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stuhde · 4 years ago

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After taking some time off to cry, understand, and speak with myself. I decided to write something out expressing my thoughts and feelings about everything going on in this country. It’s long, powerful, and provactive but I need to get my voice out. Like, comment, share, have discussions with me when i finish my social media cleanse, but I will not stand silent in times of injustice.

After seeing and reading the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police, I was quick to delete all my social media apps and hide away from the “uwu Black lives matter posts,” the underserving claps white celebrities get from doing the bare minimum, and just witnessing the continuous realities of injustice that take place in this country.

As a first-generation Sudanese American, I was nothing but confused and lost in the midst of a growing movement, particularly George Floyd’s murder hitting home the most because the police who were arresting Floyd was responding to a call from an Arab American-owned store. With intersecting identities of being black, Muslim, and Arab, witnessing the anti-blackness rhetoric spew from my religious and ethnic communities clash with my racial identity stirred tension and fear in what it means to be a black Arab Muslim in this country and what my place is in the Black Lives Matter Movement. I often found myself asking, “what is my duty to the black community?”, “Am I too Arab to be black, or am I too black to be Arab?” And “what is my privilege in identifying as Arab and a non-hijabi Muslim?” Black Arabs like me often experience issues with invisible intersectionality, people often forcing us to “take sides” or strongly reside with one of our identities when it sees fit (refer to how people responded to the Ahmed Mohamed clock incident).

But I have come to the conclusion that my blackness is comprised of being a woman, Muslim, and Arab - not separately and that’s what makes this unique. Black Arabs are often finding themselves at the struggle of fighting against racial injustice because of our skin color and against the xenophobic and Islamaphobic rhetorics that have only increased since the beginning of the Trump campaign. However, you all have a duty not to ignore the experiences of black Muslim immigrants in this country, like Yassin Mohammed - he was murdered by police in Georgia earlier this month. Say his name and remember him.

Yassin like me is a Sudanese American - black, Arab, and Muslim but he wasn’t reported or written as such. The media called him a “Muslim man” and yet, our Muslim community remained silent. Why? Because it only brings to light the deep and historical roots of racism that are instilled in our community and we need to address it. Muslim and Arab Americans have a duty to stand with our black brothers and sisters in times of injustice. They were there for us in supporting Palestinian liberation and with us against the Muslim ban - now it is our turn. Listen to Black Americans and Black civil rights groups about their unique experiences and learn how we can best support our collective struggle against injustice. You have a duty to educate yourself and tackle anti-blackness in our community. As quoted in Surah An-Nisa [4:135], “be persistently standing firm in justice, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives” - support your local CAIR organization and others like the Arab American Action Network and the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, who are all standing with the Black Lives Matter movement and doing their best to bring all our communities together to end all forms of racism, discrimination, and injustice.

For my fellow Sudanese, this is our fight too. While we must recognize the centuries-long of cruelty and pain the African-American community has endured since forcefully coming to this country and understanding that their pain is different from ours, we share the same skin and we will go through the same thing they are going through. I can tell you personally, from even the youngest age that I have always been afraid of the police. Why? Because I witnessed the disproportionate amount of cruelty and violence with which people who look like me are treated with.

While our older Sudanese community members will try hard to erase our blackness simply because we have drops of Arab blood, at a tragic reality we have all experienced and witnessed discrimination and racism at the hands of law enforcement. This is hard because we have a complicated relationship with race on the fault line of racial consciousness because our country is on the border between Arab and black Africa. However it is, we are BLACK and we need to have conversations about race in our community. We as Sudanese people are not doing enough to eradicate racism and prejudice that exists in our community as well as our Muslim, Arab, and general US society. The next phase in the revolution is to recognize that these issues exist in our Muslim community, come together with black Americans and African-Americans, and create change to take down these systemic institutions that were never designed to protect black and brown folk.

I will continue to do my social media cleanse, but I welcome those who wish to discuss what my views and opinions are more with me - should you agree or disagree. People who care will know how to reach me. In this time, I am reading, learning, and liberating myself to make a change and I can only ask you to do the same. There are so much power and knowledge invested in books:

How to be an Anti-Racist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Dr. by Ibram X Kendi and Jason Reynolds

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis (HIGHLY recommend to my Muslim and/or Arab folk)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Michelle Alexander

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Resources for my black Muslims, courtesy of my University’s Muslim Student Association:

The Muslim Anti-Racist Collaborative - deconstructing anti-Blackness within the Muslim community Believers Bail Out - re-imagining the prison and police systems through Islamic perspectives Sapelo Square - an online forum that places Black Muslims at the center: Reconstructed Magazine - a creative magazine and conversation space led by Black, Shia, and queer Muslims The Black American Muslim - space for Black American Muslims to share testimonials and resources on faith, history, and power Justice For Muslims Collective - an organization reimagining a world where radical inclusion leads to collective liberation for Muslim communities and beyond Kayla Renée Wheeler, Ph.D. - Islamic Studies Professor who created the BlackIslam syllabus Amina Wadud, Ph.D. - African-American scholar on gender and race in Islam. Learn more about her through her interviews here Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, Ph.D. - Scholar-Artist-Activist & Author of Muslim Cool Islamophobia is Racist Syllabus - resources to understand empire, anti-Muslim racism, and ideology

For my black friends, I hope you are well and I hope you are safe. I am with you all the way through in our fight for liberation and human rights. Take care of yourself first before anyone else and if you need a minute or more before protesting and educating those around you, take your time, you need it. All the love x

#lama makes a monologue #long post #black lives matter #blacklivesmatter #george floyd #yassin mohammed #afro-arab #muslim american #arab american #black muslim #politics #us politics #policing #tw: violence #tw: police brutality #tw: murder #please understand what i am going through while writing this #i am in pain i am scared but i will not stand in silence: i will be liberated and fight for my people and their rights #good night

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gra-sonas · 4 years ago

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I’m confused, I thought the line ‘writing a lighter love story for alex’ was about malex not forlex? Especially since CAM also talked about how excited she’s about writing malex getting together, how they ‘deserved’ to be joyful and forrest not being an obstacle for malex. This is so different from the way she talked about m*luca? Where the idea that forlex will be romantic is coming from? For me this is not the way you talk about a couple. He’ll connect with alex, sure, but only as a friend?

First there was this interview (released 1 week ahead of the S2 finale!!!), where “a lighter story for those two guys“ was pomised.

NNN: I totally agree how sometimes queer or gay relationships in shows can definitely seem like an afterthought, and you can tell. It definitely does not feel that way on Roswell, so I really appreciate that. Can you give us Malex [Michael and Alex] shippers any hope?

CAM: Listen, all I will say is that from the beginning, Malex has been my favorite ship on the show. How do I say this without getting myself into so much trouble? I like a bumpy road [for the characters]. I like watching people have to contend with their own faults along the way. And so I’m not saying that we’re going to finally see them get back together at the series finale or anything like that.

But I think that the men that we met in the pilot, had a lot of work to do and I think they’re doing that work, within their relationships, within the way that they look at themselves in the mirror. Particularly for Michael, I think in his efforts to be a better man. I don’t think that’s an easy journey for anybody. So there’s some bumps in the road for sure, but I WILL SAY WE’VE BEEN BREAKING SEASON 3 IN THE WRITER’S ROOM, AND IT FEELS LIKE A REALLY GREAT BREATH OF FRESH AIR AS FAR AS A LIGHTER STORY FOR THOSE TWO GUYS, AND A MORE JOYFUL STORY.

But I really think that we had to earn that. I THINK WE HAD TO EARN THE WIDE OPEN, HEARTS OPEN, EYES OPEN JOY. AND WE’RE GETTING THERE. I’m really excited about it.

NNN: I’m enjoying Forrest. Can you tease what’s ahead for him?

CAM: Forrest was actually somebody who we initially were going to make one of our red herring villains. We were never going to make him actually the villain because I’m not really interested in a show where we’ve got a queer, blue-haired bad guy. So as of right now, Forrest is a good guy. And I think that he’s representative of something really important for Alex. I think Alex kind of looks at Forest and sees a person that he could have been had he not had his father standing in the way. And I think that that’s therapeutic and cathartic for Alex to see, and SOMEBODY WHO ALEX IS GOING TO CONTINUE TO CONNECT WITH MOVING INTO SEASON 3.

He’s somebody who we hope to have around for a while. That said, I DON’T WANT PEOPLE TO HEAR THAT AND LIKE GET SCARED THAT HE’S GOING TO BE THIS LONGTERM OBSTACLE FOR ALEX. I think that he just represents something that is Alex’s story. Everybody needs a little bit of their own story in the midst of all the alien madness.

And then there was another interview, that only talked about Alex getting “a slightly lighter love story”.

I think that Alex has never really had the OPPORTUNITY TO JUST CASUALLY DATE, especially in a space where he feels safe, and he feels proud of who he is. And so we’re excited for next season — FORREST IS GOING TO DEFINITELY BE A PART OF ALEX’S JOURNEY.

The thing that I really like about the end of the season is that Michael started this year saying that hope is the worst thing in the world; hope is the thing that hurts you the most.

At the end of this season, he says that he needs to end his story with Alex, because maybe there’s a new story for the two of them to start down the line. And I think that’s the most hopeful that we’ve seen Michael in a really long time.

SO WE’LL BE TELLING A SLIGHTLY LIGHTER LOVE STORY NEXT SEASON FOR ALEX.

In summary:

Forrest is “somebody who Alex is going to continue to connect with moving into S3.”

Forrest is going to “definitely be a part of Alex’s journey” and possibly an “opportunity [for Alex] to just casually date“

Forrest is “no longterm obstacle”

They’ll be telling “a slightly lighter love story next season for Alex.”

As for Malex, we’ll see “a lighter story for those two guys, and a more joyful story”

Also for Malex "we’re getting [there]” to the “wide open, hearts open, eyes open joy”

So, going by these interviews, it sounds like Forlex could be more of a casual thing that won’t last too long, while Malex might be getting to a point where they decide to give them a chance.

#malex #forlex #alex manes #rnm speculation #roswell new mexico s3 #nonnie asks

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softasheijis · 6 years ago

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Hi! I recently finished watching bf and I loved every second of it. I want to know at what point you think Ash fell in love with Eiji? I personally think he started catching feels after Eiji pole vaulted lol

thanks for the question! i think in order to understand when ash fell in love, you have to understand why and how. i’ll try to break it down for you without accidentally writing 50 pages worth, haha. to begin with, i often think of ash’s relationship development with eiji as that one famous quote from john green:

“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

sure, they’re star-crossed, and over the span of 24 episodes it doesn’t seem like it, but it was fast. ash didn’t even see it coming, and there’s really only seven stepping stones before it happens.

1. episode 24 provides us with some insight into ash’s first impressions upon their meeting. when eiji asked to see his gun, he was mostly thinking things like, “oh, this guy is too innocent. he’s weird. he doesn’t know a thing about the real world.” his face was carefully blank but he was studying eiji underneath. he didn’t see ibe and eiji as threats and/or equals in any way. the interview was tedious, but there were more important things going on at the moment with arthur anyway, so none of it really mattered. this was just another stranger entertained by his glamorized life of crime, and he was indifferent to it.

2. that changed when eiji pole vaulted over the wall to save ash and skipper in an act of bravery. his feelings towards eiji became recognition. he was so taken aback, he couldn’t stop staring. eiji was unpredictable. this guy could fly. he was a bird, he was free. it was clear then that eiji was everything ash wasn’t, and everything he wished he could have been. suddenly, he was an equal. they lived in two completely different worlds and ash was so envious of that, but on the other hand, he actually liked him. no one had ever bothered to help ash out without wanting anything in return, and his disposition was gentle and kind. although ash thought he was the one who was saved, eiji still thanked him for saving his life and even cried for him. because ash had no reason to hurt someone like eiji, who wanted nothing from him, and because eiji was too trusting and innocent to hurt anyone at all, ash let his guard down. big mistake.

3. consequently, he gives eiji a chance. he kisses him, sends a message, asks him to get something done. clumsy as it was, eiji delivers. he meets ash’s best friend, shorter, and they get along great. i believe shorter is a good judge of character and he’s also a best friend to ash, so that’s significant. at this point, ash is aware he can depend on eiji.

4. next, they visit his childhood home in cape cod. i believe the following moments they share indicate the start of ash beginning to feel something for eiji, regardless of whether that something is a small crush or just strong friendship and solidarity. the arc starts off with eiji learning of his past and ash spending quality time with him. they laugh, they talk freely, and eiji asks him questions no one has really bothered to ask him before. interestingly, eiji seeks him out (as seen right before jennifer is killed and they haul ass) and he looks happy to see him. i’m sure this isn’t the only time he’s done so, and this has to be something unusual to ash. he is used to people seeking him out for business or to kill him. eiji also becomes a sort of catalyst in ash making friendships with others. it’s because of him that ash starts to lean on others more often rather than doing everything himself.

so after all this, he starts to like eiji a little more. their relationship suddenly shifts and deepens. it’s so obvious, ibe and yut-lung take notice of it quickly. ash trusts him now. he doesn’t tense up when eiji sneaks up behind his back, he’s comfortable with letting eiji know what he’s working on, they rejoice together and high-five like children when successful, etc. they’re a team. he starts to like eiji a little too much, in fact. by the time he tells eiji to go back to japan, it’s too late. he allowed himself to slip, and now ash, a gang leader, has to actually resort to drinking in order to get his shit together because he can’t stop feeling guilty. he’s so in his head about it, he doesn’t even notice max is right next to him and clumsily drops his glass in the sink. this is rare. this scene, however small and funny it is, is intentionally put there to show you just how easily his defenses around others are brought down when it comes to eiji. it’s clear that ash didn’t want to hurt him and that he knows he did. naturally, yut-lung sees this as a weakness and promptly carries out his mission.

5. eiji gets kidnapped. in the height of danger things become a lot more clear to you, and so ash is now forced to face how important he is to him. he’s given a choice: kill your best friend or let eiji die. this is the biggest turning point in their relationship. after this, eiji becomes his rock while grieving. he becomes more important than anyone else. since ash is convinced he’s so monstrous and evil, he decides he can at least protect the one pure thing that’s been in front of him all this time. he can keep eiji from going down the same road he has. eiji doesn’t have to get blood on his hands, because ash can do it for him.

6. shortly after this cognizance, eiji reveals he’s worried about ash and that he feels strongly for him as well. not only does eiji tell him he isn’t afraid after ash had just killed a man in front of him, he tells ash he’ll wait for him forever, and that he’ll go crazy if he loses him too. the look on ash’s face here is so telling. eiji’s honesty and genuine worry for ash’s safety leaves him so surprised and vulnerable. after the confession he almost can’t tear his gaze away from him, and immediately orders alex to protect him, twice. alex notably raises an eyebrow and finds this odd, but doesn’t question his boss. this is when ash begins to realize the definition of their relationship and how he feels about him romantically.

7. after spending intimate time together away from the world, everything finally clicks into place. ash opens up, crying and spilling his guts out to him in the middle of the night after a nightmare. in the midst of his sorrow, eiji declares that he’ll stay by ash’s side, even if the world turns on him. eiji will stay by his side, even if he’s a murderer. eiji will stay by his side, even if ash doesn’t deserve anyone. and it’s these words that break a dam inside of him that has been kept shut since he was eight. this is when he absolutely, completely falls in love.

ash latches onto his promise without any hesitation, like it’s all he ever wanted to hear. he tearfully pleads for him to stay even if it’s not forever, to which eiji reassures, “forever”. if i had to pin point an exact scene, i’d say it’s definitely this one in episode 11.

ash has been waiting. he’s needed comfort and warmth for so long, and finally, eiji is here. eiji accepts his pain and helps him work through it. eiji listens to him. eiji treats his wounds and protects him. eiji falls asleep with him. eiji is patient. eiji cooks for him and nags him like a mother would. eiji’s touches are soothing and have no awful motives. eiji believes in him and his future. eiji gives him a glimpse of a normal life and makes him feel like he could be someone other than a worthless street punk. eiji is his shelter.

you have to understand that ash has never, never had that. he’s said it himself before to blanca. everyone has feared him in some respect. everyone has needed and expected something from him at some point, or taken it from him by force. he grew up on dino’s demands and manipulations, and even his friendships were first formed by alliances and/or beneficial circumstances.no one has simply done things for him.

eiji has no obligations to be there for him. he just wants to be next to him, even if that means he’s in serious danger. eiji is so different from everyone else, and he stood out to ash from the very beginning. ash just didn’t know why at the time.

we’ve gone through when and how already, now here’s the reason why:

since they met, eiji is the first person to have looked into ash’s eyes and only seen a kind soul, hurting. not a beast, a cold-blooded monster, a sexual weapon, a leader, a murderer, or a wild lynx. just aslan jade callenreese, lost to the world.

so after such sweet words and actions, of course ash falls.

and he doesn’t stop.

#yayayay i love it when you guys ask me stuff #asheiji #anonymous #answered #personal #meta

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if-you-built-yourself-a-myth · 6 years ago

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Yellow Curtains - Chapter One

Lucas Lallemant happens upon several people online who appear to be living lives quite similar to his own-- maybe even the same. (Or, all the alternate Isaks find each other online when Even becomes famous)

Lucas first saw the picture on his Instagram explore page, at three in the morning when Eliott was with his parents. He should have been sleeping, he supposed, but over the previous week they’d spent together his body learned to gel with Eliott’s at night. He could only sleep with his arm draped over Eliott’s midsection. This problem should have been fixable; he tried to wrap his arm around a pillow, or a bundle of comforter, but the fabric didn’t feel as warm and didn’t have a chest that rose and fell with each rhythmic breath. It wasn’t the same.

Hence, a late-night/early-morning browsing session.

He followed a lot of actors, meaning his explore page feed usually filled with photos from upcoming movies and low-budget indie films from all over the world. Eliott loved that kind of thing. He could sit and watch foreign language dramas, unsubtitled, for hours and hours commenting on the use of color in each scene and the smoothness with which each actor spoke. Lucas had never been one for cinema he couldn’t understand. He appreciated the concepts, and English wasn’t so bad to hear, but it wasn’t his niche.

Really, the only reason he followed so many actors in the first place was to keep up with Eliott’s obsessive interest in obscure titles with equally obscure directors and plot lines. He didn’t know half of the people whose pictures he liked.

Well, he knew a few. Xavier Dolan posted a new photo. Lucas liked it without much thought. He would always appreciate the man who inspired his and Eliott’s art of a reunion, even if he’d never stayed awake through the entirety of one of his movies.

“It’s in French!” Eliott had yelled at him. “No subtitles! It’s in French!”

“Not my thing,” he’d replied.

“Dubstep wasn’t your thing either, and look at you now.”

“I don’t actually like dubstep, I just love you.”

Xavier Dolan earned his like for the sake of that conversation alone. Lucas treasured when he had the opportunity to tell Eliott how much he loved him in some sappy way. He scrolled down past Xavier Dolan’s post and into a section of related ones, probably all from similar directors.

In the midst of his browsing, he found his attention drawn to a photo of two blond boys, standing together in a location tagged as Oslo, Norway. Call it fate, call it intuition, but he knew for sure something was different about these two people.

He tapped the photo so it took up most of the screen. One of the boys wore a gray sweatshirt similar to the one Lucas himself had in his closet. The other sported a jean jacket with a small pansexual flag pin on the pocket. The latter boy’s posture reminded Lucas of someone, although he wasn’t quite sure just who. He oozed confidence. If you looked at his face though, he seemed quite shy and timid. Lucas scrolled downward to read the caption.

isakyaki Congratulations to my wonderful boyfriend, Even Bech Næshiem, on directing his first full-length movie. I love you and cannot wait to see everything else you have to offer.

Even. The name stirred something in Lucas. He looked at the picture again. Which of the two was Even? Was it the taller boy with the jean jacket or the smaller one in the sweatshirt? He felt like he’d seen them both before, if only in passing, and surprised himself by feeling a tinge of resentment towards the shorter. Maybe they fought sometime? There was that whole mess with Alex, Charles, and those boys a while ago. He clicked into his Instagram messages and shot one to Eliott.

lucallemant: Do we know Even Bech Næshiem?

Eliott took a millisecond to reply.

srodulv: he’s a director

lucallemant: yeah, but do we know him

srodulv: no???

Huh. Go figure. Lucas turned his focus away from the photo. He accessed his home feed.

Emma and Alex were together tonight (or rather, last night) judging by Emma’s Instagram story. From what he heard from the girls on Sunday, they decided to be a legitimate couple instead of just a wild fling. He wondered what Yann thought about this development. The guilt was definitely still there, from when he made deliberate plans to break Yann and Emma up, because if he hadn’t said anything to Camille about the kiss then they would still be together. He was friends with Alex, sure, but the guy cheated. He’d done it once, and he would again. Lucas didn’t want Emma getting herself hurt anymore.

Chloe posted something yesterday afternoon, too. She must have gone out with Yann to some coffee shop within walking distance. Another thing to feel guilty about. Even though he didn’t totally forgive Chloe for telling everyone she could about him and Eliott, he knew he’d really screwed her over by pretending to be in love with her for so long. Regret-central on Instagram tonight.

He couldn’t force himself to move through everyone else’s posts. He’d probably seen the rest, and if he hadn’t then he obviously didn’t care very much about the people involved.

Instead, he looked back at the picture of Even from earlier.

Logically, he knew he couldn’t know either boy. They both lived in Norway, and one was supposedly somewhat famous, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen them both before somewhere—and not just in a foreign language movie.

lucallemant: did we know him at one point?

srodulv: no

lucallemant: are you sure?

srodulv: pretty sure. why?

lucallemant: he looks familiar

srodulv: there are a lot of people on earth

srodulv: maybe you’re confusing him for somebody else

lucallemant: who would I be confusing him for?

srodulv: I don’t know

Lucas looked into the poster’s profile. Okay, so the shorter boy in the photo was Isak. Even was the taller, then, the one with the crazy hair and the sweet smile. The familiar one. He scrolled through Isak’s photos of the two of them together, noting at one point a girl who looked a lot like Emma. Something fishy was happening here. He’d never seen these people before, and yet it was as if he had seen them every day for his entire life.

srodulv: Could be the dynamic

lucallemant: what do you mean?

srodulv: they have our dynamic lol

srodulv: the artist and the grumpy one

srodulv: ❤️ ❤️

lucallemant: haha

Lucas turned off his phone and sat back against his headboard. Eliott had a point. He could recognize Even because he seemed similar to Eliott in interest and posture-- that’s what it was. His phone buzzed.

srodulv: here, you can really see it here

Eliott attached a YouTube link for something. An interview.

Lucas tapped to pull up the interview on YouTube and clicked on the subtitles. If he was to put them in French, they would be auto-generated. Auto-generated subtitles were never trustworthy, so he’d just have to watch the interview with English ones and fumble through the gist of what each person said.

“Where did the two of you meet?” asked the interviewer.

Isak laughed and turned to Even. “Do you want to tell him?”

“Kosegruppa,” said Even. “Thank you, Vilde.”

“And how did you get the chance to talk with him?”

Again, both Even and Isak shared a glance and a giggle.

“He took all the paper towels,” said Isak. “All of them. Then he asked if I needed one, handed me one from the trash, and invited me outside to smoke a joint with him.”

Lucas paused the video. He met Eliott at a group meeting, didn’t he? He first saw Eliott sitting in the back and they made eye contact for a beautiful moment. Afterward, when they met at the bus stop, Eliott took all the candy bars and offered to smoke a joint with him. That was… similar, to say the least. He made a mental note to Google kosegruppa later. He pressed play.

“And you found that charming?” the interviewer prodded.

Isak threw an arm over Even’s shoulders and stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his forehead. “Of course I did. I was in love with him from the moment we locked eyes. I would have kissed him right there if it wasn’t for Emma.”

The interviewer leaned inward, closer to the two boys. “Who is Emma?”

“Emma is my ex-girlfriend.” When the interviewer looked concerned, he clarified, “It’s okay, we’re on good terms now. Everything’s smoothed over. She sat down right next to us and started—”

“—sharing the joint!” Even finished. “It was so awkward! I couldn’t make her leave. But I guess things worked out in the end so… sorry, Emma!”

Again, Lucas paused the video. When he and Eliott were at the bus stop, the exact same thing happened with Chloe. The exact same thing. When he looked at Even’s easygoing expression again, he realized he’d seen the same one on his own boyfriend’s face dozens of times. This was starting to get a little creepy.

He closed the app before he could watch the rest, and sent another message.

lucallemant: did you watch that interview?

srodulv: yeah

lucallemant: with subtitles?

srodulv: they didn’t have French

lucallemant: watch it

srodulv: it’s three

lucallemant: you’re not sleeping

srodulv: how do you know

lucallemant: you’re answering me

srodulv: maybe I am answering you in my sleep

lucallemant: they met the same as us. Watch the interview, please

srodulv: I can’t, I’m asleep

If Lucas didn’t love Eliott so much, he could have strangled him.

He reopened the Instagram app to explore Isak’s profile once more. He could distinguish the main characters in Isak’s life from the posts: Even, three other boys, and the girl who reminded him of Emma. Maybe she was Emma, the Emma Isak referred to in the video interview. This was all too bizarre. He also was a part of a four-friend crew, had a tag-along in Chloe for a while, and had a first-and-only kind of boyfriend. Lives don’t get much more similar than that.

He figured he might as well send a message, ask about it. Isak probably wouldn’t even see it in his inbox, since he dated a film director and their relationship seemed to be quite popular. He would not even notice the new message on top of all the others.

Lucas typed the words into the box and hit send before he could convince himself to do otherwise.

lucallemant: Hello, I saw your interview and it was kind of crazy. You met Even the same way I met my boyfriend, complete with an annoying intervention. If I may ask, did you ditch a double date to have your first kiss?

#skam france #skam #elu #evak #skam france fanfiction #skam fanfiction #lucas lallemant #isak valtersen #eliott demaury #even bech næsheim #i hope this doesn't suck too much #and i didn't miss too many typos #i probs need more editing but yolo we'll see how this does

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unnecessary-database · 6 years ago

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Ok so I have a really important headcanon that there’s an intern or two that figures out Kara is Supergirl, purely because they have major puppy dog crushes on her and she’s also sorta one of their gay awakenings ok so

It’s a guy and a girl who’s in the midst of a gay realization. Well, bi. She’s bi. she hasn’t quite figured this out cause the guy and the girl are dating. They’re the investigative journalism interns and their names are Conner and Mia, they’re about to be seniors in high school, and they’re sharp and full of ambition and precious.

Conner has this hero worship thing with James a lil bit and Mia does with Kara but Conner doesn’t get these big butterflies when James talks with him the way Mia does with Kara (still hasn’t clued in), but Conner agrees Kara is very very cool and attractive (“she’s just so pretty, Conner, I want to be just like her!”)

So Kara takes them both under her wing a little bit and they learn about investigating things—digging deeper, seeing more, getting the full story. And they decide that in that vein, they want to do an investigative piece on Kara

(Cue Alex in the back, facepalming as she yells NO and Kara laughs nervously and says sure I guess)

I mean, it’s a fluff piece. Designed to just say thanks. 1500 words, tops. Okay, maybe 3000. Or 5000. She’s really cool, okay!

And Conner and Mia are both good writers. They piece this thing together over several weeks of carefully observing her and listening to her little stories and tips.

And then, one night they’re writing, and they start to notice something. Despite Kara having interviewed Supergirl several times, they’ve never seen them in the same room. They’ve met Supergirl, who’s super cool, and she said she heard about them from Kara, who thinks they’re great. But Kara wasn’t there to introduce them. Huh.

It’s more little things. They brush off thing after thing, but somewhere in between the same little scar and the same earrings and the same hair color (seriously, Conner, it’s so beautiful I don’t know how she gets it to look like that) and the same way she crosses her arms, Mia and Conner are really wondering some things.

Then Conner hears about this thing called veinology or something. It’s this new police method of tracking people down based on the veins in their hands (and they did it on Hawaii five o once, Mia it’s gotta be legit). They can do it with just a picture.

Mia (naturally) has a couple (okay, avou about 20 at least) pictures on her phone/scrounges some up from the internet of Kara’s hands. They find plenty of Supergirl’s hands (and some very explicitly commentary about her hands that have Mia blushing—“Jesus Christ, of course she has nice hands, I mean duh, her fingers are really long and strong and her nails are always nice and she could totally be a hand model but people, seriously”).

And. They’re a match. It’s a little hard to tell because of the thumb covers. But. It’s definitely the same set of hands.

Conner and Mia stare at each other in numb shock, piecing together every little thing. Her occasional sudden absences. Her huge appetite. The way she picked Mia up off the ground without any apparent effort when she wrapped her up in a hug last week because Mia had a bad day (Mia remembers it getting better after that). A thousand tiny things, clicking together like the world’s longest zipper, leaving a seamless pattern in its wake.

Conner looks at Mia. “Do we... do we finish it? The editorial?”

Mia chews on her lip for several long seconds. “Yeah,” she says it. “I need to see what we write. But no one can know we know. We can’t do that to her. So, we can’t talk about the editorial, we can’t publish it, we can’t even tell our moms. None of it. We write this for ourselves.” And Conner nods. And they keep writing.

Kara hugs them both goodbye a week later, when their summer internship is up. She’s sad to see them go, but a little confused as to their faces as of the last week—a little more hero worship than usual. Conner hugs a little tighter than most humans, or himself in the past. He squeezes really tight, but she obviously barely feels it and just smiles at him like everything’s normal. Mia has a nervous energy all day and when Kara makes sure to take a moment and look into her eyes and ask if everything is okay, she looks a little like she’ll faint but accepts a hug gratefully.

They leave after the morning, and when Kara comes back after chasing down a lead that afternoon, it’s to an editorial on her desk, folded up in an envelope with her name in Mia’s loopy scrawl. Thinking it’s a thank you note, she opens it unsuspecting.

KARA DANVERS: SUPERGIRL.

Kara can’t breathe, but forces herself to look at the page. It’s four full pages, styled like a CatCo editorial. Well, a long one. But one beautifully designed and stylized and spaced and, most of all, masterfully written.

It takes two pages to describe every wonderful thing about Kara as a mentor. What the mentor ship meant to them, told in little snippets of their adventures under her wing. Then it delves into the story of their investigation. How they figured it out. The little pieces.

It ends with a couple poignant paragraphs, parts of which stood out to her:

Kara Danvers may don a cape in her nonexistent free time, but she doesn’t need superpowers to save people, give hope, and bring a smile to your face.

Though her secret may be impeccably hidden to the public, anyone who truly takes the time to see this extraordinary woman with an objective eye will note that something about her shines.

We don’t ask her to give up her secret identity. Merely that she trust us enough to know we trust her and would never betray her.

Lena’s working a late night and finds Kara reading this with tears dripping down her face and asks what’s wrong. Kara plays it off as a really touching thank you note and Lena just smiles. Of course it is. You deserve it.

Kara makes a copy and hands it to James the next morning. “Someday,” she says haltingly, “someday the world will know who I am in my entirety. Someday very, very far away. Farther away than my retirement. But when they do, I’d like you to publish this, if you’re still stuck behind this desk.”

James smiles and tucks it away.

Kara sends another copy to Cat in a few years, who refuses to admit she cries. Alex sobs ugly, ugly tears.

And Kara? Well, she reads it when she’s feeling down on Kara Danvers. But more importantly, she takes a long lunch break that day and finds a couple high school seniors on their first day and takes them out to lunch. (Mia’s heartbeat spikes to a dangerously high hammer upon the sight of a certain CatCo journalist standing calmly outside her fourth period, smiling at her but heaven knows why)

“So,” she says smiling. “I found the most wonderful editorial on my desk the other day. And I loved it so much.” (Mia steadily ignores and simultaneously treasures the swoop in her stomach at Kara’s twinkling eyes in the chipotle fluorescent lightning) “and I’d love to return the favor someday. Any recommendation letter you ever need, you just let me know. But for now, I’ll just say thank you.”

(And when Kara swoops them both up in the biggest hug, Conner’s grinning like a maniac and Mia can barely eat her [free, on Kara] lunch because her stomach is just about on fire with butterflies.)

(Maybe she’s a little bit gay, she admits to herself.)

#supergirl #kara danvers #catco #mia and conner #supergirl headcanons

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d2kvirus · 2 years ago

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Dickheads of the Month: August 2022

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of August 2022 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

In the latest deluded Churchillian LARP of proven liar Boris Johnson he attempted to assuage the concerns of the British people about their rapidly increasing energy bills by saying we needed to pay them to fight Putin in Ukraine, apparently under the misguided belief that British Gas have troops on the ground protecting the Ukrainian borders

The habitually clueless Liz Truss came up with a genius idea to unite the country: by saying she would ignore the “attention-seeking” Nicola Sturgeon, which was a particularly bold claim for somebody with a personal photographer following her around on overseas visits and definitely doesn't undermine her claiming to want to unite the United Kingdom

...and because Liz Truss was on a roll, she then decided to start slagging off Mark Drakeford, meaning that she was now picking fights with two democratically elected leaders while canvassing for votes for her anything but democratic bid to lead the UK

...but since that wasn’t enough Liz Truss then decided to pick a fight with Emmanuel Macron claiming in an interview with Julia Halfwit-Brewer she is unsure if he is an ally, which indicates that Truss is unaware that France is part of NATO so, yes, Macron is an ally

Mar-a-Lago getting raided seems to have sent the MAGA louts completely off kilter, what with Marjorie Taylor Greene apparently turning ANTIFA overnight in her demands that the FBI be defunded, while Eric Trump babbled incoherently about how no family in American politics has taken more arrows in the back than the Trump family as if two of the Kennedys weren’t assassinated, and taking the cake was Fox News with their framing of the entire story being how the opponent of Biden in the 2024 election was getting raided

Somehow, in the midst of Liz Truss being clueless in so many ways, she managed to also invoke just about every antisemitic trope in the space of a single statement

The ultra-relatable Rishi Sunak unveiled the surefire way to reignite his fading leadership campaign with by declaring that anybody who says bad things about the UK would be treated as extremists and sent to a re-education camp, because nothing says relatable quite like going Full Fash

All that Rudy Giuliani had to do to sell that he was not medically cleared to travel to Georgia to dodge prosecutors was to sit still and not move a muscle. Instead what Rudy Giuliani did was try to bunk off to New Hampshire, getting busted in the process

Nice guy Rishi Sunak didn't seem to notice or care that he was being filmed while casually telling a hustings in Tunbridge Wells that he'd diverted funding for deprived northern areas to the non-deprived, non-northern safest of Tory safe seats that is Tunbridge Wells

So we’ve reached the point where Zac Goldsmith and Nadine Dorries are completely indistinguishable from Marjorie Taylor Greene when it comes to spouting absolute gibberish masquerading as conspiracy theories, specifically about the Partygate enquiry, like the good cultists they are

Not only did furious pulsating bollock Alex Jones discover that he committed perjury when he was politely informed that his grossly incompetent lawyer sent his entire phone records to the Sandy Hook families’ lawyer by mistake, he then tried his damndest to get a mistrial called to weasel out of paying $150m in damages - and that's before his persecution complex took over and he thought comparing himself to groups persecuted by the Nazis was a good look. Funnily enough, it didn't work and he now owes tens of millions of dollars in damages, while the texts have also been handed off to the January 6th Commission

At which point will Keir Starmer realise just how mad he looks when, in his bid to be the exact opposite of Jeremy Corbyn on every subject, he says that the 66% of people who want energy companies to be renationalised are wrong and in actual fact it's better to pay a lot more money?

...although I doubt Luke Akehurst will ever realise that calling left-wing Labour party members every name under the sun might just be having a dire effect on both party finances and explain why Starmer’s Labour is not making the bold gains that the centrist hivemind insisted they would

So nice to see proven liar Boris Johnson remain committed to leading the UK throughout the last weeks of his premiership by going on holiday, coming home for a few days, then going on another holiday in the first two weeks of August

...a fact exacerbated by Nadhim Zahiwi also buggering off on holiday just in time for the energy bill hike, meaning that at the exact same time the Prime Minister and Chancellor were on holiday, while the Foreign Secretary was too busy LARPing as Margaret Thatcher during the leadership contest

Militant TERF JK Rowling sure did a 180 from demanding her safety be protected by Twitter after she was threatened in the wake of Salman Rushdie being attacked, to 72 hours later going on a full-on attack on Joanne Harris because people dared call a TERF a TERF

Two more sets of rail strikes and Grant Schapps still hasn’t bothered to even entertain the idea of meeting with either ASLEF or the RMT, but he’ll certainly meet with journalists so he can bits about ASLEF and the RMT

Unifying force Keir Starmer claims the reason it took him a mere ice age before issuing a statement about the energy bill crisis was because he was on holiday with his family for the first time in over two years...which means he either forgot about the holidays he has taken with his family to Devon or the New Forest in the last two years, or he hoped nobody else remembers

Hooooooooooo boy did Laura Loomer look like an absolute mentalist after failing miserably in her bid for Florida’s 11th district, having a complete meltdown where she tearfully howled about non-existent election fraud and refused to concede, because apparently the MAGA louts haven;t come up with any new material since November 2020

Pompous fools Jacob Rees Mogg wrote another article harrumphing about the “laziness” of the civil service where he claimed the Serious Fraud Office was practically deserted. Slight problem with that claim: the photo he included with the article was of his own cabinet office, presumably before he started putting notes on everybody's desks demanding they see him

Apparently the new policy at Warner Bros is to not make money, based on them yanking Batgrirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt not just from the schedules but burying them where they will never be seen in spite the amount spent on them, with Batgirl costing an estimated $90m (but they can claim back every last cent of that on a tax break...) or the fact the films were both at least 90% completed before the plug was pulled

Murderering murderer Kyle Rittenhouse moaned that he can't live a normal life ever since becoming a puppet of the alt-right, somehow failing to consider that the people he murdered can't live any sort of life at all due to Kyle Rittenhouse murdering them

Militant TERF JK Rowling unleashed her creative juices for her latest lump of leaden prose about a fantasy author who is harassed by people on social media. No word about whether that fantasy author writes under a man’s name yet decided they're the gatekeeper of all gender identity on the internet because something something toilets

Smug bore Malcolm Gladwell is the latest pseudo intellectual who is adamant that people should not work from home, which definitely doesn't come across as Malcolm Gladwell negging people for working from home, which is exactly what Malcolm Gladwell does when tossing off another book

It's amazing how The Sun devoted so much coverage to the Wagatha Christie waste of time and brain cells and somehow it took until the thirtieth paragraph of the fourth piece they wrote on it to mention The Sun just so happened to be the other guilty party, which is odd as they were mentioned by name 133 times in the judge's summing-up

Noted shithead Dan Wootton responded to England winning the Women’s Euros in a completely normal way: by howling about how, four years from now, the entire Lionesses team could be made up of transgender players

Just when you thought GB News couldn't make themselves look more like a fascist dogwhistle factory, they only go and have Peter Imanuelson appear on the channel having a cozy chat with Neil Oliver while the rest of the world wonders why the hell they platformed a Holocaust denier

There’s ways to lose your job, and Nathan Middleton went above and beyond the call of being an arse by responding to Tottenham's last-minute draw with Chelsea by posting an unhinged antisemitic rant not just to a tweet from Tottenham’s account but copy/pasted it to various Spurs players and blogs, which lost him his gig with Stadium Rant, Sports Time and Overtime Heroics Football - and then demanding other sites hire him

It’s surprising that Matt Forde had an issue with mewling infants shitting themselves at one of his Fringe gigs, as that's an accurate summary of the quality of every single project his name's been attached to as well as his huffy response to the child not sitting down and shutting up while he talked

...meanwhile Ricky Gervais manages to be even more precious about what is or isn't allowed at his gigs by demanding ice cubes be banned from drinks at venues where he's playing, rather than working on his material so that he can't hear a couple of ice cubes clinking in a glass in the cheap seats in the dead air that occurs where other comedians make people actually laugh

Domina dev Nicholas John Leonard Gorsen had one hell of a meltdown in response to Jim Sterling posting a video about Gorsen turning into quite the far-right crybaby in Domina’s patch notes to the point that they're banned from their game’s Steam community forum, spending hours tweeting transphobic bilge and begging for Sterling to respond to their rants while claiming that they weren't mad while also demanding Twitter make Sterling respond. It went exactly as well as could be expected...

And finally, pleading the Fifth like a crook, is Donald Trump and the espionage laws he is currently being investigated under due to removing all those boxes of sensitive documents from the White House which he claimed were declassified because he declassified them the week before the FBI showed up in spite not being in a position to declassify anything

#dickheads of the month

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sapphicscholar · 7 years ago

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A/N: Don’t hate Lucy! Eventually this will all help Alex find her way out of the closet from behind all those leather jackets...

Chapter Text:

“You okay?” Kara whispered, catching sight of Cat’s clenched jaw.

“Just dandy,” Cat muttered. “The man-child one row up and to the left doesn’t even have the common courtesy to try to hide the fact that he’s taking my photo, and I’ll be stuck with him on this godforsaken airplane for the next few hours while we fly out to bumblefuck nowhere.”

Even though Cat had kept her voice quiet, Kara leaned in to reply; they were in no need of a second scandal. “Switch seats with me. I’ll block his view.”

“What?”

“You can have the window.”

“But you said looking out at the view from up here was your favorite part of flying.”

Blushing, Kara remembered having to clarify that she meant on a plane, though Cat had seemed even more confused at the clarification. “There’ll be plenty of flights in our future.”

Eventually Cat conceded and moved in a seat, smiling gleefully at the look of disappointment that flashed across the would-be paparazzo’s face when Kara leaned forward and blocked his shot.

“Plus, we’re stopping in Chicago first, so you can ease into the Midwest,” Kara teased.

“Ah yes, with that travesty they call pizza.”

Kara snorted loudly. “Sorry, didn’t know you’d be so passionate about the matter. If I remember correctly, I thought you said something about pizza not being healthy enough to qualify as food.”

“If I’m going to indulge, it may as well be good,” Cat huffed. “I might have made California my home, but I started out in the Northeast, which means I know the difference.”

“How’s this for a trade? You smile big for the reporters and eat the deep dish pizza, and I promise to take you for amazing food at Alex’s favorite food truck.”

“You want me to eat food cooked and served from the back of a truck?” Cat looked downright incredulous.

“C’mon, you’ll look like one of the people.”

“I hate this.”

“Don’t let them hear you,” Kara whispered, her tone lilting and far too cheery.

---

Back at campaign headquarters, Alex basked in the relative calm after the storm of activity that weekend and the rush that always came with last minute changes—in this case, keeping James back at campaign headquarters to stay on top of the press for the first week before joining Cat and the team when they flew down South. Alex had gotten confirmation from Kara that everyone arrived at the airport on time, then a string of emojis before she had to switch her phone to airplane mode for takeoff. With Vasquez and Winn gone and James tied up with interviewers all day, Lucy had been in and out of her office a few times, so it was no surprise when she came back again with two coffees in hand.

“Before you get your coffee…”

“What?” Alex whined. “You don’t get to taunt me with caffeine and then take it away.”

“Kara and I were talking…” Well, really Lucy had been talking at Kara, but it still counted.

“About?”

“You.”

“Rude.”

“How long has it been since you went out on a date?”

“I don’t know,” Alex answered reflexively. In fact, she was fairly certain it had been over two years, save for a fake date or two to gather intel. “It doesn’t matter. I’m busy with work.”

“We’re all busy, Alex. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t indulge in a bit of self-care.”

“How is a date self-care? It takes work and energy and time that I don’t have.”

“Well, yes,” Lucy conceded, dropping into one of the chairs now that it seemed like this could be a very long conversation. “But it also has rewards, you know.”

“I’ve yet to experience those rewards,” Alex huffed, reaching for the coffee cup. She’d gone out with guys that seemed nice enough, but somehow by the second or third date, they were just as exhausting as the terrible ones and left her craving the solitude of her own bed in her own apartment without the expectations of someone else weighing down on her at all times.

Lucy held it just out of reach. “Just let me set you up on one date. If you don’t like him, fine. But you need to try.”

“If I say yes, do I get my coffee?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes.”

Lucy handed over the cup. “Don’t forget, I’m a lawyer, so I’ll totally hold you to it.”

“Don’t forget, I’m trained in several forms of martial arts and know how to use dozens of weapons.”

“Is there an end to that threat?”

“I prefer to let your imagination run wild,” Alex shot back with a wicked smirk.

“Yeah, yeah. Just be nice to the man.”

“Wait, you already know who you’re setting me up with?” Alex’s interest was piqued, even if she didn’t really want to go on the date at all. Lucy nodded. “Who?”

“Why? So you can stalk him and find out everything there is to know about him and decide you hate him before you’ve even met?”

“It sounds perfectly logical to me.”

“No.”

“I hate you.”

“I’ll text you details when I have them!” Lucy called over her shoulder, already texting Vasquez and Kara the good news.

Grumbling to herself, Alex flicked on the television in her office, figuring she could catch up on the news as an easy way to pass the time on a relatively slow day. Cat’s responses had been getting decent traction so far, and the social media team had been working nonstop to keep the best articles about Cat front and center. She tuned in just in time to hear someone giving a brief recap of the weekend’s events and was pleased to find that it wasn’t nearly so damning an account as the same newscaster had given just two days earlier.

Kicking her feet up on the desk, she listened as they went through the other candidates, checking off who had visited Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and detailing what they’d done there. Four candidates—two of the Democrats, one of the Republicans, and some third party candidate who’d barely even made the news—had dropped out of the race, even in the midst of the scandal, which boded well for them. General Lane and Senator Crane had spoken together at some anti-immigration rally. Alex scratched a note to herself about a potential Lane-Crane ticket down the line. They’d sound like they emerged straight from the pages of a Doctor Suess book, though a decidedly devious one if they stuck to their platform. Siobhan had gone to an EMILY’S List event. Alex made a note to ask Kara to make sure the organization was still firmly backing Cat; she wasn’t overly concerned, given that they had already made an official endorsement for the Grant campaign, but it was good to keep everything in line.

As the 10 o’clock news rolled into the 11 o’clock news, Alex got up and stretched, intent on wandering around the office to see who else was in, maybe scare some of the interns and new researchers who might have been slacking off in Cat’s absence.

Before she could leave, she caught sight of Max Lord’s face swimming into view and had to repress her instinct to gag. Turning up the volume, Alex listened to a new newscaster introduce him with glowing accolades as though his business had somehow saved an already thriving state.

“Thanks for that, Cindy, though it’s people like you that keep this city accountable.” Alex’s lip curled up in distaste at the smarmy way he smiled at her. “I’m here today under circumstances that I don’t think any of us could have expected: the wake of the scandal surrounding Cat Grant—a woman near and dear to so many of us in California.”

“It certainly took us by surprise!” the woman—Cindy, Alex remembered—interjected. Alex scoffed at the idea that she was surprised; the news outlets had more notice than anyone else.

“I spent this past weekend watching coverage and sorting through everything that was released for myself. I wouldn’t want to rely on secondhand coverage—no matter how great it might be.” Alex found herself grabbing a pen just to have something that wouldn’t cost a fortune to replace to throw at the wall. “As much as I have supported Cat—both as a governor and as a personal friend—I find the things we’re learning about her campaign and her business to be, if I might speak frankly, quite troubling.”

“They did seem to rock the boat—really upset the image she’s cultivated for herself over the years.”

“An image founded in action!” Alex yelled at the screen as though they could hear her.

“And so, it is with a heavy heart and a firm sense of duty toward my country that I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States of America.”

“Lucy!” Alex roared, listening as the sound of stiletto heels came clicking down the hallway. When she got into Alex’s office, Alex just gestured at the screen, where a rolling banner now announced Max’s candidacy.

She’d missed whatever Max had said next, but caught Cindy looking slightly curious, if a bit confused. “And you’re running as a Democrat?”

“I know, in what world does a libertarian run as a Democrat?” Max laughed. “Then again, ask anyone and they’ll tell you a California Republican is still more liberal than a Texas Democrat.” Cindy laughed along with him that time. “But in all seriousness, I think the Republican Party has for too long held a monopoly on certain ideas. As anyone can see from the kind of work I do in my labs or the organizations I’ve donated to over the years, I lean left and strive toward progress and change in so many significant ways, even if I think that the government shouldn’t always be the ones driving that change.”

“Well, that sure does come as a surprise. Should we expect to see you out on the campaign trail yourself now?”

“I’ll be out with everyone at the Iowa Democratic Fundraising Dinner this week, and I’m sure you’ll start to see my name popping up in coverage soon enough.”

“What the fuck?” Lucy’s jaw hung open as she watched the news shift over to commercials—specifically to a commercial for Max’s campaign funded by a new super PAC, “Businesses for Progress.”

“Dirk,” Alex growled, putting together the mysterious phone call with a promise for an 11 o’clock timeslot, the ambiguous promise about “having a guy” that Kara had overheard after the donor meeting. “That fucker.”

Before Alex could do anything rash, Lucy put a hand on her arm. “Okay, let’s think this through. Honestly, will he get any of the voters Cat would have gotten?”

“He might,” Alex admitted. “On Wall Street and business issues she ran a bit closer to the centrists, but he might claim those votes, or at least some of their big donors, especially if he runs the kind of dirty campaign I suspect he will.”

“Do you think Cat knows yet?”

“They’re still up in the air for another half hour.” Alex pulled out her phone and sent articles along with a few lengthy messages to Kara so that they’d get the news before some reporter asked about it and put a surprised Cat in the spotlight, leaving her looking uninformed. “God, so much for a quiet week.”

“Look, it’s not another scandal. It sucks, but he’ll be bound by the same kind of rules Cat is, which puts them on an even playing field.”

“Except it doesn’t,” Alex said bitterly. “He’s a white man without the burden of a scandal weighing on him already.”

“Let’s see how he does in Iowa before we panic.”

---

Kara yawned and rolled out her shoulders as she waited for her phone to restart while they stood away from the crowds beside the baggage claim carousel. Watching as little red notification numbers popped up, she was shocked to see dozens of texts and emails from campaign headquarters. She skimmed through them quickly, growing increasingly incredulous.

“Um, Cat?”

“Hmm?”

“We have a problem.”

“Did those emails leak?” Cat hissed.

“No! No, not that big of a problem—it’s just a new candidate.”

“Oh,” Cat let out a sigh of relief. “That’s fine. They’ll have already missed the first debate, so they’re coming in at a disadvantage.”

“Um, well, that’s the thing. He’s already well-funded…by Dirk.” She kept Alex’s profanity-riddled messages to herself, though she managed to find the confirmation that he was funding Max’s super PAC among the obscenities.

Cat’s eyes flashed up at Kara, and she swore she saw red. “Excuse me.”

“Max Lord is running for president now. He’s saying he didn’t want to, but he was persuaded to join because you had too much baggage now with the scandal and all.”

After a moment of two of stunned silence, Cat found herself laughing—a small chuckle at first that grew into something larger and almost uncontrollable. “I just…of course he is.”

“Are you okay?”

“Just swell, Kiera. My conniving ex-donor is funding a campaign for my ex-boyfriend to run against me for the role I’ve been preparing for my entire adult life.”

“Your ex-boyfriend?” Kara tamped down on the surge of jealousy she felt coursing through her veins. She tried to convince herself that it was just righteous indignation; Cat could clearly do better than Max. She ignored the small voice yelling that she would have been better for Cat by a landslide.

“We all make mistakes.”

“Well yours is going to be at the fundraising dinner in Des Moines this Thursday.”

“Fabulous.”

“Let’s get out of the airport so we can talk freely, okay?”

“Fine,” Cat huffed.

---

After a strategy session in the hotel room with Kara, James, and Alex via Skype, Cat felt slightly better. Kara had spent the ride back reading through Max’s campaign website at a pace that had to have set some kind of world record and had already identified several weak points in the barebones policies he had laid out, while James focused on how they could adjust Cat’s public image to position her as the stronger candidate not only opposite Justin but opposite Max now too, on the off chance that his campaign took off. And Alex had spent her time digging up as much dirt on Max as she could find, though Cat asked her to hold off on personal life research unless it became necessary. There was no doubt in her mind that Alex was already doing the research, but at least she could keep her hands clean for now.

“Ready to have some of that famous deep dish pizza you love so much?” Kara teased, trying to lighten the mood.

“Can’t wait,” Cat deadpanned.

On the ride down to Gino’s East, Cat listened as Kara and Michael, the head of their Illinois headquarters, hit her with facts about how they’d been polling out there and what topics to talk about (as well as the ones to avoid). Kara held up the phone with James on speaker to contribute as well.

“The scandal hit, but it wasn’t as big of a story here as it was in other places,” Michael informed Cat. “At least in Chicago, you’re still polling ahead of Justin, who’s kept his second-place standing.”

“And Chicago is already a deep blue pocket in a pretty blue state,” Kara chimed in, “so you won’t have to worry too much.”

“I scheduled a photo op at the Chicago Southside NAACP offices,” James reminded Cat, his voice crackling slightly through the speaker.

“Make sure to hit home on your points about education, especially making sure public schools in low-income neighborhoods are receiving adequate funding.” Kara handed over a half-page of bullet points their team had put together with statistics about funding disparities between schools that catered to primarily white neighborhoods and others in communities populated by first- and second-generation immigrants and people of color.

Michael cut in again. “And talk about police oversight—make some of the points you made at the debate even stronger and clearer. Your meetings with Black Lives Matter coordinators went over well, but you can’t let a meeting be the only thing you do.” Cat nodded along. “I know you haven’t really gone on the attack yet outside of the debate, but Justin’s poor record on just about everything related to race is what’s keeping you above him here. It might not play as well outside of the city, but while you’re here, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to hit him on that a little.”

“Now that he’s made some statement about my record on women’s rights when he has absolutely no room to judge, I think it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Cat admitted.

“Plus, that fundraising dinner is when things start getting a bit more heated anyway.” Kara caught Cat’s expression of surprise, though she hid it quickly. If Cat expected her to be just as naïve as she was years ago about how these things worked, she had another thing coming.

“We’re just about here, ma’am,” Vasquez announced, slowing down the car. “Do you want me to do another lap around the block?”

“No, I’m ready.”

After one last moment of calm, Cat plastered a broad smile on her face just in time for Vasquez to pull open the door.

“Hello, Chicago!” she waved, feeling her smile grow more genuine at the sight of homemade “Grant for President” signs held aloft and local newspaper reporters lining the area outside Gino’s.

She signed a few posters and took a few softball interview questions on her way in, finally making it into the restaurant and taking a seat alongside a few of the members of the Chicago Board of Education who she’d arranged to meet with for lunch. They all smiled for more photos, then did a second round when their pizza was delivered.

“Is this your first time with deep dish pizza, Miss Grant?” a young reporter asked.

“It is,” Cat admitted. “But it already smells delicious!”

Cat reached out and accepted the offered plate, motioning for her dining companions to go ahead and get some as well. “And you know what? Can we order a second pizza for my campaign staff? They work so hard—they deserve some of this famous Chicago food too!”

“Well played,” Kara muttered, her voice barely a whisper in Cat’s ear.

Fighting back the surge of excitement at exactly how close Kara was, Cat nodded, then turned ever so slightly to her under the guise of asking what toppings they wanted. “Will I be mocked and memed if I eat this with a fork and knife?”

Stifling a giggle, Kara shook her head. “No, you’re fine.”

Once everyone at her table had a slice in front of them, Cat cut into hers and popped a bite into her mouth before giving some quote about how they might make a deep dish fan out of her yet. “I should bring my son here. You know how much food teenage boys eat. Maybe one of these could actually keep him full for more than an hour,” Cat joked, smiling at how well her comments seemed to be going over.

With the pleasantries out of the way, Cat turned back to the Board of Education members, who had brought with them a local principal and teacher who both joked about loving the chance to get away from the school cafeteria for lunch. While they ate, they talked about Cat’s platform, and she hit home hard on equitable funding and equal opportunities for all students. But then she turned the conversation over to them, asking what their experiences had been. “I can read all the articles and reports, but it’s never quite the same as getting to hear from the people who live it every day. So you tell me: what would help you?”

By the time they finished, Cat was fairly certain she could count on their support in the election, and Kara was already smiling at the great publicity they were getting from a photo James had taken of Cat laughing out loud, a half-eaten slice of pizza on the plate in front of her, looking every bit the part of the down-to-earth candidate invested in the needs of local communities.

---

Back in DC, Maggie strolled down the hallways, feeling the shift in mood from the weekend with good publicity rolling in. She’d been pleased to see Cat at the NAACP offices dropping in some of the quotes and figures she’d sent to Kara that morning. “Hey, Danvers,” she greeted with a little knock on the door.

Blinking rapidly as her eyes readjusted after looking at screens for hours on end, Alex managed a quick hello back.

“Need help with something?”

“No…just trying to get ahead of the new Lord campaign. Didn’t really expect another challenger this late in the game, especially a well-funded one.”

“Ugh, he’s such an ass.”

“He really is.”

“Oh, hey look! Something we agree on,” Maggie joked, actually earning a smile from Alex.

“Yeah, yeah. Is there something you needed?”

“I just wanted to say hey. See if you were still up for a run tomorrow morning. If you’ve got too much going on with Max, though, it’s totally fine. I get it.”

“No, I promise, if anything, this makes me want to run more. I mean, hitting things would be preferable, but running will do.”

“Sparring does tend to help more with that particular impulse,” Maggie conceded.

“You box?”

“A little. Did some wrestling back in high school after I moved.”

“One day I might just take you up on it if that’s an offer.”

“Yeah? Alright, Danvers. We’ll see what you’ve got.”

Alex laughed and shook her head. “Let’s see if you can even keep up on our run first. I’ll meet you at your place at 7—sound good?”

“Uh, sure. I can meet you somewhere if it’s easier.”

“Nah, it’s fine. It’ll be my warm up.”

“Alright, well, I guess I’ll see you then.”

---

After a moment’s indecision, Kara knocked lightly on the door to Cat’s hotel room.

“Yes?” Cat answered the door, her dress pants having been replaced by sweatpants, but her blazer and blouse still on.

“That’s a good look,” Kara teased. “Bet it would play well in the media.”

“Ah yes, just the message I want.” Cat rolled her eyes but opened the door further to allow Kara inside.

“I brought tea—thought you might want something warm after a long day out in the Chicago fall weather, which is kind of like DC deep winter…”

“Thank you.” After a pause, she added, “You really don’t need to keep doing these things.”

“Cat, it’s my job to make the campaign go well. And that means keeping you healthy and happy.”

Cat bit back any and all inappropriate comments about things that would make her happy—a long list that started with Dirk’s head on a silver platter and ended with a delightful blonde campaign manager in a less-than-professional situation.

“Ready for the drive to Davenport tomorrow?” Kara asked, curling a leg under herself as she settled down on the less uncomfortable looking of the two hotel chairs.

“Actually, I wanted to see what you thought of going to Iowa City first. It barely adds an hour to the drive.”

“Um, yeah, I guess. You need to be back in Davenport for your meeting with the manufacturing union reps tomorrow night, but I think otherwise things should be moveable. Maybe check with James first?”

Cat pulled out her phone and quickly sent a text to James confirming that things could be moved before turning back to Kara. “I know we’re doing a morning photo op at the Center on Halsted with some of the local LGBTQ groups, but I thought we might drop in for the Iowa City Coming Out Day events too.”

“Are you, uh, coming out? I mean—that’s great! And I certainly wouldn’t say no—not that it would be my choice. But, um, maybe we should check in with Alex and James to figure out how to word things in the wake of…you know, everything.”

“You’re rambling.” Kara stopped talking, quickly shutting her mouth and looking to Cat. “I’m not coming out. I’m a politician recognizing a community I have publically supported for many years. And it’s all well and good to do so in Chicago, but I thought it might have a bit more of an impact in a state that isn’t quite so blue, even if the town itself is a bit more progressive.”

“Oh,” Kara breathed out. “That sounds like a great idea.”

“I’m aware.”

Kara just rolled her eyes. “Let me get James on this—”

“No need. I think it’ll be better to have it be more of a surprise visit. It’ll seem less staged.”

“I suppose plenty of people will take pictures and post them anyway…”

“And if they don’t, I do employ a full staff of people who I assume can take a few basic photos while we’re there.”

“Right, yeah. So, should we get you some rainbow t-shirt? Glitter? Pride flags?”

“I think my planned suit will be just fine,” Cat replied, although she wasn’t able so suppress the fond smile. “I won’t stop you if you want to dress yourself in all sorts of gaudy, glittery rainbows, though.”

“It’s just a shame I left my Pride outfit back in DC.” Of course, there were more than a few ways she could go get it and be back in plenty of time, but it didn’t seem worth the risk.

“And what might this famous outfit involve?”

“Well, I do have lots of glitter and some rainbow temporary tattoos. Then I got this Wonder Woman crop top and…” Cat’s mind just about shorted out at the image, and she promptly lost track of the other things Kara was saying. Because now all she could picture was Kara Danvers and the abs she was fairly certain were hiding beneath those hideous cardigans and Loft blouses, maybe coated in glitter—an offense she might actually willingly excuse, given the right circumstances.

“Yes, well, I should really be heading to bed.”

“Oh, sorry! Lots to do tomorrow! I’ll see you in the morning.”

Cat quickly shut and locked the door behind Kara before changing the rest of the way into pajamas and groaning into the pillows. Eventually her sleeping pills managed to win out against the tempting images swirling through her imagination and the rush of blood that left her heart racing and her skin feeling heated to the touch.

#supercat sanvers 2020 #fanfic #supergirl #supercat #slow burn #sanvers #kara danvers #cat grant #max lord #alex danvers #lucy lane #maggie sawyer #political au

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ekedolphin · 4 years ago

Text

One Last Dance for NEW, and Its Greatest Champion

February 15, 2005

The soothing but mournful sounds of Gabriel Faure's "Sicilienne" from Pelléas et Mélisande played, and the tall blonde figure listened, letting himself get swept away with the music. He could hear a lot of himself in the piece-- regal, accomplished, yet at the same time tragic. He could remember each triumph he'd achieved in life, and there had been many. He'd become successful in his chosen field, adored by millions of people around the world. He'd created a successful record company, which was a difficult thing to do in the modern industry. He'd opened a successful wrestling school with two graduates that he was as proud of as if they were his own children.

He remembered his wedding days, to both his first and his second wife, and he remembered the birth of each of his four children with perfect clarity. Carrie and Alex were two and a half now, hard to believe-- and already they'd taken on the look of their mother, thank God. Patrick would have his first birthday in April, and unfortunately for him, the man thought self-deprecatingly, it looked like he would get his father's side of the family.

But they were happy-- happier than he'd ever realized they could be, happier than certainly he ever imagined was possible. He was still very much in love with Amy, and she with him, and the thought of yet a fourth child was a distinct possibility. He wondered when Amy would finally say, "Enough's enough," but not once did he consider the possibility of saying those words himself. He loved his three children more than he loved life itself, so what was another six or seven? It certainly wasn't as if they couldn't afford to have children.

His family had four homes in various parts of the United States-- San Francisco, Indianapolis, Virginia Beach and Expedition, Alaska. They traveled from place to place on his private jet and wanted for nothing.

Yet he could still remember the look on the face of his beloved Jessica as she died from wounds suffered when she'd been assaulted and raped by two of his greatest enemies. He could remember the way his enemy had laughed as he'd happily admitted his guilt to the entire watching world. He could remember the friends he'd betrayed, the friends that had betrayed him, the injuries he'd suffered and the pain he'd inflicted.

So much joy, so much pain. He couldn't decide if either overrode the other one. On some days he'd say, "Yes, I've had a better life than I ever dreamed, and I'm happier than I've ever been." On other days, days like this one, he'd carefully examine himself and admit to himself that he was unhappy. Somewhere, deep inside his complex soul, there was a lingering unease-- as if there was something wrong with the way his life had turned out.

He couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what was causing these feelings. For that matter, he had no way of knowing if these feelings were legitimate or the result of an undiagnosed case of clinical depression. Maybe all the risks he'd taken, all the punishment he'd received, all the shots to the head, had rattled something loose inside his brain.

His wife would be the first one to say, jokingly, "Well, it's not exactly as if you were all that normal to begin with." But he hadn't shared these emotions with his wife, despite the fact that they shared practically everything else. He was afraid of what she might say-- "You need to get help." Or maybe she'd absorb the information and act as a comforting voice, while all the while feeling anxious and thinking that he might do something to hurt himself. There was a saying in the house that was more true than it had been with his mother when he'd been growing up. "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." If Amy worried too much about his mental health, the twins would be able to sense something was wrong, and a dark shroud would envelop the household and add fear and loneliness to the equation.

He didn't wish to upset his family, so he kept his thoughts to himself. But this unease didn't just go away like he'd thought it would, it had grown-- grown so much that he couldn't concentrate on everyday tasks. He was zoning in and out of awareness at random, overcome with this-- this dark emotion that he couldn't even properly classify, let alone discover the root cause of.

Whatever it was, he needed to find something to make everything better, or risk serious harm done to his psyche-- or worse, the physical health of his family. Over the years, he'd protected his family from paparazzi, from the "boys" in the business, from everyone who'd ever meant less than kindness towards them. But how would he be able to protect them from himself?

So one night, he'd sat out on his porch, gazing up at the stars and looking for answers. He must have spent three hours out there, doing nothing but staring up at them-- while keeping his "father's ear" attached to Patrick, just in case. Then Amy and the twins had come home-- Amy from work and the twins from nursery school-- and he'd cooked them a dinner of pork chops, macaroni and cheese, and creamed corn, with orange sherbet for dessert.

He'd sent the twins to bed a couple of hours later, sent John to bed at nine, and was about to turn in himself when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the red indicator light on his cordless phone was flashing. He checked the messages, fully expecting it to be yet another magazine wanting an interview, or another old friend wanting a favor (it was usually money).

His eyes widened in surprise when he recognized the voice-- which was rare, because few things surprised him nowadays.

"Long time, no speak. Last I heard, you were still sort of upset with Trey and I, but this isn't about that. I am sorry for it, and in retrospect, can see what a dick I was being. I hope you accept my apology for the way I acted in your last days in the NEW. But like I said, this isn't about that.

"Reaves abandoned the fed back in the summer, and it's been dead ever since, so Ben, Trey and I were talking about getting together a final memorial show for NEW. We want to get as many former names involved as possible, and one match we were thinking of doing is a Best of the Best type thing where former NEW champions face off, with the winner receiving one final shot at the NEW title, currently held by Will Storm, the final champ. I'm in the midst of doing a search for former members, and found your new phone number. The show'll take place on February 26 at the Alltell Arena in Little Rock, Arkansas, and it'll be hosted by Pro Wrestling KING, the fed where most of us are hanging out these days. If you'd like to be involved, please give me a call. It's the same number as always, but in case you've forgotten--" and Jade Diamond, one of his biggest rivals, had given him his phone number.

He'd been thunderstruck by the news. He told Amy about it, but for twelve days he'd sat on the decision, unsure whether to follow his first instinct-- to tell Jade to go straight to hell (which had been his second instinct as well, for that matter)-- or satisfy his desire for... some kind of challenge in his life. Everything he'd done since retiring had just come so goddamned easily for him. The sense of adventure he'd felt when his career had begun, when he entered the locker room for the first time and encountered a room full of strangers-- the jjubilation he'd felt when he and Nick had joined DV-- that feeling was like a distant memory now.

During the last few years of his career, winning had come to bring him less and less joy. The joy of the underdog had turned into the boredom of the heavy favorite. When he won, it was because winning had been a foregone conclusion, and when he lost, he was devastated by it. Where had the joy gone?

Perhaps that, he belatedly realized, had been part of the reason he'd retired two years ago. The thrill had gone, replaced by a tedious boredom, and he'd known it was time to move on. Time to teach the younger generation, time to concentrate on his music company, and more importantly, time to be with family.

But now...

He realized that the pallor that had hung over him recently had lifted. The process had started when he got the phone call from Jade, and had taken place very gradually, so gradually that he hadn't noticed it while it was happening. But all of the bad feelings had disappeared, replaced by a single determination-- this was something he had to do.

So he picked up the phone, called Jade's number, and his first reaction had been, "Holy fuck, it's you!" Then they'd gotten down to talking business, and he'd agreed that he would make a return-- one night only, mind you-- to take part in the battle royal and then, hopefully, earn the opportunity to once more wrestle for the NEW World Heavyweight Championship.

He wasn't all that concerned about ring rust, because he'd hardly been sitting on the couch for two years eating potato chips. He'd kept himself in the tremendous physical condition he'd always been in, and had trained his students with all the wrestling knowledge he had to give them. One of them in particular, Antonio Mason, had all the tools, he felt, to really succeed in this business. Of course, he'd been quick to point out to Tony that having the tools was only part of success-- that he had to make the right decisions, too.

When he was done, he'd return to what he'd been doing. A new class would join Inferno U., there'd always be new artists waiting to be discovered by Inferno Music Productions. The only challenges he'd have left would be in the areas of business and family.

So now, "Blue Inferno" Steve Grant sat in a darkened room, as he had during his brief, "one-night-only" return to NEW in 2002, and talked to the camera-- even though it could make out nothing more than his voice and perhaps the faintest outlines of his face.

------

"Survival of the Fittest. Perhaps that's the ideal name for the final production of New Era Wrestling, because after all, NEW survived for seven years in one of the harshest, most cut-throat industries in the world. It overcame initial lack of funding, the retirement of all their old stars, corporate greed, but ultimately couldn't overcome the abandonment of their owner. Well, it was his federation, he took it to heights that no one had ever dreamed, so he had every right to say, 'Enough's enough, it's time to move on.'

"Survival of the Fittest." He chuckled. "It really is the ideal name for this night, because someone will get a shot-- the final shot-- at the NEW World Heavyweight Championship. And he'll have to go through at least twenty, maybe more, guys, to get it. I don't mean twenty jobbers, I mean the best of the best. DRH, Ru, RipTide, Hardcore Jay, "The Franchise", "The Draw", Trey Reed, even that motherfucker TYRANT-- whose ass belongs to me, and only me.

"You hear me, motherfucker?! I broke your neck once, I can do it again! In the event that I don't win that battle royal, rest assured, I'm making sure to take you with me! You killed my wife, and you've yet to pay the full penalty!"

He took a few deep breaths. And when he spoke again, his voice was eerily calm-- as if he hadn't just threatened vengeance against the murderer of his first wife.

"And then, then, after surviving that battle royal-- and surviving's the only way to phrase it, because even the winner's gonna be banged up as hell-- whomever comes out of that battle royal with his hand raised is going to have to go up against a fresh Will Storm, the NEW World Heavyweight Champion. Thought by many as being the greatest World Champion in NEW history, and hey, he's certainly got a good case for himself.

"Of course, you all know my opinion as to who the actual greatest World Champion in NEW history is, so I'm not going to bore you by telling you what you already know. Just suffice to say, I'm more excited by the prospect of this card than I've been in a long time... a very, very long time. Hell, it wasn't too long ago that I thought my days about getting excited about wrestling events at all were long past-- with the exception of watching Chris Benoit win the title at WrestleMania XX, that is. That was such a great moment.

"In any event, I digress. This will be the single most important match for me ever since my match with EGANRAC that won me the first Lord of the Rings tournament back in '98. Sure, the eventual title match with Tank Thomas was big, too, but after winning LotR I, winning the World Title seemed, to me, to be a foregone conclusion. But that LotR win-- that said to people, 'Hey, Grant's a great tag-team wrestler, but I had no idea he was such a great singles wrestler, too.'

"If I have my way, people will be saying after Survival of the Fittest, 'Hey, Grant's so great that he came back after being retired for two years, immediately won a battle royal against NEW's cream of the crop, and then dethroned Will Storm to win his unprecedented fifth NEW World Heavyweight Championship.' What a nice way that would be to end my career, and finally, finally leave the rest of the fighting to the younger generation. To be known, for the rest of my life, not only as a five-time NEW World Champion but as the reigning NEW World Champion-- for the rest of my life-- God, what a rush that would be. I'd walk into a restaurant one day, forty years from now, still as the NEW World Champion. And the title wouldn't truly be laid to rest until the day I'm laid to rest. Which could be tomorrow, or could be seventy years from now, so I figure I'd better make the best of the moments I have.

"My ultimate battle awaits me-- and I mean that in more than one sense of the word. 'Ultimate' as in 'greatest', but also 'ultimate' as in final. My final, greatest test of my wrestling ability lies ahead. February 26, 2005-- three days after my thirty-third birthday. I last held the NEW World Title in the fall of 2001, a little over three years ago. If all these threes keep showing up, I'm gonna start wondering if it's some kind of a conspiracy.

"Any man who can survive the battle-royal of NEW all-stars is more than worthy of fighting for the World Heavyweight Championship-- but whomever that man is will have a distinct disadvantage against a well-rested Will Storm. He's hard enough to beat as it is without coming in beaten up. But if I can do it-- if I can survive all those other superstars, and defeat Storm, becoming the first-ever five-time NEW World Champion-- and the very last World Champion..."

Steve paused, and took a sip from a bottle that was hard to see, but looked suspiciously like Dr. Pepper. He knew he'd take some good-natured ribbing from the boys about that, but he didn't give a damn-- he could give back the ribbing just as well as he could take it. He set the bottle back down on the floor with a soft thump, "aah"ed quietly, and spoke again.

"...I'll have proven to everyone in the wrestling world that, with all due respect to Ares, there's only one "Franchise" of NEW, and that's me. Did you think I'd miss an opportunity like this one? An opportunity for one... last... chance... to be recognized as the greatest in the world? Moments like this don't come to everybody. They've certainly come to me more than a few times, but I'm more than aware that this is the last opportunity I'll ever have.

"Oh, yes, no matter what happens, I will never again step into the ring as an active competitor. The future is now. The moment is all that matters. Before I leave the wrestling to The Wild Child, I've got one last dance to perform, one final masterpiece to create. The NEW World Heavyweight Championship-- the only title that's really ever meant anything to me-- is going to be defended one last time. And I'll do whatever's necessary to get that shot-- and then to make sure that the title goes back around my waist, where it should rightfully always be."

The audio transmission faded, leaving only the faint silhouette of Grant before it, too, faded into total darkness.

#e-wrestling #bisg #stevegrant #rp #oc rp

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netmetic · 4 years ago

Text

Amdocs Voices

Since the pandemic, the world has stepped on the ‘tech- celeration’ peddle. ‘The Great Indoors’ podcast explores technology’s role in this new way of life.

*/ /*-->*/ /*-->*/

At the beginning of 2020, we in the Americas marketing team at Amdocs decided to embark on a podcast series. Podcasts have experienced something of a renaissance in recent years and from a marketing perspective, they can lead to fantastic conversion rates: they are cost-effective and are a great tool to foster brand loyalty. But they can also be tremendous fun and reach interesting audiences. After all, podcast listeners tend to be affluent, well-educated millennials and are highly engaged (*93% will listen to all or most of each episode.) *2019 Edison report.

So, we settled on the initial idea of a series focused on cloud computing and 5G monetization, both huge focus areas in the United States and amongst our customers. We also had a community of customers, press, analysts and industry personalities waiting to join us to entertain our audience about how they would transform the telecommunications landscape.

Then something happened! On January 30, the WHO declared the coronavirus a “public health emergency of international concern.” First to lock down were Europe, Asia and the Middle East. By the middle of March, Canada followed suit and by the end of March, 32 out of the 50 US states did so too. Quite literally overnight, the world had changed beyond recognition. We were locked indoors and the pandemic was the only talking point on the planet.

As a direct result, society began to undergo rapid change in the ways we were educated, where we work and how we are entertained. A wholesale cultural transformation was taking place in real time, all underpinned and accelerated by technology. And it was clear that the adoption of new technological behaviors in response to the pandemic had – in an instant – accelerated to levels that were not expected for many more years. The world had stepped on the ‘tech- celeration’ peddle and ‘The Great Indoors’ podcast series was born.

The series kicked off with renowned US analyst Chetan Sharma focusing on the brand of ‘technology.’ He related how in recent years, technology had been vilified with claims from various quarters that humankind was suffering as people (particularly children) were deemed to be spending too much timestaring at their screens, hanging out on social media with virtual friends and playing video games. Crazy conspiracy theorists even tried blaming the pandemic on the 5G rollout itself. The episode concluded that technology was undergoing a positive brand rebirth, with connectivity now the glue holding society together.

Alex Shiffrin CEO of LP/AD and Matt Roberts of Amdocs

By the conclusion of episode two with Anthony Goonetilleke, Amdocs CTO and Head of Strategy, we realized that something else profound was taking place: the ‘tech-celeration’ was touching every demographic rather than just typical tech-focused cohorts. Anthony related with astonishment how his mother was now happily embracing digital online banking, not because she wanted to, but she had to. He called it “the democratization of digitalization”.

Globally, most people were now working from home, being educated from home, shopping from home and banking from home. A recent Mckinsey study indicated that during this time, we have vaulted forward in consumer and business digital adoption by five years in a matter of an eight-week timeframe. Online shopping in the USA showed ten year’s growth in three months. In banking, the Economist noted that the share of cashless transactions worldwide had jumped to levels that they had only expected to see in five years. In healthcare and medicine, The New York Times interviewed a British doctor who stated that the National Health Service had undergone a decade of change within a week, as doctors switched to remote consultations.

Combined with the results of a US survey we had just commissioned at that time, Anthony then discussed how these observations shone further light on the seismic wave of digital disruption, behavioral change and the way it was directly impacting all elements of society. Specifically, the survey found that US consumers cared more about the quality of their connectivity than ever before.

From here, we branched into several different directions. In our third episode, we were joined by Vicky Sleight, head of diversity and inclusion at TM Forum, who discussed how the lockdown and working from home were challenging gender stereotypes, and how diversity was now more important than ever if companies were going to make it through the pandemic. In episode four, we discussed the digitalization of marketing and the virtualization of industry events with Alex Shifrin, CEO of LP/AD, who spoke about the messages that consumers were responding to and how they had clearly changed. A key observation was that the placement and positioning of these messages were now almost exclusively digital.

Episode five was a fun experiment and the adage of “never work with animals and children” was challenged, as my three daughters joined the podcast to talk about how they were adapting to virtual education. They opened up to how they now used videoconferencing platforms such as Teams and Zoom, and how cloud-based applications like Google Drive and Google classroom were now a part of their everyday lives. And while their computer literacy had been propelled by the pandemic, we couldn’t get away from the clear fact they missed physically interacting with their friends and weekly school spectacles like Pizza Day.

Clint! Runge

Yet in stark contrast to the more fortunate of us, the episode clearly demonstrated that a digital chasm had opened. We turned to the lack of access to high-speed internet for many of the world’s children, as well as the inability of disadvantaged families to afford the basics to educate (and in some instances even feed) their children in the midst of a lockdown. We concluded that much work remains to be done for policymakers globally, and that this chasm seriously hinders the democratization that Anthony had mentioned earlier. We also discussed how this period had witnessed the unveiling of many unlikely heroes who were taking on governments and policymakers to try and address these issues. Marcus Rashford of Manchester United instantly springs to mind.

Episode six saw us considering even broader negative externalities, as we were joined by Dr Victoria Ngo, Associate Professor at CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. Dr Ngo had just concluded a study in New York that showed the extent of what she termed the “second pandemic” – that of mental health. In a sobering conversation, she revealed how COVID-19 had seen a doubling of mental health illness. We discussed that the most prominent recommendation from the WHO to alleviate mental health illness was to harness connectivity to maintain regular contact with friends and family, with the conclusion that cell phones are essential to preventing or lessening mental health issues.

But my favorite episode – to date – has been episode 7 with Nick ‘Fitzy’ Stevens. For those not familiar with him, Nick is a sports broadcaster who hails from the Boston area, and is popularly known as a Patriots superfan. He has also appeared in Verizon 5G TV commercials with natural comic talents that complement his undisputed sports knowledge. In this episode, he discussed the return of sports to our TV screens, albeit with artificial sound and no live spectators. Yet still, technology was enabling a glimpse of normalcy in society. We also spoke about the future of the sporting experience, including the effects of 5G-enabled stadiums – peppered with anecdotes from Nick’s knowledge of antiquated English sporting terms. (listen to the Challenge Fitzy section of the podcast!)

For episode 8, we were joined by Clint! Runge, on the topic of Generation Z. Clint! a Gen-Z expert discussed the burden of pandemic on this demographic cohort. He related how Gen-Z, who as the first ‘digital natives’, are the first demographic to be born into the smartphone age, yet as such, are more negatively affected by the pandemic than any other group in society.

It took nine long years before the isolation of the measles virus in 1954 and the licensing of a vaccine. The world had to wait 20 years before early trials of a polio vaccine and its first American license in 1955. Now only twelve months since the identification of Covid-19, several vaccines are ready to be deployed around the globe. It seems that it is not only the tech sector that has undergone a rapid acceleration. It has given us a light at the end of this tunnel.

So, what’s next?

The Great Indoors will return as a global edition in early 2021, with some fantastic guests, and in the next series of episodes, we’ll examine what has disappeared forever, what will revert to pre-pandemic normals and where innovation is accelerating the digital transformation. For example, there are companies who are already busy building new tools that will improve the experience of online working, online education, enhance the virtual retail world and provide new experiences from virtual conferences to virtual socializing.

At Amdocs, our mission is to progress society and enrich lives. There is no going back to 2019 and the world will look very different in 2021. It is these differences – reflected in society and empowered by technology – that we look forward to discussing on the Great Indoors in 2021.

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podcast series

The Great Indoors

How technology is progressing society and enriching lives

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Amdocs Corporate Social Responsibility

Enriching lives and progressing society

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perfectirishgifts · 4 years ago

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Talking To Vespertine’s Chef About America’s Most Lavish Curbside Pickup Meal

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/talking-to-vespertines-chef-about-americas-most-lavish-curbside-pickup-meal-2/

Talking To Vespertine’s Chef About America’s Most Lavish Curbside Pickup Meal

A takeaway meal like no other. Poached halibut with hyacinth vapor.

The most lavish takeaway meal you’ll probably ever experience is awaiting your order at Vespertine in Los Angeles this month. As curbside pickups go, Chef Jordan Kahn’s tribute menu to Chicago’s modernist pioneer Alinea — available through December 20 — is neither simple nor inexpensive. But true wonders are hidden inside each takeout container.

Kahn’s menu recreates dishes from Alinea’s inaugural year, when Kahn was a Muppet Baby pastry chef in the Michelin-starred kitchen of Grant Achatz. The items as listed on this month’s menu — “Bacon, butterscotch, apple, thyme,” “Beef elements of root beer” and so on — sound straightforward but Kahn is hardly the add-a-dash-of-this and dine type.

The ready-to-eat, individually plated small dishes — at $115 per person — are mini-masterworks of impeccable flavor and design. We ordered the DIY family-style version that lets you build the dishes yourself (still a splurge at $95 a person). Although the prep was a joy from start to finish, the tweezing and frothing and searing of ingredients took nearly four hours from cocktails through dessert (an Achatz-inspired Jackson Pollock-style table-splattering of white chocolate, gingerbread, peppermint and more).

Kahn’s been thriving during the pandemic, with a series of big-deal pop-ups (like the French Laundry-themed one he did in May) and wallet-friendlier meal kits, at $49 a person, that are more like family dinners. I asked him this week about the Alinea tribute and how he’s staying creative (and sane) at this most difficult time.

Oh, this? Just some bacon hanging out for your at-home tasting pleasure.

Vespertine doing takeaway is like Salvador Dali showing up to paint your living room. How challenging was it to reinvent and elevate pick-up orders in the midst of a pandemic?

Jordan Kahn: Challenging. I had a feeling from the onset of COVID-19 that this was not going to be a blip and that the situation would linger for at minimum six months. After about a day of pouting, I decided to put together a simple and inexpensive menu for pick-up. We thought we would only serve 20 or 30 per day, so we decided to open up our bookings on Tock at 8 am on the Thursday following the initial closure. By 9 am, my reservations manager called me and said “we are over 150 orders for today and are over 150 orders for the next 7 days. What would you like me to do?”

So, what did you do?

Jordan Kahn: We pushed through. Once we got through that week, we realized quickly that there was interest in this platform. Rather than dipping our toes in the pool, I would say we cannon-balled into the take-out format. We thought, if we’re going to be forced into this platform as our only pipeline, then we will do it our way. It feels a bit like we’ve lost home court advantage, so we are having to exercise muscles that we didn’t originally have.

We still wanted to remain true to our ethos and process, so we began working on clever ways for guests to have a Vespertine experience at home, expressive of the menu’s theme. We essentially transitioned all of our service team into a full-scale Santa’s workshop of packaging. Folding avocado leaves around homemade butter, wrapping tortillas in traditional Maya textiles. We made the trademark French Laundry “cornet fold” out of linen-like napkins, filling wood boxes with warm river stones, wrapping oshibori towels with traditional Japanese washi paper. We got creative.

Chocolate, avocado, lime, licorice and your plate-painting skills come together for dessert at the … [] Alinea-inspired pop-up at Vespertine this month.

You’re modeling your menu after those from Alinea, where you got your start with Grant Achatz. The meals are available in ready-to-dine form. But you also give customers the option of building the meal as a DIY project.

Jordan Kahn: That’s right. We provide all of the components for our guests to recreate their own version of the tasting menu. We give the basic instructions for preparation, but this is really their chance to feel a little bit of what it’s like to be a chef.

Walk us through two or three standout dishes on this menu and what excites you most about them?

Jordan Kahn: The oyster cream dish was one of my favorites. It originally came off of the canapé station which was right next to mine, so I often helped with the preparation of that dish. I always loved the idea of using lychee in place of oysters for their gelatinous texture. The chocolate dessert is also very dear to me, as it was one of the first dishes [Empellon chef and cofounder] Alex Stupak and I collaborated on. The twisted ganache was one of Stupak’s most notable creations, and we developed the remaining components together to create a really delicious dessert that found its way through to many pastry kitchens around the world.

Outside Vespertine’s kitchen what are you doing to stay sane in this stressful time? What’s your self-care or escape or listening/viewing/ imbibing regimen like?

Jordan Kahn: Well, there haven’t been any days off since the pandemic began, so I’m not sure I’m a good judge of what is sane anymore. Most of what’s left of my energy is spent with my girlfriend doing simple rituals like eating dinner at 4 am, going to see the full moon on the roof of the Vespertine tower, and listening to records at home. On the turntable right now is an original pressing of the Godspeed You! Black Emperor album, F# A# , that my girlfriend got me as a birthday gift.

What’s the status of your Hollywood pop-up, Ephemera, and how would you describe it in a sentence or two?

Jordan Kahn: Ephemera is a Vespertine project which is inspired by mineralogy. As Vespertine is unable to open for dine-in, Ephemera will be a temporary dining experience housed in an outdoor courtyard dining room.

Hmm. Mysterious. What else is next? What are you most excited about as you look to the future?

Jordan Kahn: I’m mostly looking forward to having our Vespertine dine-in service back. We are working on some really exciting concepts for the menu and experience and are eager to welcome our guests back into the tower.

Getting back to the Alinea menu, what’s the percentage of customers doing DIY versus ready-to-dine?

Jordan Kahn: It varies per night. We started off with around 20-30% doing DIY and now it is closer to 40% “Be The Chef” menus versus 60% Tasting Menus.

Do you have a hotline or chef-housecall service for people to call if they suddenly feel overwhelmed by the duck searing and bacon-hanging and table painting?

Jordan Kahn: Absolutely. Our phone is available anytime for guests to call and inquire about the menu and preparations. I walked someone through how to poach fish sous vide and twist chocolate ganache the other night. People are having a lot of fun, which is the best feedback we could possibly get.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

From Food & Drink in Perfectirishgifts

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tvdas · 4 years ago

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“Meeting the Beatles in India” has filmmaker Paul Saltzman recounting the week he spent hanging with the Beatles under the tutelage of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi during their famous sojourn to the ashram in 1968. Saltzman has a tale to tell in having been nearly the only non-entourage member along for the enlightenment alongside the Beatles during that legendary spiritual/media event. By virtue of the camera in his backpack, he also ended up being a house photographer, though he forgot about the wealth of stills in his basement for several decades, maybe offering proof that there’s such a thing as too much meditation.

It’s all good reason enough for Saltzman to turn the camera on himself and a few choice expert witnesses here, even if none of the anecdotes or insights are especially profound. As a documentarian, he’s not so interested in exploring the cultural ripple effect of the Beatles’ mid-’60s mysticism as he is in offering recollections of what cool ommm-buds-men the Beatles were, all in the service of drawing us into what’s ultimately a good-natured advert for transcendental meditation.

Morgan Freeman is the ostensible narrator, but the real bulk of the voiceover (and eventual on-camera presence) belongs to Saltzman, a former Canadian broadcaster who genially speaks in slow, measured tones. In 1968, he was a broken-hearted kid who heard an inner voice telling him not to sweat the material world, so he went to India, and ended up being just about the only student on hand for the Maharishi’s instruction, outside of the Apple corps. His convert’s enthusiasm and lack of Beatles worship soon made him a welcome guest at the Beatles’ table, and the recipient of a private sitar concert by George, and a photo-snapping witness as John and Paul sat on a porch in their white outfits and worked out the chorus of “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da,” which had no other words at the time.

Saltzman has conversations with a few guest stars, including another TM evangelist, David Lynch, who served as an executive producer and is mostly on hand to preach the joys of inner peace in a way completely unbefitting one of the great horror directors of all time. The foremost record-keeper of Beatles history, Mark Lewisohn, accompanies Saltzman on a nostalgic trip back to India. There will probably be no moment of greater bemused interest to hardcore Beatles fans (and befuddlement to everyone else) than the exchange in which Saltzman says he was told the group members wrote 42 songs during their time in India and Lewisohn gently affirms it was really only 30. The filmmaker meets up again with a fellow traveler from the ’68 trip, Pattie Boyd, Harrison’s ex-wife, who is particularly delighted when he tells her he’s tracked down the real “Bungalow Bill,” Richard Cooke III, who was there with his mother, Nancy Cooke de Herrera, a publicist for Maharishi at the time. Maharishi had assigned Nancy to look after the Beatles during the course. The real-life hunter, who ticked off Lennon by bragging about just having killed a tiger — thus inspiring one of the more acidic songs on the White Album, declares that he never picked up a gun again after that trip and subsequently became a conservationist.

Little tidbits like that keep interest going, and who doesn’t want to be reminded that Lennon had a way with one-liners, or that Harrison and McCartney could be mensches? (Ringo Starr doesn’t come up for discussion much, and if you either hoped or feared that fellow ashram attendant and major TM advocate Mike Love would be reminisced about, rest assured he is not.) When it comes to exploring the real benefits of TM, the talk gets vague, as discussions of mysticism will.

The Maharishi is portrayed only in a positive light, although there’s a passing reference to the nasty song Lennon wrote about him immediately after the sojourn, “Sexy Sadie,” before Saltzman fleetingly addresses the still hot-button topic of why some of the group members fell out with the guru, which had to do with the Maharishi allegedly making moves on women in the compound. The apologia offered by Saltzman and Lewisohn is that a peripheral figure in the Beatles’ entourage, “Magic Alex,” spread false stories, though the figure in question told a very different accounting of the fallout (and sued the New York Times over a description similar to the one offered here) before he died in 2017.

The waters that “Meeting the Beatles in India” wades through on the way to celebrating spiritual enlightenment don’t run much deeper than the famously wide Ganges, as the nature and results of TM-induced contentment remain something we still have to take the filmmaker’s word for, and the bigger picture of how the Beatles’ Eastern tilt affected Western civilization remains a topic for a teller who maybe wasn’t so close to his subject. Even so, there’s some fan value here, all spiritual quests aside, in seeing how accepting the individual Beatles could be of someone they could have taken as an interloper in their lofty midst. Maybe that’s the revelation, then: Sweet, the Beatles. COMMENT: Ken Chawkin: I saw the film tonight and enjoyed it. I stayed online for the Q&A that followed with director Paul Saltzman and surprise guest Richard “Rikki” Cooke III, aka, Bungalow Bill. One of the questions asked was why the Beatles left the ashram, and did it have something to do with Maharishi supposedly making a pass at one of the female course participants. That story was a fabrication created by a jealous Magic Alex to draw John Lennon out of there. But Cooke had another explanation, and it had nothing to do with Alex, although he said Alex stirred up a lot of trouble while he was there.

I had also read about this explanation in a book years ago. The Beatles had told Maharishi of their desire to make a documentary film about him and his message of TM to help create world peace. Maharishi was amenable, and they were excited to do it. Unfortunately, Charlie Lutes, the leader of the TM movement at that time, had already signed a deal with Four Star Productions, and they had dispatched a film crew to Rishikesh, India. Cooke said when the Beatles found out, they were disappointed, upset, and decided to leave. Rikki said he saw them walk out the north gate at the same time the film crew were coming in through the south gate. He said it was an unfortunate misunderstanding.

I had also heard that when John and George had gone to speak with Maharishi beforehand, most thought it was to ask about his making a pass at a girl. But the real reason may have been to verify the rumor of a Four Star film crew coming to make a documentary; if so, they would not want to be involved with it in any way, and would be leaving. With both John and George gone we may never know for sure, although it seems more plausible. Of course, John would write Sexy Sadie in retaliation. He had originally used Maharishi’s name, but George convinced him to change it to Sexy Sadie. Years later, George would visit Maharishi, with the help of Deepak Chopra, to apologize for John’s behavior at that time. Maharishi said he was not upset with John, regardless of what he had said, and that he loved them. Deepak had told Maharishi that when The Beatles had played on the Ed Sullivan Show, there were no crimes committed in America. When Maharishi heard that, he called them angels, and said he could never be mad at them. Chopra said that George broke down, and was emotionally relieved with that karmic burden now off his heart. In separate interviews, both Paul and George said there was no truth to those accusations about Maharishi, which they felt were unfortunate.

‘Meeting the Beatles in India’ Review: A Fellow Seeker’s Documentary Blends Fab-Four Lore and Gentle TM Proselytism Running time: 82 min.

Here’s an announcement about the film from the national TM Office of Communications with a message from the director. Here are a few film reviews: Cryptic Rock, NYS Music. Paul Saltzman’s website: https://thebeatlesinindia.com, and trailer.

Production: (Documentary) A Gathr Films release of a Sunrise Films Limited production. Producer: Paul Saltzman. Executive producers: Pen Densham, Walter Dilts, Lon Hall, David Lynch, Tom Schlesinger, Devani Saltzman, Stephen Whitehead.

Crew: Director, writer: Paul Saltzman. Camera: Stephen Chandler Whitehead. Editor: Amanda Kirpaul. Music: Russell Walker, Craig Pruess.

With: Paul Saltzman, Mark Lewisohn, Pattie Boyd, Jenny Boyd, Lewis Lapham, Laurence Rosenthal. Narrator: Morgan Freeman.

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cdrforea · 5 years ago

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Internet volunteerism during COVID-19 | Gadgets Magazine

New Post has been published on https://bestedevices.com/internet-volunteerism-during-covid-19-gadgets-magazine.html

Internet volunteerism during COVID-19 | Gadgets Magazine

Niña Beltran-Yap, herself a lung doctor and front liner, contributed some paintings to collect donations.

This year, 26 years have passed since the Philippines first connected to the World Wide Web. A lot has changed since 1994, and over the years the Internet has changed the way Filipinos learn, express themselves and chat, communicate with their families, do business with the government, and promote their business.

The Internet in particular has also changed the way Filipinos help each other in times of need.

Here are some common people whose volunteering has been promoted through the internet:

Free e-consultations for stroke patients

Physiotherapists like Alexander Almonte need to be creative to continue serving their customers.

Almonte was unable to make home visits and announced on Facebook that it was holding online consultations for patients who needed physical therapy during the quarantine. And although Almonte is a freelancer who relies on paying customers for his income, he has made his services available free of charge.

After his post, Almonte received over a dozen PT consultations from home and abroad. "I interview her on Facebook to see what patients need. Then I search for and check online sources, which I then pass on to them, ”he said.

While most of his consultations are with friends, Alex has also helped complete strangers, including a woman whose father recently had a stroke. "I sent her simple videos on how to train her father's upper and lower extremities, how to do balance exercises while sitting, and how to position the bed."

It is important for Almonte to spread cheers in difficult times. "It feels great to be able to help people, even those you don't know. In times of uncertainty, it feels good to be able to do something positive."

As a freelancer, Almonte's income was affected by COVID-19. "Because of the quarantine, business was sluggish because we can't treat patients at home. But right now it feels right to be holding free consultations."

"A lot of them asked me how much I charge. But it just doesn't feel right to charge now," he added.

Storytelling fans collect donations for COVID-19

Since many parents are looking for activities that have to do with their home-bound children, an old form of entertainment with a modern twist is emerging again – thanks to volunteers like Rich Rodriguez who go online and give an old favorite a technical touch: storytelling for Children.

Rodriguez, a training manager at a Taguig-based BPO, has been volunteering as a storyteller for fifteen years. "I've been thinking about how we're already used to online streaming and viral videos, so why not use these channels to encourage parents to return to the habit of reading to their children?"

He recalled the days before the Internet nostalgically: "I wanted to relive those days when we had neither Netflix nor online games."

Rodriguez noted that his live videos on his “Storytimes with Kuya Rich” Facebook page are all simple and straightforward. "No unusual processing. I wanted to do something that looks very simple, natural, and easy to do. I want people to think, "I can do that too."

While reading stories, Rodriguez emphasized the use of facial expressions, gestures and body movements. "It doesn't have to be complicated. All it takes is a little imagination."

Encouraged by the support of his audience, Rodriguez teamed up with friends to advance their advocacy. Now they're also using his Facebook Live storytelling sessions to raise money for COVID-19 frontliners.

"Some people asked me where I got the energy from to be so happy and lively during my storytelling sessions, considering that I do it after work," he said. “I'm just telling them – if you really love what you do and for whom you do it, you can draw strength from there. When it is born out of love, it takes away all exhaustion. I am sure that many parents can refer to it. "

Spearhead fundraisers with art, photos

Inspired by other online fundraisers, photographer Mikki Luistro and his friends decided to make their own.

"I was inspired by a post on Instagram that raised funds for Caritas Manila," said Luistro, who then shared it with his friend Glenn Mendiola, who runs an online printing service called Alternative Apartment.

The result: #AlternativeHelp, an initiative that now involves 18 photographers and artists who sell their prints and photos to provide care packages to the frontliners. (Order form: b.link/AlternativeHelp-Form)

Those who buy prints can help provide “Hugot Packs” to healthcare workers through their partner organization, Help for Health Movement (fb.com/@help4healthph). Each pack contains vitamins, hand disinfectants, handkerchiefs, snacks, drinks and hygiene items for 14 days. It also contains small pointers to appreciation and support from people who send their love to the front.

Among the artists who sell their prints is the pulmonologist Nina Beltran Yap – herself a front liner. “I was asked if I could contribute some of my pictures to raise money for medical care for our front liners. Of course I said yes! We need all the help we can get! "

"I think this project could really help provide PSA to our frontliners – young residents and colleagues, nurses, guards and cleaners who are at the forefront," she added.

Bakers for front liners

Baker & # 39; s Hub Meycauayan in Bulacan had to temporarily close its business due to the expanded quarantine. Nevertheless, owner Rocel Roque-Maningat was looking for volunteers on Facebook who could help bake bread for frontliners.

"Hello Meycauayan baker, may Alam Po Ba Kayo Na bakery Na Want Mag-Bake Ng bread for donations Sa frontliner, checkpoint staff, residents in need? I have ingredients that are intended for the donation of the finished products, ”said her contribution.

The result? Netizens answered their call.

"We currently have four volunteers: Chef Rei Andaya, Dr. Joanna Alag, Flor Exaltacion and Tina Mendoza – owners and bakers who bake bread with the ingredients we provide. These are mainly distributed to people who occupy the checkpoints, hospitals, and barangay personnel, ”she said.

In the midst of the COVID 19 emergency across the country, the Internet is more important than ever. As connectivity is critical in these difficult times, PLDT and Smart continue to regularly provide communications and data services to the public, including professionals and ordinary people who volunteer their services and talents to raise funds for frontliners and those in need help.

connected

#COVID19 #Gadgets #internet #Magazine #volunteerism #Tech

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coin-news-blog · 5 years ago

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Venezuelans Fighting Economic Hardship Discover Crypto’s True Potential

New Post has been published on https://coinmakers.tech/news/venezuelans-fighting-economic-hardship-discover-crypto-s-true-potential

Venezuelans Fighting Economic Hardship Discover Crypto’s True Potential

For quite some time now, Venezuela has been suffering from a political crisis and a collapsing economy. Venezuelans dealing with rampant inflation continue to see their purchasing power decline. After witnessing one of the worst economic disasters in modern history, 4 million citizens have emigrated to seek a better form of money, shelter, and to gather food and medicine. Throughout the monetary struggle, there have been uplifting stories of Venezuelans discovering sound money and finding financial shelter in cryptocurrencies.

Droves of People Seek Refuge From Venezuela’s Financial Collapse

Central planners worldwide continue to wreak havoc on the world’s economy and a few South American countries like Argentina and Venezuela are seeing their financial systems decline at a rapid rate. In Venezuela, the inflation rate is expected to reach 10,000,000% by the end of 2019 and monthly figures for July were roughly 265,000%. Since the region has been suffering from hyperinflation, millions of Venezuelans have left to seek refuge elsewhere but many have also stayed behind. Fernel Ricardo, a resident of Maracaibo, recently explained what is happening to his city in an interview during the first week of September.

Streets of Maracaibo.

Maracaibo is the second-largest city in Venezuela and Ricardo detailed that many people living there were dealing with rotten food and sometimes water won’t come out of the taps. Despite the fact that Maracaibo is an extensive metropolitan city comprising two municipalities, telecommunications infrastructure is often dead, leaving the whole city with a single state-radio station. When the communications infrastructure recently went down, Ricardo said: “Nobody told us what was going on, the station just played music.” The economic situation is the same in rural areas and other cities like Caracas, Maracay, Valencia, and San Cristobal.

The First Auto Insurance Plan Purchased With Bitcoin Cash

In the midst of it all, some Venezuelans are seeking a hedge using international currencies like the U.S. dollar, and alternative options like gold and cryptocurrencies. Digital currency supporters have been promoting the use of cryptocurrencies for a while now, so Venezuelans can benefit from censorship resistant money. Venezuela.bitcoin.com was designed for this very reason and our team has been onboarding merchants in the country to help them get started. Last March, Venezuela.bitcoin.com’s lead manager Matt Aaron told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that team members in Caracas are paid in bitcoin cash. “Transactions are instant and cost less than a cent to make,” Aaron explained at the time. This week, Aaron told news.Bitcoin.com that the first auto insurance plan was purchased with bitcoin cash and took place at Sefired. Aaron explained that the ground team who initiated the onboarding process operate a website called Aprendebitcoin.org and the crew has been educating local business owners in Venezuela about bitcoin cash regularly.

First auto insurance plan purchased with Bitcoin Cash at SefiSeguros!

Pay with BCH at 12 locations across Venezuela.

Thanks to the ground team who educated Sefi!https://t.co/DLRJP1AGl0#bchvenezuela #venezuela pic.twitter.com/852YgnpXhc

— 𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕥 𝔸𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕟 (@mattaaron) September 3, 2019

“The owner of the business has 12 locations selling auto insurance and it’s a AAA type insurance which is really important if you need a tow in a dangerous spot,” Aaron remarked. He added that thanks to the crew behind the educational website, one of the business owners learned about the attributes of crypto and decided to accept BCH and BTC for insurance payments. With ground crews in the country, such as Venezuela.bitcoin.com and Aprendebitcoin.org spreading the information about cryptocurrencies, citizens learn first-hand about benefits of BCH. A few examples include:

Credit card processing machines are very expensive and hard to find.

Credit card processing fees are high – around 3-6%.

The Venezuelan bolivar is a decimated, hyper-inflationary currency.

No need for a bank account.

Transactions are instant and cost less than a U.S. penny.

Venezuela.bitcoin.com is also making strides in Caracas, Maracaibo, and throughout the rest of the Latin American country in bolstering Bitcoin Cash merchant adoption in Venezuela.

Peer-to-Peer Powered Food Drive Eatbch Shines in Venezuela

Another organization that has been very busy over the last few months in Venezuela is the nonprofit food drive powered by bitcoin cash, Eatbch. Last February the group celebrated its one-year anniversary and this June the nonprofit organizers traveled to Washington D.C. to speak about their humanitarian work in Venezuela using bitcoin cash at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) headquarters.

We’re grateful for what you do for all of us pic.twitter.com/Uwz67OWSxf

— eatBCH Venezuela (@eatBCH_VE) August 30, 2019

During the presentation, the Eatbch team explained what they had been doing in Venezuela by feeding people meals using donated BCH and how BCH offers a peer-to-peer, borderless, low-fee solution. From here the participants at the CSIS were very intrigued by the efforts and the attention was entirely focused on Eatbch.

“Suddenly, our presentation became the main point of the meeting, and a big part of the interventions thereafter were directed or were about us,” explained the organizers’ blog post. “Some were a bit skeptical, questioning our safety and KYC/AML procedures, but most were fascinated and impressed, since they never heard about it and were pleased to know that there was a group already functioning in the ground.” Eatbch added:

Throughout the month of July and August, @Eatbch_VE Twitter followers can see that the nonprofit has been diligently feeding children and families in need of food. There are always pictures of people being fed through BCH donations and the group details how individuals are able to share a meal together thanks to everyone who generously donated.

It’s time for more pictures!

We’d like to thank you for your support once again ❤️ pic.twitter.com/VGgPjDb68B

— eatBCH Venezuela (@eatBCH_VE) August 5, 2019

After seeing the pictures Eatbch shares regularly on Twitter, one observer who said he rarely retweets anything decided to share the photographs because he believes “feeding hungry kids in suffering Venezuela may be the best use-case yet for cryptocurrency and bitcoin.” “You should support them any way you can, and especially with preferred bitcoin cash — Just look at the happy kids — Thanks Eatbch.” Alongside helping a large number of malnourished Venezuelan families, Eatbch organizers are also feeding people in South Sudan.

Precious Metals and Finding Hope With a Single Universal Asset

With merchant acceptance and charitable operations like Eatbch, cryptocurrencies have been helping people in Venezuela a great deal and many people living abroad are providing on-ramps for Venezuelans to join the cryptoconomy. In a recent Reason podcast, the Human Rights Foundation’s Alex Gladstein and Reason’s Nick Gillespie discussed how cryptocurrencies are revolutionizing human rights and civil liberties in Venezuela. In addition to cryptocurrencies, buying precious metals like gold has become popular in South Venezuela near Brazil. Reports say that Venezuelans have to resort to three options to maintain purchasing power: “Buy gold, buy anything to resell it later, or buy dollars” and the second solution is where cryptocurrencies come into play.

La maldición de la fiebre del oro, acaba con nuestra tierra y se mete en la ciudad, causando muerte y arrestos masivos, como hoy en el cc macrocentro de Pto Ordaz pic.twitter.com/rBYlJnHN4U

— Alicia Estaba (@aliestaba) March 25, 2019

“The curse of the gold fever destroys our land and gets into the city, causing death and mass arrests, as today in the Macrocentro Mall at Pto Ordaz city,” the above tweet reads.

It’s a common sight to see Venezuelan dealers trying to sell gold throughout the busy sections of South Venezuela. However, there are issues with people being deceived with fool’s gold and merchants won’t accept “contaminated” USD. “If you go to Venezuela, many locals will not accept $1 or $5 bills. Nor will they accept folded, marked, or merely old bills,” local reports detail. Because of the underlying issues with dirty fiat and shady precious metal dealers, more Venezuelan people are being pushed toward using bitcoin as a universal asset instead.

Promoting #BitcoinCash in #Maracaibo, Venezuela at Sambil Maracaibo 💚#BCHhttps://t.co/vYOOPowVpy pic.twitter.com/oVqkS9w5Be

— CryptoBay.cloud (@CryptobayC) September 5, 2019

The educational resource and analysis web portal Ledger Journal also highlighted the use of digital currencies in this manner throughout Venezuela in the journal’s 2019 volume 4. Ledger Journal author Jackie Johnson wrote that “Bitcoin, as a single universal asset, is substituted for the ‘basket of goods’ normally used in the purchasing power parity, allowing the estimation of the relationship between the Venezuelan bolivar and the United States dollar.” Johnson added:

Crypto proponents understand the need for people to maintain purchasing power and this is why groups like Venezuela.bitcoin.com, Aprendebitcoin.org, Panda Group, and many others are pushing for adoption in the country. One example is how Panda Group recently partnered with a 22-store pharmacy franchise in Venezuela called Farmarket. The partnership allows people traveling from great distances to buy products and medicine using cryptocurrencies like BCH, DASH, DAI, and BTC. The Panda team based in Colombia also installed a machine on the border of Venezuela in Cucuta city. The device is meant to help Venezuelan refugees who cross the Simon Bolivar International Bridge every day. Venezuelans are mainly using cryptocurrencies to facilitate daily exchanges and to keep their purchasing power safe from the devalued bolivar. Right now there’s plenty of individuals and organizations out there willing to show the way.

Source: news.bitcoin

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businessliveme · 6 years ago

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May Nasrallah Is Leading a Stampede Toward Boutiques

(Bloomberg) — In the midst of the financial crisis, as bankers around the world worried about their fate, May Nasrallah made a bold decision.

Having reluctantly agreed five years earlier to a request by Morgan Stanley’s John Mack to move to Dubai and set up an investment-banking hub for the U.S. company, she decided to resign. Not because she wanted to do less in the region. She wanted to do more.

In 2010, she established a boutique advisory firm, deNovo, to work with wealthy clients in the Middle East. Nine years later, her decision is paying off. Boutiques are earning almost a quarter of all investment-banking fees paid in the region, up from just 9 percent in 2009, according to Freeman Consulting Services.

After the financial crisis, “big banks like Morgan Stanley were focused on multibillion-dollar cross-border deals for the region’s largest sovereign wealth funds,” Nasrallah said in an interview. “I thought people that really needed our advisory help were the family groups and the firms operating in the region’s real economy.”

Fee Pool

Since Nasrallah made the leap, a raft of her peers have followed suit, echoing a global trend of bankers leaving big institutions to set up their own firms. Ziad Awad quit Bank of America Corp. to start Awad Capital in 2012. More recently, Rody Yared and Samer Katerji, who formerly worked at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc., respectively, started Trussbridge Advisory DIFC Ltd.

They have benefited as a protracted economic slowdown across the Middle East encourages more firms to merge or restructure debt. The fee pool in the Middle East and North Africa has risen more than 20 percent since 2009, according to Freeman’s data.

Still, bankers looking to go it alone in the Middle East face a variety of challenges, said Alex Gemici, a former managing director at Deutsche Bank AG who left in 2011 to form Dubai-based investment-placement firm Greenstone Equity Partners.

“Even if the founder has deep personal relationships within the region, clients and counterparties want to feel comfortable that any new firm will have longevity and will operate with the same standards as the global banks,” he said. “Once these challenges are overcome — which took years in our case — there is substantial interest in working with boutiques that are based in the region and offer an alternative to the global firms.”

Sovereign Funds

Nasrallah’s firm has carved out a niche advising family groups on deals, and working with sovereign wealth funds or large corporations on acquisitions and restructuring. They also can offer a second opinion not tied to selling any other bank products.

Being focused on the Middle East can help differentiate a boutique adviser, said Amer Huneidi, chairman of regional industrial gas company Gulf Cryo. “We had been working with a global bank on a transaction but the shareholders were not happy with them,” he said. “So we engaged deNovo and, frankly, the local knowledge they had of the market and mentality of the region was much better.”

Ultimately, Nasrallah said her goal is to build an investment advisory firm of the same ilk as Rothschild & Co. for the Middle East. That commitment is a change for someone who spent most of her early career avoiding the Middle East after wars forced her to leave Lebanon in 1975 and Kuwait in 1990. She shifted between roles in New York, Hong Kong and London before eventually moving to Dubai in 2005 as Morgan Stanley looked to capitalize on an oil-fueled economic boom.

Male Dominated

Political instability wasn’t the only thing that had put Nasrallah off moving to the Middle East. She also was wary of moving to a region dominated by men.

“At first I thought it was a strange to have John Mack ask me, a woman, to go to the Middle East to head investment banking, and suggested he consider asking a man do the role instead, but his answer was, ‘You are the right man for the job,”’ said Nasrallah, who has a master’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

Often the only woman in the room, she was able to turn that to her advantage. “So long as you were knowledgeable and credible, clients noticed you and remembered you,” she said. “So it ended up being an advantage in its own way. Perhaps John Mack was, in hindsight, actually pretty wise.”

A spokesman for Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

Since starting deNovo, Nasrallah and her team, which includes former Morgan Stanley colleagues Alex Reuter and Ahmed Osman, have worked on deals for sovereign wealth funds like Malaysia’s Khazanah Nasional and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. They’ve also advised on deals for Majid Al Futtaim Group, owned by the United Arab Emirates’ richest man, and is also working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on the sale of luxury chocolatier Patchi.

Even with the growth of small boutiques, the largest deals from the Middle East are still dominated by the likes of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. In a bid to expand deNovo’s services, Nasrallah is looking at forming an alliance with an international bank so she can use their global reach to pitch for advisory work on initial public offerings. She also hopes to do more fundraising for technology startups in the region so they’re positioned for when these companies become takeover targets.

‘More Attractive’

“The tech companies here are growing and will become more attractive to global firms,” she said. “So we’ve taken on some deals that are probably smaller than we would typically work on because this is a sector that we think it would be onerous to ignore.”

Deals in the Middle East typically take much longer to be completed compared with other regions, posing a challenge for firms focused on advisory work. Slower economic growth is also putting many businesses under pressure, meaning negotiations over price are taking even longer.

“We have a very strong pipeline of deals, but with the caveat that it’s taking longer and longer to get them to close,” she said.

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joneswilliam72 · 6 years ago

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A conversation with Boy Harsher: "We wanted to convey this sense of desperate longing, while running away."

Provocateurs of darkwave splendor, Jae Matthews and Gus Muller are Boy Harsher, a burgeoning act currently carving out an image as leading voices within the recent renaissance and reimagination of darker synth music. Wielding a chaotic formula that marries brooding synths with intoxicatingly danceable beats, Matthews and Muller’s art attempts and succeeds in capturing emotional instability, while allowing listeners enough room to dance their worries away.

Despite their musically synthetic exterior, Boy Harsher is a grassroots act in the purest sense. In fact, Since The 405 last spoke with Boy Harsher, they started up their own label, Nude Club Records, which they’ve already reprinted their two prior releases, and now, their sophomore album Careful.

In line with everything (for the most part) Boy Harsher previously produced, Careful sees Matthews and Muller more in tune with who they are as musicians, and of course, as a couple. Reflective of overarching and overwhelming grief, Careful cleans out the skeletons from the duo’s closet and somehow manages to exude a sense of hope amid the brutally honest accounts of romantic dysfunction and strained familial ties. It is no secret that we here at The 405 have been unabashed fans of the dark-minimal wave duo for a while now, so getting the chance to speak to Jae and Gus again was a no-brainer.

Fresh off their European tour and now gearing up for their U.S. venture. I spoke with the duo from Northampton, Massachusetts to break down their alluring new album, southern-gothic literature and the evolution of their relationship relative to their musical evolvement.

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In another interview, Jae, you mentioned that you’d love to go on tour with Deftones, but it would be very uncomfortable. Why was their album so important for you?

Jae Matthews: I grew up in a very small, rural town in upstate New York, so the music I had access to was whatever came out of KRock (Utica, NY). Deftones’ White Pony was in heavy rotation in 2002—lol it took a couple years to make it up North, plus it really resonated with me. I felt so alone during that period of my life, and found companionship in music. Now, White Pony just feels so classically teenage—both raw and tender, but I definitely still listen to it.

Aside from the music that you have consumed in your lifetime, are there any pieces of literature, movies, fashion designers or anything of that nature that have influenced the way that you express yourself through your own art?

Jae: The first big moment for me was with Raymond Carver - his writing really got me. I spent many years trying to write that way. Later, I started reading a lot of southern gothic, starting with Flannery O’Connor, then moving more contemporary to Harry Crews and Larry Brown. I felt a kinship to the south—my father once lived there and talked often about North Carolina and Florida and Alabama. But I had never been - so those narratives fed into the place and my desire to wind up there.

Augustus (Gus) Muller: Filmmakers like Terrence Malick and early David Gordon Green had a big impact on myself and Boy Harsher. They convey such a heavy beautiful atmosphere. Particularly the narration. Hearing the narration in films like George Washington and Days of Heaven really changed how I thought about telling a story. There’s this beautiful ASMR quality to them too.

Outside of the dark wave, industrial and even cold wave genres, who are some artists and bands we should all be looking out for?

Jae: Lately I’ve been getting into that contemporary minimal-ish folk country stuff, I really appreciate this Joshua Tree based musician Itasca, our friend Daniel Bachman,the last Weyes Blood album Front Row Seat to Earth—although her split with Angels in America will always be my favorite. I’ve been totally intrigued by Orville Peck. If I am in a certain type of mood, I just want to listen to this shit and pretend I’m living fifty years ago. I romance some idea of desert living, with country music in-house bands.

Gus: Divine Weight by Alex Zhang Hungtai and Deep Listening by Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis have been big for me recently.

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What’s the inspiration behind the label name, Nude Club Records, and when did you decide it was time to release your own music on your own label?

Jae: I made a zine years several years ago entitled Nude Club. It was a collection of my friend’s art, writing and conversations. It’s the name we kept coming back to when consider all the ideas for this imprint.

What are some difficulties you’ve faced starting a label?

Jae: It’s a petty thing, but I always find typos, like after printing two hundred shirts or 500 records. It’s crazy! I cannot BELIEVE we keep missing them.

Gus: It’s just doing a million things at once. It can be overwhelming.

Can you take us behind the decision of releasing ‘Face the Fire’ as the “first taste” per se from your new album?

Jae: The melody behind ‘Face the Fire’ felt very athemic to me, so I ran with that feeling. The lyrical content evolved into this “pushing through” narrative, that action feeling. We were talking about the look of To Live or Die in LA, the giant red sunset, the dry heat. So I tried to create this story around your imperfect self, your vice, your hateful qualities, and that acceptance, while imagining it within that setting. That process probably only makes sense to me, but there ya go.

Gus: It’s a nice fade into the album. We haven’t released music in a while, so wanted to ease back into it with a nice slow burner. Also, the narrative we developed in the music video really reflects a lot of the narrative and sentiment of the record, so it was nice to have a strong visual aspect as well.

In the music video for ‘Face the Fire,’ there are scenes involving someone strolling lost on the beach, while there are others moments where the individual tosses themselves on a bed. Can you dive into how this video reflects the song and why did you choose this specific still from the bed scene as the album’s cover art?

Gus: When we were writing the song I always pictured a burning sunset on the beach. So we just riffed off of that. We both started to see similarities with Larry Brown’s novel Fay. So we based the narrative around the runaway. We wanted to convey this sense of desperate longing, while running away.

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Are there any creative challenges when making art with your significant other?

Jae: The benefits are immense, you’re fully connected and a part of this intimate, trusting bond. Feeling this way in the studio is the reward. But it can also be real painful if your relationship isn’t faring well. It’s easy to take things personal, and the stakes to just become higher and higher. Most of the first two releases detail a lot of the pain and angst that Gus and I went through in during a rather rocky period. We’re more patient now. So I guess the music also becomes so reflective.

Gus: It’s very involved. We’re learning to be more patient with ourselves and also putting limits on how much we work. We need to leave enough time for ourselves.

It says in the album press release that your chaos made the project vulnerable and invariably lead to momentary destruction. “Jae had ‘careful’ tattooed across her back while Gus fried his speakers.” At that point, it mentions that you were not on “speaking terms.” That sounds pretty chaotic, but I’m a little confused about what happened. Would you mind diving into that particular moment for a bit of clarity?

Jae: Gus and I broke up, in a rather extreme and dramatic way. But, we still had a show to play, actually an event we curated called Cry Fest. We wanted to play the show, but we couldn’t be around each other— so we didn’t plan a set or anything. I asked a friend to tattoo my back, and while I let the vibrations kinda travel through my vocals, I don’t think I was really saying anything. I was crying, and screaming. Gus was somewhere else in the room—making a huge amount of noise and threw a lit candle. I am sure it was overwhelming to witness our mutual breakdown. Also, the cops came and we got a noise violation.

Can you talk about the significance of the spoken or sampled interlude ‘Crush’ to the rest of the album?

Gus: The ambient tracks have always been important us. That’s how we started. It’s also reflects our live sets. ‘Crush’ was a track that start as that simple drone we made, we liked it and wanted to expand on it, while he sound bytes are found recordings.

Speaking of the track L.A., as someone from the L.A. area and I tend to forget what I love about the place sometimes. As someone who has played there numerous times, what is the draw of the city for you?

Jae: We love L.A.; our fans in L.A. are incredibly enthusiastic and warm. I’ve always felt really connected when we play there. Every time we go I fall in love with someone, it must be the place—it’s just totally foreign and embraces this false sense of possibility.

Gus: L.A. represents a fantasy for us.

You’ve moved from Georgia to Massachusetts in the past and it seems to have done your career well. Do you ever foresee yourselves moving on from Massachusetts to a place like New York or L.A. in order to launch your careers even further?

Gus: We benefited a lot from being close to New York. It’s such a strong music community and definitely helped us get a leg up. I’m starting to accept I’m not a city person. We spend a lot of time in cities touring, and I really like the split lifestyle.

Jae: We talked about moving to LA. But I think we both realized that we really thrive in an environment that is isolated, more anonymous. I really appreciate my solitude.

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I’m not sure if it’s meant to be ambiguous, but who is Jerry in the track ‘The Look You Gave Jerry’?

Jae: Specifically, Jerry is my stepfather, who passed away two years ago—right in the midst of writing this album. And Jerry is also my father, who died when I was sixteen. This song attempts to process this cyclical grief, the way that these losses have hurt me and my family. The “look” in the song is this phenomenon that my mother described—her inability to forget the look of her husband as he left her—just really heartbreaking stuff.

Jae, it is mentioned in the album’s press release that trauma of losing someone is almost in tandem with your understanding of love, how have the emotions of losing someone helped inform your understanding of love?

Jae: I can’t say that it’s made me steely or anything. Maybe just realistic and tired. The fear of natural abandonment and death allow me to expect that loss.

Has the recording setup remained the same?

Gus: Not really. Same laptop and horrible speakers. We got a few new synths which have contributed a lot, but the set up is still very minimal.

It seems your music is a manifestation of your tumultuous but very loving relationship which is reflective in the sometimes chaotic yet melancholic sound, is it possible that as your dynamic evolves, the music will reflect that as well?

Jae: It’s certainly possible. We’ll continue to make music that feels right!

You mentioned in a recent interview that all our your songs represent a different location, even though the latest releases have a more rural influence. Can you maybe go through which locations are reflected in a few of the tracks?

Jae: We move every couple of years and the music tends to reflect the different settings. The first two albums feel completely drenched in southern heat and lust, where the latter two—to me at least—have more of a nostalgic cold presence, much like the Northeast.

I've been to one of your shows in L.A., and they are hypnotically hectic and seems to play off that small packed atmosphere well. As Boy Harsher garners more recognition and gets to play bigger venues, how do you foresee this project maintaining that chaotic intimacy that has become synonymous with your shows?

Gus: Our music definitely is designed with intimacy in mind. We’re going to just keep doing what we’re doing and see how it translates into bigger spaces. I could never see us getting a drummer or anything like that, but who knows!

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