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floatingpetals · 5 years ago

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Call of the Mountains || Ch. 8

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes (Werewolf AU!)

Warnings: nothin really

Word Count: 1400+

Summary: (Werewolf-AU!Stucky x f!reader) Life had begun to overwhelm her. Work was insane and her life was a mess. There was a tug in her soul that called her to take this trip, deep into the forest away, where there was the peace and stillness of nature. She didn’t know why, but she knew she needed to listen. It was meant to be a relaxing trip, but one misstep on some moss sent her tumbling into the rapids of the flooded river. She thought she was gone and the earth decided it was time to reclaim her. She didn’t expect was to be pulled from the river nor the creature that saved her. Her entire world is turned upside down and all it took was an accidental step to the left. (18+ Only Story)

A/N: Super short chapter but I didn’t have much to add didn’t want to drag it on further. Hope you enjoy!

The gifs are not mine, credit to the owner.

Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Series Masterlist

Steve cracked an eye open, glowering at the sun that beamed through his windows. The storm must have passed sometime last night. He hadn’t remembered to close his window blinds after he fell into bed, too busy trying to shut his mind up than to think about it. He shot a glance at his clock, the blank screen staring back. He bit back a snarl and begrudgingly sat up.

That’s right. The powers out. Sometime in the middle of the night, something caused both their generators to shut off. Reluctantly, he pushed himself off the bed to get ready. He’d need to go and check and prayed they weren’t destroyed. He shuddered at the thought. It had been a pain and half to get those generators up the mountain and he’d be damned if he had to go drag more up.

After brushing his teeth and running some oil through his beard, he slipped into a fresh pair of jeans and button-down flannel. He snagged a pair of socks, his shoes left at the door to not track mud through the house per Bucky’s demands, and headed to his door. He paused with his hand on the door handle, a frown tugging on his lips.

A whine was bubbling in the back of his throat, but it wasn’t from himself willingly. His wolf was trying to claw its way out, excited to finally be out of this room and closer to its real reason of excitement. Not to mention it was still upset with how he snapped yesterday. Steve heard about it all last night, the howling bouncing around his head until sleep finally claimed him. The thin barrier from the rest of the house was the only thing keeping him from losing control.

A growl bubbled up to his chest, this time his own, frustrated at his hesitation. This was ridiculous, he snarled and nearly ripped the door off its hinges. An unthreatening woman shouldn’t cause him so much turmoil, especially not a human no less. This was his house too. If he wanted to go down and check his generators, he was going to.

He snarled at a particularly loud whine from his wolf and shoved it back down. He stomped through the house and jammed his feet in his socks, then his shoes. He was still seething when he walked over to the generator and stopped short. Another snarl ripped through his chest, the animalistic sounds echoing off the trees and sent the birds and creatures scattering. Of fucking course, he hissed.

Despite having cleared the surrounding area of the trees to keep just this from happening, a rouge tree had fallen and landed right on their generators, crushing it. It was clear why they had no power. At least for this one. It didn’t answer why the second hadn’t turned on, but a quick walk around cleared that up. The tree didn’t spare a generator apparently. Growling once again, he went around to the other side of the garage and glared at the third they had set aside just for this. It was perfectly fine, thankfully still under the tarp untouched.

Huffing, Steve proceeded to drag it out from under the tarp and over to the broken generators. There he could hook them up and then work on getting the broken tree off. If he was lucky, they might only need minor fixes on one, since the top of the tree that landed on the generators wasn’t nearly as thick as the base that crushed the first. He didn’t hold hope to think that both of them could be saved though.

“Need a hand?”

Steve paused mid drag, glancing over his shoulder to Bucky. He squinted and grunted in response. Bucky hadn’t expected anything less from Steve and went over to the other side. Together they lifted the generator, straining only slightly at the weight and carried it over to the other two. Bucky heaved a sigh and wiped his hands on his pants, glaring at the other two under the tree.

“That’s going to be a bitch and a half.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair and glared at the trees too. He let out his own puff of irritated air and walked over to look over the damage.

“I’ll get Sam and Clint up here to clear this.” He grumbled, kicking the dirt beside the tree. “They’d been wanting to down another tree for firewood anyways. Two birds one stone.”

“Nah,” Bucky smirked. “You just don’t wanna deal with this shit.”

“Can you blame me?” Steve raised a brow, smirking right back. The fresh air seemed to do be doing his mind well, maybe it was the heavy lifting he had to do too, but he could feel the earlier frustration melting away.

“Nope. Matter of fact I was gonna volunteer them too.” Bucky chuckled. He watched as Steve began to wrestle with plugs stuck underneath the thick tree, stewing on the real reason why he decided to come outside. A frown tugged at the corner of his lips. Yet he still bit his tongue.

Steve could tell something was bothering Bucky. He didn’t need their bond to know that Bucky was simmering where he stood. His brow always creased the way it was when he was thinking, the crease growing the longer he flipped between opening his mouth or not. Steve huffed and stood, leveling Bucky with a stare.

“Well. Out with it.”

Bucky shoved a hand in his hair and muttered to himself before he addressed Steve.

“We need to talk about Y/N.”

“Don’t think we do.” Steve retorted sharply. He walked away from Bucky to wrestle with the tree branches out of the way to grab the wires. He didn’t even blink when there was a growl behind him.

“Yes, we do,” Bucky protested and went to help. “You have got to stop treating her like shit Steve. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

When Steve didn’t acknowledge him, it sparked further irritation in Bucky. Fine, he wanted to play childish, he’d get childish.

“She thinks you hate her.”

That caused a reaction. Steve froze, his breath catching in his throat. He cleared his throat and quickly tried to pretend he didn’t just act like he got kicked in the stomach.

“Why does that matter to me?” He muttered, shoving the plugs in place.

“You know why.” Bucky shot back. “It’s why you’re so against getting to know her.”

Steve clenched his eyes shut and stood tall. He opted to not reply and flicked the switch, the generator roaring to life. The outdoor lights flicked on. The sensor would need to be reset, he tried to distract himself. He turned back to Bucky, face void of emotions. Bucky nearly snarled.

“Look,” Bucky said through clenched teeth. “I know what happened with-.” Steve flashed his teeth before Bucky could finish his sentence. “No! You don’t get to pretend it never happened! Not anymore! Not since it’s clear you’re using it as an excuse to treat her- our fucking mate- like shit! Don’t look at me like that!”

Steve jerked his chin away and clenched his fists at his side. He didn’t have to stand here and listen to this. Yet he knew if he tried to run off, Bucky would step in his way.

“Act as detached as you want. But you know it, I know it, hell I’m pretty sure she even knows it some level.” Bucky continued. “You can’t let what happened with Peggy ruin what we can have with Y/N. That was a fluke. I’m sorry, but it was. This though, this is real.”

Steve flinched. Ten years had done nothing to lessen the blow of the memory, and now Bucky was using it as a tool? No, Bucky could follow him if he wanted but Steve was done listening.

“Powers back on,” Steve growled. “I’m going to go get Sam and Clint to clear this and then Natasha and I will go out and patrol. There might be more trees that need to be checked.”

Without another word, Steve walked away. Bucky let him. He watched his friend and bond-mate walk-off, heart heavy. There was so much agony seeping through their bond. Bucky couldn’t do anything about it though. Steve needed to move on himself. Maybe, just maybe, Y/N would help him finally come to terms that what happened is done and Steve could finally look to the future.

Call Of The Mountains Taglist: (CLOSED!!!)

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thegoodprincess · 3 years ago

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Together We Are Apart, but Apart We Are Together | KTH Ch. 3

Author: thegoodprincess

Pairing: Kim Taehyung | Original Female Character

Genre: romance, fantasy, action, forbidden love, human KTH | angel of death OC, supernatural au

Word Count: 1.7k [series, ongoing]

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Mentions of blood

Summary: After admiring a handsome boy from afar, an Angel of Death reluctantly rescues him from his own demise. As a result of going against her better judgment she inadvertently invites him into her world.

Author’s note: A character named Malachi appears in this chapter. His dialogue is italicized for the purpose of demonstrating that he has the ability to telepathically communicate with the main female OC. Just thought I’d point that out. 😉

Together We Are Apart, but Apart We Are Together

Chapter 3. Rescue

'Cause all I need is the love you breathe. Put your lips on me and I can live. — Mika

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In an instant I was completely submerged with a few feet of water above my head. I was met with the piercing feeling of the water right away. It was so severely cold that I was sent into a brief state of shock from the almost unbearable pain. Every muscle in my body simultaneously tensed, my throat felt as though I was being asphyxiated, and my eyes burned.

As ironic as it sounds, I took a few moments to ground myself. I tried as best I could to endure being suspended in the water. All four of my other senses were completely numbed out, forcing me to feel the full extent of the water.

Willing myself to focus on something else, literally anything that would momentarily distract me from the pain that had activated my fight or flight response, was when I noticed how eerily silent it was underwater. It was so much more strikingly different than it was on land.

The silence above the surface felt like being alone; blissful, refreshing, and introspective. But underneath the water it was lonely; pressurized, desolate, and suffocating.

Being beneath the darkness of the ice only amplified the absence of sound. This in turn made it seem as though the frantic thoughts in my head were the only thing I heard; they were deafening.

Once the initial shock wore off, I identified the pain as being equivalent to repeatedly being stabbed by a million extremely sharp blades all at once. The pain only intensified as I moved through the water. Every stroke of my arms and kick of my legs transformed each penetrating stab into an agonizing slice that tore deep along my skin from what felt like the inside out. Although I could not die, the sensation was excruciating as it traveled through every nerve ending of my body. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like for him.

Fighting through my discomfort, I adjusted my eyes in the dark water so that I could search for him. I spotted him slowing sinking further and further down, making no effort to swim. His eyes were closed and his face was serene as if he were sleeping. The water surrounding him was tinted scarlet from the blood oozing out his wound. It was safe to assume that he blacked out on impact from shock. If I didn’t get to him quickly enough, he was going to drown.

Using all the force I could muster I aggressively swam to him and was able to grab ahold of his wrist. After tugging him towards me, I did the only thing I could think of that would save his life. I kissed him, giving him my breath. Upon my lips meeting his, a blindingly bright light was emitted and my wings came around him engulfing him in a bubble of my aura. I closed my eyes and we ascended upwards near the surface of the water. Both of our heads broke to the surface. I took a big gulp of air, but he remained unconscious. Tucking my arms under his and gripping him tightly to keep his head above water, I swam to the edge of the river. Once I reached the edge I hauled the both of us up out of the water.

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I dragged his limp body back to the cold pavement. I tried as best I could to find an area that wasn’t coated in a copious amount of snow and gently laid him down on his back. In an instant my lips were back on his to breathe life back into him. I then pressed his chest to push out any water that he may have swallowed into his lungs. Immediately he began coughing up water, sputtering out between choked breaths. He was just barely conscious. His eyes flicked rapidly beneath his heavy eyelids. He barely managed to open them after I gently slapped at his face, but he only looked at me with a glassy stare. He wasn’t fully aware of what was going on or of my presence. His body was only instinctually taking in oxygen to fight for survival.

Taking a moment to assess his state, it was the first time I was able to fully take in his appearance. His skin was pale white, it almost looked translucent. His lips were already tinged blue and ice was beginning to form on his eyelashes. His hair was completely drenched and sticking in clumps to his face and scalp. I moved his bangs off his forehead.

He was shivering. I placed my hand on his cheek. His skin was ice cold to the touch. The water had gone through every fiber of his clothes despite the layers, throughly soaking his body down to the bone. The air around him only intensified the heat loss, bitting viscously at him. He was softly moaning and whining in pain.

It was then that I noticed the snow that was near his shoulder was beginning to stain crimson. Anxiously I brought my hands from where his collarbones were up to my face. The opaque ruby fluid clung to my skin thickly coating my fingers. His clothes were not only soaked with freezing cold water but an excessive amount of his blood. The wound was bleeding at a rapid rate now.

The odds of him surviving were stacked highly against him. Even though I had saved him from drowning, my efforts were going to be in vain. If I didn’t act soon he would imminently die in my arms from either hemorrhaging or hypothermia.

Taking two fingers I palpated his neck to check his pulse. It was sluggish, indicating his health was rapidly declining. His breathing was slow and labored. He was beginning to slip in and out of consciousness.

I used up a lot of my aura already saving him under the water, but had enough to temporarily mend the wound. However, it came with a catch. On the condition that I did heal him, it would result in me not having enough energy to teleport us back to my home where I could finish reviving him. Going on foot would take too long as it would surely run the risk of him dying before we even reached half way there. And on the off chance he did survive the journey, I’d first have to restore my own spirit before I could properly attend to him. Time was of the essence.

Weighing my options I decided to tackle one task at a time, that being to heal his wound, then worry about effectively warming him up after. Placing the palm of my hand gently against his shoulder, I closed my eyes concentrating, willing the golden light energy to flow out of me and into him. In my mind I could see the threads of his being fixing themselves, my aura weaving together the broken pieces. Thankfully his bleeding stopped, but he was still shivering. I felt weaker but it was important that I stay focused. Now I needed to call for help.

“Malachi!!!” I screamed using a little more of my aura to reach out to him, summoning his aid.

Suddenly the shadows that surrounded us quickly came together rising up from the ground and morphed into an intimidating silhouette that towered over us. Before us stood a figure shrouded in what could only be described as the shadows of darkness. They wore a oversized hood that covered a majority of their face. Using their blacken fingers, they removed the garment allowing me a clear look at their face. A boy’s daunting face was revealed.

He had ashen skin that looked as though he rubbed soot into it. Despite the gray coloring of his skin his face was handsome with sharp angular features like his nose, cheekbones, and jawline. All made him appear traditionally masculine. His chin-length hair was straight and the color of the midnight sky missing the glimmer of the moonlight. It fell haphazardly over one of his pale gray eyes, one of his only “light” features. Long billowy black silk robes cascaded down his lean frame further cloaking him in the shadows. Some may have easily mistaken him for the grim reaper, but he wasn’t such a being. He looked at us bemusedly stunned trying to assess the situation. Pity swam in his usually aloof abalone irises. His eyes nervously moved between the two of us as I laid embracing the mysterious boy’s body.

“Please Malachi, I don’t have enough energy. You have to get us home so I can help him. Hurry, he’s dying,” I yelled panicking.

Malachi looked at me confused. His hauntingly beautiful voice echoed in my head. “Mistress you are not allowed to get involved in human ordeals such as their death. It is against our nature.” He cautioned, but his warning was laced faintly with sympathy.

“I know but he wasn’t supposed to die tonight. Death was meant for another. He just so happened to get involved,” I defended hastily. The longer we spent discussing the events that unfolded tonight, the more this boy’s life force ebbed further away.

“Then that is his doing, we must not concern ourselves—,” Malachi argued coldly before I abruptly cut him off.

“Malachi! I beg you. Please.” I groveled in distress at his feet. I don’t know what convinced Malachi. It may have been the way my voice had cracked at the end of my plea, the continuous tears that brimmed over my eyes obscuring my vision and left trails down my cheeks, or how my body curled in anguish as I desperately clung to the boy in my arms, but he reluctantly succumbed.

“Fine. But if there are to be repercussions, you are to take responsibility,” Malachi negotiated bluntly, void of almost all emotion. Wearing a somber expression he knelt down, encircling us both in his arms. The shadows that had previously flowed around him had stretched out towards us. Swiftly they began to envelop us, shielding us from the scene of the river before us. With that we were transported home.

#taehyung fanfiction #taehyung fanfic #kim taehyung #taehyung x oc #bts supernatural au #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts army #taehyung #my writing

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drparthshah123 · 4 years ago

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10 facts about Cataract

Dr Parth Shah performs cataract surgery in Sydney for patients of all ages – from newborns to the elderly.

The term ‘cataract’ is well known as an eye disorder that causes reduced vision. Here are 10 facts about Cataracts.

1. What is Cataract?

A cataract is a clouding of the natural lens inside the eye, which is normally transparent. It is derived from the Greek word for waterfall.

The lens is situated near the front of the eye, just behind the coloured part (iris). Like a camera lens, the natural lens focuses light to create a sharp and clear image on the retina (the ‘film’ or ‘sensor’ part of the camera).

When the natural lens is not crystal clear, light cannot be focused perfectly, and the result is disturbance to vision. Most cataracts form very slowly (over years), so the symptoms can be very gradual. There are many different types, shapes and colours of cataract – depending on the cause (see below).

2. What is the difference between Glaucoma and Cataract?

Note that cataract is a completely different condition to glaucoma, but the two can be related. For example, cataract can cause glaucoma, and treatment of glaucoma can cause cataract!

Glaucoma is a disease of the optic nerve, often related to the pressure inside the eye (but not always). Increase in intraocular pressure causes deterioration of nerve fibres and the formation of blind spots within the field of vision.

On the other hand, Cataract originates when the crystalline, or the “natural lens” of our eye, is no longer transparent, but gradually becomes more and more opaque. As happens when you wear glasses and the lens is dirty, clearly, with a “cloudy” lens, the light does not focus as well as it should.

3. How common is Cataract?

What many people do not know is that Cataract affects a large slice of the population – up to 60% of people aged over 60 years have some degree of cataract.

Cataract continues to be was one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. That is why one of the priorities of the World Health Organization (WHO) has become to promote interventions for the treatment of cataracts.

4. Cataracts: what are the causes?

The natural lens needs to be crystal clear, so it does not have any blood vessels. As a result, it accumulates waste products over time because they cannot be filtered out into the bloodstream. The waste products have a yellow hue, which means the lens naturally becomes more and more yellow over time. This is called “nuclear sclerosis”. This process is accelerated after the age of 65 years. With time, every eye will eventually develop a cataract. Advancing age is the most common cause of cataract.

Apart from advancing age, the loss of transparency of the lens can be caused by:

• Diabetes mellitus, especially type I (juvenile diabetes)

• Taking steroid medications of any sort (steroid eye drops, nasal sprays, or by mouth)

• Exposure to ultraviolet, X-ray, laser or infrared light

• Injury or trauma to the eye, including eye surgery for other reasons

• Inflammatory eye disease

• High near-sightedness (myopia)

• Smoking

• Although rare, babies can be born with cataracts. This can be due to a genetic condition or infection during pregnancy

4. What symptoms are caused by cataracts?

Symptoms causes by cataracts are diverse – both in type and severity. Some of the most common symptoms are:

• Blurred, clouded or dim vision – even with glasses or contact lenses

• Altered colour perception – for example, vivid colours may seem faded

• Difficulty with driving vision, especially at night

• Lights (sunlight and headlights) seem too bright, cause glare, or are surrounded by haloes

• Difficulty in dim lighting, and need for brighter light

• Frequent changes to glasses or contact lens prescription

The degraded vision caused by cataracts can make it more difficult to read, watch TV and drive a car – especially at night time. One of the most apparent symptoms is not seeing the television as clearly, or difficulty when reading a book, even if you are wearing glasses. Colour and contrast perception are also affected, but can be difficult to appreciate as the cataract can affect both eyes almost equally.

Many people experience glare from headlights of oncoming cars when driving at night time. You get the impression of being dazzled by the light even if the vehicle is not on high beams!

With cataract, adaptation to different light conditions and the light-dark transition can also create numerous difficulties in day-to-day life.

These symptoms are usually very mild to start with, and gradually become more prominent when the cataract becomes cloudier with time. You should make an appointment for an eye examination if you notice any changes in your vision such as those listed above.

Cataracts, even those caused by advancing age, may develop unevenly between the two eyes. 5. What can I do to prevent Cataract?

There is no proven intervention to prevent the cataract that occurs with age. Some things that you can do to delay the onset of cataract include:

Wear sunglasses and a hat when outdoors.

Quit smoking.

Choose a healthy diet.

Go for regular eye checks – this can help to detect cataract (and other eye problems) at an earlier stage

If you are diabetic, manage your sugars optimally.

Reduce steroid treatment as much as possible.

6. How is Cataract diagnosed?

The diagnosis of cataract can be made through an eye examination performed by an ophthalmologist or optometrist. The examination is simple and painless.

A slit lamp biomicroscope is the instrument used by the ophthalmologist to scrutinise and observe the front and back of the eye in detail. If you undergo this type of examination, you will sit in front of the machine with your head resting on a support. The eye surgeon can then assess the condition of the lens in detail and record any opacification or clouding. Pupil dilation with eye drops is necessary to visualise the entire lens, and also check the status of the retina, macula and optic nerve to ensure that there is no other cause for the decline in quality of vision.

The diagnosis of cataracts is also essential for the prevention of other diseases. For example, if cataract is diagnosed in a younger patient, it may prompt investigation to look for related pathologies such as diabetes.

7. Early diagnosis and removal of cataract can reduce avoidable blindness.

In many developing countries around the world, unfortunately, treating cataracts is near impossible. Not only the lack of knowledge of the disease, but also the lack of financial resources. This leads to avoidable blindness.

In developed countries such as Australia, cataract treatment is generally straightforward.

8. Is surgery the only treatment for cataracts?

Yes, cataract surgery is the only current treatment option for cataract.

Other treatments like glasses may have limited benefit for a short period of time, but are not a permanent solution.

9. Is Cataract Surgery safe?

Cataract surgery is the most common type of eye operation performed around the world.

With modern techniques, the recovery is far more rapid than it used to be, and long-term results are excellent in the majority of cases.

It is important to discuss the exact risk and benefit profile for each patient with an experienced cataract surgeon.

10. At what stage is cataract surgery possible?

Cataract surgery can be performed at any stage when they have been detected. One need not wait until the impact is severe, or the cataract is ‘mature’.

Cataract surgery may be recommended when a cataract is affecting vision necessary for day-to-day activities like reading, driving and watching TV.

Find out more at: https://www.drparthshah.com.au/.

#cataracts #sydney

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bansaleyes-blog · 5 years ago

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Cataract surgery in karnal

Cataract surgery in karnal, cataract surgery is a clouding of the eye’s natural crystalline lens and is the most common cause of vision loss in a senior citizen. Generally, light passes through the clear lens and it is focused onto the retina at the back of the eye. With age, the lens moderately becomes more and more opaque and obstructs the passage of light that leads to a decrease in vision which affects day-to-day living and quality of life. Some patients notice symptoms of cataract after the age of 60, in one or both eyes. But, some people develop a cataract in their 50s and even their 40s. Most cataracts develop slowly and your eyesight may not get affected in the starting stages. However, with time, the clouding of your lens will finally interfere with your vision. The cloudiness affects only a small part of the lens when the cataract is the size of a pin head . You may notice a slight change in your vision. The cataract clouds more of your lens, as it grows larger. This scatters and blocks the light as it passes through the lens, which prevents a sharply defined image from reaching your retina. This may lead to a more noticeable sign and symptoms. During the time, the cataracts commonly develop in both eyes, one eye may be affected before the other. In other words, the cataract in one eye may be more advanced than the other which causes a difference in vision between eyes. Cataract development is a normal process of aging and any person may develop it later or sooner. According to Cataract surgery in karnal, cataract risk factors include: Ultraviolet radiation from sunlight and other sources Hypertension Diabetes Obesity Prolonged use of corticosteroid medications Smoking Previous eye injury or inflammation Statin medicines used to reduce cholesterol Previous eye surgery Significant alcohol consumption High myopia Hormone replacement therapy Family history

SYMPTOMS Generally, cataracts arise slowly and form a few signs until they noticeably block light. Some of the symptoms may include:

Cloudy, foggy, filmy or blurry vision Color seem faded or altered Problems during driving at night such as glare from oncoming headlights Progressive nearsightedness in older people often called “second sight” as they may no longer need reading glasses. Double vision Rapid changes in glasses prescription Problems with glare (sensitivity to bright lamps or sun)

With Cataract surgery in karnal, cataract affected vision can be corrected with prescription eye-glasses including contacts or bifocals to a certain level. Although, beyond a certain point prescription glasses may be ineffective and surgical options have to be treated. In a cataract surgery in Karnal, the patients’ cloudy lens is removed and replaced with a transparent Intra Ocular Lens (IOL) to improve good quality vision. Today, cataract surgery is one of the safest, fastest and most accurate surgical procedures. One of the well-known cataract Surgeries is Phacoemulsification also known as key-hole surgery. This surgery is done with the help of a machine known as the Phaco machine may help to remove the cloudy lens and replace it with a clear artificial lens called Intra Ocular Lens (IOL). Another well-known cataract surgery is Micro Incisional Cataract Surgery (MICS).

http://bansaleyelasik.com/

#surgery

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morallyambiguouscreatures · 6 years ago

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London Calling: Kotobuki Special

Aka: ReiRan Trash Fluff Content No One Asked For! Under the cut~ Another oneshot inspired by the UK Reiji event in Shining Live. (Word Count: 1237)

Reiji hit the duvet with a thud and a sigh, his face hitting the exact gap between the two sets of pillows. Flopping in the middle of the bed after a long day and receiving no grumbles in return? It wasn't the same.

The excitement of being back in England obscured the distinct lack-of-Ranmaru feeling for the first few nights, of course. It had been a whirlwind of meetings and executives, stores and shoots. Not to mention sightseeing with Syo in every spare second, dragging him to the best of places with so much blind enthusiasm you'd have thought it was Reiji's first time in the UK.

In fact, it wasn't until the third day he started to really feel it – in the muskiest of back alley record stores, the gruff clerk was chain smoking while 80s punk blasted through the speakers at a volume discouraging discussion. Ranmaru's favourite volume. Wouldn't Ranmaru have loved the selection, the aesthetic, the guitars lining the walls? And the place they went for dinner, some pretty famous rockstars had dined there before, Ranmaru would have thought that was neat. Thoughts of that nature built up, becoming louder than his enthusiasm and more pressing than the usual kind of underlying chronic emptiness until it peaked. It was only day four, and Reiji was left sighing into the sheets after something as silly as seeing a stray cat in an alleyway. The spitting image of the stray they called their own, a black coat of fur with the cutest little white socks. But even if that wasn't the case...

“Ranran would have wanted to feed it...” Reiji murmured. He fumbled for his phone in the pockets of his tweed jacket, only to be met with vibration and the most delightful image on his phone: A candid snap of his boyfriend chowing down on a banana.

He quickly sat up, putting on the biggest of grins as he propped up his phone on the pillows and faced it.

“Ranran! I was just thinking about you~ See, I told you we're connected. It's magical!” There he was. Rolling mismatched eyes, perfectly spiked hair, too much eyeliner, lips that tried too hard to suppress their own smiles. “Yeah, whatever. Airhead,” Ranmaru grumbled, voice lacking in bite. He glared at Reiji halfheartedly from what looked to be a dressing room – make up bags open on a counter, cans of hairspray littered about. Reiji pouted his poutiest pout, grey eyes widening and lips pushed out to the extreme. “Mouu, you're being mean before you've even said hello. Where are your manners?” He angled the phone a little higher, giving a better angle for viewing his mock heartbreak. “I said I'd call you on break. It's break.” Ranmaru's stare was almost accusatory. The sheepish smile Reiji gave him return elicited an exasperated sigh. “Airhead.”

“Riiiight, you did say that! I completely forgot, hehe~ ”

“Yeah.”

There were few too many beats of silence, lengthened by Ranmaru's intense focus on, well, anywhere except for the screen.

“Soooo... how's Japan?”

“Fine. Quiet.” Ranmaru paused, pursing his lips in the way that he did when he wanted to say something, but wouldn't. “Guessing England's great?”

“Only the most amazing place on Earth!” Reiji couldn't stop himself from sighing dreamily, for the United Kingdom truly was a land of wonder. “We both fit in here so well! With my knowledge and Syotan's looks- Oh, his looks, he looks so good in punk fashion just wait till you see the pictures! It's fate! Such an eye for aesthetics, Ai-Ai must be so proud.” Another dreamy sigh, his kouhai certainly did look fantastic.

The moment where Ranmaru would have usually told him to slow down (or in severe cases, shut up) passed, encouraging the motormouth to fill the space. After all the existence of silence meant his RanRan wanted to listen, that he'd maybe even missed the rambling. “We're just, really having the best time, even though there's been some uh, pining. Syotan misses Nattsun a lot. Buuut, you didn't hear that from me.” Reiji enthused into the camera, with a little wink at the end. “Hue hue, he's trying to hide it of course, but he's bought a plush toy from just about every souvenir shop we've been in. So cute.” “Always with the gossip,” Ranmaru grumbled half-heartedly. “Leave 'em alone.” “I'm just keeping an eye on our precious kouhai group, that's all!” Reiji said, punctuating with a whine. “Aww, don't make that face. You love it!”

Ranmaru shrugged and grunted in response. As the resident Ranmaru grunt expert, Reiji instantly recognised it to be a neutral grunt. Noncommittal. Heh, he totally loved it.

As opaque as those oft mismatched eyes could be, as forceful as his protests could be, Ranmaru's heart seemed pure and transparent. The more he tried to hide his feelings, the more they slipped through the cracks. Watching it unfold made the world around Reiji more bearable, made him feel less breakable somehow.

“You know...” Ranmaru cleared his throat, rubbed the back of his neck. “I think Aki-chan misses you. She's been meowing at the door. Being all weird 'n shit.”

“Meowing for papa? Oh, Aki-chan! Poor baby. At least I know Ranran will take very good care of our girl.” Reiji couldn't help but smile a small smile, imagination racing.

Their sweet kitten curled up on Ranmaru's lap, napping together on the couch. The afternoon sun would shine through the windows of the condo, Ranmaru's hair catching the light in a way that made it seem to glow a little. Almost as sweet as reality, the pixels that made up Ranmaru's face on his screen and the words that made up his thinly veiled affections.

“Still... I better come home soon then, ne? For Aki-chan, of course.” The grin Reiji wore was hardly innocent. It had the rocker spluttering. “Do whatever you want!”

“What I want,” Reiji left the word hanging, tension mounting. He watched Ranmaru's shoulders stiffen, tense, on the defensive. Likely expecting teasing, or worse innuendo. Reiji chuckled and hoped he'd never become immune to the giddiness these antics brought him. “- is a good nap session with you. I'm missing my Ranran, you know!”

And he was hooked, line and sinker. It was always such a pleasure to watch the tension drain out of him, watch him soften, try and find his bluff and bluster.“Video not enough for ya?”

“Of course it isn't!” Reiji scoffed in mock offence. “You're not here, and I wanna take you all around London! There are so many stores you'd love, and street musicians, and bars, famous venues and-” “I'd go with you.” Ranmaru blurted it out like some kind of confession, eyes screwed shut as colour filled his cheeks.

Eyelids fluttered as Reiji blinked in rapid succession, lips parted and eyes wide. “Eh? What was that?”

“You heard me,” Ranmaru gruffed. He looked offscreen, as if trying to pretend his cheeks weren't burning still. “One day. I'll go with you.”

Reiji shot up, dropping is phone in the process. “Whoo hoo!! You mean it?!” “F-For the rock. Don't read into it.”

“Too late! Uwah! You can't see yet, but I'm doing a happy dance.” He swiped his phone from the duvet, grinning into the camera. “Hue hue, you really do love me, ne, Ranran?”

Video calls were their own kind of magic, tangible and wonderous. The warmth in Reiji's chest felt full to bursting, smile so bright his cheeks hurt. It only grew as Ranmaru scratched the back of his neck, his gaze falling to his screen – the visage of Reiji that filled it. “Yeah. Come home soon.”

#my writing #i would die for reiji and ranmaru #my favourite uta pri ship tbfh #uta pri #uta no prince sama #reiji kotobuki #ranmaru kurosaki #quartet night

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theflenser · 5 years ago

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DEATH AND DISPLACEMENT

Sometimes I wonder how many hours, in total, I've spent working at degrading low level jobs that mean absolutely nothing to me or my life. Thousands, certainly. Hundreds of thousands? Perhaps.

Every night around 7PM I park my piece of shit van about eight blocks from my piece of shit job and walk beneath the I-35 overpass, dragging my feet along the sidewalk as I hear the din from the nightclubs grow louder, the slurring roar of inebriation and weak-willed lust trickling into my head like a toxic gas, reminding me that although I've been sober for over seven years, my life still doesn't amount to much more than a sad, tired, pathetic joke. A grimy quarter marinating at the bottom of a plastic cup half full of stale, cheap beer. Before I reach the overpass, on the corner of Holly Street and San Marcos Street, there is a telephone pole covered with rusted staples and nail heads that were once used to hold up posters and signs, long since forgotten and weathered away. Whenever I pass this telephone pole, I always stop and say a little mantra to myself that helps me to feel a little less anxious and brings a moment of peaceful awareness to my mind. After I finish the mantra I knock three times on the telephone poll and then continue walking. It's an unusual habit, but I've been doing it for years, and the few times where I've forgotten to do it I feel like I later paid some kind of inner emotional toll for the oversight. As such, I try to never forget.

I tell people I'm a "bouncer" because it sounds slightly more romantic and dangerous than the truth. The truth is that I'm a door jockey...greeting, carding, and granting entry to a neverending onslaught of shamelessly entitled little bags of piss and puke that frequent the strip where I work. Rainey Street...once a neglected row of condemned houses and crack dens, now since converted into an upscale alcoholic playland for inbred oil money academics and closeted country club racists. I've lost count of how many times I've fantasized about hurting these people...about killing these people....but instead I just keep showing up, clocking in, and cleaning up after them. Ten dollars an hour and a lifetime supply of resentment and self loathing. I realize that I'm no better than them. In fact, I know that I am much worse. I choose to be here, wallowing in my bile of regret, disappointment, and disgust. I don't deserve to live any more than they do. But unlike them, I have no illusions as to what I am.

One Sunday night, around 3:30 AM, I clock out and start walking the eight blocks back to my van. There aren't many people out at this hour, save for other sevice industry losers like myself, the occasional gaggle of die hard street drunks, and the faceless unfortunates who have no homes to return to. As I near the overpass, I see a woman in a car parked along the feeder road lean her head out the drivers side window and spew vomit down the side of her car door and over the curb. I hear her start the engine and watch as she pulls out into the road and speeds off without bothering to turn her headlights on. I shake my head as I cross the street and step beneath the overpass, which is well lit and lined on either side with tents and makeshift cardboard shelters. There is no movement and no sound audible above the ambient white hum of intermittent traffic passing by above me. As I am about to step beneath the overhead gap that separates the north and southbound lanes, I hear a sound...no, I feel a sound unlike anything I have ever experienced before or since. The only way I can describe it is to say that it sounded as though the sky were being torn open, as though something great and unimaginable was trying to claw its way into our reality from some unknown dimension. It is absolutely terrifying, and my first instinct is to turn around and start running, even though I have no idea what's happening. I only make it a few paces before I return to my senses, and as the sound becomes less deafening I hear it morph from an immense cacophony into something more recognizable, the sound of metal on metal, the crunching of steel and broken glass. I turn around and look up through the gap between the lanes of the highway and see that the night sky has been partially blotted out by rectangular paneling. I see the shape of a wheel spinning freely in the air, connected to the paneling, but disconnected from it's purpose. I smell smoke and gasoline and realize that I am looking up at the back end of an overturned semi truck.

I stand there for a moment, looking up in disbelief. I hear some cursing and grunting from within one or more of the makeshift shelters and then everything is silent. I continue on, heading towards the other side of the overpass to where my van is parked. When I reach the other side of the interstate I turn around and look up. I can see the wreckage of the semi and at least one other vehicle. There is dark smoke curling upwards into the sky. All of a sudden I hear the faint sound of a baby crying.

Without thinking about it, I sprint up the side of the gravel embankment and pull myself over the guard rail and onto the shoulder of the highway where the wreck is. The semi truck is both completely jackknifed and toppled over, the rear portion of the tractor trailer stretching horizontally across the space between the two lanes. There is no discernible movement from within the cab. The other vehicle is practically unrecognizable, though it appears to have been some sort of luxury sedan. The back half of it has been completely crushed and the front end is a tangle of impossible angles and certain death. The windshield, somehow still intact, is now a nearly opaque white map of cracks and serpentine splintering, the drivers side half of it folded outwards like a partially open book. The vehicle is filled with blackish smoke, and it's clear that the sound of the crying is coming from within what is left of the car. About ten feet away, lying amid the rubble of glass and debris, is the shape of a man lying on his side. My heart freezes as I see movement and realize that he is still alive. I walk towards him and I can see that he is desperately trying to crawl back towards the vehicle and the sound of the crying baby. It's at this moment that I become aware of something incredibly strange. I look north towards the direction of downtown, and then turn my head in the opposite direction, looking southward to where the highway stretches away from the city. Looking in both directions I can see that there are no vehicles approaching from either direction. The highway is completely deserted. Even at this hour that seems impossible, especially this close to downtown. It's as though the world has fallen asleep, and the only things left awake are me, this man, and the baby crying from within the automobile behind me. As soon as this thought enters my mind I hear the crying suddenly choke up and cease. Everything is silent again. I look down at the man and see his face is covered with blood. One of his legs appears to be completely destroyed, the pant leg a flattened mound of blood and sinew. There is a bone jutting out through the front of his shirt near his throat, possibly a rib or a collarbone. I'm no doctor so I can't say for sure which. The man appears to have no awareness of what is happening, yet he continues to try and crawl towards the vehicle, pulling himself an inch at a time with one arm, his ruined leg and torso leaving a trail of blood behind him. All at once I recognize the man. He's a regular at the bar where I work. I've seen him there many times over the years, sometimes with his wife, sometimes with other women, and sometimes alone. When he's there alone he always stands in the same spot, drink clutched in his hand, scanning the room for available females like a hawk surveying a field for hapless mice and squirrels. He's just one of countless others who follow this same pattern. That's the nature of the environment.

I kneel down next to him and lean in close to his ear. I can smell a mixture of blood and booze wafting up from his open mouth. One of his eyes is swollen shut and there are shards of glass stuck into his cheek and forehead.

"Stop it. Stop it right now." I speak directly into his ear. "It's over. Your baby is dead, and so are you." I don't feel pity for this man, or contempt. I don't feel anything at all. "What were you doing driving around drunk at four in the morning with your baby in the car?"

It's clear that he can't hear me. He stretches out his arm again to try and pull himself closer to the wreckage and I put my foot down on his hand.

"I said stop it, motherfucker."

Suddenly his upper body lurches forward and a mixture of blood and yellow fluid dribbles out of his mouth onto the concrete. There is a gargling sound coming from his throat. I slide my boot under his shoulder and flip him over onto his back. The gargling sound intensifies. From the corner of my eye I see the blue and red strobing of police cruisers heading towards us on the feeder road from the direction of the courthouse on 7th street. The world appears to have woken back up. I look down at the man's face and take a deep breath. The gargling has stopped and he appears to breathing again. I realize that it's possible he might actually live.

In one rapid, fluid motion I raise up my boot about knee high and bring it back down as hard as I can against his throat. I feel it collapse between my heel and the pavement. Blood and fluid shoot up from his mouth directly into my face and across the lens of my glasses. I lick my lips and taste gin and iron. I take one last look at the cab of the semi and what's left of the sedan. No movement. No sound. I turn around and dart back down the embankment towards Holly street where my van is parked. When I get to the corner of Holly and San Marcos I stop at the telephone pole and clean my glasses with my shirt. I look up towards the moon and recite the mantra:

"I love you God. Thank you for everything. Please keep me sober for the rest of my life. Until Death, God, keep me sober. I love you God. Thank you for everything."

I knock three times on the telephone pole, walk the rest of the way to my van and drive straight home, where I sleep more soundly than I have in years.

#street sects

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wishingforatypewriter · 6 years ago

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Between Us (Chapter 2)

It was the evening after graduation, and despite the monumental nature of the occasion, there were no parties to be had; there was no time. Yoshino Yuki, the 92nd generation’s chief party planner, had jetted off to Germany mere hours after the ceremony. Ibusaki Shun and Sakaki Ryoko had taken a bullet train to Osaka to sign their lease soon after, and everybody else was packing, shipping, leaving.

Nakiri Alice reclined on a beach chair as she watched Ryo, Akira, and an assortment of rent-a-hunks packing two moving vans with approximately one third of her worldly belongings. She had really managed to carve out a little haven for herself in this mansion that had always been more Erina’s than hers.

She smiled when she saw the third seat—former third seat now—walking towards her. “You’re such a good friend, offering to help me out like this.”

“I did no such thing,” Akira said with a scowl. “You said you wanted to have a drink and say goodbye—”

“And we will,” she promised, “but it would be irresponsible not to pack when Ryo-kun and I are leaving tomorrow, right?”

He gave her a tired look, one imbued with the knowledge that arguing with her would only serve to stress him further. “Anyway, where are the rest of the shipping labels?”

“No clue,” Alice replied. “You’ll have to ask Hishoko. She’s the one who’s been dealing with the companies for me.”

“And what have you been doing?”

“Only planning to open the hottest new restaurant Europe has seen since the launch of the original Shino’s.”

“What are you talking about? Wasn’t Shino’s a failure in the beginning—”

“An insignificant detail,” she said, waving him off. “Anyway, would you mind grabbing those labels so the rest of my things actually make it back to Copenhagen?”

Akira sighed as all the pieces fell into place. “You asked her for the wrong amount on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Now why would I do something like that?” Alice asked, crossing one leg over the other. “It’s not like two of my closest friends are being completely irrational and avoiding each other when they could just be normal about the situation.”

It was at that moment precisely when he decided that he’d rather just get the labels from Arato than be subjected to another of Alice’s breaking-up-with-her-was-stupid-and-now-you’ll-die-alone lectures.

The walk down the labyrinthine halls of the Nakiri mansion was a feat of muscle memory. He had done it too many times in the dead of night back in the days when Arato was keeping their relationship a secret from Nakiri Erina.

When he reached her suite of rooms, he found the door already open. Arato was on her knees in front of a vintage travel trunk, trying to keep it closed with all her might. Akira stood there for a moment, just leaned against the doorframe and memorized her—from the short hair beginning to slip from her high ponytail to the ink and tea tree smell that always clung to her skin.

Hisako heaved a deep sigh, her shoulders looking heavy with the weight of it. “I knew it was you,” she said, even before she turned around. “You have a louder stare than anyone I’ve ever known.”

He couldn’t stop himself from smirking. She always got extra blunt when she was tired. “Need help?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” she said, and then he held down the top of the trunk so she could finally snap the gold clasps into place. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” he told her, both meaning it and not. Soon ‘anytime’ would no longer be feasible.

Hisako’s lips twitched into a weak smile. “Why are you here in the first place?”

“Alice ran out of shipping labels and—”

“I asked her a million times if she needed more than what she took! Honestly!” She went over to the file cabinet and pulled out a manila envelope holding all their friend would need and more. “Give her these, and then tell her we’re on speaking terms again so she’ll stop hounding us.”

“Thanks, Arato,” he said.

“Wait.” It was almost like she heard the exit in his voice. Hisako turned on her heel and went into her walk-in closet, the one that housed books and herbs and relatively little by way of clothing. She came back out holding a glass jar filled with one of her signature tea blends. “This is for Professor Shiomi. I remember she really liked this one.”

“She did,” he confirmed, glancing down at the tumeric and ginger green tea blend. “Jun had something for you too, a book I think. Text me your address in Switzerland and I’ll mail it to you.”

“That’s unnecessary. I’ll just get it from you in Tokyo,” she replied. “I’m not leaving right away. I’m going to take some university courses online—nutrition, public health—before I start work in the summer.”

“So you’ll be around?”

“Yeah, for a few weeks,” she said, her eyes dusky with the ghost of an invitation as she rubbed at the nape of her neck.

Akira thought of how easy it would be to kiss her then, to descend back into old habits—discard pragmatism and high-mindedness and a few articles of clothing. But he soon returned to his senses, and made up his mind to leave his ex-girlfriend in peace.

And then she kissed him.

----

“And then I kissed him,” Hisako said with a sigh, holding out her wineglass for Ikumi to refill with pinot noir.

“Hisako!” Erina shrieked. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” the pink haired girl admitted, burying her face in one of Ikumi’s velvety couch cushions. “He wasn’t either. This is the precise reason why we’d been avoiding each other since the breakup, but because of Alice and her constant meddling we—”

“Didn’t stop at kissing, did ya?” Ikumi asked with a cheshire-cat grin. “You did get here kinda late, Arato.”

Erina watched in fascination as her best friend’s face flushed maraschino cherry red. While she did have some inkling after walking in on them making out in the copy room, Hisako was always extremely tight-lipped about how far things went between her and Hayama-kun.

“We enjoyed ourselves,” Hisako said after clearing her throat, and Erina knew that was all she would tell them. “At any rate, where’s that pizza you said was coming?”

Just then the doorbell rang.

“It’s open, babe!” Ikumi shouted without moving an inch from the couch.

“How are you, amore?” Takumi asked as he entered, carrying three pizzas in Trattoria Aldini boxes. Isami and Yukihira came in after him, bearing spirits and mixers.

Erina smiled a bit as she watched Takumi and Ikumi share a chaste kiss. Must be nice.

“Yo Nakiri! You want a drink?” Yukihira asked when he spotted her.

Erina shook her head, holding up her glass of wine. “I’m all set,” she said before shifting her gaze to the pizzas. “Which one did you make?”

“Chorizo and chili,” he said. “I’ll go grab you one.”

“What are you even doing here?” Erina asked when he returned to her. “You better not be leaving Tadokoro-san to do all the packing by herself.”

“She’s seeing Yoshino off at the airport,” he explained. “I’m gonna go pick her up in an hour.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’re still sober,” Erina replied with a smirk. “When are you two leaving?”

“Two weeks. We’re gonna visit her family out in Tohoku before we go.”

“Ah,” Erina said as something grew cold within her. “Try not to let them know how much of an idiot you are. They must be worried enough already about her moving all the way to New York City.”

Souma grinned at her. “You know, when I talked to pops he said the same thing.”

They shared a laugh at this, and then wordlessly Erina stood and headed out to the balcony, and wordlessly he followed.

“Lot of stars out tonight,” he noted.

Erina smirked. “Do they still look like salmon roe to you?”

“You’re really never gonna let that go?”

“Nope,” she said, giggling. “You know, even though you’re somewhat successful now, you’ll always be a fool to me.”

“Thanks, Nakiri.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know,” he replied. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t always so tough on me.”

The world around her grew opaque as she was pinned beneath his golden-eyed stare. The tension of words unspoken gripped at her like a tangible thing.

“O-obviously,” Erina stammered once she could find her voice again. “If allowed to rest on our laurels, even people like us would become complacent. It’d be embarrassing for me to have lost to my seat to a chef who stagnated, so it’s not something you have to thank me for.”

Souma grinned at her. “You say that, but—”

“But what, Yukihira-kun?” she asked, flipping her hair back indignantly.

“But you never tried to take the first seat back. I always figured you would.”

Erina managed to give an unbothered shrug despite the rapid beating of her heart. “By that point, I had other things on my mind.”

“Career stuff?”

“What else is there?” she asked, and he gave her a look that let her know he agreed on some subterranean level. “My only goal is to stand at the pinnacle of the gourmet world.”

“Get there quick, Nakiri, so I can come knock you down.”

Erina scoffed. “You can try.”

“I will. But in the meantime, I’ve got something for you.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a monogrammed leather passport holder. Erina could tell from the look of it that it was a little more expensive than he could afford.

“Thank you,” she said, taking it in her hands, her god tongue heavy with a different set of words.

An alarm went off on Souma’s phone just then. “Shit! I’m late to pick up Tadokoro.”

Erina shook her head. “You better go get her, then.”

“See you around, Nakiri! The next time we run into each other, I’ll be much stronger than this.”

“You better be,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, “or else I’ll use you as a dishrag.”

“It’s a promise,” he told her, and then he was gone.

Erina waited for a few minutes and then went back into the living room and poured herself another glass of wine.

#shokugeki no soma #sorina #soueri #akisako #ryoali

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skincareo3plus · 3 years ago

Text

Sheet Masks: 12 Amazing Facts

Sheet masks are a one-stop solution for rapid skincare results. They claim to rapidly revitalize dull, lifeless skin and give your skin a healthy glow. From dryness and dehydration to large pores and acne, the appropriate sheet mask can help with a number of skin ailments. Sheet mask for men is a simple and efficient way to give your skin a large dose of vitamins and hydration right away. They're also a relaxing and pampering method to unwind at home!

Here’s a list of 12 startling facts about sheet masks with some expert advice on how to get the most out of your sheet mask. Let's get started!

1) Restores the skin hydration balance It helps to restore the skin's moisture balance for both men and women. Many brands offer sheet masks online. O3+ Green Tea Purifying Peel Off Mask has a cooling, hydrating, and calming impact on the skin.

2) Cleansing is the first step to receiving all of the sheet mask benefitsIf you're going to apply a sheet mask, make sure you cleanse your face first. This removes any dirt and impurities from your skin, allowing your cells to absorb the vitamins and other elements you're about to nurture it with.

3) A toner will help to prepare your pores for sheet maskingConsider toner to be the clear base coat you apply to your nails before applying lacquer. A toner helps to open pores and balances the pH level of your skin. As a result, your skin will be neutral and ready to accept the massive nutrient boost that the sheet mask will deliver.

4) Serum is the liquid that sheet masks are soaked in When you initially open the sheet mask container, the sheet mask will most likely have a white or opaque liquid leaking from it. Don't be concerned! That's just the serum soaking into the sheet mask. Serums give hydration, vitamins, and sometimes other beneficial ingredients like hyaluronic acid to your skin. The sheet mask advantages are derived from this serum!

5) Sheet masks don't exfoliate or cleanse your skin While the benefits of sheet masks are true, they can't accomplish everything. Expect your sheet mask to not cleanse or exfoliate your skin in particular. These steps must be completed in order. Always cleanse your face twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. Exfoliate your skin once or twice a week with a light, natural exfoliants. O3+ Facialist Sheet Mask combats uneven skin tone and reduces dryness and dullness.

6) Sheet masks can contain a variety of ingredients These days, sheet masks come with a variety of unusual components. Sheet masks contain anything from aloe vera and green tea to charcoal and seaweed. Naturally, each of these components is beneficial for various skin types and problems. Make careful to select the sheet mask that is best for your skin type.

7) Cling a sheet mask directly to your skin Start at your brow and work your way down your face when applying your sheet mask. Lay the mask on your face, over your mouth, and down to your chin, carefully placing the holes over your eyes. You want your sheet mask to cling to your face as much as possible to get the most out of it. If the sheet mask has any lumps or wrinkles, try to smooth them out.

8) Hydration is the most important benefit What is the most important benefit of a sheet mask? Hydration! Your skin will acquire a significant amount of moisture, which will allow it to seem healthy and beautiful. Never underestimate the importance of staying hydrated!

9) The special paper that helps to seal in moisture and protect your skin The fact that sheet masks create a seal on your skin is one of the reasons they're so great. This keeps the hydration and vitamins in your skin! Almost all of the nutritious components are absorbed by your skin cells.

10) Sheet masks shouldn't be left on your face to dryYou might think that the longer you leave a sheet mask on, the more benefits it provides. This is not the case! In fact, it's the polar opposite of how a sheet mask should be applied. When removing a sheet mask, make sure it's still wet. You are actually harming your skin if you let it dry up and crack on your face. A sheet mask should be left on for approximately 20 minutes.

11) Don’t wash your face Many believe that after removing a face mask, they should wash their face right afterward. It's not a good idea! You'll be eliminating all of the great serum that gives you the sheet mask advantages you want. If you have any leftover serum after removing a sheet mask, gently pat it on your skin.

12) Apply a moisturizer and an eye creamAfter you've patted in all of the surplus serum, apply a layer of moisturizer to seal in all of the nutrients and hydration. You can also use an eye cream to help prevent the formation of eye lines and under-eye wrinkles.

#sheetmaskonline #sheetmaskformen #facesheetmaskformen

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vcg73 · 7 years ago

Text

Witch!Kurt #27: Good News

Time to give the non-magical part of Kurt’s life a little attention.

As soon as the blizzard cleared up enough to let everyone get back to their daily routines, life shifted in high gear. First thing Tuesday morning, after a lift to school from a willing Elliott, Kurt turned in the final draft of his Junior work-study to the Dean of Performance.

Carmen Tibideaux took her time reading over the material, jotting down an occasional note or making a non-committal grunt over some bit that caught her attention. Unfortunately, neither her face nor her reactions told Kurt anything. She could have loved it, hated it, or found it the most mediocre project turned in this year. There would be no determining her reaction until she had finished every last page and pondered her overall impressions for a few moments.

It drove Kurt crazy, that opaque deliberation, but he knew better than to interrupt or to fidget in her presence. Carmen hated interruptions and she hated distractions. Every student learned the futility of trying to hurry this woman along, as well as the danger associated with saying more than one meant to in her presence. In a way it was fortunate that Kurt always had to fight the tendency to become tongue-tied around her. Kurt had witnessed more than one schoolmate dig themselves into an ever-deeper hole by saying too much while trying to anticipate their teacher’s opinion.

Today patience really was a virtue. As she closed the back cover on the sturdy red binder Kurt had used to protect his beloved musical from the dangers of dripping icicles and drifting snowflakes after Elliott had dropped him off a couple of blocks from school, preserving the illusion of having commuted in the normal way.

Carmen folded her hands over the book and looked at Kurt for a long nerve-wracking moment. “Congratulations Mister Hummel,” she said. “Your final script is hereby approved for production. The structure and dialogue have both improved noticeably from earlier drafts, as have the songs, which you may recall I deemed trite and uninteresting during your initial assessment. The choice to move the ballad from Act One to the beginning of Act Two is a wise one. It feels more natural and effective after the sisters’ argument. Taking on a romantic comedy for your first solo project was a risk, but the humor flows in a natural way that should bring an appropriate amount of laughter from your audience. Assuming your cast is up to the task.”

She paused and Kurt realized that he was expected to interject. “Yes, Madame. I’ve drafted seniors Clark Tidwell and Tonya Lowenstein, juniors Macy and Lisa Martin, sophomore Luis Hassan, and freshmen Laronda Williams and Antonio Garde, as well as myself, to play the housekeeper, children and grandchildren of the sisters and Ted the suitor. The actors at Lexington House have been practicing since Christmas and everything is going more smoothly since we switched two of the supporting roles. I feel confident that everyone can be ready to perform on whatever date you choose for us.”

A hint of a smile flickered over Carmen’s lips. Kurt was certain it had not escaped her notice that he had drafted all of his student actors from the Adam’s Apples. He had many friends around school, but it had occurred to him that that particular talent pool tended to go unused by the majority of NYADA’s elite. Kurt knew only too well what it felt like to yearn for a spotlight no one was ever willing to shine on you and he had wanted to give those deserving underdogs their chance.

“Excellent,” the Dean said. “Then as you’ve managed to be the first of your class to turn in a completed project, I feel you should have the honor of the first performance slot. Since you’ve been rehearsing at your actors’ residence up to now, I take it you’ll need a couple of days to properly reblock the scenes onto the stage of the Shapiro.”

Kurt nearly squealed, but managed to hold himself back by sheer force of will. He had originally assumed he could stage the production at the Lexington House, but he had found out at the beginning of January that all student productions would be held at NYADA, to be graded by a panel of instructors. He had immediately gone to the older actors and their caregivers to arrange permissions for a series of “field trips” via the bus company that serviced the elder care facility. To his relief, the cast had been very excited at the prospect of performing on a real stage and happy to invite an audience of relatives and friends. (Something Kurt had then had to obtain a second set of permissions from NYADA to allow.) Still, even with all this negotiation he had not expected to be offered the biggest and grandest venue in the school.

Doing his best to appear composed, Kurt channeled every acting lesson he had received at this school to say calmly, “Yes, I think a tech rehearsal and a dress rehearsal should be enough. The elder members of my cast are stage veterans, so I won’t have to simplify the directions for them.” He paused, frowning slightly as he ran the play through his mind at a rapid-fire pace. “Although with such a big stage I may have to reconsider the blocking of the scene where Eunice storms out after her fight with Constance. Mary Ellen is nearly eighty five and I’m not sure she’s capable of storming more than a few feet.”

At this, the dour Dean actually chuckled. “A fair point and I’m glad to see that you’re considering the physical capabilities of your cast as well as the professional. That shows insight as a director.” She checked her appointment book, as well as a couple of schedules on the computer screen to her left. “I’ll reserve the auditorium for you this coming Friday and Monday afternoons for rehearsal and schedule your graded performance for next Wednesday at 5pm. Can you have everything ready by then, Mister Hummel?”

Knowing perfectly well that the question was largely rhetorical; he would be graded on Wednesday if he was ready or not; Kurt nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you for your time.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Adam! Elliott! You won’t believe it!”

Kurt burst through the apartment door at 5pm, having taken the long way home just to give himself a few extra minutes to think and plan. He had been on Cloud 9 all day, making calls, meeting his fellow Apples, arranging transportation from Lexington House for the days his cast would be needed, talking to students in the props and set-design departments and slipping in to measure and carefully block out the stage of the Shapiro.

When he had assumed he would be performing in a small venue, he had staged his play in two acts with everything to take place in the living room of the Atworthy home. It would be a small matter to move a few chairs, tables and set pieces from the well stocked prop building. Part of the overall education at NYADA was learning how to dress a stage on short notice and Kurt - without quite realizing how rare such a thing really was - had cultivated friendships with people from every creative Major in the school. He had served as a costumer, editor, background actor, and supporting chorus member for half the productions in school over the past two and a half years and everyone he spoke with was happy to return the favor now.

His fiance and Familiar had both leaped to their feet in reaction to Kurt’s dramatic entrance. “What? What’s happened?” they demanded.

“The Real Housewives of Albany’ is going to be performed next Wednesday evening on the stage of the Shapiro Auditorium!” he announced, doing a giddy little dance around the loft that Elliott happily joined when Kurt grabbed him by both hands and pranced him around the floor.

Adam declined to dance, but happily hugged the stuffings out of his beloved. Unlike Elliott, Adam was a NYADA graduate and he knew exactly how much of an honor this was. “Darling, that’s amazing! Normally the Shapiro is strictly used for Senior projects and alumni events. For Dean Tibidieaux to give it to a third year student play is high praise indeed, and one that your fellow students will all recognize as such. I’m so proud of you.” He gripped Kurt’s cheeks and gave him an enthusiastic kiss on the mouth. “You’ll have a sold out show for certain.”

Kurt could not help preening at the praise. “I almost fell over when she told me. It adds a lot of pressure to make the final performance perfect, knowing the Dean will have raised expectations high by doing this, but I’m super- excited too. I’m not counting on a full house, but I did get permission to block off a section for the actors’ families, so I just hope we’ll at least pull in a decent sized crowd on top of that.”

“You will. Student musicals usually do very well,” Elliott said, parking his rear on the back of the sofa and pulling his feet up to sit cross-legged on the narrow surface, a huge grin lighting his face. With anyone else, Kurt would have been afraid they would fall from such a precarious perch, but Elliott always somehow maintained his balance. He had moved some of his belongings into the loft during the recent blizzard and for now the little couch was his. “NYU isn’t strictly a performing arts school, but original shows get lots of interest. And you’re still Winter Showcase recruit, Midnight Madness winner, last man standing from Lima, and guaranteed future Dean’s Award winner Kurt Hummel. Not to mention, one of your cast members won an Obie back in the ‘70s and another one was nominated for a Tony. At a place like NYADA, you’ll probably get S.R.O. just for that!”

Kurt beamed at this assessment. It was so nice to be surrounded by people who believed in him after all those years with no true support from people he’d considered his best friends. “Well, thank you for that but we’ll have to wait until next year to find out who gets the Dean’s Award. That’s for graduating seniors and there are a number of candidates in other programs who would be completely deserving. I don’t want to get over-confident about anything and have it bite me in the ass, so I’ll just hope the show draws enough of an audience not to embarrass us. It’s a big venue, after all, and not everyone is as fascinated with theater history and musical-comedy as us.”

“Your modesty does you credit,” Adam decided. “But I am under no such obligation to control my optimism. You’ll be packing them in like sardines next Wednesday night. In fact, I should start knitting souvenir socks for the occasion. We can hand them out at intermission, since I’m positive that your play will have knocked them off of everyone by then.”

Kurt laughed. “Well, save me a pair if you do. That would be a hell of a keep-sake.” He grinned, hugging himself and spinning in a circle to express his excitement. “Oh, gosh. I have a million things to do before our first stage rehearsal on Friday. I know you’ve suffered through all the various drafts, but I can’t wait for you to see it on stage with a real . . . ” Suddenly, his happiness dimmed and he looked at his fiance with wide eyes. “Oh, Adam, I forgot! The play is at NYADA. Will you be able to attend in such a large space, especially if we do get a full crowd?”

Adam had been sticking close to home since his nerve-wracking adventure in Lima, but his proud smile did not falter. “Yes, darling, I will. For your big night, I’ll manage even if I have to render myself invisible to do it.”

“You should disguise yourself as a prop and watch it from the stage,” Elliott suggested around the mouthful of the apple he had just plucked from a bowl on the coffee table as he rolled down the sofa to lounge on its cushions. “I think the Atworthy living room could use a coat rack, don’t you, Kurt? And doesn’t Constance have a wheelchair? Maybe you should suggest that she needs a lap cat, so I can have a close-up view too.”

Kurt relaxed again at their easy banter, Adam debating the merits of becoming a coat rack versus a flower vase and Elliott speculating that if Constance did get a cat then Lord Tubbington, who considered himself quite the thespian after starring in Brittany’s old “Fondue for Two” YouTube series, would probably make himself the feline understudy and find a reason to take over when show time came.

Privately thinking that a cat would indeed be a nice touch for his show, Kurt said, “Well, don’t worry. I intend to reserve the coven seats in the front row, assuming you all want to come. I’ve recruited half the Adam’s Apples already, so I’m sure the rest of them will show up to watch and they’ll probably invite people too. And some of my friends in in Stage Combat have been bugging me to let them know once I got a firm date from Carmen. I texted everyone on the way home, letting them know the venue and the rehearsal schedule.”

“See?” Adam said with a smile. “Everything is moving along and your audience is multiplying as we speak. You have nothing to worry about.”

Kurt sat down in his favorite chair, the one he had designed and built himself from an old Mercedes car seat he’d found in a junk yard, sagging back with exaggerated exhaustion. “Nothing at all. Except for finalizing the set, the costumes, the transportation, the props; wrangling a dozen actors, doing two run-throughs, and not having an aneurysm if anything goes wrong on performance day. Not to mention that I still have to practice for my mid-winter critique next Friday.” He flipped one hand and closed his eyes. “Oh, my god, give me a distraction before I start overthinking everything. Did anything happen to you today? I thought I detected some emotional roller-coastering today, but that could have just been me projecting.”

“As a matter of fact I did have some news today if you’d like to hear it.”

Kurt opened his eyes and leaned forward, eyes lighting up with interest when Adam nudged Elliott to sit up and took a seat on the sofa next to him. “Tell me!”

Adam smiled at his enthusiasm. “I heard back from Stewart Henderson after you left for school this morning.” He held up a forestalling hand when Kurt squeaked with excitement, both hands clasping as he lifted them to cover his lips, while his hips did an excited little chair-dance. “Unfortunately, he’s decided to go with another candidate for the assistant’s job. He was very kind about it and expressed his sincere regret, but he’s not a young man anymore and he needs someone who can be more hands-on, following him to productions and jet-setting about with him on a moment’s notice. Even if I wasn’t still battling post-traumatic stress and agoraphobia, I wouldn’t feel right committing myself to spending months at a time away from you and our life in New York.”

Kurt could not prevent a small pout. “I understand and I can absolutely appreciate both of those reasons, but it would have been such an amazing opportunity for you. I was sure that you were meant to have that job.” He cocked his head, realizing that Adam was still smiling in a rather smug fashion. “Why aren’t you disappointed?”

“Because Stewart also told me that he’d been impressed enough during our interview that he had put me up for a different job as a booking assistant with Hanover and Bradley. He forwarded my resume and arranged a phone interview, with his recommendation that they hire me on the spot. Which, as it turned out, they were quite willing to do after speaking with me. H&B handles a great many clients through online meetings and remote scheduling, so I can do the job from here, plus have the freedom to take on Mrs. Bui’s kind offer of part-time employment at the tea shop. The job at H&B should pay enough to be a real contribution to our finances, but I think it will do me good to also have a reason to go outdoors on the regular.”

“Adam, that’s amazing,” Kurt said, shaking his head. “You’re amazing. Seriously. Here you are, having survived one of the worst experiences imaginable and still recovering from a massive scare just a few days ago, and yet you’re ready and willing to face your fears and get back out into the working world again. You’re just . . .”

He had no words, but he hopped out of his chair and into Adam’s arms, kissing him so thoroughly that Elliott started playfully fanning himself with a magazine. “Should I leave you two alone?”

The couple parted, flushing at the reminder that they had an audience. Kurt laughed. “We’re done.” He gave Adam a saucy wink. “For now.”

The Familiar grinned. “Understood. Maybe I’ll go see what Dani is up to tonight. “Meanwhile, if you two are up for a more prosaic diversion, I knew you’d want to celebrate Adam’s new job, so I’ve got a nice green salad in the fridge, a melt-in-your-mouth tuna casserole in the oven and a chocolate sponge cake with pudding for dessert.”

“Custard,” Adam said with a playfully long-suffering roll of the eyes. “Seriously mate, if you’re going to borrow dessert recipes from Gran’s cookbook, you might at least give the components their proper names.”

Elliott just smiled. “As long as it tastes good, I don’t care. Especially since now we have two things to celebrate.”

“Well whatever you call it, I want a big serving of everything. I knew I smelled something yummy when I walked in,” Kurt said, sliding down into the corner of the sofa and draping his legs across Adam’s lap. “I’m ready for a good meal. I’ve been so busy today, I didn’t have time to stop for lunch.”

Adam made a scolding noise. “Then by all means let’s tuck in. Your Familiar has been tormenting me with cooking odors all afternoon and I’m fairly starved.”

Elliott happily jumped up and went to put out three place settings.

“What about you?” Kurt said a few minutes later when the three of them gathered around the table and began filling their plates. At Elliott’s inquiring look, Kurt said, “Adam and I both have things to celebrate, but I’ve been so caught up in my own stuff lately that I feel like a horrible friend. Here you are, giving up your privacy for an undetermined length of time to teach me and look after us both, not to mention being my on-call magical taxi service and I barely even know what’s going on in your life. Did you ever get to do that lab time you were trying to arrange when the blizzard hit? Did you get your grades back from winter Finals yet? Have you applied for that internship you want at that Animal Wellness Center in Long Island yet? Are you writing any songs? Any new men in your life? I need dish!”

Elliott laughed as Kurt ticked off each question. “Well, let’s see. No time for song-writing lately, but when we had band practice on Monday night Johnny gave me an idea for one that we might work on together.”

“Rock song?” Kurt guessed. Being a drummer, Johnny had a natural draw toward songs with a beat and a strong lyrical hook. Kurt had developed a better appreciation for such music since starting up his band. The original idea of a Madonna cover band had quickly given way to an eclectic mixture of genres and artists that appealed to all of its members and eventually led them to weave a few original tunes into the mix. That variety had given Pamela Lansbury/One Three Hill a niche with local audiences and proved a winning formula for the band itself.

“Actually more of a ballad,” Elliott said, surprising him. “At least for now. I’ll let you know when it’s developed more. Right now I’m a little busy with school, both NYU and Coven 101. I did pass all my exams last term, though I could’ve done better at cellular biology. I aced bio-chem and that might be enough to get me the internship come spring, but they won’t made a final decision until March and it’s a pretty competitive slot. I’ll need to bump up my lab time and slam-dunk the immunology course if I’m gonna have a shot at it.”

“If you need any help studying, we’ll be glad to help,” Kurt offered, feeling it was the least he could do after all the help Elliott had been giving him lately. “Just don’t make me look at any pictures of sick or wounded animals.”

“Deal,” he said. "I don’t like seeing animals hurting either, but I need to learn how to alleviate their suffering in order to get them healthy and happy again. It’s what I’ve wanted since before I even figured out where my Potential was headed. I think I’d be studying to become a veterinarian even if I was a Standard.”

Kurt nodded thoughtfully. “That’s interesting. Carole said something similar to me when she was here over the holidays. About how our powers seemed to go in line with our personal interests. Like how so many witches are also singers or musicians, when music lends itself so well to spell-casting. Or the way Adam and I have both always liked to cook and we each developed a Talent for potions, minor in my case, primary in his. It’s just a theory, but it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I have some old pictures of my mom puttering around in her grandparents’ garden when she was a little girl and her Talent was apparently in plant based magic.”

“What an interesting theory,” Adam said. “There may be something to that. Your step-mum went into nursing and she’s an Empath. I’ve wanted to be an actor since I was just a tiny lad and my other major Talent is Transmogrification. Johnny’s is as well and told me he was painfully shy as a child, wanting anything other than to be noticed.”

Seeing that Adam’s attention was drifting, no doubt mentally adding a chapter to his future tome on the definitive study of magical powers, Kurt just patted his arm and turned back to his conversation with Elliott. “What about guys?” he asked in a teasing tone. “I noticed you and Sebastian seemed to be doing some pretty serious flirting last week.”

Casually stretching his arms overhead, Elliott folded his hands behind his head and pretended nonchalance. “Aw, that was just in fun. I suspect we both have too much going on right now to start up a long distance thing. Though if the signals he was throwing were accurate, that could change.”

“From what I saw, those signals read, ‘let’s go find a dark corner and drop our trousers’, so I’m quite certain he would be happy to have them picked up at any time,” Adam said dryly.

The Familiar chuckled. “Yep, that’s about what I got too.”

“And would you?” Kurt said curiously. “Sebastian’s good looking and all, but as far as I know he’s always been a wham-bam and forget your name the next day man. While you strike me as more of the long-term relationship sort.”

“I am, mostly, but I’ve been known to do a walk of shame or two in my time,” Elliott admitted, contrarily looking rather proud of that admission. “And considering what you told me about his attitude toward non purebreds, he could just be intrigued by the notion of slumming with an Animagus. Still, it might be worth it. I could show him what he’s been missing.” He smiled and took another bite of tuna casserole, all but wrapping his tongue around the bit of pasta before putting the fork in his mouth and then pulling it back out with exaggerated slowness, giving his eyebrows a suggestive hitch.

Kurt stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “Why, you dog! No offense.”

“Speaking of Sebastian,” Adam said, pushing away his empty plate and settling back in his chair with a satisfied burp. “Pardon me. I’ve been meaning to ask; did either of you happen to notice that Carole’s new Familiar looked rather constipated every time someone mentioned her son?”

Kurt nodded. “Particularly in connection with Blaine. He didn’t seem to want to talk about either of them. I decided to leave it alone for now since I was more concerned about Carole getting some help with her magic, but if Sebastian thinks he can steer her away from talking about anything she’s set her mind on, he’s sadly mistaken. Dad is a lot more concerned about eliminating the threat to all of us than he is about sparing any tender feelings from the new kid and having two of her sons’ peers living in the house, one of whom was a good friend, there’s no way Carole won’t be eager to talk about Finn. I figured I’d give them a few more days to get used to each other before I go in demanding answers.”

“Maybe you should grill your dad. Burt will be in the audience for your play next week,” Elliott pointed out. “He told me to just come get him on whatever night you ended up performing it.”

Kurt stared at him, surprised. “He did? I didn’t know that. I assumed he wouldn’t be able to come, considering he and Carole just spent two whole weeks out here. Did he really ask you to transport him?”

“Yep. And sorry if I just spoiled a surprise,” Elliott said, looking sheepish. “I assumed you’d talked, since he didn’t seem too keen on magical travel the last time I saw him.”

Kurt laughed. “He still isn’t, but he likes to spring surprises on me, so I should have guessed. I kind of assumed he’d never want to actually do it unless there was some kind of emergency, though.”

“Burt has seen us Teleport enough by now that I think his curiosity has begun to overcome his nerves,” Adam suggested. “You know what an effort he’s been making to accept your new status and to pretend that he isn’t still gobsmacked every time he sees you perform an act of magic. Now that he knows he’s also married to a witch, and for the second time to boot, I rather imagine his need to become comfortable with magic has indeed reached critical status in his mind.”

Kurt nodded. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but diving head-first into things once he’s made up his mind is very much my dad’s M.O.” He smiled again. “And now that you’ve spilled the beans, I can save him the best seat in the house for Wednesday night!”

“Excellent. Then after the show, once you’ve finished receiving your no-doubt glowing assessment from the Dean’s committee and seen all of your cast off home, I really think you and Burt should go out and have a good chat over a nice meal. Just the two of you.”

Surprised, he said, “You don’t want to come?”

“Not just then,” Adam said, a reassuring smile on his face. “Elliott can pop me on home, if he doesn’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Elliott interjected, standing up as he began to clear away the remains of their dinner in preparation for serving dessert. “Any time.”

Adam nodded thanks to him. Seeing Kurt’s still concerned expression, he reached out and squeezed his hand. “Even at the holidays you and Burt never had much opportunity for a one-on-one. Oh, a few minutes here and there, but there was always something needing to be done, or some of us hanging about sharing attention, or some other pull on your time. Not to mention all the tension that stood between you before you cleared the air at the holiday party. You and Burt share something special; a bond that existed long before any of us came along and that that bond was badly damaged during and after your time with Blaine. I think you need a chance here and there to firm up that connection and I want to make sure that you both to have the opportunity to do so. You need to spend a little private time together, to chat and catch up; rediscover the closeness you used to share.”

Kurt put a hand over his heart, imagining that he could actually feel it swelling with the pride and love he felt for this man. When, in the entire span of his relationship with Blaine, had his ex ever behaved with such simple loving selflessness; seeing what Kurt needed and providing him with an opportunity to get it with no thought of himself?

“Thank you,” he said softly. “And that goes for you too. Any time you want to invite Henry or the rest of your family for private Crawford bonding time, don’t be afraid to say the word. They’ve been nothing but sweet and welcoming to me, but you’re their family and they haven’t had much time to be alone with you either. After two years without you, thinking you’d never have that chance again, I’m sure you could all use more time to catch up.”

“Thank you, Kurt. I promise you I will, just as I’ll eventually end up spending time alone with your dad, I’m sure. Just not this time. And don’t think for a moment that you’ll escape all my family’s mad plans to sweep you into the fold,” Adam said, squeezing his hand. “As long as you aren’t still afraid of Gran.”

He grinned. “I’m not. June is surprisingly awesome once she stops looking at you like you’re an ant on her picnic table. So thumbs-up to all forms of family bonding.”

“I vote for friend-bonding too,” Elliott said, raising his hand. “Adam and the Apples. Kurt and One-Three-Hill. Coven Time. Non-magic time. The works! Sorry, bud, but you may never have a moment alone again.” The twinkle in his lovely blue eyes proved that he was only teasing.

Kurt inhaled a whiff of rich chocolate from the plate of warmed sponge cake, resting in a generous serving of vanilla custard, that his friend had just set in front of him. “Mmm, if it comes with benefits like this, who needs privacy!”

As the three of them dug in, Kurt felt a set of strong toes slide up under the cuff of his trousers - thankfully he had worn straight-leg pants today to better show off the designer argyle socks that complemented his blue and gold sweater - and caress his ankle. He glanced at Adam, who gave him a subtle wink.

Perhaps a little privacy would be needed tonight, after all. There would be a million things to do over the next week, for both of them, but for tonight they still had some celebrating to do.

Elliott must have sensed something, for he suddenly looked up. His eyes darted between the two of them and he smiled, spooning up one last taste of the rich dessert before standing up and wiping his mouth on a napkin. “Since I cooked, you two can do the dishes. I’m heading over to Dani’s.”

With a wink, he grabbed his guitar and leather jacket and vanished.

THE END

#Witch!Kurt #Kadam #Kelliott friendship #Just a little friendly chapter

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bigtruckindia · 6 years ago

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hopefulfestivaltastemaker · 5 years ago

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June 21, 2020

My weekly review of thoughts and goings-on. Topics include BP’s energy data, Apollo Projects, the demographic transition, and policing in Hillsboro.

New Energy Data from BP

Every June, BP releases some high level energy statistics from the prior year. This year’s data set came out a few days ago, and I’ve taken a quick glance over.

A key observation is that world primary energy growth in 2019 was about 1.3%, in contrast to the ~1.8% average growth from 2009 to 2019. Together with the IEA’s World Energy Investment report, we start to see some evidence of a modest global slowdown even before COVID hit.

Oil, natural gas, and coal were up 0.8%, up 2.0%, and down 0.6% respectively. Nuclear is up 3.1% but still about 4% off the peak generation set in 2004. Hydropower is up 0.9%, extending a long term trend of gradual increase. Non-hydro renewables are up 12.2%, the largest absolute year over year gain (albeit just barely) in the dataset. All in all, low carbon energy sources* accounted for 55% of total primary energy gain, and fossil fuels accounted for 45%.

There is some controversy around the primary energy metric. It is meant to allow a direct comparison between coal, gas, oil, and nuclear energy sources, whether they are used for power, transportation fuel, or heat, by comparing on the basis of heat released upon combustion or fission. But for non-thermal sources, this metric doesn’t make sense, and different institutions have different ways of estimating the primary energy content of such sources. In particular, it may be that the numbers for renewables are smaller than they should be, relative to their contribution to the economy. This may be, but it doesn’t change the basic picture.

Scenarios consistent with the Paris Agreement call for a phaseout of fossil fuel usage around midcentury. That’s 30 years from now and we haven’t even halted the growth yet. At current rates, with no increase in overall primary energy demand, it will take about 200-300 years for renewables to take over the energy system. I’ve predicted before that solar and wind might be near the inflection point of their S curves, a prediction that I now think was too pessimistic, but I also don’t the kind of exponential growth we saw in the heady days of the late 2000s and early 2010s is a realistic expectation.

This year BP also put all the raw data in a CSV file. I don’t know if they did it before, but it is much appreciated.

* Including biofuels. It is questionable whether they should be classified as low carbon.

Apollo Projects

Sam Altman and his brothers are starting up a new investment project, aimed at what they describe as moonshot projects and clearly alluding to the Apollo Project.

Their list of project examples is quite the grab bag: “Rapid response vaccines, non-carbon energy, solar geoengineering, VR/AR, biological manufacturing, new education formats, new medicines, affordable housing, and charter countries.”

This also comes not too long after the Marc Andreesson IT’S TIME TO BUILD essay and may represent at attempt to transcend the kind of small bore thinking that has (perceived to have) taken over Silicon Valley and American institutions at large.

Now, I’m for pursuing ambitious projects as much as anyone, but ambition has to be rooted in a sense of what real socio/economic needs are or else it is just a shot in the dark. What the Altmans understand those needs to be is, to me at least, rather opaque.

Understanding the Demographic Transition

I have written on-and-off over the years about the question of population and birth rates. I have more or less made the pronatalist case that I can based on my understanding of the role that population plays in economic growth. But without a better understanding of what governs reproduction decisions, my understanding of the issue is stuck at a sub-useful level. This week I made some effort to dive into the academic literature on demographic trends.

The survey of Zaida and Morgan is not a bad place to start. They introduce what is a fairly standard story: industrialization has both decreased the death rate and increase the opportunity cost of having children. This process come to be called the Demographic Transition, or the First Demographic Transition to distinguish it from what may be a distinct ongoing Second Demographic Transition. The SDT theory pushes back against the purely economic explanations of the FDT theory and proposes that value changes are at work: a shift from “king child” to “king couple” and a move up the Maslowian hierarchy to a postmaterialist value system.

The survey notes several major critiques of SDT. First, the empirical link between fertility changes and ideational changes is not well established. They cite some evidence of a “social contagion” at work in fertility changes. SDT doesn’t account well for inter- and intra-country variations. There are also inconsistent links between fertility changes and other demographic/social changes predicted by SDT. The broader philosophical critique of SDT is that, like modernization of secularization theory, it is a unilinear theory of history that holds the most postmodern European countries as the natural destination of historical evolution.

Zaida and Morgan touch on some alternate theories to SDT: that globalization and evolving gender roles are driving contemporary fertility changes, but note that those theories have problems as well.

In 2012, Oded Galor reviewed several hypothesis on drivers of falling birth rates. Galor is best known for his Unified Growth Theory model, which holds that technological change has increased the educational cost of children, and parents make a rational quality/quantity tradeoff by having fewer children and educating each one better. Naturally, Galor gives his UGT hypothesis the most credence in his review. He also gives some evidence that the declining gender gap plays a role, in that it increases the opportunity cost of a mother’s childrearing time. Galor argues against the Beckerian hypothesis--that rising wages in general depress fertility--and also argues against declining childhood mortality and old age pensions as explanations.

UGT is an interesting idea that I would like to take a better look at. It does strike me as perhaps being too much of a “theory of everything”, and it attempts to explain family decisions with an economic model without accounting for the role of social norms. I would have a hard time accepting any explanation that does not have at least some significant role for social norms. For what it’s worth, this recent survey of Madsen and Strulik provides some fresh empirical evidence for education as a driver of falling birth rates.

I must say, having read a lot of academic writing over the years, that Galor’s is exceptionally good. He has a clear and engaging style, and he is able to present the mathematics with full rigor but without burying the reader with it.

To go in the opposite direction, this 2005 study of Newson et al. attempts to explain falling birth rates as a process of cultural evolution. Industrialization generally enhances the importance of nonkin social contacts relative to kin contacts, and nonkin contacts are more likely to deliver antinatalist messages than kin contacts. The argument is an interesting one and they give a fair amount of evidence, though I would characterize their case as circumstantial rather than rigorous. The study is old enough that there should be plenty of new evidence for the hypothesis by now, and that would be something to take a look at later.

Finally, there is this review from earlier this year by Lesthaeghe, who is one of the pioneers of SDT back in the ‘80s but has walked the claims back a bit. The paper is rather jargon-heavy and not very layperson-friendly, but he offers some important insights. Armed with new data, he debunks the postponement hypothesis: that falling birth rates from the 1990s were the result of later families, not smaller families, and so should recover. He also argues against the idea that, at a certain level of development, we should expect fertility to naturally recover. This hypothesis is based on what he calls the “reading history sideways” fallacy, which is to look at all countries at a snapshot in time and assume that what wealthier countries look like today is what poorer countries will look like tomorrow. He forecasts that subreplacement fertility in wealthier countries will persist at least through the 2020s.

As a general observation, most of my understanding of academic demography has come from energy and environmental work. My brief effort this week to learn the field more directly has revealed that it is a richer field, with more diversity of thought, than I had realized, and it makes me hungry to read some more. By contrast, in the environmental world there is a caricatured, in some cases outdated, understanding of demography. I would have to suspect that since environmentalism has always carried an antinatalist orientation, it has been happy to selectively draw concepts from demography that support a triumphalist population peak-and-decline narrative (when not going down the Malthusian catastrophe rabbit hole). In reality, demography as a field shows diversity in ideology (pro- or anti-natalist), forecasts, and understanding of mechanisms behind the forecasts.

Policing in Hillsboro

This week, the Hillsboro City Council held an information session with Jim Coleman, the chief of police, and some other officers to discuss a wide range of issues around policing. Given current public concern, it was a long and intense conversation. I’m glad I listened.

With a few weeks having now elapsed since the George Floyd killing, I’ve had some time to think it over, have some conversations, and read some material from a range of viewpoints. Policing is important, but it’s never been an issue I’ve paid much attention to or been interested in and definitely not one that I understand well.

If I were to get more engaged on the topic--which, to be clear, I am not planning on--the first thing I would do is forget what I think I know and take some time to listen empathetically. The world doesn’t need another 23 point plan.

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showdepremiosclub · 5 years ago

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Household Experiences on the Salmon River Rafting

Toil as well as water mix on a raft trip; A Salmon River run deals something for the entire family, with berry selecting, campfire singing, cave checking out, even pedicures.

By John Muncie

When the cool, deep shaft of the abandoned copper mine ended in a wall surface of rock, overview Mike Thurbert resorted to the team and said, "Shut off your flashlights."

We had to do with 100 lawns right into an Idaho hill. The lights went off as instructed as well as, in a moment of solemnity, 19-year-old Thurbert silently asked us to contemplate the sensation of utter darkness. For that split second, each of us was an island, alone in the black tunnel.

Then someone made a creepy ooooo-ing audio as well as, to screeches of giggling, all the flashlights clicked back on, the majority of them beaming up under chins, transforming faces into grotesque Halloween masks.

Solemnity remains in brief supply on a river rafting journey filled with kids.

If you're questioning what a stroll in a copper mine involves river rafting, you'll possibly question the very same about blackberry selecting, speeding down sand dunes, Wiffle-ball and also toenail sprucing up.

Our white-water rafting trip on the Lower Salmon River had as much to do with old-fashioned family members enjoyable as it performed with running rapids. It was the warm as well as unclear points-- singing around the campfire, eating meals with each other, developing video games, informing poor jokes, debating big issues with know-it-all teenagers-- we bore in mind long after the white-water thrills faded.

My partner, Jody, and I chose this specific adventure for family reasons. Good friends of ours, the Fullers, had actually looked into the journey-- 4 days, three nights on the Salmon as well as Serpent rivers starting in Idaho with the Outside Adventure River Specialists, or OARS, rafting company-- and asked whether we intended to join them. John Richer teaches scientific research to our 14-year-old kid, Sam, and also Richer's son, Woody, is a chum of Sam's.

Our journey began on a Monday, when we took a bus from Lewiston to the Pine Bar put-in point on the Salmon, 62 miles upstream from our eventual location, Heller Bar. We pushed out into the river around 11 a.m. Our little flotilla contained three rubber boatings, 3 wooden dories, a big paddle boating as well as 3 inflatable kayaks.

Barry Dow, 57, a 30-year expert of the Salmon, Snake and also Colorado rivers, was our journey leader, yet the remainder of the seven- person staff seemed remarkably young. Actually, 3 of them remained in their teens. When we questioned them regarding their backgrounds, we discovered that rafting seems to be in their genetics.

" My mom was pregnant with me when she was on the river," stated Thurbert, whose papa was a river guide. Thurbert, who made his very first ex-utero rafting trip when he was 3, piloted the guest- powered paddle boating on this journey. His directions were both counterproductive-- "Always lean into the wave, constantly favor the rock!"-- and also uncomplicated-- "Listen to what I claim and also, when doubtful, paddle."

Eric Shedd, 19, had a similar story. His moms and dads were river overviews and fulfilled on a rafting trip. "My mommy claims I was less than a years of age when I was first on the river."

The prize for the toughest river ties mosted likely to Zak Sears, 18, who made his initial river journey when he was 6 months old. Sears pointed downriver and also stated his daddy was at the next campground guiding another rafting trip. Then he pointed the various other method, smiled and also stated, "My sis's 250 miles upstream and my brother's concerning 150 miles."

Tossed into the drink

The initial 3 days of our trip got on the Salmon, a 425-mile river that starts in the mountains of central Idaho as well as finishes at the convergence of the Snake River near the Oregon-Washington boundary. The Salmon is the lengthiest free-flowing river left in the Lower 48. For rafting purposes it's separated into the Middle Fork (the upper component), the Key and also the Lower Salmon.

Each has its beauties and its advocates. Depending on water levels, our component, the Lower Salmon, typically has less and much less hard rapids. We dealt with just a couple that count as Course III. (Course IV and V rapids are scarier and much more unsafe; Class VI is taken into consideration unrunnable for a business journey.).

The absence of huge white water may make the Lower Salmon a little tame for thrill-seekers, however it was excellent for our band of youngsters and their moms and dads that intended to obtain them familiarized with river rafting without the threats of big water.

" This is nothing," said expert rafter Jim Eisch, 40, of Tampa florida, Fla. Eisch brought his daughter Kelsey, 8, boy Jimmy, 11, and daddy, Ted, 69. "However I didn't want to make them so scared they really did not wish to do it once again.".

If we could have fast-forwarded a trip tape to the last day, it would certainly have revealed Jimmy grinning widely after his 3rd back flip off a raft and stating, "I don't wish to go house. Following time I'm taking place a 17-day trip!".

With children as young as 8 on the trip, threat was on every family members's mind. Before we put in, the overviews offered us numerous safety and security talks, describing what we were to do if we overdid in a quick-- or "went swimming," as they say in river parlance.

There was a great deal of information to absorb, entailing, to name a few things, head-patting signals, toss ropes, flip lines and also the "La-Z- Young boy" float setting. All of it washed out of our heads when, independently, Jody and I were thrown from our kayaks at the Class III Bunghole rapid on the 2nd day.

Disoriented after getting toppled in the opaque wash cycle of Bunghole, we promptly bobbed to the surface. In much less than a minute we were within understanding of a boating or dory, and also in less than three, we were back aboard our kayaks paddling.

The important points, it ends up, were not just treatments but additionally the vigilance and also unflappable nature of our crew as we obtained tossed too far and also forgot all our lessons. That as well as the bright orange life vests we always used.

The blow up kayaks-- like beach boatings with sides-- offered one of the most heart-pounding flight. It's just you as well as a little bit of plastic careering via the rapids. When the waves of white water huddle and assault, the secret is to paddle hard. "No lily dipping," overview Marci Whittman told us before we set off the first day. "No tea-and- crumpet handling.".

Two days later on Sam wiped out at the start of one of the most technical (river-speak for unsafe) of the rapids, Eye of the Needle, sending him swimming through the spinning water.

At the bottom of the rapid, he gladly climbed up back in his kayak. The guides were impressed. His mother was tense. Sam had a blast. "That was fantastic," he stated.

Yet the very best ride, as far as we were worried, was in the dories. Even Sam and 15-year-old Adam Mowery agreed. "The dories were outstanding," Adam stated.

Since the wooden boats are inflexible, they don't flex to the waves, making the highs much higher and the declines like a tiny roller rollercoaster. And for the best flight of all, the overviews allow us ride the bow. That suggests covering your legs around the prow, getting hold of onto a rope as well as riding the watercraft a like throwing bronco.

Comply with the sun.

Aside from the occasional white water, river days were comforting stretches of lazy rocking and recreation, framed by stunning landscapes of golden hills and also deep chasms. At the beginning, journey leader Dow had recommended we leave our watches behind. The sun became our clock, and also the plaintive note Dow blew on his conch covering our phone call to dishes.

We would pack up as well as press off after breakfast each early morning, after that invest two or 3 hrs on the river, occasionally dropping crazy for a swim to cool down. We would stop at a sandbar for lunch and more swimming or games, then go back to the river for a few more hrs.

We usually pulled up around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, which left a lot of time for onshore activities. The very first day established the tone. A number of papas tried their luck fishing while the rest of the grownups sought remedy for the 95-degree-plus heat as well as the kids horsed around at the water's edge. Later, someone began a Wiffle-ball video game. When wind blew the ball into the river, 13-year-old Amy Richer shouted, "Seventh-inning stretch!" as well as everyone delved into the trendy water.

Eventually, large clouds steamed up, bringing color as well as relief, thunder and also a couple of declines of rain. By early morning it was clear and dry.

The opening night, prior to we came down to the business of family members enjoyable, Dow talked about the threats of onshore life. It was rather tame things-- poison ivy, hornets, the rare brownish monk and also black widow spiders, as well as the rarer rattlesnakes. "This is important," Dow said solemnly. "Don't damage the animals. This is their home. We're visitors." Several of the moms and dads wished the guides' respect for the river and its locals would certainly abrade on their children.

" My youngsters are city youngsters," said Susan Mowery, the Indiana mommy of Adam and his sisters, Anna, 12, and also Abbi, 10. "I want to show them there's more to life than Disney Globe.".

Overview Matty Wilson, 28, aglow in the orange campfire light, took out a guitar and also, with fellow guides Sears and Thurbert, sang people as well as pop songs, some so old that even the parents identified them.

Soon the fire went out, leaving a soft night breeze, the audio of guitars, a big moon attempting to beam via the clouds and a group of pleased parents watching their children do something besides playing video games.

That was simply among lots of special shore-leave minutes. At that camping area, much of us had our toe nails repainted. Whittman, an art educator in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, when she's not a guide, established a salon in her raft. At the backside was a studio where the ladies and also a few of the more youthful young boys repainted rocks and also made sand art. In the center, she repainted toenails.

Having scientific research educator John Richer along on the river journey was an added reward. For Fuller, truths are fun, and also it had not been long after our departure that he obtained journey leader Dow to speak about the river and also its flow. At the time, it was running at a mild 7,000 cubic feet per second, or CFS, yet throughout floods, it ran greater than 100,000 CFS. Dow pointed out driftwood trees high up on the banks and also claimed, "Imagine the river that high. It's like a wild pet.".

Richer's favored minute on the trip, medically at least, came at a blackberry spot just listed below the mouth of the copper mine. He viewed amazed as one overview threw a berry 50 feet right into the mouth of another guide. And also it gave him an idea for a science laboratory, including the physics of throwing grapes (in the absence of blackberries).

There was no need to educate the physics of enjoyable; the kids on the trip were experts. By the second day, progressively certain in their brand-new environments, they were embarking on the plethoras right into the water to cool off. By the third day, they were swimming down a Course III rapid. Water splashing battles routinely burst out.

On Thursday afternoon as we came close to Heller Bar, our location, nobody wanted the trip to end. That night overviews and clients fulfilled for a farewell supper at a dining establishment near Lewiston, although two family members needed to change their travel plans to make it.

During salutes and also endorsements, Dow increased and promoted the overviews, claiming, "We wish the river spoke to you and offered you an unique present, since it does to us.".

As we left the dining establishment, family members were exchanging e-mail addresses and Whittman was painting minority staying blank finger nails left on the little girls.

Months before, when the Fullers had pitched the family rafting suggestion, Woody, with adolescent ridicule, called it "the stupid trip." Later, he had a new name for his rafting journey down the Lower Salmon River.

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pensarelvirus · 5 years ago

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On the Epidemic Situation / Alain Badiou

From the start, I thought that the current situation, characterised by a viral pandemic, was not particularly exceptional. From the (viral) pandemic of AIDS, and passing through the avian flu, the Ebola virus, and the SARS 1 virus – not to mention several flus, the appearance of strains of tuberculosis that antibiotics can no longer cure, or even the return of measles – we know that the world market, combined with the existence of vast under-medicalised zones and the lack of global discipline when it comes to the necessary vaccinations, inevitably produces serious and devastating epidemics (in the case of AIDS, several million deaths). Besides the fact that the current pandemic situation is having a huge impact on the rather comfortable so-called Western world – a fact in itself devoid of any novel significance, eliciting instead dubious laments and revolting idiocies on social media – I didn’t see why, beyond the obvious protective measures and the time that the virus would take to disappear in the absence of new targets, it was necessary to climb on one’s high horse.

What’s more, the true name of the ongoing epidemic should suggest that in a sense we are dealing with ‘nothing new under the contemporary sun’. This true name is SARS 2, that is ‘Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome 2’, a name that signals the ‘second time’ of this identification, after the SARS 1 epidemic, which spread around the world in Spring 2003. At the time, it was called ‘the first unknown illness of the 21st century’. It is clear then that the current epidemic is by no means the emergence of something radically new or unprecedented. It is the second of its kind this century and can be situated as the first’s descendant. So much so that the only serious criticism that can today be addressed to the authorities in matters of prediction is not to have funded, after SARS 1, the research that would have made available to the medical world genuine instruments of action against SARS 2.

So, I didn’t think there was anything to be done other than try, like everyone else, to isolate myself at home, and nothing to be said other than to encourage everyone else to do the same. Adhering to a strict discipline on this point is all the more necessary in that it provides support and fundamental protection for all those who are most exposed: all medical staff, of course, who are directly at the front, and who must be able to rely on a firm discipline, including on the part of the infected; but also all the most frail, like the elderly, especially those in care homes; as well as all those who have to go to work and run the risk of contagion. The discipline of those who can obey the imperative ‘stay home’ must also find and propose means for those who have barely any ‘home’ or none at all so that they may nevertheless find a secure shelter. One could envisage in this case a general commandeering of hotels.

It is true that these duties are increasingly urgent but, at least on initial examination, they do not require any great analytical efforts or the constitution of a new way of thinking.

But I am reading and hearing too many things, including in my immediate circles, that disconcert me both by the confusion they manifest and by their utter inadequacy to the – ultimately simple – situation in which we find ourselves.

These peremptory declarations, pathetic appeals and emphatic accusations take different forms, but they all share a curious contempt for the formidable simplicity, and the absence of novelty, of the current epidemic situation. Some are unnecessarily servile in the face of the powers that be, who are in fact simply doing what they are compelled to by the nature of the phenomenon. Others invoke the Planet and its mystique, which doesn’t do any good. Some blame everything on the unfortunate Macron, who is simply doing, and no worse than another, his job as head of state in times of war or epidemic. Others make a hue and cry about the founding event of an unprecedented revolution, whose relation to the extermination of a virus remains opaque – something for which our ‘revolutionaries’ are not proposing any new means whatsoever. Some sink into apocalyptic pessimism. Others are frustrated that ‘me first’, the golden rule of contemporary ideology, is in this case devoid of interest, provides no succour, and can even appear as the accomplice of an indefinite prolongation of the evil.

It seems that the challenge of the epidemic is everywhere dissipating the intrinsic activity of Reason, obliging subjects to return to those sad effects – mysticism, fabulation, prayer, prophecy and malediction – that were customary in the Middle Ages when plague swept the land.

As a result, I feel somewhat compelled to bring together some simple ideas. I would happily call them Cartesian.

Let us begin then by defining the problem, which has elsewhere been so poorly defined and thus so poorly treated.

An epidemic is rendered complex by the fact that it is always a point of articulation between natural and social determinations. Its complete analysis is transversal: one must grasp the points at which the two determinations intersect and draw the consequences.

For example, the initial fulcrum of the current epidemic is very probably to be found in the markets of Wuhan province. Chinese markets are known for their dangerous dirtiness, and for their irrepressible taste for the open-air sale of all kinds of living animals, stacked on top of one another. Whence the fact that at a certain moment the virus found itself present, in an animal form itself inherited from bats, in a very dense popular milieu, and in conditions of rudimentary hygiene.

The natural trajectory of the virus from one species to another thereby transits towards the human species. How exactly? We don’t know yet, and only scientific studies will tell us. Let us, in passing, revile all those who circulate typically racist fables online, backed up by counterfeit images, according to which everything stems from the fact that the Chinese eat bats when they’re still almost alive…

This local transit between animal species that eventually reaches human beings is the origin point of the whole affair. After which there simply operates a fundamental datum of the contemporary world: the rise of Chinese state capitalism to imperial rank, in other words an intense and universal presence on the world market. Whence innumerable networks of diffusion, evidently before the Chinese government was able to completely isolate the point of origin, namely an entire province with 40 million inhabitants – something it ultimately succeeded in doing, but too late to stop the epidemic from departing on the paths – and the planes, and the ships – of global existence.

Consider a revealing detail of what I call the double articulation of an epidemic: today, SARS 2 has been stifled in Wuhan but there are very many cases in Shanghai, in the main due to people, generally Chinese nationals, coming from abroad. China is thus a site in which one can observe the link – first for an archaic reason, then a modern one – between a nature-society intersection in ill-kept markets that followed older customs, on the one hand, and a planetary diffusion of this point of origin borne by the capitalist world market and its reliance on rapid and incessant mobility, on the other.

After which we enter the stage in which states try locally to stifle this diffusion. Let us remark in passing that this determination remains fundamentally local, while the epidemic is instead transversal. Despite the existence of some trans-national authorities, it is clear that it is local bourgeois states that are on the frontline.

We touch here on a major contradiction of the contemporary world. The economy, including the process of mass production of manufactured objects, comes under the aegis of the world market – we know that the simple assembly of a mobile phone mobilises work and resources, including mineral ones, in at least seven different states. And yet political powers remain essentially national in kind. And the rivalry between imperialisms, old (Europe and US) and new (China, Japan…) excludes any process leading to a capitalist world state. The epidemic is also a moment when the contradiction between economics and politics becomes flagrant. Even European countries are not managing promptly to adjust their policies in the face of the virus.

Prey to this contradiction, national states attempt to confront the epidemic situation by respecting as much as possible the mechanisms of Capital, even though the nature of the risk compels them to modify the style and the actions of power.

We’ve known for a long time that in the event of a war between countries, the state must impose, not only on the popular masses, as is to be expected, but on the bourgeoisie itself, considerable constraints, all in order to save local capitalism. Some industries are almost nationalised for the sake of an unbridled production of armaments that does not immediately generate any monetizable surplus value. Many bourgeois are mobilised as officers and exposed to death. Scientists work night and day to invent new weapons. Numerous intellectuals and artists are compelled to supply national propaganda, etc.

Faced with an epidemic this kind of statist reflex is inevitable. That is why, contrary to what some say, the declarations by Macron or Prime Minister Edouard Philippe regarding the return of the ‘welfare’ state, spending to support people out of work, or to aid the self-employed whose shops have been shut, demanding 100 or 200 billion from the state coffers, and even the announcement of ‘nationalisations’ – none of this is surprising or paradoxical. It follows that Macron’s metaphor, ‘we are at war’, is correct: in war or epidemic, the state is compelled, sometimes trespassing the normal run of its class nature, to undertake practices that are both more authoritarian and more generally targeted, in order to avoid a strategic catastrophe.

This is an entirely logical consequence of the situation, the aim of which is to stifle the epidemic – to win the war, to borrow once again Macron’s metaphor – with the greatest certainty possible, while remaining within the established social order. This is no laughing matter, it is a necessity imposed by the diffusion of a lethal process that intersects nature (whence the preeminent role of scientists in the matter) and the social order (whence the authoritarian intervention, and it couldn’t be otherwise, of the state).

That some massive lacunae appear in the midst of this effort is inevitable. Consider the lack of protective masks or the unpreparedness in terms of the duration of hospital isolation. But who can really boast of having ‘predicted’ this kind of thing? In certain regards, the state did not prevent the current situation, it’s true. We can even say that by weakening, decade after decade, the national health system, along with all the sectors of the state serving the general interest, it acted instead as though nothing akin to a devastating pandemic could affect our country. To this extent the state is very culpable, not only in its Macron guise, but in that of all who have come before him for at least the past thirty years.

But it is nonetheless correct to note here that no one had predicted, or even imagined, the emergence in France of a pandemic of this type, except perhaps for a few isolated scientists. Many probably thought that this kind of thing was good for dark Africa or totalitarian China, but not for democratic Europe. And it is surely not leftists – or gilets jaunes or even trade-unionists – who enjoy a particular right to hold forth on this point, and to continue to make a fuss about Macron, their derisory target for the last while. They too had absolutely not envisaged this. On the contrary, as the epidemic was already on its way from China, they multiplied, until very recently, uncontrolled assemblies and noisy demonstrations, which should disqualify them today, whoever they may be, from loudly condemning the delays taken by the powers that be in taking the full measure of what was happening. Truth be told, no political force in France really took this measure before the Macronian state.

On the side of this state, the situation is of the kind in which the bourgeois state must explicitly, publicly, make prevail interests that are in some sense more general than those of the bourgeoisie alone, while strategically preserving, in the future, the primacy of the class interests of which this state represents the general form. In other words, the conjuncture compels the state to manage the situation by integrating the interest of the class whose authorised representative it is with more general interests, on account of the internal existence of an ‘enemy’ that is itself general – in times of war this may be a foreign invader, while in the present situation it is the virus SARS 2.

This kind of situation (world war or world epidemic) is especially ‘neutral’ at the political level. The wars of the past have only triggered revolutions in two cases, which may be termed outliers with regard to the imperial powers of the time: Russia and China. In the Russian case, this was because Tsarist power was in every sense, and had been for a long time, retrograde, including as a power potentially adapted to the birth of a genuine capitalism in that immense country. And against it there existed, in the shape of the Bolsheviks, a modern political vanguard, strongly structured by remarkable leaders. In the Chinese case, internal revolutionary war preceded the world war, and the Chinese Communist Party was already, in 1940, at the head of a popular army that had been tried and tested. By contrast, in no Western power did the war trigger a victorious revolution. Even in the country that had been defeated in 1918, Germany, the Spartacist insurrection was quickly crushed.

The lesson to be drawn from this is clear: the ongoing epidemic will not have, qua epidemic, any noteworthy political consequences in a country like France. Even supposing that our bourgeoisie – in light of the inchoate grumbling and flimsy if widespread slogans – believes that the moment has come to get rid of Macron, that will in no way represent any change worthy of note. The ‘politically correct’ candidates are already waiting in the wings, as are the advocates of the most mildewed form of a ‘nationalism’ as obsolete as it is repugnant.

As for those of us who desire a real change in the political conditions of this country, we must take advantage of this epidemic interlude, and even of the – entirely necessary – isolation, to work on new figures of politics, on the project of new political sites, and on the trans-national progress of a third stage of communism after the brilliant one of its invention and the – interesting but ultimately defeated – stage of its statist experimentation.

We will also need to pass through a stringent critique of every perspective according to which phenomena like epidemics can work by themselves in the direction of something that is politically innovative. Over and above the general transmission of scientific data about the epidemic, a political charge will only be carried by new affirmations and convictions concerning hospitals and public health, schools and egalitarian education, the care of the elderly, and other questions of this kind. Only these might possibly be articulated with a balance-sheet of the dangerous weaknesses on which the current situation has shed light.

In passing, one will need to show publicly and dauntlessly that so-called ‘social media’ have once again demonstrated that they are above all – besides their role in fattening the pockets of billionaires – a place for the propagation of the mental paralysis of braggarts, uncontrolled rumours, the discovery of antediluvian ‘novelties’, or even fascistic obscurantism.

Let us not give credence, even and especially in our isolation, except to truths that are controllable by science and to the grounded perspectives of a new politics, of its localised experiences as well as its strategic aims.

Translated by Alberto Toscano

Fuente: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4608-on-the-epidemic-situation

Publicado 23/marzo/2020

#Alain Badiou #coronavirus #covid-19 #virus #crisis #filosofía #pensamiento #sociedad #Francia #france

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jaskaler-blog · 6 years ago

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11/12/18 - Research Proposal

My Object of Desire is a collection of Miniature Paintings from India. The British surgeon Thomas Holbein Hendley commissioned these paintings for his book “The Rulers of India and the Chiefs of Rajputana, 1550 to 1897”. They were given to the Oriental Museum by Hendley’s family in 1962. Rachel highlighted to me that they are grouped indiscriminately. The first set of miniature paintings are numbered DUROM.1962.251.a to DUROM.1962.251.j. Also included in my research are DUROM.1962.253.a - DUROM.1962.253.f. The next set are DUROM.1962.254.a, DUROM.1962.254.c (DUROM.1962.254.b does not exist). DUROM.1962.230 is a stand-alone miniature but not part of the book and of a Mughal emperor so whether or not it will be useful to my research is uncertain. The next set are DUROM.U208.A- DUROM.U208.D, DUROM.U208.E1, DUROM.U208.E2 (this is an ‘unidentified’ ink sketch on the back of a miniature painting), DUROM.U208.F - DUROM.U208.M. They appear to be grouped by region e.g. 1962.251 are rulers of the Birkaner State.

From the museum’s archives and some general research I have gathered that Dr Thomas Hendley first arrived in India in 1869. After developing an obsession for Indian art, he commissioned the book “The Rulers of India and the Chiefs of Rajputana, 1550 to 1897” which attempted to document previous and contemporary rulers of the then Rajputana area. These miniature paintings are the initial copies undertaken by Indian artists as they travelled the region. They range in size and shape but are generally oval. The 1962.251 series tend to be around 42mm wide and 53mm long, while the rest of the collection are slightly bigger and vary in size. The materials used are opaque water colour on paper. The purpose of these miniature paints is fascinating. They were copied again and thus further altered from their originals for Dr Hendley’s book, making them multifunctional. Their period (apart from the solitary Mughal emperor) is from 1850-1899.

My initial reaction to these discoveries was astonishment at the enormity of the task - India between 1550 – 1897 was a volatile country, with regions being drawn and redrawn and leaders succeeding as quickly as they were overthrown. Lands were united and divided in rapid succession. I also questioned the motives of Dr Hendley to wish to document and thus entrench the history of such a fluid region.

I went in to see Rachel with a few areas of interest but some concerns about each. My desire to study the miniature paintings originated from the object handling session where I was able to familiarise myself with them much more intimately. Rachel informed me that miniature portraits were supposed to be handled and not wall mounted. Through this handling I gained a new and true appreciation for them. I was able to hold them close to my eye and view previously concealed detail. From this point I was set on researching miniature paintings, but I was faced with a task of deciding from which period and region as they are an expansive art form.

My interest in Indian art is ubiquitous. It was heightened by attending the Empire of the Sikhs exhibition at SOAS over the summer. There was a focus on the regional rulers present before the arrival of the British, culminating in Maharaja Ranjit Singh. At this exhibition I saw my first ever miniature painting (though it was wall mounted). I was fascinated by the realisation that painting these portraits fractured religious boundaries. A painting of a Sikh maharaja had been painted by a Muslim artist using Hindu symbolism. This was captivating. As a result, when the subject of Indian miniatures arose in lectures my choice was clear. Furthermore, I was interested in discovering the motivations of Dr Hendley to consolidate the rulers of a region in this regimental way. The role of these paintings as guides for book illustrations was also a reason for my choice. After the initial lecture on the Westernisation of Eastern art, I recognised this transformation in the miniatures as they were placed into oval frames and different symbolism was adopted.

I met with Rachel at the Oriental Museum to assess the information already available on the paintings. It appeared from the online collection that there was a plethora of information, however, Rachel clarified that the information was mostly what was known of the objects at the time and only minimal research had been conducted on this specific series of miniature paintings since their arrival in 1962. Rachel gave me all the information that the museum has on these objects, approximately 30 pages of tables of descriptive information.

One discrepancy that was highlighted to me was the way the objects were catalogued. They are not all under a consistent numerical system. It may be that the portraits were divided up into groups, working from the book and then numbered differently. Hopefully once more information is known about the book the rational for this will be illuminated. Rachel informed me that little is known to the museum about the book. This peaked my interest and I am keen to follow this line of research and view a copy of the book.

I am keen to view an original copy of Dr Hendley’s book. This will this act as a valuable primary source to my research as I will be able to directly compare the miniature paintings in the Oriental Museum to their copies in the text. There are both 20th and 21st century copies of the text. A hard cover of the book was published in 2011 but is expensive to acquire. There is a copy of the book in the British Library which I will attempt to see over the Christmas holidays. An original from 1897 is also housed in the National Art library within the V&A. To gain some context of Dr Hendley’s book itself it would also be useful to read some articles in which it has been referenced. For example: ‘Sachdev, V. & Tillotson, G. Building Jaipur: The Making of an Indian City’. That a book of this time is still being used as a source could raise troubling questions as its reach and expertise is narrow, thus, understanding in which context it is referred to will be useful.

It would also be useful for me to comprehend the context and history of miniature paintings. For this studying Persian Miniatures through texts such as ‘Grabra, O. (1999), Mostly miniatures: An introduction to Persian Painting’ may be of use. It would also be useful for me to expand my knowledge of Indian art itself. For this, texts such as ‘Crill, R. (1990), Arts of India 1500-1900’ would be of use. Additionally, to explore the impact of empire on art: ‘King,C. & Dunbridge, N. (1999), Rabindranath Tagore: Making Modern Art in India before Independence’. ‘Mitter, P. (2001), Indian Art’ may also provide some relevant chapters. Finally, ‘Dimand, S. Persian and Indian Miniature Paintings’ is another article I will examine.

Comparing these miniatures with other Indian miniatures in the Oriental Museum’s collection such as ‘the Royal couple making love’ (DUROM.1976.291) would be a useful exercise. The varying use of colour and imagery would emphasise the functionality of this particular series of miniature paintings. This would illuminate the differences that are present in original, organic miniature paintings compared to those which were commissioned by foreigners.

I have contacted the V&A to be allocated a 90 minute session in which to observe the book. I have also enquired into whether there is anyone with expertise on the matter who could be of assistance while I am examining the object.

There are many avenues which my research may take. My initial interest lay in the concept of investigating an investigative piece. Whether this book which attempted to document regional rulers can be construed as art is an intriguing question and one that my research could undertake to answer. The book itself was attempting to document and discover, mirroring my current undertaking and the concept of illustrations as an art form is debated.

I could use these miniature paintings as a stepping stone to investigate the art form more expansively. Their scope is massive; differing culturally, thematically and chronologically. My interest in Mughal and Persian miniature painting would complement this path of research. The multitude of symbolism present in miniature paintings was highlighted to be both at the exhibition mentioned above and in lectures.

I am however keen to continue investigating Dr Hendley’s book itself. The motivations and desires behind its creation are fascinating when gleamed alongside the contemporaneous struggle for domination by the British Empire. I would be intrigued to research the scope of this book - are there others of its kind? How and why was it funded? Did it serve a purpose at the time beyond Dr Hendley’s fascination? The desire to understand and document the fluid and disorganised regional rulers of this foreign land is intriguing and indicative of a people who thought themselves superior.

Alternatively, my research could undertake a more artistic evaluation of the physical differences between the miniatures in the Oriental Museum, the paintings in the book and the originals (if any are known). Comparing these would raise numerous questions about how art evolves and transforms with the movement of people and goods. The evolution of the portraits and the shifts in colour and shape would provide a plethora of research options.

After the object handling session and the subsequent realisation that miniature paintings (in their frequent role as illustrations to text) are supposed to be handled, I wished to further investigate this concept. As art resurfaced across the globe, our interaction with it was also altered. Paintings in the west are most commonly wall hung. The intimate experience of handling the paintings and bringing them close to the eye is therefore lost – this is a concept I would be keen to research.

I could also use these miniatures to investigate the nature of the original paintings that these miniatures were painted from. The answer to the question is not known to the Oriental Museum and it is likely to have been a range of paintings. After consulting with Rachel I understand that they too would have likely been miniature paintings as this was the predominate art form of the time. Whether any of these survive is a tantalising question.

I will begin by viewing the book as this will help me to decide which of the above avenues of research I am most interested in. Hopefully, with the help of an expert in Indian miniature paintings or of India at this time I will gleam which avenue will provide me with the most expansive research opportunities.

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