#if they don’t call him up for the euros I’m suing

[leonsliga]

bestie I have a present for you. leon in pink

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGefbx2gb/

Definitive proof that he’s way too pretty in pink for the opposition to handle:

[accio-victuuri]

CPN : XZS chapter 5 vlog sugar 🍭

the magic number 5 and the long awaited euro trip vlog uploaded on a thursday, because thursday is a good day to meet you. 💕

here are some sweet treats for you. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇　 ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

* The upbeat song that was being played during the photoshoot montage is called you so done by noga erez. turtles are all over this track because of a certain line : What's a queen to a joker? Tell me.

Before i proceed, i just wanna disclaimer that this candy is not for everyone. especially since it assigns ZZ as a “queen” and is connected to the common representation of ZZ as the “feminine” one in their relationship. i mostly see it with c-turtles but also quiet prevalent in international fans— probably cause they were influenced by c-fans. So if you are looking at reactions by c-turtles at the time of MFW, aside from comments that he looks perfect and was given the superstar treatment, you will also see ones that mention ZZ as royalty. kinda like princess/queen, and it doesn’t help that he has all those bodyguards following him around. I’m pretty sure ZZ and his team are so busy enjoying their Milan trip to spend their time scrolling through weibo but who knows. Maybe they saw those.

and we all know who the joker is — Yibo. you don’t even have to be a cpf to be familiar with this love for that character. actually, they both do. so in this case, fans are loving the song choice because it ( sort of ) represents them as the queen & a joker. 🃏

* Looks familiar again! 👀

* The same pose. I know this might just be ZZ feeling himself ( as he should ) and it’s a good angle on him but we can’t help but relate it to Mister Ye’s scene. It’s one scene that has been going around and i have to say, it will really capture your attention. Is this ZZ channeling WYB again?

* 4 years apart, in Rome and caught looking at their phones. WYB’s was much more sus because that photos is from a video and then he smiles sweetly after then goes home to record Wuji with ZZ. I just wish they can have a vacation abroad together and be incognito. I’m pretty sure ZZ is sending him all the photos and videos ( and we will get some leftovers for sure ).

it’s so cute how there is a proper vlogging camera following him around but he is still using his phone non stop. taking personal memories. ☺️

* In line with the thought that there are no random frames in an XZS vlog, I will be adding this to the list. I just think that the background and what they show is really intentional, this is coming from the same production who sometimes censors things. so i think GG captured with this background is there for a reason.

the “have a nice day” is probably a message to people watching his vlog — a sweet message. and then that guy, his hand gesture looks like an 8 and ♾️. seeing this doesn’t help because we’ve been talking about infinity for the past days and this shows up.

[dreamings-free]

How Harry Styles Became A Modern Style Icon

by Phoe­be Luck­hurst - Evening Standard 15/11/19

A man wrought in the fires of teenage boy­band hy­per-stardom is not afraid of a lit­tle commotion. Still when Harry Styles — the One Di­rec­tion mat­inée idol turned lan­guid Gen Z icon — tweeted, at 1.01 pm GMT on Wed­nes­day af­ter­noon, that he would be tak­ing his up­com­ing album Fine Line on tour, you could, if at­tuned to the cor­rect de­mo­graphic fre­quency, hear the howl echo around the in­ter­net: gut­tural, hun­gry, ul­u­lat­ing. This was a pseudo-re­li­gious experience: one vi­ral meme de­picted the Pope hold­ing a copy of his al­bum aloft. The announce­ment has been retweeted al­most 70,000 times.

The 25-year old is a tour vet­eran — he spent five years and five al­bums strapped to the thunder­ing 1D jug­ger­naut — but this new tour is his first as a bona fide solo brand. The al­bum, his first in two years, is synth-soaked and soul­ful, the al­bum’s aes­thetic fever­-dreamy. Granted, he’s not the first per­son to go to So­Cal, try a few magic mush­rooms and de­clare him­self radically trans­formed, but the re­sults are be­guil­ing — and cer­tainly a world away from his years as a Simon Cow­ell Ken doll. Since his last record, he has co- hosted t he Met Gala and been reborn as an Alessan­dro Michele muse. This is your Styles crib sheet.

Melody maker

Styles’s new al­bum — writ­ten un­der a tie-dye mist af­ter tak­ing the afore­men­tioned psychedelics, which also re­sulted in a mishap in which he bit off the tip of his tongue — is “all about hav­ing sex and feel­ing sad”, which, granted, as a topline, does not wildly dif­fer­en­ti­ate the record from the genre of “al l other mu­sic ever”. Still, the early signs for Fine Line are encouraging. Its first sin­gle, Lights Up—which has been streamed al­most 100 mil­lion times on Spo­tify —is­ synth-y, soul­ful, un­der­stat­edly an­themic, very dif­fer­ent to, and bet­ter than, the lead sin­gle on his last solo record, the Seven­ties, soft-rock Sign of the Times( it still, of course, hit No 1), and very, very dif­fer­ent from any­thing he did with 1D. Many thou­sands of words have been writ­ten about whether there is a bi­sex­ual sub­text to Lights Up. It has been noted that the song was re­leased on Na­tional Com­ing Out Day, that Styles’s sex­u­al­ity has been sub­ject to fren­zied specu­la­tion be­fore, the video fea­tures an oiled-up, top­less Styles gy­rat­ing around men and women, and that the lyrics (“Shine, I’m not ever go­ing back/ Shine, step into the light”) could be in­ter­preted as a mean­ing­ful rev­e­la­tion of sorts. Cer­tainly, he has be­come a queer icon — especially with Gen Z — who are thrilled by his se­lec­tion of gen­derqueer singer-song­writer King Princess as his sup­port act for the Euro­pean part of his tour. Speak­ing of col­lab­o­ra­tors, Styles worked on the al­bum with pro­duc­ers Tyler John­son, who has worked with Tay­lor Swift, Mi­ley Cyrus and Ed Sheeran, and Jeff Bhasker, who has collabo­rated wit h Mark Ron­son and Kanye West, and his friend, Tom Hull, aka Kid Har­poon, who co-wrote Shake It Out for Florence + The Ma­chine. He has also been granted a fairy god­mother: Ste­vie Nicks, who called him her “lit­tle muse” at Fleetwood Mac’s hyped Wembley head­line gig i n J une. “S he’s a l ways there for you,” Styles has said in the past. “She knows what you need: ad­vice, a lit­tle wis­dom, a blouse, a shawl.” Sure.

Got Styles

Any young man raised in the white heat of a boy­band spot­light must be granted the space to find his fash­ion path; Styles has done so with no mis­steps and ex­u­ber­ant plea­sure. Once upon a time, he would sem­a­phore his in­di­vid­u­al­ity with a ban­dana; now, he turns up to a cover interview with Rolling Stone in a white floppy hat, blue denim bell-bot­toms and Gucci shades, his nails coloured pink and green. His favourite trousers, un­til he lost them on the beach, were a pair of mus­tard cor­duroy flares; this week, he wore a Lan­vin sweater vest with a sheep de­sign that sent a co­terie of Lon­don menswear stylists into throes of ec­stasy. He wears flo­ral suits and Cuban heels, ruf­fled, New Ro­man­tic shirts, Charles Jef­frey jump­suits and pussy- bow blouses. It is flam­boy­ant, self-con­sciously Bowie/Jag­ger, and in Gen Z par­lance, “very ex­tra”. His stylist Harry Lam­bert is par­tial to an ex­trav­a­gant col­lar, dra­matic neck­line and a vo­lu­mi­nous trouser.

Be­sides Lam­bert, an­other part of this evo­lu­tion has been his re­la­tion­ship with Gucci’s cre­ative di­rec­tor Michele, who has turned the Ital­ian her­itage brand into the ul­ti­mate post-gen­der lux­ury fash­ion la­bel, the first to merge their menswear and wom­enswear, and dis­patch male mod­els down the cat­walk in dresses and women in suits. A good look for a Gen Z idol.

With the brand

Notably, the brand­ing on this al­bum and its tour art­work is con­sis­tent with this new look Styles. The al­bum cover fea­tures Styles i n white cus­tom- made Gucci bell bot­toms and a Pep­to Bismol-pink shirt, open al­most to the waist, shot by mod-goth Tim Walker with a fish­eye lens (it is Walker’s hand in that S&M glove you can see in the left-hand cor­ner). In the dreamy video for Lights Up he wears a glit­tery suit and sus­penders, in a sort of hal­lu­ci­na­tory ver­sion of Satur­day Night Fever. Into it.

Stand up

Then there’s his voice — not the mu­sic, but the ac­tivism. Even as one-fifth of a boy­band manufac­tured by Cow­ell’s al­go­rithm, he was quick, quippy and itch­ing to go off-mes­sage; but now that he con­trols his own, he is am­pli­fy­ing causes such as Black Lives Mat­ter and End Gun Violence. He wore stick­ers for both on his gui­tar on his last tour, which might sound small, except that photographs of Styles gal­lop around the dig­i­tal world at hy­per­speed. At con­certs, he has waved pride, bi and trans flags, and a Black Lives Mat­ter flag. He once bor­rowed a flag from an au­di­ence mem­ber at a show in Philadel­phia that read, “Make Amer­ica Gay Again”. At a show on his last tour, he de­clared: “If you are black, if you are white, if you are gay, if you are straight, if you are trans­gen­der — who­ever you are, who­ever you want to be, I sup­port you.”

A vo­cal, en­gaged fan­dom of teenage girls minted his mul­ti­mil­lion-pound for­tune; he is loyal and ad­mir­ing of their zeal. “They’re the most hon­est — es­pe­cially if you’re talk­ing about teenage girls, but older as well,” he told Rolling Stone this sum­mer. “They have that bull­shit de­tec­tor. We’re so past that dumb out­dated nar­ra­tive of ‘Oh, these peo­ple are girls, so they don’t know what they’re talk­ing about.’ They’re the ones who know what they’re talk­ing about. They’re the peo­ple who lis­ten ob­ses­sively. They f***ing own this shit. They’re run­ning it.” Ob­vi­ously, he’s a fem­i­nist. “Of course men and women should be equal. I don’t want credit for be­ing a fem­i­nist. I think the ideals of fem­i­nism are pretty straight­for­ward.” An icon is born.

[bustedbernie]

In terms of the conservatives blaming Corbyn, there is delayed Russia report which indicated that the conservatives stopped the intelligence services from looking into possible Russian interference and instead of rightly condemning Boris, Corbyn gets doorstepped over a case that was covered ages ago (you’ve probably seen rose twitter say ‘Corbyn was right’ because there was an amendment that failed recently that would’ve protected the NHS in uk us trade deals and Corbyn’s main focus in... 1/

…the 2017 election was this happening, apparently Russia leaked it to reddit first or something). In terms of labour blaming Corbyn, a reporter of the antisemitism panorama episode got sued by the labour party for libel but instead of carrying on with the case, which labour lawyers say they would have won, the current labour leader decided to settle, opening up to a wave of opportunistic people now suing the party. The case if proceeded would’ve shed some light into what actually happened… 2/

…and could’ve vindicated Corbyn, but now we’ll never know. Because of the settlement are now also blaming Corbyn over the possibility of labour going bankrupt via settlement. In terms of the antisemitism, idk if you've read the leaked labour report into antisemitism, but if it’s to be believed then there was a select few senior members deliberately delaying the antisemitism accusations to make it seem like Corbyn tolerated it, the same members who were bullying several BAME MPs and… 3/

...misusing party funds in favour of the conservatives. Corbyn wasn't a very good leader but a lot of the reasons why labour lost wasn't fully because of him. There are probably more instances but I’m not really that involved in politics lmao, however can’t help but notice parallels in the way sanders is covered in your media vs the way Corbyn is covered in uk media. While some of the criticisms of sanders you may read in the future may be correct, some may just be pointing fingers at an... 4/

...easy target. Nuance is needed, as you say. 5/5

(I’m assuming your 2-3 messages got eaten) Corbyn is prolly a better politician than Sanders in that he actually participated in party politics and worked up his way in Labour. I guess he also gets points for wearing sweaters. Sanders is a grifting moron. and definitely an easy target for good reason

Labour’s loss was definitely multi-faceted. But we also can’t forget the antisemitism. Nor the unpopularity of some of their platform, and Corbyn’s appearance as uncompromising. Which is sad, as some of their platform (like protecting/improving the NHS and renationalizing the railways) are popular even among many tories. It’s also hard to see a way for Labour to win large again if they can’t propose a way to win in Scotland.

It’s rarely one person’s fault singularly for a party to lose. But Corbyn just didn’t seem propose a good way to get over those hurdles. His euro-scepticism also pushed at least a couple of my british friends to vote for the libdems. He really waffled on those issues until close to the end. So, just the presence of the libdems and SNP in a FPTP system makes it tricky. Similarly to Sanders, he relied too heavily on some reliance on class consciousness leading to a win. That didn’t seem to materialize in any meaningful way.  Contrary to Sanders, Corbyn is pretty harshly ripped apart in the british media (from what I often see). If anything, Sanders was boosted by the media here who really wants a horse race, even when they don’t exist. 

[addition] Well, all I’ve read about the report is it’s attacked for messages being obtained “improperly” rather than the content of messages themselves. It also fails to justify Corbyn’s stance in defending the antisemitic mural or those in the party that denied the holocaust which I’ve seen little follow-up on (and that seems like a big thing???). 

All of that aside, there was plenty of writing calling Corbyn a poor choice for a good minute, and what was said to happen, happened. The conservatives should definitely be investigated, Russia was certainly involved (as well as in Brexit), and all of that should be lead to a search for justice and it’s also true that the LibDems had some interesting issues going on in the last election. But Corbyn being a poor choice can also be true at the same time as the tories being up to some weird shit.  

[taiblogcomics]

Jason Cashes Out

Hey there, social distancing. It's time to wrap up this dang arc in Red Hood, and then... well, I guess we'll plow into the next one! I fear this whole current state of the world right now may quickly deplete my backlog with nothing to refill it. But don't you worry about that! I have a few other things I can replace this slot with, if it comes down to that~

But anyway, here's this cover:

Ah, "Year of the Villain". Didn't we already do this a few years back, when we called it "Forever Evil"? Or a few years before that, when it was at Marvel and called "Dark Reign"? I'm just saying, Final Crisis had a tagline of "The day evil won". And at this point, it's like... "Which one~?" Either way, it explains why Bunker's changed to a darker costume. You know, because that fun, gay Latino teen, how dare he wear a colourful costume in our superhero story. And after Jason is battered by Bunker, he'll be deep-fried by someone else, I presume~

We pick up immediately where we left off, with the Penguin pointing a gun in Jason's face. Ah, good times. And now for your plot convenience of the day: the Penguin has amnesia. I mean, at least it's justified. He was shot in the face, after all. And really, all he's forgotten is the actual incident of the shooting--and the details of Jason's secret identity. Yes, even now, he doesn't know that Red Hood and Jason Todd are one and the same. So he has no idea why Jason's gunning for him, his only beef is with the Red Hood. Jason, meanwhile, is kind of pissed that his revenge meant nothing. And lemme tell ya, so are the readers~

Before Penguin can pull the trigger himself, though, that dog Jason rescued (but still hasn't named) pounces on Penguin, causing his shot to go wild and enabling Jason to disarm him. Jason lets Penguin know that the Euro-Bloc is now gunning for him over the loss of their laundered money, and Penguin mutters that at least Batman fights fair. He tries to push past Jason--again, tries to push forward past the guy holding the gun--and get away, when suddenly the door explodes inward as Bunker launches a bunch of bricks into the room, striking both Jason and Penguin.

Bunker walls off both Jason and Penguin from each other, then takes a moment to chat with Jason. See, he's the one who let Penguin go. He found the former owner of the casino, dehydrated and broken in his own saferoom. The New 52 incarnation of the Teen Titans might have sucked, but I still consider the Titans to be heroes, and Bunker especially among them. He was usually the one bright spot of that whole run. And thus his behaviour here: he believed Jason when he said he'd gone striaght. He's disgusted, and don't think he's on Penguin's side or anything either. Bunker sees one as no better than the other, and bails on them both, surfing out on his bricks.

In the confusion, Penguin also escapes in a speedboat. Wingman shows up and offers to blow Penguin out of the water, but Jason says it doesn't matter. See, all of this was his plan. No, really, Jason's trying to play off this whole thing as intentional. He claims to have not actually tried to kill Penguin back then, having actually shot him with a blank. At the very least, this comic knows shooting a blank that close to someone's face is still going to hurt them, so that's something. But yeah, Jason says he planned for the gunshot to shatter his monocle and drive the glass shards into his brain, causing the memory loss. This is some fucking contrived bullshit, lemme tell you~

Jason retrieves the Blood Blade from the safe he stored it in last issue. I don't think he ever even closed that safe. Suzie Su comes in and comments what a wreck the place is. Jason replies that she should get to cleaning it, then, and she retorts that he didn't hire her as a maid. He concedes this point, but then replies that she'll want to take pride in how it looks, considering she's the new owner and all. She's stunned, but extremely pleased. Jason says she deserves it, and if she messes up, he'll come back and burn it to the ground. Ah, gotta love that vote of confidence~

Jason and Wingman (and the dog) leave, and they muse over Gotham for a bit. As beautiful as the city can look, Jason feels "she'll always let you down". He then jumps ship with the dog, and Wingman laughs to himself, saying Jason will always give more to the city despite that. And then he takes off his jacket, revealing his Batman tattoo--the same one that Jason said Solitary didn't have. So Wingman was Jason's father all along! Dun dun dun! ...This amounts to nothing. Seriously. Nothing about this reveal changes anything about the story, so what was even the point~?

And now, on the last three pages, we actually get the event tie-in teased on the cover there. First, Jason drops off the dog at Isabel's, leaving a note that asks her to keep an eye on her while he's away. And even in the note, he just says "keep an eye on Dog". Name your damn pets, Jason! Second, as Jason drives his motorcycle out of town, he's chased down by a miniature flying model of the old Legion of Doom base. The Darth Vader-looking one from the Superfriends cartoon, you know the one I mean.

Jason pulls over, and a hologram of Lex Luthor appears out of the flying Legion of Doom thingy. Lex has a proposal: Jason's been on both sides of the fence, and he's even died under Batman's teachings. So here's his chance to prove he can teach better than Batman, by taking on a team of young teen villains and raising them instead. Jason's not normally one to listen to Luthor, but the chance to show he's better than Batman is more than he can resist~

Anyways, yeah. I feel like that whole arc was rather pointless, anyone else~? Like, here’s a new status quo, except it’s not, we’re just wrapping up a bunch of loose ends that weren’t even really loose ends so much as callbacks. Like, if you cut this whole arc out and just had Luthor contact Jason while he was still driving through the midwest, would anything at all have changed? Maybe Suzie Su wouldn’t own the Iceberg Lounge, but I assure you: I do not and have not ever given a shit what Suzie Su is doing at any given time~

This arc was extremely boring and pointless, but rest assured, the next one is actually a lot more interesting. I’m actually looking forward to writing up that one. “Year of the Villain” may sound like a stupid event premise, but at least it gives me something to write about~

[m00nslippers]

It’s All About the All-Caste in RH:O Issue #34!

This issue was kind of filler and recap to be honest, but I’m always down for finding out more ways that Jason is awesome and we did get a little bit of that here, so let’s jump in to the review!

Right off the bat (hur hur) we flashback to Jason’s time with the All-Caste. He quotes Neitzsche, “Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” This is juxtaposed by Jason literally fighting a bigass monster as a teen in the All-Caste.

Now this is actually a pretty awesome thing because 1) It’s Jason being a literature nerd, which is what sustains my life. 2) It’s actually pretty damn relevant to what is happening in the plot right now, with Jason fighting monsters (Gotham’s rogues) and Jason dipping into that pool of being a monster himself. There is just so much foreshadowing that Jason is setting himself up for a fall, I’m just not sure how it’s going to shake out yet. Honestly unless he does something a lot worse than what he’s been doing, I don’t personally actually fault Jason or think he’s a monster? Like let’s be real here, the guy gets results.

There is some really awesome stuff here. Internally Jason says “When you’ve died once already--stared at the actual gates of hell--and clawed your way back through six feet of dirt? When you stare at a monster? Nine times out of ten...they’ll blink first.” Damn.

And then the monster, who calls himself “The Devourer of Young Souls”, asks Jason why the heck Ducra chose to send some kid after him, to which Jason says, “She didn’t choose me, she didn’t send me, but she knew better than to try to stop me!” Damn.

Apparently Jason is literally a child of prophesy among the All-Caste. I don’t remember if that was something we knew already or something we learn here, but I think it’s interesting that he basically completed the prophecy and moved on. Because Jason did what he was there for, he slew the monster, fought the Untitled, and now everyone expects him to just stop fighting--and he’s just like, “Uh yeah, no.” Jason’s life is an endless war. It always has been, he doesn’t know how to live another life.

One thing I’ll give Lobdell. I think he’s pretty good at dialogue. He has his moments. He’s not as bad as people make him out to be, but I feel like this guy really needs a writing partner. His dialogue is generally good, his ideas are usually pretty interesting, but his plots just need work and his characterization is inconsistent sometimes. It’s the story execution that needs help, also I think he avoids or brushes over emotional stuff a little too much sometimes and that’s a real detriment to his arcs.

After this Jason summons a crap ton of All-Blades and goes MCU Hela on the monster’s ass and I need current Jason to do this, why doesn’t current Jason fight more actual magical monsters, clearly that’s what he’s good at? I need more of this, it’s too cool. It’s super unique among the bat-family, he’s the only one of them with an inherent answer to magic, why is this so underutilized? *Sigh*

The story picks back up in the present with Jason at a restaurant in France, on a date with Isabel. I’m a little annoyed that these two are back together but I think their interaction here actually kind of puts a perspective on it that I approve of. Jason has an extra champagne glass there and is thinking about his adventures in France with Roy when they fought evil mimes back in Red Hood/Arsenal (Yeah, unpack that one). The champagne glass is also a reference to events in RHATO New 52, when Roy orders a glass of alcohol and uses it to test his resolve for sobriety, which happened on the very same plane ride where Jason meets Isabel. Jason is clearly still mourning Roy, not to mention Artemis and Bizarro. I think this kind of shows that while he probably does still like Isabel as a person, he’s not necessarily in this relationship because he loves her and wants to get back together--he’s vulnerable and needs somebody, anybody to lean on and she’s made herself available.

People give Isabel a lot of flak and I don’t really get it? She’s never been mean or lied. She’s never judged Jason for any of the things he does, and she supports him emotionally, she just doesn’t want to be involved in vigilante craziness which is a perfectly sane thing to want. I think she’s really underdeveloped as a character--What’s her past? What does she like? Who is her family? She’s kind of generic--but as a person there isn’t anything to complain about. I still prefer Artemis, but I think Isabel gets too much hate.

Back at the Iceburg Lounge, Miguel is in charge of fixing the place up after the attack by the assassins in the previous issue. Miguel talks a little about this other reality he says he sees or senses, which is maybe a hint to some future event that is hopefully gonna fix every character inconsistency we all hate but probably not (hey I can dream). We get a tease about Miguel possibly figuring out Jason is keeping Cobblepot prisoner, which I think we all know is coming, but it doesn’t actually happen in this scene.

We see Jason walking Isabel to her hotel and it’s pretty cute to see Jason holding a girl’s hand, okay? I do like it. I almost feel like her quip about proving she doens’t love him for his money is Lobdell jabbing at everyone who is saying she’s a gold-digger. He’s just like, “Dude, she’s not, lay off” I never thought she was but the idea definitely floated around, which I think was a bit uncharitable to her character, as I’ve said. She also says the “L-word” that Jason is so allergic to but she manages to keep him from freaking out about it. I think she does actually love him or she wouldn’t be here and I also think the fact that she comes out and says it is A SERIOUS DEATH FLAG. Ya’ll heard it here first, I think Isabel is going to die at the end of this arc.

Also, Jason speaks exactly one word of French but in my mind this is proof that my language-boy speaks French.

Jason leaves her at her hotel to do some Red Hood stuff and calls Suzie Su on the way to check in. She’s fishing for what Jason is doing, she’s suspicious, but he doesn’t give her anything. Jason, you aren’t doing a great job of convincing anyone you aren’t up to no good. Unrelated to the plot, but let me just say, I like the outfit the artist gave Suzie. Artists always seem to give her really hangy dresses and depict her as gross, but she looks cute here! Those leggings are cool!

Then the scene goes to Essence doing some pretty awesome All-Caste magic to contact the guy Jason dusted, and he goes on to say some BS about Jason’s eyes being empty and how he’s not the same person who was their champion as a teen. I think narratively this is supposed to mean something, but it seemed like few of the All-Caste actually approved of Jason to begin with, and this guy didn’t give the impression he was one of them, so why we are trusting his opinion is a question to. The dude is biased, he never approved of Jason.

Essense talks to S’aru, the dude who took Jason’s most cherished memory all the way back in RHATO New 52, and Essence seems to suspect this has something to do with the ‘emptiness’ in his eyes and his actions in the presence. His most cherished memory was a time when he was sick and had to stay home from patrol and Bruce stayed with him. I mean, sure, you can argue this maybe changed how Jason sees Bruce now and is less willing to believe the guy loves him but Bruce’s actions in the presence don’t exactly even jive with that memory so...eh. I don’t know, maybe there is just some magic awfulness that happens when you lose that memory, no matter what it is.

At the end of the scene Ducra floats in to probably tell Essence she can go attack Jason or whatever but we don’t know what she decided for sure because it ends on a cliff-hanger.

Back in France, Jason barges into a perfume shop that is fronting a Kill-Bill style meeting of some criminals calling themselves "The Euro Bloc” who have ties to Cobblepot. They finance the guy in exchange for him laundering their money through his Casino, and I would just like to point out that this is Jason doing exactly what he said he was planning to do--dismantle all of Penguin’s criminal activities. I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing, why is Jason ‘empty’ or a ‘bad guy’? He points out later that he didn’t even kill anyone while in Europe, so what is everyone’s beef? I don’t get it.

So Jason basically says, stop your activities in Gotham, also, leave me alone. They do the typical, “OR, why don’t we just kill you now?” but it turns out that Wingman is waiting in a kickass plane ready to murder everyone if they make a move and so they reluctantly back off. The plane seems to belong to Wingman, who we find out is named ‘James’. I still have absolutely no idea who Wingman is supposed to be or what his relationship with Jason is, though. I really hope we get some more of this information soon.

One thing of note though, is that Wingman is THE ONLY ally of Jason’s right now that knows that he is operating as Red Hood still. Suzie doesn’t, Isabel doesn’t, Miguel doesn’t. Wingman holds some kind of significance, and seems to need/want Jason to be operating as Red hood in Gotham for some reason, which was why he was following Jason, to convince him to return to Gotham, but we just don’t know why yet.

And then in the end, Miguel finally finds out Penguin is behind the glass and the title seems to imply Miguel is going to turn on Jason. penguin must convince him he’s the one wronged (I mean he IS the one wronged but he’s not actually a good guy so we know this is bad even if Miguel doesn’t) because i can’t see Penguin overpowering Miguel who has all this Psionic power.

So this issue was interesting. I loved seeing all the All-Caste stuff though on the whole, it’s mostly set up. Next issue, stuff is going down! I can’t wait!

[precise-desolation]

Since I just reblogged a post on this...

I'm one of those people who cried after the election.  I don't remember election night because I was so drunk - I needed to be to watch that - but I'm told when the results came in, I stood up and started yelling at the TV about the social and cultural impact.  And that next morning I showed up for my office hours with a horrible hangover.  My department was completely, eerily silent.  I've seen it silent.  I've pulled all-nighters there.  This was a different sort of silent. This was like the silence at a graveside service.   Like we were all mourning.

And we were.   I am part of an anthropology department.  All of us have at least some coursework in cultural anthropology and we are all taught to understand how societies work.   And we were all mourning.  Because we knew what was coming.

And most of us went that night to a protest.  We made signs.  We marched.  We explained to anybody who would listen what the ramifications of this would be and why we were so sure.  In the end, it changed nothing, but we knew we weren't alone.

A few months later, I drove all night with a few of my friends to go down to D.C.  It was the day after the inauguration and close to a million of us (at least per the officers on the ground) swarmed the streets of the capital in protest.  We talked about women's rights, civil rights, LGBT rights...   It depended on who you encountered, but there were a lot of issues brought up.

And they didn't listen.  It wasn't pointless.  Some good things came of it.  But the people in power brushed us aside.  Called us childish.  Called us snowflakes.  Dismissed our concerns.

We've watched white supremacists and neo-Nazis march openly in the streets and listened to our president call them "very fine people" after they murdered a woman for speaking against them.  We've watched as this regime has done nothing to distance themselves from the hate groups who celebrated their ascension.  We’ve watched the rate of hate crimes explode.

And now, after all the conservative outrage over the comparisons of this regime to Nazi Germany, it’s impossible not to see the similarities unless you’ve buried your head in the sand.  Our president called media that criticized him “fake news” and called for them to be shut down.  He is putting people into prison camps that his own administration has likened to the Japanese internment camps of WWII.  Which were basically Nazi concentration camps minus the gas chambers and ovens.  The officers charged with rounding up “undesirable” undocumented immigrants have used the exact same defense used by Nazi prison guards at the Nuremberg Trials: “We were just following orders.”  To justify all of this, the attorney general quoted a verse from the bible that was used to justify slavery.  

Never mind the fact that we are supposed to have separation of Church and State.  The once veiled American theocracy has decided it doesn’t need to hide behind the scenes anymore.  And of course, with the privileging of one religion above all others, we see protections for other religions begin to crumble.  Sometimes it’s slight, but sometimes it’s a landslide.  The Supreme Court recently upheld a moratorium on Muslim immigrants that has been fighting its way through the court systems for the last year and a half.  It was one of the president’s first acts in office.  And in labeling all Muslims as terrorists, it gives official justification to Islamophobia.

First they came for the Muslims, and the Right did not listen -  Because they are not Muslim.

And we shouldn’t be surprised to see his racist campaign promises beginning to destroy lives with the full force of the law behind them.  ICE - a relatively new department created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks - has been given free reign to do whatever they want.  On the campaign trail, the president promised to root out violent criminals who have come into the country illegally.  But he also called all Mexicans - and of course anybody who’s Latinx knows that when a Euro-American white person says that, they mean all of us - rapists and drug smugglers.  He called us all gang members and animals.  And that grants official justification for ICE’s campaign of terror.  

They aren’t rooting out dangerous criminals.  The vast majority of the people they are rounding up are just trying to live their lives.  Their only crime is crossing the boarder without papers.  Some of them are fleeing violence and don’t know they can apply for refugee status.  Better to live in the shadows than die.  All of them are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families.  The supposed American dream.  A dad dropping off his child at school is not a threat.  A woman going to work is not a threat.  A teenager who has never known any home but this and just wants to attend college is not a threat.  And these are the people who are being taken away.  

Then they came for the Latinos, and the Right did not listen - Because they are not Latino.

And all the while they make the path to citizenship or refugee status even more difficult.  They narrow what it means to have a reasonable fear of death, torture, or bodily harm.  They discard claims based on race, gender, and national origin.  They make the laws so complicated that even the lawyers who specialize in them have trouble understanding them.  And they do not offer legal counsel to those who enter this country seeking shelter from harm.  More than that, they often see fit to deport them back to places where they will be killed.

Then they came for the refugees, and the Right did not speak out -  Because they are not refugees.

The Supreme Court also recently ruled against a gay couple suing for discrimination.  And although the ruling was narrow, the impact has been broad.  It is part of a larger trend of so-called “religious freedom restoration acts” meant to enshrine discrimination.  And while the bills are generally worded to apply to any religion and make no mention of specific groups to be targeted, it is no secret that they are meant to permit Christians to discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

Then they came for the LGBTQ people, and the Right did not listen -  Because they are not queer.

And all the while, the Right has been celebrating.  They’ve called it victory.  They’ve called it winning.  They are complicit.  They have drunk the Kool-Aid, as it were.  For years, they have been fed a steady diet of hateful rhetoric.  Looking at divisive media outlets is a crash course in linguistic propaganda.  Even if the stories being reported on were the same and the outlet tried to appear neutral on the surface, the word choices say it all.  And we have come to a point where a lot of white, straight, cis, American-born people are content to sit back and watch everyone else suffer.

And the only thing I can say to that is when they come for you - and they will come for you -  there will be no one left to speak for you.

I know that I certainly won’t lift a finger in your defense.  My hands are busy.  I have to fight for my rights as a queer person.  I have to defend my Latino, refugee, green card relatives.  

My hands are busy and my voice is hoarse.  And that is your own doing.

[prorevenge]

This property is HOA-Free.

This is a long one, because it involves a growing escalation of actions. TLDR at the bottom. Some terms are translated because I don't live in an English-speaking country.

We moved houses last year, to the ugliest in the street. The previous owners must have loved Mondriaan, because the front was red/blue/yellow in window frames and door. One paint job, many thankful neighbors and several months later, I get an invitation to a voluntary "Collective of inhabitants", the terms read like an opt-in HOA that you can never leave. A long list of restrictions, and no benefits? No thanks.

Random home improvements continue, the backyard gets remodeled, some overgrown trees get cut down (free firewood for the BBQ!) etc. etc. Then I get a letter from the city. Apparently, I cut down a tree without a permit and they're sending someone to assess the damage. This is a little shocking, as I work with permits for a living and did some proper research before I changed anything, so I give the city a call. Nope, there's no such thing as a permit for tree removal on private property, and nobody in city hall sent this letter printed on city hall letterhead. In fact, that's not even a proper tracking number. They even sent by an arborist to assess the damage, who I refused. And later I got the bill for the arborist, which I kept but didn't pay. A phone call confirmed that the arborist didn't send me the bill, but for privacy reason who couldn't name who did.

When the DIY is finished and I'm moved in, I hold an introduction BBQ for my street. I go invite people and bring a cupcake with the "there shall be a grand feast, all are welcome" stuff on a little note, to make friends with the neighbors. I had already scored major credit by raising their property value with a single paint-job, so I was pretty happy. A few people tell me I can't have a BBQ, because it's against the rules of the "Collective of Inhabitants". I tell them not to worry, I'm not in that. The next day, I get a bill for membership to the "Collective of Inhabitants". This mysterious organization sends out bills without contact info, so I shred it.

Come the day of the BBQ. At 4pm, my doorbell rings. Someone in an official-looking city-hall uniform, and a "city-supervisor" (basically a not-quite-cop who took night school instead of police academy). They heard I'm having an illegal BBQ, and are here shut it down. I ask if they would like to point out which laws I am breaking. Uniform-man (UM) pulls out a 60+ page slab of paper and points out a rule saying it's illegal to burn anything for any reason in your backyard. The book is labelled "Collective of Inhabitants LAWS AND RULES". The city-supervisor (FC, for Fake-cop) just stands there smirking.

me: "That's very nice, but I'm not part of that group, so I don't see how that applies to me." UM: "The rules apply to everyone in this street." me: "Yeah... no they don't. You can't just go around inventing laws. Could I have a copy of that book please?"

I take the sheave of paper and toss it onto a table for future reference.

FC: "So I take it you won't have the BBQ?" me: "oh no. I'm having the BBQ, and I'm going to make it my personal mission to break another rule every time you bother me. So far, I'm 2 down, and 3 to go." UM: "This is against the law! I'll be calling the cops" me: "no, this is against your rules, not the law. And that's 4." FC: "Ma'am if you don't comply, you'll be placed under arrest!" Me: "Ohhhh yes. Shall we call the actual police right now? I wonder who's in the right here..."

I take out my phone and call the non-emergency number. Of course, I'm on hold.

UM: "That's not necessary, you haven't heard the last of this."

They walk away and I hang up.

me: "That's five! Have a nice day!"

The neighbors start showing up, and point out that's the president of the "Collective", and jokingly ask which heinous crimes I committed. I tell them I did nothing wrong because I'm not in the group. That's when my introductory BBQ turned into a torrent of complaints about about the "Collective".

So, during my hello-neighbors BBQ, I got to hear all the horror stories. Leave your trashcan at the street after 8am? Get a fined. Put it out before 10pm? fined. Have a BBQ? fined. Paint your house late? Fined. the list went on. for 6 hours people did nothing but bitch about the CoI, noting that none of the active members were present at this highly illegal party!

As it turns out, my house was the only one in the street not in the CoI, and I had two other bastions of freedom in the next street. Well, I had just moved in, and I owed the CoI another 4 infractions, so I was open to suggestions. Three of my neighbors were extremely fed-up, and seized on this opportunity, perfectly willing to inconvenience themselves to be assholes to the CoI. It turns out this bullshit had been going for about 6 years.

So here's a little tally of actions, none quite Pro-Revenge till the end.

1 - Trashcan are to be placed by the curb no sooner than 10pm and removed no later 8am. Suddenly, I gained 17 trashcans, which I graciously allowed the other people to use, and even keep near their houses for convenience. However, should someone accidentally leave my trashcan at the pickup point, nobody can be fined. 3 infractions to go.

2 - Due to terrible wording, it is not allowed for CoI members to organize a party outside after 9pm. I was suddenly extremely outgoing. I organized at least one party every other week, going so far as to use other people's backyards for them. Being a terrible host, I wasn't present for most of the parties I organized. 2 infractions to go.

3 - I suddenly became a pet owned. After one of the neighbors was told dogs are not allowed to weigh over 10kg, I became the proud owner (that is to say, the dog still belonged to him in every way, except for the CoI) of a Great Dane. I really only saw the dog when it's ownercaretaker too him on walks, but still. 1 infraction to go, it had to be a good one

4 - I get a call from a debt collection agency. I failed to pay my CoI bill on time. I had to pay (some tiny amount) plus a big fine. I ask tell them that if they can provide me with proof of a contract, I'll gladly pay. They promise to get back to me. 2 infractions to go!

5 - Since all major garden work had to be done contracted to a "registered gardener", my husband started a one-man gardening business, since "registered" wasn't defined anywhere, we opted for a 12-euro entry in the phone book (yes, they still exist!). Business was lousy though, he only ever took jobs that landed him 0 profit, even though the subcontracted labor wasn't profitable, he always managed to find local workers willing to take the job, generally they lived in the very house where the work was to take place, talk about good management! 1 infraction left to go.

6 - Debt collection agency send me a letter. With a copy of a contract signed by me. Well, signed by someone who used my husbands last name and my first letter, which is rather odd, since I never took his last name. I was about to rip it up when I realized that forging a signature is an actual crime! HURRAY! I call the debt collection agency, explain that that's not my signature, email them my real signature and they drop it after some back and forth and another in-person visit.

Now, unfortunately, I'm not a lawyer. Fortunately, one of my new neighbors IS, and he was extremely motivated. So, with charges of Fraud, harassment and a slew of others, we went to court. It took all of 10 minutes after reading the evidence. Basically, we had a good case (because we had a lawyer), and the board of the CoI, who was defended by the president (a professional manicurist) went "Look at the rules she broke. There's this rule, and this one, and this one..." to which the judge simply replied "But you forged her signature. She's not a member." "But she broke SO MANY RULES". Repeat twice more and bang the gavel.

The CoI was fined a pittance, and ordered to pay a ton of damages to me and one other non-member. Of course, since this wasn't actually a HOA, they didn't have much, and were thus forced to disband, with the (unfortunately small) fine falling to the board members.

Thus endeth the Collective of Inhabitant, and there was much rejoicing. My only regret is that I still had another infraction I wanted to commit.

TL;DR: Fake-HOA is convinced I'm part of it when I'm not. Assisted my neighbors by breaking as many rules as possible, finally got them disbanded by suing for fraud over a forged signature on their contract.

(source) (story by dragongrl)

[soccerdrawings]

How To Leave Sport Award Ideas Without Being Noticed | Sport Award Ideas

• Neil Warnock, January – asked about Brexit while sitting in advanced of a “Visit Malaysia” assurance put up by a Cyprus-born administrator to advice armamentarium his 11-nationality Cardiff squad: “I can’t delay to get out, if I’m honest. We’ll be far bigger off out of the blood-soaked thing. In every aspect. Football-wise as well, absolutely. To hell with the blow of the world.”

10 Youth Sports Awards Ideas - sport award ideas | sport award ideas • Ian Holloway, August – calling for football to be played beneath WTO rules. “I don’t anticipate that’s our boys authoritative up that new law. I anticipate that’s bodies cogent us what to do with our game. Now they should stop accomplishing that. I achievement we get out, Brexit, because that’s what bodies are voting for. You cannot accept addition cogent us how to do our own game.”Leading on the year’s added hot-button issue: “Extinction of our chase is acceptable added and added acceptable … the apple is a messed up place. Apple leaders are either benighted or don’t affliction about the ambiance at all. Honestly, I feel like giving up… bodies don’t assume to care.” Lewis Hamilton – who denied afterwards that his jet, £13m car accumulating and £50m Petronas endorsement took the bend off. “I awash my alike a year ago.”Gianni Infantino in June – acclamation Fifa’s assembly two years afterwards he sacked the belief aggregation investigating him. “We angry it around! Fifa has gone from actuality toxic, about criminal, to what it should be: alike with credibility, trust, integrity, equality, and with beastly rights.”His added big bulletin in 2019: abnegation allocution that it was Fifa’s new assurance on Chinese sponsors that led it to bead all beastly rights checks and accolade China the 2021 Club Apple Cup. “There are problems in this world, everywhere, in abounding countries. It is not the mission of Fifa to break the problems of this world.”• Additionally not affairs complaints from beastly rights and belief groups about sportswashing in 2019 – Uefa arch Aleksander Ceferin:a) Explaining why captivation the Europa Alliance final in Azerbaijan was the appropriate affair to do: “Human rights is a botheration in added places too. Does it beggarly the admirers in Baku do not deserve alive football?” And b) reacting to the Apple Anti‑Doping Agency’s alarm for Russia to be bare of Euro 2020 by adjoin Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg. His bulletin to Putin – Uefa stands by Russia because: “I charge say, the Apple Cup was organised perfectly… I do not allege aloof to be nice: I absolutely beggarly it.”Pushing the Fifa belief boundaries too far in 2019: Central African Republic controlling Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona – banned for six years from all Fifa activities for arch a militia accused of “mass executions, torture, anamorphosis and rapes”. Ngaïssona, on balloon in The Hague in 2020, denies 111 war crimes charges.Was acquainted by Sepp Blatter - aggressive to sue Fifa in July for not giving aback the 60 affluence watches he larboard in his office. “These are my watches, accord me my watches. It’s important for me.” His bigger question: “Why are they angry me for these watches? There is no respect... I’ve accomplished the end of my temper.”José Mourinho – started 2019 out of work, activity viral with an ice-rink faceplant in Russia and a €3.3m tax artifice sentence; concluded it managing Spurs and commendation Nelson Mandela. “Like Mr Mandela said: ‘You never lose, you win or you learn.’ At United I won and I learned. My time afterwards I larboard United, that was a acceptable time for me.”@realDonaldTrump – responding to Megan Rapinoe’s “I’m not activity to the fucking White House” boycott in June by mis-tagging a alternation of rebukes – cogent @meganrapino, a afraid 21-year-old Starbucks agent from Virginia: “Never boldness our country, the White House, or our flag.”• Additionally accepting to him during the USA’s Women’s Apple Cup run: Rapinoe’s examination of the quarter-final, played in Pride month. “Go gays! You can’t win a championship afterwards gays on your aggregation – it’s never been done before, ever. That’s science, appropriate there!”Israel Folau – suing Rugby Australia for “discrimination”. Folau, sacked in May for angle including “hell awaits homosexuals” and gay alliance causes bushfires, claimed £7.4m for corruption of “religious freedom”. Statement: “Mr Folau wants all Australians to apperceive that he does not disregard bigotry of any kind.”Franck Ribéry – administration the acknowledgment aftermost January afterwards he acquaint a video of himself bistro a steak coated in gold. “Let’s alpha with the jealous, the haters, those alone built-in because a condom had a aperture in: f*** your mothers, your grandmothers and alike your ancestors tree. I owe you nothing.” Bayern Munich: “Franck accepts his words were unwise.”Still acceptable on racism: Serie A – cogent “sincere regret” for the “No To Racism” posters they put up this ages featuring monkeys with corrective faces. CEO Luigi De Siervo: “I realise now these were inappropriate. But what cannot be questioned is the strong, connected accusation of racism by Serie A.”• Additionally continuing close in 2019: a) Uefa, allowance Porto of racism in September afterwards a fan claimed he was apropos to himself as a antic aback he led chants of “monkey” while a atramentous amateur lined up a penalty. The fan said: “Everyone in Portugal knows me as Monkey, it’s my nickname. This is an awkward aberration from Uefa.” Uefa accustomed the defence. And b) Downing Street, 10 canicule afterwards Boris Johnson’s win, borderline why racists were activity emboldened: “Racism has no abode in football, and we charge accost this abandoned behaviour. There is added assignment to be done by the football authorities ... We don’t aphorism out demography added steps, if required.”Jack Leach, charwoman his glasses at one end as history abundant at the other. “They bare cleaning. I apperceive I attending brainless aback I am out there. But it got the job done.” See additionally the slow-mo video of the year:

Fun End Of Year Sports Awards Editable - sport award ideas | sport award ideas Came in July: Liverpool FC aggravating to brand the chat “Liverpool”. The bid was agape aback by admiral due to the “geographical acceptation of the city”; the club said it would “continue aggressively to accompany those who illegally accomplishment our bookish property”.Bernard Tomic – fined for not aggravating at Wimbledon again. Tomic appealed to get his £45,000 award-winning money aback afterwards his 58-minute avenue in July; Wimbledon said no. Tomic: “They’re biting me with what they’re saying. I don’t charge the money. It’s aloof about what’s right.”Out of annual aftermost January, Fulham approved a aggregation yoga affair to about-face assignment anatomy and “find peace”. It concluded aboriginal aback Aboubakar Kamara and Aleksandar Mitrovic had to be “dragged apart” – sources cogent the columnist it was triggered aback “Abou started talking during bashful time – a amenity moment. Mitrovic told him to shut up.”Another big year for poppy annual and sad mascots – but viral retweets of Tranmere’s 2017 abounding anatomy poppy had new resonance in 2019.Sebastian Vettel, 32 – swapping the finishing position cards at the Canadian Grand Prix in June afterwards a five-second amends denied him victory. Vettel, who put “1” abutting to his car, and “2” abutting to Lewis Hamilton’s, said: “This is a amiss world. This is not fair.”Italian Serie C club Viterbese – reacting to a five-year ban for vice-president Luciano Camilli for punching action admiral Giorgio La Cava “and blame his legs away”. The club alleged the ban “squalid” and “slander”, alleging Arezzo’s La Cava affronted it by shouting: “You suck, bits fans.” The ban was cut to 20 months on appeal.Came from Zamalek admiral Murtada Mansour in Egypt: burglary Christian Gross in comedy during a 1-1 draw for actuality “a failure, a bones … I went to the bathrobe allowance at half‑time and told the players to avoid him.” Mansour said critics pointing to his man-management almanac – including his 2016 move to appoint “sorcerers” due to three players “being bewitched”, and the actuality that he’s now on his fourth administrator aback burglary Gross in May – should “know this: I’m not some crazy guy.”1) Ex-Notts County buyer Alan “Big Alan” Hardy – aggravating to betrayal “the arbitrary ancillary of fans” in January by announcement screenshots of two adverse tweets from the aforementioned fan, but accidentally announcement a photo of his penis instead.2) @Cristiano – tweeting a private-jet selfie in January on the aforementioned day he was fined £16.6m for tax artifice and Emiliano Sala went missing in a alike crash. Three emojis: smiley face, alike demography off, thumbs up.3) Adidas UK in July, active its #DareToCreate amusing media attack to advance Arsenal’s new kit: auto-generating images of the band featuring the Twitter handles of users who aggregate the hashtag. Adidas said the aftereffect – their official annual tweeting a alternation of racist slurs with the bulletin “welcome to the squad” – was an adventitious corruption “of a personalisation artisan created to acquiesce aflame admirers to get their name on the jersey. We accept angry the functionality off.”4) Fleetwood armchair Andy Pilley, @capboy70, cogent admirers to vote Tory or he’d shut the club down.5) And Welsh Fire candid drillmaster Gary Kirsten, assuming his best activity in October. “Can’t delay for The Hundred Draft and to aces the band on Sunday at 7pm. #TheHundredDraft.”Was lower alliance clubs live-tweeting the colour as able-bodied as the action:1) @lossiemouthfc, April: “8.20pm: Bold delayed briefly while the adjudicator spews in the centre amphitheater … 8.22pm: That’s him done yakking up his tea and we’re on the go again.”2) Berwick Rangers’ @OfficialBRFC, March: “Cowdenbeath decay a bend and Berwick get the adventitious to bright … Ugly scenes in the dugout as Cowdenbeath’s administrator has aloof told Johnny Harvey to ‘take his face for a sh*te’ #BRFC.”3) @sligorovers, February: “9 min. The brawl is kicked out of play, arresting the box of chips endemic by the fan at the Joma sign. Abounding chips abatement to the ground. (0-0).”

10 Best Sport Certificates images | Certificate, Track, field .. | sport award ideas 4) @AFCFylde, October: “80’ There’s a abeyance in comedy as a rather ample man storms the field, topless, with a boutonniere of flowers. (4-0).”5) And @NuneatonBoroFC, activity for a face-palm emoji afterwards their babysitter Tony Breeden came up to booty a amends in November: “61‘ He’s absent and has bankrupt the lights in the terrace. What accept I aloof witnessed.”Sarah Thomas, September – pond the approach and back, afresh back, afresh aback again. The 37-year-old blight survivor from Colorado did it in 54 hours; the avenue was 80 miles, but flat pulls meant she concluded up pond 130. “I got stung in the face by a jellyfish. I’m ambrosial annoyed appropriate now.”Was Sky spotting Huddersfield’s admission administrator Jan Siewert in the directors’ box in January, and activity in for an absolute interview. “It was bizarre,” said Man City fan Martin Warhurst later. “I was sat in the army and aback I was acquainted of a guy advancing appear me from the right. He anticipation I was the manager; I said: ‘No, no, that’s not me. I’m Martin from Wakefield.’”Billy Sharp’s beat boob ambition anniversary in February – his accolade to WWE brilliant Mick Foley’s “Mr Socko”. @RealMickFoley alleged it “TREMENDOUS” and angry up a ages later. Sharp: “After the bold I had 200 texts afresh God knows how abounding on Twitter. Abutting affair I apperceive Mick Foley is accepting breakfast at my house.”National alliance @AFCFylde - ambrosial in February for three youths who “duped our amphitheater anchorperson into allurement for a white Nissan Micra NE14 ABJ to be confused aftermost night”. The boys came forward; Fylde gave them chargeless shirts.Calling it early: three Spurs fans, missing the Champions Alliance improvement at Ajax in May afterwards abrogation the arena aloof afore half-time, cerebration it was abounding time due to actuality “pretty drunk”. James Perkins: “We anticipation we were abrogation at the absolute time.” He said they were “pretty confused” at the base “when no one was stood about us cat-and-mouse for a train”.Came from New Zealand’s Jimmy Neesham, tweeting beeline afterwards their Apple Cup defeat to England in July. @JimmyNeesh: “Kids, don’t booty up sport. Booty up baking or something. Die at 60, absolutely fat and happy.”Was Coco Gauff during her Wimbledon breakthrough. On her self-image: “Weird. Weird, goofy, and, I don’t know. Yeah, awe-inspiring and goofy, I guess.” On her mum’s anniversary dance: “I didn’t acquaint her, but she’s activity to go viral, I know. She’s activity to be a meme.” And on why the best bit of the summer was rapper Jaden Smith tweeting her. “Obviously the tennis is abundant … but I’ve looked up to Jaden for so long. Bodies who chase me apperceive that’s all I column about. It was ambrosial agitative for me.”Among 2019’s regrets: Abundant Britain actuality butterfingers from the men’s 4x400m at the European Athletics Aggregation Championships in August afterwards allotment assets attempt doodle Youcef Zatat in the calendar by mistake; and Telstar striker Jordie van der Laan actuality sacked in May for calling in ailing so he could biking to London to watch Ajax comedy Spurs. Telstar admiral spotted him in the army on TV; Van der Laan said: “It was not my best decision.”Colorado Rapids – cancelling their post-game fireworks in August due to “plague”. Admiral said “the attendance of plague-infested fleas affecting prairie dog colonies” about Dick’s Sporting Goods Park meant the club “had no addition but to cancel”. A Rapids fan in a affliction doctor affectation told the Denver Post. “I assumption we’ll aloof embrace it.”Solid brawl from David Duval at the Open in Royal Portrush in July: birdieing his aboriginal two holes, extensive the 5th one off the lead, afresh hitting a quadruple bogey, a bogey and a nonuple bogey 14 at the par-five 7th afterwards accident two tee shots afresh arena the amiss ball. He accomplished with a 20-over 91, but said he never anticipation about walking away. “If you play, you column your score. Is there some adumbration of embarrassment? I don’t know. What I shot, I put on the board.”2018: David Beckham accepts the Uefa president’s award. “I’m actual honoured, honoured to be here.”2019: Eric Cantona accepts the Uefa president’s award: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they annihilate us for their sport. Anon science will not alone be able to apathetic the ageing of cells, anon science will fix the beef to the accompaniment and so we will become eternal. Alone accidents, crimes, wars will still annihilate us, but unfortunately, crimes, wars, will multiply. I adulation football. Thank you.”“Wayne Hennessey is ‘desperate’ to apprentice about the Nazis, says Roy Hodgson” – theguardian.com, April. Runner-up: The Times, aftermost week: “West Ham footballer Michail Antonio comatose Lamborghini while dressed as snowman.”Making it big on Twitter in 2019: @visualsatire’s Football Administrator Beard on Politicians. Including acclaimed works “Henry VIII with the beard and earpiece of Phil Brown”, and “Angela Merkel with the face of Steve Bruce”.

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[just-french-me-up]

Okay but did Eponine and Cosette set Jehan and Montparnasse up on a blind date

2.5k and a link on AO3 later

Montparnasse was prettysure that Eponine and Cosette finally getting together was the lastseal required to spark off Armageddon. It had to be. Otherwise whyelse would Eponine act so weird? His roommate had beenreplaced by some permanently and frankly creepy smiling being whospent her time on the phone giggling like a middle schooler who’ddrunk half a glass of apple cider. Montparnasse had heard her singthis morning, for fuck’s sake! Something had fallen apart in thefabric of the universe, and Montparnasse was trapped in the uncannyvalley.

And honestly, he couldhave dealt with their syrupy lovey-dovey bullshit if they didn’tactively try to drag him into their cult. Now that they knew thebliss of young love, Cosette and Eponine had convinced each otherthat Montparnasse needed to be infected with the same ailment. Theycouldn’t have been more wrong.

Montparnasse didn’t date.It was a principle of his. So when Eponine ambushed him in astereotypical Parisian café on a fine Saturday afternoon,Montparnasse’s first reflex was to flee towards the nearest exit.

“You haven’t even metthem yet! They would be perfect for you!” Eponine protested,hooking her arm around his to stop him in his flight.

“I’m pretty sure thisviolate the Geneva convention,” Montparnasse grunted, fightingagainst her grip.

How dare she set him uplike this! It was too early for him to deal with that kind ofbullshit and she knew it! He should have known something was up whenshe texted him to meet at a café. Eponine was a bar person, not acafé person. Jesus, why did every person in a relationship thoughtthey had to “fix” single people into an item?

“Come on, what do youhave to lose?”

“My time,”Montparnasse answered flatly.

Having a good enough holdon him, Eponine started dragging Montparnasse away from the exit backtowards the main room. A reluctant cat on a leash would have beenmore cooperative. Oh, he could have escaped, if he had really put aneffort into it. But what would have been the point? If he fled now,Eponine would find other sneaky ways to trick him into going on adate, sooner or later. Might as well get it over with now, once andfor all. But he wouldn’t give in to her without putting up a fightfirst.

“Look at it this way:worst case scenario, you waste twenty little minutes. Best casescenario, you get laid. It’s honestly not that big of a deal.”

“I don’t need you to getlaid,” Montparnasse groaned between his teeth.

The café was a realtourist trap. There was even a surprising lack of accordion player onthe terrace. The main room was filled with tourists taking picturesof everything and anything. You could always spot them. They were theonly ones ordering croissants. Cosette, with her bright pink hair,stood out of the crowd like a beacon. She made a sign to Eponine andMontparnasse, and Eponine’s grip on his arm tightened. Montparnasse’seyes fell on the second beacon present in the room, a cascade of redhair falling in soft waves on naked freckled shoulders. Montparnasseblinked, taking in the freckled face and shy smile, the big doe eyesand bright yellow sundress. It was too much to process at once. Fuck,they were beautiful.

Eponine let go of his arm,but Montparnasse failed to notice. She went to kiss her girlfriend, aspring in her steps. Fuck, they were beautiful. Irritatinglybeautiful. Montparnasse’s gaze went from their designated date toEponine, daggers in his eyes. He couldn’t let her win. He couldn’tlet her sappy rhetoric win!

“Jehan, this isMontparnasse,” Cosette said enthusiastically, giving Eponinemeaningful looks. “Montparnasse this is Jehan! We thought you’dlike to meet.”

“Hi,” said his date,waving their hand.

Montparnasse merelynodded. Cosette and Eponine looked at them both, positively elated.

“Well, we’ll leave youto it,” Eponine declared, quickly leading Cosette out of the café.“Have fun!”

They were already too faraway for Montparnasse to protest. He found himself face to face witha stranger, a beautiful stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. Hisdate, Jehan, gave him an embarrassed smile and sat at the nearesttable. For a second, Montparnasse weighed his options. He couldleave. He could walk out the door, just like that. He didn’t knowthem, why should he care? He glanced outside. Eponine and Cosettewere sitting at the terrace. Fine. Reluctantly, as though someone waspushing on his shoulders and hitting him behind his knees,Montparnasse sat at the other end of the small table.

“Is Jehan your realname?” he found himself asking.

“It’s Jean, actually,”his date explained, tucking a lock of red hair behind their ear. “Butmost people call me Jehan. Is Montparnasse your real name?”

Montparnasse shrugged.

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not. Youdon’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

An awkward moment ofsilence fell between them. Montparnasse was suddenly very aware ofhis body. What should he do with his arms? With his hands? He hadants crawling under the sole of his feet, all of a sudden. Jesus, henever had to think about this, usually!

“Listen,” Jehan said,leaning forward slightly, as though they didn’t want to be heard byother people. “we both know what’s going on here. I know you’drather be elsewhere, and I could frankly do with less scrutiny overmy sentimental life. We’re in the same boat here. So how about wechat for ten or twenty minutes, tell them we tried and call it aday?”

Montparnasse could nothave said why, but he felt slightly offended that Jehan had alreadydecided things would not work out. Before he remembered that hehad already decided things would not work out. He crossed his armsagainst his chest and leaned against the table.

“Glad we’re on the samepage,” he said, keeping a neutral tone.

The cheerful voice of thewaitress rose above them:

“Good afternoon! Whatcan I get you today?”

“Black coffee, please,”Montparnasse said.

Actually, he longed for adeliciously frozen and decadent frappuccino topped with caramel syrupand whipped cream. He’d skipped breakfast. And lunch. Probablybecause he’d been sleeping until 1PM, until the infamous Eponine textwoke him up. And there he was. Coffee for breakfast, then. At least,in a café, those came with a biscuit.

“I’ll take a pot ofChai, if you don’t mind, er,” Jehan squinted to read the waitress’sbadge, “Elodie. That’d be lovely.”

“Great. I’m bringing youall of that!”

The waitress scribbled onher notepad and dashed to another table. Left alone for a secondtime, the silence felt all the heavier.

“How do you knowEponine, then?” Jehan eventually asked, before the awkwardnesscould reach the point of no return.

“She’s my roommate.Childhood friend. You?”

“I’m part of les Amis del'ABC, you know, the activist group.”

Montparnasse nodded. Ahyes. The Wednesday meetings Eponine went to. He’d always thought shewent there because Cosette hung out with these people, and whatevercould get her closer to Cosette was good to take. He’d never reallythought she was actually interested in all that social justice stuffuntil he’d see her making protest signs that one time. There wasstill glitter on the carpet. A damn shame.

“That’s where I metCosette, too,” Jehan continued, their nails playing with the cracksof the wooden table. “It’s really great that they’re finallytogether. They danced around the question for too long, everybodycould see it. It was agonising.”

Montparnasse let out achuckle, in spite of his best efforts to stay stoic.

“Tell me about it. Youdidn’t actually live with one of them. It was hell.”

“I can imagine,” Jehansaid with a little smile. Jesus, did they always look at peoplethrough their lashes like that?

The cup of black coffeeand the pot of Chai arrived quickly on the table. They thanked thewaitress and she put a little saucer on the table, for the bill.While Jehan was pouring sugar into their pot, Montparnasse put a teneuro note into the saucer.

“Oh, I don’t want you topay for me!” Jehan said, embarrassed.

Montparnasse quirked aneyebrow.

“I’m not paying for you.I’m leaving her a tip.”

Jehan’s eyes went fromMontparnasse to the saucer and the ten euro note.

“That's―That’sone hell of a tip,” they pointed out.

“Shehas a god-awful thankless job,” Montparnasse shrugged. “The ordercame quickly and she was nice. I would have killed for a tip likethat.”

“Didyou use to work as a waiter?”

“Worst.A barrista. The worst three months of my life.”

Alright,considering, perhaps not the worst three months of his life. Butthose three months were pretty much up there in the pantheon of hisshitty life experiences.

“Didyou quit?” Jehan asked. They sounded curious. Suddenly, theconversation didn’t feel as awkward.

“Iwas fired,” Montparnasse answered with a little teasing smile. Hetook a sip out of his cup to build suspense. “I hated this job andwanted to leave, anyway. But one day some guy came to the coffee shopand stayed there for about three hours. He was a creeper, you knowthe type. He started bothering a couple of girls, so I thought I’dbuy him coffee on the house. Unfortunately that coffee ended up onhim rather than on his table, what a shame. My hands are usually sosteady.”

Agrin grew on Jehan’s face, and they made an approving sound.

“Thatguy could have sued you, though,” they remarked.

“Ipersuaded him not to,” Montparnasse said airly. “The coffee shophad security cameras. It’d have been a shame for the tapes to bereleased. I know people who are very good at sharing files.”

Jehandrank a bit of their tea. If Montparnasse was to believe the smile ontheir face, they were very amused.

“Sowhat you’re saying is that you’re chaotic good?”

“Oh,fuck no,” Montparnasse snorted. “Chaotic neutral maybe. Or trueneutral. You just don’t creep on people in my coffee shop. Creeper,creeper, crotch on fire.”

Fuck,this was going well. This was going toowell. They werelaughing together for fuck’s sake!

“Iworked in retail once,” Jehan said, holding their tea cup with bothhands. “It didn’t go well either. There was a lot of misgendering,but I was prepared for that. One day the manager told me I madepeople uncomfortable, because they didn’t know or didn’t understandmy gender. It weirded them out, so they had to let me go.”

Well,so much for the light-hearted atmosphere. Jehan’s story was a gutpuncher. Montparnasse pursed his lips and fidgeted with this coffeecup. That was the sort of bullshit Claquesous had to deal with, too.

“I’msorry,” he said. “That was really shitty of them. Isn’t thatdiscrimination? Couldn’t they get in trouble for that?”

“Itwas a while ago,” Jehan shrugged. “It got to me when it happened,but I don’t really care anymore.”

“Whatshop was it?”

“Why,are you going to go and persuadethem to right their wrong?” Jehan teased.

“Maybe.”

Jehanraked a hair through their hair and smiled at him. They liked him. Ormaybe he was reading too much into it. They appreciated him, atleast. He didn’t care about being appreciated, most of the time. Butjust this once, it felt nice. Warm.

“You’resweet, but I don’t think it’s necessary. They’re just―”

Alittle jingle rose from their bag, startling them both.

“Shit,sorry,” Jehan muttered as they reached for something in their bag.“I thought I’d turned it off.”

Thewords “it’s okay” got stuck in Montparnasse throat. Out of habit,he had looked into their bag and recognised a familiar rainbowpattern on a package.

“Yousmoke Sobranies?” he blurted out before he could think better ofit.

Caughtoff guard, Jehan looked at Montparnasse, then down at their bag, thenat Montparnasse again.

“Oh―er―yes,well, I don’t smoke that often, actually. That packet must be twoyears old. It’s more of a―er―aesthetic thing.”

Montparnassereached into the pocket of his jacket and retrieved the slick blackpacket of Sobranies he kept there. Jehan let out a surprised gasp,before their expression turned into utter joy.

“BlackRussians! God, no one knows what they are around here! They’re sofancy, I love them!”

“They’resuch a bitch to get in France,” Montparnasse said, encouraged bythe enthusiasm in Jehan’s voice.

“Iorder mine online. Well, once every two years, you know.”

Theylooked at each other, all smiles. Fuck,they really werebeautiful. And they really wereinteresting. And they really made him want to stay and keep talking.He glanced outside again, his gaze covering the terrace in search forEponine and Cosette. They were nowhere to be seen.

“Look,”he said, his lips moving of their own volition, “I know a place inMontmartre. Great view. Maybe we could go there, if you want?Exchange a Black Russian against a Sobranie Cocktail?”

Jehanseemed to take his words in, wondering whether or not they shouldleave with an almost total stranger. Montparnasse was hanging at theedge of their lips, and he couldn’t believe the fact that he wantedthem to say yes. Damn Eponine and her schemes.

“I’dlove that.”

Eponineflicked through the channels, Azelma leaning against her. The morechannels you get, the least watchable things there are. They watchedbits and pieces of shows. Half of them were about cooking, because ofcourse they were. They were halfway through a very tensemayonnaise-making session when the front door opened. Eponinestraightened her back, disturbing Azelma who had dozed off fiveminutes ago.

“So?”she asked expectantly, looking at Montparnasse take off his leatherjacket.

“Sowhat?” Montparnasse rolled his eyes.

“Sohow was the date! Isn’t Jehan amazing? Did you like them?”

“Theywere alright,” Montparnasse answered flatly, quickly walkingtowards the kitchen to avoid any more questions.

“Parnasse,what’s that on your neck?” Azelma asked, a little sleepy.

Eponinelet out a loud gasp at the sight of the red bruise glowing onMontparnasse’s neck. Immediately, Montparnasse slapped his handagainst the mark and walked faster.

“Ohmy god! You made out! That’s a hickey! Montparnasse, come back here!Oh my god, I knew it!”

“Oh,shut up!”

[cultural tidbit: There’s actually no tipping in French culture, we just don’t tip waiters. Why, you might ask? Isn’t that unfair? Well, here, the tip is included in the bill, you don’t actually have to tip because they have a steady income. You pay a bit more than in other countries, but that’s because your order + the tip is one and only thing. That being said, I’ve seen tip jars in France, and I’ve seen people tip before. Maybe they do it in Paris, I don’t know, I’m not Parisian, so I included it anyway! That’s how it was explained to me growing up, maybe now tipping is a thing? I’m as clueless as you are.]

[roidespd-blog]

CHAPTER SEVEN : CONVERSION THERAPY

This one is going to be easy. This is an opinion piece. A inflammatory commentary of some monstrous practices. A pile of insults for a pile of shit : CONVERSATION THERAPY, the worst of humanity with genocides and Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

WHAT IS CONVERSATION THERAPY ?

“So-called Conversation Therapy is a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression” — Human Rights Campaign

I’ll let The Trevor Project explained it to you : Conversion therapy, sometimes referred to as “reparative therapy,” is any of several dangerous and discredited practices aimed at changing an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Conversion therapists use a variety of shaming, emotionally traumatic or physically painful stimuli to make their victims associate those stimuli with their LGBTQ identities. According to studies by the UCLA Williams Institute, more than 700,000 LGBTQ people have been subjected to the horrors of conversion therapy, and an estimated 80,000 LGBTQ youth will experience this unprofessional conduct in coming years, often at the insistence of well-intentioned but misinformed parents or caretakers.

A QUICK HISTORY OF CONVERSATION THERAPY

Early 20th Century. Sigmund Freud stated that homosexuality could sometimes be removed through hypnotic suggestion. In his paper “The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman”, he wrote that changing homosexuality was difficult and possible only under unusually good conditions (fear of society’s disapproval was not considered one of those). Success meant making heterosexual feelings possible, not eliminating homosexual feelings. Sure. Different time. Different ideas. Also, fuck you. I will give points to Freud with his response to a letter from a mother whose son was gay : “I gather from your letter that your son is a homosexual. … it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. … By asking me if I can help [your son], you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way we cannot promise to achieve it. In a certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies, which are present in every homosexual; in the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the quality and the age of the individual. The result of treatment cannot be predicted”.

When you think about it, the idea of curing homosexuality through therapy was kind of a step forward, as previous solutions were castration, frying one’s brain OR death.

One of the “great” minds behind modern conversation therapy was psychoanalytic theorist Edmund Bergler. His method could essentially be sum up to “BLAME THE VICTIM”. Bergler used confrontational therapy in which gay people were punished in order to make them aware of their masochism. He violated professional ethics to achieve this, breaking patient confidentiality in discussing the cases of patients with other patients, bullying them, calling them liars and telling them they were worthless. His studies and articles helped classify homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1952. From this period until the Stonewall Riot in 1969, conversion therapy received approval from most of the psychiatric establishment in the United States.

AND THEN CAME THE MOVEMENT

After the Riots, conversion therapy came under increasing attack. In 1973, with pressure from numerous activists and newly formed LGBT groups, The American psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental disorder. Then all were saved from trying to change and every Gay rights were approved by the government. Peace and harmony was finally here. Oh, no. Wait.

AND THEN CAME THE CHRISTIANS

If the APA wasn’t going to treat homosexuals as mentally ill, the Religious Right would. Practicing aversion without any therapist licenses (which helps since they cannot be sued for malpractices), Gurus like Joseph Nicolosi and John Smid went on to create successful programs for years, persuading parents to involve their kids into weeks, months, years even, of costly and intense reconditionings.

Take for example Joseph Nicolosi. His website offers “psychological services to Men and Women whose Same-Sex attraction doesn’t define them”. He is described as a pioneer in the history of psychology, which he left as the profession was slowly abandoning the classic understanding of sexuality as being rooted in design and purpose (their words, not mine). He’s the author of masterpieces such as “Healing Homosexuality”, “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality” and “Shame and Attachment Loss : The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy”. They don’t develop any specifics on how they reduce homosexual tendencies or how they cure the fags, but we can easily imagine.

YOU HAVE THE METHODS TO MAKE US STRAIGHT

The techniques that conversion therapy use are quite varied, but have one point that ties them all. They do not work.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (or Electroshock Therapy) : the art of sending electric charge into your brain, put together that the medical body before meds were like “hey! we’re here too!”. It was created in order to provide improvements in severe symptoms of mental health conditions such as depression, mania, catatonia, aggression and dementia. One that goes through ECT risks memory loss, physical side effects, medical complications, seizures, confusion.

Prayers : because God does not love you and you need to repent and be good. Be good. Be straight. Be what you were supposed to be.

Exorcism : when the prayers don’t work. in 2009 Manifested Glory Ministries came under fire for a youtube video showing a 16-year old being subjected to an exorcism to cure him of his homosexuality. Quote “Come on, you homosexual demon! You homosexual spirit ! We call you out right now ! Loose your grip, Lucifer” End quote.

Disconnection from exterior influences : That’s what happened to Mathew Shurka, who was forbidden from seeing his mother and sisters for over 3 years, to help him get rid of any “effeminate behavior”. He also went through extensive unlicensed therapy sessions and his father provided him with unprescribed viagra pills. Shurka is now a spokesman for the National Center for Lesbian Rights’s anti-conversion therapy campaign.

Aversive conditioning : the use of something unpleasant, or a punishment, to stop an unwanted behavior. For example, wire a homosexual to an electric machine, showing him porn and electrocuting him every time something sinful (aka gay porn) appears. You can also induce the patient with nausea or paralysis. Sometimes it’s not as drastic, with the use of elastic band to slap on you wrist.

Behavioral reconditioning : lessons about masculinity and femininity. Ways to improve posture, voice modification, walking patterns, etc.

The 12-step program : borrowed from the Alcoholics Anonymous program. As you try to manage your disease, you truly need to atone from your sins and ask for forgiveness.

MEANWHILE IN FRANCE

As most of the rest of Europe, Conversation Therapy is not strictly banned by law. Malte was the first european country to outlaw CT, with a year in prison and a 10.000 euros fine. Worldwide, only Brazil, Canada and a couple of US states (including California) have laws to protect LGBT+ citizens from this mental genocide that is CT.

In France, though on the marginal side, there is a few groups that provide services to cure someone from the evil of gay life. The government, which doesn’t seem to really care that much about it, had a hard time evaluating how many of them exist. Gay activist and author Louis-George Tin gives an estimate number of five to six. He also warns that licensed therapists still try to heal homosexuality in secret sessions. 

A first crisis of consciousness appeared in 2012 when an evangelical group called “Torrents de vie” offered services to reconnect with a saint heterosexuality, true femininity and true masculinity for the sweet deal of 410 euros. After the intervention of LGBT groups, the government started an investigation under the law that protects citizens against cults (as Conversation Therapy is a cult, don’t mistake it for anything else). Since then, few cases went forward in the country but this year, Majority Deputy Laurence Vanceunebrock-Mailon announced her intentions to write an official text to outlaw groups that pretend to change sexual orientations from gay to straight. It is supposed to be available to the assembly before summer 2019.

A CURE FOR ILLNESS

Guys, I’m launching my own Conversion Therapy in a few weeks.

It’s called “Don’t give up, Sweet Bigot”. As a unlicensed medical expert in anything, I can only give what you can call “life advice” and offer “hang out” sessions to those who seek redemption from the path of bigotry. You don’t like gay people ? You still they are sinful and worthy of burning in Hell ? The worst that society has to offer ? (thought we agreed the Kardashians were, but okay). This program is for YOU. Come and join me (for the extraordinary start-up prize of my monthly rent) and I’ll will show you how to accept more people, all colors, sex, gender, choices, life goals. Practices include midnight showings of my favorite gay porn on pornhub, going to ONE orgy (not multiple, I’m not that much of a party freak), having drinks by the Seine for our monthly Apero Queer, dancing time to the best of modern pop has to offer (see June 4th article, bigots), and off course, Electroconvulsive Therapy. GO TO www.sweetbigot.org AND GET FREE GLITTER NOW !

You may not know what conversion therapy and it may not be as deadly as HIV or daily physical attacks on LGBT+ members around the world, but it kills. Those who went through that torture fest are eight times more likely to commit suicide in the years that follow. Garrard Conley wrote a wonderful memoir about his time at Love in Action. It was adapted in a very informative film also titled “Boy Erased”. There’s also “The Miseducation of Cameron Post”, check it out.

Don’t send your kids there. It’s not love to try and change someone. It’s abuse. I’m gonna follow closely the events of this possible law against conversation therapy in France. We are painfully uninformed about what is going on around us. Time to kick some Jesus Freaks’ butts.

[kamen-rider-zed]

Do You Believe in Miracles? Chapter 4

I’d like to first of all apologize for how long it’s taken to get this chapter published. Lots of irl crap happening to me in the last 7 months. I’d also like to give a big thanks to @ageisia​ for beta reading this and helping me get this fic out of hiatus.

Last of all, I’d like to thank tumblr for being so janky as to require some BS workaround just to get my work to appear in tag searches. So yeah, thanks tumblr you pile of utmost garbage.

AO3 FF

Chapter 4: Long Live the Queen

“Chloé, do you have an explanation for where you were during the evacuation?” Miss Bustier demanded the moment the girl in question stepped back into the classroom. “And for the first–” she looked at her watch “–twenty minutes of class?”

“I told you before I stepped outside,” Chloé mumbled, ignoring the eyes on her as she made her way to her desk. “Restroom.”

“Well,” Miss Bustier planted her fists on her hips, “you should know that when the fire alarm goes off, evacuation takes priority over powdering your nose.”

“There wasn't a fire.” She sat in her seat, rolling her shoulders again, and dug her tablet from her bag. “Some kid from another class pulled the alarm. Probably another one of Kim's stupid dares.”

“I-I had nothing to do with it!” Kim jumped from his seat and waved his hands. “I only make dares with Alix! A-and nothing reckless like pulling a fire alarm!”

“I realize that Kim, and thank you.” Miss Bustier turned her gaze back to the front row. “Now, Chloé, I can't just overlook something like thi–”

“Su-su-success!” The entire class turned to the door only to see Alya leaned against the frame, panting. She coughed and took a deep breath, then held her phone aloft, a wide grin upon her face. “F-first footage of the *pant* t- the new hero!”

“You alright Alya?” Nino asked.

“Pe-pedaled fast as I could to get back in t-time for class.” She swallowed and gasped. “G-g-gonna die now.” She fell over, thankfully towards Nino, who jumped from his seat to catch her.

“Friggin drama queen,” Chloé muttered with none of her usual fire. Why wouldn't Alya be excited to interview a new hero? Especially if said hero was Paris' beloved Chloé Bourgeois? Not that anyone would ever know that if Ladybug had her way. Maybe once all this was over and Hawkmoth was behind bars.

“Alya, what did I tell you about chasing after Akumas?” Miss Bustier bellowed.

“Uh,” Alya coughed and offered the teacher a sheepish smile. “D-don't?”

She nodded. “And that's why you'll be joining Chloé in detention. Now–”

“Wait, what?” Chloé jumped to her feet and slammed her hands on her desk. “I walk in a few minutes late because I had to use the restroom and you're giving me detention? I’ll have you know that when Daddy…” She stopped. Miss Bustier gave her a knowing look and Chloé remembered her father was no longer in her corner. “Well...at least I didn't leave the building!”

“It's not just tardiness, Chloé. It's tardiness during a fire evacuation.”

“Uh, what's this about detention?” Adrien now stood in the doorway, looking from an angry Miss Bustier down to Alya who still hadn't recovered from her exhaustion enough to acknowledge her punishment, to Chloé whose fingernails were digging into the wooden desktop. “Am I too late?”

“Miss Sancouer forwarded your photoshoot schedule to me earlier, Adrien. You're excused.”

“Oh, okay,” he shrugged. “I'll just–”

“Sorry! Sorry I'm late, I–” came a cry from behind Adrien. He turned only for a blur of pink and gray to slam into his chest and knock him backwards. He landed hard on his back and his assailant landed with her face squished against his chest and her legs on either side of him. Marinette shook her head and pushed herself up. When she realized just who she had attacked, and who she was currently straddling, all the blood in her body teleported to her face and she scrambled away from him with a shrill whine.

“S-sorry! I mean'nt did I mean didn't mean to Tadrien, uh, t-tackle Adrien I'm so sorry!”

“So if I get detention for coming in late,” Chloé started, “does that mean Marinette gets two detentions for coming in late and assaulting my Adrikins?”

“I'll dispense the discipline, Chloé,” Miss Bustier scolded. “Marinette will receive detention along with you and Alya, but only one since it seems Marinette's, er, clumsiness just got the better of her.” She turned to see Adrien standing and offering Marinette his hand. She shakily accepted it with a wide grin and he pulled her to her feet. “See? No harm done.”

'No harm done. Who does she think she is? Maritrash could have ruined Adrien's million euro face and Miss Bustier would let her off with a slap on the wrist. At least she still gets detention. And maybe someday I'll get to rub being a superhero in her stupid little face.'

(#)

Chloé should have been working on the essay. It was due in two days and she hadn't even started. Yes, she had taken some half-hearted notes, read (more like skimmed) a few articles, and was still waiting for Sabrina's assistance. And being in detention with Alya and Marinette should have been the perfect time to catch up on her work.

Unfortunately, she was too focused on the phone she had hidden under the desk.

Fred Haprele was in charge of watching them for the next hour, but had been called away for some irrelevant reason, so Chloé took this opportunity to, shall we say, catch up on current events. Her eyes sparkled as she reviewed Alya's footage of the Akuma fight. Shaky as it was, it still captivated her. Alya had focused entirely on Queen Bee from the moment Shockra blasted her in the chest. From flying away with her and Emelie to protecting them from the lightning clones, Chloé couldn't tear her eyes away. That was her. She was Queen Bee. She was a hero.

“Thought you weren't much of a Queen Bee fan.”

Chloé turned to look over her shoulder and caught Alya smirking at her. “I never said that,” Chloé whispered. “She can't hold a candle to Ladybug, but I have to admit.” She smiled back down at her phone. “Queen Bee has style.”

“She is so cool!” Alya giggled. “I mean, it's obvious she's new to this, but her powers are awesome! She can fly, she has that wicked sword, she summons these drones that follow...”

“Alya,” Marinette interrupted, placing her hand on her friend's shoulder. “Maybe you should save gushing about the new hero until after detention.”

“Yeah,” Chloé remarked before she realized she had actually agreed with Marinette. “Don't want to get held up any longer than you have to. You're already gonna be late to your interview with Queen Bee.”

“Yeah I guess you're...wait...how did you know about the interview?”

Chloé tensed slightly in her seat. That's right. She wasn't supposed to know about that. By some great fortune, the video on her phone had just showed footage of Queen Bee setting the time and place for Alya's exclusive interview. She held up her phone and said, “Y-you just mentioned it. See?”

Alya nodded and smiled, accepting the small lie which wasn't entirely a lie. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Mr. Haprele chose that moment to poke his head back into the classroom and check on them. Luckily, Chloé's phone zipped back under her desk before he could see it. She pretended to dig something from her bag, and Mr. Haprele seemed content with the student's behavior. When he left, Chloé dropped the book she'd lifted from her bag and turned her eyes back to her phone.

'Essay.'

'Oh, please. There's plenty of time to get it done.'

'Essay.'

'Sabrina promised she'd help. I don't want to do all of the work only for her to finally pull through when I've done everything.'

'...essay.'

'Okay, why does my mind keep going back to that?'

A squirming in her purse gave her the answer she sought.

‘...lets me get inside you…’

Vii.

The voice in her mind constantly reminding her of the essay, the voice that had tried to convince her to leave the school without Alya, the voice that had told her to protect Emelie rather than help Ladybug. Chloé's fingers curled around her phone, her nails scraping into its case. How dare that little insect mess with her mind like that? What was she trying to pull? Vii fidgeted a bit too much in Chloé's bag and the girl slapped it. Chloé was a queen, and that meant that Vii needed to learn her place.

About twenty minutes later, Mr. Haprèle dismissed the trio from detention early, claiming some emergency with Mylène. Chloé smiled at her fortune as she gathered her bag and dashed from the room before Marinette and Alya could even rise from their seats. She didn't have time to dawdle. She had to get to Notre Dame before Alya. If she arrived late, Alya might get suspicious. Just outside the classroom, Chloé came upon Sabrina sitting on the top steps, her eyes focused lazily on her phone.

“What are you still doing here?” Chloé demanded.

Sabrina jumped at her friend's voice. “Oh, Chloé!” She stood and brushed off her shorts. “I needed to talk to you. It's...it's about the essay...”

“Not you too,” Chloé groaned. When Sabrina raised a brow, Chloé waved her off. “Never mind. Listen, just email me some references later. I'm busy.”

Sabrina shuffled on her feet, unable to meet Chloé's eye. “No, Chloé, about that...”

“Sabrina, I don't have time to work on this stupid essay right now. Honestly? It'd be a lot better if you just did it for me. Some...personal stuff came up that I need to take care of.” Sabrina opened her mouth to argue, but Chloé was already making her way down the stairs. “Just explain to your grandparents you owe a friend a favor. I'm sure they'll understand.”

Chloé smiled to herself as she stepped onto the sidewalk in front of Francois-Dupont. That's how it's done. That's how a queen manages her domain. Now, if only Vii could get with the program.

“That was rude, you know,” came a tiny voice from just behind her head, likely nested in her ponytail.

Speak of the devil...

“You don't know my relationship with Sabrina,” Chloé whispered. “She has no problems helping me out. In fact, she'd have even fewer problems with it if I told her I'm a superhero now.”

“You remember what Ladybug said: no one can know your identity.”

“I know, I know. But once I hand Hawkmoth his own butt, I'll tell her and she'll realize this was all worth it.” Chloé smiled wider. “She'll get the satisfaction of knowing she's been helping a superhero this whole time.”

“But right now, all she sees is her supposed friend abusing her and–”

“Listen here, Vii!” Chloé said a bit too loud. A few people turned to look at her, but she simply glanced down at her phone and put a finger to her ear, pretending to fidget with a Bluetooth earpiece. “I know what you've been doing in my head.”

“I...” Vii began slowly, “haven't...been doing any–”

“Save it!” Chloé hissed. “I keep hearing this voice in my head trying to tell me what to do and I know you have something to do with it! You said I was chosen to be a hero, so whoever chose me trusts my judgment. Just let me be a hero and stop trying to be my conscience!”

Not another sound came from behind her head while she searched for a suitable place to transform. However, for all her searching, she failed to notice an old man in a Hawaiian shirt standing just outside the school, hunched over his cane with sorrow stretching his features.

“Master, again I must protest,” came a small voice from just over his shoulder. “She is abusing Vii, mistreating her friends, and prioritizing her own fame above the city’s safety. I believe it was unwise to entrust her with the Bee Miraculous.”

“You cannot plant a garden in the evening and hope to eat at dawn. Besides,” Fu glanced back over his shoulder, “you know the nature of the Bee demands such a wielder.”

“But how can anything grow in her hardened heart?”

Fu remained silent for but a moment, then lowered his head and sighed. “There are two forces at war within her, Wayzz: a desire for love and a desire for security and safety. She craves the love she is denied due to her mother's absence and her father's neglect.”

“I’d hardly say the mayor neglects her,” Wayzz argued.

“Though he believes he is doing right by his daughter, enabling her behavior and placating her with material possessions are no substitutions for a father’s love,” Fu countered. “But however much she may desire to be loved, opening herself to that love would leave her exposed and vulnerable. Losing her mother, the person she loved above all others, was the greatest pain she has ever felt, and so she has shut herself off, made herself cold and cruel. She would rather be alone than face that pain again. However, misery loves company, as they say, so she inflicts the pain she feels on others, just to have something in common with someone else.”

Fu heard a set of slow footsteps descend the steps in front of Francois-Dupont and turned his head to see Sabrina with her head low and tears threatening the corners of her eyes. Her face brightened when her father pulled his police cruiser up to the sidewalk, but the sorrow never left her eyes.

“In Miss Raincomprix,” Fu continued, “Chloé has found a submissive soul who accepts the pain and still stands by her side. Though Chloé does not know it, she has opened her heart to the girl, and left a hole in her armor. If Sabrina were to ever abandon Chloé, it would shatter her.”

“You are only reinforcing my point, Master.” Wayzz floated up to glance at the red-haired girl climbing in the car. “If Chloé is so fragile and unstable, then how can we expect her to--”

“You asked how anything could grow in her hardened heart,” Fu interrupted. “Look beneath us, at the cobblestones in the sidewalk. Hard, cold stone. Yet in some places--” he gestured towards a tuft of weeds with his cane “--life has found a way. It grows through the cracks, through the weaknesses in the stone, and so for anything to grow within Miss Bourgeois, she must be like the stones beneath us. For her to become the hero she is destined to be…” His eyes followed a streak of gold flying off to the west, then turned and strode back towards his shop.

“...she must break.”

(#)

Queen Bee sat hidden between the columns and gargoyles perched atop Notre Dame, awaiting Alya’s arrival. She blew a puff of air between her lips and groaned, rolling some more kinks out of her neck. She knew she could fly fast, but she didn’t think she had this much of a head start. Vii was proving a poor conversational partner, not saying a word since Chloé snapped at her before transforming. Something inside her told her to apologize, but it was likely just that obnoxious voice Vii had planted in her mind. Bee wasn’t at fault. She knew what she was doing and just needed the opportunity to prove that, not only to Ladybug and Vii, but to the whole city.

A beeping from her stinger interrupted her thoughts, and upon pressing the button, saw the caller as a red circle with five red spots in it. Queen Bee answered and hummed, “Hello Ladybug! Is there another Akuma somewhere? Need my aerial expertise?”

“No Akumas, Bee,” came Ladybug’s calm yet stern voice. “It’s actually about your interview with Alya…”

“Oh, called to congratulate me on getting my first interview so soon?”

“I didn’t call to congratulate you.” Queen Bee’s face sank. “There’s a reason Chat and I wanted to arrange the interview for you. We wanted to brief you beforehand. We need to make sure you don’t give away any secrets or answer any telling questions; Alya’s quite the journalist and she’s been hounding us for our secrets for months.”

“I know, secret identities, don’t let any weaknesses slip, typical superhero stuff.”

“There’s more to it than that, Bee. We need to--”

A blip of red hair on a bicycle steadily growing in the distance caught Queen Bee’s attention and she grinned. “Got to go, Ladybug. The Ladyblogger’s here.”

“Wait, Bee, we need--”

“Don’t worry so much, Ladybug,” Queen Bee interrupted, each of her words clipping short Ladybug’s protests. “You and Vii just need to trust me. I know what I’m doing.” Her thumb found the button on her stinger and severed their connection.

At almost twenty minutes past 5, Alya rolled up on her bike and glanced around. A small crowd had already formed before the towering face of Notre Dame, many of them with cameras trained on the skies. Bee smiled, knowing every one of them had seen the livestream from early that morning. Everyone was here for her. When Alya swung a leg off her bike and dug her phone from her bag, Queen Bee threw out her wings and gently glided over to her.

“Running late, are we?” Queen Bee asked once she was within earshot, floating above Alya with her arms crossed and a smug grin on her face.

Alya turned her eyes from her phone to the voice that came from above her. “Uh, y-yeah!” She stuttered with her phone already focused on the floating heroine. “Got stuck in detention for sneaking out of class to stream the attack this morning.”

“Detention? Why should you be punished for what you do?” Bee shrugged. “Who else will get such up close coverage of Akuma attacks? Most news crews are too afraid, or the news networks won't allow any--” she threw up air quotes “--’unnecessary damage’ to their equipment.”

Alya smiled even wider. “Thank you! Finally someone gets it!”

Queen Bee descended into a lightning storm of camera flashes and glanced about her. “Care to go someplace a little quieter? After all…” She extended her hand to Alya. “Isn’t this supposed to be an ‘exclusive’ interview?”

The only way Alya could have looked more excited that she was in that moment would be if Ladybug had asked her that exact question. When she accepted Queen Bee’s hand, the heroine lifted her from the ground and flew her up into the northern bell tower, leaving behind a disappointed crowd.

When Alya’s sneakers touched the worn wooden planks inside the belltower, Bee released her hand and said, “Not exactly the most glamorous place for an interview. But then again, any locale would appear dingy and grungy when compared to me.”

“It’s quiet and secluded; that’s all I care about,” Alya said as she fiddled with some of the settings on her phone. “So how do you want to do this? Record and edit, or livestream?”

“Darling, I know how to handle myself in front of a camera,” Queen Bee bragged. “I only need one take.”

“Livestream it is!” She tapped another button and held up her phone. “Goooood Evening, Paris! Alya Cesaire coming to you live from the belltowers of Notre Dame with a Ladyblog exclusive! Hate to disappoint the die-hard Ladybug fans out there, but today we have an interview with a whole new breed of bug. Paris, say hello to Queen Bee!” Bee tilted her nose up and settled her hands on her hips.

“So, Queenie, tell us: when did you get your powers?”

“Would you believe yesterday? And I’ve already faced my first Akuma. Impressive, no?”

“Yeah it was! For those who missed the livestream this morning, first of all, shame on you, second, Queen Bee protected me and another civilian from an electrifying Akuma tearing up the 8th arrondissement.”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to help Ladybug like I wanted, so she had to contend with the Akuma by herself.”

Alya opened her mouth to respond, but instead quirked up her brow. “Wait, wasn’t?...no...Chat was there. I know he was.”

“Of course he was,” Queen Bee scoffed with a dismissive wave. “Getting in the way, as usual. Next question.”

Alya’s mouth popped open and closed, like a fish out of water, but she refocused her mind and figured it was best to keep Bee talking about herself so she couldn’t insult her teammates. “Okay, um...w-what can you tell us about your powers?”

Queen Bee smiled wider. Now, this was her opportunity to show off. “I’m sure you caught most of it this morning. My electric stinger-” she gestured to the hilt on her hip “-my drones, and Vii tells me I’m the fastest among all of the Miraculous heroes.”

“All of the Miraculous heroes?” Alya shrieked, causing Bee to jump back a little. A great smile bloomed on the journalist’s face. “Th-there’s more? How many? A-are they all animals? What are their powers? Who’s Vii”

Queen Bee cleared her throat. “I-I...don’t know the answers most of those questions, but if you must know, Vii is my kwammmmm…” She blinked. “Mmmmmmmmmm!” She grunted and groaned, bringing her hands to her mouth when her lips refused to part.

^You can’t let people know about me!^

‘Oh, so this is your doing!’ Queen Bee screamed in her mind.

^This is exactly what Ladybug was talking about! You let my existence slip and now that girl’s curious!^

‘Okay okay, fine, I won’t blab! Just give me my mouth back!’

Queen Bee’s lips popped apart and she drew in a deep breath. Alya looked on in wonder and shock, unsure of what just happened. Bee gave an awkward grin and said, “Uh, it seems m-my powers prevent me from giving away too many secrets. S-sorry.”

“Sooo…” Alya purred with a fox-like grin, “if I were to ask you for Ladybug and Chat Noir’s identities…”

“I’d say ‘nice try’,” Bee smirked. “Besides, it’s not like we know each other’s identities anyway…”

“Wait,” Alya leaned forward, “you don’t know each other’s identities?”

“Unfortunately no, even though Ladybug and I would be the bestest of besties if she knew who I was.” Bee pouted and crossed her arms. “I think she’s just paranoid because of the number of times Chat’s been brainwashed, useless cat.”

“Uh,” Alya looked down to her phone, still streaming with several thousand viewers tuning in. Well, Bee said she wanted to do this live… “Would, uh, would you mind sharing what you have against Chat Noir?”

“Please, you’re at every fight and even you can’t see how much he gets in Ladybug’s way?” Bee rolled her eyes and strolled closer to an opening in the tower. She peered down and smiled at the explosion of camera flashes, twinkling like earthbound stars. “He’s a show off. He doesn’t take his duties as a hero seriously, he puns every chance he gets, and flirting with Ladybug just distracts her from her job. That’s clearly why I was given a Miraculous; Ladybug needs help and the alley cat’s not cutting it.”

“You know she’d disagree with you.”

“Of course she would, but only because she doesn’t know any better.”

Alya raised a brow. “And you think you can do better?”

Queen Bee whirled around and fixed Alya with a frightening glare. “Oh, I know I can do better than that mangy feline. I just need a chance to prove it.”

Alya sat in stunned silence for a few seconds while Bee impatiently tapped her foot. That couldn’t be it. Usually the Alya had piles of questions, but this? This was a sorry excuse for a debut interview.  Her stinger beeped once again and only served to further ruin her mood. “Hold on, Miss Ladyblogger, I need to take this.” She pressed the button and when her antennae swung in front of her face, she smirked a little when Alya lifted her phone again and muttered, ‘so cool’ under her breath.

“Hey, Ladybug. Listen, I’m in the middle of--”

“Akuma, just west of the Louvre.”

Queen Bee’s face and mood immediately  brightened. “On my way!” Another button press and she turned back to Alya. “Duty calls. Rain check on the rest of the interview?” She threw out her wings, buzzed them to life, and flew towards the nearest window, oblivious to Alya yelling behind her about how she was supposed to get down from the tower.

(#)

The setting sun in her eyes, Queen Bee settled down on a rooftop just west of the museum barely a minute later. She glanced around, but only took in silence and calm. No screams, no sounds of destruction, no wicked laughter. She began to wonder just what kind of Akuma this could be when Ladybug stepped from behind a chimney with her arms crossed and eyes locked on Bee. Chat followed her close, his hands on his hips, but his eyes off to the side, focusing on nothing.

“So, where’s the Akuma?” Queen Bee asked, likely a little too giddy to be fighting a supervillain.

Ladybug turned her eyes to the roof beneath them and sighed. “There’s...no Akuma. I...I was watching the interview and I...lied to get you away from Alya.”

Shock spiked through Bee’s heart and her mouth dropped open. Her hero...the one person in Paris she knew, knew, could do no wrong, had...lied to her?

“I’m sorry. But again, there’s a reason we wanted to talk about the interview first. We’re lucky Vii managed to stop you from mentioning what a kwami is, but everything else…”

“H-hey!” Queen Bee shouted defensively. “I didn’t give away any secrets! Yeah, I accidentally mentioned Vii’s name, but I didn’t--”

“You said we don’t know each other’s identities,” Chat finally spoke. “While it’s true…”

“What does it matter?” Bee scoffed. “What difference does it make, you stupid cat?”

Chat recoiled and Ladybug’s nails dug into her suit, her brow furrowing. She swallowed hard and said, “It matters because now Hawkmoth knows he can send an Akuma disguised as a civilian to one of us, claiming to be me or Chat or even you, and we won’t know the difference.” She lifted her eyes back up to Bee, and the striped heroine flinched at the level of anger within them. “Every secret we let slip, every detail about our powers gives Hawkmoth an advantage, and he already has the ultimate advantage in that we have no idea where he is! We’ve been playing defense for months and you just --” She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lips, as though trying to hold back her words. She drew a breath in her nose and gently eased it out her mouth.

“We need to act more like a team,” Ladybug continued, her previous point dropped. “And that means listening to each other, respecting each other.” She looked back at her old partner, then forward to her new one, her look of anger gone, replaced by gentle intensity. “No more insulting each other.” Which Bee took to mean ‘no more insulting my partner.’ “The people can’t think there’s any friction between us. If people start doubting us, Hawkmoth has yet another advantage.” She held out her fist and managed a meek smile. “We’re equals in this, Bee. No one is better or worse than anyone else. Teammates, partners, not sidekicks.” Chat’s fist rose to join Ladybug’s and the pair looked expectantly at Queen Bee.

She sneered at the pair of gloved fists being held out to her. What did they mean ‘equals’? She was a Queen, and though Ladybug was a friggin Empress in her eyes, there was no way Bee would put herself on the same level as the stray. But...she needed to smooth things over with Ladybug, or her superhero career would become far too brief. Best to just play along for now, let Ladybug see the light in her own time. Queen Bee turned away and lightly bumped her fist against the others.

“There, see?” Chat said with a grin. “We’re all friends here. Now…” He spread his arms wide. “Comb over her and give us a hug!”

A groan and a giggle echoed into the evening.

(#)

Queen Bee landed back in her room just a few minutes after convincing Ladybug she’d be more ‘civil’ around Chat. Her transformation fell away and Chloé dropped into one of her chairs while Vii spiraled into a bowl of pretzels the hotel staff had refilled earlier that day. Chloé flicked through her phone, noticing zero texts from Sabrina about her progress on the essay and one text from Daddy about his disappointment that she got detention. She groaned and dropped her phone on the floor, pain burning in her shoulders from all the flying.

“I wouldn't have to be your conscience if you had one of your own.”

Chloé’s eyes snapped open and she glared hard at her kwami. “What did you say to me?”

Vii floated upwards and glared right back. “I said you don’t have a conscience. You hate Chat Noir for literally no reason, you shove all of your responsibilities on others while soaking in the glory, you mistreat your only friend--”

“I have plenty of friends!” Chloé snapped. “Everyone adores me!”

“--and I'm not entirely sure she wants anything to do with you anymore!”

“Sabrina loves me! We've been besties for years! And besides, if I was such a terrible person, like you claim, then why did this ‘Guardian'--” she mocked with air quotes “-- pick me to be a superhero?”

Vii crossed her arms. “You know, I'm beginning to wonder if Fu hasn't made a mistake this time. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should take the comb back to him. You're proving to be more of a pain than any of my other wielders.” She grumbled to herself, “Even Arista wasn't this bad and she...” Vii paused when she noticed Chloé holding out the comb, her hair down and an expectant look on her face.

“Well? Aren't you going to take it?” Vii froze. Her hesitation enticed Chloé, and a smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Go ahead. Take it.” She waited a few more seconds, but when Vii didn’t move, she said, “Except...you can't, can you? If you could, you would have by now.” Vii turned away and Chloé cackled in victory. “It has to be me, doesn’t it? No one else can be the Bee! It’s destiny or fate or whatever, but it has to be me!”

She secured the comb back in her hair and stood, making her way to her closet to change into her pajamas, even though it was barely seven in the evening. “Tomorrow starts a new day for us, Vii. As soon as school is out, you’re giving me all the juicy details about my powers.”

The fluff around Vii’s neck stood on end and she zipped into Chloé’s face, pressing their foreheads together. “What did I tell you about bossing me arou--”

“Back off!” Chloé shouted, cutting Vii off. She smirked and added, “That’s an order.”

Vii trembled as she held her position, but soon backed away, her eyes filled with rage. Chloé strode forward, grinning wider when Vii moved out of her way. “You’re finally in your place, little bug.” Her hand moved towards a hanger bearing red silk coated in black spots, but she paused, and moved towards a pair of black silken pants and a yellow tank top. “It’s good to be the Queen.”

While Chloé changed and settled in her bed to flit around on her phone with some mindless time-waster of a game, ignoring every thought about the essay that crossed her mind, Vii looked down at her charge. Her chosen. Her...master. She sighed and whispered, “I wish they didn’t have to be this way.”

[giancarlonicoli]

After a wild 2018, Mark Orsley - Head of Macro Strategy for Prism (and formerly with RBC), is out with a review of his 2018 "Costanza Trades," while offering his comprehensive thoughts for next year.

***

It’s that time of year again. Stockings, dreidels, Festivus poles, and, of course, the inevitable truckload of bank “2019 Year Ahead” pieces cluttering your inboxes which are about as attractive as getting coal in your stockings.  However, these pieces are useful in some regards, as they are very good at nailing the consensus themes and are excellent counter-indicators.  Long time readers will know that The Macro Scan takes another twist at year end, to present next year’s top “Costanza Trades.”

For those of you not familiar with George Costanza, his character on the sitcom Seinfeld could do no right when it came to employment, dating, or life in general.  In one episode, George realizes over lunch at the diner with Jerry that if every instinct he has is wrong, then doing the opposite must be right.  George resolves to start doing the complete opposite of what he would do normally.  He orders the opposite of his normal lunch, and he introduces himself to a beautiful woman that he normally would never have the nerve to talk to. "My name is George,” he says, “I'm unemployed, and I live with my parents." To his surprise, she is impressed with his honesty and agrees to date him!

I find employing the Costanza method to trading an interesting exercise.  Ask yourself this: what are the trades that make complete sense and all your instincts say are right? Now consider the opposite. Basically what you end up constructing is an out of consensus portfolio.

Employing the Costanza method can identify interesting, non-consensus trade ideas that could kick in alpha. Last year’s top 7 Costanza trades netted 5 of 7 WINNERS (some with huge gains), and past years have all been successful: 2017 had 5 of 6 winners (and 1 tie), 2016 had 7 of 10 winners, and 2015 had 7 of 10 winners.  Let’s quickly review last year’s trades…

2018 Costanza Trades:

Long UST 10yrs = trying to work now but a loser as yields were 35bps higher

Long Bunds = winner as yields were 18bps lower

Long EUR/USD = worked early in the year but turned loser, -5%

Short EEM = huge winner, EM crushed 19%

Long IG protection (IG spread wideners)/Short LQD = another huge winner, IG CDX 44bps wider (doubled)

Short Euro Stoxx and Nikkei = both big winners; each index was down 15%

Short Bitcoin vol = worked well all year but has risen recently, still 50-day is 22 vols lower

Bonus: Long active/short passive = going to put this as a tie.  Passive won out most of the year, but is currently getting crushed/about to get absolutely rinsed.  Also, in a classic bottom signal, active Hedge Funds/PM’s were shuttered around the street in Q4 at the absolute worse time.  Active is now starting to have its day, and the passive tsunami is receding.  

Last year’s list was one of the most difficult to develop.  Going into 2018, the market was divided between those who thought risk assets had gone too far and were due for a correction, and those who believed the economy is booming so let the good times roll.  To be fair, both turned out to be true at different points throughout the year.

This year is a piece of cake, as sentiment for risk assets have wildly shifted (for good reason) bearish.  With that, I give you the 2019 Costanza trades in no particular order – or in other words, the trades that you absolutely feel pained to do right now:

2019 Costanza Trades:

Long FANGs

Receive credit protection in IG and HY (aka long LQD and HYG)

Long Eurodollar spreads (EDZ9/EDZ0)

Long Bunds

Short Gold

Long WTI crude

Long AUD/USD

Short EM

Long Bitcoin

Bonus: Long Trump

Let’s go through each and assess the probabilities of Costanza being profitable (probabilities are purely off the cuff estimates for arguments sake)…

1) Long FAANGs

Everyone loved them on the way up in 2018 and you had to own them to keep up with the market but now the FAANG’s, and tech broadly, are contaminated.  

Although street research is once again roundly predicting higher equity indices in 2019 (as they always do - insert rolling eyes emoji), market consensus among those that take actual risk has shifted extremely bearish.  Funds have grossed down or liquidated, RSIs are oversold, and DSIs are near 0.  

However, the next shoe to drop is the retail investor exodus (it has partially started) that could lead to the mother of all passive unwinds.  Imagine the horror on the face of the average investor as they open their Q4/year-end statement in a few weeks and sees the wealth destruction that has taken place in Q4.  The natural investment psyche of the retail investor will be to sell and I think it’s hard for all of us to fathom just how widely owned FAANG’s are within index ETF’s. Therefore, I would have to imagine this trade will not work for Costanza right away, and there is severe risk that a deeper correction could continue into 2019.  

What is the major headwind for Costanza with regards to his FAANG long and tech names more generally?  Government regulation.  Higher rates and wages have been a thorn in the side for margins but more than anything; it is the government’s involvement in Silicon Valley’s business model that has and will continue to be a major hindrance for tech multiple expansion.  There is not much Congress agrees on these days, but Tech regulation, especially with regards to privacy laws, is the one thing.  Ditto in Europe, where the governments are actually playing even rougher.  Some recent data points:

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who boycotted a Congressional hearing this summer, is now playing ball with Congress saying he supports regulation legislation.

The Federal Trade Commission still has an open investigation into whether Facebook’s conduct violated a previous settlement with the agency.

DC’s Attorney General is suing Facebook for “allegedly letting outside companies improperly access user data and for failing to properly disclose that fact.”

Europe’s new far-reaching privacy laws and anti-trust investigations on tech companies.

Uber being sued for anti-competitive practices.

President Trump has said his administration is seriously looking into monopolistic behavior of Facebook, Google and Amazon.

Those are just a few of many.  The days of uninterrupted, carte blanche for Tech are a thing of the past, and thus a major regime change is happening.  The only question is: is it all priced or not?  The technicals indicate not.  

FANG index formed classic head and shoulder top.  The neckline is broken and the formation targets ~1500 which is still 30% lower form here…

Instinct: margin compression from higher yields/wages, global government scrutiny, and retail investor unwind will lead to a much deeper correction.

Costanza: funds have already purged these names, sentiment is at extreme lows, valuations more reasonable, and Tech is still the wave of the future.

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 25%.  The days of tech rising unadulterated are over.  I think we can say that conservatively.  In my opinion, the government’s involvement in their business puts a top in tech for quite some time, at least in regards to tech names that have thrived on the collection of consumer data and/or don’t pay enough tax/postage.  If the chart above is proven right, that 30% hole will be tough to climb out of by year-end 2019.  I would rather buy THAT dip than this current dip.  Costanza is a braver man than I.

This also means broad US equity indices will struggle, albeit S&Ps not as much due to the “safe haven” names embedded within that index.  However, since 2001 with similar extreme levels of being oversold, the market has been higher 100% of the time 1-year later, with an average return of 23%.  So Costanza has hope given the magnitude of the selloff and poor sentiment; I just find it unlikely he will be happy in the first half of the year with his FAANG long.  

2) Receive credit protection in IG and HY (aka long LQD andHYG)

A similar call to the above long equities, since correlations run high with credit.  However, there are other issues with credit besides general risk sentiment, namely the massive amount of outstanding corporate debt, the large percentage of that debt that will need to be rolled, and the potential for credit downgrades should the economy enter a recession (which is what the front end rates market is pricing).

The amount of non-financial corporate debt-to-GDP has never been higher…

The US corporate refi tsunami is upon us…

This “maturity wall” which spikes next year and will likely need to be rolled comes at the inopportune time of the collapse in crude oil prices.  The energy sector is a big user of the US credit market.  Thus the risk for 2019 is the US credit market seizes up in the face of the refi wave into a recession.  A toxic combination and we can add in the fact that the European credit market will have less support going forward with the ECB stepping back next year.  

ITRAXX Xover Total Return Index is rolling over…

Instinct: the US economy is saturated with corporate debt and it is time to pay the piper with the coming refi wave.  Everything gets exasperated if the US economy slips into a recession which will lead to higher default rates.    

Costanza: the worst is priced in, GE credit widening is a one off non-systemic issue, and the economy will regain traction especially if Trade Wars are settled in 2019

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 35%.  I will assign this a little higher probability of working than tech longs.  I am definitely concerned about the “maturity wall” and the trajectory of the US economy in 2019.  For IG to widen out from here, you have to really believe the economy is falling off a cliff in such a way that defaults will finally rise, which then leads to even higher spreads and more defaults.  It is not unrealistic, thus why I believe it is more likely that credit tightening won’t work.   The one major point the credit market has going for it is the technical chart, which says that most of the move is played out.  As opposed to tech charts, IG has reached its spread widener target.  Thus Costanza could argue during his “airing of grievances” that all the bad news is priced.

IG CDX reached the 94bps target on its inverse head and shoulder pattern…

3) Long Eurodollar spreads (EDZ9/EDZ0)

What a difference a year makes.  Last year at this time, I was pounding the table on the coming resurgence of inflation and how the market was underpricing Fed hiking risk.  That successfully played out, but now post-stock market carnage, oil collapse, and peak economic data; Eurodollar spreads are pricing in a recession and rate cuts!  Oh my. So this again continues the theme we have seen in the first two Costanza trades, revealing a market that is very worried about the trajectory of risk assets and the US economy as a whole. When you look at Fed Fund futures pricing for 2019 (using FFF9/FFF0 spread as my guide), you have 1bps of cuts priced into futures, versus an FOMC dot plot that is projecting 50bps of hikes (past ’19 you will discover even more rate cuts are priced in).  So there is quite a gap that will need to be reconciled.  Will the equity market collapse help to slow an already fizzling economy or is there a possibility the economy recovers (China deal?) and the Fed continues on its course to normalize policy?  

Using Prism’s PAM charting tool, we can see the constant maturity equivalent of EDH9/EDH0 has only gone negative 2x in the past 15 years.  In 2006, it continued to flatten hard, but in 2011 it was a false breakdown and recovered higher...

Costanza’s “feat of strength” is taking the other side of the conventional wisdom that the housing, auto, and coming PMI slowdown due to the oil collapse either won’t alter Powell’s mission or will prove to be a head fake like in 2011.  The slowdown in the data this year was likely caused by a front loading of activity pre-tariffs/trade wars (i.e. buy everything Q2 and then sit tight the rest of the year), so there is a chance that the higher economic trend reemerges, especially if the trade talks with China go well early next year (something Trump warned about this weekend).  Costanza could be laughing at the thought he was able to buy ED spreads negative.  

Instinct: the US economy has peaked, the fiscal impulse dissipates early next year, QT increases, and regional surveys are already showing a coming slowdown.  This will lead to a Fed pause now and possible cuts by end of 2019.

Costanza: Powell is still indicating rate hikes and the economy is projected to grow 2.2% with CPI remaining around the 2% target.  The kicker will come if Trump, feeling pressured by lower equity markets, makes a trade deal with China.  The market will be caught wrong footed as the Fed continues to tighten as activity picks up again.    

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 55%.  Will give a slightly higher nod towards Costanza being right.  Remember, he doesn’t need hikes to win, just no cuts which is a plausible scenario if Trump delivers a market friendly trade deal with China.

4) Long Bunds

There is no possible way Bund yields could go any lower in the face of the ECB ending its asset purchase program, right??  Costanza is saying “easy big fella” (side note: can you name that episode?).  There are plenty of indicators that the Eurozone is careening towards major economic issues.  I want to give a nod to Danielle DiMartino Booth, who is doing excellent, non-consensus economic research over at Quill Intelligence. She points out that the chemicals sector is “arguably the most hyper-cyclical leading indicator,” and using BASF stock as her guide, suggests the Eurozone economy is “poised to hit the skids.”  In fact, she declares Germany to be the “most underpriced recession risk in 2019.”

Interestingly, if you graph BASF stock in Germany (black line) versus Bund yields lagged 100 days (orange line), it would suggest potential financial crisis in the Eurozone which will lead to Bund yields going negative again...

Instinct: ECB, while still reinvesting, ended its APP, Draghi will want to get one hike off before his reign ends towards the end of 2019, the ECB desperately needs to get out of negative rates, Draghi will likely be replaced by someone more hawkish or at least less dovish, and fiscal stimulus to counter the populist movement will all lead to higher rates.    

Costanza: growth has already fallen off sharply, forward indicators suggest potential economic crisis, the ECB is already noting risks shifting to the downside, and there are major political hurdles next year with EU elections

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 60%. If there was ever a Costanza trade it is this one.  I am not sure there are many Bund bulls out there at 24bps so this is ripe for Costanza to be right.  The chart is saying he will nail this one.

German 10yr yields have formed a head and shoulder pattern that targets -40bps if the 15bps neckline gets taken out to the downside…

Quick side note…

Idea #3 (long Eurodollar steepeners) and #4 (long Bunds) are basically implying that the US/German yield spread will widen once again in 2019 (assuming the ED steepeners are akin to higher US rates which has been the correlation).  I would surely say that even combined, that idea is a Costanza trade.  Most expect a narrowing of the US/German 10yr spread going forward.   Since I hit on the Bund side of the US/German 10yr spread, what could drive US rates unexpectedly higher in 2019 and thus help to widen the US/GE spread?

Increasing deficits leading to increasing supply  

That increasing supply has already led to sloppy UST auctions

At a time the rate of change on foreign demand of UST has moved lower

With wages still remaining firm

All equal the need for higher term premium in the US

Now back to the list….

5) Short Gold

This has been an interesting correlation shift.  For most of the year, Gold has been a pure Dollar play (especially vs CNH), but more recently Gold has picked up risk aversion, namely HY credit according to the Quant Insight macro PCA model.

Gold correlation to DXY (blue) and USD/CNH (green) has gone from negative to zero…

Now Gold is most correlated to VIX and HY credit…

Therefore, Costanza shorting Gold is another bet that risk assets will stabilize and the Gold bulls will be told “NO SOUP FOR YOU!”    

Instinct: risk assets continue to trade poorly and Gold offers portfolio protection for the apocalypse.  

Costanza: gold is losing its luster as a safe haven asset and, if the markets turn 2008-style ugly, it will get liquidated as well.    

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 51%. No strong conviction here but Costanza is right more than wrong so a slight edge to risk assets stabilizing and Gold returning to its Dollar correlation.

6) Long WTI

One of the most epic selloffs I have seen with a high-to-low collapse of 45% in just two months.  The market narrative is now back to “elevated US production,” and more importantly, the Saudis, post-Khashoggi murder, have increased supply to push prices down for President Trump.

Costanza would be quick to point out that spare capacity is low and the oil market suffers from chronic underinvestment.  That underinvestment only gets amplified with oil prices sub-$50, and we are already seeing Permian producers cut back on capex plans.  Additionally, the widening in credit markets only makes it harder to obtain capital for capex.  So you have the double whammy of lower prices and wider credit spreads, which will feed into the underinvestment theme.  The days of capital inflows are back to 2008 levels.

By most analyst forecasts, even just a flat line of current production will cause a deficit in the supply/demand imbalance in 2019. We don’t need to be oil experts to know that when oil prices fall as precipitously as they did; rig counts fall and production declines.  Now sprinkle in capex intentions being cut, along with credit issues, and that is Costanza’s recipe for higher oil prices.  And, oh yeah, let’s not forget about the coming IMO 2020 regulations (sulfur emission reduction in cargo ships which will require heavy crude to be drawn from supplies to comply).

Instinct: US is oversupplying the market with its light crude, and the Saudis are more than making up for Iran sanctions to appease President Trump in light of the Khashoggi killing.

Costanza: low spare capacity will eventually catch up to the Saudis, and lower prices, lower capex, and a credit crunch will cause US production to flat line at a time when it needs to be increased (plus, the light API grade the US produces is not sought after).

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 70%.  I think much of the oil decline was technical fund liquidations (most likely large Risk Parity types that were long WTI as their inflation hedge), and all the forward looking supply issues not only remain, but are amplified with lower prices and wider credit.  Costanza is usually right and I think this one is a layup.  Oil prices will be higher than $45 come this time next year.

Use WTI time spreads as your signal when to get long.  As we saw in the fall, time spreads (candles) led spot prices (green line) by about a week.  Thus, if time spreads can break the downtrend, that will be your “tell” to get long WTI like Costanza…

7) Long Aussie$

A slowing Chinese economy and therefore slowing commodity demand, trade wars, and a decelerating domestic housing market have all led to a steady decline in the Oz in 2018.

Will keep this one short and sweet, as it is really the same idea as the other long risk asset trades. The AUD will really benefit from anything positive around the China/Trade War negotiations.  Some sort of deal and the Aussie$ will scream higher.  It’s that simple.

There is one micro issue Costanza should be concerned about and that is the Interest Only (IO) refi wave which will convert those IO mortgages into principle + interest loans.  The reset wave started in 2018 and will increase in intensity in 2019.  This will cause the average borrower to pay about $7,000 more per year in additional payments.  That is a major hit to the housing market via delinquencies, and may be a crushing blow to consumers’ discretionary spending.

The one saving grace for Australia has been the RBA remaining on hold for (jokingly) 37,000 consecutive meetings.  As the below chart shows, at this level of housing collapse, the RBA tends to cut.

Instinct: Australia has felt the effects of the China slowdown and trade wars, along with its own domestic issues.  The currency will need to continue to depreciate to offset that pain.    

Costanza: the equity market weakness will force Trump to play ball with the Chinese which will reverse the AUD higher. Additionally, the new economic weakness in the US and a Fed that could move to cut rates should weaken the USD.

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 55%. Basically a better long than FANGs and credit, as being long AUD$ could also benefit if the Fed moves to an outright easing bias (which will depreciate the USD vs. the AUD).  Apparently, long USD is now the most crowded trade in the market (according to a BAML survey).   A housing crisis in Australia will be the major headwind for the Costanza long.

8) Short EM

This would be Costanza’s hedge against all the long risk asset bets above.  So why is being short EM anti-consensus at a time risk assets are getting rinsed and everyone has turned bearish?  Through conversations with street analysts and clients, there is, for whatever reason, an insatiable demand to buy the EM dip.  After all, EM has been selling off since January so it should be the first to bounce, right? That thought is “making George angry” and why he is going to take the other side of that.

In a world where the China Manufacturing PMI just went into a contraction, European data is falling off a cliff, and US regional surveys are all pointing to a coming slowdown; is EM growth going to be booming and the place to allocate risk?  I understand that it is a short dollar play, but 2019 could be marked by a major global growth slowdown and balance sheet recessions.  That is not the ideal environment for EM.

The technicals say the selloff is not yet complete, as a bearish head and shoulder pattern has formed targeting an additional 6% lower…

Instinct: EM has already taken its pain, Trump/China deal likely in 2019.

Costanza: global growth slowdown will hurt EM the most, especially if USD funding issues reemerge.  EM has never been a safe haven during growth scares and recessions.  

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 55%.  All signs point to a poor global growth trajectory in 2019.

9)  Long Bitcoin

That potential bottom has formed a bullish inverse head and shoulder pattern that sets up for a retest of the 1-year downtrend…

The selloff in bitcoin in 2018 was an once-in-a-lifetime move.  From the highs just after New Year’s, Bitcoin spiraled 85% lower to take over as the largest historic bust since the Tulip crisis.  The crypto naysayers had a field day this year.

Costanza would hypothesize that if you believe the US Dollar is losing its hegemony, the US government debt issue is ballooning to unsustainable levels, Europe is in the midst of a populist meltdown, and China is on the verge of a hard landing; why aren’t crypto currencies like Bitcoin as viable a store of value as a yellow rock?

Interestingly, Bitcoin has started to potentially bottom during the December equity meltdown, lending some credence to the theory that investors are becoming concerned with the global environment and searching for new stores of wealth.

That potential bottom has formed a bullish inverse head and shoulder pattern that sets up for a retest of the 1-year downtrend….

Instinct: crypto currencies have no use and are on their way to near worthlessness.  

Costanza: Bitcoin is starting to rediscover its use as an alternative to traditional stores of value.

Estimated probability of Costanza being right: 50%.  No clue and no edge here.  However, it is hitting support levels, it has a bullish formation, and there is extreme bearish sentiment which all reek of a Costanza trade.

Bonus: Long Donald Trump

I cautiously put this in here hoping to avoid all political conversations and opinions, but I think this is an interesting nonmarket, yet market relevant idea.

I don’t think many expect much from POTUS next year, given the House swung to the Democrats and many folks (mostly on the liberal side, to be fair) believe there is looming tail risk that Mueller has enough evidence of some sort of wrongdoing that Trump’s presidency could be in jeopardy.

One could argue whether less Trump or no Trump is good or bad for risk assets.  On the one hand, the more stable Pence could be welcomed by markets, and perhaps if Trump goes, trade war issues dissipate.  On the other, the market rallied on his election victory in 2016, his policies are mostly reflationary, and China has become a legitimate nonpartisan issue.  Therefore, even if Trump is ousted, trade wars likely continue unabated.

The surprise, non-consensus idea would be that Trump crosses the aisle to enact Infrastructure.  Couple that with an earlier than expected China deal, and that is how Costanza will be paid out on a lot of his risk-on calls.  Perhaps the market is underestimating Trump, and he ends up delivering a great deal vs. expectations of a lame duck presidency.

Summary:

As opposed to last year, this year’s Costanza trades (non-consensus calls) have a simple theme.  Costanza is looking for a bounce in risk assets.  What are the realistic paths to get there versus a market that expects more pain?  At least one or more of these have to happen…

Cessation of tariffs/trade wars, which leads to a bounce in Chinese growth and a resumption of the positive growth momentum in the US

A Fed that ends the rate hike cycle and Balance Sheet reduction **coupled with growth remaining ok** (if growth softens further, equities could actually still sell off)

Rebound in the energy complex

US Infrastructure + EU fiscal stimulus + Chinese stimulus (all being discussed currently)

What are the glaring issues that will prove Costanza wrong for the first time in the history of this piece?  To name a few…

US Fiscal Impulse dies out in early ’19 + global QT picks up in intensity

Government intervention in Silicon Valley

Passive unwind into a resumption of the explicit and implicit short vol unwind

The potential for a corporate credit blowup in the US and Europe

Housing busts in Australia, Canada, the US, and Asia  

There is a lot of be worried about in 2019, and I believe we are only in the beginning stages of a risk asset purge.  Costanza is much less worried.

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!  I look forward to speaking with everyone again soon and telling you more about Prism’s exciting business model.

[courtneytincher]

The Arctic town at the centre of a Norway-Russia 'spy war'

When Frode Berg was a guard on the border near Kirkenes, Norway, in the 1990s and 2000s, relations with neighbouring Russia were so good that he would do joint patrols and go fishing with his colleagues from across the line. They drank vodka toasts after holding an annual cross-border ski race. But in recent years this town of 3,500 on Norway's Arctic coast has found itself caught up in a geopolitical chess game between Nato and Russia. Mr Berg became the first pawn to be captured when he was arrested in Moscow and sentenced in April to 14 years in prison for espionage.  Located about 130 miles from Murmansk and the headquarters of Russia's northern fleet, sleepy Kirkenes has become the epicentre of a spy war with Russia—and Norwegians who have worked to develop cross-border trade and cultural exchanges are paying the price. One of them is even suing Norwegian intelligence over lost Russian business. “If Norway has one real challenge regarding foreign policy, it's here,” said Kirkenes mayor Rune Rafaelson, a long-time friend of Mr Berg's who attended navy day celebrations in Murmansk last month. “It's not membership of the EU or making peace in Middle East. Here is the only real challenge, because we have an interesting and complex neighbour called Russia.” The anti-submarine frigate HNoMS Otto Sverdrup sails through a bay near Kirkenes Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph Kirkenes traditionally prided itself on having warmer relations with this neighbour, even during the Cold War, when this was Nato's lone point of contact with the USSR. After the Soviet collapse, Russian ships began unloading fish, crabs and oil products in Kirkenes, and many local men married Russian women. Since the two countries offered visa-free travel to residents of border areas in 2012, tens of thousands of Russians have been coming to shop in Kirkenes each year.  But Moscow's military modernisation campaign, increasingly assertive foreign policy and annexation of Crimea changed the bigger context. When foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited Kirkenes for the 70th anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis by the Red Army in 2014, he scolded Norway for joining Western sanctions against Russia. Duelling military manoeuvres and signals intelligence operations have become matters of course. This spring, Russia repeatedly tested missiles off the Norwegian coast, and Norway and Finland also accused it of jamming GPS signals during Nato bomber exercises, putting civilian aircraft at risk. Meanwhile, a Beluga discovered in Hammerfest wearing a “Petersburg” camera harness was dubbed the “Russian spy whale” over espionage suspicions. The Beluga "spy whale" was discovered by fishermen near Hammerfest, to the west of Kirkenes Credit: Jorgen Ree Wiig/AFP In July, a secret nuclear-powered Russian submersible that can reportedly eavesdrop on underwater cables caught fire during an operation somewhere near Murmansk, killing 14 sailors.  For its part, Norway hosted the major Trident Juncture Nato war games in 2018 and has welcomed Western troops, including 1,000 Royal Marines who will train there each year. The United States paid to upgrade the Vardø radar station near Kirkenes and begin joint intelligence collection. Many believe that Washington also began pressuring Oslo to deliver more information on Russia's northern fleet. Kirkenes, where many residents have worked across the border, has long been a fruitful recruiting ground.  “If you have been active in Russia you are approached, especially if you are a leader because then you're in position to meet people at a higher level,” said Rune Rautio, an employee of the Kirkenes business garden who used to travel to Russia every other week and has been occasionally questioned by Norwegian intelligence for years.  One of the recruits was Mr Berg, who began bringing envelopes of cash to an informant in Russia in 2015 despite having misgivings.  In autumn 2017, intelligence officers approached him to do one last errand. Journalist Trine Hamran, a friend in whom he had confided, counselled him not to do it, but the secret services played upon his patriotism, asking him if he didn't want to be a “good Norwegian,” she said.  “He said it was not dangerous, just one last thing,” Ms Hamran told the Telegraph. “And then he goes to Moscow and we don't hear from him again.” A Russian guard tower stands across the river from a Norwegian border marker near Kirkenes Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph The Russian informant was actually a double agent. FSB operatives arrested Mr Berg as he stepped out of the Metropole hotel with an envelope of 3,000 euros.  “After a couple of days we where informed that he was alive,” said his wife Anita, who believed he was going to Moscow to meet friends and buy Christmas gifts. “It was such a relief. But then we where shocked to learn that he had been arrested, suspected of espionage.”  She accused Norwegian military intelligence of recklessly manipulating her husband, who was so guileless he posted a Moscow snapshot to Facebook hours before his arrest, and “sabotaging years of positive collaboration” between Kirkenes and Russia. The agency declined to comment. Mr Berg was not the first to fall victim to the spy services' alleged blundering. In 2015, Atle Berge, the founder of a cross-border oil services company called Ølen Betong, refused to cooperate when approached by Norwegian intelligence looking for information on Russia.  FSB agents nonetheless grabbed him on the street in Murmansk shortly thereafter and interrogated him for more than six hours, asking him what his ties to the service were and threatening to inject him with an unknown drug.  He was then expelled from the country and lost a contract with a major Russian firm, he said. One of his employees was also interrogated and expelled, only in his case Russian agents also brandished a gun. "Help Frode home!" reads a sign hanging next to the Kirkenes library Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph   Now Mr Berge is suing his government for £12 million, arguing that the repeated approaches by the same Norwegian intelligence agent convinced the FSB that he and his employee were spies.  “The Norwegians had behaved very unprofessionally and stupidly,” he said. “It seems they have been under pressure from someone and urgently had to find out something,” The case also revealed how many eyes Russia has in Kirkenes. During his interrogation, Mr Berge's employee was shown a photograph of the Norwegian agent at his door.  Meanwhile, Norway's counter-intelligence service has a list of Russians who are followed whenever they come to Kirkenes, Mr Rautio said.  The town is so small that most people know the agent who Mr Berg said had liaised with him. When confronted at his home by the Telegraph, the man first lied that he was a neighbour, then declined to comment.  Yet locals are surprisingly blasé about the presence of spies here and largely blame Norwegian intelligence for undermining the warm ties that people like Mr Berg worked to promote.  A monument to the liberation of Kirkenes from the German troops by the Red Army in 1944 Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph Thomas Nilsen, editor of the Kirkenes-based Barents Observer news site, said many residents suffer a “Stockholm syndrome” of sympathy to their larger neighbour. His site, which publishes in Russian and English, has been blocked in Russia, and he was banned from the country as an alleged security threat in 2017. “We have been living for so many years with positive development across the border, then things turn around, and people understand this is bad, but they take the position of Moscow, not Europe,” he said.  It's also a question of the £140 million Russia contributes to the local economy each year. “Fifty metres from here is the Russian general consulate. There's too many people working there, but how should we develop the economy and municipality?” Mr Rafaelson said in his office. “I do my job I'm elected for, which is too promote a good neighbour policy.” Norway and Russia are now discussing a prisoner exchange to bring home Mr Berg, who is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, his lawyers said. Yet while Russian diplomats have been expelled from Oslo on espionage suspicions, Norway has no similar prisoners. Instead, they're hoping for a “triangle deal” involving an ally, perhaps the United States. A Norwegian post overlooks the Russian border Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph   When PM Erna Solberg spoke with Vladimir Putin at an Arctic forum in April, days before the Norwegian was convicted, the president said Russia “will take a look at what we can do with this depending on the court's decision”. “I think most people in this case understand Russia is doing what any other country would do,” Mr Rautio said. “Frode confessed, so people are more waiting now for the Norwegian government to get to the table and make a deal with Russia to get him out so he won't have spend the rest of life in labour camp.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

When Frode Berg was a guard on the border near Kirkenes, Norway, in the 1990s and 2000s, relations with neighbouring Russia were so good that he would do joint patrols and go fishing with his colleagues from across the line. They drank vodka toasts after holding an annual cross-border ski race. But in recent years this town of 3,500 on Norway's Arctic coast has found itself caught up in a geopolitical chess game between Nato and Russia. Mr Berg became the first pawn to be captured when he was arrested in Moscow and sentenced in April to 14 years in prison for espionage.  Located about 130 miles from Murmansk and the headquarters of Russia's northern fleet, sleepy Kirkenes has become the epicentre of a spy war with Russia—and Norwegians who have worked to develop cross-border trade and cultural exchanges are paying the price. One of them is even suing Norwegian intelligence over lost Russian business. “If Norway has one real challenge regarding foreign policy, it's here,” said Kirkenes mayor Rune Rafaelson, a long-time friend of Mr Berg's who attended navy day celebrations in Murmansk last month. “It's not membership of the EU or making peace in Middle East. Here is the only real challenge, because we have an interesting and complex neighbour called Russia.” The anti-submarine frigate HNoMS Otto Sverdrup sails through a bay near Kirkenes Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph Kirkenes traditionally prided itself on having warmer relations with this neighbour, even during the Cold War, when this was Nato's lone point of contact with the USSR. After the Soviet collapse, Russian ships began unloading fish, crabs and oil products in Kirkenes, and many local men married Russian women. Since the two countries offered visa-free travel to residents of border areas in 2012, tens of thousands of Russians have been coming to shop in Kirkenes each year.  But Moscow's military modernisation campaign, increasingly assertive foreign policy and annexation of Crimea changed the bigger context. When foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited Kirkenes for the 70th anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis by the Red Army in 2014, he scolded Norway for joining Western sanctions against Russia. Duelling military manoeuvres and signals intelligence operations have become matters of course. This spring, Russia repeatedly tested missiles off the Norwegian coast, and Norway and Finland also accused it of jamming GPS signals during Nato bomber exercises, putting civilian aircraft at risk. Meanwhile, a Beluga discovered in Hammerfest wearing a “Petersburg” camera harness was dubbed the “Russian spy whale” over espionage suspicions. The Beluga "spy whale" was discovered by fishermen near Hammerfest, to the west of Kirkenes Credit: Jorgen Ree Wiig/AFP In July, a secret nuclear-powered Russian submersible that can reportedly eavesdrop on underwater cables caught fire during an operation somewhere near Murmansk, killing 14 sailors.  For its part, Norway hosted the major Trident Juncture Nato war games in 2018 and has welcomed Western troops, including 1,000 Royal Marines who will train there each year. The United States paid to upgrade the Vardø radar station near Kirkenes and begin joint intelligence collection. Many believe that Washington also began pressuring Oslo to deliver more information on Russia's northern fleet. Kirkenes, where many residents have worked across the border, has long been a fruitful recruiting ground.  “If you have been active in Russia you are approached, especially if you are a leader because then you're in position to meet people at a higher level,” said Rune Rautio, an employee of the Kirkenes business garden who used to travel to Russia every other week and has been occasionally questioned by Norwegian intelligence for years.  One of the recruits was Mr Berg, who began bringing envelopes of cash to an informant in Russia in 2015 despite having misgivings.  In autumn 2017, intelligence officers approached him to do one last errand. Journalist Trine Hamran, a friend in whom he had confided, counselled him not to do it, but the secret services played upon his patriotism, asking him if he didn't want to be a “good Norwegian,” she said.  “He said it was not dangerous, just one last thing,” Ms Hamran told the Telegraph. “And then he goes to Moscow and we don't hear from him again.” A Russian guard tower stands across the river from a Norwegian border marker near Kirkenes Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph The Russian informant was actually a double agent. FSB operatives arrested Mr Berg as he stepped out of the Metropole hotel with an envelope of 3,000 euros.  “After a couple of days we where informed that he was alive,” said his wife Anita, who believed he was going to Moscow to meet friends and buy Christmas gifts. “It was such a relief. But then we where shocked to learn that he had been arrested, suspected of espionage.”  She accused Norwegian military intelligence of recklessly manipulating her husband, who was so guileless he posted a Moscow snapshot to Facebook hours before his arrest, and “sabotaging years of positive collaboration” between Kirkenes and Russia. The agency declined to comment. Mr Berg was not the first to fall victim to the spy services' alleged blundering. In 2015, Atle Berge, the founder of a cross-border oil services company called Ølen Betong, refused to cooperate when approached by Norwegian intelligence looking for information on Russia.  FSB agents nonetheless grabbed him on the street in Murmansk shortly thereafter and interrogated him for more than six hours, asking him what his ties to the service were and threatening to inject him with an unknown drug.  He was then expelled from the country and lost a contract with a major Russian firm, he said. One of his employees was also interrogated and expelled, only in his case Russian agents also brandished a gun. "Help Frode home!" reads a sign hanging next to the Kirkenes library Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph   Now Mr Berge is suing his government for £12 million, arguing that the repeated approaches by the same Norwegian intelligence agent convinced the FSB that he and his employee were spies.  “The Norwegians had behaved very unprofessionally and stupidly,” he said. “It seems they have been under pressure from someone and urgently had to find out something,” The case also revealed how many eyes Russia has in Kirkenes. During his interrogation, Mr Berge's employee was shown a photograph of the Norwegian agent at his door.  Meanwhile, Norway's counter-intelligence service has a list of Russians who are followed whenever they come to Kirkenes, Mr Rautio said.  The town is so small that most people know the agent who Mr Berg said had liaised with him. When confronted at his home by the Telegraph, the man first lied that he was a neighbour, then declined to comment.  Yet locals are surprisingly blasé about the presence of spies here and largely blame Norwegian intelligence for undermining the warm ties that people like Mr Berg worked to promote.  A monument to the liberation of Kirkenes from the German troops by the Red Army in 1944 Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph Thomas Nilsen, editor of the Kirkenes-based Barents Observer news site, said many residents suffer a “Stockholm syndrome” of sympathy to their larger neighbour. His site, which publishes in Russian and English, has been blocked in Russia, and he was banned from the country as an alleged security threat in 2017. “We have been living for so many years with positive development across the border, then things turn around, and people understand this is bad, but they take the position of Moscow, not Europe,” he said.  It's also a question of the £140 million Russia contributes to the local economy each year. “Fifty metres from here is the Russian general consulate. There's too many people working there, but how should we develop the economy and municipality?” Mr Rafaelson said in his office. “I do my job I'm elected for, which is too promote a good neighbour policy.” Norway and Russia are now discussing a prisoner exchange to bring home Mr Berg, who is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, his lawyers said. Yet while Russian diplomats have been expelled from Oslo on espionage suspicions, Norway has no similar prisoners. Instead, they're hoping for a “triangle deal” involving an ally, perhaps the United States. A Norwegian post overlooks the Russian border Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph   When PM Erna Solberg spoke with Vladimir Putin at an Arctic forum in April, days before the Norwegian was convicted, the president said Russia “will take a look at what we can do with this depending on the court's decision”. “I think most people in this case understand Russia is doing what any other country would do,” Mr Rautio said. “Frode confessed, so people are more waiting now for the Norwegian government to get to the table and make a deal with Russia to get him out so he won't have spend the rest of life in labour camp.”

August 11, 2019 at 06:44PM via IFTTT

[biofunmy]

Boom in electric scooters leads to more injuries, fatalities

Andrew Hardy was crossing the street on an electric scooter in downtown Los Angeles when a car struck him at 50 miles per hour and flung him 15 feet in the air before he smacked his head on the pavement and fell unconscious.

The 26-year-old snapped two bones in each leg, broke a thighbone, shattered a kneecap, punctured a lung and fractured three vertebrae in his neck, in addition to sustaining a head injury.

“My brother thought I was dead,” said Hardy, who wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Doctors told Hardy he’d likely be paralyzed for life. Five months later, he has learned to walk again. But he says he’ll never ride another scooter.

“These scooters should not be available to the public,” Hardy said. “Those things are like a death wish.”

As stand-up electric scooters have rolled into more than 100 cities worldwide, many of the people riding them are ending up in the emergency room with serious injuries. Others have been killed. There are no comprehensive statistics available but a rough count by The Associated Press of media reports turned up at least 11 electric scooter rider deaths in the U.S. since the beginning of 2018. Nine were on rented scooters and two on ones the victims owned.

With summer fast approaching, the numbers will undoubtedly grow as more riders take to the streets. Despite the risks, demand for the two-wheeled scooters continues to soar, popularized by companies like Lime and Bird. In the U.S. alone, riders took 38.5 million trips on rentable scooters in 2018, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Riders adore the free-flying feel of the scooters that have a base the size of a skateboard and can rev up to 15 miles per hour. They’re also cheap and convenient, costing about $1 to unlock with a smartphone app and about 15 cents per minute to ride. And in many cities, they can be dropped off just about anywhere after a rider reaches their destination.

But pedestrians and motorists scorn the scooters as a nuisance at best and a danger at worst.

Cities, meanwhile, can hardly keep up. In many cases, scooter-sharing companies dropped them onto sidewalks overnight without warning.

Regulations vary from place to place. In New York and the U.K., electric scooters are illegal on public roads and sidewalks, even though riders routinely flout the law. Last week in the Swedish city of Helsingborg, a rider was struck and killed by a car just one day after scooters were introduced there, leading to immediate calls for a ban. And in Nashville, Tennessee, where another rider was killed, the city’s mayor warned scooter operators they had 30 days to clean up their act or he would propose a ban.

Fed up with the thousands of scooters flooding Paris streets, Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced new regulations Thursday limiting the number of scooter operators and imposing a 5 mile-per-hour speed limit in areas with heavy foot traffic. The city has already imposed a 135 euro ($150) fine on anyone who rides scooters on sidewalks.

Isabelle Albertin, a pianist at Paris’ famed Opera Garnier, suffered a double fracture of her right arm after she was run down by an electric scooter on May 17. She is suing the city and has started an organization to push for a ban.

“On the sidewalks of Paris, it’s a total madhouse. We pedestrians are totally insecure,” she told Le Parisien newspaper.

Data on injuries or fatalities linked to scooters is hard to come by because the industry is so new. In Austin, Texas, public health officials working with the Centers for Disease Control counted 192 scooter-related injuries in three months in 2018. Nearly half were head injuries, including 15% that were traumatic brain injuries like concussions and bleeding of the brain. Less than 1% of the injured riders wore a helmet.

Bird, one of the largest scooter-sharing companies, dropped its scooters on the streets of Santa Monica, California, in September 2017 and within a few months riders were showing up at the emergency room, according to Dr. Tarak Trivedi, an emergency room physician in Los Angeles and co-author of one of the first peer-reviewed studies of scooter injuries. The following year, Trivedi and his colleagues counted 249 scooter injuries, and more than 40% were head injuries. Just 4% were wearing a helmet.

“I don’t think our roads are ready for this,” Trivedi said.

Bird and Lime both recommend that riders wear helmets, and they’ve handed out tens of thousands for free. But last year, Bird successfully fought a California proposal that would have required helmets for adults, maintaining that scooters should follow the same laws as electric bikes that don’t require adult helmets.

Bird says helmet requirements are off-putting to riders and could lead to fewer scooters on the road. Almost counterintuitively, the company argues that it’s better to have more riders than less because it forces drivers to pay attention to them.

“There’s a safety in numbers effect, where the motorists know that there’s people out on the street, so they act accordingly,” said Paul Steely White, director of safety policy and advocacy for Bird.

Getting people to wear helmets is a challenge. Riders don’t want exposure to lice or germs that could be found in shared helmets, and many make a spontaneous decision to scoot while they’re already out and about.

That was the case when Drew Howerton, 19, hopped on a Lime scooter on a whim last October in Austin. He recalls signing a waiver that said he should wear a helmet, but he didn’t have one on him.

“I didn’t show up in Austin thinking I’m going to ride a scooter today, better bring my helmet,” Howerton said.

Scooter-sharing companies generally restrict riding to those 18 years and up, but some children, or their parents, have found ways around that. A 5-year-old boy died in Oklahoma after he fell from a scooter he was riding on with his mother and was struck by a car.

Bird and Lime are taking steps to try to make scooters safer. After observing that scooter-related fatalities often occur after midnight when riders may have been drinking, Bird ceased operations after midnight. Lime halts rentals overnight in some markets but in most its scooters are available all night.

Lime has also been updating the design of its scooters, with a broader wheel base and better suspension and braking; Bird is including more durable brakes and reinforced hardware to prevent failures.

Both companies have been pushing cities for more bike lanes and better infrastructure as their riders navigate roads and traffic under conditions that were designed for cars and trucks.

“The reality is, cars continue to kill more people annually than any other mode of transportation,” Lime said in a statement. “We must address this issue together with cities, get people out of their vehicles, and build cities that put people first, with smarter infrastructure to protect riders.”

For Howerton, his first experience with a scooter left him scarred. Even though he read the warning not to ride downhill, he did it anyway since hills are hard to avoid in Austin. When he tried to brake, he flew off the scooter and hit his head on the pavement, blood gushing into his eyes.

“These companies, for the large part, they show up in cities and they just kind of dump these rideshare devices,” Howerton said. “They tout them as this really cool, innovative, public transportation thing that’s cheap and affordable and yeah it is, but they’re dangerous and they don’t think about the potential health consequences.”

———

Bussewitz reported from New York and Morris from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writer Lori Hinnant in Paris and AP researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.

Sahred From Source link Health

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[taiblogcomics]

The Problem with Paris

Hey there, global pandemics. Haha, no, but seriously. Maybe a terrible Red Hood comic will help you all take your mind off things, at least for a bit. Probably depending on how terrible the comic is~

Here's a cover:

Welp, looks like Jason isn't any better off than the rest of us. It's your own fault, dude. Casinos are non-essential gatherings. In all seriousness, this cover's actually pretty striking. The monochrome sort of colouring to Jason makes him stand out, though it makes him look a bit sickly. Flesh is a little unhealthily grey, I think. Also, I dunno much about poker, but I don't think he had a winning hand there.

So we open in the midst of a flashback with teenage Jason. He's actually more banged up than on the cover, so clearly getting older hasn't done him any favours. He's also quoting Nietzsche in his internal monologue boxes, so his teenage years aren't too different from most. This is in spite of him fighting actual monsters right now, with a magic sword. The monster taunts him, and Jason taunts back, conjuring a whole mess of knives that would make even Dio jealous. This is shot from the monster's POV, so the cut to the next panel kind of implies the monster gets killed. How's that abyss lookin', Jason~?

Jason takes a bath, then goes walking with the All-Mother. Being an angsty teen, Jason mentions that he'll only come back after he's killed both Joker and Batman. Yeah, not on your best day, kid. The All-Mother isn't any more impressed with that statement than we are, which really makes her endearing. Finally, someone to root for in this story, This then skips ahead to the present, where Jason is just hanging out in Paris. Like, he's right here in front of the Eiffel Tower. He's having dinner with Isabel, but he's put out three glasses. One is for Roy. Aw, that's actually a pretty nice moment, until you realise they're champagne glasses and Roy was an alcoholic. Whoops~

Jason and Isabel have a nice date, and part at her hotel. He says he's lost a lot to his life as a superhero and is now glad to just be a casino owner, which is what Isabel finds attractive. So, very next page, Jason is in uniform, doing the very thing he's told Isabel he's stopped doing. What a good and healthy relationship, huh? A foundation of lies always leads to good things. And, since he's running around in costume in Paris, Batman still can't bust him, since it's not Gotham. Heck, as the City of Lights, it might be the anti-Gotham. Suzie Su puts in a brief cameo, and Jason brushes her off too. Really, he's a lovely person all around tonight.

Speaking of brief cameos, Essence has a chat with the ghost of Rules For Poker from last issue. He wants to be avenged, but Essence denies him the right, since he left their group. She disperses his spirit, then goes down to chat with S'aru, another character we've all forgotten. Like, this goes so far back that the issue they're referring to is one I did back on Xanga. Anyway, S'aru is this little bald Aang-looking kid who took one of Jason's most cherished memories. Essence wants to know what it was, and it turns out S'aru still has the memory. It's of Jason (in his Robin days) and Batman on the couch, both in uniform but unmasked, Jason sleeping and leaning on Batman's arm while Batman eats popcorn. Ah, whose cherished memory isn't family movie nights~?

So Jason goes and kicks his way into a perfume shop, whose backroom is being used as a crime family meeting by the Euro-Bloc. Like, they have one of those "say my name as a logo" moments, and their logo includes a hammer and sickle icon. They're the biggest crime families in Germany, England, Scotland, Russia, and Denmark. And even though they never refer to them by name, you can tell which is which. As such, I'll just refer to them by nationality, like it's an episode of Hetalia or something. England is wearing a bowler hat and carrying a teacup, for example. Germany is fat and has muttonchops. That sort of thing. It's kind of hilarious in its stereotyping.

So the lot of them were invited by Jason Todd, and they don't know that Jason is the Red Hood. So Jason claims to be representing himself, basically. So the Euro-Bloc here have been using the Iceberg Lounge as part of their money laundering, and since Penguin's been out of action, they haven't had any news. Jason basically tells them that he has no interest in continuing the operation, and they understandably get testy. They all aim their guns at him, which is when he receives a phone call from Wingman. Turns out Wingman has his plane right outside their office (which, again, was the backroom of a perfume shop, so is that plane just hovering in an alley?), with its weapons all auto-targeted to the bosses in the room. They all surrender and Jason walks out.

Jason's pretty pleased with his night's work, since he didn't have to kill anybody. He boards the plane and tells Wingman to fly him home. Isabel can just stay in Paris, I guess. Meanwhile, during all that, we cut over to the Iceberg Lounge for a minute to see Bunker running inventory. He stops in Jason's office, where the Penguin tries to get his attention through the soundproof cell. This is about as successful as you might think. Somehow, though, a "THUNK" does get through, and the comic ends with Bunker now asking the Penguin if he can speak to him for a moment. The Penguin sits up, looking eager, which is never a pleasant sight.

Well, that was kind of a disappointing issue. Like, I’m not even really sure what the point of it was (though honestly, I could say the same thing about this entire arc). I guess they just wanted Jason out of town for a while so they could set up this thing between Bunker and Penguin. Also probably just so they could put Jason in costume, and so he could lie to his girlfriend about it. Good decisions all around for everybody, I guess~