elections—a gulf lies between the interests of the two groups. Years of attacks, such as tightened eligibility for welfare and precarious workplace contracts, have contributed to the groundswell of working-class opposition to Lukashenko. None of the economic problems will be resolved by the opposition, which represents a section of Belarusian industry that wants to restructure the economy in line with the European norm. That is, allow carte blanche for capitalists in all areas of society. That path in the former Soviet Union resulted in economic devastation for workers.

Divisions have not yet emerged, but points of tension might if the workers’ movement continues to grow in the coming weeks and months. At some point, workers will have to develop an alternative leadership independent of Belarusian elites for their struggle to continue. Currently, the desire for unity is exerting a moderating pressure on the strike movement to not raise “divisive” economic demands.

Despite the political sway of the official opposition, the movement in the factories and on the streets is a spontaneous, popular uprising produced by dictatorship and economic deprivation. The strikes did not begin because workers were instructed to walk off the job; they started because the workplaces were a safe meeting place to voice objections to state repression while the riot police were grabbing people indiscriminately off the streets. Popular sentiment is neither pro-Russian nor pro-West; it is anti-Lukashenko.

[husheduphistory]

Dedicated to Death: The End Experiment of Thomas Bradford

When the Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York claimed they contacted the spirit of a murdered peddler in 1848 the ears of the entire country listened. Suddenly there was hope that those who passed away were not truly gone and people from all over began to scramble to find ways to communicate with the dead. Later, with the horrors of the Civil War tearing the country and families apart people looked to Spiritualism and any way possible to find answers from beyond. Hundreds of thousands never came home, countless numbers were never found and the need for closure and communication drove people into the parlors and palms of people claiming they could be their much-needed bridge to the other side.  As many people that believed in life after death, there were just as many who refuted it and the divide grew. As time moved on the division deepened with both sides seeking the ultimate proof that death was, or was not, the end. It is an argument that is still actively debated to this day.

Prof. Thomas Lynn Bradford was a man of many ventures. A one-time electrical engineer, athlete, and actor, by 1920 he had begun studying and lecturing about the occult with a particular focus on the afterlife. The world had now suffered through World War I and people’s spirituality was again feeling highly tested. Bradford was a man of sound mind, but his headspace became more and more filled with his thoughts on life after death and how to prove it. He wrote “…all phenomena are outside the domain of the supernatural." He wanted to prove his theories using scientific fact, but he knew he could not do it alone.

Professor Thomas Lynn Bradford.

In the early part of 1921 Bradford placed an ad in a local Detroit newspaper under the name “Professor Flynn” and stated that he was seeking “someone interested in spiritualistic science.” It was a strange ad, which was exactly why it caught the attention of prominent Detroit native Ruth Starkweather Doran. Doran was not a firm believer in Spiritualism. But, she was an avid researcher and was intrigued with the opportunity to learn about a field so unfamiliar to her. On a whim, she responded to the ad and before long she and Bradford began meeting face to face.

The experiment Bradford presented to Doran would have sent most people running, but for reasons unknown, she stuck with the plan. Before their last meeting on February 5th 1921 Bradford finished typing his latest manuscript and laid it neatly next to his typewriter. There was much to do and once Doran arrived the details were ironed out about how he would contact her when his half of the experiment was complete and how they would then reunite. The deal was made. They bid each other farewell and Bradford shut the door of his rented room. He knew he would not be disturbed, he already informed his landlord, a Mr. Marcotte, that if anyone were to call for him to tell them he was out and would not be back until very late. He turned on his heater. blew out the pilot light, turned up the gas, and laid down in bed until the fumes took his life.

The fact that Bradford killed himself in pursuit of answers about life after death may not have come as a shock to some of his friends. It was later reported that the occult interested him more than anything in the physical world. At one point he told Mr. Marcotte, “When I die my body goes to science. It is to be sent to the Michigan Medical Institute. Anyhow, my body does not amount to much.”

When Bradford’s body was discovered by Marcotte the next day the gas was still pouring from his heater. Upon investigation police found his typewriter, with one final note never removed, “And it is through scientific facts that I propose to demonstrate clearly the phenomena of spirits and prove that all the phenomena is outside the domain of super-natural.” Baffled by the suicide, the Detroit Police Department began to look for an explanation, and the dots quickly led to Doran who escaped any legal action by claiming they had met and discussed proving the afterlife but that she did not know he was planning to kill himself that night. Now, with his lifeless body laying in his home the first part of Bradford’s plan was complete. The second part relied on reconnecting with Doran to prove there was life after death. The self-proclaimed skeptic agreed to go through with it. “I am his friend.” Doran said, “If he can cause his spirit to come back to earth I believe his spirit will come to me first.”

Newspaper headline about Bradford’s suicide.

In the days following Bradford’s suicide the eyes of the Spiritualism world were firmly fixed on Doran’s parlor where she was hosting multiple vigils waiting for her friend to reach out and make contact. Throughout the entire process though, Doran made it a point that she was not a psychic, saying that she was simply a human being there to serve as a middleman and prove Bradford’s theories. She and the intrigued masses patiently waited night after night for a connection, but the hours moved on quietly with Doran only stating at one point that she felt a “strange sensation”.

Doran and the spiritualists were not the only one wanting to hear from Bradford. Multiple newspapers waited eagerly for word, running headlines updating the masses with the New York Times reporting, “Dead Spiritualist Silent” two days after the suicide. It was a few days into a planned two week long vigil that there was finally something to report, but it was not from Doran. A woman named Lulu Mack came forward stating that during a visit with a medium she heard a voice calling the name “Thomas Bradford”, a name she claimed was totally unfamiliar to her at the time. She told reporters that Bradford could not communicate very well because his suicide made him weak, suspending him before he could fully pass on to the next realm. “Life has fled from the body of Thomas Lynn Bradford but his spirit is hovering near and calling to us to hear its message,” Mack reported. “I have heard the call of his spirit. It is calling to me even now. But I cannot hear the message it would send, because the spirit is too weak.”

Headline from The New York Times, February 18, 1921. 

Headline from  The Pittsburgh Press, February 10, 1921.

Suddenly, a week after Bradford took his own life, Doran claimed she had a feeling she was going to hear from him, but it would be difficult considering how weak he was. Papers, thirsty for the next part of their bizarre story, urged spiritualists to concentrate on Bradford and “assist” him in reaching out. To make sure it was a focused effort it was agreed that 9pm was the time to take action and focus to help Bradford and Doran reconnect.

Much to the delight of some and criticism of others, at 9pm that night Doran sat in her darkened parlor with three witnesses. Suddenly, she put her hands to her temples, commanded the lights be turned off, and told someone to start writing. According to her, Bradford had finally arrived. “I hear his voice” she said to the room, “It is faint, but it grows more distinct. It is the professor.”

As Doran spoke in broken fragments the alleged message from Bradford was slowly pieced together:

“I am the professor who speaks to you from the Beyond. I have broken through the veil. The help of the living has greatly assisted me. I simply went to sleep. I woke up and at first did not realize that I had passed on. I find no great change apparent. I expected things to be much different. They are not. Human forms are retained in outline but not in the physical. I have not traveled far. I am still much in the darkness. I see many people. They appear natural. There is a lightness of responsibility here unlike in life. One feels full of rapture and happiness. Persons of like natures associate. I am associated with other investigators. I do not repent my act. My present plane is but the first series. I am still investigating the future planes regarding which we in this plane are as ignorant as are earthly beings of the life just beyond human life.”

At 10pm the lights were brought back on and a flustered Doran looked over the bits and pieces that she claimed were given to her directly from the spirit of Bradford. Then, she suddenly fainted. Once resuscitated one of the witnesses asked her if she was positive about her message, was she absolutely sure she was speaking with Bradford from beyond the grave? She was adamant, “I am convinced. I never heard a spirit voice before. That was the professor, without doubt."

Illustration from  The Ogden Standard-Examiner, February 21, 1921.

For all of the speculation and attention leading up to Doran waiting to hear from Bradford, the aftermath was remarkably tame. Despite the accounts from both Doran and Mack, members of both the Spiritualism community and the general public were not convinced that the alleged message from Bradford was proof of anything. The headlines faded into obscurity and Doran went along with them. Later in the year Doran wrote an article claiming that she maintained regular communication with her departed friend ever since. She was now a believer, still receiving messages from Bradford detailing how one day both realms would meet.

“Through spiritualism the world will be reclaimed: sin will be vanquished, suffering will end” she claimed he told her. “The physical in man will cease to be, and physical death, and that is the only death, will be no more. Men will live on earth forever, even as they live forever in the spirit world.”

At the time of his death Bradford was near penniless. His estranged wife living in Wisconsin only learned of his death later and his body was claimed by a brother, James Bradford, who handed it over to an undertaker for interment.

The body of Professor Thomas Lynn Bradford, the man who gave up his life to prove life after death, is buried in the Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.

[arcticdementor]

In the fall of 2008, America’s wealthiest companies were in a pickle. Short-selling hedge funds, smelling blood as the global economy cratered, loaded up with bets against finance stocks, pouring downward pressure on teetering, hyper-leveraged firms like Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. The free-market purists at the banks begged the government to stop the music, and when the S.E.C. complied with a ban on financial short sales, conventional wisdom let out a cheer.

"This will absolutely make a difference," economist Peter Cardillo told CNN. "Now, if there is any good news, shorts will have to cover.”

At the time, poor beleaguered banks were victims, while hedge funds betting them down as the economy circled the drain were seen as antisocial monsters. “They are like looters after a hurricane,” seethed Andrew Cuomo, then-Attorney General of New York State, who “promised to intensify investigations into short selling abuses.” Senator John McCain, in the home stretch of his eventual landslide loss to Barack Obama, added that S.E.C. chairman Christopher Cox had “betrayed the public’s trust” by allowing “speculators and hedge funds” to “turn our markets into a casino.”

Fast forward thirteen years. The day-trading followers of a two-million-subscriber Reddit forum called “wallstreetbets” somewhat randomly decide to keep short-sellers from laying waste to a brick-and-mortar retail video game company called GameStop, betting it up in defiance of the Street. Worth just $6 four months ago, the stock went from $18.36 on the afternoon of the Capitol riot, to $43.03 on the 21st two weeks later, to $147.98 this past Tuesday the 26th, to an incredible $347.51 at the close of the next day, January 27th.

The rally sent crushing losses at short-selling hedge funds like Melvin Capital, which was forced to close out its position at a cost of nearly $3 billion. Just like 2008, down-bettors got smashed, only this time, there were no quotes from economists celebrating the “good news” that shorts had to cover. Instead, polite society was united in its horror at the spectacle of amateur gamblers doing to hotshot finance professionals what those market pros routinely do to everyone else.

…

The episode prompted calls to regulate Reddit and, finally, halt action on the disputed stocks. As I write this, word has come out that platforms like Robinhood and TD Ameritrade are curbing trading in GameStop and several other companies, including Nokia and AMC Entertainment holdings.

Meaning: just like 2008, trading was shut down to save the hides of erstwhile high priests of “creative destruction.” Also just like 2008, there are calls for the government to investigate the people deemed responsible for unapproved market losses.

…

The only thing “dangerous” about a gang of Reddit investors blowing up hedge funds is that some of us reading about it might die of laughter. That bit about investigating this as a “pump and dump scheme” to push prices away from their “fundamental value” is particularly hilarious. What does the Washington Post think the entire stock market is, in the bailout age?

America’s banks just had maybe their best year ever, raking in $125 billion in underwriting fees at a time when the rest of the country is dealing with record unemployment, thanks entirely to massive Federal Reserve intervention that turned a crash into a boom. Who thinks the “fundamental value” of most stocks would be this high, absent the Fed’s Atlas-like support in the last year?

…

In other words, it was all well and good for investment banks and executives of phoney-baloney companies to gorge themselves on funhouse profits on a funhouse economy, but when amateurs decided to funnel just a bit of this clown show into their own pockets, finance pros wailed like the grave of Adam Smith had been danced upon. The worst was Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, who issued a somber warning that those behind the recent market frenzy are “in for a very rude awakening,” adding, “I don’t know if it is going to happen tomorrow, next week or in a month, but it will happen.”

This is the same James Gorman whose company just saw its 2020 fourth-quarter profits go up 51% versus the year before, with total revenues up 16% to $48.2 billion, matching almost exactly the 16% rise in the stock market last year. If you’re going to rake in $33 million as Gorman did last year captaining a firm that just siphoned off billions in essentially risk-free profits underwriting a never-ending bailout, should you really be worrying about someone else getting a “rude awakening”? There are 19 million people collecting unemployment who might be reading those profit numbers. Does this man know how to spell “pitchfork”?

GameStop has prompted more pearl-clutching than any news story in recent memory. Expert after grave-faced expert has marched on TV to tell Reddit traders that markets are complicated, this isn’t a game, and they wouldn’t be doing this, if they really understood how things work.

…

Furthermore, everybody “understands” what happened with GameStop. Unlike some other Wall Street stories, this one isn’t complicated. The entire tale, in a nutshell, goes like this. One group of gamblers announced, “Fuck you!” Another group announced back: “No, fuck YOU!”

That’s it. Or, as one market analyst put it to me this morning, “A bunch of guys made a bet, got killed, then doubled and tripled down and got killed even more.”

Regarding improprieties, leaving aside that the Redditors were doing exactly what billion-dollar hedge funds do every day — colluding to move a stock for fun and profit — the notion that this should be the subject of a federal investigation is preposterous.

…

While it isn’t a complicated story, some of the awesome humor of GameStop is in the mechanics.

Unlike betting on a stock to go up (i.e. betting “long”), where you can only lose as much as you invest, the losses in shorting can be infinite. This adds a potential extra layer of Schadenfreude to the plight of the happy hedge fund pirate who might have borrowed gazillions of GameStop shares at five or ten hoping to tank the firm, only to go in pucker mode as Internet hordes drive the cost of the trade to ten, twenty, fifty times their original investment.

Short-sellers bet by borrowing shares from so-called prime brokers (Goldman, Sachs and JP Morgan Chase are among the biggest), selling them, and waiting for the price to drop, at which point they buy them back on the open market at the lower price and return them. The commonly understood rub is that prime brokers don’t always really procure those original borrowed shares, and often give out more “locates” than they should, putting more shares in circulation than actually exist (as in this case). GameStop is exposing this systematic plundering of firms using phantom shares and locates, by groups of actors who now have the gall to complain that they’re the victims of a “get rich quick” scheme.

…

The home of James “rude awakening” Gorman, Morgan Stanley, got its bank holding company license (and the lifesaving Fed credit lines that came with it) late on a Sunday night in September, 2008, because the firm couldn’t have opened its doors without it the next Monday morning. They’d have been blown to bits, by “fundamentals.” Instead, they got rescued, given a forever pass to keep feeding at the neck of society while claiming, falsely, to be not-failures and not-welfare recipients, better somehow than the “dumb money” they think should be theirs alone to manage.

The rank selectivity of this makes any moral argument against the GameStop revolt moot. There’s no legitimate cause here, just an assertion of exclusive rights to plunder, which will doubtless be exercised now in the form of bans, investigations, and increased barriers to market entry. Probably also, in the political spirit of our times, there will some form of speech crackdown on platforms like Reddit, to protect us from the mob.

About that: there are many making hay of a description found on a Subreddit, to the effect that wallstreetbets is “like 4Chan found a Bloomberg terminal.” A columnist at the Guardian, settling into the rhetorical line sure to find acceptance among the wine-and-MSNBC crowd, admitted to finding the rampaging-id dynamic on 4chan funny as a young person, but strange now to “witness a brief and regretful adolescent occupation re-emerge as a prominent cultural force.” The author wanted to admit to laughing at this “intentionally senseless” behavior, but ultimately decried the “transgressive attitudes” of the Redditors.

This is where society will ultimately come down, of course, uniting to denounce $GME as financial Trumpism, even though it actually comes closer to being an updated and superior version of Occupy Wall Street. It’s likely not any evil manipulation scheme, but ordinary people acting — out of self-interest, but also out of sheer enthusiasm for one of the best reasons to do just about anything, because you can — on a few simple, powerful observations.

They’ve seen first that our markets are basically fake, set up to artificially accelerate the wealth divide, and not in their favor. Secondly they see that the stock market, like the ballot box, remains one of the only places where sheer numbers still matter more than capital or connections. And they’re piling on, and it’s delicious, not so much because they’re right, but because the people running for cover are so wrong, and still can’t admit it.

Buy the ticket, take the ride, nitwits. If you earned anything, it’s this.

[commiedervish]

Common Myth: “Modern-day technologies (iPhone, Android, Macbook, Netflix, etc.) came from entrepreneurs with great ideas and the freedom to test them in the marketplace — that is capitalism.” (Quoted from a video by PragerU)

Let’s break this claim down.

Claim 1: The Internet is an outcome of Capitalism

The original name of the Internet was ARPANet. It was developed by the U.S. Army’s research arm and affiliated universities.

The internet arose to meet the need of scientists to share access to then-scarce computing resources, and the US military’s need for a decentralized nuclear-survivable network and to manage its vast global espionage network. That enormous project was not taken up by a private market actor, but by DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Project Administration, the Pentagon’s main research arm. The government fully asked AT&T to take it over in 1972, but they turned them down. So the state created ARPANet and went online in 1977. By the early 1980s, many universities were connected to the ARPANet via funding from the National Science Foundation (a US research academy). As usage climbed, US telecom companies finally began taking interest, and pressure rose to privatize the networks as private investment in commercial networks for companies, schools, or even individuals was gradually spreading in the wake of that pioneering ARPA and NSF network investment. Hilariously, when the military brass and government policy makers ordered privatization of the technology, the idea was that there would be multiple commercial suppliers to the public. However, cable ISPs went on a giant merger after deregulation of the industry in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, becoming the great cellphone oligopolies of today, like Verizon and AT&T, as well as the great cable monopolies like Comcast and AT&T.

The original address of Google was not google.com but google.stanford.edu, because it was developed on a publicly-subsidized research campus. Google was developed at Stanford, with funds from american taxpayers and from the State of California, with the long-term research stability of a major research institution and freedom from the need to turn short-term profit, enabling long run research. There, Paige and Brin, Google’s founders, wrote a detachment in one of their early research papers, stating that “advertising-funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers,” and “we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is critical to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.” Obviously, they’ve gotten over that as Google has since then been covering the internet with ugly, slow-loading, brain-eroding, eye-sore ads.

Claim 2: Wi-Fi is an outcome of capitalism

The local radio signals that allow you to do mobile computing within range of a router are the means that we access the internet today.

The original Wi-Fi network was the AlohaNet, because the University of Hawaii (a public research organization) struggled to network its island campuses and developed new radio technology to do it.

In the 60s, the University of Hawaii’s various island labs couldn’t communicate with the main computer in Honolulu. So, using a pair of high-speed UHF channels to access computing resources, the resulting AlohaNet became the tech precursor to Wi-Fi. The project was also partially funded by ARPA and the US Navy — no private investors in sight.

Claim 3: Smartphones are the outcome of capitalism

Similarly, prominent tech innovator and monumental corporate asshole, Steve Jobs, famously claimed at the original iPhone launch, that Apple has itself developed and patented the smartphone multi-touch interface.

But, in fact, the highly versatile multi-touch interface was developed by a University of Delaware grad student, under an NSF-CIA research program, before being purchased by Apple in 2005, 2 years before the introduction of the first iPhone. The attractive liquid crystals displays were created by a Pentagon-organized industry consortium, working on flat display panels, with the breakthrough technology emerging under development at the manufacturer Westinghouse. But, the company then shut down the program, leading the project head to appeal to a series of US tech giants (IBM, Comcast, Xerox, 3M) to keep the display program alive, and was turned away by all of them until the project was revived under a contract from ARPA in the late 80s.

Claim 4: GPS and Battery technologies are outcomes of capitalism

The Global Positioning System (GPS), required for Google Maps, was developed by the Department of Defense in the 1970s for more accurate deployment of materials and ammunition.

Lithium-ion batteries arose from the NSF and the Department of Energy.

Conclusion:

The point of all this is that private institutions in the market are under systemic and legal obligation to make money quickly to reward their capitalist investors, and expensive long-term research is inevitably harder and harder to justify as fiscal quarters tick by with few money-making breakthroughs to show for it. With these market incentives against long-term research, no wonder the internet and the mobile phone arose from the academic and military research settings, where steady funding is more or less assured and near-term stock price movements don’t dictate when a product gets axed.

The great economist, Mariana Mazzucato, observed in her book, “The Entrepreneurial State,” that private businesses dominate overall spending on research and development, responsible for about 67% of the total spending. But, on basic R&D, studying subjects with no immediate commercial value but sometimes stumbling across big new technologies, the federal government and the universities system hugely dominate at 72% of that research spending.

The point isn’t that the military should have discretion on where it spends its hundreds of billions of dollars every year, or that the warped pitiless nightmare of war is worth it for the high tech spin-offs. The point is that the public setting is the natural space for scientific and technological research. Providing the funding, managing the long-term research uncertainty, and maybe imposing some publicly-demanded constraints on what can be done with the technology, which people are more and more interested in.

So, a movement of online socialism would allow democratic decisions on our broad direction of future research and create limits to the use of our personal data, and perhaps guide the potential of the internet towards more positive potentials of enjoyment, education, and fulfilling possibilities. And, also, we’d have the advantage of telling the 1% just what the fucking terms of service are.

Transcribed from a video by Current Affairs.

[secretshinigami]

Author: @translightyagami For: @kratqa Pairings/Characters: L, Light Yagami, Kiyomi Takada, Sayu Yagami, Kyosuke Higuchi Rating/Warnings: T for, you know. Murder happening off screen but its still gross. Prompt: Roleswap AU between L and Light. Author’s notes: I hope you like junior sleuths Light and Kiyomi, L and Ryuk having a mutual candy-and-TV = Death Note agreement, and letter-writing, because when I write a fic…you know there’s gonna b letters. i also appreciate your patience with any typos; I am a human with sticky fingers.

To-Oh during spring made Light’s skin crawl: love notes proliferated the campus from students not quite grown out of youthful notions; heat creeping beneath his sweaters, tugging at them as if to say short sleeves begged entrance; and the anniversary of his father’s heart attack—one year past—hung over all the landmarks no matter their relation to cardiac health. In that way, he noticed the newspaper story of the murderer who died of a heart attack blaring on a nearby kiosk. Without any real eye of the bizarre, Light didn’t notice things unless their relevance was near to his own life or those around him. Dark ink stared back at him, a jack-knifed business man laid out next to a graphic discussing murder statistics in the Kanto region. It was of no surprise or consequence to Light, whose policeman father made him all too aware of how life flitted from a people every day.

Slipping payment to the newsstand worker and stalking off to his next class, Light read through the story: a well-liked business man succumbing to a heart attack mid-quarter projections meeting and was found—after a house search was requested by the detective L—to have four intact human skeletons buried in his backyard. The wife, a woman with a name that flew in one ear and out the other, claimed no knowledge of her husband’s cruel hobby of picking up young men and then poisoning them with club drugs concocted in their garage; however, the great detective was said to still hold her in suspicion and no innocence was assumed.

A woman bumped into Light, who flicked his newspaper down and apologized for not paying attention. His thoughts were scrambled between happiness for a murderer slain and a stomachache—born not of bad food but an innate strangeness to what he’d just read. The newspaper went into his bag, the story out of his mind, and Light continued classes at To-Oh without much more than passing conversation devoted to “that criminal who died of a heart attack, can you believe it?”

Which, of course, wasn’t his last thought on the case. He chewed the flavor out of the incident, but in quiet. Light never liked to burden people with more than they could take and while his own voice was his favorite song, he knew people had limits. Off-hand, he mentioned the report to his father at dinner, whose murmured response left Light’s trap shut tight to further inquisitions.

“How troubling,” his father said. “We must treasure every day, and live our lives as honestly as possible.”

Three weeks later, in a smaller column, another criminal’s heart attack was reported; this time, Light didn’t pay for the newspaper as Kiyomi put her copy down in front of him. Her near-despot rule over the school’s journalism outfit drove her to often drop stories in front of him, asking for his interest and time to discuss various dictates of law enforcement. For this story, however, she asked not for his expertise, but instead to prod in tandem with her at the curiosity of it all.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” She traced a finger over the meager profile shot of the victim, who was discovered post-death to have been collecting severed human fingers in his fridge door. “That one guy dies, turns out to be awful, and then another one?”

“Makes a person want to believe in patterns.” Light looked at her through his lashes, fork to his lips as he took another bite of their shared tart. Whenever they discussed important issues, Kiyomi liked to do it at cafes; Light suspected it was out of journalistic habit, since she took all her interviews to the same place they sat now. “Or even luck, I guess.”

“Luck?”

“Well,” he said, “luck for anyone who would have been those guys’ victims. Luck for the rest of us. Not so much for them.”

Kiyomi took a larger piece of tart, shining with a glazed cherry, and chewed it in vigorous gnashes. “Do you believe in patterns?” Her question was idle, almost absent between chews.

Light shook his head, fork placed down on a napkin and his hand now free to fish his phone from his pocket. “I don’t think there’s anything to this random stuff besides a few jerks getting their comeuppance,” he said. “Nothing but justice, you know. I have to go; my sister texted me.”

Sayu sent him a string of texts, to be honest, about how his mom needed him to come home and help with dinner. Of course, when Light arrived he saw the situation for what it was: his sister needed to watch a TV drama premiere; his mother needed onions chopped; and both of them were unwilling to compromise. Fortunately, the best brother and good son arrived home in time to accommodate them by chopping onions and fending suggestions that he was on a date with Kiyomi.

He fell into his computer chair, swung himself around in lazy circles until his brain became dizzy—one word thoughts all that remained. Onions. Kiyomi. Death. Patterns. Luck. Sticking his foot out, Light halted his movement and froze. In two scoots, he was at his keyboard, and he typed in his query to the Internet as quick as he thought it: Recent Murder Investigations Detective L. After a second, he added quotations around the phrase Detective L and pressed enter. Floods of pixel results washed over him as Light took in link after link to articles covering the great detective who solved any case put on his desk but never revealed himself to the public.

Three articles spoke of specific cases L solved: the Monkey Thief Theory (a jeweled monkey stolen from a well-loved heiress, ultimately found to have been absconded by her own hand); the Pit Viper Peril (a man who used viper venom to poison his business associates); and the Beautiful Woman Break-ins (a woman broke into several of the world’s richest mansions but stole only their fresh fruit. The woman was caught, but no details on her arrest were ever given to the public.) Two articles called L the single most important person in criminal justice history. One article mentioned, albeit as an end note, that L had worked on both cases whose solving had more to do with sudden heart attacks claiming the perpetrators than his own prowess.

A headache formed at the horizon of Light’s skull after reading too close to the screen, so he tried to print the articles. Only one printed all the way—on the second, he ran out of paper and went to Sayu’s room to bug her for using all the printer paper, which she insisted she needed for art.

“You print off pictures of that actor guy in full color and paste them onto your binders,” Light complained. “I need that paper for important stuff. You can’t be so wasteful.”

“It’s the art of collage,” she intoned. “You wouldn’t understand. You don’t have passions like I do, otherwise you’d go out with Kiyomi.”

Light took a third of her printer paper as revenge for the comment and brought in the articles to show Kiyomi. Her eyes were luminous when he arrived at the café table, arms similarly weighted with information which they swapped. She gave him a newspaper with intriguing, if distressing, updates: another man killed by cardiac arrest, revealed to be a secret killer.

“Do you know who was pursuing this one’s death?” He paused, pushing the paper away to give the waitress his full attention and order: black coffee and banana muffin, if they still have some. Kiyomi ordered ahead of him, and her meal sits in front of her pock-holed by her absent bites. In answer, she shakes her head and takes another minuscule clump of her rolled omelet.

“Nobody special was named, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. “These articles are pretty good, but it’s hard to know whether L has been involved in more without knowing how many heart attack deaths like this have happened.” She gestured with her chopsticks as she continued, pointing at the highlighted National Police Association in the paper’s text. “From what I can gather, the Japanese police are the ones that found the posthumous evidence in the man’s apartment, same as with the other ones.”

“What’s the rub is how would they know?” Light tapped his chin, wristwatch catching café lamp glow and projecting a jiggling circle down on the laminate table. “A heart attack happens, you can just rule that as someone’s poor health, or maybe just a sad stroke of fate. But someone must be alerting police to these people’s suspicious nature for them to be investigating in depth.” He coughed, his next sentence making his throat close in embarrassment, but continued. “Listen. I support the police, you know that, right?”

“Sure,” Kiyomi mumbled around more egg. “You support your dad, at least.”

“Yeah. Well. I know the guys he works with, and while they’re not stupid, there’s no way they got this intuitive so quick.” His muffin slipped in front of him and Light nodded his thanks to the waitress, waiting until she left to pull over one printed article. “Here’s what I know: at least one of these cases was under L’s purview. Who’s to say the other ones aren’t also?”

Discarding the article, Light reached for the condiment caddy and snatched up two creamer cups, while Kiyomi set her chopsticks down in contemplation. Her eyes—dark blue to the point of midnight—scanned both the newspaper and articles. With her mouth pressed together, red lips shining with waxen smoothness, Light could see why she held sway over so much of the school’s masculine consciousness: a beautiful woman who thought before anything. His own attention settled further from attraction and more into an approach toward admiration; she would’ve made a good rival, were he still seventeen and looking for the challenge.

“How would we find out what cases L has worked on?” Kiyomi’s gaze darted from the papers to Light’s coffee, swirling ever more auburn with the creamer added. “Why didn’t you just get a latte, if you’re going to make it so sweet with cream?”

“I like to make things myself.” Light waved his hand to dispel her remark. “I don’t know how to find all the cases lining up to this particular situation, which also have L’s involvement, but I think I can get us to a starting place.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. But I’ll need my computer.” Light took a sip of his coffee and couldn’t resist the pleased smile it brought to his lips: the satisfaction of something useful and pleasurable mixed into one cup. “And about an hour of time, so I’ll probably skip contemporary law today. You don’t have to come, but you can if you like.”

“I should stay, go to class to get notes so you don’t fall behind.” Kiyomi ran her finger around her own teacup, liquid no longer steaming but cool and green with tea leaves solidified at the bottom. “Can I ask you something?” Her voice wavered and Light couldn’t catch its true colors—only flashes of uncertain purple, vulnerable red. “Is it silly to be excited about this? Trying to figure out a mystery together?”

Swallowing, Light pretended not to hear the word together as he knew she meant it: you and me, an item, a duo. “No,” he said. “It’s exciting to solve mysteries, in any case. Every time I’ve worked on stuff like this with my dad, I feel changed, uplifted. Like,” he paused, rubbing his fingers together, “someone just turned on the lights in a pitch-dark room, and now I get to see all the secrets around me.”

“I understand,” Kiyomi said, and in that moment, Light looked at her midnight eyes and saw that she did.

…

It was easier than expected to hack into his dad’s account on the NPA intraweb, although Light knew he used the same password for everything: ssl226. He wanted, in a strange way, for his dad’s heart to be harder to crack—to know less about the key and earn it fitting in the lock—but couldn’t dig into why he felt such a way. Not with Kiyomi sending him text after text from class, each one a more urgent call for updates on his progress. His attention snapped from phone, to computer, to an odd hole in his stomach after their earlier meeting.

He never enjoyed when people tried to get close to him, as though they wanted a piece of Light the same way a child wants a piece of adulthood—desperate without knowledge of what lay beneath. While a social creature, thriving on connection, he cringed from women’s fumbled confessions of attraction and roamed away from their asking mouths toward men, who wanted silent partners to their escapades and were willing to return the favor. In many ways, those interactions left Light cold as well: tacky plastic bandages peeling off at the slightest friction.

The truth was it was easier to want what was right in front of him and not consider the far off. So, Light’s fingers flew across his keyboard with the neon flash from his cell phone ignored. He flipped through files labeled in long numerical defaults—a mark of his father’s tech-illiteracy—with time ticking away. When he finally alighted on the correct documents, his phone inbox was full. Without reading any of the messages, he deleted them all and texted Kiyomi to meet him later at the library.

Armed with a large stack of paper, he weighed down his backpack and left, waving off his mother’s question about why he was skipping class. On the television, a reporter spoke about rising stock in the Yotsuba Corporation’s new make-up company. She laughed after her speech and admitted to wearing their lipstick during the segment. Both Sayu and Light’s mother laughed along too. Light ran out the door, his bag smacking on his side.

The library was quiet except for a few students banging on keyboards, their faces shining with essay-deadline sweat. Light found Kiyomi lounged on a two-seat bench, her legs propped onto the low table and a style guide opened over her face. She sat up when he dropped in beside her, pushing the guide off and starting into an interrogation on why he didn’t answer her texts. Holding up a hand, Light pulled out his papers and set them on the table, smacking a finger on them.

“I know who he’s attacking next,” he said.

“What?” Kiyomi pushed his hand aside and flicked through his findings. “Okay, so these are the last, what? Twenty or so cases the NPA worked on with L?”

“Yes, about twenty,” Light agreed. “But we don’t usually call on him, unless it’s a difficult case. I mean, it’s pretty rare he takes any case at all unless it’s big news. But look at the cases he’s worked on since 2002.”

“Heart attacks.” Stopping at the top page, Kiyomi drew her finger along the chart labels—suspect name, suspect location, case title, behavior—and ended on the final column of conclusion. “Not all of them, though. Only a few scattered ones.”

“I know!” Light couldn’t stop a little eagerness leaking in; his sleuthing was about to pay off. He took out another stack of paper—thinner than the last—and handed those to Kiyomi. “I looked at those cases. All of them had victim counts lower than ten. Some of them were even cases the NPA didn’t put much resources behind. But,” he raised his finger in emphasis, “these ones had interesting details. Like the guy who had skeletons in his backyard? He was some kind of cannibal who left organs behind. The finger guy was notorious, even though he was pretty low activity.”

“You sound like you have a theory.”

“I might. Check out the most recent listing.”

Kiyomi flipped back to the case chart and narrowed her eyes. “Do we know this guy? Kyosuke Higuchi?”

Light sighed and tapped his finger to his knee. “He’s some kind of executive, at the Yotsuba Corporation. I tracked the case listed to one about a bunch of their new make-up brand’s younger interns going missing. The count is five right now, but one of them was the niece of a big government person so the NPA got told to ask L about it.” He smiled at Kiyomi. “Do you want to hear my theory?”

She tapped the paper stack and set it on the table, turning her full attention to him. “Someone is picking off the small fries,” she said, “with heart attacks, and the link between cases is L.”

A frustrated puff of breath exited Light. “Well. Yeah. I guess,” he said. “But it’s pretty smart, right? Getting rid of the guys who you can find, but can’t super prove anything about, before they get to higher numbers.”

“He’s still killing people,” Kiyomi said. “I mean, isn’t that just like what they’re doing? These guys are victims too, in a sense, and this L guy is offing them before they get a trial. What if he’s wrong?”

Light folded his arms across his chest. “But he hasn’t been wrong,” he said. “Not yet.” Shuffling in his seat, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and took a deep inhale. “I want to send him a message.”

“What? A message?” Kiyomi laughed, her long earrings shaking with her clipped hair. “What’re you going to say? We’re on to you, buddy. Better watch out.” She shook her head, laughter making way for a more serious expression. “It’s not a good idea,” she said. “We don’t know how he’s giving people heart attacks, other than by magic or something. It’s dangerous.”

Air lifted and deflating from Light’s chest as he mulled her response around inside. It burned a trail through his soft meats, where enthusiasm continued to grow through whatever scorch she inflicted with sense and caution. His body was a garden growing thicker at just the idea of communicating with the person who had such a power, who made such a decision as to end someone’s life when they ended someone else’s.

Headless of his contemplation, Kiyomi stood and took the papers. “It’s interesting, I’ll give you that,” she said. “But we shouldn’t contact L directly. It will alert him to our own knowledge; we’d give more ground than gain. Let me look over what you have, and later this week, we’ll pool our thoughts and start to put together a better case.”

He handed over his print outs, not too precious about them since he had the real digital versions at home. As she left, Light’s eyes danced away from Kiyomi’s prim stride and toward the tall bookcases. His mind brought to him a scenario where he, and everyone else in the library, was crushed by toppled bookcases and the ceiling caving in. A tragedy without a pinpoint reason behind it—only a god who wanted to see something destroyed. Or maybe it was some kid who leaned too hard. Life was so random in how it could be taken or given, and that thought propelled him further into whatever L’s powers were.

Somehow, there was a man out there able to control death and Light, despite Kiyomi’s warning, wanted to know the shape of his tools.

…

L counted three red candies from his pack and collected them into his palm. They rattled against each other like gemstones, gleaming under computer-haze lights until long black claws pinched one away.

“Red ones are best,” Ryuk said. “Except for cherry flavor.”

“Cherry flavor is fine if you get the right brand.” L turned back to his laptop, nabbing a pink hard candy for himself and sucking its watermelon flavor into a slow, sugar liquid. It subsumed his entire mouth, coated his tongue and teeth. His hand stayed outstretched as Ryuk one-by-one crunched the red candies into his toothsome mouth. Clattering shards collected at his lip corners only to be wiped away by his skeletal hand.

At the moment, both occupied the same opulent hotel room despite their aesthetic pairing more implied them existing in different realities. L had laid out over his hotel desk his laptop, a bowl of packaged sweets, and a thin notebook—opened to a page half-filled by his scrawl. Methodical in his fingers, he looked over the most recent reports sent in from Japan, his interest waning here and there into an intense focus on whatever candy he opened next. Ryuk, on the other hand, was taken up by the television, which L left on for him in most hotel rooms, and all the small colored blotches fizzled together on the screen. He laughed as one blotch fell down a flight of stairs.

Their relationship often balanced on this mutual agreement for entertainment—it flowed between them as Ryuk received TV, movies, and candy from L and L, of course, got the Death Note. While this arrangement meant they were in constant contact, Ryuk did fly between the human world and Shinigami realm on his own whims; he told L human poker wasn’t as good as the death gods played it, which L couldn’t argue being he wasn’t too fond of poker either way. At one point, L asked why he—of all people on Earth and beyond—received such an unholy tool of death and Ryuk responded, “Oh, yeah. The thing sort of fell out of my pocket. I need one of those chain wallets, keep that on me.” As if to prove his point, the next time Ryuk showed up to see how L and the Death Note were progressing, he had his personal Note hooked to a thick metal chain.

“Made it myself.” His voice smacked of undue pride, although L complimented the chain without trace of sarcasm. “Not as good as the human ones, but pretty cool.”

L didn’t care if the Shinigami made a thousand ugly chain wallets, or watched TV all day. What he cared about was the ease the Death Note brought to his work. So often fissures of stress cracked along his psyche when dug into cases which were clean cut—to him, at least—but couldn’t get traction enough with local enforcement to make arrests: to bring justice to people who screamed their guilt to L’s careful crow eyes. But with the Death Note, all he had to do was write a name, wait and assign a search team to the killer’s home posthumously.

Spread in front of him, he tapped a pen end to the blank Note page. All that was left in the Higuchi case was to find a time to kill him while he was alone; for that purpose, L wormed around several important forms and decision-makers to install camera into the vile businessman’s home and office. Blue connective fuzz overlaid the images displayed on his laptop and made Higuchi, idling behind his large desk, appear alien. To some degree, L felt the man was alien to him—in thought, in action (or lack of it), in intention—and had no interest in learning a scrap about Higuchi. He cared more about the space beneath the man’s home, which would be unlocked and unloaded of its human prisoners once Wedy got her go-ahead; keeping a successful thief on his payroll benefited L tremendously.

“He’s been alone for two hours,” L said, to himself and also Ryuk, if the Shinigami wanted to hear. “If I kill him now, how long before someone finds the body?”

“Weekend,” Ryuk piped back. L looked over his shoulder to see his long ebony chicken legs crossed on the bed while yellow eyes stared at the television without blinking. “He might just rot there over the next two days.”

“Oh, I think so—,” L stopped mid-speech at Higuchi’s secretary and her brown ponytail bobbing into frame. She stood at near two inches taller than the man, who sneered as she spoke. At the very least, L knew she was not in danger of kidnapping. He sat straighter and leaned to hear their conversation over the microphones, the secretary’s voice soft and faint from many miles away.

“A young man left this for you.” She held out an envelope; even at his angle, L saw no address or marker beyond Higuchi’s name. “He said he needs you to give it to someone.”

“What?” Higuchi’s nasal intonation pinched his words. “I’m not some kind of messenger. Tell him to just send it by post, if he needs someone to see it so bad.”

“He sounded urgent that you give it,” the secretary said, and dropped the envelope down. “I’ll tell you something, he was very handsome. Seemed like a smart young man. This is probably his resume, you know.”

“Ah.” Snake oil slithered through Higuchi’s response as he took hold of the envelope. “Well, who am I to keep down a young upstart? Anything else he said?”

The secretary taped her finger to her lip and hummed. “Just that it was important someone get this message,” she said. “Someone powerful, who knew what you’d done. I don’t know what he meant by that.”

L’s eyes lit up; Higuchi became pale. “Ah yes,” the businessman simpered. “I’m not sure I know either. Well, why don’t you go home? I’ll see you on Monday.”

The moment the secretary left, Higuchi threw the envelope into the trash and L whipped around to Ryuk.

“Can you fly somewhere for me?” he asked. “And pick something up?”

“Dunno,” Ryuk said. “Depends what I get in return.”

After an hour and a promise for several all large candy purchases, L held a faintly sticky gold envelope in his hands. His hands, covered by white fabric gloves, turned the item over and over in curious rotation. Thumbing the corners, he admired how thick the stock seemed, how elegant the adhesion of the close seemed to lay, and upon opening it, he was sorry to mar the lines. Out fell a quarter-folded page with lines as crisp as the outer shell. L unfolded the page, smoothed it with both hands with delicacy he hadn’t practiced on something non-confectionery in years. Across the fine surface was hard-black typed words, struck out in small font but for some reason read to him like slow cream—a voice L never heard before but caught him, easily, by his mind’s tongue.

Dear L, the letter started. I know what you’ve been doing, but I don’t know how. I’d like to know. I’d like to know you and what tools you’ve picked up that let you wrack such havoc inside cruel men’s bodies.

Are you like them? A cruel man? I can’t say; but I’d like to be able to reject the sentiment.

Each word dropped into L’s consciousness as water on a garden and flourished greenery within him until his interest became a full forest. Someone caught on to him; their fingers brushed his toes but couldn’t quite hold the tiger. Still, the letter’s writer was unknown and on this front, L couldn’t abide. He took to his laptop and rolled back footage upon footage until video of a man at Higuchi’s secretary’s desk showed. At all times, the man’s face was out of view and his voice so low, L couldn’t make out his exact words. Had the letter writer known he’d been watched? A subtle tingle wormed through L’s chest: he knew about the cameras, or suspected them; he knew Higuchi was next; and he knew L was listening, in some capacity.

But how much did this man—who still carried handsomeness in his stature, turned head or no, and had a whisper coated by sugared familiarity—actually know? L frowned and turned back to the letter, scanning it again. He then turned to Ryuk.

“If someone wanted to send a message with the Note,” he said, “how might they do so?”

Ryuk laughed, throaty and amused. “Few ways,” he demurred. “You’re a smart guy. You figure it out.”

L raised an eyebrow, but not an argument. After all, he was the world’s greatest detective; a smart guy who could figure it out. He set to work and by nightfall had a plan. As he finished, he imbued his last pen stroke with some warped hope—that the letter writer saw what his message truly was: not cruelty but a hand beckoning him closer. An invitation.

“A challenge,” L said, to himself, to Ryuk, to the young man whose face he didn’t know. “And an answer.”

…

“Is that the newspaper?” Light slipped in next to Kiyomi, who held ink-covered pages in front of her face, elegant nails curled against headlines like red slashed wounds. Their first period literature class—a dreaded requirement on their degrees which neither enjoyed—found him harried from waking up late. He was unpracticed in disordered sleep and didn’t know how to control panic when it seeped from his pores and into his routine; ever since he gave the letter off to that Higuchi, Light was aware to his core something might happen—something deadly, even.

Kiyomi tilted the front page down enough to show her disappointed gaze trained on Light’s perfect smile—beguiling by practice, not nature. “You can buy your own,” she said. “After all, you don’t want anything from me, much less information.”

“Don’t be like that,” he countered. “You know, I didn’t make any moves.”

“Don’t lie,” Kiyomi said. “Look,” she flattened the newspaper to the desk, and after glancing around, pointed to a large headline, “your little love note found its recipient.”

Light leaned over the paper and scanned the article. Phrases floated forward—a sex dungeon with the women freed by an unknown accomplice—and others were faded but intriguing—Higuchi succumbing to cardiac arrest after consuming an energy drink, a large latte and a bottle of caffeine pills. His eyes froze on one paragraph, detailing a letter found in Higuchi’s handwriting and tucked inside his pocket.

“Experts say the letter was written within an hour of the man’s death,” the article read. “It’s contents are, however, not addressed to anyone known to the victim but instead a mysterious figure called ‘letter writer.’ Beneath we have listed some of the letter, which was confiscated by police and edited for clarity.”

Kiyomi sighed. “You’re in real danger now,” she said softly. “We’re both in danger.”

“He responded,” Light said, breathless. “He wrote back to me.”

Dear letter writer,

I don’t want to alarm you or make it seem as though I am on a crusade. Far from it. This is just my job, and I am good at my job. I get rid of people doing terrible things, but time and resources don’t always play on my side. This is my way of prioritizing.

I’m not a cruel man; and I hope you never think of me as such. But understand I can’t tell you what my methods are. After all, where’s the interest in that for me? But I can give you something small, something to hold onto: without your face, I can’t harm you.

Speak to you soon,

X

Light’s heart thudded in his throat. “Do you still have that chart on you?” He asked Kiyomi, who brought out the papers with eyes warmed by the prospect of research.

“Of course.” She laid them out and shrugged in closer to Light. “What are we looking for? What do we do next?”

Light couldn’t answer. Around and around in his head echoed Speak to you soon in a voice he didn’t know. Yes, they’d speak again soon enough, but he just needed to find out what they’d talk about. Right now, the room was dark; it was all a matter of turning on the light and seeing the secrets in the room.

[megalony]

First steps

Another Roger x Reader x Ben imagine that is part of my Our girl series.

@rogertaylorsbitontheside

Our girl masterlist

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flicking the end of the lighter sparking the flame to life Ben watched the fire burn into the end of the fresh cigarette pressed tightly between his lips to stop it from moving away from the lighter. The feeling of the smoke washing through him acting as a remedy for the anxiety and the overwhelming exhaustion that was beginning to take over him. Stuffing the lighter back into the pocket of his rather baggy jet black jeans Ben glanced his eyes up in front of him. He knew it was a really bad habit to have but the risks that came with it simply weren't enough to put him off them, they were an addiction that helped in more ways than one. Roger wasn't much better, whenever he was at a party he went through more packets there than he did in a week back home though Ben knew that was because of the rules they placed at home. No smoking in the house because Lola was so young and currently had pneumonia, and Lily had bad asthma which was set off very easily. The pair of them had to take turns to walk a few paces behind when they were out in public with the girls to light a cigarette.

Ben dared not think how many packets Roger managed to get through during the long hours at the studio because there were no restrictions there. At least for the actor, most of his roles meant he couldn't smoke and the limited breaks he had made it even worse. It did help a lot to cut down both his and Roger's bad habit that neither of them could seem to give up. The small walks to the shops, rare times when they were out together walking behind the rest of the family or sneaking out in the garden were all Ben had time for but it was at least improving his health. Something (Y/n) also reminded him of as she didn't have the bad habit that both men did, so they were careful to be discrete with their habit for the sake of all their girls. Ben groaned around the cigarette dangling between his lips at seeing the familiar flashing of cameras ahead on the next street in front of him. He didn't understand what was so fascinating about him doing ordinary daily tasks such as going to the shops. Why would people want to read about that? He knew that they were just waiting for some kind of scoop, any slip up that he might make so they could sell stories to anyone and everyone who would take it. Roger was, unfortunately, the one out of the couple that sold the most gossip stories and almost all of them were the bad kind that you'd rather not be written about you, fake or not. Queen was a world known band and Roger had a solo career and another band, needless to say when people could write a fake news story about him with pictures or quotes to make it better they jumped at the chance. Due to his career, there were a lot of parties he attended, mainly when he was on tour because when back home he liked to be with his family. This fact meant Ben and (Y/n) were rarely at the parties which weren't their scene anyway and that always made headlines. Articles about Roger hooking up with some random person there, or speculation he was taking drugs at said party. They wrote anything that would try and pull down his career and make an argument for his family. Ben and (Y/n) were used to the lies written about all of them and didn't take notice of the media except for when it followed them around like this. Again, cameras always seemed to go for Roger because he had such a short temper and a very loud mouth, none of which he could control. One journalist thought to try his luck with some made up story he tried to get Roger to comment on. The only thing he got was a broken nose and camera, the incident being caught by other journalists hovering by like pestering flies. Roger had been told many times to calm down but he couldn't block out what they were saying when they were shouting their headlines at him if they simply spoke a little quieter his damaged hearing wouldn't work out what they were saying. Quite a few times Roger had simply flicked his cigarette at anyone spouting something rude or obnoxious to him, smiling silently at how they had to jump from the still lit ashes pattering onto their shirts. Lowering his head to look at the pavement Ben placed the cigarette between his lips, taking a few breaths of the cleaner air around him as he fought the urge to reach his hand out. Having become so used to sharing a cigarette with Roger that his arm naturally wanted to stretch out to the side and offer it before remembering Roger wasn't there. Placing the cigarette back to the corner of his lips Ben grasped the earbuds dangling from the collar of his shirt, thankful he left his playlist on so he could at least try to block out whatever they were going to say. Knowing they wouldn't snap a few pictures and just let him be. Ben absolutely adored his family and his job was what he loved doing but there were times when he wished that he wasn't well known. Just so that no one would find the need to pry into his life and try to pull it apart at the seams, simply because they didn't understand how his life worked. There were a handful of fans or journalists that he met who seemed to understand the concept of loving two people at the same time. Everyone else thought it was fine to slate them for it and to make being out in public something that Ben was too anxious to do. Roger had to pester his boyfriend simply to get him to walk out of the house instead of jumping into the car to stop his anxiety from bubbling over. Even small things like all of them going to the park were getting too much for Ben to handle because there were so many people there that recognised them and started giving dirty looks as they passed like it was any of their business in the first place. He had had to calm himself down before stepping out of the house today just to go to the shops to grab a few food items. He'd even had to go the extreme of lying in an interview because he knew what kind of repercussions would come with telling the truth. Questions were asked about his family and Ben could tell the interviewer was not someone who he would get along with when the cameras were switched off. Ben lied and said that the three of them had had Lily together just like they now had Lola together. Stretching the timeline of when they all got together so it all fit, knowing they wouldn't have any information about the relationship Roger had with Lily's actual mother since the relationship had been very short and private. If Ben had told the truth that Lily was biologically only Roger's that wouldn't have gone down well. His own family didn't like the fact that Lily thought of him as her father as well as Roger, claiming she would get confused when she grew up and learnt this wasn't strictly true. He hated the thought of her stumbling across the interview in time to come and finding out that way as well. It was so much easier for them all if he lied because it saved them from the hate or the comments that everyone loved to give. Ben felt himself being at breaking point now and it wasn't going to take much to push him over the edge. Ben put his concentration on watching his feet clattering against the pavement beneath him and taking long drags from the cigarette clasped tightly between his pursed lips to distract him from the people buzzing around near him. Thankful Roger was so prone to lashing out as they kept some kind of distance in fear Ben would do the same. The thought of flicking his still lit cigarette at them felt rather tempting but Ben didn't have the nerve or the energy to do that. Roger was the more angered and rebel out of the two, Ben didn't think that kind of action was needed especially from himself. Turning a sharp left Ben crossed the road, his hand tightening around the plastic bag in his hand as he could still hear the clicking of cameras. Why was this something that needed to be documented? Ben Hardy goes to the shops! As if it was the first time in his life that he had done the shopping run that they alternated. Admittedly he hadn't been going out as much as before due to his rising anxiety and the clicking of the cameras he always encountered, but the point still stood. This wasn't his first public appearance doing something normal and it wasn't the first time they had seen him going out alone, so why did they feel the need to follow him like this? Stubbing out the cigarette in the bin to his right Ben stormed down the street before turning into the drive. Opening the door and slamming it shut with a bang, breathing harshly as he tried to calm down. He was home, they couldn't take pictures or harass him whilst he was safely tucked up inside his house with his family. He was alright here. A shudder ran up his spine as he cringed at the sound of violent coughing rattled through his ears. A sound that had been a constant in the house for over a week now. Something that was slowly grating on his nerves but he could never hold it against the person responsible. It wasn't Lola's fault that she had gotten a mild form of pneumonia which was still pretty dangerous for a child of her young age. She couldn't help the need to cough in order to take a proper breath and she couldn't help that this was keeping each of her parents up at night and all through the day. Though when Ben needed to be up early for set, (Y/n) needed to be up early for Lily or when Roger came back late from the studio it wasn't nice to have to get up every ten minutes and sit with her until she found the ability to breathe again. Or needing to rub her back when she had the power to cough in her sleep and not wake herself up. Kicking off his shoes Ben quickly dumped the bag down on the counter before following the sound of the harsh breathing and crackling coughs into the living room to find Lola standing up in the play cot next to the sofa. Her nimble hands holding onto the side as she tried to look over the top, almost bashing her head against it when she coughed. Eyes crinkling at the sides though she kept her focus on Ben as he approached her. Reaching out he gently picked her up, resting her to his chest as he sat down on the floor leaning up against the sofa. Running his hand up and down her back waiting until she seemed to be able to breathe before leaning her against his knees. A frown forming on his face as he pressed his hand to her forehead, feeling how her skin was set alight like a flame burning to the touch, a light layer of sweat coating her skin. He didn't like where this was going, she wasn't getting much better at the rate they had hoped, still not eating very much and her breathing wasn't the best either with all the coughing that she had. "Oh darlin', come on let's start you walking." Placing Lola down on her feet on the carpet Ben sat up on his knees, holding onto her hands tightly before he began to shuffle back, prompting her to walk. They had been trying for a while now to get her to walk on her own but she wasn't at the stage where she could hold up her weight on her own yet. But the three of them still encouraged her to try, making sure they held her hands or her waist to ensure she didn't fall. "Nearly there... I think you actually need to move your legs baby." A smile played on his lips at how she seemed to want him to drag her instead of her doing the leg work. Shuffling her feet on the carpet as Ben held her weight practically pulling her across the floor. Finally seeing that she was beginning to lift her feet he let her take some of her weight as she walked, picking up the pace when Ben shuffled further away from her but still kept hold of her. Laughing at how she seemed to chase him, kicking out her small feet to keep up. Letting go of her hands Ben stopped shuffling backwards, watching lovingly as she managed about two steps on her own before falling towards him, her arms outstretched in front of her trying to grasp onto him. Not needing to as Ben grabbed her waist, hoisting her up in the air so she didn't fall and hurt herself. His smile at her small achievement was short lived at the sudden coughing fit that escaped her lips. Watching how her face scrunched up and her eyes closed, cheeks reddening rather worryingly as she didn't seem to be breathing simply pushing out any air she held in her lungs. Sitting back down properly on the floor Ben sat Lola on his lap, panic bubbling up in his chest and stomach at seeing how his girl was hardly breathing. Pressing one hand to Lola's stomach Ben tiled her so she was leaning forward, his other hand rubbing up and down her back, trying to calm his own breathing down but it wasn't working. Her small whimpers mixed in with her coughs that made his heartbreak as she seemed to want to cry but couldn't find the breath to do so. "S'alright darlin', come on it's alright." He uttered quietly, unsure which one of them he was trying to calm down. Her eyes looking into his own as she began to cry which only worsened her breathing which had a clear rattling sound as if there was a nut rattling up and down inside her lungs. Holding her to his shoulder Ben rubbed his hand up and down her back to try and ease her breathing for her as he felt her breaths and coughs fanning against his neck and shoulder as she wailed. "Oh baby..." He mumbled, kissing the side of her head as he looked to the side at the sound of footsteps, seeing (Y/n) walking into the room, a worried look plastered to her face at the awful coughing shaking the house. Sitting down on the carpeted floor along with Ben (Y/n) leaned against his arm, brushing her finger delicately over her daughter's cheek before opening the bottle of medicine she had brought through with her. Unscrewing the cap and putting the clear liquid into the syringe, holding it gently to Lola's lips when she managed to take a deep breath not wanting her to inhale the liquid. Watching her take it properly instead of breathing it into her lungs like she may have if she coughed anymore. "That better, honey?" (Y/n) questioned, her voice soothing and calm as Ben craned his neck so he could look at her properly. The redness still tinting her cheeks, a few tears staining her face and welling in her eyes but at least she had found the ability to breathe properly again. Seeing that Lola was beginning to pull out of his hold Ben set her down on the floor in front of them both instead. Watching fondly as she saw their legs as obstacles she needed to overcome, reaching out and dragging herself over both of their legs as she gurgled something neither of them could understand. Both simply relieved she seemed to be a bit better now and wasn't too fazed by her sudden inability to take a proper breath. A rather cheeky smile came onto her features as she sat up in between (Y/n)'s legs, holding onto her trouser leg as both parents realised that look to be one that Roger seemed to have whenever he did something wrong or even a look he had when he was drunk. Gripping onto (Y/n)'s leg Lola clearly tried to stand, unable to do so without help causing Ben to lean over and hold her under her arms. Standing her up on her feet, his thumbs brushing over her back soothingly as he moved to kneel behind her waiting for her to start walking. Pulling her legs up (Y/n) made more room for Lola to move around, both unsure where she was going to go or even if she was going to walk at all or simply be held upright like she currently was. A small cough escaping her parted lips before she clapped her hands in front of her in (Y/n)'s direction. "Come here baby." She encouraged, holding her hands out for her little girl who seemed enlightened by the words she couldn't understand. A squeal leaving her lips as she shuffled her feet, clearly not knowing how she was meant to walk. Moving his left arm so it wrapped around her front and hooked under her other arm securely, Ben pressed his right hand gently to the back of her leg, lifting it and planting it further in front of her before doing the same with her other leg. Giving the backs of her knees gentle taps to try and show her what she was meant to do whilst still holding up her weight so she didn't collapse and hurt herself. Seeing she seemed to realise what she was doing wrong, Ben moved to hold her hands up in the air to help her stay upright and take her weight for her. Watching as she stomped her feet as she plodded over to her mother, mouth open in excitement. Standing to his feet Ben towered over her, leaning down a little so it was easier to see her. Daring to let go of her hands for a second, watching in pure delight as she took wobbling steps forward, picking up a little speed which caused her to stumble. His hands took her own again before he looked to (Y/n) who was bursting with excitement. The pair of them had missed the vital moments like these with Lily because Roger had been on his own looking after her at that point. "Is she gonna do it?" Ben questioned, not able to keep the excitement out of his voice as he bit his lip. Watching (Y/n) scrambling to grab her phone, signalling for him to wait just one moment. If this was going to be the moment Lola managed to walk even a few steps on her own Roger couldn't miss out on this vital moment. He was currently at the studio and had mentioned that he wouldn't be back until the early morning in the least due to how much progress they were making on the new album. That didn't mean they couldn't facetime him there to show him how well their youngest girl was doing. "Hey... what's up with you?" Roger questioned when he answered the call, his eyes narrowing at the giddy look in his girlfriend's eyes that could sometimes mean trouble making him curious as to why he was getting a call. Leaning back on his stool behind the drum kit he rested his back and his head against the wall, thankful that they were currently on a small break so Freddie could work out how he wanted to sing the next lyrics giving him time to answer the call. "You're gonna want to see this." Blinking in surprise Roger squinted at the screen, wishing he hadn't of left his glasses in his car this morning, not thinking he would have needed them since the aid to his vision would have been appreciated right now. Watching as (Y/n) fumbled to turn the phone around so she was no longer on the screen, tilting the camera and waiting for it to focus. "Come here baby, look who it is on the screen." (Y/n) cooed, waving her hand out gesturing for Lola to walk over to her. Roger's heart rocketing in his chest as he realised why they had suddenly called him when he saw Lola stood upright, Ben holding onto her hands with a bright smile that almost reached his baby blue eyes. Looking up in front of the drum kit he sat behind to the three other people in the room Roger quickly launched his drumstick at the guitarist who was the closest to him. Watching the curly haired man turn around, confusion and slight annoyance plastered on his face. "Quick." Roger hissed, motioning for him to walk over, trying to make him hurry. Gaining the attention of both Freddie and John who also walked over in curiosity. The three of them gathering around the drum kit, leaning and stretching their necks in order to peer down at the phone Roger held out for them all to see. Smiling like a mad man as his knee began to bounce up and down in anticipation. "Ready?" Ben asked, not sure which partner he was addressing as he looked up, catching sight of Roger on the phone screen and the band leaning to get a good view of whatever was happening. Glancing his eyes back down to Lola Ben gently tugged on her hands, urging her to walk forward again like she had done moments ago. Waiting for the right moment as (Y/n) leaned back slightly so Roger could capture the moment properly. Everyone watching in dead silence as Ben slowly let his hands drop from her much smaller ones, her arms staying in the air as she looked up. Steadying herself for a brief moment before she picked her foot up, planting it down firmly in front of her before doing the same with the other foot. No one could stop the wide smiles from pulling at their lips as they watched her begin walking properly for the first time without help. Lola managed to toddle forward quite a few paces before her steps faltered and her weight was suddenly too much for her to hold up on her own. Her arms reaching out in front of her and landing on (Y/n)'s legs as Ben grabbed hold of her stopping her from colliding with the floor for what felt like the hundredth time though he never minded. Swinging her up in the air causing a fit of giggles and a few coughs to escape her lips as he held her to his chest, snuggling his face into the crook of her neck. Overwhelming pride flooding through each person watching her. Reaching out with the drumstick he still had in his other hand Roger crashed it down on the cymbal to his left as his other hand held the phone up in the air as he jumped to his feet, forgetting that the video was still live and showing him his family back at home. Getting lost in the moment he was so thankful that he didn't miss, not sure what he would have done if he got back early the next morning to be told he had missed out on her first steps. Both Ben and (Y/n) were very sure he would have woken up the toddler just to try and get her to repeat the magical moment for him. Moving the phone so he could see the screen once again he saw (Y/n) had walked forward, the image zooming in on Lola a little more as she reached out for the phone obviously recognising one of her dads showing on the screen. The sound of the boys shouting and cheering for him seemed to fade into background noise as his heart was doing summersaults in his chest but it was one of the best feelings. "That's my girl."

[gahye0n]

Give Me a Reason

pairing: rosé / reader

word count: 1.2k

genre: angst

request: hi, i was wondering if you could do an angst on rosé on where she cheats on you with a guy because she feels like she has to to preserve her reputation, but later on realizes she made a huge mistake

-- 

It was a mistake. She knew it in the past and she knew it in the present, watching the teardrops hit your cheeks as if in mimicry of the rain striking the windowsill. Your fist landed on her shoulder – once, twice, three times – the light punches as expected as they were deserved. It wasn't until your knees buckled, body crumpling to the floor like her loves notes in the bottom of your recycling bin, that she finally spoke.

“You know I have no feelings for him.” She was sure yet her words shook with the realization that they would never be enough to mend your broken heart.  

You glared up at her past wet lashes and dewy eyes. “Tell me your company made you do it, that it's all just a scandal.” A sob caught in your throat and you shook your head, letting the ensuing wave of tears fall, your voice a little quieter. “I know you Chaeyoung, you'd never cheat on me... right?”

She could've lied, could've blamed it on everyone but herself and saved you both from heartbreak but she decided that, after all the secrets and deception and keeping you in the dark for so long, you finally deserved the truth. “It was my decision, I'm sorry.”

You wanted to curse at her, wanted to sting her with harsh words that she wouldn't soon forget, wanted to see her hurt the way your heart was aching miserably in your chest, yet, with your fists balled tightly at your sides and teeth threatening to break the skin of your lower lip, the only response you could manage was a betrayed, “Why?”

She couldn't find a reason within herself, every excuse catching in and parching her throat. Unable to face your sobbing form, she turned her back to you, sluggish steps making their way towards the door. Standing, your fingers grasped her sleeve, tugging at the silk and drawing her back towards you. “You don't get to just walk away like that.” Spinning her around, you pressed your hands to either side of her face, lips quivering with every word. “Give me a reason, Park Chaeyoung.”

God, how she wanted to kiss you in that moment, as if she could fix the mess she made with every press of her lips against yours, just like she always had before. It was different this time though -- the petty things you once fought over seemed almost laughable now -- and she knew she’d made a mistake that she couldn’t simply fix with white lies and tender touches. “I'm sorry.”

You were angry this time, raising your voice until you were nearly shouting at her. “Then tell me why! What exactly are you sorry for, Rosé?!”

She tried to remember when her mistakes began but found that she couldn't -- perhaps she'd been making them all along, trapped in the lie she fabricated. It was a mutual understanding that she had to hide your relationship but she'd taken it past the point of return, past the point of forgiveness. 

When the limelight dimmed down and the curtains drew to a close, past the fans and prying eyes, in a place where the world couldn’t condemn the beat of her heart, Chaeyoung called you hers. The safety of locked doors and the dark of night never lasted long enough though. Like a dream, the moonlight was always bound to dissipate, leaving her longing for the sweet feeling to return. She liked to trace the glow illuminating your face, liked to pretend you were walking hand in hand beneath the sunlight filtering in through the blinds and casting it’s light on your skin, liked to hold onto the emotion known as l-o-v-e before Chaeyoung disappeared behind the mask she called Rosé. Rosé loved you, deep in her heart and on the tip of her tongue, though she could never find the courage to speak your name in the presence of others. She was the image of perfection, a cherished daughter and an idol adored by millions, yet she had one downfall. She was terrified that the truth about who she loved would ruin it all, that she’d disappoint and lose the support of everyone she cared for.

She pondered again and again, several times over, if it would be worth it, if she’d be okay with losing everyone else if it meant she could keep you, settling on a solid ‘maybe’. Part of her was selfish too, convincing her that she could sustain both worlds if only she lied a little. 

That was her first mistake.

Little lies became a habit, slipping past her lips again and again like a suspect with no alibi and it worked – for a while. Such lies could never pull the wool over the public eye forever though, over the eyes of curious fans and meddling paparazzi, over the eyes of worried family and doubting friends. Little lies were inevitably bound to become big ones.

Big lies came in the form of a rising actor, one who’d taken an interest in her that she neither cared for nor reciprocated yet, if only to hide her love for you, she accepted his heart. Convincing herself it was in your best interest, she decided to hide it from you as well – her second mistake as it would seem.

She promised herself it would only be for a little while, until she found the confidence to confess, that she'd keep him by her side just until you could be the one to claim that spot. Growing comfortable was her third mistake however. All of the worry and speculation surrounding her suddenly dissipated at the news of her new boyfriend and she felt that she could finally breathe. Little did she know that her freedom came at the price of your pain.

From the look in your eyes, she could tell you'd been hurting long before you’d heard the news, your intuition was always keen after all, even if you’d hoped it was wrong. Pressing your forehead to hers, the final teardrops slipped from your tired eyes and you whispered a defeated, “Are you even sorry at all?”

It took all of her strength not to pull you in, wrap her arms around you and apologize a thousand times over. You were right after all, she didn't have the right to just walk away from the pain she caused you, nor did she deserve to simply kiss it all better. It was finally time for her to own up to it -- whether that meant making it up to you for the rest of her life or losing you altogether. “I am sorry, so so sorry,” she sniffled, covering your hands with hers and skimming your noses together. “For everything.”   “You’ve been lying to me this whole time, why should I believe you?” Your words were sharp yet they held no weight as you leaned in, eyes fluttering shut and lips hovering a millimeter from her own. 

“Don't,” she whispered. “Don't believe me and don't forgive me either. Not for cheating and definitely not for this.” Dispelling the distance, she pressed her lips to yours, almost lingering a moment too long. “I don't deserve someone like you.” Before your eyes even opened, her back was already turned and she was halfway out the door, tears pooling at her waterline that you would never even know she cried. That was her last mistake, leaving without an explanation, without even so much as a goodbye, leaving when you'd have forgiven her if only she'd kissed you a moment longer – but she knew that of course.

[statusquoergo]

Credit where credit is due, Gabriel did a nice job directing this episode. He had more screen time that I’m used to from actors pulling double duty, and he seems to have handled the extra workload well.

That’s not to say the episode was flawless. Yeah, by Season 9 standards, it was pretty good overall, but I mean. Season 9 standards.

We start off at home with Louis and Sheila having a terse exchange over tea as I wonder, yet again, why they’re together at all if they’re always so goddamn pissy about everything. Louis bemoans his demotion as Sheila irritably directs him to drink his rooibos and asks him what the big deal is, being that he didn’t even want the job in the first place (true). Louis parries that he only said that because Donna offered it to him the same night he found out about Sheila’s pregnancy (true), but at any other time in his life, he would have taken it (false). On the contrary, you may remember this fairly unambiguous exchange from “Pecking Order” (s08e02) between Doctor Lipschitz and Louis: “As I recall, you accepted Harvey becoming managing partner after Jessica left.” “That’s when I realized I didn’t want to be managing partner.” I suppose I’ve never accused this show of internal consistency before, why bother starting now?

Louis then delightfully compares himself to a ball-less cat and laments that though “the job wasn’t sunshine and rainbows, [he] was getting really good at it,” and excuse me but what? Forget that disastrous hearing that summoned Faye to their doorstep, his most recent acts as managing partner include trying to bully Professor Gerard into letting him be the keynote speaker at Harvard’s Ethic Conference to talk up his failing firm, and going completely off the rails trying to fire the poor IT guy for failing to digitally break into the New York State Bar Association. Louis sucked at being managing partner.

Next up is a reminder that I need to be careful what I wish for as Donna and Harvey discuss his reflexive support of her impassioned but quite incorrect argument against Louis trying to fire Benjamin, and how much she didn’t appreciate it. Turns out it wasn’t so reflexive; he did it because she thought she would like it, which is its own magnificently flawed concept—thinking she’ll get mad at him for disagreeing with her doesn’t say much for his respect for her integrity—but then Donna realizes that he’s afraid she’s going to leave him if he doesn’t unconditionally support her, and you just know the writers thought they were being real clever with this. (Wait, isn’t one of Harvey’s defining character traits his ability to read people? “You read books, I read people” was actually one of the first things he said to Mike in the pilot… Gosh it’s been a long time.)

As I was saying about this show’s internal consistency, two things about this whole exchange: One, all through Season 7, Harvey had no trouble calling Paula out when she was being ridiculous and disagreeing with her about all kinds of shit. Two, as recently as “Everything Changes” (s09e01), Harvey cooed that “[he’s] finally where [he’s] supposed to be” when he’s with Donna, to which Donna replied “We both are,” and like, are they a match made in Heaven right out of the box or what? His trust in their relationship is wildly inconsistent. Unless he wants to forfeit his autonomy for some reason? I don’t know, it’s weird and I don’t like it.

I also take issue with Donna’s dismissive “Oh, my god. Of course. Harvey, I’m not gonna leave you.” This has been an issue for him since forever, as she well knows, but rather than ask him what’s wrong—is he really afraid she’ll leave him over something so small?—or point out that he needs to go to therapy (if she wants to be tactful, she could ask if he wants to “talk to someone” about this), she treats it as an endearing character quirk, and someone needs to save Harvey from all this shit yesterday.

The interruption to this…reconciliation isn’t quite as cringy as the can opener bit from the last episode, but I’ve gotta call it out for being just some truly lazy storytelling. Gretchen appears out of nowhere to tell them they “need to go see Louis,” on account of his demotion, and Donna’s deer-in-headlights response is “Oh, my god. We need to go to him right now.” Yeah, no shit, that’s what Gretchen just said, except this framing affords Harvey the opportunity to mount his noble high horse and declare: “No. You go to him. I need to go see Faye.” Which he does, dramatic music and all, declaring that “dammit, not everybody has to do everything by [her] book,” and I must point out that she demoted Louis for trying to fire the employee who he asked to perform an illegal activity that he failed to perform only because he was caught; in what book is that okay? He then asserts: “You want consequences, I’ll give you consequences,” which is delightfully reminiscent of that old classic, “I’ll give you something to cry about,” in that it makes absolutely no sense, and Harvey, you adorable impetuous dumbass, if your goal is to convince her to leave, I think you might be going about it in a little bit the wrong way.

Roll title crawl! (No seriously, that was all just the cold open.)

Anyway Donna does go to comfort Louis, already treating herself and Harvey as a unit when she assures him that “if [he] ever [needs her] or Harvey during any of this Faye bullshit,” they’re there for him, and dropping the much more interesting detail that she has a much older sister she doesn’t want to talk about who “turned every man she was ever with into an emotional doormat,” which I don’t have time to fic right now but I feel like might explain a lot. Then Alex and Samantha have an endearing little exchange wherein Samantha proposes doing something to help Louis and Alex clarifies that it has to be ethical, and it’s nice to know that at least a couple of people around here aren’t completely insane.

Speaking of things being insane, I won’t fault Gabriel for this because the direction itself is fine, but from a writing perspective, the narrative construct of this next scene is terrible. Harvey shows up at a meeting with Some Guy whose nondescript company is apparently, thanks to his board and the company’s lawyers, being taken over (by someone) against his wishes, and the only hint of context for any of this is that “the people” orchestrating this takeover are “related” to Faye. The obvious conclusion to this exchange is that Harvey is going to help this guy, who is apparently the CEO of this random organization, sue the company by acting as a shareholder rather than a C-level employee, and I still have no idea what the fuck is going on.

Back at the firm where I do kind of know what’s going on, Susan the Associate approaches Katrina with a problem she found in the VersaLife case Katrina’s working, and as soon as they gave her a name in the last episode, I know she was going to be important. More to the point, it looks like Katrina’s got herself an associate! (Remember when senior partners were required to hire their own associates? It was a whole big thing back in Season 1, I think.)

Next up, Louis is having lunch with an old friend, Saul the Judge, who informs him that some other judge is retiring or being fired or something, and offers him a judgeship, and there is so much wrong with this scene that I don’t even know where to begin.

Yes I do. Since when has Louis’s lifelong dream been to be a judge? This is literally the first time he’s ever expressed any interest in it, at all. And another thing, that is not how judicial selection works.

In New York State, judges, depending on the court, are either appointed by the governor and confirmed by the State Senate, nominated by a commission and approved by the governor, chosen at a partisan nominating convention and elected by the voting public, or appointed by the mayor. Qualified individuals can apply to be considered, such as by the Mayor’s Advisory Committee, but there’s no one-and-done offer/acceptance transaction between someone currently on the bench and his lawyer pal, so either this guy is offering Louis a job that doesn’t exist or, more likely, the writers don’t know shit about the New York City legal system.

Moving on. Harvey shoves a recusal form in Faye’s face as he informs her that he “got” a case against her old firm, and he’s “taking it,” as though he didn’t go way out of his way to hunt it down in the first place. He then throws a stupidly juvenile hissy fit, claiming he’ll use whatever he fucking has to to “win,” and prove his system his better than hers, but he won’t have to cross any lines because she de-balled (second reference, just as charming as the first) the guys at her old firm so much that “they’re shaking in their boots” at the mere threat of lawsuit. This whole exchange is basically a showcase of Harvey acting like a spoiled child, and I know he’s a passionate guy but I gotta say, I’m getting tired of this whole act.

Back to that clusterfucking disaster of a judgeship offer, Louis fesses up to Sheila but admits that he doesn’t want to accept the drop in salary with a kid on the way, or leave his friends in the lurch, and she in turn fesses up that she asked Saul to make the offer in the first place because “being a judge has always been [his] dream.” (SINCE WHEN?) Louis is incensed until she tells him that it was basically Saul’s idea, but that if he doesn’t take it now, he’ll never get the change again, which… Why? Well, I guess they haven’t pointlessly manufactured any tension in awhile. Anyway, Louis promises to sleep on it.

Elsewhere, Samantha proposes committing conspiracy to get Faye out of their lives and Alex shuts that shit right away, and I’m actually really enjoying their dynamic right now. Susan asks Katrina what she should do about a smart, funny paralegal she clicks with; Katrina, having “seen that before,” recommends finding a new paralegal, and I’ve never had this question before but is Katrina anti-Machel for some reason? Doesn’t matter. Susan proposes reaching out to opposing counsel, who just so happens to be an old family friend, and Katrina wisely tells her not to, but somewhat less wisely starts and ends her rationale with “Because I know,” which I’m sure won’t motivate Susan to act in any sort of way.

Now, I’m no dream theorist, but luckily this show has all the subtlety of a Liberace action figure, so it’s not too difficult to figure out what Louis’s subconscious mind is trying to say: He wants to humiliate Faye (for demoting him and taking over his firm), he wants to bang Donna (and maybe also Alex), he thinks of Harvey as his peer but also his inferior (who he wants desperately to impress and probably also to fuck), and his confidence is mainly derived from the approval and admiration of others. Also he wants to have sex with basically everyone. Maybe not Gretchen. But everyone else.

Dr. Lipschitz, to whom Louis was evidently relaying the events of this dream, finds the whole thing quite amusing, but points out that if Louis takes the judgeship, he won’t have his friends around him anymore. Double-edged sword and all that.

Part II