#group recrimination

[freeuselandonorris]

❤️ here to request lando/max f, first kiss... pls :)

tysm this is the perfect prompt for nortrell!! i ended up doing a kinda 5+1 here ig? five times they could've kissed and one time they did? idk~

It could have happened years ago, is the thing. Almost has, a couple of times.

There’d been a few nights even back when they weren’t much more than kids, sharing the tiny, basic hotel rooms Ricky Flynn rented out for them after kart races. Nights when they’d watched Naruto on DVD on Lando’s tiny little laptop, cross-legged on the same bed, and Lando would rest his head on Max’s shoulder to see the screen better, so close his breath warmed Max’s cheek. 

Or the first night out they’d had after Lando signed his F1 contract. They’d gone out drinking – the last big night, Lando said, because he’d have to be good from now on, had a reputation to think about – with Theo and a group of Lando’s other mates, some Max knew, some he didn’t. It had all been a bit of a blur after the sambuca shots, apart from the feeling of Lando’s arms around his neck as Max spun him round, whooping. Half a dickhead attempt to make him sick, half genuine delight. Lando’s mouth had smeared wet and slick across Max’s cheek, over his top lip. Max’s breath had stuttered in his chest and he’d dropped Lando from his arms. Lando had bumped his chin off Max’s shoulder, spilling his vodka cranberry down Max’s arm in the process. 

And there’d been lockdown, of course, when they’d seen barely anyone but each other for months on end and sometimes it hadn’t seemed to matter much what they did, because nothing was ever going to be the same anyway. The nights they’d fallen asleep curled in the same bed. Waking with Lando’s sweaty face pressed into the hollow between Max’s shoulder blades. The way Lando stopped bothering to shut his bedroom door fully even when he was wanking, and Max just got used to the sound of his soft, hitching breaths as he walked past to go for a piss. Their tangled limbs on the sofa. Entire days spent watching the Fast and the Furious movies in chronological order because there was fuck all else to do. Lando running his toes idly up and down Max’s bare calf.

The closest they’d come – the most dangerous night of all – had been after everything went tits up with Luisa. Halfway through a night of pizza and self-recrimination, where Max hadn’t done much but occasionally say hmm and yeah but you know what girls are like, mate, Lando had turned to him with a wild and desperation expression and said I just want – I want to not feel like this for a bit, I want to not have any thoughts. I want to not think about it. Max had swallowed hard and patted his knee, shuffled off to the fridge and returned with beers.

Lando’s career goes from strength to strength. Their paths cross every few months. Every time, Max feels the phantom pull of their bodies. Lando’s eyes on his face, tracing a well-worn path from his eyes to his mouth and back again.

Max realises he can’t remember any of the reasons why this is a bad idea.

When he finally lets it happen, it’s almost an anticlimax. There’s no reason for it. No special occasion. Just Max, on Lando’s sofa in his untidy Monaco apartment that smells of cleaning products and cologne. Stone cold sober, apparently in full possession of his sanity. Turning to Lando midway through PSG v Dortmund extra time, and pressing their mouths together. Simple as that.

It’s soft. Just a gentle touch of their lips. He feels Lando’s inhale, the tiny wet point of his tongue-tip. 

He pulls back just enough to look Lando in the eye. Lando blinks. He doesn’t look shocked. 

“Mate,” he says, a breathy giggle. “What took you so long?”

[amuseoffyre]

Thinking again (thanks to the dead bird site) about Stede rebooting his worst day ever, aka the traumatic flashback he has multiple times across both season, only this time he gets the acceptance and approval he has craved for his entire life.

The Worst Day Ever is the day his father teaches him to kill, slaughtering a goose and spraying blood all over little Stede's face. He then grabs his son by the arm and drags him out to verbally excoriate him and tell him he is worthless and useless, "a soft-handed, weak-hearted, lily-livered little rich boy".

Faced with the prospect of killing for the first time sends Stede into a panic spiral including that flashback.

It's referenced again throughout the season, but especially in 1x02, loosely in the fever dream in 1x04 (he was scared of geese for Christ's sake!), and 1x09, when Stede is struggling with his guilt, self-recriminations and self-doubts and also being confronted directly by Chauncey.

But the most significant return of the Worst Day Ever flashback is immediately after Stede kills Ned Low, his first real deliberate kill.

Our man is very much Not Okay. The fact that this memory is front and centre shows exactly how much that day - that moment - impacted on him decades on.

He does his usual thing when he's upset - isolates and closes himself away somewhere else, shutting himself down and using the tried and true conceal-don't-feel approach.

The difference this time is that someone comes after him to offer him emotional support, comfort and care (much like Ed did on the beach in 2x09, and this time, more kisses as well). So for a little while at least, Stede is distracted and wrapped up in Ed's affections and can put Ned's death to the back of his mind.

But the trouble arises when they get to the Republic and suddenly, for the first time in his life, he's being praised and celebrated. And, of all the people for him to gravitate towards, he ends up choosing to spend his time in the company of Blood-bucket Bill, an older man in a blood-smeared leather apron, who keeps telling him how cool and amazing he is.

And, after Stede kills in front of him, we get another twisted up mirror of the Worst Day Ever. Instead of his dad dragging him out to humiliate him, Bloodbucket Bill grabs him by the arm and hauls him up and tells everyone "the Gentleman Pirate is the fuckin' dude"

And as the episode continues and Ed leaves, Stede retreats to the bar with Bill, trying to take comfort from the man who has been telling him how good he is all day.

"At least you like me for me," he says to the deranged blood-smeared groupie. "Bonnet, I'd fuckin' die for you" Bill tells him and you can see that it isn't bringing the assurance Stede thought it would.

And to ice the cake, even when he's holding onto those last little vestiges of "yay I'm cool", Izzy shows up and dismisses Bill with three words and Bill doesn't even try to stay. "I'll fuckin' die for you" becomes "yes, right away, Mr Hands".

And the framing. omg the framing in the scene. It is, once again, a deliberate and pointed call back to Stede's Worst Day Ever. Once again, an older man is looming over him and Stede is just waiting to have emotional strips ripped out of him again ("have you come for your victory lap?"). This is the first and only time I can think of Izzy looking taller than anyone, especially Stede.

But unlike the horrendous abuse he got from his father, the abuse Stede expects yet again, the same old patterns happening over and over, Izzy changes the script and tells him "I think you're good for him. You balance each other out".

And if not for a group of his crew - his family - choosing to leave him as well, it might have been enough. But when he's already fragile over the loss of one person precious to him and reassured that he's good for people after all, the threat of losing more of his beloved people pushes him straight back into the reckless behaviour that has filled the rest of his day.

(brb wailing into a pillow that we won't get to see him have a chance to process any of this stuff)

[anarchywoofwoof]

People in the U.S. are preoccupied with voting to an unhealthy degree. This is not to say that everyone votes, or thinks voting is effective or worthwhile; on the contrary, a smaller and smaller proportion of the eligible population votes every election year, and that’s not just because more and more people are in prison. But when you broach the question of politics, of having a say in the way things are, voting is just about the only strategy anyone can think of—voting, and influencing others’ votes.

Could it be this is why so many people feel so disempowered? Is anonymously checking a box once a year, or every four years, enough to feel included in the political process, let alone play a role in it?

But what is there besides voting? In fact, voting for people to represent your interests is the least efficient and effective means of applying political power. The alternative, broadly speaking, is acting directly to represent your interests yourself. This is known in some circles as “direct action.”

Direct action is occasionally misunderstood to mean another kind of campaigning, lobbying for influence on elected officials by means of political activist tactics; but it properly refers to any action or strategy that cuts out the middle man and solves problems directly, without appealing to elected representatives, corporate interests, or other powers.

Concrete examples of direct action are everywhere. When people start their own organization to share food with hungry folks, instead of just voting for a candidate who promises to solve “the homeless problem” with tax dollars and bureaucracy, that’s direct action.

When a man makes and gives out fliers addressing an issue that concerns him, rather than counting on the newspapers to cover it or print his letters to the editor, that’s direct action.

When a woman forms a book club with her friends instead of paying to take classes at a school, or does what it takes to shut down an unwanted corporate superstore in her neighborhood rather than deferring to the authority of city planners, that’s direct action, too.

Direct action is the foundation of the old-fashioned can-do American ethic, hands-on and no- nonsense. Without it, hardly anything would get done. In a lot of ways, direct action is a more effective means for people to have a say in society than voting is.

For one thing, voting is a lottery—if a candidate doesn’t get elected, then all the energy his constituency put into supporting him is wasted, as the power they were hoping he would exercise for them goes to someone else. With direct action, you can be sure that your work will offer some kind of results; and the resources you develop in the process, whether those be experience, contacts and recognition in your community, or organizational infrastructure, cannot be taken away from you.

Voting consolidates the power of a whole society in the hands of a few politicians; through force of sheer habit, not to speak of other methods of enforcement, everyone else is kept in a position of dependence. Through direct action, you become familiar with your own resources and capabilities and initiative, discovering what these are and how much you can accomplish.

Voting forces everyone in a movement to try to agree on one platform; coalitions fight over what compromises to make, each faction insists that they know the best way and the others are messing everything up by not going along with their program. A lot of energy gets wasted in these disputes and recriminations. In direct action, on the other hand, no vast consensus is necessary: different groups can apply different approaches according to what they believe in and feel comfortable doing, which can still interact to form a mutually beneficial whole.

People involved in different direct actions have no need to squabble, unless they really are seeking conflicting goals (or years of voting have taught them to fight with anyone who doesn’t think exactly as they do). Conflicts over voting often distract from the real issues at hand, as people get caught up in the drama of one party against another, one candidate against another, one agenda against another. With direct action, on the other hand, the issues themselves are raised, addressed specifically, and often resolved.

Voting is only possible when election time comes around.

Direct action can be applied whenever one sees fit.

Voting is only useful for addressing whatever topics are current in the political agendas of candidates, while direct action can be applied in every aspect of your life, in every part of the world you live in.

Voting is glorified as “freedom” in action. It’s not freedom— freedom is getting to decide what the choices are in the first place, not picking between Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

Direct action is the real thing. You make the plan, you create the options, the sky’s the limit.

Ultimately, there’s no reason the strategies of voting and direct action can’t both be applied together. One does not cancel the other out. The problem is that so many people think of voting as their primary way of exerting political and social power that a disproportionate amount of everyone’s time and energy is spent deliberating and debating about it while other opportunities to make change go to waste. For months and months preceding every election, everyone argues about the voting issue, what candidates to vote for or whether to vote at all, when voting itself takes less than an hour.

Vote or don’t, but get on with it!

Remember how many other ways you can make your voice heard. This being an election year, we hear constantly about the options available to us as voters, and almost nothing about our other opportunities to play a decisive role in our society. What we need is a campaign to emphasize the possibilities more direct means of action and community involvement have to offer. These need not be seen as in contradiction with voting.

We can spend an hour voting once a year, and the other three hundred sixty four days and twenty three hours acting directly! Those who are totally disenchanted with representative democracy, who dream of a world without presidents and politicians, can rest assured that if we all learn how to apply deliberately the power that each of us has, the question of which politician is elected to office will become a moot point.

They only have that power because we delegate it to them! A campaign for direct action puts power back where it belongs, in the hands of the people from whom it originates.

(Crimethinc, 2004)

[scotianostra]

August 23rd 1305 saw the Judicial murder of the Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace on King Edwards orders after a sham trial for treason, at The Elms, Smithfield, London.

Wallace is said to have accepted his execution without resistance and a brave heart. He even made a final confession to a priest and read from the book of Psalms before his punishment. His naked body was wrapped in an ox hide to prevent him being ripped apart, thereby shortening the torture, he was dragged by horses four miles through London to Smithfield.London. Bystanders pelted him with garbage and excrement and even hit him with sticks and whips.

The method of William Wallace’s “execution” was not unusual for the era, it was the norm for treasonous acts, the point is, Wallace was never an English subject, Edward was not his King so as he is said to have uttered at his trial in reply to the charge….

“I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject.”

He was hung briefly but not killed, the executioner may have sliced off Wallace’s manhood and disemboweled him while forcing him to watch. His intestines were likely burned before his eyes. Miraculously, Wallace may still have been alive. As is the English execution custom, his heart would have been gouged out from his chest. If the executioner was skilled enough, it would have still been beating upon removal, and he would have yelled, “Behold the heart of a traitor!” Then, Wallace would have been beheaded post-mortem. His head was then displayed on a spike on the London bridge. The rest of Wallace’s body was chopped into four pieces, a torture practice known as “being quartered,” his limbs were sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Perth and Stirling as a warning to dissenters.

Three of these locations seem undisputed. But the fourth part is sometimes disputed, Stirling is my own assumption, the place of his greatest victory, Edward would have seen it as symbolic, but Aberdeen has been suggested, the Wikipedia entry for St Machar’s Cathedral says “After the execution of William Wallace in 1305, his body was cut up and sent to different corners of the country to warn other dissenters.

His left quarter ended up in Aberdeen and is buried in the walls of the cathedral.” But the wiki entry for Wallace says different as stated it mentions Stirling.

The Society of William Wallace tells us this…..

“Following Wallace’s execution and dismemberment, one quarter of his mutilated body was displayed on the repaired and rebuilt Stirling Bridge. No doubt this was thought by the English overlords to be a fitting place to show off their grim trophy. And this is where the legend starts……Wallace had links through his uncle to the monks at Cambuskenneth. At that time, the church was far more militant than nowadays, and many church leaders (and no doubt their subordinates) were fiercely loyal to Scotland and the cause of freedom. The legend states that a group of these monks issued from the Abbey one dark night and retrieved the remains of Wallace’s body, with the intention of giving it a Christian burial inside the grounds of the Abbey itself, and this they did, telling no-one outside the Abbey of their actions, which would have brought fatal recriminations upon the Abbey. Longshanks was known to be no respecter of the Church. ”

William Wallace died a brutal death. His name and fame did not. He lives on not only in Scotland and England but all over the world.

On the 700th anniversary of his execution at Smithfield ,David R. Ross, Convenor of The Society of William Wallace, walked from Robroyston to Londond and at St Bartholomew the Great Church st Smithfield, close to the place he was murdered, a funeral service was held for Sir William.

His memorial close by includes the words:

"I tell you the truth, son, freedom is the best condition, never live like a slave."

"Victory or Death."

[milkywayes]

dreamt a cipher

a shepard/garrus post-destroy ending longfic.

[AO3 link]

I’ve debated a while about when to start posting this. Now it’s the new year, and I’ve been working on Cipher for over a year and a half, and I’ve waited long enough to start sharing it with you all. I’ve decided it’s finally time to start uploading while I work on the final chapters.

I started writing this before I ever drew a single piece of fanart for Mass Effect. It’s all the things that were bouncing around in my head after choosing the destroy ending with a mostly-paragon Shepard—consequence and responsibility and self-recrimination; her relationship with Garrus and with herself; their ties to each other and how much weight they can bear; their differing perspectives and how they slot together—all that fun stuff—compressed into a story, a place, a narrative. 

I believe in the power of love, and I promise a happy ending. They’ve just been taking the long way to get there. Feel free to yell at me in the meantime.

A huge thank you to @callista-curations for her meticulous and invaluable beta work, and to @that-wildwolf and @gammaraydeath for being the best hypemen I could ask for!

A more detailed list of warnings can be found on AO3.

I've posted the full cover art here.

────

Summary:

Pairing: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian Rating: M (subject to change) Important Tags: post-destroy ending - angst with a happy ending - slow burn (of sorts) - arguing - reconciliation - survivor guilt - minor original characters Her own personal Noverian peak. That’s what it was supposed to be. Nothing but the discovery: no distractions, no comfort, no windows looking out—no familiar faces. But it's starting to look like her winning streak might have ended in that pile of Citadel rubble, if it ever extended that far to begin with. ──── “How does the Earth idiom go? No use beating a dead—” A long-suffering sigh. “What was it again?” “A dead horse. And yet, you’re here. Beating it.” Pot, kettle. She wishes he’d just fucking say it.

-> AO3.

Read the start of Chapter 1: Constant Velocity under the cut!

────

The overhead lights flicker as they always do when the data screens are up and running. It’s not something one gets used to, even so. It stings at her ocular nerves—or something like that, anyway, somewhere along the delicate wires that extend from her eyeballs into her brain—but her focus on the data doesn’t waver.

“In that case,” says Shepard, squinting against the ache, “what we need is salvage from a relay outside the immediate burst zone. Four jumps away. Five, if possible. There’s no point to any of this if we can’t scrape together a control group.”

She glances back at Elsawy, who so far hasn’t made it more than a meter into the room. She nods without looking up from her omni-tool; orange shimmers off her shiny, black hair, giving her the uncomfortable air of a Cerberus operative. Not the worst comparison, except that Miranda would waste no time letting her know if her logic took a faulty turn somewhere. Elsawy’s just as likely to agree now and write a message detailing all her crap conclusions later.

Leaning her hip against the conference table, Shepard shifts her weight off her left leg, bites down on the sigh that almost manages to slip out. Once in the clear, she grouses, “Where the hell is Meyer? He’s the one that called this meeting.”

As it is, it’s three people in attendance and she’s the only one talking. She could’ve achieved the same results with a voice call from her quarters, where she could elevate her leg in peace and without witnesses. In the dark.

“Lab Two,” answers Elsawy, finally ripping her attention off the omni-screen and gracing Shepard with a second of eye contact. Maybe in another life she could appreciate the effort—Jesus, as if she hasn’t had her fill of lives already. “We’re close to a breakthrough on the initial output patterns. Sorry. He’s been feeding his data to me.”

“Right.” She blinks once, twice, in time with the flickering. It doesn’t help; it never does. “I’ll swing by later, then. Anything else he asked you to relay?” 

“Just that, Commander.” Elsawy is mumbling just enough that her voice has to compete with the drone of the air vents. The translator takes a second to filter out and amplify it. The result is less than perfect: “More salvage—” bzzrt—“bigger picture, you got it.” She narrows her eyes, and Shepard raises a brow. “Left leg or—” bzz!—“left hip?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Commander.”

“It’s nothing relevant,” she says pleasantly, forcing herself to stand up straight again. There’s a brief tremor shaking up her hamstrings; she waves a hand to distract from it. In the frenzy of the lights, the movement looks jerky, nervous. She soldiers on. “Old field injury. Unrelated. Anything can set it off.”

Funny, kind of, since it’s that very leg that ends in the most perfect, cooperative example of a foot she’s ever had the pleasure of treading on. It’s cloned; a replacement. Not the only one either. They should’ve just done away with the whole limb, but she hadn’t been consulted. Same with her trick shoulder. Not even Cerberus had managed to get that one back on the straight and narrow.

“I’d rather you bring it up with the doctor,” replies Elsawy. This is, apparently, what it takes for her to finally speak at a reasonable volume. “If we manage to fill even one of the data gaps…”

“I know,” she says. “I know, and I’m telling you, it’s unrelated.”

-> continue reading on AO3

[otherperson12]

Masters of the Air: The Angels of Death

Chapter 1: Part One

Disclaimer: Bucky being Bucky and a simp. Buck being tired of Bucky.

Thank you @infernal-hues

Bucky was satisfied with the newcomers. The beautiful ginger caught his eye. She had all his attention. By the words of the other girls, she seemed like a good pilot. That was a plus to her beauty. He had never been with a ginger before.

Buck had heard a little between the COs’ and everything looked fine.

Until supper.

“I can’t believe you both kept it from me!” Curt recriminated to the duo.

The news spread like fire. The only information going around was (and the only one that seemed to matter) about some beautiful singles —that was a regalement— skirts were in the base to stay.

When Curt heard, he knew Bucky (and obviously Buck) knew before anyone, so he went to them demanding some information.

Bucky laughed, “You can’t be mad at me. You love me too much.” He said with dove eyes at Curt and blowing kisses.

Buck laughed at them. “You were going to know sooner or later, Curt.”

That was supposed to be some kind of apology. But he did not want that.

“Why are they here?”, Curt asked.

Good question.

They both looked at Bucky who just winked at them.

══════════════════

The interrogation was the perfect excuse to get better coffee than the regular G.I Joe one.

Colonel Elizabeth Nixon was the CO of the 1st Female Fighter Pilot Group: The Angels of Death. She was one of the first female pilots in the Air Force and she won her rank from the bottom even when her family could have paid for it. The girls respected her as a their leader.

“Girls, listen up!”, she called from the center of the room, once the interrogation was done. Everyone looked at her. “As you may know, we will get into combat soon,” some cheers, “We are going to be stationed here at East Anglia with the 100th Bomber Group.” she informed. “Our mission is to protect this side of Great Britain island and not let the nazis get into London.” Then she had to drop the bomb. Ironic. “At the same time, we have orders to escort the bombers in every mission as needed.”

WHAT?!

That was the first thing it came out of the boys’ mouth when they got the news.

After lunch, they all reunited in the conference room. Huglin had told them. Bucky was trying to hide his smile. And not look at Buck and Curt or he would really laugh.

“Those orders come from the upper command. It will help us to complete our missions and reduce the number of casualties.” He explained. “You just do what you’ve been training for so we can win the war. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir!”

══════════════════

Brianna did not want to be a babysitter.

“Just imagine their faces.” Priya suggested with a malicious smile.

Captain Priya Pilanka was from New Delhi, a squad leader like Brianna. She was as respected as hated just for her culture. The both of them bonded over their resentment for the british so they joined the yanks instead of having the UK flag in their uniform.

“This is not how I imagined it.” Brianna commented.

Priya knew what she meant. First, they did not want to wait more to go and fight, she felt anxious. And second…

“Giving you, women, a plane and a weapon don’t make you a soldier. You are just that. A woman who came to help, not to serve your country.” Brianna quoted under her breath.

Priya heard. She remembers those words very well. Their first day in training, almost two years ago.

Priya stiffed a little, “We just have to focus on flying and get the job done.”

They started walking to their new barracks when a voice called.

“Pilanka, Ross.”

Both girls turned and found Lieutenant Colonel Margarita Flores, (‘Mama’ for the girls) from Chile. She was a sweet woman, always taking care of everyone like a mother. She was a little worried about the news.

They salute her.

“How are you both?”, she asked sweetly.

“Anxious to get in the sky, ma’am.” Priya responded for them both.

Lt. Flores looked at Brianna, “I know is not what you expected. But don’t worry about it. You are better than any man. You are Angels, the best of the best.” She reassured them with a sweet smile. “I’m sure we’ll get a mission soon, so I want you both to get settled and go to eat. You are dismissed.” She ordered.

At the barracks, 1st Lt. Louisa ‘Lou’ Breaux had saved them both a bed next to hers. The three of them were a particular trio: the quiet scottish, the spicy indian, and the cute witch.

Lou was another squad leader, from Lafayette, Louisiana. And probably a witch. When she said it was going to rain, the sky seemed to melt. When she asked for a sunny day in the middle of the winter, the sun would appear as if spring had come earlier.

“I got your sheets and your foot lockers.” Lou informed.

“Thank you, Lou.” Brianna gratefully, appreciated. Lou smiled at her.

══════════════════

Brianna was very excited about the idea of having a weekend pass so she could go to Edinburgh. After eating, she wrote a letter to her uncle, telling him she was back in Europe.

She walked around the camp looking for the post office. She did not want to ask for directions. The walk which supposedly was going to be calm, turned out to be the complete opposite.

“Hey, sweetheart!”

“Carrot! Do the drapes match the carpet?”

That one made her blush in embarrassment , but mostly boil herblood in pure rage. The cat calling continued until…

“Hey!”

The calls stopped. So did she.

“That’s enough!” Some man ordered in pure anger.

It wasn’t a deep voice, but so firm it made her almost stand at attention.

Brianna was able to hear the scold.

She took her chance to run away from the situation. The ginger walked as fast and calm as she could. The last thing she wanted to do was draw more attention to herself.

She heard someone walking right at her 6 o’clock, following her. At her left she found the post office and quickly entered.

══════════════════

Bucky was walking around looking for troubles (Buck was sleeping and he did not want to third wheel Curt and some nurse), when he found them.

Well, he actually found her.

For Bucky it was the perfect chance to introduce himself to the newcomer. Until he heard the other soldiers.

He stepped in, did his thing and when he turned to her, she was walking away. Odd. So he followed the red head to the post office. And there she was, completely curved in some papers.

“Good afternoon, Major Egan.” The sergeant behind the counter greeted him.

“How are you, Tommy.”

Bucky saw her stand back little by little and face him slowly. She looked at him and his collar and stood more straight than before. She saluted him.

That had an interesting effect on John.

“That’s not necessary ma’am.” Bucky informed quickly.

Brianna put her arm down. She felt trapped. She delivered the letter and she wanted to go, but he was in the way.

Those small blue eyes were watching her intensely. It made her uncomfortable so she looked down to her feet.

John took his sweet time observing her. Her red hair was in a classic updo with her green cap, her straight pointy nose and small mouth. She had changed her flying uniform for her dress uniform.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. For what happened.” Bucky explained himself, pointing to the door.

Brianna opened her mouth and closed it, then she talked. “I am sir, thank you.”

Silence.

“Let me walk you to your quarters. So there’s no more incidents.” He offered.

‘I’ve spent too much time with Buck. I’m losing my charm.’ He thought.

“That’s not necessary, sir.”

“I insist.” He added quickly.

Silence again.

“If you let me, sir, It would not be appropriate.” Brianna explained trying to get him to let her go on her own.

“If someone asks I’ll explain the situation.” He reassured her.

‘How insisting!’, she thought.

John felt over the moon hearing her voice for the first time, small and cautious. He knew that his insistence on accompanying her was part of his desire to be with her. Normally, he would drink, pick a girl and take her to bed and that's it (and with that, he had gotten his own haters club) but she didn't even want to look at him.

“Let me walk you.” He said again.

Brianna knew he was not going to let her go.

“Alright.” She finally said.

In his mind, Bucky was doing a little victory dance. He tried to look normal, but a smile slipped to his face.

He moved from the door and opened it so she could go in first.

══════════════════

Brianna and John walked the first twenty steps in complete silence. Until he opened his mouth.

“I’m John. John Egan. But everyone calls me ‘Bucky’”, he introduced himself looking at her.

Brianna took her eyes off the road to look at him briefly. She noticed his small blue eyes, which had a little mischief in them.

“Lieutenant Ross, Brianna Ross.”

Five steps more in silence.

“So you are a pilot.” Bucky said.

‘Doesn’t he have an off button?’, she thought a little desperately. She didn’t like being talked to, she didn’t like to talk.

“Yes, sir. I’m a squad leader .” She informed.

“Squad leader! That sounds important.” Bucky said impressed.

Brianna was irritated with the situation because obviously she had to answer to a ranking officer.

“I just do my job, sir.”

Bucky being Bucky, could not tell if she was just quiet and shy or she was getting pissed with him.

“You aren’t American.” He punctuated.

Brianna had spent years of her life trying to sound less Scottish, it looks like it did not work.

“Aye…” She said slowly, looking him in the corner of her eye.

Brianna found him already looking at her, a cocky smile and eyes full of mischief. She blushed as red as her hair, again, for being caught.

Embarrassed and now pissed, she walked faster trying to lose him.

He was having the time of his life, completely enamored by her cute reaction. She was shy, was his conclusion and maybe a little short tempered. John just followed her trying to be at her side again.

“Hey! Wait!”, he called. “I’m sorry!” He apologized. But she kept walking with her head down.

John saw her turn left, and then he saw a bunch of women hanging out of the quarters.

Everyone turned their heads as Brianna nearly ran into the quarters and slammed the door closed.

Then the eyes turned to him.

“Hi.”

He stood there just looking at the door, hands in his hips and a smile on his face. He chuckled.

Bucky started to walk away with intentions to go tell Buck when the door slammed open, a full round of laughter and calling. Brianna ran out hiding her face in her hands, the tips of her ears boiling red.

She was followed by Priya, who was mocking her and Lou, happy as ever, jumping with every step.

“Don’ worry, major. You’ll see her’ again’!”, Lou informed.

He snorted, “I’ll really like that.”

══════════════════

“I swear to god, John, if you interrupt me one more time I’ll drop you in Berlin myself.” Buck warned him, eyes still in his book.

“That book will mean nothing when I tell you what just happened.”

Gale looks up to his best friend. A few hours prior when Bucky had said something similar, life at East Anglian had changed.

“Bucky”, Gale called at John.

“Yeah?”

“Leave those ladies alone”

Bucky laughed.

“Not any time soon”.

He walked away, but he stopped at the door.

“Brianna.” Bucky said.

Gale looked at him, not understanding.

“The name of my future wife, Brianna.”

‘Maybe Curt or Crank would like to hear about her’.

══════════════════

Final notes

First of all, I’m not Indian (my heritage is from all over the world) but I wanted to add a little of cultural variety. I once meet an Indian girl and she was like Priya. Strong and spicy.

[lambsouvlaki]

For the Hell of It - Date Night

Characters: Jason Todd x fem!oc

Rating and warnings: G, no warnings.

Word count: 1,237

Summary: Dating a vigilante is hard, but worth it. Early on their relationship, she has to face that.

Masterlist

--------

On an early autumn night they strolled across Robinson park. Actors in Elizabethan costume were prancing around the low concrete stage, doing some warm-up crowd work. Jason’s arm was slung over her shoulder, and her dog Marlow trotted happily alongside them. 

They weren’t great at the actual Dating aspect of dating just yet. It was still early days, and they had sidled into being together by following the same trajectory as their friendship, now with sex. They supported and trusted each other, they were both loyal and committed. They had already had two years to figure all that out. 

Romantic nights out had been planned, postponed, and cancelled. Andy had eaten alone at a restaurant booked for two, not to know until later that Jason was fighting Killer Croc in a cage match. The week after he was blowing up an exotic animal trafficking ring before the major players could flee to south america. 

He was apologetic and self recriminating. She could already see the barbed little seeds of ‘can this even work?’ trying to take root in his mind. 

But she wasn’t a quitter. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to stand her up. It wasn’t even in the first five, and she’d long since made her peace with it. It just felt more calamitous because now it was called a date. 

It wasn’t a big deal, she decided. If other people could make it work, the partners of firefighters, nurses, other on-call professionals, then Wonder Woman help her, she could too. 

Despite telling herself it wasn’t a big deal and she wasn’t worried, when Friday night swung around: bright, warm, and dry she let out an audible sigh of relief. 

The light was swiftly dying but the park was surprisingly busy. It was the last Shakespeare in the Park of the year, and there were food trucks and little battery-powered candles for sale. Families and couples of all ages milled about looking for good spots. A polite group of children came over and asked if they could pet their dog, to said dog’s eternal happiness. 

“I propose a strategy,” Andy said.

“Hit me.” 

“We split up to look for clues, and by clues I mean the best food trucks. That yellow one has empanadas, and we passed a flag before that said something about paella.”

He nodded seriously. “You take Marlow, I’ll take the backpack, and we’ll meet back here in ten.” 

They broke off like fighter jets zooming away, and roughly ten minutes later they returned with arms full of delicious smelling cardboard boxes. They set up their picnic blanket on the slope some distance from the stage where they had a good view of the whole area. They’d arrived at the perfect time, because the park was filling up. 

They sat on the ground and laid out the spoils of their hunt, just as the show was starting. 

The empanadas were sold out, but they had choripan instead, which Andy picked up for Jason. The paella was with shrimp and mussels, and was absolutely delicious, if a little small. Jason had found Korean fried chicken, and little skewered things called tteokkochi that neither were familiar with but were excited to try. 

It was a confused and messy dinner that they dove into with relish, and some negotiations over final bites. 

Getting the choripan was a strategic move on her part, because Jason was a sucker for anything in the neighbourhood of a hotdog. The fried chicken was the perfect counter, he knew her weaknesses. The tteokkochi turned out to be deep fried rice cakes slathered in sweet and tangy hot sauce, that had them both licking sticky fingers and promising to try them again some time. 

Up on stage a short performance of the play within a play from Midsummer Night’s Dream was finishing up. 

Next up, and the main show for the night, was an abridged version of Much ado Nothing. Jason scrunched up their food packages and lobbed it into the nearby trash can, and Andy got out the thermos of non-alcoholic mulled wine from the backpack for them to share. 

They relaxed together on the slope, leaning back on their hands, with Marlow sitting up next to them on look out. 

Jason glanced away for a moment. 

“Hey, can I borrow your scarf?” he asked. 

“Yeah, sure.” She handed it over without questioning the strange request. 

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek then wrapped it around his neck so he could pull it up and hide his face.

“I’ll be right back.”

He snuck away through the crowd. 

The play continued, the actors hamming it up appropriately. The night had set in properly now, and large lights beamed down onto the stage leaving the rest of them in darkness. The audience around her laughed at the jokes and gags. 

She leaned against her dog. 

The night was getting cooler.  

Why did it hurt more now than it had when they were just friends?

She’d had no expectation of him then, she supposed. She hadn’t wanted him to be hers.

No. That wasn’t true, she had wanted him badly for some time, but squished it all deep down inside of her. Now it was out, with promises made and claims staked, it was hard to keep that once contained desire on a leash. 

He would give his life for her if the situation demanded it. She knew that, with the same confidence she knew tomorrow would follow today. 

But he would give his life for just about anyone if the situation demanded it. He was never going to change. She wouldn’t want him to.

She looked at the silhouettes of people in the dark around her, an elderly couple on camping chairs to her side, and ahead of her a family with two children who were fast asleep on a blanket. Not very long ago this park was so dangerous people rarely came here during the day. 

She looked at her things around her, and thought about what she would need to do if he didn’t come back tonight. She would take a taxi home and bring his stuff with her, hold onto it for him until he could come to her place to pick it up. It could be in two weeks, it could be tomorrow. 

This was going to be her life, forever. 

She pulled in deep breath and leaned her forehead on Marlow’s neck.

“Okay,” she said to herself. “Okay.” 

About twenty minutes after Jason left, Marlow looked up and to the side. She followed his sight line and she saw Jason returning through the crowd. He dropped something into the trash can with such a casual air it took a few moments for her to recognise it as a disassembled pistol. Nobody else noticed him at all.

He stretched out on the blanket behind her and gently pulled her back against him, his hands around her waist. He returned her scarf, wrapping it loosely around her neck. The knuckles of his right hand were grazed. He drew no attention to it, acting for all the world as though nothing had happened and nothing was ever going to happen. He definitely hadn’t just disarmed whatever dangerous hooligan had been planning to do something terrible. 

She loved this man so much it hurt.

“What’d I miss?” he said in her ear.

“Not much.” She leaned back against him. “But I’m starting to think this Benedick guy doesn’t actually dislike Beatrice after all.” 

He snorted a laugh. They settled in for the long haul.

Next>>

[infiniteeight8]

Tony & Soul continuation perchance? You’ve got me so hooked on that series I love it ❤️❤️❤️👀👀👀

I love it, too. 😀 This one follows shortly after “entirely within your power” (I still haven’t decided where the most recent one goes, timeline-wise), but I promise it's fluffy!

Edit: Most of Tony & Soul is here. The one that isn't on AO3 yet and which I can't figure out where in the timeline it goes is here.

-

“Another field trip?” Tony asks warily. Stephen met him in the Sanctum’s foyer instead of waiting for him in the kitchen or the sitting room, as he usually did. He looks anticipatory.

“I promise you will enjoy this one,” Stephen says. “There will be no displaced souls at all.” Tony hesitates, and Stephen’s face falls a little. “If you don’t want to go, I’ll understand completely.”

He says he’ll understand, but his emotional landscape is a mess of regret and self-recrimination. It’s not that Tony doesn’t trust Stephen—it’s these new abilities he’s unsure of—but Stephen is clearly taking it that way. 

Tony swallows his anxiety. “No, it’s fine. Where are we going?”

The answer is: a comedy club.

Tony lets Stephen pay the cover and usher them to a small, two person table. It’s in the back, but no one gives them a second glance, so the wizard must be masking their identities somehow. “I didn’t take you for the stand up comedy type,” Tony says, bemused. Stephen is almost vibrating, he’s so eager. 

“We’re not here for the comedy,” he says. “At least, not directly. You said once that Soul has you feeling my emotions?” Tony nods. Stephen goes on, “When I signal you, I’d like you to extend a small fraction of that ability to the rest of the club. Only the surface!” Stephen says quickly when Tony frowns. “Just enough to pick up through soul the emotions you could easily read off their faces.”

Tony wants to argue—if he’s not getting anything he can't see for himself, why bother?—but he suspects that Stephen will take it as another sign of distrust if he does. “All right,” he says instead, though he can’t keep the skepticism out of it.

They’re about ten minutes into the set and the crowd has warmed up and is laughing enthusiastically when Stephen taps the back of Tony’s hand and nods.

It takes Tony a minute to figure out how to use Soul’s power to connect to a specific group of people on a specific level, but when the connection finally flares to life his jaw drops.

The mood of the club is effervescent.

It doesn’t feel like sensing a single person’s emotions, or even like sensing a dozen people’s emotions. Everyone in the club is on the same wavelength, they’re all experiencing the same emotion in the same moment, and it forms a gestalt that grows beyond any individual’s amusement. It buoys Tony. It’s like having a really good buzz and knowing there’s no hangover coming, and it inspires a kind of wonder that people can do this, that this feeling of connection and happiness is as much a part of humanity as any of the darkness.

Tony finds himself laughing, and he reaches out and takes Stephen’s hand and doesn’t think twice about asking Soul to help him share this feeling, because Stephen deserves to feel it, too. Stephen’s delight at Tony’s reaction threads through the entire experience, and somehow that makes it better.

[mariacallous]

Afghan refugees who fled their country to escape from decades of war and terrorism have become the unwitting pawns in a cruel and crude political tussle between Pakistan’s government and the extremist Taliban as their once-close relationship disintegrates amid mutual recrimination.

On Oct. 3, Pakistan’s government announced that mass deportations of illegal immigrants, mostly Afghans, would start on Nov. 1. So far, at least 300,000 Afghans have already been ejected, and more than a million others face the same fate as the expulsions continue.

The bilateral fight appears to center on Kabul’s support for extremists who have wreaked havoc and killed hundreds in Pakistan over the last two years—or at least that is how Islamabad sees it, arguing that it is simply applying its own laws. The Taliban deny accusations that they are behind the uptick of terrorism in Pakistan by affiliates that they protect, train, arm, and direct.

Mass deportations are a sign that Pakistan is “putting its house in order,” said Pakistan’s caretaker minister of interior, Sarfraz Bugti. “Pakistan is the only country hosting four million refugees for the last 40 years and still hosting them,” he said via text. “Whoever wanted to stay in our country must stay legally.” Of the 300,000 Afghans already ejected, none have faced any problems upon returning, he told Foreign Policy. As the Taliban are claiming that Afghanistan is now peaceful, he said, “they should help their countrymen to settle themselves.”

“We are not a cruel state,” he said, adding: “Pakistanis are more important.”

The Taliban—who, since returning to power in August 2021, have been responsible for U.N.-documented arbitrary detentions and killings, as well forcing women and girls out of work and education—have called Pakistan’s deportations “inhumane” and “rushed.” Taliban figures have said that the billions of dollars of international aid they still receive are insufficient to deal with the country’s prior economic and humanitarian crises, let alone a mass influx of penniless refugees.

The expulsions come after earlier efforts by Pakistan, such as trade restrictions, to exert pressure on Kabul to rein in the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani Taliban, whose attacks on military and police present a severe security challenge to the Pakistani state. Acting Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar said earlier this month that TTP attacks have risen by 60 percent since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, with 2,267 people killed.

The irony is that Pakistan bankrolled the Taliban throughout their 20-year insurgency following their ouster from power during the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Taliban leaders found sanctuary and funding from Pakistan’s military and intelligence services. When the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, then-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan congratulated them, as did groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas. But rather than continuing as Islamabad’s proxy, the Taliban have reversed roles, providing safe haven for terrorist and jihadi groups, including the TTP.

“While it’s still too early to draw any conclusions on policy shifts in Islamabad, it appears that the initial excitement about the Taliban’s return to power has now turned into frustration,” said Abdullah Khenjani, a former deputy minister of peace in the previous Afghan government. “Consequently, these traditional [Pakistani state] allies of the Taliban are systematically reassessing their leverage to be prepared for potentially worse scenarios.”

Since the Taliban’s return, around 600,000 Afghans made their way into Pakistan, swelling the number of Afghan refugees in the country to an estimated 3.7 million, with 1.32 million registered with the U.N. High Commission on Refugees. Many face destitution, unable to find work or even send their children to local schools. The situation may be even worse after the deportations: Pakistan is reportedly confiscating most of the refugees’ money on the way out, leaving them in a precarious situation in a country already struggling to create jobs for its people or deal with its own humanitarian crises.

Border crossings between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been clogged in recent weeks, as many Afghan refugees preempted the police round-up and began making their way back. Media have reported that some of the undocumented Afghans were born in Pakistan, their parents having fled the uninterrupted conflict at home since the former Soviet Union invaded in 1979. Many of the births were not registered.

Meanwhile, some groups among those being expelled are especially vulnerable. Hundreds of Afghans could face retribution from the Taliban they left the country to escape. Journalists, women, civil and human rights activists, LGBTQ+ advocates, judges, police, former military and government personnel, and Shiite Hazaras have all been targeted by the Taliban, and many escaped to Pakistan, with and without official documents.

Some efforts have been made to help Afghans regarded as vulnerable to Taliban excess if they are returned. Qamar Yousafzai set up the Pakistan-Afghanistan International Federation of Journalists at the National Press Club of Pakistan, in Islamabad, to verify the identities of hundreds of Afghan journalists, issue them with ID cards, and help with housing and health care. He has also interceded for journalists detained by police for a lack of papers. Yet that might not be enough to prevent their deportation.

Amnesty International called for a “halt [to] the continued detentions, deportations, and widespread harassment of Afghan refugees.” If not, it said, “it will be denying thousands of at-risk Afghans, especially women and girls, access to safety, education and livelihood.” The UNHCR and International Organization for Migration, the U.N.’s migration agency, said the forced repatriations had “the potential to result in severe human rights violations, including the separation of families and deportation of minors.”

Once back in Afghanistan, returnees have found the going tough, arriving in a country they hardly know, without resources to restart their lives, many facing a harsh Himalayan winter in camps set up by a Taliban administration ill-equipped to provide for them.

Fariba Faizi, 29, is from the southwestern Afghanistan city of Farah, where she was a journalist with a private radio station. Her mother, Shirin, was a prosecutor for the Farah provincial attorney general’s office, specializing in domestic violence cases. Once the Taliban returned to power, they were both out of their jobs, since women are not permitted to work in the new Afghanistan. They also faced the possibility of detention, beating, rape, and killing.

Along with her family of 10 (parents, siblings, husband, and toddler), Faizi, now eight months pregnant with her second child, moved to Islamabad in April 2022, hoping they’d be safe enough. Once the government announced the deportations, landlords who had been renting to Afghans began to evict them; Faizi’s landlord said he wanted the house back for himself. Her family is now living with friends of Yousafzai, who also arranged charitable support to cover their living costs for six months, she said.

With no work in either Pakistan or Afghanistan, Faizi said, they faced a similar economic situation on either side of the border. In Pakistan, however, the women in the family could at least look for work, she said; their preference would be to stay in Pakistan. As it is, they remain in hiding, afraid of being detained by police and forced over the border once their visas expire.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Gil Troy

Fortunately, 555 Jewish Physicians in the University of Toronto’s TFOM – Temerty Faculty of Medicine – have shown us how easy it can be to do the right thing. Like all those heroic Israelis who fought back ferociously to save Israel from Hamas that day, these 555 physicians had the Zionist impulse to defend themselves, their people, their state, their highest ideals, and Western civilization.

Here is their full statement, released earlier this week:

OPEN STATEMENT TO THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO TEMERTY FACULTY OF MEDICINE FROM JEWISH PHYSICIAN FACULTY

The Israel Gaza War is causing agony for many TFOM faculty and polarization in the TFOM. We feel immense anguish over the suffering and deaths of innocent Israelis and Palestinians. We believe in the right of both Israelis and Palestinians to self-determination and statehood. Yet, on the streets of Toronto and in the TFOM itself, the hostile and belligerent position towards Jews who identify with the state of Israel, or who identify as Zionists, is discriminatory. The distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is tissue thin. Only for Jews is self-determination and autonomy – Zionism – denounced as a racist endeavour.  Only for Jews is living in their indigenous homeland considered “colonialism.” We, therefore, hold the following as central to our identity as Jews in the TFOM: We affirm the right of TFOM faculty to be openly Zionist and to support the right of Israel to exist and defend itself as a Jewish state and for those faculty to be free of public ostracism, recrimination, exclusion, and discrimination in the TFOM. To us, being a Zionist in 2023 means that we accept the right and the necessity of the survival of the Jewish people, and the existence of a Jewish state that ensures their survival. Anything that undermines or threatens Israel’s survival, undermines, or threatens the existence of the Jewish people and is, ipso facto, antisemitic. We know that accusations against Israel as “apartheid”, “colonialist”, or “white supremacist” or committing genocide are mendacious and aim to promote the argument that Israel should be dismantled as a Jewish state, making such accusations themselves antisemitic. We reject as antisemitic any blame on Israel for Hamas’ slaughter of Jews and non-Jews, and any justification for the slaughter because of historical context, opposition to settlements and occupation, or legitimate resistance. We reject as antisemitic any claims of equivalency between the Israeli people’s right to self-defence against terrorist groups who seek to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people, and the Hamas terror attacks against Israeli civilians. We reject as antisemitic any claims of equivalency between the duty of Israel to rescue its citizens who are being held hostage by Hamas and the Hamas terror attacks against Israeli civilians. We reject as antisemitic the imposition of a collective political responsibility on Jews to denounce Israel simply because they are Jews. We affirm the right of Jews alone to define antisemitism for themselves absent any interference from those outside of the Jewish community. We implore the TFOM in any investigation of antisemitism to apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. We reject the expectation that Jews must reach total consensus on the definition of antisemitism; we know that the vast majority of Jewish TFOM faculty endorse the IHRA definition; and we disavow the weight given to a tiny minority of Jewish faculty who object to the IHRA definition. We abjure the cover of “academic freedom” within the TFOM to permit unrestrained antagonism by some TFOM faculty to Zionist Jews and their publicization of grotesque and antisemitic characterizations of Israel, the only Jewish state. We believe that academic freedom is not absolute. In particular, leaders in academic medicine with power over learners and faculty, who in some cases are the sole leader responsible for thousands of learners and faculty, should not be issuing statements which collide with equity, diversity and inclusion for Jews or which make Jews feel unsafe and unwelcome in the TFOM and which are unrelated or unessential to their core academic role, research, and publishing of results. We ask and expect that Jews receive the same consideration and protection that the TFOM provides to other minority groups.

How did this statement come about?

Dr. Philip Berger, an Officer of the Order of Canada and an inductee in the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, is among those who initiated the effort. He has spent his 45-year-career practicing at the intersection of medicine and social justice. The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame describes him as “an advocate for refugees, members of the LGBT community, people with HIV/AIDS, those suffering from addiction, homelessness, and living in poverty.”  Dr. Berger “has also worked to promote methadone treatment, needle exchanges, documentation and recognition of the aftereffects of torture, academic infirmaries for the homeless, and clinical treatment of AIDS in Africa.” This “tireless champion of social justice and accessible health care in Canada and the world,” has “been a crusader never afraid of the controversial,” while serving “the needs of the sick and those who have suffered abuses of power.”

Alas, he has one strike against him. He is also, he reports, “a defiant left-wing Jew and Zionist.”

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J. Pierre

The student government at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has failed to pass a resolution that would condemn antisemitism and apologize for endorsing a recent letter that accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid.”

Last week’s vote followed nearly a month of recriminations touched off by UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla’s “unequivocal condemnation” on Oct. 10 of Hamas’ massacre of civilians in Israel three days earlier.

The campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) responded to Khosla on Oct. 25 with a statement castigating the chancellor and claiming Israel is guilty of “war crimes,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “apartheid” against the Palestinians. SJP did not condemn Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group whose brutal onslaught across southern Israel on Oct. 7 initiated the current conflict in Gaza.

UCSD’s Associated Students Council quickly endorsed the SJP letter. According to the campus newspaper the UCSD Guardian, however, “senators” on the council were pressured to do so.

“I don’t think that it’s fair to be mad at all of [the Associated Students Council] because [they] felt bullied into the statement that they endorsed last week, but you need to imagine how we feel now and just imagine how I’m still afraid to wear my Jewish star necklace,” one speaker reportedly said during the public input period of the meeting last week. “I implore you — please take care of the Jewish students in this community.”

In response to the student government’s endorsement, several council members proposed a resolution condemning antisemitism and apologizing for endorsing SJP’s statement.

Ultimately, the resolution failed to achieve a majority of “yes” votes, with six senators voting in favor of the resolution, 11 voting against it, and nine members abstaining.

During a public session held to discuss the resolution, tempers flared.

“This is not free speech. These are the words of those calling for violence against Jews. I’m a Jewish mother, and I am carrying a Jewish baby,” said one PhD student, according to the UCSD Guardian. “I am here today to state my condemnation for the behaviors and words of this group and for not notifying the Jewish community and Tritons for Israel of the last meeting.”

The campus newspaper noted that the student government is likely to reconsider the resolution at a future meeting with possible amendments.

In choosing to preserve its endorsement of SJP’s statement, the UCSD council joined dozens of college student groups that have declared solidarity with Hamas since Oct. 7 and blamed Israel for the terrorist group’s atrocities inflicted on Israelis.

[simnostalgia]

can’t lie dude there’s a massive difference between somebody having a photo of their teen sim in an underwear and “proship” where people openly support incestuous and pedophilic relationships. between you and me (and i’m saying this on anon bc i don’t want to get involved with any of this 😭) all of this is dumb but there’s a massive difference between falsely accusing somebody over THE SIMS and somebody who thinks it’s fine to look at art of a grown ass adult fucking a child because it’s fiction. your concerns are valid but you’re getting that mess of discourse mixed in with this for nothing. had a fun time on your blog while it lasted tho

super long rant but...

I've said this before and people got mad at me but like... I don't disagree with anything you're saying honestly. Like, OBVIOUSLY a full grown adult shouldn't be fucking a child. That's FUCKED UP.

But I mean, clearly the people who said that didn't think so? I mean, isn't that sort of the problem with this sort of thinking? Everyone thinks that THEIR extremely specific idea of what is and is not reasonable to assume is the right one.

I mean, take furries for instance. Doesn't anyone find it weird that we don't target furries that way? I mean, you may argue that "Well, anthro animals DON'T exist so we're not worried about protecting them" But we've seen SEVERAL groups of furries that have actually ended up being active zoophiles but not many groups of fanfic writers who were actually pedophiles working as some sort of cabal.

Like, I'm not trying to throw furries under the bus. But why do we all assume that we understand that it's harmless as they understand the difference between fiction and reality?

I'm not arguing that it's RIGHT or WRONG, I'm arguing that there seems to be no cohesion in what most of the 'progressive sphere' regards as being kosher.

Why is it that we assume someone writing that sort of fiction is some sort of deviant and not just someone who want to see the actors portraying those characters together and yet assume differently for any other kink?

I think there is an ulterior motive to cause bouts of accusations and recrimination in queer spaces and that young queer people were wrong made to believe that this would benefit them, when really this rhetoric just feeds alt-right orgs like Gays Against Groomers.

They know what they're doing. And many progressives in our spaces don't want to hear it because accusations have become a good way to get rid of those you don't like with flimsy evidence and even flimsier arguments. Once someone asked me to help them get rid of @blueheavensims because he was making poseboxes that were 'kind of rapey' and when I was like "'would you be willing to help me contact that advertisers for hunter420x's website, who has actual animations of children being molested" she was like "no, sorry".

and while I'm not naming names, this is someone that many of you know and respect as a simmer with 'good values'.

This isn't about what you should and shouldn't be allowed to write because honestly that was never the issue. It was about giving young progressives the rhetorical tools to destroy themselves for petty interpersonal drama while the right reaps the reward of figuring out how to get queers to accuse THEMSELVES of being pedophiles by co-opting progressive language.

Everytime I see a 20 year old with a 'dni proship' i assume its someone who would spit on an actual SA victim before helping them. You just pretend to care about this shit because it makes you feel like a better person when you're trying to ruin someone's life.

TL;DR: Write whatever the fuck you want. The people who will get mad at you generally care less about you doing it than how it looks. They'll tear down the person who said something they don't like over the actual powerful pederast every time. It's all performative bullshit.

Like, it's not that hard to see what most of you are doing, you're NOT that slick.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

On Thursday, the Justice Department announced charges against an FBI informant with inventing the claims that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had hired Hunter Biden as a way of channeling bribes to Joe Biden. David Weiss—the Trump-appointed special counsel who had also levied charges against Hunter Biden—announced the charges, contending the informant had “transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts” into salacious allegations targeting the president.

The informant, 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov, had allegedly given agents false information in 2020 and was known to strongly dislike Joe Biden. According to the indictment, Smirnov’s story fell apart upon questioning in 2023. He was arrested in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

So just how much does it matter to Republicans that this FBI informant has been charged with fabricating his claims? How much does it change the narrative about the “Biden crime family” that has become entrenched among both right-wing politicians and media?

We can’t assume the development will be taken seriously on the right, given Trump supporters’ distrust of the FBI. On Fox News, the biggest peddler of this narrative, the hosts ignored the news. But if it were taken seriously, it would come as a significant blow.

The FBI informant, who had not been publicly named previously, was the star figure of possibly the most credible accusation against the president. You may recall the whole drama from May 2023 in which Rep. James Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley demanded the FBI release “an unclassified record alleging a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.” That was the form that contained this fabrication from Smirnov.

Known in the Fox News internet sleuth community as the FD-1023 form, it contained claims from an informant asserting that the then-unnamed Smirnov had spoken with Burisma’s founder and discovered that Burisma officials had tried to pay the two Bidens $5 million each for their help in ousting Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating Burisma for corruption. If that had been true, it would have been a true bombshell: As vice president, Joe Biden would have leveraged his power over U.S. foreign policy to protect a foreign company from prosecution in exchange for a bribe. In other words, it would have been a clear-cut case of corruption. But there was a real reason the FBI resisted sharing this form: It contained an unsubstantiated allegation from a dubiously reliable source. In 2020, the Trump DOJ had investigated Smirnov’s claims and failed to find any evidence supporting them. There was no reason to present the allegations as legitimate.

The FBI was right to worry that releasing the form would be dangerous. When it gave a redacted version of the form to the legislators, the Republican hype machine went into overdrive. In his position as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Comer repeatedly alluded to proof of corruption, seemingly based on the form. But more importantly, Fox News latched onto the allegations, accusing the FBI of covering up for the Bidens and portraying the informant as highly credible and in danger of retaliation. Sean Hannity emerged as the form’s biggest booster. According to data from the liberal group Media Matters, his show aired 85 segments promoting the bribery claim in 2023. On Fox, the president’s corruption became an assumed truth. Smirnov’s claims also became central to the House GOP’s failed effort to impeach Biden.

One might hope that there would be vast recriminations and public embarrassment now that the feds have formally charged the source of so much drama with making it all up. But the damage in public perception from this episode is done and likely can’t be corrected with the news of the informant’s arrest. Even if the right took it seriously, though, Fox News still has a few other “Biden crime family” storylines to mine that are not connected to Smirnov or his form.

As the Media Matters data showed, while Smirnov’s claims were the most exciting accusations, Hannity had even more segments (though fewer triumphant monologues) on Comer’s vague claims that Hunter Biden had used shell companies to “launder the money they were receiving from foreign nationals.” (The Washington Post reported that these were all actually legitimate businesses, except for one short-lived company that may have been unconnected to Hunter Biden.)

Then there’s the connected claim from a Comer memo that the committee had found more than $20 million in payments from “foreign sources” to Biden family members or their associates. None of the payments were directly connected to Joe Biden, and the Post found that only $7 million of that total went to Biden family members.

There’s also the 2017 email in which a Hunter Biden associate used the phrase “10 held by H for the big guy?” in discussions of a partnership between Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden and the Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy. The draft agreement and later official agreement that resulted from this exchange made no mention of Joe Biden; there’s no evidence the president was involved in any of this.

And finally, there’s a threatening 2017 WhatsApp message that Hunter sent to a Chinese executive: “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.” Democrats have maintained that this was pure bluster from Hunter, who was struggling with drug addiction at the time. An associate of Hunter’s testified that they were trying to create the “illusion of access.”

There are even more snippets the right has fixated on. For years now, the right-wing media world has been meticulously scouring all communications and documents related to Hunter Biden for evidence of his father betraying the American public. While officials have found evidence of Hunter’s illegal and unethical behavior around his taxes and use of firearms, there has been nothing officially tying Joe Biden to any wrongdoing. Smirnov’s claims were the most likely source of anything solid showing that the president was involved. Joe Biden may have been reckless in failing to prevent his son from using his family name for clout, but the Republicans’ case for actual corruption is now a lot emptier.

[shimmershae]

“Stay awake.”  (a Walking Dead drabble, Caryl).

Oh, look.  I actually do remember how to string words together (badly, lol).  Sorry for this.  I opened up my prompt list and this is what came pouring out.  I guess you could say I needed to purge some feelings or something.  ;)

Season 10.  What if they both went back after the cave collapse?  What then?  Just a dash of Caryl angst for your Sunday morning.  Please do enjoy.  

Her head lolls like a ragdoll against his shoulder, her breath nothing more than a faint puff against his neck.  

 She’d gone back. When the despairing group had moved on. When he’d left her, crumpling beneath the mountain of her own self-hatred.  His shattered trust, his silent, tearful recriminations.  

 She’d gone back and now it’s a race against time because he can feel her fading away, could see it in the unfocused blue eyes that had briefly pierced the dirt and the grime when he’d found her.  

 “Stay awake. Need you to…”  

  (pierced his guilty heart and soul).  

 “Need you.”

[canmom]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere 049-064 (pt. 1)

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy, 013-032, 033-048 [all Flower posts]

Hoo boy this is a bunch of chapters. It's time for more Flower.

All together now: no, not that flower.

...yeah, I'm having to reach for flower-related videos to keep up this running gag at this point. But hey, look, hear me out here: Kanae Nozawa is really fucking good at playing the erhu. And it's called 'Flower Dance'. I think that's flowery enough.

...yeah, I will take suggestions for the next one. Send me your favourite flower-related videos. Especially if they're anime and kinda dark.

Anyway, welcome back to my liveblog of The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, an ongoing serial web novel by @lurinatftbn. Our arc titles today are The Die Falls and Cut-Out Face.

And this time around, Umineko intensifies. I won't say too much more than that above the fold this time, because we're starting to get some mysteries answered (opening more mysteries, naturally). But if you don't mind spoilers, the space elevator awaits.

So where we left off last time, Su had discovered the body of (probably) Neferuaten. It's time to get into that part of Umineko where people are dropping like flies and everyone is desperately trying to figure out who's doing it before it's their turn. However, in this case, everyone involved is a wizard, so this makes things a little more complicated.

There was one important mystery missing from my list of mysteries, incidentally - the pantry with the signs of aging and the tally marks.

Someone on the Flower discord helpfully pointed out that I'd misremembered the rule on red text. I edited the previous post, but just in case: the rule is that if you get a description of a body in red, it's definitely a dead human (and that person is definitely really dead, it's not a spare body or anything). But which dead person? There's no rule that Su correctly identifies the deceased. So while Su definitely found a body, there's no guarantee that it's Neferuaten's body. It's not even guaranteed to be a member of the known cast, since we don't know how many people were already on the island.

Indeed, in this pair of arcs, we start to see characters question the identity of a corpse. So it's definitely intended that you keep that kind of question in mind whenever Su finds a body.

To broadly outline the events in this arc (as much to keep it straight in my head as anything):

Su finds Neferatuen's body and reports it to Linos and Lilith.

They link up with the rest of Su's class and break the news. Everyone freaks out a bit.

A broadcast is made to every computer on the island in which we get an Umineko-style challenge, declaring that everyone on the island will soon be killed by 'heavenly beasts', but it is - sportingly - possible to escape the security system and get off the island. Everyone freaks out a lot.

Fang, who apparently put all of their points into 'chill', takes charge of the situation. Linos explains how the lockdown works.

Linos sends Su and a few others up to get a map. While they're up there, Su bungles her way into confessing the body that she and Kamrusepa discovered earlier. The characters start to compare notes.

Moving as a group, they all set out to shut down the lockdown at the admin centre, covered by various types of magic shield. They blunder into a trap which involved Linos's gun being rigged to fire to cause a distraction, and then Bardiya is murdered while the party is split. According to Theo, the only witness, he was attacked by something which dragged him into the window.

The party share various recriminations and perform some diagnostic magic. Theo and Linos are declared Intensely Sussy, but Fang points out a narrow possibility that an external culprit could have dunnit while Linos's shield had briefly been disabled.

Mehit flips out and grabs Linos's gun. She takes Lilith away from the group of arcanists, intending to wait out the crisis in one of the areas where the Power is suppressed.

The gang moves out. Ran challenges Linos on some of his claims about the nature of the lockdown. It turns out he's been telling some fibs.

They travel through a tunnel that runs from the womens' entrance hall into the research dome. There, they discover a big bloody hole in the ground, and also Anna and Zeno are there.

Zeno's back in girlmode and is trying to transport a bunch of boxes. It turns out their actual 'main body' is a kind of a Made in Abyss 'cartridge' situation - surgically minimised, in this case to slow down aging as much as possible, and hidden. All their bodies are (according to them!) puppet bodies. I'm behind 7 proxy bodies or whatever.

Anna, it turns out, has age regwessied! We get a flashback narrated by Ran (notably not marked reliable) in which we find out what happened during Su's amnesiac episode - more on that later, but the upshot is that Fang brought a spike of true iron that they finished on behalf of Su's grandfather, which allows the Order to operate a giant machine built by Su's grandfather to interact with entropy. The Great Work is successful, and Anna was age regwiessed down to a young adult again.

Su has started to suspect Balthazar knows something time loop shaped. She and Ran and Linos go to confront him. Bal pretty much says yes: we are in fact in a time loop, we've already had thousands of iterations, and I get to remember it, and you should remember it too Su. Every single time, everyone dies and someone makes a tally mark in the pantry, which is for some reason not getting reset. Bal intends to wait out the timeloop where he is with a magazine and won't budge. He also says this is supposed to be the last loop. Ran and Su are dismissive. We the readers know better. Although somehow I suspect this isn't the last loop.

Anna hands out tracking bands.

A flashback sequence shows what happened when Ran found out about Su's situation. More on that later.

The gang go downstairs to find the admin console. On the way down, they discover a bloody magic circle with Durvasa's name written in it.

The three present Order members (Linos, Zeno, and Anna) are able to log into the admin console. They discover that it's not a standard lockdown, but a secret time-triggered protocol installed 20 years ago, around when Su's grandfather was fiddling with the computers. This means it can't easily be reset. Also, in a couple hours the security golems will turn on. Wuh oh.

They hatch a plan B. Everyone goes upstairs to 1. get masks from the mask room to bypass the golems (idk if I mentioned the mask room, there's a mask room) and 2. hopefully rewire re-rune the inputs to the security centre to spoof its inputs and activate the exit.

In the mask room, they discover Durvasa has probably been murdered, but the corpse is too severely mutilated to permit positive identification.

All the students are given masks in order to pass as members of the order. Su anticipates that these masks are going to create a situation where it's harder to identify who's who.

I think that's all the main points. Lots of moving around.

Having done what I promised not to do and write a plot summary, let's get on to the actual substance...

Mystery solution unlocked (somewhat): who is Su?

I feel like I should have been able to predict this one, in retrospect.

In logical terms, maybe not deduce it. But with this reveal, the narrative purpose of a lot of earlier scenes falls into place.

So, Su's unnamed childhood friend - the nerdy academic one who she met on the beach and encouraged her. Well, that friend is in fact Utsushikome of Fusai, or Shiko to her friends!

Wuh? Isn't that our dear protagonist? No - the character we're calling 'Su' is the mind of the other girl, our POV in that flashback. Or maybe it's the other way round, I'm a still little unclear on which POV was which in those flashbacks. I'm fairly sure though that POV girl is Su, and the other girl is Shiko. It's confusing because multiple flashbacks are narrated in the first person - the memories of the beach probably belong to Su, while the memories of the doctor's office where she learned about ascension probably belong to Shiko.

Anyway, we're told in chapter 55 a bit more about the mechanics of how arcanists work. Basically, the Tower of Asphodel, in addition to a few hundred thousand human bodies, also has billions of backup minds in the form of 'pneuma', a semi-biological element that interacts with the higher planes and basically amounts to a soul. The pneuma encodes memories (redundantly it seems), as well as preferences and habits - it's something akin to what Seth Dickinson calls the 'inner law'. In modern times, egomancy - the kind of magic that fucks with pneuma - is highly forbidden.

When humans are born in this world (perhaps more accurately 'instantiated'), stage 1 is to block the pneuma in the clone and permit a new one to form. Unfortunately this breaks the Power.

It was found that the new generation, the children born from this process, had no capacity to use the Power. Even though it had no visible effect on consciousness or intellect, this alteration to the nature of their pneumas damaged the ability of their minds to take on an Index, meaning that using the Power was impossible. There were cases where this didn't happen - where the 'trauma' healed just so - but they were one in a million. So rare as to be useless.

So, to set someone up as an arcanist, you download one of these backed up pneumas from the Tower, and install it over the existing pneuma. But the downloaded pneuma is deliberately weakened so that usually the downloaded personality dissolves quickly and reverts back to the identity of the person who became an arcanist. This process is apparently destructive to the backed up pneuma in the Tower.

So when Lilith said that all arcanists are murderers, what she means is that in a 'proper' initiation, you devour the soul of someone from a dead universe in order to steal their admin password.

In Shiko's case, something different happened. Instead of downloading the soul of someone from a dead universe, she's got the soul of a regular living girl from her own universe.

Here's how Su recalls the situation:

"One day, I got a letter. It offered me a whole bunch of stuff... My own house, shares in a bunch of local businesses that'd get me a stream of luxury credit.. If I agreed to go along with something for a couple weeks. That was what it said-- A couple of weeks." Under the table, I was having trouble keeping my legs still. "I thought it was some strange prank at first, but when we met, they seemed really serious. They said it would be best if it was someone who knew her." "Knew who?" "Oh..." I shifted reluctantly in my seat, my voice getting even quieter. "U-Utsushikome, I mean. I'd known her when we were kids... But we hadn't spoken in years." I cleared my throat. I felt so anxious about what was happening that I was shivering. "Anyway. They told me that her grandfather was dying, and there was something he'd been trying to do for years and years, but it was too late for it t-to work out. But they wanted to-- I dunno, do the next best thing, give him some peace--"

So, agents of Shiko's grandfather - who was evidently up to his fucking follicles in conspiracies - approached the girl we're now calling Su (her original name is not given, for reasons we'll see), operating under false pretenses. It's not clear how much they told her, just that it would involve Shiko. She agreed. They extracted the soul from her body and implanted it in Shiko at Shiko's induction. It seems likely that Shiko's grandfather intended to do this with his own soul, but could not for some reason? Why they did this with some random girl remains unknown. It's also not clear why Su of all people should have chmod +x for the Power.

Su was presumably supposed to dissolve back into Shiko's identity, but probably because the induction was far from normal, she retained her previous identity and Shiko was the one suppressed. Su did her best to try and figure out how to pretend to be Shiko, but Ran - not yet an arcanist herself - noticed her sudden personality change and confronted her. Su came clean, and Ran was all 'kill yourself, bitch' over it.

Seriously she does not let up. Here's some quotes:

This time, she did glance at me, a scowl forming on her face. "Don't try to act compassionate, you perverted fucking body-snatcher. You're not my friend." (...) She grunted. "Just be late next time. I don't want you messing with how she looks on your own impulse." (...) It was strange, us investigating it together like this. Even though I went along with it, acted repentantly, and had explained to her that the way things were weren't exactly my fault - that I'd been deceived at the premise of what I'd agreed to do - she wasn't willing to afford me much charity, but in a way, that was comforting. She was like a beacon of sharp reality in the dreamlike, dissociated existence I was now living.

And so on. Even when Su reveals that her original body is now months dead, and there is no body to go back to, Ran will not cut her a break:

"...this isn't you getting cold feet about trying to save her, is it?" she asked, suddenly suspicious. "Because you can't--" (...) Ran must have realized the absurdity of the statement, because a few moments later she spoke up again-- Disgust having crept back into her tone, even if that hint of conflict still remained. "Don't act sorry for yourself," she said. "It's your own fault for going along with something so perverse for your own gain. Blame her grandfather for being such a fucking lunatic, if you want, but don't act like a victim. No one gives a shit about you."

People in the comments start pulling out the word 'abuser' over this kind of thing and yeah, *sucks in air through teeth* they're not wrong. No wonder Su has such a complex nowadays.

It's notable how much Su's fantastical scenario here has in common with the experience of plurality/DID. Certain friends who are plural talk about how they may be able to recall alters' memories, but with difficulty, and it feels like they belong to someone else. And of course there's the process of forming new alters. Manifesting suddenly in a body full of memories of another person seems like a pretty distressing experience all told, but it's also something that the other people you're sharing with can make easier.

I talked a bit more about this in the Baru article on brains, so I won't reprise it all here. Broadly speaking, if someone is plural, their mind supports different 'alters', which are states of being which typically express distinct senses of identity, access to memory, preferences, stream of consciousness etc. Whether you think of them as distinct 'people' or distinct states of 'one person' seems like a matter of philosophical speculation, but 'co-consciousness' of alters is not an unusual thing, and sometimes I've witnessed externalised disagreements between alters. Since we don't have any ability to prove the existence of other minds in general, the only surefire way to know what it's like to be plural is to be plural already. Unfortunately the main way to inculcate plurality seems to be 'go through severe child abuse', so it's not easy to find out. But maybe tulpamancy is real?

Su's situation is not so different from the recent recurring 'lesbians and imperialism' subgenre device of having someone's mind inserted into a protagonist's body through some kind of scifi means. In modern 'plural system' terms, the word used is 'introject': in brief, an alter derived from another person, who often (but not always) understands themselves to be that person even in another body.

The big difference for Su of course is that the other alter she'd hypothetically be sharing this body with has just disappeared. Su can't talk to Shiko, Shiko's gone. It's not actually uncommon for alters to disappear like that, I've known people who very rapidly generate and discard identities in an intense traumatic situation, but the timeline doesn't really fit that here, and it's pretty much nonexistent I think for all alters but one to disappear and leave someone a singleton again.

I admit I'm not familiar with all the modern taxonomy of what psychiatry terms 'dissociative disorders', so perhaps there are other related categories, that are closer to Su's situation. Of course, even ignoring all the flaws and limitations of the DSM approach, this is a sci-fantasy world in which souls are real and manifest in a specific organ (ironic given how I declared they definitely aren't real and 'the body is all that is' in the first post on this book), so different rules apply!

What's not clear to me at this point is whether Samium the egomancer is going to be capable of restoring Shiko's soul in any meaningful way. It seems like when you shove two pneumas into a body, only one survives.

Anyway, as for Ran, she's clearly backed off on the 'perverted fucking body-snatcher' talk, having spent many years building up a friendship with Su and losing sight of her original zeal to save Shiko. Despite this, she really hasn't owned up to the fact that she's a big part of the reason Su is so determined to do a special magic suicide.

We could only suppose that if Shiko was brought back at this point, she would be in the exact same situation Su was - suddenly inhabiting a body filled with memories that are not her own, surrounded by people she does not know, and forced to carry on pretending to be the previous occupant. None of Su's present classmates know Shiko. Shiko's context was the school, and that is now in the distant past.

Su, however, is carrying The Mega Traumas and has spent however many years defining her life's purpose as dying to bring back Shiko. She has fully internalised the idea that she's a monster and doesn't deserve to live, that it's somehow her moral responsibility for the twisted experiment that Su's grandfather performed on these two girls.

At this point, the 'healthiest' outcomes are one of two things. Maybe Samium the egomancer could reactivate Shiko's identity, but without destroying Su, and Su/Shiko can share the body. Being plural doesn't seem to be so bad. (I admit I don't know what it's like, but if there's anything I've observed from knowing people who are plural, it's that once that cat's out of the bag and you recognise that you're plural, you can't really just try and suppress it. Trying to just will yourself into not switching is going to fuck you up much worse than coming to terms with it and developing ways to interact comfortably and share embodiment with your new headmate. Apparently 'integration' or fusion of alters is possible, and was traditionally pursued by therapists, but if it's rushed it just breaks down. And that would be disagreed with by the modern plural identity movement.)

On the other hand, it seems fairly plausible that it won't be possible to bring back Shiko. In this case, both Su and Ran need to finally grieve their friend who was effectively murdered at a young age by Su's grandfather, and move on. Easier said than done, of course. And they're definitely not going to get there if they can't have a very honest discussion about it. Which doesn't seem very likely with all these distracting murders.

Anyway, that resolves a few of my list of mysteries...

what skulduggery happened with Su’s ascension that made it go so badly wrong?: Shiki had the soul of her childhood friend, now known as 'Su', instead of some rando from the Tower of Asphodel. why did Ran react so badly to knowing that Su can’t assimilate?: she was not yet an arcanist and did not know about what initiation entails. she sees Su as culpable, even though Su was deceived. Su is a stranger and she will happily let a stranger die to save Shiki, and rationalises this. what did Su’s grandfather have to do with it?: agents claiming to work on behalf of Shiki's grandfather deceived Su. it seems it was too late to do it with his own mind.

it also opens some brand new mysteries.

why did Shiki's grandfather carry out this sadistic experiment? how is this the 'next-best thing'? is it just to prove the body-hopping technology works?

did Shiki's grandfather and co. anticipate that Shiki's mind would be overwritten by Su, or did they expect Su to be killed, the same as minds from Asphodel?

who are the agents who carried out this weird plot? do they have any relation to the current murder spree?

can the mind of Shiki really be retrieved?

Now I've gone through all the ins and outs of it - this plot is really cool and spicy. So much drama to be had. Now I understand the point of those flashback scenes to Su's childhood, and it fits so neatly that I wonder how I couldn't see it before. Not enough imagination! But if this is the wavelength the story is operating on, I should try and imagine similar payoffs for the other mysteries...

Anyway, now that we've established that body transfers are possible, we might wonder if anyone else had one done.

Let me wrap up this section by saying... body-snatcher is a very specific term! It tickles me to think that Ran might have seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

The time loop

This was described at the outset as a 'control' scenario, but we have several apparent divergences. And supposedly thousands of iterations of this experiment have already run with slightly different outcomes.

Su's memory is slightly leaking info from the other loops, but for the most part she remains immersed in the scenario. Balthazar, meanwhile, obviously has history with Su from previous runs. This explains Su's inexplicable feelings of animosity towards him, his knowledge of the name 'Shiki', and many of his remarks.

As mentioned up above, the pantry is somehow not getting rolled back after each loop. This explains why it's so old. I had previously been assuming it was some kind of 'hyperbolic time chamber' type scenario, and the tally marks were the time that someone was stuck in the pantry, but this is way more interesting and cool.

We have our equivalent of On the ninth twilight, the witch revives, and none shall be left alive. from Balthazar:

"When I said this is a closed circle, I meant it in every sense," he explained. "In absolutely every instance, for every marking made on that wall... By the time this is over, there isn't a single person here left alive."

Presumably either Balthazar or Su is the mark-maker, and they always end up dead after making this mark. I assume they usually mark the wall fairly early in the loop in order to make sure they don't die too soon before making it!

This actually means I think we have a fairly good suspect for the "who knocked out Yantho" case. If Balthazar came here to mark the wall (although why bother, if it's the final run), and Yantho was about to see him, maybe he'd have panicked and knocked Yantho out? I don't think that would extend as far as killing the cook and faking her suicide though!

Anyway, Balthazar claims this is the final run. One commenter had a little hissy fit about this not fitting the standard time loop story mold, but I'm more inclined to wait and see. Admittedly, I have the unfair knowledge, compared to when this chapter came out, that the story is hundreds of chapters long and still going strong, and given the murders are now going at a rapid pace, I feel like we'll surely see at least one more loop. Hard to say though. Just because it's inspired by Umineko doesn't mean it's got the same structure.

Anyway, let's revisit the very first chapter given what we now know...

They were also a woman, though you wouldn't have been able to tell. Everything beneath the head-area was buried under black fabric, without so much as an inch of flesh visible, and their face was covered with a expressionless, androgynous porcelain mask. Otherwise, the outfit evoked something like a funeral gown, with only subtle frills around the cuffs and hem of the skirt.

We can now recognise this is probably the outfit of a member of the Order, back when they hid their identities. The mask sounds similar to how Neferuaten's mask is described in chapter 31:

It took me a moment to realize which mask she was pointing out, since it was so unremarkable. It was little more than an oval of silver, with holes cut for the two eyes and mouth, and a little dent to accommodate the nose.

Though Nef's mask is described as silver, not porcelain.

We can also get to hear Su's victory condition.

"Understand this: Your role in the scenario has been elevated from that of bystander to that of the heroine, and your victory condition is thus," she continued. "You must ascertain the identity of your opponent, the cause of the bloodshed to follow, and prevent it before it comes to pass. In order to accomplish this goal, you must pay close heed to all which transpires, and use deduction, alongside your skills and past experience of the events to follow. Do you understand your role?" (...) "Should you deviate from your role, the scenario will be compromised, and a grave outcome is forewritten. But should you succeed, then you shall open the path to a brighter future." She paused for a moment. "That is all. Should we begin?"

It's not at all clear why this should be the final loop, given that Su seems nowhere near close to 'winning' at this point. It's hard to know whether 'the scenario will be compromised' applies beyond a single loop though.

Two more mysteries to put on the list: who is Su's interlocutor here? And what was Su's request?

One thing I noticed, incidentally, is that chapter 000 was written some time after chapter 1, released 27 July 2020 - the timestamp places it in between chapters 020 (24 July) and 021 (6 August). I don't think this means anything - the intended version of the story is clearly now the one with the prologue attached - but it's an interesting example of how a serial novel can evolve with time.

Anyway, if the time loop is a challenge for Su to solve, it raises the obvious question of why Balthazar gets to remember the loop. (There's also incidentally a thing where most of the students' clocks are mysteriously stopped, with the exception of Ophelia's and Ran's.)

Anyway, Su (like us) has to solve whodunnit and whydunnit. Though howdunnit is probably also relevant.

I'm going to wildly speculate that Su's identity stuff is somehow connected to the timeloop scenario, just because narrative efficiency. Here are some possibilities to consider:

the woman in the mask is Shiko

the woman in the mask is Su. the POV of the first chapter is that of Shiko, and her request is that a scenario could be created where Su has to take on the scenario.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiko. she was not overwritten, but evicted into a different body again.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiki, from Tsukihime.

Ran's chapters and the Great Work

Ran recounts some of the stuff that happened while Su was out of it. This is later shown to be a diegetic conversation.

These chapters are super cool and intriguing. That said, while it starts out fairly believable - Ran's summaries with her voice - there is something a bit weird about how Ran can quote long conversations verbatim. Admittedly, if Su is telling the story, she is also able to remember everything in incredible detail. But Su has been established to have something like an eidetic memory, at least as far as figures are concerned, so I can sorta handwave that part.

Though that said, it's just a minor stylistic quibble. Putting it in Ran's mouth is an interesting device. Ran's inner voice is quite sarcastic, way more so than Su, who is honestly painfully sincere?

More importantly, these chapters are not marked with a first purple letter to confirm they are reliable. This is a narrative that Ran is telling Su. We can probably assume the broad details are accurate-ish, but it's entirely possible that Ran is lying or omitting things according to the rules of the game.

Anyway, the students are all taken down to a huge chamber underneath the Everblossom that's full of fractal cables and complicated magic runes that use a city's worth of eris to interface with the Ironworker entropy machine. So far it lets them essentially perfectly recover information from the past, allowing them to do stuff like de-age Anna.

It's a little bit handwavey how it all works. Anna's memories appear to be intact, so her entire body can't have been rolled back. We could raise all sorts of questions about motion and the interface between brain and body but it's a nitpicking.

What we know is that after Fang brings out a piece of iron and it's integrated into the machine... Anna goes offscreen with the other members of the Order, and then comes back appearing much younger, and they claim the machine worked as intended. Not much time to celebrate though because shortly after, the murders start.

There remains the possibility that the younger individual we're being told is Anna is... not Anna, but someone else acting as her (perhaps even Neferatuen). Though why the Order would deceive the students in such a way I couldn't guess, so it's a pretty dubious theory.

The murders

The murder of Bardiya is fairly extensively discussed by the characters. The two scenarios raised are: Theo attacked Bardiya, then lied about it, or, an unknown party ducked in while the shield was lowered very briefly, then attacked Bardiya through the window.

Given the specifity of the window stuff, I'm inclined to believe the second story. Theo definitely has something going on with him (he's been super cagey about some personal business), but he doesn't have a murderer vibe, unless he's an improbably good actor. The capabilities of the adversary remain unclear.

It's also possible that the death somehow involved an adverse interaction with Linos's shield. This possibility was raised by a commentator.

...actually, fine, let me go into Linos's shield.

Linos's shield (or the inevitable nitpicking)

The main group of characters rely on Linos's high level casting of a shielding spell called energy-nullifying-projecting. This takes incoming energy and redirects it back out. We get more details later:

"The base component terminates all motion in anything that comes into contact with it and essentially acts as a brick wall on top of blocking incoming incantations, while the additional one conjures an electromagnetic repelling force, physically damaging any matter that tries to pass through it."

"Wait, uh, I'm kind of confused," Ptolema said, scratching her head. "If it works like that, wouldn't just moving it around damage stuff? Like, when you expanded it to cover the kitchen, shouldn't it have smashed the wall to bits?" "Mm, well, the energy nullification doesn't actually apply when I move the barrier, so as long as everything I'm expanding it through is motionless already, then it'll just pass through harmlessly. I do have to disable the repulsive component for those times, though--- There's an element of the incantation to give me dynamic control over it."

My nitpicks are two: firstly, Ran mentioned special relativity applies to this universe in an earlier chapter. 'Motionless' is relative, and in Newtonian physics and relativity, you don't have a 'preferred' reference frame in which things can be 'absolutely' at rest. So I wonder how the spell is able to distinguish between 'thing moving towards Linos' (block) vs 'Linos moving towards thing' (don't block).

My second nitpick is thermal motion. Even a solid object is constantly full of random lattice vibrations corresponding to temperature. Negating all motion that touches the barrier would amount to flash-freezing anything that comes into contact. Though perhaps you can 'code' it to identify macro-scale objects in motion and block them.

Neither of these are like important.

Anyway here's how Bardiya's death is described by Theo...

"I... Bardiya was right up near the window at the far side of the room, when I turned. I only saw him clearly for a moment before the lamp fell over... But the window was open, and he was staring out of-- No, rather, it almost looked like he was being pulled by something. One of his arms reached out to try and grab hold of something, but there was nothing." He shook his head. "When the light was gone, I tried to call out, but I couldn't hear a sound from my own mouth... Or from anywhere at all. And then, I... I..." He ran his hands urgently through his hair, as if trying to wipe something off them, and gasped urgently. Mehit, who was sitting next to him, stared wide-eyed. "I couldn't see well, but it looked like something was... Was feeding on him," he went on. "He kept being pulled out through the window over and over again, and every time, there was more and more blood when he pulled back. I could even feel some of it splatter on my face, see the light reflecting off the puddle... And more than anything, I could smell it. It was like a butcher's shop, but sickly sweet." He shuddered. "E-Eventually, whatever it was let him go, and he slumped down. I'd been too shocked to move up until that point, but realized I needed to help him, so... I tried to step forward. I still couldn't hear my own voice, so I tried to turn his body around. That's when I... That close, I could see..."

Getting pulled out of the window by an unseen force and torn to bits definitely sounds kinda like getting caught in a repulsive barrier, right? Then again, there's no reason Bard would stick his hand out the window unless forced.

It's a shame, I liked Bardiya. Had a good head on his shoulders. But hey, I guess that's the point! You always kill the fan appeal character first for maximum tragedy points. (By the same token, I expect Ezekiel will last a long time.)

Durvasa we have less information to go on, since the corpse was arranged decoratively post killing. As we've observed, it might not even be Durvasa.

I'm too tired now to try to solve this one, but I might do a followup, to comment on any other stuff that stands out, later.

Great story, anyway. I'm so intrigued by all that's going on. I accidentally posted this instead of sending it to drafts, so I'm gonna unprivate it now, see you next time for more on these chapters or maybe just advancing straight to the next batch!

Thanks for reading my liveblog! And if you read this Lurina, great work, this book kicks ass, so many intriguing ideas and moving parts, I have no idea how you keep track of it all lol.

Umineko liveblog to pick up after sleep hopefully. We'll see though.

[zvaigzdelasas]

India’s Manipur state is on the boil, with social media flooded with visuals of people killed and injured in armed attacks. Violent protests broke out after an attack on June 29, while a church was looted and burned down two days prior. Over the past two months, Manipur’s largely Hindu Meitei community, which constitute a little over half of the state’s population, and the Christian-majority Kuki tribal group, which makes up about 16 percent of the population, have violently attacked each other in an outpouring of recrimination and revenge. Over 100 people have been killed and nearly 40,000 displaced. Angry mobs and armed vigilantes have burned down homes, churches, and offices.

Manipur has long faced secessionist insurgencies in which both military and state security forces have committed serious human rights abuses. Longstanding ethnic disputes have also erupted into violence. However, instead of adopting measures that would ensure the security of all communities, the Bharatiya Janata Party government of N. Biren Singh in Manipur state has replicated the national party’s politically motivated divisive policies that promote Hindu majoritarianism. Many Meitei seek the same affirmative action privileges that are provided to the Kuki under their protected tribal status. Tribal groups, particularly the Kuki, have argued that this would expand Meitei economic dominance and allow them to take over land in tribal areas.

30 Jun 23

2 Jul 23

Rahul Gandhi, India's main opposition leader, who was on a two-day visit to the region last week, said he was pained to see the situation and people suffering. "I came here because I wanted to share the pain of the people of Manipur. It is a horrible tragedy that has taken place," the Congress party leader said on Friday.

3 Jul 23