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queen-scribbles · 4 years ago

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You’re One to Talk

Companion piece to I Would Never; Vica’s POV for one of her busier days somewhere between Ossus and all the stuff in Echoes of Vengeance. Roughly the same length, too.

----

To the unfamiliar, the Alliance Commander looked the very picture of poise. With her hair done up in that vaguely-aristocratic style she loved so much and posture that made even her simple outfit look elegant, Vica radiated serenity well before you got to her small, warm smile. A smile currently aimed at a wildly gesticulating starship mechanic, while Vica listened to his grievances with an air of sympathetic calm.

But Theron knew her too well to buy it. There was a faint edge of strain to her smile; not caused by the mechanic, but he was surely the latest in a long line of people who wanted “just a moment of your time, Commander”. And no matter how busy she already was, refusing to listen when someone had a need would be un-Jedi-like, so she would never.

Thus, Theron swept across the hanger bay in just a few long strides to give her an out. “Commander, the general and admiral are ready in the conference room.”

Vica turned and flashed him a tighter version of that smile, halfway between gratitude and let me handle this, darling. “Thank you, I’ll be right there,” she said, before shifting back to assure the mechanic his concerns would be addressed as soon as possible. With him placated, she gave Theron a much more genuine smile. “Thank you,” she breathed, leaning against his chest.

Theron rubbed her back as he hugged her, frowning at the tension in her shoulders. “That bad?”

“Not bad,” Vica said with a sigh, straightening and pinching the bridge of her nose before heading toward the conference wing. “Just... a lot. And all at once. There’s the Republic delegation, and the security overhaul, and pirate attacks on our supply ships that mean rearranging the Mandalorian escorts, and Hylo wanted to talk about a few of her people she thinks are skimming, and a couple more she feels could be given more responsibility-”

“I’m getting tired just listening to that list,” Theron cut her off glibly. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he kept pace. “Do they really all have to go through you?”

She shot him a look. “I’m the Commander. I chose to keep us independent. That makes the security and well-being of the Alliance my responsibility.”

“Leadership of the Alliance is your responsibility,” he corrected. They stepped onto the elevator and he pulled her in to kiss her temple. “Leaders delegate. You don’t have to do everything yourself.” Despite how long the Council and universe in general told you otherwise.

Vica bit her lip, but he still heard the You’re one to talk in her eyes. “I did. Lana’s overseeing the security upgrades, and Briyoni took Jonas to deal with the perimeter sensors that went down.”

“Oh, good, thank her for keeping him busy for me,” Theron deadpanned.

She rolled her eyes but smiled as she whacked his arm with the back of one hand. “I thought you two were friends.”

“We are. Which means I know what he’s like when he’s bored.” He rubbed her back again. “And how quickly he’ll likely get to that point while he’s here. If your sister can keep him occupied for a couple hours, means longer before he starts bugging me.”

This time she actually laughed, and he was gratified to feel some of the tension ease in her shoulders. “Careful, or she’ll say you owe her one.”

“Right, because dragging her husband off somewhere unsupervised for a couple hours when they haven’t seen each other in months was entirely altruistic.”

“Theron!” Vica protested, but her shoulders were shaking with laughter as she buried her face against his chest.

The elevator reached their desired floor and he tugged her arm to guide her off. “You tellin’ me we wouldn’t do the same thing in their shoes?” he murmured into her hair, and her grip on his jacket tightened briefly.

Vica took a deep breath and was Barsen’thor-levels of composed when she straightened. A hint of mirth still danced in her eyes as she serenely commented, “We have a meeting.”

That’s a no, Theron smirked but behaved himself, gesturing to the conference room door. “So we do. After you, Commander.”

“Thank you, Agent Shan,” she said with a smile, and had fully shifted to the role of Commander by the time she stepped into the room.

---

Vica had been mildly concerned her to-do list would distract from the meeting, but she had that chain of thought spinning away in the back of her mind by the time she and Theron took their seats and exchanged pleasantries with Aygo and Daeruun. Her main focus was firmly and unwaveringly on their conversation as they discussed the state of the galaxy and best way to use the Republic and Alliance’s resources. She trusted Aygo with the the Alliance military action--and had almost just let him handle this meeting, with how busy she was--but she did need to be at least in the loop if not giving final word on big decisions. Like which sectors to keep a close eye on and which were secure enough to spare manpower to shore up weaker areas. What to do about various Imperial actions or pirate attacks. It was a very tricky balance puzzle, and the very faintest edges of a headache were creeping in by the time they reached a solution.

“Thank you for your time, Commander,” General Daeruun said warmly as he stood. “That took longer than I expected it would, and I know you’re busy.”

“It was an important list of issues, General,” Vica demurred with a smile. “I always have time for our allies in the Republic. No matter how busy I may be.”

The general chuckled. “A most gracious host. When you find the opportunity to relax, Commander...” He pulled a small packet from one of the pouches on his belt. “A token of friendship; a new blend I encountered on Atraken. I find it quite adept at calming the mind.”

Vica perked up at the offer of new tea and stepped forward to accept it with a grin. “Thank you very much, General. I look forward to when I have the chance to try it.”

“Yeah, so do I,” Theron muttered behind her, barely audible.

She ignored him. He was one to talk about working too hard, anyway. “Make yourself at home as long as you’re here, General. I need to see to some other matters if we’re finished?”

“We are indeed,” General Daeruun nodded. “Best of luck with your other endeavors, Commander.”

“Thank you. And, again, for the tea. Aygo, you can head down to staging when you’re ready.”

The admiral nodded, looking up from the datapad he’d been studying. “Of course, Commander.”

Theron trailed her out of the conference room, and Vica pivoted, tilting her chin up to meet his gaze once they were out in the hall. “So, what’s next on your to do list?”

He gave her an arched brow look. “Try and convince my wife to take a five minute break before she dives back into her ocean of work?”

“I will,” Vica promised, resting a hand on his arm. “But I still need to talk to Hylo, and the meeting went long, so it’s almost time for my holocall with--”

“Vica, it’s five minutes,” Theron said with a wry smile. “Just go sit on a conference table and meditate or something so you don’t burn out.”

She giggled at the mental image; Barsen’thor and Commander and Outlander, perched cross-legged on a conference table to meditate like a mischievous youngling. “I will. Take a break, I mean. But the ambassador’s expecting my call, so I really need to at least do that first.”

He pursed his lips. “I’ll talk to Hylo.”

“You aren’t too busy?”

“Nah, my to-do list is much shorter than yours,” he deadpanned. “Let me help.”

“It is the sort of thing you’re good at...” Vica pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to quash the guilty tickle at ‘pawning off her responsibilities’. “Alright. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“All yours, then.” She flashed a tired smile. “See? Delegating.”

“Good for you,” Theron drawled, leaning down to steal a kiss before they parted ways.

Vica snaked a hand around the back of his neck to hold him close an extra few heartbeats. “Thank you,” she murmured as they parted.

“Anytime, sweetheart,” Theron replied quietly, pressing a light kiss to her forehead as well before he headed for the elevator.

Vica smiled, sighed, and made her way to one of the more private holoterminals.

---

There were, fortunately, no surprises lurking in her conversation with the Qalitan ambassador. Just typical diplomatic chitchat about their contributions an compensations and how things stood on Qalita Prime.

Vica breathed a long sigh of relief after ending the call, smoothing a hand down her shirt as she mentally crossed that off her list. One thing down, eight more to go...

She almost ran into the aide hurrying down the hall when she stepped out of the room. The baby-faced zabrak didn’t seem fazed by the near-collision, already rambling before Vica could get an apology out,” Oh, Commander, I’ve been looking for you.” He held out a datapad. “Trestal sent some revisions to our treaty.”

Vica frowned. “We’re formalizing that in two days.” They had a month and they chose now?!

“I know, Commander.” His tattoos wrinkled as his brow furrowed. “They promised it was only a few things, minor adjustments to phrasing and the like.”

Which immediately set alarm bells ringing; you didn’t wait til the last minute to make minor adjustments. Vica groaned. This day was one long game of bop-a-gizka; get one thing taken care of and another popped up somewhere else. “I’ll take a look at it. Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am, and... sorry.” The aide frowned apologetically.

“Not your fault,” She said with a sigh, and took the datapad to her quarters to review. The timing was atrocious, and made her very glad she’d let Theron take talking to Hylo. So much for that five minute break.

---

When he’d nagged her about taking a break, dozing off over a datapad hadn’t really been what he had in mind. Theron debated letting her be anyway, but she’d have an awful crick in her neck from that position.

He sat next to her on the couch and gently poked her shoulder. “Vica.”

She jerked upright, fumbling the datapad a moment before catching it just as it started to slide off her lap. “What do you need?”

“Just checking in.” Theron rubbed her arm. “Dry reading?”

“Give me a history text over political document any day,” Vica said with a wan smile. She stretched and rubbed the back of her neck. “How’d it go with Hylo?”

“Fine,” Theron shrugged. “She has good instincts, and good evidence for both the accusations and the people she wants to promote.”

“Good, glad that was easy.”

“How ‘bout you, what’s so enthralling you added it into your schedule?” He nudged the datapad.

“Trestal treaty. They made some minor changes and phrasing tweaks-”

“Now?” Theron frowned skeptically at the datapad. “Two days before we sign the blasted thing?”

“That’s what I said!” Vica tossed the datapad on a chair and half-turned to face him. “But I’ve been going over it for” --a glance at the wall chrono-- “stars, two hours, and didn’t find anything major. All the changes I’ve noted--and there aren’t a lot--have been little things, nothing that drastically alters the terms. I think politics have jaded me.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Theron said dryly.

She nodded, but absently, like her thoughts were elsewhere, and rubbed her eyes. “Did Briyoni and Jonas make it back alright?”

“I don’t think they’re back yet...” he said slowly, and her posture snapped stiff.

“It’s been hours,” Vica pointed out as she shot to her feet, “more than enough time to repair a couple sensors.”

Knowing Balkar as well as he did, and that Bry was a good match for him, Theron wasn’t terribly worried just yet. “I’m sure they’re fine, Vee. Maybe one of the repairs took extra work, or they’re just taking their sweet time.” Like I’d be trying to do if we’d gone.

“Maybe.” Vica didn’t sound convinced. “Can’t hurt to check...”

He snorted a chuckle. “Technically, no, but if you interrupt their first time alone in months just ‘cause you’re worried...” He smirked and leaned back on the couch. “On second thought, maybe your sister will send death glares at you instead of me for a while. A break would be nice.”

She rolled her eyes and keyed up comms as she paced toward the window. “Briyoni, how’s it going?” A frown wrinkled her brow. “Briyoni?”

Okay, if she wasn’t answering comms, that might be a problem. Or just a bid for privacy.

---

Vica instinctively defaulted to one of the meditations techniques she knew to calm the worry spiraling through her gut.

The comms were dead. Switched off or jammed she couldn’t tell, but there was no answer to her attempts at raising her sister and she couldn’t quite bring herself to agree with Theron’s theory behind the delay.

She tried again. “Briyoni, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

She turned to look at Theron, mildly panicked despite the attempt to meditate it away. “There’s nothing.”

“Nothing as in she’s ignoring you, or as in just static?”

“Nothing as in dead air.” Vica hugged her arms close around herself. “What if something happened to them?”

“Well.” Theron stood and moved to join her. “They’re both very resourceful, and pretty damn hard to kill.” Bry might have more attempts to her name, but Balkar had squeaked out of a few tight spots of his own, and they made a damn good team. He rubbed Vica’s arms and pulled her into a hug. “They’re probably okay, but do you want to send someone after them?”

“Who?” she asked with a wry snort. “Everyone’s busy, including us, that’s why Briyoni volunteered to handle this in the first place.” She picked up her datapad and called up the speeder logs. The locator was offline.

That set her gut twisting. Calm, Vica, he’s right. Resourceful and hard to kill. She’d heard about Eclipse Squad. About Denon.

Good or bad, this also meant they had no way of knowing where Briyoni and Jonas were even if she wanted to check on them. “No point sending someone; their speeder’s not showing.”

“Huh. Weird. Let me see?” Theron took the datapad and scanned the logs. “Nothing about a crash, maybe they’re just out of range.”

“Maybe.” Her skepticism carried in her voice more than she’d meant. They would have had to go seriously off-course for that, so it was a long shot, but she appreciated him trying to make her feel better.

He flashed a sympathetic half-smile. “Here’s a plan: we spend a little while working on things we can do from here with datapads and comms, and you can keep checking to see if Bry’s signal comes back. If it doesn’t, then we worry about how to handle tracking them down.”

It was a good plan. Much more manageable than her fretting about two people in all the untamed expanse of Odessen. She shot him a grateful smile. “Since when are you the reasonable one?”

Theron snorted and kissed her forehead, not seeming the least offended. “Since you started panicking about your sister being AWOL.”

She snorted in turn and plunked down on the couch. “An hour,” she decided. “If I try for an hour with no response, we’ll have to do something.”

“Sounds fair,” Theron agreed, sitting next to her. “Emotional support,” he said with a one-shoulder shrug when she gave him a you’re staying? look.

Her chest warmed at the words and Vica leaned over to kiss his cheek before settling in to try and do some work.

---

It took half of that hour she was willing to wait for one of Vica’s increasingly worried-despite her best efforts--checks to bear fruit.

“...Yeah, Vic?” came crackling back, Briyoni’s voice slightly raised(wind from a moving speeder, maybe?).

Vica wilted against Theron’s shoulder. “Oh, thank the Force.” There was a pulse of unguarded relief from him as well. Apparently he’d been more worried than he let on. “I’ve been trying to check in for... half an hour. What happened?”

“We, uh, ran into some technical difficulties exploring an alternate route.” At least she had the decency to sound a little sheepish. “There’s a section of canyon down here, fuzzed out comms and the map.”

A cold spike prickled up her spine, her jaw tightening at a memory.

“You have forgotten what it is to face death alone. I will remind you.”

She was dimly aware of Theron’s hand on her shoulder, but it was Briyoni’s voice that snapped her out of it. “Vica?”

Vica purged the emotion and accompanying tremor from her voice. “I think I know where you’re talking about.”

“Your friends cannot hear you....”

“Are you out of there?” Even with Valkorion... gone, who knew how much his presence might have warped things in that place.

“Yeah....”

“Good. Don’t go back.” It was the closest thing to an order she’d given her sister since Briyoni joined the Alliance.

“Yes, ma’am, Commander, ma’am,” came the glib reply, and Vica couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter.

“Finish your job, Briyoni,” she reminded, a smile tugging her lips.

“That’s the plan. Get back on track, fix the sensor, be on our way home. See you in an hour or so, Vic.”

“See you then.” Vica closed the channel and exhaled a long slow breath of relief, her head falling back on Theron’ shoulder.

“I take it they’re fine?” he asked.

She sat up and nodded. “They were exploring and wound up in a canyon that interfered with comms and the map.”

From the way his eyes narrowed, his thoughts went the same place hers had. “Where Valkorion...?”

“That’s my guess.” Vica rubbed the back of her neck and shuddered, as if she could shake off the memory. “They’re finishing now.”

“So, how long, exactly, do I have before Balkar’s around to bug me?”

Vica snorted and bumped her knee against his. He grumbled, but the slight upward curve of his lips said he didn’t really mind the prospect. “An hour or so. Maybe longer if he doesn’t jump right into pestering you.”

“Good to know.” Theron set his datapad on the low table and turned to give her a serious look. “Now, all kidding aside. Since you know your sister’s fine, and you got more work done--”

She knew where this was going.

“--will you please take that five minute break now?”

Called it. She was feeling drained, if she was honest. He had a good point. “I’ll do ten minutes. On one condition.”

“I take it with you.”

“Mm, smart man,” she grinned. “You’ve been working almost as hard as I have today, Theron. If I need it, so do you.”

He looked ready to argue, then reconsidered and caved with a sheepish nod. “’S a fair point.”

“It’s just ten minutes,” Vica pointed out, dropping her datapad next to his and settling in tucked close against him. “We can spare ten minutes.”

“Sure.” Theron wrapped an arm around her and his cheek pressed her hair. “Just a little break. We need it.”

She hummed in agreement. They did need this.

---

They were both asleep when Bry stuck her head in to look for Vica; Theron slouched in the corner of couch back and arm with Vica sprawled on top of him, their legs half-falling off the couch. She grinned, biting back a laugh, and debated taking a holo of the two of them. (Vica was snoring a little; it was kind of adorable.) But it was too risky she’d wake them, so she reluctantly discarded the idea and instead tiptoed across the room, avoiding the tangle of legs. Quietly as possible--impressive to anyone who knew her--Bry picked up Vica’s datapad and typed a quick Back safe. Enjoy your nap. B before tiptoeing back out to let them sleep.

Stars knew they needed it.

#queens fic #vica nerai #theron shan #vica/theron #THEY HAVE FIC NOW FINALLY

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neganandblake · 5 years ago

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I think I liked you better when you didn't have a knife in your hand, Peaches... Chapter 208 - In the Deep Midwinter

When Blake finds herself sold out to the Saviours by her abusive fiancé, she realises that she’s certainly not on her own anymore and finds an unlikely friend in Negan. And Negan does NOT like men who beat their girlfriends, one tiny bit...

Chapter 208 - In the deep mid-winter

[The Saviours deal with life with no generator...and it looks like things are going to get a whole lot worse...]

----------------------------

Winter began to slip by in a flurry of bitterly cold winds, frosts and treacherously icy roads.

It had already been nine weeks since the generator had stopped working, and for the Saviours, each of the days that passed seemed to feel achingly longer than the last.

Life at the Sanctuary had changed dramatically for everyone there during that time and not one person there could say it was for the better.

Days now were hard for all, and the nights even harder. There was no respite from the freezing cold and the chill that constantly caused everyone's bones to ache.

There was no freedom from the darkness, and there was certainly a distinct lack of anything that now resembled warmth.

The days just existed, one after another, with no sun in the sky, nothing to heat the large and drafty rooms for even a moment.

Because of this the majority of the rooms on the basement and upper floors had become uninhabitable, too cold to be lived in any longer without a central heat source. The Sanctuary residents had in fact become so desperate to keep warm, that the only solution had been to turn the large dinner hall into a makeshift shelter where almost all of the Saviours could reside. Beds and mattress had been moved down into the space, hanging sheets used to divide off spaces between families and large groups, creating what you could barely call privacy in these testing times.

Even Negan, Blake and Mia had been forced to moved downstairs, now inhabiting one of the small rooms just off the main area. Negan hadn't liked the idea of him or Blake being so exposed, especially while they slept, not trusting his men one little bit. And so this room had been a solution of sorts.

It wasn't ideal, but it sure was far warmer than upstairs.

In this cold weather it was as if the Sanctuary was shrinking. Not just in space either.

The people were far less productive with the temperatures as low as they were, with no one having the energy, or feeling in their fingers or toes, to do anything but sit around the fire shivering.

Every time the lieutenants came back from their runs it took each of them at least a day or two to warm up and get back the strength to head out again. This in turn made the search for the part for the generator, they so desperately required, very slow indeed. Group upon groups, upon groups had searched what seemed to be every factory, small holding and store in a twenty mile radius, to no avail as of yet.

And as the days slid by, the Sanctuary residents began to grow more and more despondent about the hope of ever finding the part. About ever getting out of this mess.

But Blake, throughout everything, tried to remain visibly upbeat. These were her people and they looked to her for guidance during this dark time.

Without having a garden to tend to, these days the blonde could be seen down in the dining hall talking to the workers, sitting amongst the families as Mia played on her lap.

To them she was a ray of sun, guiding their way in this dismal time. She was there when they needed her, smiling, reassuring them that everything was going to be ok.

But deep down, and knowing she would never admit this to any of the worried Saviours, she really wasn't so sure it would be.

Negan had been restless at the lack of progress they were making to sort this situation. He had been out almost every moment he could manage, often coming home visibly aching from the cold. He would often come back late from runs, collapsing down onto the creaky camp bed beside Blake and Mia in the dead of night, groaning at the impact of the lumpy mattress on his pained muscles.

Blake had of course, insisted she help out on runs too, but Negan had put his foot down, telling her he did not want to risk her out there on the roads.

She knew why of course.

The reason why Negan had been irritable, stressed, desperate to get power up and running at the Sanctuary again.

Months had passed since Blake and Negan had first found out about the pregnancy.

Blake now even had the smallest hint of a bump, which she was grateful, that the many layers she had on, shrouded.

They still hadn't told anyone about it. No one but her, Negan and Carson knew. And Blake wanted to keep it that way, knowing something like this, for her, was likely not to endure. For Blake had not been able to carry a baby to term before, so what made now any different?

But that exact reason was what had Negan so tense.

Carson had not yet been able to scan Blake, to see how everything was going. And Blake knew full well that without light or power, losing a baby could be a huge threat to her life.

But what else could Blake do?

She knew that worrying and fretting would only make things worse.

And so each and every cold day that passed, Blake put on a brave face. She smiled and laughed, and hugged those who needed it. Because that's what had she to do. That's what a queen was supposed to do.

That still didn't make it any easier though. And this week, the Saviours found that the situation was only worsening.

The snow outside had been thick and deep for a while now, but the last few days had brought constant snow storms.

The moment the Saviours felt like they had the upper-hand on the snow, using all their strength and manpower to clear the paths out of the Sanctuary, the next day there would likely be another foot or two of snow blocking their path once more.

The situation was indeed dire, and no one wanted to risk going out on runs, just in case they would not be able to find their way back again.

With snow coating the landscape like a blanket, they had already lost two lieutenants in the last week, with no one knowing where they were, or if they were even alive.

Rumours had of course quickly started to spread, of the pair abandoning the Sanctuary, finding another place with power and heat, some suggesting they had gone to Alexandria or the Kingdom.

Negan had been quick to try and quash that gossip. But his usual aggressive manner only sought to make peoples bitterness and worry about the entire situation, far worse.

And that was something that was certainly not needed here and now.

Today the Sanctuary residents had woken to yet more snowfall. The decision had already been made that due to poor visibility it was too risky to venture out today, which in turn meant that because of everyone having to stay inside all day, cooped up together, arguments were likely to break out and tensions were bound to be high.

Blake was currently stood alone in the tiny room just off the large dining area, leaning over a large bowl of cold water.

The room she now had taken residence in was a far cry from the room that Negan and her had shared upstairs, with only a mattress, a small wooden cabinet with a mirror balanced on top of it, and a tiny crate of Mia's toys.

Reaching her hands down into the bowl, Blake sloshed the icy water onto her face, causing her breath to catch at the back of her throat at the contact.

Grabbing a towel she wiped at her face, before standing up straight again and letting out a long sigh.

Today Blake felt very, very pregnant.

There really was no other way to put it.

Thankfully her morning sickness was long gone, but right now she felt hungry all the time, bloated, and needed to pee practically every five minutes.

Reaching down she ran a hand over her barely-there bump, obscured today with a pale lilac cardigan, just as there came a small knock upon the closed door just over her shoulder.

She removed her hand, turning and placing the towel down behind her.

"Yeah?"

A second later the door was gently pushed open by a smiling Tanya.

"Hey, Blake," said the dark-haired woman making a face. "Just thought you oughta' know that someone's puked like three times outside the girls bathrooms next door, so I'd avoid it if I were you.

Blake grimaced.

"Someone cleaning it up?" she asked wincing, and trying to keep her nausea at bay at the very thought.

Tanya grinned, nodding.

"Yeah, but the entire place is like a hellzone out there," she sighed. "Y'know Pam's the third person to start puking this week. Carson's on it, but the smell-"

But Blake held a hand up, stopping Tanya before she could say another word.

"Ok, I get it," she said giving a hard swallow, trying to keep her stomach level. "I'll speak to Carson, see if he knows what's going on."

"Cool," Tanya replied with a nod, before staring around the room for a moment. "Mia not around this morning?"

Blake shook her head, folding her arms over herself before moving over to Tanya and pushing past her out of the door, closing it behind her.

"She's with Negan," she said with a smirk, lifting two fingers either side of head making quotation marks. "'Doin' the rounds'".

Tanya smirked back.

In a bid to keep her warm and stop her complaining about the cold so much, Negan had taken to doing laps of the place with Mia in tow. Together they looked like a real little double act. The big bad wolf and the tiny little toddler.

Blake immediately blanched as she stepped into the large ex-dining hall, that now housed the majority of the Saviour's morning, noon and night, the pungent smell of vomit hitting her hard.

"See what I mean," said Tanya, catching her look.

Blake pursed her lips moving further into the room heading in between the rows of beds and sheets.

Yet again today, like every day, families were sat around, huddled together looking despondent, peering up at the blonde as she passed.

She offered them all smiles, but right now knew she could give them very little more.

It was freezing in here, cold breaths curling into mist above the heads of the Saviours in the room.

Heading over to a room just off the far end of the space, Blake lifted up the sheet, the only privacy in place of a door, to see Carson inside.

But this time, unlike the last few times Blake had been inside the makeshift medical room to find the doctor dealing with a patient or two, there were now seven beds crammed into the tiny space.

Blake stared around wide-eyed as she ducked under the sheet and moved inside the room.

"What's going on?" she said in a hushed whisper.

Carson, who was leant over a sickly-looking patient immediately stood up straight, looking Blake's way and giving a carrying huff, lifting his hand and running it through his messy strawberry-blonde hair.

"It's been like this since yesterday," he explained with a shake of his head. "Seven now. Any more, and were going to have to find another room for them."

Blake immediately frowned at his words staring around at the people in the beds. They all looked deathly pale and sweaty. Some of them coughing, and heaving, and some of them barely moving at all.

"What's wrong with them?" she whispered.

"The flu most likely. Something like this was bound to spread like wildfire in conditions like this," Carson muttered.

Fuck.

Blake had known that people getting sick was inevitable in this kind of environment, but to see it so stark like this…

"W-Why didn't you let us know sooner?" she asked Carson with a frown between her brows.

A sickness like this was a dangerous thing. People could die!

So why had the doctor kept it from them? Was this some sort of ploy from him-

"Negan knows," he said with a shake of his head, frowning himself. "I told him the moment the second person got sick."

Blake, at this, parted her lips.

"W-What?"

She had seen Negan only this morning and he had told her nothing of this.

Was he really keeping things from her now?

Carson pursed his lips, tilting his head to the side as he stared at her, his gaze earnest.

"I thought Negan had told you."

Blake gritted her teeth suddenly.

"Son of a bitch," she uttered under her breath, turning on her heel and shoving past Tanya, and stalking from the room, as the dark-haired woman and the doctor exchanged nervous glances.

Both of them knew this wasn't going to end well.

For Negan especially…

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#negan #negan twd #Jeffrey Dean Morgan #jdm #negan oc #The Walking Dead #twd #negan fic #negan fluff #negan otp #negan ofc #negan jeffrey #negan thirst #negan fanfic #negan fanfiction #negan series #negan and blake

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Sunday, November 1, 2020

Rare Halloween blue moon is a treat (Space) Skywatchers, take note: The moon will be full this Halloween night across the entire United States. This is a truly special confluence of spookiness; a Halloween full moon visible for all time zones on Earth hasn’t happened since 1944, according to the Farmers’ Almanac. It won’t happen again until 2039. But wait, there’s more: The Oct. 31 full moon also happens to be a “blue moon,” a designation for the second full moon to occur in a single calendar month. Blue moons are relatively rare as well, occurring on average just once every 2.5 years or so. We last saw one in March 2018. And in case you were wondering—“blue moon” has nothing to do with color. The moon can sometimes appear bluish, thanks to the scattering of light by dust or smoke particles in Earth’s atmosphere, but such effects are not tied to the moon’s phases at all.

Study: 1 to 2 million tons of US plastic trash go astray (AP) More than a million tons a year of America’s plastic trash isn’t ending up where it should. The equivalent of as many as 1,300 plastic grocery bags per person is landing in places such as oceans and roadways, according to a new study of U.S. plastic trash. In 2016—the last year enough data was available and before several countries cracked down on imports of American waste—the United States generated 46.3 million tons (42 million metric tons) of plastic waste, by far the most in the world. Between 2.7% and 5.3% of that was mismanaged—not burned, placed in landfills or otherwise disposed of properly, according to a study in Friday’s journal Science Advances. Between 1.2 million and 2.5 million tons (1.1 million to 2.2 million metric tons) of plastic generated in the U.S. were dropped on land, rivers, lakes and oceans as litter, were illegally dumped or shipped abroad then not properly disposed of, the study found. If you took nearly 2.5 million tons (2.2 million metric tons) of mismanaged plastic waste—bottles, wrappers, grocery bags and the like—and dumped it on the White House lawn, “it would pile as high as the Empire State Building,” said co-author Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineering professor at the University of Georgia.

Exorcism: Increasingly frequent, including after US protests (AP) In popular culture, exorcism often serves as a plot device in chilling films about demonic possession. This month, two Roman Catholic archbishops showed a different face of exorcism—performing the rite at well-attended outdoor ceremonies to drive out any evil spirits lingering after acrimonious protests. In Portland, Oregon, Archbishop Alexander Sample led a procession of more than 200 people to a city park on Oct. 17, offered a prayer, then conducted a Latin exorcism rite intended to purge the community of evil. The event followed more than four months of racial justice protests in Portland, mostly peaceful but sometimes fueling violence and riots. On the same day, 600 miles to the south, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone performed an exorcism ceremony outside a Catholic church in San Rafael, where protesters had earlier toppled a statue of Father Junipero Serra. The prayers were different from those offered when a person is believed to be the subject of demonic possession. Religious studies professor Andrew Chesnut of Virginia Commonwealth University said exorcism, in its traditional form as a demon-chaser, is increasingly widespread around the world, though there are no official statistics. One perennial challenge for modern-day exorcists is to determine if a person potentially possessed by the devil is in fact suffering problems better addressed by mental health professionals.

After year of disruption, America set to choose a path ahead (AP) After a year of deep disruption, America is poised for a presidential election that renders a verdict on the nation’s role in the world and the direction of its economy, on its willingness to contain an escalating pandemic and its ability to confront systemic racial inequity. But the two men on the ballot, President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, offer more than just differing solutions for the country’s most pressing problems. The choice before voters is a referendum on the role of the presidency itself and a test of the sturdiness of democracy, with the president challenging the legitimacy of the outcome even before Election Day and law enforcement agencies braced for the possibility of civil unrest. “There’s more than just your standard ideological difference between the two candidates. There’s a fundamentally different view of what the presidency is and what leadership means for the nation,” said Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. Voters appear to recognize the moment: More than 86 million people have already cast ballots, shattering records for early voting. Whichever candidate wins the White House will confront the challenge of governing through deep divisions.

Venezuela coup plotters met at Trump Doral. Central figure says U.S. officials knew of plan. (Miami Herald) In a challenge to denials of government involvement, the ex-U.S. special operations sergeant whose security firm took part in a botched Venezuelan coup last May said two Trump administration officials met with and expressed support to planners of Operation Gideon, a Bay of Pigs-type operation that tried to oust Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. It’s a story of bungling, bravado and cloak-and-dagger plotting, with plans shared in clandestine meetings in the back of limousines while rolling through Miami, in restaurants and even at dusk on the 12th fairway of the Red Course of Trump Doral, the Miami Herald/McClatchy has learned. The goal of Gideon was to replace Maduro by installing Guaidó, whose name appears on a contract purportedly signed with the coup plotters. The complete document—obtained by reporters from the Miami Herald and McClatchy, its parent company—contains a never-before-seen clause that allows Guaidó to disavow any involvement if the mission failed. The failed coup resulted in the May 3 capture of two former American soldiers and 47 Venezuelans and led to the death of six would-be freedom-fighters who appear to have been executed.

WHO: Europe again ‘the epicenter’ of coronavirus pandemic with 10 million cases (The Hill) The 53-country region that makes up Europe under the umbrella of the World Health Organization (WHO) said it reached a record of confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 1.5 million new infections last week, the organization’s European director said Thursday. There have been more than 10 million confirmed cases since the pandemic began this year, according to The Associated Press. “Europe is at the epicenter of this pandemic once again,” WHO European regional director Hans Kluge said in a meeting with European health ministers, according to AP. “At the risk of sounding alarmist, I must express our very real concern.” Kluge said that deaths have increased by more than 30 percent in the past week and hospitalizations have reached their highest levels since spring, AP reported.

Terror attacks in France over Mohammad cartoons spark debate on secularism, Islamophobia (USA Today) The three recent assaults, described by France’s President Emmanuel Macron as “Islamist terror attacks,” have reignited long-simmering tensions in a country where secular values are deeply held and proclaimed. They come also as Macron has sought to crack down on extremism in France following a spate of terrorist attacks in recent years that have, according to Macron, partially resulted from a “counter society” that seeks “Islamist separatism” at odds with France’s republican values. Muslims are a relatively small minority in Europe, comprising roughly 5% of the population, according to the most recent estimates by the Pew Research Center, a Washington, D.C.-based “fact tank.” In France, the Muslim share of the population is the region’s highest, at around 9%. Macron has outlined a series of measures aimed at quashing religious “separatism” and freeing France from what he has described as radical “foreign influences.” But Dalia Mogahed, a former advisor on faith to President Obama, and now research director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank that focuses on issues that affect American Muslims, said Macron and the French establishment more broadly have been wrong to portray the controversy over the cartoons as one that pits freedom of speech against blasphemy. She said the cartoons need to be understood against the background of rising Islamophobia in France across the political spectrum. “They are the equivalent of the N-word. They are equivalent of blackface. They are racial slurs,” she said. The cartoons, Mogahed added, “target a vulnerable, marginalized, disempowered and demonized community by a powerful institution, who are then further demonized, sometimes by the state, for protesting those slurs.” Mogahed said believing the cartoons are offensive should not in any way be understood as justification for any form of violence, and indeed governments and Muslim leaders and organizations across France and the world have condemned the attacks. However, she said it it was “a myth” and “completely disingenuous” of France to project the idea that “it is all open and anyone can say anything they want to anyone.” She noted, for example, that Holocaust denial is criminalized in France. Free expression is “not being applied consistently” in France she said, adding that in his support for the cartoons to be published Macron is effectively “imposing a different kind of state religion” that she referred to as “French Republic nationalism.”

Nearly 3 months after vote, Belarus protests still go strong (AP) Nearly three months after Belarus’ authoritarian president’s re-election to a sixth term in a vote widely seen as rigged, demonstrators keep swarming the streets of Belarusian cities to demand his resignation in the most massive and sustained wave of protests the ex-Soviet nation has ever seen. While President Alexander Lukashenko has relied on massive arrests and intimidation tactics to hold on to power, the continuing rallies have cast an unprecedented challenge to his 26-year rule. Authorities have responded to protests triggered by Aug. 9 election that gave Lukashenko a landslide victory over Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya by unleashing a violent post-election crackdown. Police dispersed peaceful demonstrators with stun grenades and rubber bullets, detained thousands and beat hundreds, which caused protests to swell and prompted the U.S. and the European Union to introduce sanctions against Belarusian officials. Tsikhanouskaya, who went to Lithuania after the vote under pressure from authorities, called for a nationwide strike this week that so far has failed to halt production at state-run industrial plants forming the backbone of the Belarusian economy. But observers predict that economic troubles amid a surge in coronavirus infections will fuel discontent and steadily erode Lukashenko’s grip on power.

70-year-old pulled alive as Turkey quake death toll hits 53 (AP) Rescue workers extricated a 70-year-old man from a collapsed building in western Turkey on Sunday, some 34 hours after a strong earthquake in the Aegean Sea struck Turkey and Greece, killing at least 53 people and injuring more than 900. It was the latest series of remarkable rescues after the Friday afternoon earthquake, which was centered in the Aegean northeast of the Greek island of Samos. Ahmet Citim, 70, was pulled out from the rubble shortly after midnight Sunday and was hospitalized. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted that he said: “I never lost my hope.” Turkey has a mix of older buildings and lightly regulated cheap new construction, which can lead to serious damage and deaths when earthquakes hit.

Philippines orders evacuation as world’s strongest 2020 typhoon approaches (Reuters) Philippine officials on Saturday ordered evacuation of thousands of residents in the southern part of the main Luzon island as a category 5 storm that is the world’s strongest this year approaches the Southeast Asian nation. Typhoon Goni, with 215 kph (133 miles) sustained winds and gusts of up to 265 kph (164 mph), will make landfall on Sunday as the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines since Haiyan that killed more than 6,300 people in November 2013. Pre-emptive evacuations have started in coastal and landslide-prone communities in the provinces of Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur, while Albay provincial government would order residents in risky areas to leave their homes, Gremil Naz, a local disaster official, told DZBB radio station. “The strength of this typhoon is no joke.”

Tanzania, once envy of the region, watches democracy slide (AP) Vote-counting was far from over when Tanzanian opposition leader Seif Sharif Hamad was frustrated enough to call people onto the streets. As thwarted observers alleged the most blatant election fraud in the country’s history, and with no way to challenge the results in court, there was little to do but protest. But Hamad and others didn’t get far. As they walked toward a roundabout in the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar on Thursday, police fired tear gas, then arrested them—Hamad’s second arrest in a week. A party official, Ismail Jussa, was badly beaten by soldiers and hospitalized. On the eve of the vote, at least 10 people in Zanzibar were killed. “We were a cradle of peace,” their colleague, ACT Wazalendo party campaign manager Emmanuel Mvula, told The Associated Press after describing the events. But after witnessing Tanzania’s sharp turn away from democratic ideals, “I’m worried for our future as a nation.”

U.S. special forces rescue American held in Nigeria (Reuters) U.S. special forces rescued an American citizen who had been kidnapped by armed men in an operation on Saturday in northern Nigeria that is believed to have killed several of his captors, U.S. officials said. Forces including Navy SEALs rescued 27-year-old Philip Walton, who had been abducted on Tuesday from his home in neighboring southern Niger, two U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity, adding that no U.S. troops were hurt. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Fox News that the Trump administration had over the years rescued 55 hostages in 24 countries.

#headlines #news

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upontheshelfreviews · 7 years ago

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Of all the animated Disney films out there, few have had a history as troubled or as fascinating as The Black Cauldron. Shaped less by the average process of transforming a novel to film and more by the decade, regime, mindset towards animation and internal struggle of power of the studio that made it, The Black Cauldron is considered the black sheep of the canon; those who worked on it have few fond memories of the experience, and the result of all that blood, sweat, tears, and voodoo curses hurled in Jeffrey Katzenberg’s direction is an odd creature Disney is content to let wallow in relative obscurity. To this day it’s looked down upon by all but a few loyal fans who’ve elevated it to semi-cult status. The story of how and why this is is worth a documentary of its own.

As for my thoughts on the film itself…well…

“It’s complicated.”

I honestly can’t talk about my feelings towards The Black Cauldron without putting it into some context first. And there’s a LOT of context that needs to be explained. Hence why I’ve decided to split this review into two parts. This first half will go over the history of the movie and behind the scenes shenanigans, while Part 2, which is the review I know you’ve been anticipating, will be released next week. So if you want to avoid an engaging history lesson that discusses the climate in which The Black Cauldron was created in depth and go right to the film itself, I suggest you return at a later date. Or go watch Waking Sleeping Beauty. It’s a fascinating, personal look into the struggle that shaped Disney’s Renaissance era and they devote a good chunk of the beginning into what went down during the making of The Black Cauldron.

By the 1980’s, Walt Disney had been dead for nearly twenty years and his enterprise as a whole was lacking a good leader to keep everything together. The live-action films were woefully behind the times, Walt Disney World’s recently-opened second park EPCOT wasn’t meeting attendance expectations, and while the animated films were holding up surprisingly well, the department had to deal with their budgets continually being slashed in order to make up for the failures of the previous two branches of the company.

Politics within the animation studio threatened to tear it apart as well. It was time for the stubborn old guard of Walt’s day, which included the revered animators known as the Nine Old Men, to pass on everything they knew to a ragtag band of fresh recruits with newfangled ideas about how Disney animation should be. Needless to say there was plenty of headbutting and saltiness from each end throughout the ordeal. One of the outcomes was that two no-name pipsqueaks decided to jump ship – Don Bluth, who committed high treason in his contemporaries’ eyes by forming his own animation studio (and giving Disney some admittedly much-needed competition to get their act together), and Tim Burton, who was dissatisfied with the direction The Black Cauldron was taking and felt his own inventive if bizarre contributions were going unappreciated. Bluth is still considered a persona non grata in Disney’s circle for his mutiny, but I can imagine their parting ways with Burton going something like this:

“Tell ya what, loser, if you manage to gross over a hundred million with those weird little films of yours, we’ll make that stop-motion singing skeleton picture you always wanted!”

Things came to a head after it was announced that Disney’s next animation project would be Lloyd Alexander’s popular high fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain – or rather, taking the first two books of said series and combining them into one 80 minute film.

“It worked for Ralph Bakshi!”

“No it didn’t.”

“Come on, what kind of cockamamie studio would we be running if we devoted an entire movie to each entry in some crummy little fairy tale saga? Or hell, splitting one book into two movies to cram everything in! How do you expect to make bank on that? We’re not made of money, you know!”

“Sir, the contractors are here to go over the building of your swimming pool to contain all your other swimming pools.”

“Thank you, Ramsley. Tell them they’ll receive their deposit once we get the box office returns on Herbie Goes Bananas.”

“Of course, sir.”

Now the 80’s were a golden age for cult fantasy flicks. You couldn’t swing a dead elf around without hitting a Labyrinth or a Princess Bride or a Last Unicorn or a kajillion overlooked Baron Munchausens. Disney tried their hand at this genre with fare such as Return to Oz and Something Wicked This Way Comes and I think they’re good films. Like, really, REALLY good films. But unfortunately they share something in common with the previously mentioned fantasy movies, and that is they were major flops upon release. Yet the animators’ toiled away under the sincere hope that The Black Cauldron would be the one to break that losing streak. They were going to do something unique, something that no other animation studio – least of all classic Disney – had ever done before…

…or they might have if the old guard hadn’t kept stepping in to curb their creativity.

I understand where the former generation was coming from; I’d be pretty grouchy too if I had to train these too-big-for-their-britches whippersnappers who were going to replace me, but one of the reasons why the Disney company was this close to declaring bankruptcy in the decades after Walt’s passing was because it was adhering dangerously close to the mentality of “What would Walt do” instead of trying new things and evolving with the times. The very idea of “What would Walt do” is a paradox; none of us – not me, not the most religious of Disney fans, not even the workers who knew him the longest – could ever really know what his course of action on creative decisions might be, and yet the one thing we do know for certain is that Walt Disney always chose to move forward instead of clinging to the formulas or modes of thinking that were deemed the most successful. His whole body of work reflects that. Walt was one of the first studio heads to embrace television as another method of entertainment instead of fearing its growing popularity over theatrical venues. He not only revolutionized the theme park business but he kept building upon what was already there to enhance the experience and bridge the gap between man and machine, rather than just letting Disneyland sit in the middle of Anaheim and churn out money while it gathered dust. And as for features, well, after he was pressured into making sequels to the successful Three Little Pigs which proved to be less popular than the first, he infamously said “You can’t top pigs with pigs!”. Walt hated repeating himself in order to triumph, and he took every opportunity to push the envelope when it came to the story or technical aspects of anything he touched. He dove head first into the new, and if he made a mistake along the way, he learned from it instead of retreating back into the safe zone. Sadly, in a misguided attempt to keep Walt’s legacy alive, the old regime forgot about that and micromanaged every aspect of the company until it became a time capsule instead of a thriving creative business.

Look no further than the artwork made during the concept stage of the film’s production if you need an example. Here’s some of what the new crowd came up with:

Pretty neat, huh? Now here’s what Milt Kahl and some of Walt’s homeboys pressed on to them.

Compare these sketches to something from Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone or any silver-era Disney film. It’s too close to the house style from back then. You’d think it was rejected concept art from one of those films. Poor Tim Burton got the worst of it. He shared some awesome ideas for the Horned King’s henchmen, his gwythaints (aka dragon things), and just about anything having to do with the guy not excluding his own living space. The animators adored them, but management, in a move that would be the last straw for Burton, told him they wouldn’t spare the time or expenses needed to revamp the look for the film.

“Redo a bunch of doodles so it’ll look like a bunch of DIFFERENT doodles?! We’re stretched for cash as it is!”

“Sir, your 30-foot diamond sculpture of yourself has arrived. Where shall I have the men place it?”

“Eh, stick it in the ballroom with all the other diamond sculptures, I’m busy!”

“Very good, sir.”

To further quash morale, the animation department was unceremoniously booted out of the original building it was housed in from back when Walt Disney built the studio. They now worked in what was basically a cramped little trailer park across the street.

Tensions were high all around.

Animation, once the lifeblood of the Disney company, was now on life support.

Certain higher-ups were even questioning if they should pull the plug and turn their focus to the parks and live-action films.

“Hmm, they did make those wacky duck cartoons I liked when I was five…then again, I’ve been wanting my own private archipelago for some time now. Oh, nobody has it harder than I do!”

“Sir, just a reminder, you have a meeting with Misters Eisner, Katzenberg and Wells at four.”

“Who?”

“Your new bosses? The former heads at Paramount Pictures? The men who greenlit hit after hit for film and television including Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Star Trek motion pictures?”

“…Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Indeed, a solution of sorts came in the form of a sweeping management makeover. Out went Ron Miller, in came Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. Together they were something unprecedented – they ran the company in a manner parallel to Walt and his brother Roy, and it WORKED. See, Walt was the idea man as well as the amicable people person; he was able to generate ideas and see them through thanks to his power of persuasion and ability to inspire others. Roy was the sensible subdued banker who calculated what could and could not be feasibly done and brought Walt’s dreams into reality. Through their lifelong partnership and ability to compromise commerce with art, they founded one of the biggest entertainment enterprises on the planet.

I’ve noticed any time where Disney’s CEO is just one person, they’re rarely able to handle that balance of creativity and finance without leaning heavily towards one aspect – which nine times out of ten is always the financial one. When it’s a partnership like these two pairs, however, the company has flourished. Wells was approachable, knew how to appeal to his employees, a good risk taker and vicariously enjoyed the process of bringing a project to fruition. Eisner was known for having some pretty stupid ideas – ideas he’d carry with him once he was given full command – but his business savvy brought the company out of the red and into a new golden age. Working together they shaped Disney into the company we know it as today. Wells was Walt, and Eisner was Roy; the only difference between them being it was Eisner who was the charming face of the company thanks to his many appearances on TV via holiday specials and the Wonderful World of Disney.

“…which is why it came as such a FUCKING HUGE STAB IN THE BACK when he cut corners in the parks, started the direct-to-video sequel line, and divorced Disney from traditional animation, the greedy bastard!! SHELF SMAAAASH!!!”

Also along for the ride at Eisner’s behest was Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was tasked with overseeing the animation studio. Eisner recognized from his years in television that there was money to be made in marketing nostalgia, and what gets people more nostalgic than Disney animation? This decision proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Sure, Jeffrey was one of the pillars in revitalizing Disney’s animated films, but his adjustment from working with the live-action medium to pencils and paper was rocky at best. He quickly developed a reputation among the staff for being passionate about his work but highly volatile. No one knew what could piss him off one day or make him laugh the next. The one certainty was that Katzenberg was a man with a mission. He wanted to bring Disney animation back to its glory days. To the days when the name Disney meant something. In his own words, to wake Sleeping Beauty.

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Joel Hale, producer on The Black Cauldron, scoffed at this. He already didn’t approve of the new animators acting like privileged children and he certainly wasn’t fond of these Hollywood big shots coming in and shaking up the status quo. “Who do they think they are? Sleeping Beauty’s already awake,” he replied.

He was fired almost immediately after.

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And so, down one producer, up several more, nearly seven years after production began and several million dollars over budget, The Black Cauldron finally entered the most anticipated and dreaded stage of the Hollywood assembly line, the test screening. When it got to the part with the cauldron born, animator Mike Peraza counted down to the second the moment he knew the screaming in the audience would commence. And he was right on time. According to well-documented testimonies, the children there not only screamed and cried but fled the theater. As for Katzenberg’s reaction to The Black Cauldron as a whole, it wasn’t a far cry from what was happening on screen.

Indeed, the animators succeeded in creating something Disney had never done before – and Katzenberg HATED it. It was too violent, too frightening, and too distant from all things associated with the Disney name. Granted, I can see why he would feel that way; Disney has gone dark before (The Headless Horseman, Fantasia’s Night On Bald Mountain, the entire second half of Pinocchio, you get the idea), but at this rate The Black Cauldron was coming very close to earning Disney its first R rating. Not mincing words here. The film we have today is the freaking Care Bears Movie compared to the original cut that was screened. There were some pretty gory deaths in the action scenes, the Horned King’s own demise was somehow even worse than the one we’re familiar with, and most notably the cauldron born sequence not only had them kill some unnamed henchmen onscreen but explicitly showed one dissolve alive in the mist. To this day, individual cels of that scene circulate the internet as proof of its existence, and I can only imagine the awe and terror of seeing it play out as it was meant to.

Desperate to salvage whatever he could with as minimal mental scarring as possible, Katzenberg demanded the directors cut fifteen minutes from the film. Not any specific fifteen minutes, mind you, just fifteen minutes. It went down almost exactly like the scene from Amadeus where Emperor Joseph praises Mozart’s opera but asks if he could cut a few notes because he thinks there’s too many. He thankfully backs down when Mozart pointedly asks him which notes he wants him to cut. Unfortunately, trimming a couple of seconds here and there wasn’t enough to mollify Katzenberg, and he took it upon himself to fix his own perceived problem.

Pictured: Katzenburg preparing for an editing session.

Katzenberg shocked all present when he said that this film needed to be edited. They protested that there’s no way you can edit an animated movie, to which Katzenberg replied “Of course you can!” In a way, he was correct. All films, including animated ones, can and should be edited to some degree; either to give a moment some breathing space or get to the point of a scene. The problem is, Katzenberg was NOT an experienced editor in his own right.

Imagine you’re given a fine steak to eat and someone offers to cut it for you. They trim off the fatty bits first, then carve it into equal portions. Seems good, right? But then they start to cut away parts they think may have too much gristle, or look burnt or undercooked, or has one peppercorn too many sprinkled on – parts that you might actually enjoy and would make the experience of enjoying this meal more complete – and you’re forced to watch as they turn a culinary treat into a dinner with an unfortunate amount of its flavor and meat stolen from you. Once you recognize where Katzenberg made those haphazard cuts and alterations, you see the film in a new light, like that steak. You’re left wondering what could have been, how a pretty decent movie could have become a potentially great one.

And how is it that I am privy to such arcane truths?

Because, hand to God, my boyfriend managed to procure a shooting script of The Black Cauldron that was produced before Katzenberg did his hack job.

What, you don’t believe me? Then tremble before me and despair, you heretics!

“BRING. IT. ON.”

• TO BE CONTINUED •

Artwork by Charles Moss.

Milt Kahl and Andreas Deja production sketches courtesy of Andreas Deja’s blog Deja View, which I can’t recommend enough.

October Review: The Black Cauldron (1985) PART 1 Of all the animated Disney films out there, few have had a history as troubled or as fascinating as The Black Cauldron.

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armeniaitn · 5 years ago

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Armenia and Azerbaijan Clash Again

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/armenia-and-azerbaijan-clash-again-37859-17-07-2020/

Armenia and Azerbaijan Clash Again

The on-again, off-again conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the border region of Nagorno-Karabakh became hot again on the weekend of July 11. Skirmishes are common in the contested region, which is known as Artsakh to the Armenian side, but this recent round of deadly attacks is the most serious escalation since the Four Day War in 2016 and is outside the typical point of contact. As usual, international calls for restraint and a diplomatic solution have been voiced, but internal politics between the two sides continue to amplify their serious disagreements. It seems as though the situation will continue to escalate, but the current circumstances are unlikely to spark a full-scale confrontation.

As in the case of other post-Soviet frozen conflicts — as well as land disputes in the North Caucasus — the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh is intrinsically linked to the early history of the 20th century. Shifts of power resultant from the loss of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the collapse of the Russian Empire and the territorial delineations configured in the formative days of the Soviet Union and its subsequent break-up created borders that did not appease all sides of the local populations. Nagorno-Karabakh has an ethnic Armenian majority, but political maneuvering in the 1920s handed its jurisdiction, and thus international recognition, to Azerbaijan. Armenia continued to voice its discontent over this arrangement, but matters of borders and ethnicity remained contained while the territories were part of a wider empire with one central government.

As the Soviet Union neared its end, the question of Nagorno-Karabakh reemerged as Karabakh Armenians sought the reconnection of the territory with Armenia proper. Subsequent political actions, including an unofficial referendum and a petition to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to sanction the territorial transfer, infuriated the Azeri public. In 1988, the Nagorno-Karabakh War officially broke out just as inter-ethnic relations deteriorated, killing between 20,000 and 30,000 people. A further referendum in 1991, boycotted by Azerbaijan, quashed the prior plea to join Armenia in favor of the pursuit of independence for Nagorno-Karabakh. Fighting escalated to the point that both Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of ethnic cleansing. It was at this point that the international community turned its attention to the regional conflict in the South Caucasus.

Contemporary Crisis

In 1994, the Russian Federation mediated a ceasefire between Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (as of 2017, officially the Republic of Artsakh). For the most part, this agreement has kept hostilities contained, minus the ongoing instances of low-level clashes and explicit violations by both sides. For example, the Four Day War in April 2016 witnessed Azerbaijan regain “two strategic hills, a village, and a total of about 2,000 hectares.” Nonetheless, Armenia has not fulfilled concessions required by UN Security Council resolutions, such as the withdrawal of its troops, leaving Azerbaijan perpetually frustrated.

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There has been a continued push for engagement and peace talks by the international community, primarily the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, chaired by Russia, France and the United States, since 1992. Still, there are no official relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan as a result, and it has been difficult to breathe life into peace talks in a decades-long conflict.

It is unclear what exactly sparked the current round of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but both sides blame the other for the escalation. The heightened tensions came only days after Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, declared that peace talks to resolve the conflict had essentially have stalled. One key difference between the current situation and those in the past is that the deadly encounter between forces did not occur directly in Nagorno-Karabakh, but rather in the northern Tavush section of the Armenian border.

On July 12, the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan announced that Armenia launched an offensive that consequently killed two Azerbaijani servicemen and left five others wounded. In retaliation, Azeri forces launched a counterstrike, setting the scene for yet another protracted spat. Attacks have continued almost on a daily basis since the outbreak of the current impasse, and there have been numerous reports of shelling, tank movements and the use of combat unmanned aerial vehicles and grenade launchers.

While actions on the ground may be dramatic, they remain at a low level. On the other hand, authorities in Armenia and Azerbaijan up the ante through heightened threats and verbal tit-for-tats. This is typical of ethnic spats that rely heavily on nationalist rhetoric to amplify cohesive public support for military actions, whether offensive or defensive. In a case of a highly provocative statement that should raise eyebrows, the head of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense press service stated that “The Armenian side should not forget that the latest missile systems, which are in service with our army, allow hitting the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant with high precision, which can lead to a huge catastrophe for Armenia.”

A retort by the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that such possible violations of international law are “an explicit demonstration of state terrorism and genocidal intent of Azerbaijan” as well as “leadership of Azerbaijan acts as a menace to all the peoples of the region, including its own people.”

Too Late for Diplomacy?

After 30 years of a tense and barely tolerated relationship, it seems unlikely that any political or diplomatic solution will result from this latest round of tensions. Indeed, a significant diplomatic effort has been expended to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and wider disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan to no avail. At this time, it is simply enough that the sides generally adhere to the 1994 ceasefire and engage with the Minsk Group. For instance, the OSCE institution released a press statement that the belligerents of the conflict must “resume substantive negotiations as soon as possible and emphasize the importance of returning OSCE monitors to the region as soon as circumstances allow.”

International voices have all chimed in and called for restraint by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Besides being a co-chair for the Minsk Group, Russia is understandably concerned about the clashes in its neighborhood. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko reiterated sentiments similar to the OSCE, calling on “both parties to immediately ceasefire and start negotiations in order to prevent a recurrence of these incidents.” On the other hand, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called on Armenia to “pull its head together” and subsequently expressed that “Whatever solution Baku prefers for the occupied lands and Karabakh, we will stand by Azerbaijan.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh consequently slammed the Turkish position, condemned the destabilizing actions of Azerbaijan in the Tavush region, and echoed the need to return to the OSCE table. With numerous political actors and geopolitical interests at play, the fight over such a small but strategically important swathe of land becomes much more complex once compounded by the factors of ethnicity, history and national pride.

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But it seems unlikely that the current situation will transition into another full-scale war. Rather, it is fair to assume that actions on the ground could escalate for the short term, but any protracted operation would be a serious regional blow to civilian populations and the energy sector. The Nagorno-Karabakh War of 1988-1994 displaced some 860,000 on both sides, and a similar outcome is possible today, with skirmishes occurring in populated areas.

Secondly, the Armenia-Azerbaijan borderlands are important transit points for oil and gas pipelines. Entities and media that follow energy markets have already raised concerns over the current fighting and how it may influence the flow of hydrocarbons. The ongoing situation around Tavush province is certainly more serious because it is closer to the South Caucasian Pipeline (SCP) that runs from the Azeri capital Baku to Tbilisi, Georgia, and then Erzurum, in Turkey. Furthermore, the SCP is part of the wider Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) — a network set to deliver gas to Europe upon completion later this year. These factors will obviously be taken into consideration by Azerbaijan’s strategists as they move forward with their plans in the region. It would be short-sighted to destabilize this network when diplomatic options are at hand to at least keep the status quo for the sake of business.

Additionally, the South Caucasus is a busy neighborhood, geopolitically speaking. In the case that the situation escalates and interests are at risk, one could expect greater involvement from Russia and Turkey. Although the Turkish Foreign Ministry gave a statement in strong support of Baku, it does not mean that Ankara would be willing to send forces. Moscow has little taste for engagement in a military operation either. Further, even the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) — a military alliance composed of countries from the Commonwealth of Independent States, including Armenia and Russia — promote a political solution rather than a military one. The international community and organizations openly promote a return to the Minsk Group’s negotiation table and, ideally, this will be the immediate result of the ongoing skirmishes.

The clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan are likely to continue in the short term just as their non-existent diplomatic relations will endure without the political will for an inclusive political solution. Tavush province has taken the spotlight between the foes right now, but the recent occurrences are being widely viewed as the greater Nagorno-Karabakh conflict due to the proximity and the historical antagonism over the border. While it is unfortunate that cross-border shelling and conflict has attracted international interest to the South Caucasus yet again, it is not unexpected as matters never really settle to a level of peaceful monotony in the region.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Read original article here.

#Armenia #Armenians #Artsakh #Caucasus #Karabakh #Politics

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drundertalescum · 8 years ago

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Could you write something with US! Paps and US! Undyne? Your own interpretation?

So I got this prompt and planned to get it done quickly because I planned on things being icy between these two, and staying that way. Then the characters surprised me and I ended up fleshing both of them out much more than I’d set out to.

My justification for the length is that I got a prompt while I was writing this for US!Pap trying to be cool and that’s already a running theme here.

Anyway, thank you very much for this prompt! It helped me figure out both of these pals a lot more. And I’m pretty sure SwapPap has 100% of my own major flaws so thats fun.

Warnings for social awkwardness, depression, self-destructive optimism, some swearing, and dorks. I can’t think of any other warnings but it’s a weird little ficlet.

Words: 1341

“oh. uh, heyyy undyne. long time, no see…”

“Oh. Yeah. Hey Paps–Papyrus. Yeah, it’s… it’s been a while hasn’t it?”

Papyrus attempted a casual nod, but it turned out stiff and short. He cursed himself for being awkward. No wonder Undyne never called anymore. Stupid. “yuuup,” he added, not intending to answer verbally but seeing no other way to soften the tension in his neck and in the air. Verbalizing had not helped. Undyne seemed to shy away even more than she had been. He was coming off as dismissive. She probably thought he didn’t want to talk to her. He did. Just… maybe not right now? He was kind of… busy?

Yeah.

He was just busy. Very busy.

Busy drinking his coffee. It’d gone cold long before Undyne arrived.

He’d been quiet for too long, and she took it as a cue to talk. “Heard your brother is trying to join the guard. Good for him.”

“yeah, he is,” he replied, glancing around the room for a hint or an out. There was none to be found. “he’s pretty excited about it. didn’t think it was his thing, you know?”

Undyne nodded even though she didn’t know. She knew of Sans, but she didn’t know him. “Sooo… you… look…” the water monster paused, looking for something on the skeleton’s features. He blinked back at her, wearily, and wondered if she found it. At last she sighed, and with a quirk of her brows, said with an old confidence, “You look like shit.”

“NYEhehe–” Papyrus covered up his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie, trying to muffle out the sound. Giggling would ruin his image but that comment had been so unexpected! And true, probably. Very, very true. He’d always appreciated that bluntness. “I LOOK LIKE SHIT!?” he said with fake offense and a genuine smile, getting a bit too loud in his sudden excitement. He cleared the throat he didn’t have and quieted down. His enthusiasm remained. “have you looked in a mirror??”

Undyne grinned; it was great to see. “Look at us, man. We’re a freaking mess. Both of us.”

Papyrus nodded, not trying to seem cool and casual but managing to pull it off this time. He kicked the chair across from him out from the table. This gesture was meant to be cool and casual, a way to say ‘come sit with me, friend! i’m so excited that you are talking to me again and you don’t hate me!’ The chair squealed loudly against the linoleum floor and earned him glares from all around the crowded cafe. He ducked his neck into his hood as much as he was able, and asked with a squeak of badly concealed embarrassment, “so, what’s up?”

Undyne hesitated, sighed, but she couldn’t resist the question. Too much was up, and she was too used to confiding in him. She took a seat and leaned in close enough to drop her volume down, but not enough to make it clear to every patron in the bakery that she was spilling a dark secret. “I… uh… I made a mistake, Papyrus.” She gave Papyrus a long, groom and serious, so he would understand. “A couple of mistakes, actually. Dozens of mistakes. Technically.” She’d wanted to clarify. She’d rambled instead.

“that’s… a startlingly large number of mistakes…”

“Yeah. Yeah, it hasn’t been a great month, honestly.”

Papyrus didn’t miss the air to her voice when she said that. It hadn’t been a great month for him, either. He couldn’t remember the last great month he’d had. He hummed in acknowledgement. “is it something we can fix?”

‘We.’ Always ‘we.’ Undyne frowned. “It’s my responsibility, Pap. Seriously, you don’t need to get involved in this. It’s my mistakes, my headaches, my problems. I need to deal with them.”

“but now you’ve gotten me curious! and i can help you! i… i think it would be very nice to have the team together again.”

“The team? Pap, no.”

“Pap, YES!” he shouted with enthusiasm and a decidedly uncasual (yet still cool) table slam, before feeling at his neck as if that would bring him back to his target levels of volume and demeanor. Surprisingly, it did. “i mean you and i. we worked well together, always, and i’ve missed it terribly! all of it! hard work, late nights… i don’t sleep anyway!” His hand sank down to chest level, his slouch vanishing and an unplanned pose forming as his hopes rose again. It was a pattern that those who knew him well knew far too well. His spirits would soar with each new plan, always high, always racing higher, and always crashing down in the end. Maybe Papyrus was naive, but he did not think it would happen again. Not this time. And the pattern repeated as he struck a pose over cold coffee in an unwashed hoodie. “i believe that whatever the problem, i - no - we, can find a solution!”

Undyne did not want to drag anyone else into her messes and her mistakes. She’d considered it. Oh stars, of course she’d considered it, but Papyrus was the only one she would ever trust with this, and she knew the pattern better than anyone, because she was usually the one along for the ride. She’d kept quiet for this long, working alone. Undyne was passionate about helping people, protecting people, and asking Papyrus to jump back aboard the roller coaster again was the opposite of helping or protecting. It was harmful. She knew this. When things turned sour he could not cope. Each fall was that much harder than the last.

…but Undyne lived on passion and enthusiasm and there was no greater source of it in the Underground than a Papyrus determined. She fed off of his optimism and he from her energy and together, combined, their capabilities could rival the CORE’s. And so Undyne said “Okay,” and just that, knowing she’d just doomed them both should this new goal not be met. But this time, it had to. This time, they would win. Because she was determined and never gave up, and he was brilliant, creative and persistent, and against their combined forces, science didn’t stand a chance! “Let’s do it.”

Papyrus grinned widely, whatever fog he had wrapped himself in when Undyne entered having lifted entirely now. He floated up from his seat at the table to a few feet from the door, bouncing slightly in place. So much for being cool, calm and casual.

“What, you can’t even get up and push in a chair like a normal person? Geez, you’re getting so lazy!”

“i prefer the term energy efficient!” Papyrus grinned and winked stuffing his hands in his pockets after a momentary finger gun to accompany. Undyne smirked, and Papyrus continued. “because i am an expert in the field of both energy and efficiency! because that was my previous occupation before our boss imploded,” he explained the joke, killing it swiftly and without mercy.

“Yeah, I, uh. I got that.”

“right.” Papyrus blinked, self consciousness edging into his features before being quashed a moment later. He remembered something. “oohh right. hey! can you put it–”

“On your tab. Okay, Papyrus,” the spider replied, rolling four eyes, the fifth focused directly on Papyrus’s soul. She had, of course, already put it on the tab. He would pay up someday. She would be sure.

Papyrus smiled, unintimidated, and gave her a little curtsey as he ran out the door. “TO THE LABORATORY!!!”

Undyne chased after, shouting with a volume to match her best friend’s. “TO THE LAB!!!”

“by the way, undyne, umm… why did you come all the way here? you didn’t order anything.”

“You know, I just came for a little… pick me up!!”

“NYEH!!!” Papyrus jumped out of the way just in the knick of time, bringing his hood over his head to protect his precious scalp. He landed face down in the snow, but he had won the battle of the wits on this day.

“PLEASE DON’T NOOGIE THE SKELETON!!!”

#underswap #fanfic #us!papyrus #us!undyne #uspap #uspapyrus #usundyne #my fics #projecting onto skeletons #angst #in certain measures #the ficlets of july #i am so self conscious of my writing holy shit #removing the read more because its not working on mobile for me

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libertariantaoist · 8 years ago

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What in the name of all that’s holy is going on in North Korea?

This question is always hard to answer because they don’t call it the Hermit Kingdom for nothing. Very little comes out of the notoriously reclusive – and repressive – Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, and not that much gets in. But occasionally there is a burst of activity that, like the eruption of a volcano, is hard to miss – the recent launching of four ballistic missiles being one of them.

The missiles landed in the Sea of Japan, about 190 miles off the Japanese coast, sending shockwaves throughout the region. Both Tokyo and Seoul protested, while the North Koreans characterized the action as a logical reaction to the perceived threat of imminent military action by the US and South Korea. Pyongyang’s fear is not unfounded.

The exercises, conducted jointly by US and South Korea and dubbed “Foal Eagle,” are a dress rehearsal for all-out war with the North. In addition to the USS Carl Vinson and a strike force of two guided missile destroyers and a cruiser, the US sent in a squadron of stealth fighter jets as well as B-52s and B-1Bs – these latter capable of carrying nuclear payloads. “Foal Eagle” is an annual exercise, but every year the amount of US firepower gets bigger – and in the context of rapidly rising tensions between Pyongyang and the rest of the world, this does nothing to ease the former’s well-known paranoia.

But it isn’t just paranoia that is motivating North Korean behavior: for the first time, there is open talk in US ruling circles of launching a preemptive strike against the regime of Kim Jong Un. As Time magazine puts it:

“Taking out North Korea’s two major nuclear sites with air strikes would be dangerous but probably not too difficult, U.S. officials say. The possibility of North Korean retaliation against Seoul, South Korea’s capital of 10 million and only 35 miles from North Korea, would be a complicating factor, they concede.”

Yes, the continued existence of 10 million South Koreas, not to mention the 30,000 or so American soldiers stationed on the peninsula, is indeed “a complicating factor.” That’s one way of putting it.

The reality is that Pyongyang has a crude but workable nuclear arsenal. This means that, in a sane world, military action is off the proverbial table. The problem is that we don’t live in such a world. And as crazy as Kim Jong Un may be, the talk of a preemptive strike proves the insanity is not limited to Pyongyang,

Right now, US policymakers must ask themselves two questions: how did we get here, and how do we get out?

We got here because the administration of George W. Bush quashed the beginnings of a political solution to the Korean conundrum.

Remember that the Korean War never officially ended: the fighting stopped when a truce was declared. A peace treaty was never signed: officially, we and our South Korean allies are still at war with Pyongyang. The demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas has been described as the most dangerous place in the world, and there have been a number of shooting incidents over the years, rising and falling as tensions between the two Koreas waxed and waned.

Yet there was a moment when the tensions were at a low point, and the possibility of a political solution was raised: this was the result of the so-called “Sunshine Policy” initiated by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. The goal: reunification of the Koreas, a project both the North and the South have officially endorsed for many years. The Koreans are a fiercely nationalistic people, and the halving of the nation has been a painful affair. Then North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (Kim Jong Un’s father) agreed to meet the South Korean President at a three-day summit, at the end of which they signed a nonaggression pact and agreed to pursue the path of reunification.

This made sense from the North Korean perspective: the Communist state was strangling on its own repression, famine was sweeping the land, the economy was tanking, and people were literally eating the bark off the trees. The infusion of South Korean investment that followed the summit gave them a lifeline, and tens of thousands of South Koreans visited the North: factories were set up in the North that employed thousands of North Korean workers. Slowly but surely the Hermit Kingdom was letting down its defenses and opening up to the world.

And then came George W. Bush, who received the South Korean President in Washington in March of 2001 and promptly threw shade on the Sunshine policy. As the late Mary McGrory put it:

“Bush, as he was eager to demonstrate, was not a fan. Kim’s sin? He was instituting a sunshine policy with the North, ending a half-century of estrangement. Bush, who looked upon North Korea as the most potent argument for his obsession to build a national missile defense, saw Kim, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, as nothing but trouble. He sent him home humiliated and empty-handed.”

The North Koreans pulled back, and announced a military buildup. Bush upped the ante with his “axis of evil speech,” naming Pyongyang as one of the spokes on the wheel of wickedness. The North Koreans responded that this sounded to them like an outright “declaration of war,” a not unreasonable interpretation of Bush’s remarks.

Just to make sure he had crushed the last hope of a political solution, Bush visited South Korea in 2002, where he paid a visit to the DMZ:

“Standing atop a sandbag bunker and protected by bulletproof glass, US President George W. Bush peered through binoculars at North Korea on Wednesday and bluntly called it ‘evil.’

“… Among the things Bush could see were North Korean signs written in large, white Korean characters with slogans such as: ‘Anti-America’ and ‘Our General is the best"’ – a reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

“Bush spent about 10 minutes atop the bunker and then he and Secretary of State Colin Powell sat down to a lunch of cold cuts, potato chips, fruit and cookies with about a dozen US soldiers who help man the post 24 hours a day.

“Asked what he thought when he looked out over the North, Bush said: ‘We’re ready.’”

Ready, that is, for war. So much for the Sunshine policy.

Yet the US and the North Koreans were still bound by an agreement, reached under the Clinton administration, by which the latter would refrain from building nukes as long as shipments of oil and the lifting of sanctions was permitted. Yet this agreement – initiated by former President Jimmy Carter and signed by Pyongyang in 1994 – was nixed by Washington’s sudden announcement that the North Koreans had violated it, and that therefore the deal was off.

But did the North Koreans really violate the agreement? Selig Harrison, writing in Foreign Affairs, didn’t think so:

“Much has been written about the North Korean nuclear danger, but one crucial issue has been ignored: just how much credible evidence is there to back up Washington’s uranium accusation? Although it is now widely recognized that the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence data it used to justify the invasion of Iraq, most observers have accepted at face value the assessments the administration has used to reverse the previously established US policy toward North Korea.

“But what if those assessments were exaggerated and blurred the important distinction between weapons-grade uranium enrichment (which would clearly violate the 1994 Agreed Framework) and lower levels of enrichment (which were technically forbidden by the 1994 accord but are permitted by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] and do not produce uranium suitable for nuclear weapons)?

“A review of the available evidence suggests that this is just what happened. Relying on sketchy data, the Bush administration presented a worst-case scenario as an incontrovertible truth and distorted its intelligence on North Korea (much as it did on Iraq), seriously exaggerating the danger that Pyongyang is secretly making uranium-based nuclear weapons. This failure to distinguish between civilian and military uranium-enrichment capabilities has greatly complicated what would, in any case, have been difficult negotiations to end all existing North Korean nuclear weapons programs and to prevent any future efforts through rigorous inspection.”

As Donald Trump said of Bush’s “evidence” for Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”: “They lied, they said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none and they knew that there were none.”

Here is another mess the neocon-dominated administration of George W. Bush has left us, which Trump is now supposed to clean up. But he can’t do it if he reenacts Bush’s belligerent bone-headedness. The author of The Art of the Deal has got to make a deal – or face the prospect of a nuclear catastrophe on the Korean peninsula and perhaps beyond.

Part of the deal-making process is understanding the psychology of those you are dealing with, and in the case of the North Koreans this is absolutely essential.

Since Bush torpedoed the Sunshine policy, the North has been on a downward spiral, not only economically but also in terms of the regime’s stability. The death of Kim Jong Il and the succession of Kim Jong Un to the role of supreme leader has not made for a smooth transition. Since the regime cannot provide for even the most basic material needs of its subjects, it must maintain legitimacy by other means, which boil down to 1) supporting a quasi-religious cult centered around the worship of the hereditary Supreme Leader, and 2) the invocation of a permanent threat from the West.

Fulfillment of the first part of this formula has gotten more difficult unto the third generation of the “royal family.” Kim Il Sung, who established the DPRK, won his legitimacy by beating the Japanese invaders and fighting off attempts by the South to dominate the North. He subsequently established the Communist dictatorship, eliminated all factional rivals, and even resisted both the Soviet Union and the Chinese when they tried to interfere in his nation’s internal affairs. His cult retained enough sway after his death to ensure that his son, Kim Jong Il, would succeed him unopposed, although there were some rumored purges. However, by the third generation, and under the pressure of an economic downturn – and even widespread famine – the semi-mystical theology of “Kimilsungism” has lost much of its mystique. The result has been signs of increased political instability and a ruthless crackdown on Kim Jong Un’s part.

Rumors of an attempted assassination, pitched gun battles between rival factions in the army, and signs of a Chinese plot to replace the increasingly nutty Kim Jong Un with his estranged half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, provoked a wave of violent purges. Top figures in the regime, such as Kim Jong Un’s uncle, have been killed: the uncle was reportedly shot with an antitank gun! Another high-ranking figure was purged and killed for having “bad posture.” And finally the half-brother was assassinated at the Kuala Lumpur airport when two women approached him and sprayed him with poison. Although Pyongyang denies doing it, no one doubts this was done under Kim Jong Un’s orders.

While the North Korean regime has a long history of conducting periodic purges against perceived internal enemies, high-ranking victims were rarely killed: instead they were either sent to the country’s ever-expanding network of prison camps or else exiled. The current wave of executions signals a new phase in the ungluing of the regime.

Besieged on every side by enemies both real and imagined, Kim Jong Un has one card left to play: the threat from the West. As long as he can present himself as the bulwark protecting the people from the “Yankee imperialists” and their “running dog lackeys” in the South, he retains his hold on legitimacy. The “Foal Eagle” exercises and rumblings of war emanating from Washington bolster his faltering regime.

Just as George W. Bush’s spiking of the Sunshine policy was motivated by the need to appease the neoconservative wing of the Republican party and thus retain legitimacy on the home front, so Kim Jong Un’s belligerence is dictated by the need to legitimize his dynastic succession to the throne of Pyongyang. North Korea’s foreign policy, like that of any other state’s, whether despotic or democratic, is determined by the political needs of the rulers at the time.

Once we begin to understand the implications of this universal principle, and apply it to the Korean conundrum, the outlines of a solution are visible.

To begin with, it’s time to face facts: there is no military solution to the problem posed by North Korea. Pyongyang is holding the entire peninsula hostage. War is unthinkable – although, unfortunately, far from impossible.

As dire as the situation may seem, it’s not too late to prevent a catastrophe: a political solution is still within reach. The recent impeachment of the South Korean President – the daughter of a former right-wing military dictator – means that her successor will be a liberal politician in the tradition of Kim Dae Jung. With the South Koreans ready to give the Sunshine policy another chance, and an American President famous for making deals, it’s entirely possible that a deal with the North can be struck.

However, this depends on the Trump administration having a) some knowledge of the intricacies – and particularly the history – of the two Koreas, and b) the imagination to reject the old Bush-neocon policy of confrontation.

Also, it won’t be along before the Trumpians realize that Trump’s oft-stated policy of depending on the Chinese to bring Pyongyang to heel is a non-starter: relations between the two ostensibly Communist regimes haven’t been good for a long time, and they just got worse with the missile tests and the death of Kim Jong Nam.

Indeed, the North Korean leader’s half-brother had long been under the protection of China, where he had lived with his wife, his two daughters, and his mistress in Macau. Beijing was reportedly nurturing him as a possible replacement for the troublesome Kim Jong Un, which is why he met such an untimely end.

No, China is not the key to ending the impending North Korean crisis: with the installation of an antimissile system in South Korea, which the Chinese think is aimed at them, they aren’t likely to cooperate in any meaningful way. And, in any case, their influence is very limited, since their relations with Pyongyang have never been worse.

The initiative is going to have to come from Seoul, which has the most to lose if war breaks out. And when this initiative does come, Washington must welcome it, and do everything to foster it. When Trump was campaigning for President, he questioned the US presence in the South and wondered aloud why we had to risk war and bankruptcy providing for Seoul’s defense. His instincts were right: now perhaps we’ll get to see if his policies match his campaign rhetoric. I’m not optimistic – pressure from the John McCain wing of the GOP is relentless, and Trump may not want to fight on this terrain – but you never know..

The ultimate goal of any negotiation must begin the process of reunifying the Korean nation, a process that can only end with the withdrawal of all US forces. This would pull the rug out from under Kim Jong Un’s nightmarish regime, depriving it of an external threat on which it bases much of its legitimacy. It’s long past time to bring the Korean war to a formal end – because the only alternative is a resumption of hostilities. And in the nuclear age, the meaning of that ought to be clear enough.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is now in South Korea as part of his trip to the region, where he met with Japanese leaders as well. He is declaring that we need “a new approach” to North Korea. As to what this means, exactly, is not at all clear: Tillerson is not currently revealing any details, although his statement that “the people of North Korea have nothing to fear from us or our allies” is encouraging. He is reportedly headed for the DMZ, where hopefully he’ll react in a far different way than George W. Bush did.

#justin raimondo #antiwar.com #how to end the korean war

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i-globalone · 5 years ago

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This is part of a series of op-eds previewing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. CoinDesk will be on the ground in Davos from Jan. 20–24 chronicling all things crypto at the annual gathering of the world’s economic and political elite. Follow along by subscribing to our pop-up newsletter, CoinDesk Confidential: Davos.Michael J. Casey is the chief content officer of CoinDesk. The opinions here are his own.As the world’s most influential and self-entitled gather in Davos, Switzerland, for next week’s World Economic Forum, a predictable set of problems are on their minds: climate change, political polarization, trade tensions and cyber-attacks top their list of worries, according to the WEF’s just-released Global Risks Survey.Those are weighty issues. But if we look at them through the decentralization mindset encouraged by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, it’s hard not to conclude that elephants in rooms are being overlooked. It’s with those issues, the ones not being talked about, where the real important stuff lies.The disintermediating, fragmenting and decentralizing impact of the internet has made the 21st century’s political and economic structure profoundly different from the previous one. But the Baby Boomers who run our governments and companies still tend to apply 20th century assumptions about centralized money and power. They fail to see how our outdated political and economic institutions are out of touch with this new reality, and how that explains society’s ever-waning trust in them. It’s a myopia that also means they often fail to recognize, much less understand, the alternative decentralized models quietly emerging from the developers building cryptocurrency, blockchain and digital identity technologies.So, as I head to Davos with my CoinDesk colleagues for a week of reporting and speaking engagements, I want to contemplate some of the issues “Davos Man” might be missing.It’s worth remembering the people for whom these issues most matter are not those cocktail-sipping elites but regular Joes and Joans. This year may well mark the most divisive U.S. election in decades. If our bickering leaders aren’t focused on these big themes, where does that leave us in four years’ time? We need these issues on the ballot. China’s digital yuanChina is expected to launch a digital currency sometime this year. The question not being asked enough is: As this project grows – and likely many others from other countries and companies – what will it mean for the dollar-centric global economy and its multitudinous stakeholders?How will digital fiat currencies impact global trade and capital flows? Do they pose a competitive threat to the dollar and, by extension, to U.S. economic power? What would such a transformation mean for how the international community tackles the big-ticket issues Davos elites worry about: petrodollar investments in carbon-rich assets, for example, or global trade tensions?The digital yuan might seem like a superficial change, akin to a more advanced banknote or a state-run version of a mobile banking or payments app. But while China’s centrally managed approach to digital-currency technology is in some respects the antithesis of the decentralized model behind bitcoin, it is nonetheless a radical change.Two things matter: One, a digital fiat currency will circulate without banks managing the flow and, two, it is programmable, which makes it much more powerful than analog currency. Marc Andreessen says “software is eating the world.” Money-as-software might just devour it.A digital currency will enable the Chinese government to directly manage and monitor its users’ spending patterns. Putting aside the terrifying surveillance prospects behind this “panopticon” vision, this information-gathering power will greatly aid China in its international aspirations. Its economic response machine will be run by a far superior data-analytics system than anything employed by any other country.A “programmable” yuan will provide the missing payment component that hundreds of Chinese blockchain and smart-contract projects need. It will enable autonomous machines, micropayment infrastructure management systems, smart cities and other ideas the West will struggle to keep up with.As I’ve argued elsewhere, currency programmability, when interoperable with other countries’ fiat digital currencies, could also enable Chinese companies and their foreign partners to do a direct runaround of the dollar-based trade system.Currently, the yuan occupies an immaterial amount of cross-border trade and reserve asset holdings. But as this technology poses alternatives to the dollar and if China aggressively inserts its version into investment projects in Africa, for example, or into its 65-country Belt and Road Initiative, its international usage could grow rapidly.Recently, a Harvard-MIT simulation game found that digital fiat currencies could quash America’s capacity to impose sanctions on rogue states. But the issue goes wider: If non-dollar digital fiat lets anyone bypass the intermediating U.S. banks that U.S. regulators lean on to catch international criminals, why will anyone use banks for cross-border money movements at all? Where does that leave Wall Street, that engine of American economic power?Some people, including former U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Chris Giancarlo, have recognized this threat to U.S. economic leadership. But Chinese digital currency dominance does not appear to be on many leaders’ radars – it’s certainly not featuring in the Democratic primary presidential debates.So, come on, Davos, let’s talk about it. Digital privacyTo be fair, privacy in the internet age, defined as the threat to our online personal data, will probably get a decent examination at Davos 2020. The Cambridge Analytica story, Edward Snowden’s unveiling of the NSA’s citizen-snooping system and the growing awareness that Silicon Valley behemoths such as Google are managing our lives, has put this issue front and center. It deserves to be.The problem is the structural factors behind this dangerous surveillance capitalism system are poorly understood.Most political reactions to the drumbeat of stories about data abuse by Facebook and Google amount to leaders tut-tutting at these companies, occasionally fining them and demanding they just stop being bad. Few realize that, essentially, they can’t stop being bad. These centralized entities, with their closed, non-interoperable “walled gardens” of data, have built their entire business models – and therefore their shareholders’ profit expectations – on surreptitiously and systematically extracting information about human lives.The other problem is the ad-hoc efforts to change these businesses’ behavior clashes with other demands placed upon them.Witness the contradiction in lawmakers’ critiques of the Facebook-founded Libra digital currency project. On the one hand, they demanded it protect users’ privacy but on the other they demanded it maintain all the monitoring necessary to prevent money laundering. Or look at how Facebook’s critics simultaneously demand its social media platform remove disturbing hate-speech content and that it also cease arbitrarily censoring and “de-platforming” users. Without understanding the problem, people can’t see how holding both of these positions is untenable. There are two approaches to this issue: a political one, such as an antitrust order to constrain the internet giants, or a technological one, in which social media platforms move to a decentralized structure of user control (one potentially where zero-knowledge proofs or other advanced forms of encryption enable verification without revealing identities).Let’s discuss these options, Davos. DisinformationYou thought fake news was a problem. You ain’t seen nothing yet.As Arif Khan writes in this pre-Davos opener for CoinDesk, fake news is going on steroids.With people such as Jordan Peele using clever stunts to highlight the problem, “deepfakes” – in which image manipulation technology is making it increasingly difficult for people to detect reality-altering changes to a digital video or image – are starting to get people’s attention.Yet, the full extent of how much society depends on the glue of trustworthy information is greatly underappreciated. The foundation of our democracy, of our legal system, of our business relationships and of everything else in between is at stake when the truth cannot be verified.How do we get ahead of this when artificial intelligence is progressing so rapidly and when information is no longer delivered to us through central filters?A solution will require a combination of tools like AI detection software, watermarking and blockchain-based tracking of digital media provenance.It also requires stakeholders at technology companies, media organizations and government bodies to jointly establish standards for those technologies so we can all agree on how we’ll re-establish the integrity of the information we rely on.This is an urgent problem, one tailor-made for a mountain-town gathering of money and power.Let’s look outside the bubble. Let’s become inquisitive. Let’s abandon rigid, outdated ways of thinking. Let’s say goodbye to know-it-all Davos Man, because clearly he doesn’t.Click the image to subscribe to our pop-up newsletter, CoinDesk Confidential: Davos.Disclosure Read More The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

http://m.globalone.com.np/2020/01/davos-needs-to-wake-up-to-ills-of.html

#SEO #Local SEO training

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parthenia71a-blog · 7 years ago

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An Introduction To Popular Redaction Blunders.

If you have possessed surgical treatment or procedure which has actually caused you enduring, you may require more remedial procedure to strengthen your condition. Mistakes massage counselors typically make are actually to either come under a regular where they provide the same massage therapy time and time again, or to disregard the customer's requests for tension/ focus and also instead simply focus on exactly what the counselor experiences is important. When you slip up, the best factor to accomplish is actually confess and also aim to balance that; certainly not excusing an oversight is actually one more error. Each opportunity you consider an error you have actually created, it's as if you are actually creating that blunder around once more. If all you needed to know was actually not on call to you at that time you chose that generated a result you were not looking for, you have at the very least learned one method certainly not to carry out something later on. James Joyce named all of them, portals from finding." Despite just how huge or even tiny you identify your error to become, the moment you recognize that you have made a mistake; this simply calls for adjustment, nothing at all else. As an expert in the POP Culture, the most appealing feature of individuals may be summed up in one phrase: oversights. If you haven't brought in any type of mistakes for some time, you might not be providing yourself options to take the chance of, to learn, or even to develop. Writers, Bloggers, Podcasters & Artists: Assisting you certainly not simply construct & nourish an invested audience, however ways to utilize your oversights so you transform them right into your largest endorsers but. Self-Care: Common massage therapy blunders therapists make are that they carry out not deal with on their own as much as they should. Oversight # 7 - Settling your claim too soon, or appearing also anxious to settle your case very soon. Given that there is a propagation from responsibility, Schoemaker keeps in mind that group blunders are actually usually simpler to get above. The good news is, most of us make oversights every now and then, no matter how intelligent, just how properly trained, and also exactly how skilled our team are actually. Nonetheless, by discovering just what the typical service center errors that auto manager's make you could steer clear of a unpleasant and/or costly expertise. While some performers may claim that it had all of them a life time to obtain their search of being actually an expert in this field, a frequent Joe may actually discover this simpler discovering how to play piano with the help of the resources provided today and also along with the present innovation. Rather than squandering your time considering that created the oversight or even who is very most accountable, examine the scenario in its entirety and also observe just how you may modify that for the better. You may need consider the kind of oversight that has actually happened and also the time required to discover the solution to these concerns and the attributes of your project. One straightforward technique to steer clear of the popular membership web site blunders is actually to have a look as well as go at the several other membership sites. Significant Rhode Isle Household Regulation suggestion: Many individuals use the term full wardship" This is actually certainly not a lawful term. And, hopefully you'll realize that even if you miscalculated doesn't indicate you enable that to quash all the good selections you've created and also the goodness that resides in your soul. That is important to comprehend the way that mistakes may developing arrangements to make sure that your business is actually certainly not become involved in agreements which could be created gap or even voidable because of a mistake taking part in the agreement. A man looking at a hippopotamus might occasionally be actually tempted to regard a hippopotamus as a massive blunder; however he is actually likewise goinged to confess that a privileged inadequacy stops him personally off creating such oversights. This is as a result crucial that you to start with understand about the usual membership internet site oversights before you engage in the whole entire process. You can easily also hear files that will certainly prove merely how creative these identity robbers have come to be that they also take advantage of innovation to quickly gather individual details easily. Or else, if the unlawful accused could confirm that the blunder sensibly undid an aspect of the crime, the protection will often be pursued use as well as discharge the offender of responsibility. Perhaps you will like some brand new perspectives regarding oversights: Errors are sensible as well as legit: You might point out there is actually no such point as oversights, yet we are all rather made use of to that phrase. For this blunder I just preferred to have actually the inaccuracies repaired, and also a new file created, to ensure future duplicates from the book would be actually correct. The right method to a blunder is to recognize this, improve it, and also gain from that. Oversights should not be used as a reference aspect that will constantly advise you from exactly how traits can go wrong. Creating a. blunder might hurt you for some time, but you have reached move beyond that as well as learn from these oversights, thus you can avoid them down the road. Cops detective Merryll Manning is on getaway on an island in the Florida Keys for a Massacre Mystery weekend. If you have any type of concerns concerning where and how to use yellow pages online residential uk (sneak a peek at this site), you can contact us at the web-page. Also, the oversight needs to be one that would show up realistic to a court or jury. To evaluate ourselves for our oversights is to earn but an additional blunder, accordinged to the 1st, and then enhance this. It is this self-condemning process which should be deposited in order that our experts can get the best profit from our every error. OVERSIGHT 8: Using Dark Hat Search Engine Optimization Techniques- Improving your search engine optimization through methods and unprofessional techniques will not aid you for long. Unilateral blunder (where one celebration is actually incorrect and also the various other knows or should certainly have actually recognized of the blunder). Upcoming time you believe that you have actually miscalculated, simply smile and also enjoy that you merely made a huge down payment right into you experience account. This is far less complicated in a knowing culture than in a performance-focused society, in which oversights are actually usually watched extra severely. Many people bring in the error of certainly not safeguarding the pre-approved fundings prior to trying to find properties. I don't feel excellent when I mess up however I do try to always keep factors in point of view and tell on my own that human beings are actually certainly not excellent and also errors are about growing and knowing and also blah yawn producing Oprah blah. That's no usage reporting an oversight or even issue and possessing no suggestion the best ways to resolve that. If you've removed an essential file inadvertently, work out exactly how you may rejuvenate it. coming from the back-up unit and also the length of time this will definitely take. Then you are a very easy target for identification crooks as well as cheaters, if you thoughtlessly throw out information connecting to your profile. While some performers could point out that this had them a life time to obtain their search from being actually a master in this particular field, a frequent Joe might in fact discover that easier learning to play piano with the help of the resources offered today and also with the existing innovation. Rather than wasting your opportunity dealing with who created the blunder or which is most liable, take a look at the condition all at once and view how you may change that right. You can easily re-send the project to these receivers making use of MessageFocus's filter resource, with the right link apologising for the blunder and any disappointment led to. This was actually a 2003 Ford that had actually accurately compiled a fair handful of miles (perhaps not the greatest selection I had actually created) but I had my auto! Some instructors create the oversight of following what they assume will definitely work best, without understanding the workout movements, strategies and devices they may be utilizing. Cherish your oversights wherefore they are actually: priceless life sessions that could only be discovered by hand.

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char27martin · 7 years ago

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Rethinking Protagonists and Antagonists: Parallel and Perpendicular Character Perspectives in Star Wars

[The Writer’s Digest Annual Conference offers everything you need to advance your writing career creatively and professionally. Register by 2/6 to get your best rate!]

Editor’s Note: The following article on character perspective is excerpted from Chuck Wendig’s new book Damn Fine Story. Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens. Learn how in Wendig’s book.

by Chuck Wendig

We like to think and talk a great deal about protagonists and antagonists, and that’s not a bad way to look at things, exactly. But it’s vital to realize that those two terms are purely a matter of perspective.

What I mean is this: Your protagonist is the agent of change in the story. The protagonist is the one with the primary problem in need of a solution. …

Your antagonist is the opponent of the change sought by the protagonist, and quite possibly the agent of the dreaded status quo. The antagonist is part of the protagonist’s problem, either as a complication to the solution or as a direct adversary seeking to countermand any efforts to fix the problem.

One is the hero. The other is the villain.

… [But] here’s the problem with viewing every story and every character through the protagonist versus antagonist lens: Every character believes himself the protagonist.

Parallel and Perpendicular Characters in Star Wars

Not every character views himself as the hero, exactly, but at the same time, very few characters likely view themselves as the villains. Sure, we understand that Luke Skywalker is our Good Guy Protagonist and Darth Vader is our Bad Guy Antagonist, and, clearly, that works well enough.

Consider, though, that Darth Vader does not necessarily view himself as evil. If we take the story from his perspective, he is trying to protect the stability of the galaxy from a band of terrorists. We also learn that Vader may be trying to undermine The Emperor.

In other words, Vader has his own problem, and his own solution to that problem. The Empire’s status quo has been disrupted by these terrorists, since that bun-headed jerk, Princess Whatshername, sent the Death Star plans down in a droid so they could be intercepted by Obi-Jerk Kenobi. So Vader plans to retake the plans and quash the Rebellion—but then he’s sidelined by some womp rat–killing teenager (complication!) who ends up a Jedi (complication!) and oh crap is also his son (complication, plus now he has an internal limitation given this sudden pull to the light)! The stakes are raised and changed! Vader shifts his own tactic—now it’s not about shooting down that flyboy in the X-wing, but rather, urging him to the Dark Side so that the two of them can take on Palpatine together. And wait, there’s a sister? And it’s that jerk, Princess Whatshername? Complications, limitations, stakes changing, heads exploding!

[5 Secrets to Creating a Compelling Series Character]

Point being, Vader doesn’t know he’s evil. Sure, sure, there’s that whole thing with blowing up an entire planet, but, to be fair, the rebels blow up an entire battle station. And while there’s a difference there in the magnitude of civilian casualties, it’s still worth looking at from different points of view. …

Characters are complex. They all view themselves as being right—and often righteous—in their pursuit of goals and solutions. If we expect that characters are all fully formed, each with his or her own set of problems and solutions (and challenged in turn by complications and limitations, some shared, some unique to them), then we start to see an emergent storyworld full of individuals with competing desires. We don’t see a single character moving in a single line—We see dozens, even hundreds of character sharing the same narrative oxygen, each moving with and against each other.

It’s the direction of that movement we should focus on.

In a web, some threads will connect at intersections and go in different directions. And some webs will hang alongside each other. So instead of protagonist versus antagonist, let’s talk about parallel versus perpendicular.

Parallel means two lines traveling in the same direction, with the same amount of distance between them at any point on each line. (Think two lanes of a single highway traveling ever onward. Each lane goes in the same direction, but never do they converge.)

Perpendicular means one line traveling in one direction while another line intersects it. (Think one car traveling forward, another car T-boning it at an intersection.)

[2018 Writer’s Digest Virtual Writing Conference for Novelists | January 19–22, 2018]

Luke and Leia are parallel characters. They both (roughly) share a single path, and they don’t really deviate. They are on the same side of this war. Their precise problems and proposed solutions aren’t always the same, but for the most part they are moving in the same direction.

Luke and Vader are perpendicular. Their quests are at odds with one another.

Now, the cool thing about a perpendicular relationship is that the shape it makes is a t. And when you turn the t on its side, it’s still a t. Meaning, each character can be viewed, depending on the perspective—or the way you tilt the t—as being the one whose quest is interrupted. Vader interrupts Luke’s quest, but Luke interrupts Vader’s, too.

Characters do not need to remain parallel or perpendicular to one another, either. We need to think beyond protagonist/antagonist as our outer limits for what characters can be. …

The In-Betweeners: Non-Parallel, Non-Perpendicular Character Perspective

You might wonder—is there an in-between? Is there some remixed mash-up of both perpendicular and parallel, a directional symbol that is a little bit one, a little bit the other? In math, lines are either parallel, perpendicular, or neither; can that be true for characters? And what role would that serve?

When two lines are neither perpendicular nor parallel, they still intersect, but they don’t travel along the same slope, and they don’t form a ninety-degree angle. This speaks to two characters who are not directly competing, but who are also not uniformly allied—and yet, they are headed toward some manner of intersection—each path inevitably crossing the other’s.

Look no further than Vader and The Emperor.

Both serve the Empire. Both work together, with Vader in a loosely subservient position to Palpatine. The Emperor is subservient to no one, and the papery old goblin-wizard does whatever the hell he wants. As soon as Vader makes the offer to Luke—“Join me and together we’ll totally stab that old goblin-wizard in the face” (pretty sure that’s an exact quote, by the way)—then we know that Vader and Palpatine are not necessarily on the same page. They will, as all Sith do, betray each other. The apprentice will slay the Master, or the Master will detect the coming betrayal and kill the apprentice to make room for a new apprentice (likely Luke). If you read the Star Wars novels and comics … you will see even more signs of how troubled the Vader/Palpatine relationship is. They are moving together, but still toward conflict. Neither parallel nor perpendicular—even though each wants the other to think that their relationship is perfectly in parallel.

Read more in Chuck Wendig‘s new book Damn Fine Story. Wendig is the New York Times best-selling author of Star Wars: Aftermath, as well as the Miriam Black thrillers, the Atlanta Burns books, and the Heartland YA series, alongside other works across comics, games, film, and more. A finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the cowriter of the Emmy-nominated digital narrative Collapsus, he is also known for his popular blog, terribleminds.com, and his books about writing. Damn Fine Story is his second writing reference book with Writer’s Digest.

The post Rethinking Protagonists and Antagonists: Parallel and Perpendicular Character Perspectives in Star Wars appeared first on WritersDigest.com.

from Writing Editor Blogs – WritersDigest.com http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/craft-technique/character-perspective-star-wars-characters-parallel-perpendicular

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