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juniaships · 4 years ago

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Jora Holiday Bio **Update 2021**

The following paragraphs contains information exclusively for the original series.

Full Name: Jora Ladybird Holiday

Age: 9, 29 (Ben10000); 39 (Ken 10)

Birthday: March 31/April 1 (she was born 11:59pm on March 31)

Species: Human

Race: African American

Fandom: Ben 10 (classic&reboot), The Secret Saturdays (crossover), Generator Rex (crossover), Cartoon Network/CN City (crossover)

Voice Claim: Kimberly Brooks; Brandy Norwood is another alternate choice

Character Role: Friend and love interest to Ben Tennyson

Powers/Abilities: Rot Inducement, Mycokinesis, Poison/Toxin Immunity, Self Healing/Regeneration, Moderate Chronokinesis (Time-Acceleration)

Items: Vials, Mini Lab, Gloves

Relationships

Family: Jeremy (father), Mavis (mother), Tasha (sister), Pattibelle (first cousin) Ginger (family friend); Kenny, Kendrix & Belle (future children), Devlin (adopted son/cousin in law(?))

Friends: Ben & Gwen Tennyson, Max Tennyson, Cooper Daniels, Richard Mortis, Mama G (future mentor)

Acquaintances: Ginger T. Glass, Tamika

Love Interest: Ben is her primary love interest, as seen with their eventual future together as well as hints and blatant displays of "puppy love."

Enemies: Pretty much every villain in this show; her personal arch-nemesis is Kudzu, a lifestyle expert & entrepreneur who initially tried to gentrify Jora's neighborhood & ruin her family's business. Other villains include Master Mortis (Richard's creator), and Kudzu's bounty hunters.

Appearance

- Dark Skinned African American girl

- Chubby, shorter than Ben and Gwen

- Has dark brown hair styled in twisted pigtails, pink hair scrunchies

- Black Bead Eyes//dark brown

- Wears lilac lacy gloves

- Wears three different outfits through the show:

- Season 1: Yellow t-shirt, pink shorts, beige sandals

- Seasons 2&3: Pink and Yellow striped tank top, orange skirt, and same sandals

- Season 4: Pink and white t-shirt, yellow capris with orange belt, and purple shoes

Personality

A sweet and quiet girl, Jora Holiday did not consider herself to be special. She lacked friends in school and kept to herself out of fear of getting bullied. This was because she had to deal with her mutant powers since they came into fruition as a very small child. Jora normally tries to avoid or deflate conflict, though deep down she does get a little fed up with playing peacemaker if the squabbling persists. Jora is compassionate and humble, never boastful but also bashful when it comes to compliments and praise. Of the four kids she is regarded as the nicest.

Because of her powers Jora has clean freak tendencies in her desire to look as normal as possible. She tried to avoid gross situations, although later down the line she learns it's okay to dirty her gloves - literally.

But with sweetness comes sourness, as she does have a passive-aggressive side towards slights, whether real or perceived. She didn't get along with Tasha, feeling as though the latter didn't care for her (which isn't true). Jora tends to be oversensitive and takes things too personally, ans even can be prone to tears if provoked hard enough. She also bears lingering resentment and shame over the partial ailments her element brings; these feelings fade away over time as she grows to accept her powers and adapt to her condition. One of her biggest flaws is her timidness and inability to stand up for herself and others. She also didn't get along with Ben for a while, though they get better quickly.

Jora has a love of nature, as shown with her hobby of collecting flowers and mushrooms. She despises animal abuse of any kind, and strives to be a bit more conscious of the environment. She also seems to have no phobia towards bugs, and thus is the designated "spider catcher" on the Rust Bucket.

Jora has a passion for fashion and a girly sense of style, preferring to dress in bright or pastel colors. Her love of nature and love of fashion could lead to a career based on environmentally friendly beauty products.

Ben 10000: Lavender shortsleeved dress and white apron

Adult Appearance

When she grows up Jora is considerably more capable of handling herself. She gets upset when people see and treat her as a fragile thing, seeing as though they don't trust her. She also is very in tune with nature, spending her days off on long walks in the forests, or at her homemade lab making potions.

In this timeline she was a waitress who worked after shifts as a vigilante. At the time the Hero of Heroes didn't know who this mysterious woman was, although he was struck by familiar feelings.

Ken 10: Mint Green blouse and pink maxiskirt with pink wristwatch (which is actually her transformation device)

Costume: White bodysuit with light purple accents, helmet and visor.

Powers:

Jora has the element of Decay (&Rebirth), which enables her to induce decomposition in organic material.

Techniques

- While not proficient at hand to hand she can run fast in short bursts and have stamina

- Generate spore clouds to obscure vision and block a person's airways

- Increase or decrease the rate the decay

- Increase or decrease the size of mushrooms, from giant prehistoric constructs to miniature samples to be used for medicine

- Create a slippery puddle of rot to make opponents fall

- Throw globs of inky, rotting matter to create fungus or for long range

- Autumn Leaf Tornado

- Create Penicillin (first "upgrade")

- Able to "purify" corrupted Mycellium in the episode "Camp Fear"

- Scavenger-animal Empathy

- Forensics (adult level)

- Fossil Fuel Manipulation (adult level)

- Floral Manipulation (adult level, possibly teen)

- Acid Spit (adult level)

- Hallucinations (teen level)

Weaknesses

- Her power has little to no effect on material such as metal, glass, synthetic fabrics, stones

- Has to wear her gloves at all times which can be tedious and uncomfortable

- Lacks strength and hand-to-hand proficiency

- Weak to extreme heat & cold

- Shroom Constructs can be easily destroyed if not continually reinforced

- Unable to control her powers if under extreme duress

- Requires weapons to compensate for elemental weaknesses

- Requires a source for better potency

Strengths

- Immune to Time related attacks since her powers are considered a form of chronokinesis

- Create healing potions

- Immune to mycotoxins and can decrease and even render dangerous mushrooms safe for consumption (handy for outdoor missions)

- Powers seem to increase in wet environments, the Moon

- Her kind gentle personality makes it easier for her to restrain the dangerous potential of her abilities

- Memorized enough species of fungi and has her own mini lab to safely store and carry samples

- Natural empathy towards others

- Quick learner, continually studies her powers and traits to adapt

Background

Born the second child to floral shop owners Jeremy and Mavis Holiday, Jora had a normal childhood in the comfy small town of Annville, SC. A quiet child, she spent after-school helping around the shop. They were small yet popular with the townsfolk, reputed for their knowledge of plants and colorful arrangements. However that normalcy took a detour when Jora's powers camemto fruition.

When people started to notice more and more plants dying, that in turn led to decrease in customers and soon the shop began to undergo financial trouble. One day, a beautiful woman named Kudzu came into the store offering to buy the place from Jeremy. See, Kudzu was one of the wealthiest and powerful people in town. He refused. The next day Kudzu came again with another proposition. Again Jeremy refused. This occurred all through the week, until finally a very irritated Mavis demanded Kudzu to leave their family alone. That time, Kudzu left and didn't ame back after that. The couple was relieved. Jora was nervous.

One day, just as Tasha and Jora were at the last day of school anf thr parents were off to cash in their winning lottery ticket, the floral shop caught fire! The firefighters were called and put out the blaze, but it left their shop and home in charred ruins.

Jora felt very guilty: if she never had her powers, there wouldn't have been such an awful domino effect. The fire was ruled as a freak accident, however Jeremy and Mavis believed that other forces were at work. They couldn't prove their theories as their suspect had too much power and leverage to be fought one on one. So they came up with a plan: they would spend the summer working to add money to the saved money while their kids go out of town. Mavis called upon an old friend from trade school to take the girls on vacation (somewhere safe from Kudzu).

The next couple of days after staying at a shelter, the girls were able to buy a few new outfits and essentials and told to wait for a brown and white RV. When the RV arrived, out came a older gentlemen in a bright scarlet Hawaiian shirt, with two children trailing behind him. He introduced himself as Max Tennyson, and the two kids were his grandchildren Ben and Gwen.

Trivia

Jora has a nature motif to contrast Ben's aliens and Gwen's magic.

Overall Jora is the most normal member of the team; her family has no connection to the Plumbers or magic.

Jora doesn't have signature color, the closest would be pink and yellow since those are colors she tends to wear the most of.

I made Jora so that there'd be another main girl in the cast and because the show didn't have a black female character (despite having nonwhite female characters of other ethnicities, and black male characters)

She does not have a major role in UAF; instead her storyline is seen as a spinoff (think Static Shock to the Justice League) focusing on smaller-scale plots with occasional cameos from main cast

Jora does come back in Omniverse to replace Gwen as the female lead; she is joined by Dr. Azura (Secret Saturdays OC), Myra Hopewell (GenRex), Ginger T. Glass, and her cousin Patti.

It is unknown whether her power is genetics or a random mutation.

In the Ben 10000 timeline she and Ben broke up because Ben tried to forbid her from going on active missions as a way to keep her safe. Obviously she didn't like that and left. They do reconcile at the end of the episode.

Out of my OCs for this fandom Jora is the lead character, followed by Kendrix

Jora's powers can vary based on the type of fungi she's using at the time. So her colors could range from inky-black to a gorgeous green

She is a candidate to take on the mantle of Mother Nature (currently held by Mama G)

Her hobbies are: reading comics and books primarily fantasy genre, costume design, hiking, floral pressing, DIY crafts, and insects

Due to her timid nature she has a fear of public speaking.

I don't have a claim for her in the live action films sorry!!

Jora is a foil for Kevin in that she was born with destructive powers. Unlike Kevin, she learned to rely on friends to help her stabilize her powers.

- A recurring subplot is the girls encountering and escaping from Kudzu's hired goons sent to track them down.

Jora was going to have standard plants and flowers as her power but I wanted to go for nontraditional elements instead.

The irony is that she's a softie dressed in bright colors and respects life, yet has a power related to death.

- At the end of the show she reunites with her parents and they're able to rebuild their business. She also stands up to Kudzu and exposes the woman for the rotten POS she is

Quotes:

"Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet face!"

"I like comic books. My favorite is the Fantasia Legends."

"If you're supposed to be Lucky Girl then why dress up like a black cat?"

"There's a lot of stories hidden beneath these trees. You just gotta know where to look."

"I'm not that scared little girl you used to pick on, Ben. I think you know I can take care of myself."

"Look I didn't get to choose my powers okay! But Kudzu chose to set our family's house on fire and I'm not gonna sit back and watch her hurt anyone else!"

"It's okay. I'll help you."

"It's called having good manners. You should try it sometimes."

"Leave. Them. Alone!"

"Please let this be a normal day this time!"

"You're like a mushroom. Unassuming at first, but something unique and vibrant!"

"Ben I don't know how to say this but... you're not alone. Don't ever think you're alone."

"I hope you'll be able to see that there's more to life than just money and business but until that day comes, we'll all do very well without you!"

"I may make things rot but the both of you are rotten to the core!"

Recent Pictures

Reference sheets for Omniverse

Sketches:

#oc bio #fyeahocsofcolor #ben 10 #ben 10 original series #ben 10 oc #oc: jora holiday #canon x oc #love interest #oc x canon

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joemuggs · 4 years ago

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Peckham Classical

Found another old (2013) piece for a Vice offshoot that no longer exists, so re-upping again. I was a little bit try hard with the Vice language here, but it’s OK otherwise...

OK, let's name the elephant in the room and get it out the way. Peckham – The New Dalston™, the hippest place on the planet right now etc etc etc – is the gentrification frontline, and that can be uncomfortable. We've already seen it in the squirming language of things like broadsheet property pages (“darkest Peckham” FFS), and restaurant reviews (dogwhistle use of the word “crack”? Jesus, please!). And it's there right all up in our faces when we head to the first Friday night of the two-weekend London Contemporary Music Festival, in the clusters of nervous classical music lovers on Rye Lane clutching their bags closer as they look for the hidden away venue, and in the packs of absolute Fucking Ledges and their Sloaney girlfriends on safari from Clapham to Frank's Bar, coked off their nut, dressed like LMFAO and braying extra loudly and giving each other the finger to compensate for their own on-edgeness while the locals either look on in slightly tetchy bemusement or just studiously ignore them all.

And the gig... well the gig – a set of recitals of Ennio Morricone scores – is a powerful archetype from the off. There's a grand piano, a load of other classical instruments and a load of expensive PA kit set up in the middle of a multi-story carpark floor that I know only from voyeuristically browsing phone-shot road rap videos on YouTube, and milling around are probably the highest concentration of entirely caucasian people for half a mile in each direction. The first piece, a circle of violinists sending skittering abstractions bouncing between one another, is punctuated by the 20:33 to Selhurst pulling into Peckham Rye station next door and people shouting in the street below, while on the other side the sunset is dousing the Allsop-designed Peckham Library and behind it the glass cathedrals of The City in a bright pink sci-fi sheen. It's absolutely fucking glorious.

That's the thing: this rarefied music is glorious, and performed in a concrete shell beset by the sounds and sights of South London coming in from all sides, it's glorious to the power brilliant. Even the bit on the Morricone night when a pianist clatters on pseudo-randomly for what seems like an hour, reaching inside the beast to pluck the strings, hammering the keyboard with his elbows etc etc – a performance which my friends assess simply as “long” – is glorious in this context. There's none of the “shush”-ing tedium of the concert hall, you can wander off to look at the view or grab a drink whenever you feel like it, the entirety of the place is part of the performance, it feels alive and new. When a line of trumpeters start muting their instruments with water-bottles, making swannee whistle type noises and clattering their valves percussively, as the night closes in around the building and car subwoofers add to the ambience, it's impossible not to love the majestic, foolish, Bohemian wonder of it all.

The next night, the ambience is all different. As if there were some celestial lighting director in the employ of the LCMF, the backdrop for the performance of veteran No Wave noisenik Glenn Branca is towering thunderclouds, with hot wind whipping in through the sides of the carpark. We're made to wait behind a rope as soundchecks are repeated in a series of rumbles and clatters. The audience is a little more rough and ready this time, a few more obvious freaks in attendence, but it's all relative; we are all still pale and geeky by any standards. When Branca and his circle of guitarists start up, it is electric. To my shame, I've heard little of his work before this, but having grown up on My Bloody Valentine and then Mogwai, to hear the sounds he makes up is like discovering the motherlode. Huge forked lightning flashes across the skyline, while the racket builds up and up – sometimes smashing into free jazz / Beefheart rhythmic derangement, generally chugging along on a motorik drum framework. If I believed in that sort of thing, I'd say it was transcendent, but there's certainly no question it's mind-altering – as the volume increases it's the rawest kind of hypnotism.

Then suddenly the spell's broken, by a tirade of swearing from Branca at the soundman – which said soundman has turned into a little bit of sound art here: https://soundcloud.com/erik-nystrom/sitting-in-a-car-park-with-a Branca storms off, the night is over and again, it was glorious. I sneak backstage to see if I can break through his fury, and find a grizzled old drunk guy (the band were constantly handing round what looked like quadruple measures of neat whisky through the performance) chainsmoking filterless fags and fuming about how this was the worst venue and show he had ever experienced in his life. I sit and sympathise for a while, suggesting that surely back in the punk / no wave days of New York's downtown desolation he must have seen more disorganisation, but he insists that no, he has ever witnessed such a mixture of pure evil and incompetence. Then an equally hobo-ish looking Charlemagne Palestine (who'll be performing his piano-drone pieces the next day) materialises, is beatifically sweet to everyone, and Branca calms down, admitting that the show was good, he's just furious that the climax – which was the whole point – was “destroyed”. I ask if these guys like playing this kind of venue, if it reminds them of the boho days of the 70s and 80s. Branca “couldn't give a damn”, by Palestine laughs lightly. “Ahh,” he says, “we artists always come into these parts of town, we change them, then the architects and lawyers come and get rich from them... but not us... never us!”

The next day is a perfect comedown from the delirium of the Branca show; a day of drone music, which I attend with my 3-year-old. We sit on a crate eating Jamaican patties and drinking fruit punch and listen to Jem Finer playing a Stooges album at 1rpm so it's reduced to waves of dinosaur growling, and once again it's so perfectly ridiculous in its cultural inappropriateness that it's impossible to take the context seriously and all we can do is just enjoy the monstrous sounds and rough beauty of the place. The end of the day's session is an acoustic ensemble performance of Brian Eno's 'Music For Airports', and once again with evening sun lighting up London on either side of us, it all just feels too blissful for words. While there are layers upon layers of anxieties to unpick and jokes to be made about cultural encroachment – as well as the radically contrasting thrill of being smack bang in the middle of one of the interface points of a living, evolving city to enjoy – on the most immediate level, as an artistic, aesthetic achievement, the LCMF was simply stunning to the senses. As we leave I spot an angrily scrawled, probably deliberately misspelled, graffito on one of the car ramps with an arrow pointing up in the direction the concert venue and Frank's Bar saying “TRIUMPH OF BOURGOUSIE”, helpfully adding “(UPSTAIRS)” in case we didn't get it. It isn't that – things are far more complicated than that as you trace the movement of art across a city – but it certainly does have a discreet charm.

#peckham #classical #avant garde #neoclassical #noise #alternative music #ambient #gentrifiers #lcmf

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erinelizabethh · 5 years ago

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Caught Your Eye | Leon x Reader (7/?)

Summary: Your little sister is the newest, most promised challenger to beat the region’s Champion. Leon is said Champion. You just have a Pikachu.

A series of drabbles following yours and Leon’s friends-to-lovers slow burn… years in the making.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Chapter Seven: Must Be Fate

Chapter Summary: Perhaps fate is something to believe in.

Fate is a concept, an idea to believe in rather than accept as fact. To believe in whatever was to come meant a sense of control in one’s life, and God forbid if this world wasn’t so unpredictable. Perhaps the word is meant to comfort you, to justify the shudder in your bones at the fast-approaching return to Postwick. In fact, Sonia can go on about how she dawdles in it all, only entertaining destiny when she sees fit which is… exactly the topic of conversation upon your first step in Wedgehurst territory. With your Rotom phone tucked in between your shoulder and your ear, heat traveling to a phone increasing in stupidity the more you couldn’t figure how to navigate it, you raise a shoulder to drag your duffle bag toward the column of your neck while kneeling to bring your able Pikachu into your arms. “She must be right excited to see Leon in the flesh again, huh?” Sonia inquires in fact, expecting proof of delight in return.

The girl famous for her peach strands of hair and her brilliant knowledge of the region remains your friend through passing texts and selfies with your now ex-best friend, and his now rival Raihan. Unlike everyone else, she’s that rock that is dauntless of abilities that near rival a ghost type, choosing to spend moments of her day checking in with a, “What’s goin’, love?” despite your schedule too full to respond to left messages. Sometimes if the nostalgia is too much to bear, she recalls of outings the four of you had however rare, taking quick detours on routes home because you finally caved and relished in the way the sun’s rays traveled in the waves of the lake beside her home. Sometimes she’ll sign off her messages with a plead for you to return through the excuse that Leon and Raihan are down to one bookworm to tease; she misses a friend, a fellow girl, someone whose contact means more to her and less to you as the years are counted and lives are left behind.

No one’s fault but yours, you suppose, it was difficult to detach from the village girl in you to make residence in the city. Contacts of old classmates nonetheless are found upon the habitual scrolling through lists of numbers foreign, all besides your mother, Lydia, and Sonia having to deal with a fleeting existence never picking up. If only any of those people fortunate enough to hold a spot in your memory even bothered to call, but again, no one’s fault but yours. With a few updates every day from Mum about the abundance of Butterfree’s among her plants as if you care and a few more from Lydia mentioning a girl she’s crushing on in University as if you have any right giving her advice, your phone is dry with your recent calls your mentor and boss as the only source.

At this point, you’re not exactly positive why you bought this device.

Your Pikachu nuzzles her rosy cheeks into your forearm, appreciative of that buzz she experiences when her owner gives her attention. “He texted me back a, ‘yep’ when I told ‘im, I mean Sonia… he’s definitely a bit cross with me— oh, but the hat—“

You step outside Wedgehurst Station to find a crowd of people in your vision, and the very man invading your thoughts as the object of their affection. They ogle over the cape that dresses him so proper, aware of how contagious his smile can be, salivating at the amount of patience required to fully tame his winning Charizard. There are sparkles in the eyes of each aspiring trainer and parent searching for a distraction, asking him of favors to amuse them just a little longer. You’re somebody that doesn’t deserve paying mind to, except Leon has to perk up at your voice and turn to meet your entrance home, successfully diverting the attention from him and his most trusted Pokémon to someone who wanted none of that. The inhabitants of Wedgehurst turn heads at Leon’s change of behavior and the source, and you lower your phone from your ear as your gaze shuffles at every direction but the one where he is in your direct line of vision.

… And there it is, in your periphery. Your gift to him.

No one walked the world without finding his name on a billboard, his face plastered in hyperbolic documentaries of how the boy from nothing rose to the top and became the Champion of Galar. The world knew he was loved, yes, that he packed up his wardrobe and set out at the age of sixteen, yes, but did they know how good he was at remembering birthdays? His mother would tease him in passing by posting a picture of him when he was a teenager and the population would go mad and exclaim about his braces but were they there during his woes of them being too tight, too fragile? Would anyone have cared if he wasn’t a winner, if he wasn’t always a winner? So many questions and yet, you would think being twenty-three, all the time in the world would be offered to you to answer them.

You followed Leon’s journey to twenty-four through the eyes and ears of others, lips flat as you witnessed him having the time of his life. Lydia, with the occasional snapshot of his rare visit to his home, would encourage a grin from the adult when he found no reason to frown. You would scroll down Hop’s feed, his stan feed if you will, claiming that one day he would be Champion just like his brother, analyzing the stream of Leon’s many battles and victories. Then, if you were courageous enough, the next tab would be reserved for his mother’s profile—still kicking, still tagging your mother in articles about gardening. The occasional upload of Leon’s pose would show up if you scrolled further, with Mum sparing time to comment about how his signature stance kind of looks like a Charizard which was kind of the point, followed by the demand for him and you to meet up in Motostoke. Of course, your name in bold was to be your limit, and you proceeded to exit the application to bang your forehead against your phone two, three times.

His appearance is just as in the pictures, except you’re now able to put a voice and a soul into them. The boy, now a man, can’t seem to avert his gaze from what he deems is the more pressing matter at hand, his cheeks losing its color the more he eyes the color that fuses within yours. His hair reaches yours in length, undoubtedly as soft as silk, and perhaps one day there would come a time where he would allow you to braid it in a design that accentuates more of his silent gratitude. You squint to find the regret in his eyes, maybe contempt, only finding dandelions that sway in the lovely, constant breeze. There is no difference to be found in him so far but the growth on his chin and the tufts of hair that far outmatch yours. Rather than spare his many glances at you, gaze aligning so perfectly with the other, he now follows you to a height stunted just because your body isn’t built to be tall. However, although the number of contrasts is small, they are too significant to ignore, and you can’t help but notice that there can be no return to a boy strife with the burden of crooked teeth and expectations. Leon, although no longer a best friend, remains but a spirit meant to haunt you because no one can seem to let him go. You, unfortunately, are no different.

You, however, appear to have been obscured from both families’ requests for selfies or photos of your new flat, only a comment of how you’re welcomed at your new position, partaking in research that no one cared to find out about, so it’s quite a shock to him to find you seven years later under a new light. Quite some time has passed since yet the years have been kind to you, he’s sure. You deserve it, of course, but maybe you don’t; some part of him has to remind him of what you did to him. Regardless, there exists weights beneath your eyes, no doubt an accumulation of years of studies, yet you compensate for it with lips soft and glossy. The second that transpires before you shield your face from the sun, your irises shimmer underneath it’s rays and he’s thrown back to when the two of you were teenagers and the sun set over the horizon at just the right time when you were just in the right spot, and he’s as mesmerized then as he is now.

Boy, does he hate it.

There is something you haven’t seen from him since you departed: a frown upon his lips that deters those who find solace in his abiding smile. Eyebrows narrowed if only for a moment, the relief of those that know a caricature of him returns when he puffs out his chest, permitting you from defacing his image by forcing out a, “Welcome home,” despite, you know, not coming back for seven years. The smile that reaches the surface is unsettling to you, as behind it there are cracks in which you are the cause, imprints of memories better off forgotten because you made them undesirable. You return the favor in contrast to Pikachu squirming in your grasp, settling with the familiarity of the boy before her. His Charizard simply huffs out his dismay, gaze observing the tremble that crawls up your skin and threatens to make an already horrid situation much worse. He flexes his growth from the cheeky yet promising Charmander to the inviolable Charizard the world knows, all because you can’t seem to stop breaking his owner’s heart. No difference found, as perhaps his form of discipline during your many study dates alone with him really was punishing you for the inevitable.

Lydia and Hop are in the back of this mess, balanced on top of their toes to witness the commotion over the shoulders of passersby, murmuring under their breaths of the lack of timing that warrants such a situation. The two grown, yet not grown enough, graduates jostle shoulders to get through to the both of you, and it is then that you notice of the increasing similarity in behavior and appearance between Leon and his sibling. Of course, there’s no time to worry about it lost, as Lydia grasps your free arm and grants you a favor after years of you slacking as her sister and her confidant. When she drags you from the fray, calling for Leon over his shoulder of her intended whereabouts, you’re not at all occupied with the intimidation of unwanted attention and off handed clicks of the tongue.

Out of all the caps to wear…

Out of all the trinkets and parting gifts that would remind you of home…

You wear mine.

#pokemon #pokemon swsh #pokemon sword and shield #leon x reader #champion leon #pokemon imagine #pokemon fanfiction #YEEEEEEEESS HAPPY VALENTINES DAY #GOOOOOOOOOOOD NIGHT #LEON AND READER GETTING BACK TOGETHER :') WE LOVE TO SEE IT #AS ALWAYS PLS SHOOT ME A MESSAGE IF YOU WANNA GET TAGGED :)

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talesofpanem · 5 years ago

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The Interview

Author: @xerxia31

Rating: T for potty language, adult situations, mentions of substance abuse and minor character death.

Summary: This has all the makings of the most uncomfortable job interview of all time.

Author’s note: This is for the prompt ‘work’, but I just couldn’t get it done on time. Thank goodness for make-up week!

————

It feels like entering another world, driving through the grounds of the west campus. Everything is wide open, lush, green, alive, a huge contrast to the dirty and crowded city where I’ve been living for the past two years.

There are young people everywhere on the expansive lawns, throwing frisbees or leaning against trees with books or binders in hand, and not a cellphone to be seen. It’s like a utopian fantasy world, on the surface.

But I know better.

I pull up to the building where my appointment will be. Grey stone, old, but not yet old enough to be considered classic. Its architectural failings have been compensated for by brightly-painted window trim and shutters, and climbing vines clinging to the stones, bursting with purple flowers. Elegant, but only if you don’t look too closely. For all of its window dressing, it’s an institution.

I’d been instructed to wait in the lobby, arranged as a waiting room of sorts. It’s little more than a dozen chairs ringing the area, facing the double set of interior doors, faded industrial carpet underfoot. I settle into one, the sun-hardened vinyl squeaks in protest. The walls are covered with inspirational posters, pictures of sunsets and mountaintops with words of wisdom in bold print underneath. Motivation. Persistence. Achievement.

“Mr. Mellark?”

I jump to my feet as a young woman with glossy black ringlets enters the room where I’ve been cooling my heels for twenty minutes. She smiles at me. “They’re ready for you now.”

Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I wipe my hands on my suit pants before picking up my portfolio. I can’t remember the last time I was this nervous about anything. Young Peeta Mellark was an outgoing, gregarious fellow. But I haven’t been that guy in a very long time.

The doors close behind me, electronic locks snapping ominously.

The young woman, Rue, she tells me her name is, leads me along a dim corridor, the floors polished to gleaming, reflecting scattered pools of light. “We only use emergency lighting in the offices on the weekends,” she confides. “Budget…” I nod. The schools where I worked while finishing my master’s degrees had all struggled with budgets too. Education is not a career that is steeped in money.

But working with children is what I’ve chosen. And this job, at this particular school, is the one I want more than anything.

Art therapist at the Panem Institute.

The Panem Institute is the preeminent residential facility for kids in trouble, kids struggling with substance abuse issues or mental health disorders. And unlike most centres of its kind, lack of funds is not a barrier to admission.

I can’t help wondering how different my life might have turned out if I’d had access to a place like this when I was a teen. Would I be established now, with a life I could be proud of? A wife, maybe even a family of my own?

Instead, I’m thirty, with a shiny new double MA in social work and art therapy, and precious little in the way of resumé experience. That the institute is even meeting with me is almost miraculous. Apart from student placements and volunteer work, I have almost nothing to show for my life.

But I want this job so badly I can almost taste it. This job, this place– this is why I’ve worked so hard the past six years, for the chance to make up for my own failings.

My childhood wasn’t fantastic, but it was typical by most measures. The youngest of three children, I was born upstate, in a quintessential white-washed all-American small town where everyone knew everyone else. My parents didn’t get along, but they stuck it out for the sake of us boys, which is retrospect was probably far, far worse for us than if they’d simply split.

Instead, beaten down by a life she hated and a town she couldn’t escape, my mother was cold, and often rough with us. Rye, Brann and I learned young to hide from her temper. She, in turn, hid in a bottle.

My dad, though, was my hero, mine and my brothers’ too. He coached our little league teams, came to every one of our wrestling matches, filled our lives with cookies and hugs. Shielded us from mother’s ever-increasing drunken and violent episodes.

Then midway through my senior year of high school, the unthinkable happened. My father, my kind, generous father, was murdered. Shot by some punk barely older than I was, killed for nothing more than the two hundred dollars in the cash register of the small family bakery my father owned.

I was devastated.

There was no one left to moderate my mother’s behaviour with my father gone and my brothers away at school. Down to one final obligation, freedom in sight, she made it her sole purpose in life to be rid of me as well. Or maybe she was just drowning in grief and alcoholism and wasn’t even aware of how she was acting, a theory my brother broached at the time. Whatever the reason, life at home deteriorated. Badly.

And like my mother, I sought refuge in a bottle. Or many, many bottles.

I’d already been offered a college wrestling scholarship based on my earlier performances. A good thing since I showed up at the state wrestling championship - my last ever high school wrestling meet and the first one where my father wasn’t a spectator - hungover as hell, or maybe still a little drunk, and ended up placing second.

College was supposed to be my escape, but by the time I got to State that September, I was far more interested in getting bombed than in studying or practicing.

Over the course of a year, I destroyed every dream I’d ever had, every hope, every plan, every relationship. I alienated every friend, every mentor, even, eventually, my own brothers.

And I hadn’t even cared.

Twelve years later, I’ve clawed my way back, one sober day at a time, through more ups and downs than I can even remember. Fought to become a man my father would have been proud of. But I didn’t do it alone. Therapists and counsellors helped me heal, and in doing so showed me how satisfying it could be to guide someone back from the brink, to help set them on the right path.

And that’s why I’m here now, standing sweaty-palmed but hopeful at the door of a boardroom. Interviewing for a job where I could change the lives of troubled young people like I once was.

My escort, Rue, pulls the door open and gestures for me to enter. The room is small and much brighter than the hallway, with a pair of large windows and pale wood reflecting the warm afternoon light. It takes me a moment to adjust to the brightness, to focus on the group of people waiting for me.

Then the bottom drops out of my stomach, and out of my world.

I never got blackout drunk. Consequently, I remember every stupid decision I made, every assholish word I said. And the recipient of one of the tirades I regret most is sitting across the table, her ebony hair pulled back in an elegant chignon.

Katniss Everdeen.

She and I went to school together, from kindergarten all the way through until I ruined my life. I had the worst crush on her back then. But until after we graduated from high school, she didn’t even know I was alive.

Imagine my shock when, a few months into my ill-fated college career, I ran into her at a party on campus. I’d had no idea she went to the same school. But I was well into a bottle of Bombay that night, and what should have been the start of an epic relationship, or at least a chance for me to talk to the girl I’d lusted after always, turned into a nightmare.

I was already slipping then, already on academic probation, already suspended from the wrestling team and constantly in trouble with my coaches. I was weeks away from losing everything - my scholarship, my sport, my friends. And every encounter with my professors, with my academic advisor, with the counsellor the athletic department had insisted on, every single one had impressed on me that I wasn’t good enough, though I am, in retrospect, certain that’s not what any of them had meant. But I’d had so much anger in my system then, so much loathing.

And Katniss, beautiful, seemingly unattainable Katniss, for some reason seeing her there triggered the deepest well of self pity to open in my chest. She was, in that moment, the embodiment of everything I’d been told I could never have. My gut clenches and my heart hurts as I remember the vitriol I’d spewed at her that night, the accusations about her character and motivations, every one of them utterly untrue. I’d called her stuck-up, selfish, a bitch, among so many other words. Katniss, beautiful, stoic Katniss hadn’t reacted at all, apart from a widening of her eyes and maybe a slight trembling of her lower lip. When I’d run out of filth to throw her way, she’d simply blinked and said softly, “This isn’t you, Peeta.” Then she’d walked away.

I have heard those words in my head a thousand times since that night.

It had taken another three years of couch-surfing and homelessness, of lying and begging and stealing to feed my addiction, before I finally hit rock-bottom. In an alley in the Capitol, with a bunch of other low-life scum just like me, I’d listened as they made plans to rob a convenience store a few blocks away. So desperate was I for the few bucks it would have garnered me that I was ready to go along with them… until I saw the gun.

The idea of robbing a little mom-and-pop convenience store at gunpoint was my come to Jesus moment. I was hunched in filth, hungry and so desperate for a drink that I was steps away from becoming the man who had killed my father.

The road back from that point wasn’t straight, and it wasn’t easy. I’d like to say that I never had another drink after that, but it’d be a lie. But I’ve been sober now for seven years and forty-four days, a purple medallion in my pocket reminds me every day how far I’ve come.

As does Katniss’s voice in my head, reminding me when I feel weak, when the cravings hit hard, that I’m not that person.

But she doesn’t know that. Looking across the table, she must be seeing the asshole who treated everyone, and especially her, like dirt.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Mellark,” an older, balding man says, smiling. I recognize his voice, Plutarch Heavensbee, the institute’s director, with whom I’ve spoken on the phone several times before today. I hesitate though, steeling myself to meet Katniss’s eyes. If she looks uncomfortable I’ll leave. It wouldn’t be fair to her if I stayed. As disappointing as it’ll be to walk away from this opportunity that I want so damned badly, I have only myself to blame.

I catch her gaze, silver pools in the sunlight, expecting her to be glaring at me. She’s not though, her expression is carefully neutral. But as if she sees the question in my glance, she nods.

Plutarch introduces the others in turn; Reza Seder, head of counselling services, Dr. Lavinia DeSantis, head of medical services, Alma Coin, head of security. “And of course you know Ms. Everdeen,” Plutarch says, his smile widening, and I can feel my eyebrows crawling up to my hairline. She knew I was coming, told the others that she knew me, and yet I’m still here. They’re still going to interview me.

“Hello, Peeta,” she says, in that smoky smooth bourbon voice that has acted as my conscience for years. And, okay, has narrated my fantasies too, if I’m being honest.

“I’ve already disclosed to the board that we grew up together,” she continues, “and they’re okay with my presence. But of course I’ll leave if it makes you uncomfortable having me here.” Her words and delivery are coolly professional, but beneath them I hear a faint note of pleading. She wants to be here, I just know it. And though I’m likely signing the death warrant on this job, I find myself asking her to stay.

This has all the makings of the most uncomfortable job interview of all time. But if I’ve learned anything from my primary therapist, Dr. Aurelius, it’s that I can’t run from my past. And if I’ve learned anything from AA, it’s that I can’t ignore my shortcomings.

Each member questions me, softballs to start - my education, my job experiences, my plans. I pull out my portfolio, walk them through the educational and therapeutic programs I’ve developed, outline what worked during my previous placements, what innovations I’d like to employ. They seem impressed, and I start to relax.

“You didn’t go to college right after high school, Mr. Mellark?” Alma Coin asks, her strange, pale eyes cold and judgemental. I stiffen; this is where previous interviews have gone off the rails. I’d never outright lie about my addiction, but I’m not keen to bring it up either. Even seven years sober, people are reluctant to entrust an alcoholic to watch over children.

“That’s correct,” I tell her. “I didn’t start my undergrad until I was twenty-four.”

“Why is that?” I could tell her that I couldn’t afford it until then, that’s true, or about my father’s death throwing a spanner in my plans, also true.

Katniss is looking at me, grey eyes wide and guileless. She nods again, and it feels like encouragement. I know what I have to say.

“I’m an alcoholic,” I tell them, bracing for their reactions. But nobody flinches. “I’ve been sober for seven years. But I started drinking in high school, and I lost a lot of years to the disease.” Across from me, a hint of a smile graces Katniss’s pouty peach lips. I take it as my cue to keep going. “That’s why I went into social work, and why I want to work here so much. To help kids like me. To maybe save some of them from the mistakes I made.”

There are nods around the table, no one looks particularly surprised. I don’t know whether Katniss has told them, or if it came up in my background check.

“And you’re not concerned that working with addicted children might trigger you to revisit your own demons? Your CV is completely lacking in experience with troubled youth.” It’s true, my field placements were all in middle schools, my experience as an art therapist mostly with kids with ADHD or autism spectrum disorders. The kids here by and large have much more complex issues, abuse and addiction and mental illness all compounded, often violent and criminal backgrounds too.

“I’ve spent years in therapy learning to cope with my triggers,” I tell Coin.

“That’s not the same as real-world experience,” Seder interjects. “These kids, the things they tell you, the things they’ve seen. It’s gutting.”

“I realize that,” I tell her, affecting the most professional tone I’m capable of despite the cavern that’s opened in my stomach, the knowledge that I’m nowhere near qualified enough in their eyes. “I completed a research project on intergenerational addiction in college and interviewed hundreds of young addicts.”

“That’s really not the same as interacting with them day to day,” Seder says, and it’s not cruel, but it feels dismissive.

“I also observed troubled youth in counselling during my practicum while I was in graduate school.” They know this, it’s in my resumé, along with letters of reference from the clinician supervisors. But Seder is shaking her head and Coin looks unimpressed and I can feel the opportunity slipping away.

“Peeta has volunteered as a mentor at the Children’s Hospital’s substance abuse treatment program for more than three years,” Katniss interjects, and every hair on my body stands on end. Because while that’s true, it’s also something that’s not in my resumé, something I’ve avoided self-reporting because it’s common knowledge that the program volunteers are all addicts in recovery themselves.

I have no idea how she knows that.

My gaze snaps to Katniss. Her expression remains carefully neutral, but there is the barest hint of a smile in her silver eyes.

“That’s an excellent program,” Dr. De Santis says, looking up from her notes for the first time. “They’re incredibly selective about who they choose to work with their clients.”

“They are,” I agree. The screening had been brutal, but it had been necessary, so many of those kids have lead lives that make mine look like a walk in the park and many are not shy about sharing all of the horrific details. “They can’t risk having the volunteers drop out or relapse. The kids need the stability of knowing that they can’t scare away their mentors. So many of them have had everyone else in their lives give up on them.” I swallow hard; it’s the reason I volunteer there. I’ve seen myself in so many of their faces, kids who use alcohol and drugs to escape the pain, kids who lash out and push away the people around them before those people can abandon them. Like I’d done to my teachers and coaches, my friends and my brothers.

Like I’d done to Katniss, all of those years ago.

“How do you find your personal experiences impact your work with those children?” Katniss asks, a gently leading question, and one for which I am so grateful.

“I can empathise with them in ways that their doctors and case workers often can’t,” I say, mostly tamping down the waver in my voice. Four sets of eyes watch me intently. “It’s the whole basis for the program, giving these kids not only guidance, but hope for their future. If I can succeed after all of my mistakes, after all I’ve done, then they can too.”

“And you intend on continuing to volunteer there?” Coin asks.

“I do.” I’ve already checked with the hospital about whether this job would constitute a conflict of interest, they assured me it would not.

Across the table, each of the interviewers smiles, even Coin, though her smile looks a little less genuine. But I only have eyes for Katniss. Because her smile feels like forgiveness. And though this is my dream job, I feel like even if I don’t get it I’ve accomplished something monumental here. I’ve shown Katniss that she was right, that nasty boy who hurt her, who made her feel small and alone, that person wasn’t me.

Plutarch claps his hands. “Excellent, my boy,” he says. “Now let’s talk salary.”

“I… what?”

“For the position.” At my expression, he laughs. “The interview is really just a formality,” he says, mirth twinkling in his eyes. “The job is yours if you want it.” He pushes a couple of papers across the table. A contract. “I know it’s a little less in salary than you’d make in private practice, but we offer a comprehensive benefits package. Take a couple of days to look it over and let us know.”

I don’t need a couple of days. I don’t need a couple of minutes. “I want the job,” I tell him firmly.

“Well then,” Plutarch booms with evident pleasure. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Mellark.” He reaches across to shake my hand firmly, and I can’t help my goofy grin. I got the job!

Plutarch informs me that their admin will get in touch with me over the next few days to file the tax and legal paperwork they need, and then I’ll begin at the start of the new term, some four weeks away. And I nod in all the right places, but my mind is spinning so fast I’m almost dizzy with it.

I shake each of their hands in turn, lingering just a bit longer to squeeze Katniss’s hand tightly. I thank each of them, but my gratitude to her means more. I think she can tell.

“Could you see Mr. Mellark out?” Plutarch asks Katniss, and she agrees, though she doesn’t meet my eyes.

I follow her silently down the corridor, towards the exit, the delicate tapping of her heels on linoleum almost drowned out by the pounding of my pulse in my ears. Katniss was a cute kid, tiny and scrappy, and she had morphed into a fierce and self-possessed young woman by the time we’d graduated high school. But now, at thirty, she’s an absolute bombshell. Still lean, but with delicate curves that her pencil skirt and blouse highlight perfectly. She walks with confidence, back straight, head held high. She’s more intimidating than ever.

At the electronic doors, she pauses, hand poised just above the lever that would release the locks. Then she sighs, and glances back at me over her shoulder. “Would you like to have a cup of tea with me? Catch up?” I’m nearly rendered speechless; not only is Katniss Everdeen willing to work with me, she’s willing to talk with me too.

“I’d like that,” I rasp, the first words I’ve spoken directly to her in twelve long years.

She leads me back into the building and up a set of stairs. Another corridor stretches in front of us, windowless doors set close together. “Our offices,” she says. Partway down the hall, she stops and pulls a set of keys from her pocket. A small brass plate on the door reads Katniss Everdeen, Lead Addictions Therapist.

Her office is small, and appears to be set up for both paperwork and individual counselling sessions with a tiny desk tucked back into the corner but comfortable looking couches dominating the space. She confirms my guess. “I see the lower risk kids here,” she says. “It feels less institutional that way.”

I can only stare, stunned, as she unlocks a cabinet and withdraws a tea kettle. I knew Katniss’s title here from Plutarch’s introduction of course. But until now, it hadn’t really sunk in, what she does. She’s an addictions counsellor. How utterly incredible that she went into the very field that eventually inspired my own career path.

“Sit, please,” she says over her shoulder. I slip off my blazer, draping it over the arm of the couch, then sink into plush microfibre. The ceramic clink of teacups and spoons and the sultry sway of her perfect posterior as she putters, preparing tea and humming just faintly are almost hypnotic. For all of the times I’d thought about Katniss Everdeen, I never imagined I’d ever actually see her again, and good lord she’s so much hotter than even my edgiest fantasies. “Black, right?” she says, snapping me out of my lurid thoughts.

“Uh, yeah,” I say after a moment’s pause where I try to pull myself together and remember that she’s making tea, so that we can talk. So that I can apologize to her. As glorious as her ass is, I have no business looking at her that way. I lost any possible chance I might have had a dozen years ago.

But she knows how I take my tea. The last time I saw her, gin was the only thing I was drinking.

She sets a red mug in front of me, on the low table between the couches. But she herself sits beside me, instead of across from me, which surprises me. Though maybe it shouldn’t, since she’s a therapist. Knowing how to set someone at ease is part of her training. It’s backfiring in my case though, since her closeness feels intimate. I catch a hint of her scent, something fresh and green but with a little bit of spice, like a campfire in the woods. So perfectly Katniss. “How have you been?” she says, sipping from her own mug.

“Better,” I tell her, because she’s not asking to make small talk. In addition to knowing everything I confessed in the interview, she was there when my world fell apart, she saw first hand how shitty I was.

“I’m glad,” she says softly, and she smiles, and it’s so beautiful and sweet it nearly breaks my heart.

“I am so sorry,” I tell her, but the words are completely inadequate. How do you tell someone that they are not only your biggest regret, but also your biggest inspiration? “For how I treated you when I was drinking. You didn’t deserve any of that, and I have regretted it every day.”

“I know,” she says.

“And what you did for me today,” I continue before my nerve runs out. “I can’t begin to thank you. You not only gave me this chance when you could have told any of them I wasn’t worth considering, but you actively helped me in the interview.”

“You earned the job, Peeta. Plutarch was already convinced before you even walked in the door.”

“The others weren’t.”

She laughs. “I knew Lavinia would love you. And Alma, well, she doesn’t really like anyone, but I have a feeling you’ll win her over eventually.”

“What about you?” I can’t help asking. She’s treating me so kindly, but she can’t possibly have forgiven me. I know she hasn’t forgotten.

“I believe in second chances.” Her smile is softer, a little pained. “I knew you’d find your way back.”

“I was such a dick.”

“You were,” she agrees. “But I knew that wasn’t you.”

“You said that back then too,” I tell her, my tea forgotten. “I, uhm.” My neck feels hot and I rub it distractedly. “I hear you saying that, when I’m having a difficult day. It’s helped me so much over the years. You’ve helped me more than you’ll ever know.” It’s embarrassing as hell to admit that. But she deserves the truth.

She snorts, and it’s a sound so at odds with her elegant presentation and with the seriousness of our conversation. My gaze snaps up to her face, she looks amused and abashed.

“You’re the reason I went into psychology,” she says, and my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. “I was a biology major first year. But seeing how everyone failed you after your dad died, and how easy it was for you to fall…” she trails off. “And then when you came back to school to try again, sober and working so hard, I knew I’d made the right choice.”

“You were there?”

She nods. “Just for a semester. I was finishing my masters. I saw you a couple of times on campus, but you never noticed me.”

Honestly, that’s probably for the best. That early in my recovery I was still so fragile, just getting through classes took every bit of effort I had, and I spent so many hours with my sponsor and therapist back then I had no time for anyone else. “I wish I’d known,” I tell her. “But I had my head pretty far up my own ass.”

“You didn’t though.” She looks away, towards the tiny, narrow window on the exterior wall, barred, like all of the windows I’ve seen in this building. “I watched you. I’ve kept track of you over the years, when I could. Even then you were already working so hard to make amends.”

I was. And I can tell by that specific word that she knows why. One of the steps in AA is making amends for the shitty things we’ve done, at least where doing so won’t cause any further damage. In those early years, I’d concentrated mostly on my brothers, and earning their trust again. But I also spent time speaking with professors and coaches who I had alienated. It would have been far easier to start over at a different college, and likely would have been less triggering. But it’d have been a coward’s way.

“I never got a chance before now to apologize to you,” I whisper. She’d kept track of me, but I hadn’t made the same effort. Before the booze, Katniss Everdeen was that perfect, unattainable fantasy woman I put on a pedestal and never approached. And after, I locked her away, so terribly ashamed by my actions that I never sought her out, even though she would have been easy to find. I was terrified by how she might look at me.

But she’s clearly a much bigger person than I could ever be.

“I think the time wouldn’t have been right before now,” she says. “For either of us.”

We lapse into silence, Katniss still staring out the window, me fiddling with the mug I’ve picked up again. “Can I ask you something?” she says, and there’s something in her tone that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Of course.”

“That night… why me?” She’s trying to keep her voice even, I can tell, but the slight waver slays me.

“You were there, and I was a drunken asshole,” I rasp, but she shakes her head, glancing at me.

“It was more than that. The things you said…” she looks away, but not before I see the shine in her eyes. Not before I see the hurt I had been expecting all along. The knowledge that even all of these years later, my words continue to bother her is gut-wrenching. I feel like the biggest piece of shit.

“It was all bullshit, Katniss, the ramblings of an absolute lowlife shit of a human.”

“There’s always truth, even in ramblings,” she says softly. “It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d been called those things. But we’d never even spoken before then. I didn’t know you even knew my name.”

“I knew you, Katniss. I’d always been watching you.” She turns back to me eyebrows raised, confusion in every line of her beautiful face. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, and I don’t want to make excuses for my absolutely inexcusable behaviour. But she deserves the whole truth. I drop my gaze to my lap. “The truth is, I had a huge crush on you, nearly the whole way through high school.”

She makes a little choking sound, and I can’t bear to look at her. I know I’m doing unfathomable damage to our potential working relationship, confessing like this. I’ll decline Plutarch’s offer, if being here will hurt her. But I can’t let her think that any of the awful things I said had even a speck of truth to them. I can’t let her take any blame.

“In senior year,” I continue, “I had finally convinced myself that I was going to talk to you, to ask you to the Valentine’s dance. But then…” I trail off. My father had died at the end of January, and everything else in my life had fallen away, sucked into the black pit of grief.

A soft, cool hand lands on my forearm, and I glance up. Far from looking disgusted, as I was expecting, Katniss is looking at me with compassion, even through her confusion. “When I saw you that night,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out. “I had already screwed up everything else in my life. I was just so angry at the world, but mostly at myself. I was drowning in regret and self-loathing. And you were there, and you were every bit as beautiful as you had always been. And you just represented everything I wanted so badly and had fucked up. My father was gone, my sport was gone, and the girl of my dreams was completely out of my league. And I lost it, lashed out at you instead of at the person who really deserved it. Me.”

“You didn’t deserve it either,” she whispers, and her eyes shine silver under a film of moisture.

I place my hand over hers where it still rests on my arm, and she doesn’t pull away. “I’m truly sorry, Katniss. Hurting you is the biggest regret of my life.”

“I accept your apology.” I squeeze her hand in gratitude, and a sad half smile ticks at her lips.

“I won’t take the offer,” I murmur, and her brow furrows again. “This is your career, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, being here.”

She shakes her head. “You won’t,” she says. “I’ve been watching you for so long, cheering for you from the sidelines. I feel like I know you. And I know you won’t ever repeat that mistake.”

“I won’t,” I swear. “I’ll always be an alcoholic, and there will always be a risk that I’ll relapse. But I’ve learned so much in therapy, about communication and managing my emotions. About coping. I have better mechanisms now, and a really great support group behind me.” It had taken a long time to make things right with my brothers, but they are my staunchest supporters now. And my sponsor, Haymitch, is a crusty old bastard, but he’d rip out someone’s throat before letting me down.

“Then stay,” she says. “I’d like to start again, if it wouldn’t make you uncomfortable. Build up that friendship we should have had.” She looks down at our hands. At some point, she’d flipped her palm and I’d entwined my fingers with hers.

“Always,” I whisper in awe, and she smiles, that beautiful, elusive smile that I know will be the stuff of all of my future fantasies. And maybe, just maybe, the stuff of my future reality too.

#talesofpanem #tales of panem #makeup week #work #xerxia31 #submission #week 10

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juliebalfourhnd2cphoto · 4 years ago

Text

White Shirt

HND 2 2020 – 21

Health and safety in the studio.

STUDIO CHECKLIST: Health and safety in the studio due to covid 19

Please refer to this before and after all shoots

Activity: White Shirts

Does this activity require the use of a photographic studio?

Are you free of all symptoms attributed to covid – 19?

Are you wearing a face mask? (unless exempt)

Are you able to maintain a safe social distance of 2m?

Have you made sure it is only you and your studio partner that are in your studio space?

Have you access to hand sanitizer?

Is your equipment clean?

If borrowing or lending equipment have you used hand sanitizer before and after use?

If working with studio equipment have you cleaned the work area and kit before and after use?

Have you read the most recent government and college guidelines on social distancing?

Have you effectively pre planned your shoot?

I could have planned it more effectively a lot of time was lost at the beginning of the day.

Have you effectively planned your time in the studio, to make the most of your studio day?

As above

NWhite balance

Find a diagram that explains colour temperature, in relation to photography

https://medium.com/the-coffeelicious/a-photographers-guide-to-color-temperature-6bbc882d1524

Sourced online 17.09.2020

Explain the difference between colour correction and colour grading.

Colour correction is when an adjustment is made to an image to compensate for the colour cast caused by the light, either natural or man-made and to make the image look as natural as possible. This gives you a neutral starting point for any editing.

Lights such as candles, halogen or studio lights emanate a warm light which usually produces a red or yellow glow. Lights such as strong bright winter days, halogen lights and “daylight strip lights cause a blue, colder, colour cast.

These can be corrected in camera by adjusting the white balance, or post production during editing. One of the simplest was to correct postproduction is by taking a test shot in the same lighting of a piece of white card or paper, or to use a colour passport and shoot the neutral 18% Grey.

Colour grading on the other hand is more about the feel of the picture and can be used to take a themed approach to images. Both photographers and cinematographers take this approach to create strong images.

Obvious examples include Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” with his stylistic Art Nouveau colour palette. Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” with his characters carrying a colour board that is specifically theirs throughout the film, or, Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” with its vintage 1960’s Colombia Pictures colours permeating the entire movie.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Quintin Tarantino

The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson

https://medium.com/the-coffeelicious/a-photographers-guide-to-color-temperature-6bbc882d1524

Sourced online 17.09.2020

Explain or show diagram of how you correct white balance using your camera.

Sourced from The Olympus E-M1X user manual, pages 207,208.

Your own shoot.

Explain your editing workflow to correct colour casts.

After importing to Adobe Bridge, I did a batch rename and added some info to the metadata.

Once I had reduced the numbers down a bit, I was able to take a little time and look through each one in a bit more detail.

I then went into review and did an initial rating of the shots.

This one for example looked fine at first glance, but the models spectacle lens correction made it look like there was a little chunk of face missing so I went through them and discarded a few.

I was then able to adjust the slightly yellow colour cast using the adjustment sliders on the right-hand side. Once I had adjusted the white to my liking, I Synched my images and applied this to all of them before going on to individually optimising each of my final shots.

This left me with a selection of 19 to work with.

Lighting diagram: showing how you set up your studio for the shoot.

Four best images: unedited

Four best images

BEST IMAGE EDIT: Before

How have your edits improved the whiteness of your shirt?

The edits, both at initial batching and optimising have made the shirt appear crisper and a stronger contrast with the backdrop.

What edits would best optimise this image?

· Adjust white level to lift brightness of shirt

· Increase backdrop to centre figure

· Remove lights in shot

· Brighten whites of eyes and teeth (shirt contrast makes them darker)

· Lift blues to accentuate denim

· Sharpen texture of denim

· Basic blemish removal

· Reduce shine on face

Save as A3 300ppi jpeg ready for folio and upload to My city.

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chauhanparkash2038 · 5 years ago

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Correspondence Bca From PTU

Correspondence courses are in incredible interest. An ever increasing number of understudies are looking towards private and national schools and foundations for degrees and testaments which can land them great positions sooner rather than later. Understudies who are increasingly keen on extracurricular exercises like games, theater, governmental issues, understudy associations and inventive expressions and so on., frequently miss customary investigations. In any case, to win a decent degree close by is a need, and this is the place correspondence schools with their separation training plans go to their aid.With cutting edge innovation close by one feels as though he has the entire world eating out of his palm. An individual with an expert degree is a profoundly looked for after contender for a decent position in a decent organization. For the individuals who wish to go into specialized field, a course in BCA is an absolute necessity. Punjab Technical University has various seminars on its examination list for an understudy to look over. PTU is a perceived University and subsequently a degree or endorsement from the University is considered of high worth. The University study focuses are spread everywhere throughout the nation. Thickly populated city of Delhi has an extraordinary number of understudies who enlist at the investigation focus at the region of their home or work environment.

Admission to the course is open for any individual who has cleared his class twelfth test. This six semester course in BCA is comparable to any graduation level course. Single guy in Computer Applications implies that you can anticipate quick situation after the culmination of the course, and that additionally with great compensation bundle toward the day's end. Group of knowledgeable educators readies the course material which is flowed among the understudies. The degree of information granted is en standard with universal level investigations in a similar stream. In contrast to typical schools, proficient University like PTU offers all assistance to its understudies in finding a decent line of work by means of its situation cell. This situation cell is very much associated with highest mechanical set ups, it has its hotspots for landing understudies positions in both government and private parts.

During the multi year length of the course an understudy gets the opportunity to gain proficiency with all that is most recent in the PC innovation. He gets the chance to get familiar with about scientific estimations that should be possible on the PC; he turns out to be very much educated in fundamental bookkeeping and framework investigation and structure. Theory as well as functional papers like Communication Skills are likewise educated to the understudy. Business Communication is basic for any individual who wishes to remain ahead in this world. Workshops and Software Lab papers make an understudy very much educated in visual essentials.

A BCA understudy can go for programming work; he can turn into a framework manager. Freshers can become work area bolster architects or website specialists also. For the individuals who are now working, they can go for further investigations and light up their advancement possibilities. Numerous understudies join MCA in the wake of doing BCA. This also will be likewise a smart thought. Information never goes squander; one certainly finds out more and accomplishes his set objectives throughout everyday life.read more

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zhjy96-blog · 6 years ago

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Week 1 / PHOTOGRAPHY IN LONDON

London Nights at Museum of London

To be honest, I haven’t visited any photography exhibitions before London Nights, and it was also my first time to try to “read” photos so closely and carefully, so this visit was really a new and exciting experience for me. All the exhibited photos featured a typical nocturnal scene in London from different historical periods. The trivial objects and unexpected shooting camera angles deeply impressed me.

The lights go up in London, 1945

Felix H. Man (1893-1985)

The photo featured the Houses of Parliament, especially its Clock Tower— Big Ben, shining brightly against the dark sky and the calm River Thames. The glaring light beams and the sharp contrast between brightness and darkness caught my eye at first sight.

The photo was under the collection of the Blitz period. However, it was quite different from other pictures of the same collection since most photos of this period was enveloped by darkness and fear while The lights go up in London focused on light and brightness. In terms of composition, the photograph was presented symmetrically, with the shining Big Ben and its reflection lying on the vertical centerline and the bank lying slightly below the horizontal centerline. Such a symmetrical composition is pleasing and comfortable to viewers’ eyes. In terms of the use of focus, as I have mentioned, Felix focused on the lights of the upper half of the photo. The contrast between light and shadow probably indicated the hope and joy of people who were eventually relived from the threat of night-time bombing.

In 1945, the World War Ⅱ ended eventually, and in celebration of this, the Houses of Parliament and other buildings along the River Thames shone brightly. The lights symbolized hope and a new start for the city. The bridge linking the dark side to the bright side of those shining buildings across the River also indicated that the British, and the whole world were moving out from the threat, oppression and depression brought by the War and were heading for a bright new life.

Song and Dance, 1983 from the series London by Night

Tish Murtha (1956-2013)

London by Night was a series that depicted several sex workers in London at night. Those lonely figures of the women participating in sex trade added a sense of tragedy to the photos. The one I chose was accompanied by the following lines — I walk out with Linda one night when Soho was quiet. She shouted out “You want to make love darling.” and exposed her breast on the street as usual but didn’t get much attention. When I saw these words and the photo below, I felt extremely sorry for these marginalized people and was deeply touched.

Song and Dance was a black-and-white photo with only the sex worker and fluorescent board highlighted. There was a strong light coming from lower right and shining through the frontier to the background, which enabled the viewers to see the woman’s bare back. However, except the light on her back, the sex worker was totally surrounded by darkness, which presented a sense of loneliness and impotence. The shining board was ironic since the “entertainment” there was more than song and dance. What’s more, the use of explaining words made it possible for viewers to imagine the whole process and movements of the woman.

In combination with the lines quoted in the first paragraph, it can be inferred that the women was trying to appeal to her potential guests. In the latter half of 20th century, the rights of women in the UK was increasing. However, there were still many women who had to make a living on sex trade and Tish documented these marginalized people. The series probably aimed to appeal to the public for more attention on women’s rights.

From the series On the Night Bus, 2016

Nick Turpin (b. 1969)

Series On the Night Bus was one of the very few colorized photographs on the exhibition. Each photo in this series was fogged by the condensation on the bus window and featured one single commuter who took the night bus home. The painterly colors and vague figures in these photos deeply attracted me the moment I saw them. Such scenes also reminded me of my high school life when I napped or reviewed lessons on the bus during my way home after a whole day's study. After I returned from the exhibition, I searched online and found that this series has already been published as a photo book. The photos exhibited were only part of the series and among them, I chose the one that I liked most.

The photo depicted a young woman who were napping on her seat, with her head against the window. The light from fluorescents inside the bus shone brightly from the top and made the whole photo of brilliant hue. Such use of light, in my opinion, presented a sense of peace, warmth and nostalgia. Although the facial details were blurred by condensation and drops of rain, the shadows on her indirectly reflected her exhaustion, from a whole day’s work perhaps. The photographer’s choice of camera angle was also interesting. He chose to shot from outside the bus instead of inside it, which contributed to the fogged effect by the bus window. The painterly colors in the photo enabled it to stand out from other black-and-white photos at the exhibition and made it more like a painting rather than a photograph.

As the name of this series implies, the photo presented a scene on a night bus. The photographer took candid shots to show us the most real self of his objects. The woman in the picture might just returned from work and travelled back home for dinner or to prepare a meal for the family. She napped so comfortably as if there were no other passengers around her, which coincided with Turpin’s statement—an odd period of anonymous ‘no man’s land’. All the other photos in the series, too, present different images of various commuters, immersing in their own world at the night of London.

My Own Photo Response

Inspired by Turpin’s statement—‘no man’s land’ between work and home, I decided to find ‘no man’s land’ around me. Therefore, I spent a night wandering in the school library and took photos of students working hard on their assignments. Among the photos I have taken, I chose a totally candid one as my photo response since ‘no man’s land’ should be achieved without interruption and interference. When I took this photo, it was about 10 minutes before the close of the library. However, the girl seemed to be immersed in the world of the book she was reading, ignoring the continuing broadcasting. Therefore, when I took this photo, I thought that it would definitely be my version of ‘no man’s land’! I increased the exposure compensation to make the figure clearer and more colorful. With painterly colors like the ones used in Turpin’s series, the image would be more attractive and vivid. In short, I’d like to capture the attentiveness of students studying late at night in London and create my series of ‘no man’s land’ — Library by Night — perhaps.

#Photography in London #London Nights #museum of london

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jacksonyeomans · 4 years ago

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Portrait Assignment

For the first roll of this assignment I challenged myself to find ways to frame portraits that created a clear subject without getting close to them. I walked around Alphabet City with ISO 400 film a little after noon, mostly shooting at f/5.6 t/50 on my 50mm but occasionally opening up to f/2.8 and compensating by increasing my shutter speed to t/125 for a crisper final image. It was an overcast day so I didn’t need to meter and was able to simply lock my settings and focus on focus and composition.

For my second roll of this assignment I used ISO 100 film to photograph my friend and strangers on the street in a more traditional close up fashion with my 50mm. It was a warm day and about 5:00-7:00pm so there were a lot of people out and about enjoying the low 60s weather. Unfortunately a lot of my portraits of strangers were taken at t/25 to compensate for the slow film and as a result were mostly blown due to lack of stability. The shots that did come out well were mostly shot at t/60, stopped down to f/5.6 initially and opening up as the light faded. There was golden hour light so the light was soft but intense and high contrast which put me into a couple of particularly tough situations especially with my low ISO film.

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Wednesday, March 3, 2021

COVID-19 pandemic fuels attacks on health workers globally (AP) Two Nigerian nurses were attacked by the family of a deceased COVID-19 patient. One nurse had her hair ripped out and suffered a fracture. The second was beaten into a coma. Following the assaults, nurses at Federal Medical Centre in the Southwestern city of Owo stopped treating patients, demanding the hospital improve security. Almost two weeks passed before they returned to work with armed guards posted around the clock. The attack in Nigeria early last month was just one of many on health workers globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new report by the Geneva-based Insecurity Insight and the University of California, Berkeley’s Human Rights Center identified more than 1,100 threats or acts of violence against health care workers and facilities last year. Researchers found that about 400 of those attacks were related to COVID-19, many motivated by fear or frustration, underscoring the dangers surrounding health care workers at a time when they are needed most. “Our jobs in the emergency department and in hospitals have gotten exponentially more stressful and harder, and that’s at baseline even when people are super supportive,” said Rohini Haar, an emergency physician in Oakland, California, and Human Rights Center research fellow. “To do that work and to do it with commitment while being attacked or with the fear of being attacked is heartbreaking to me.”

Millions couldn’t afford diapers before the pandemic. Now, diaper banks can’t keep up. (Washington Post) Chelesa Presley is deeply familiar with the struggles of young families, first from her years as a social worker and now from running a nonprofit in one of Mississippi’s poorest regions. She’s used to the questions about car seats, nursing and colicky babies, but paying for diapers is always the chronic and most-pressing worry. “I see parents not putting anything on their babies because they don’t have diapers,” she said. “I’ve seen people use shopping bags with some rags in it. I’ve seen T-shirts. I’ve seen people keeping the diapers on longer than necessary, and the diapers sag down when the babies walk.” As founder and executive director of Diaper Bank of the Delta, Presley is part of a grass-roots support network at the forefront of a crisis: Requests have doubled, tripled and even quadrupled at some locations, social services workers say, with diaper shortages and families lining up for hours in some communities. Meanwhile, the cash and in-kind donations that keep diaper banks afloat have slumped, and their mostly volunteer workforce has shriveled since the pandemic. Diaper need is an often-overlooked measure of Americans’ economic reversals, said Joanne Samuel Goldblum, chief executive and founder of the National Diaper Bank Network. There are so many people “who do not have enough money to meet their basic needs, and what we’ve found is that diaper need is a window into poverty.”

Biden retreats from vow to make pariah of Saudis (AP) As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised to make a pariah out of Saudi Arabia over the 2018 killing of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. But when it came time to actually punish Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, America’s strategic interests prevailed. The Biden administration made clear Friday it would forgo sanctions or any other major penalty against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Khashoggi killing, even after a U.S. intelligence report concluded the prince ordered the hit. The decision highlights how the real-time decisions of diplomacy often collide with the righteousness of the moral high ground. And nowhere is this conundrum more stark than in the United States’ complicated relationship with Saudi Arabia—the world’s oil giant, a U.S. arms customer and a counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East. Ultimately, Biden administration officials said, U.S. interests in maintaining relations with Saudi Arabia forbid making a pariah of a young prince who may go on to rule the kingdom for decades. That stands in stark contrast to Biden’s campaign promise to make the kingdom “pay the price” for human rights abuses and “make them in fact the pariah that they are.”

Heavy rains lead to rescues, road closures in Appalachia (AP) Kentucky firefighter Eddie Stacy was turning his firetruck around in the dark while responding to storm damage when he noticed a tiny light coming from the flooded Red River. A woman was sitting on a stalled car’s door window, waving her cellphone flashlight and yelling for help. “Nobody could hear from where she was,” Stacy said. “That little flashlight when I was driving down the road just caught my attention. It was God, I tell you. It was God to have me in that place where I was supposed to be.” Heavy thunderstorms pounded parts of Appalachia on Sunday and Monday, sending rivers out of their banks and leading to multiple water rescues, mudslides, road closures and power outages, officials said. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency Monday because of heavy rainfall across the state.

In Mexico, those accidents waiting to happen (Worldcrunch) For drivers in Mexico, the rule of thumb for traffic accidents is simple: el que pega, paga! In other words, the perpetrator of a crash—i.e. the incoming vehicle—pays. In a country where many are uninsured, that kind of unspoken understanding makes sense. But the pega-paga approach has also created an opportunity for scammers to pocket some ill-gained pesos through a practice known as montachoques or chocachoca, the operative word being choque, Spanish for “crash.” An extortion technique being used increasingly in Mexico City, it involves provoking an accident by halting a car on a busy highway, then demanding compensation from the person who crashed in from behind. When victims are reluctant to pay, they are threatened and sometimes even attacked, a senior police official in the eastern sector of the city recently told the Milenio newspaper. The official, Luis Martínez Rodríguez, described a typical maneuver as overtaking a car, then suddenly slamming the breaks to provoke a crash. The “injured party” then steps out, sometimes with companions, and demands compensation, with sums ranging from the equivalent of around $70 euros to $1,500. Two or even three cars may be involved to ensure the victim is trapped into the situation.

Amid scramble for COVID-19 vaccine, Latin America turns to Russia (Reuters) As Bolivia struggled late last year to secure deals with large drug firms to supply COVID-19 vaccines, the incoming president, Luis Arce, turned to Russia for help. By the end of December, Bolivia clinched its first major COVID-19 vaccine deal, with enough shots for some 20% of the population. The first Sputnik V doses arrived in the country in late January, just as virus cases were spiking. “It was a really marathon task,” said Bolivian trade minister Benjamin Blanco of the procurement quest, but Russia’s political will made it possible. Western vaccine makers “told us developing countries that we had to wait until June.” He didn’t name names. Bolivia’s reliance on Moscow underscores how governments across the region have turned to Russia’s Sputnik V drug amid fears of being left behind in the global scramble for vaccines. As many wealthier developed nations have signed big deals with large drugmakers like Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca PLC, countries in Latin America have faced difficulties securing adequate vaccine supplies.

Pandemic Pushes Brazilian Hospitals to Breaking Point (Reuters) Coronavirus deaths are now at an all-time high in Brazil, averaging 1,208 per day over the past week. New cases have also peaked, averaging roughly 54,000 per day over the last seven days. The increases are pushing medical resources to the limit. Intensive care units in 17 of Brazil’s 26 states are close to capacity, while six more are completely full, O Globo reports. Vaccine distribution, long-touted as the country’s strength, has been slow—only 3.2 percent of the country has been given a vaccine dose, according to Bloomberg.

Banks in Germany Tell Customers to Take Deposits Elsewhere (WSJ) Interest rates have been negative in Europe for years. But it took the flood of savings unleashed in the pandemic for banks finally to charge depositors in earnest. Germany’s biggest lenders, Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG, have told new customers since last year to pay a 0.5% annual rate to keep large sums of money with them. The banks say they can no longer absorb the negative interest rates the European Central Bank charges them. The more customer deposits banks have, the more they have to park with the central bank. That is creating an unusual incentive, where banks that usually want deposits as an inexpensive form of financing, are essentially telling customers to go away. Banks are even providing new online tools to help customers take their deposits elsewhere. According to price-comparison portal Verivox, 237 banks in Germany currently charge negative interest rates to private customers, up from 57 before the pandemic hit in March of last year. Charges range between 0.4% and 0.6% for deposits beginning anywhere from €25,000 to €100,000.

Gorbachev, last Soviet leader, to mark 90th birthday on Zoom (Reuters) Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was expected to throw a Zoom party on Tuesday to celebrate his 90th birthday as President Vladimir Putin lauded him as an outstanding statesman who influenced the course of world history. Gorbachev, who championed arms control and democracy-oriented reforms as Soviet leader in the 1980s, is widely credited with helping end the Cold War. His critics in Russia blame him however, for what they regard as the unnecessary and painful breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Afghan reconstruction (AP) A study from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reviewed the $7.8 billion spent on buildings and vehicles in the nation since 2008 and found that only $1.2 billion was used as intended, and a paltry $343.2 million worth of the buildings and vehicles remain maintained in good condition. The billions wasted include both infrastructure lost to attacks and corruption, and just kind of throwing money around without really thinking about it. Often the agencies responsible for building things did not ask if they were wanted or needed, or if they had the ability to maintain them.

Myanmar’s Military Deploys Digital Arsenal of Repression in Crackdown (NYT) During a half century of military rule, Myanmar’s totalitarian tools were crude but effective. Men in sarongs shadowed democracy activists, neighbors informed on each other and thugs brandished lead pipes. The generals, who staged a coup a month ago, are now back in charge with a far more sophisticated arsenal at their disposal: Israeli-made surveillance drones, European iPhone cracking devices and American software that can hack into computers and vacuum up their contents. In Myanmar, they are the digital weapons for an intensifying campaign in which security forces have killed at least 25 people and detained more than 1,100, including the ousted civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. On Monday, she was hit with new criminal charges—making a statement that could alarm the public and inducing someone to act against the state—that could put her in prison for years. Hundreds of pages of Myanmar government budgets for the last two fiscal years viewed by The New York Times show a voracious appetite for the latest in military-grade surveillance technology. The documents, provided by Justice For Myanmar, catalog tens of millions of dollars earmarked for technology that can mine phones and computers, as well as track people’s live locations and listen in to their conversations.

China Charges Ahead With a National Digital Currency (NYT) Annabelle Huang recently won a government lottery to try China’s latest economics experiment: a national digital currency. After joining the lottery through the social media app WeChat, Ms. Huang, 28, a business strategist in Shenzhen, received a digital envelope with 200 electronic Chinese yuan, or eCNY, worth around $30. To spend it, she went to a convenience store near her office and picked out some nuts and yogurt. Then she pulled up a QR code for the digital currency from inside her bank app, which the store scanned for payment. China has charged ahead with a bold effort to remake the way that government-backed money works, rolling out its own digital currency with different qualities than cash or digital deposits. The country’s central bank, which began testing eCNY last year in four cities, recently expanded those trials to bigger cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, according to government presentations. The effort is one of several by central banks around the world to try new forms of digital money that can move faster and give even the most disadvantaged people access to online financial tools.

‘Turning the knife blade inwards’ (The Economist) For many members of China’s 3 million-strong domestic-security forces, these must be deeply worrisome times. On February 27th the Communist Party announced the start of a long-expected purge of their ranks. It will involve, say officials, “turning the knife-blade inwards” to gouge out those deemed corrupt or insufficiently loyal to the party and its leader, Xi Jinping. More than eight years into Mr Xi’s iron rule, the party appears to wonder whether a vital bulwark of its power is entirely trustworthy. State-controlled media have described it as the biggest such campaign since the late 1990s within the domestic security system, which includes the police, the secret police, the judiciary and prisons. It is due to last for about a year. The aim is to ensure that these agencies are “absolutely loyal, absolutely pure and absolutely reliable.”

Nearly four in 10 university students addicted to smartphones, study finds (The Guardian) Almost four in 10 university students are addicted to their smartphones, and their habit plays havoc with their sleep, research has found. A study of 1,043 students aged 18-30 at King’s College London found that 406 (38.9%) displayed symptoms of smartphone addiction, as defined by a clinical tool devised to diagnose the problem. More than two-thirds (68.7%) of the addicts had trouble sleeping, compared with 57.1% of those who were not addicted to their device. Students who used their phone after midnight or for four or more hours a day were most likely to be at high risk of displaying addictive use of their device. Participants were judged to be addicts if they could not control how long they spent on their phone, felt distressed when they could not access their phone, or neglected other, more meaningful parts of their life because they were busy on their device.

#headlines #news

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atomicdinosaurdonut · 4 years ago

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In-wheel Motors Market Driven by Growing Demand for Energy Efficiency in Automobiles 2021 | Key Findings, COVID – 19 Impact Analysis, Business Trends, Industry Segments, Regional Study, Emerging Technologies and Future Prospects 2023

The global in-wheel motors market is expected to exhibit a notable CAGR of 20% over the forecast period from 2018 to 2023, according to the latest research report from Market Research Future (MRFR). The global in-wheel motors market is mainly driven by the growing demand for electric vehicles, which can easily incorporate in-wheel motors, as well as hybrid cars. The global in-wheel motors market is extensively analyzed in the report, which presents a comprehensive overview of the market’s major drivers and restraints, leading players, and major segments.

In-wheel motors are a revolutionary concept in the automotive industry and comprise the installation of electric motors inside the wheel assembly, providing propulsion at the point of contact with the road rather than through a separate engine. In-wheel motor technology has several benefits, including the ability to provide significantly increased control and stability, due to the ability of the four in-wheel motors of a vehicle to run at different speeds. This also allows for easier and smoother turning maneuvers, reducing the risk of accidents due to loss of control during turns. The crucial upgrade provided by in-wheel motors in the ability of the driver to control the car in times of urgency is the major driver for the global in-wheel motor market.

On the other hand, in-wheel motors present several notable disadvantages. Firstly, the use of separate drive systems for separate wheels means that maintaining control over all four wheels simultaneously is imperative. If one of the four in-wheel motors malfunctions, this can result in uncontrollable vehicles, resulting in massive crashes. This is in stark contrast to conventional vehicles, where the loss of power or malfunctioning in one wheel can easily be compensated, in most cases, by the other three wheels. Another significant restraint on the global in-wheel motors market is the inability to develop robust in-wheel motors that can stand up to the abuse suffered by wheels on a regular basis. The increasing use of software systems to allow independent rotation of all four wheels is also a major restraint on the global in-wheel motor market, as this makes in-wheel motors redundant.

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Competitive Analysis:

Leading players in the global in-wheel motors market include ECOmove GmbH, Protean Electric, NTN Corporation, Elaphe Ltd., Ziehl-Abegg, Printed Motors Works, e-Traction B.V., Tesla, Nissan Motors Corporation, and Schaeffler AG.

In June 2019, China’s Evergrande Group announced that NEVS, an electric car firm resurrected from the remains of SAAB and owned by the Chinese group, has acquired Protean Electric, a leading specialist in the in-wheel motors market.

In May 2019, Elaphe announced the launch of its new high-torque in-wheel motor, the L1500. The 1500 in the product’s name refers to the amount of Newton-meters of torque it can generate.

The development of in-wheel motors that can be easily retrofitted onto conventional cars is likely to be a major trend in the global in-wheel motors market over the forecast period, as this is likely to be a more profitable avenue for major players in the market than focusing on the development of new vehicles designed with the use of in-wheel motors in mind.

Segmentation:

The global in-wheel motors market is segmented on the basis of motor type, power output, vehicle type, cooling type, and region.

On the basis of motor type, the global in-wheel motors market is segmented into inner rotor type and outer rotor type.

On the basis of power output, the market has been segmented into up to 50 KW, 50-90 KW, and more than 90 KW.

On the basis of vehicle type, the global in-wheel motors market has been segmented into passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, and heavy commercial vehicles.

On the basis of cooling type, the market is segmented into air cooling and liquid cooling.

Regional Analysis:

Europe is likely to hold the largest share in the global in-wheel motors market over the forecast period due to the strong presence of leading automotive tech innovators in the region. The growing government support in Europe for technologies that make vehicles more environmentally viable is also likely to be a major driver for the in-wheel motors market in the region, as the use of in-wheel motors significantly reduces the overall fuel consumption of vehicles.

Asia Pacific is also likely to exhibit steady growth in the global in-wheel motors market over the forecast period, as the automotive industry in the region is rapidly emerging as a global leader and technological innovator. The growing production of electric vehicles in the region is also likely to promote the technological environment necessary for the development of in-wheel motors.

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Key Questions Addressed by the Report

What was the historic market size?

Which segmentation (Product/ Capacity) is driving market?

What will be the growth rate?

How are the key players in this market?

What are the strategies adopted by key players?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2 SCOPE OF THE REPORT

2.1 MARKET DEFINITION

2.2 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

2.2.1 DEFINITION

2.2.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

2.2.3 ASSUMPTIONS

2.2.4 LIMITATIONS

2.3 RESEARCH PROCESS

2.3.1 PRIMARY RESEARCH

2.3.2 SECONDARY RESEARCH

2.4 MARKET SIZE ESTIMATION

2.5 FORECAST MODEL

3 MARKET LANDSCAPE

3.1.1 THREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS

3.1.2 BARGAINING POWER OF BUYERS

3.1.3 THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES

3.1.4 SEGMENT RIVALRY

3.1.5 BARGAINING POWER OF BUYERS

3.2 VALUE CHAIN/SUPPLY CHAIN ANALYSIS

4 MARKET DYNAMICS

4.1 INTRODUCTION

4.2 MARKET DRIVERS

4.3 MARKET RESTRAINTS

4.4 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

4.5 MARKET TRENDS

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Edibles.

MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.

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possiblyhereticalultramarine · 7 years ago

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Dark Side of Ultramar

Ultramar is a shining beacon of hope and prosperity on the Eastern Fringe of a dark, uncaring Galaxy. Free of the corruption and decay that chokes the rest of Imperial society, it is an example of a glorious human civilization that persisted even after the horror of the great Heresy. However, as the resplendent star empire faces a period of turmoil as it recovers from repeated invasions by the forces of chaos, Ensign Cassia of the Vigil Opertii faces the darkness that lies at the dregs of every human society.

+++M42.75+++ +++Sub-sector Ultramar+++ +++Veridian System+++ +++Ischara, Kastril City, Industrial Disctrict A-7+++

"Ultramar is civilized"

She believed it. Cassia believed every word of her superior officer.

From space Ischara was a dull grey sphere ringed by a belt of glittering lights from the vast megacities that were built around the planet's equatorial belt. Vast starports were visible as bright spots among the lights, disgorging a massive but orderly procession of cargo lifters, passenger transports, mass conveyers and the occasional military shuttle like a horde of fireflies into the gaping maws of the immense orbital stations above the planets. Frequent but short-lived flares often lit up the skies of Ischara, void vessels lighting up their sub-light engines to accelerate away from the planet's gravitational pull.

This was not a beautiful world, but then it was not designed to be one. Instead its appeal lay in its utilitarianism; a concept that was borderline worshipped across Guilliman's realm. Its cities were organized into a flat, grid formation that was common among the worlds of Ultramar. Tall, angular blocks of glass, metal and stone rose up well above the clouds and gleamed in the vibrant, yellow mid-day light of the planet's sun, its upper flanks flocked by air cars belonging to the upper-class of planetary society. By contrast the bases of the structure were ringed by transport tubes carrying massive mag-lev trains that carried much of the citizenry from their Hab complexes to their places of work and visit.

Cassia was not ascending to the gleaming skyscrapers to marvel at the view of Ischara’s sunset. Nor was she traversing the city terrain to gape at its impressive infrastructure. Right now, she was in the bowels of the factory district on the outskirts of the mega-sprawl, ready to fulfill her duty to Ultramar and Guilliman.

She looked at the man who had said those words and nodded. She would have smiled but this wasn’t the place. “Is that an Ischaran custom, sir?” she asked.

“It is an affirmation of our purpose; to make that statement a reality” said Sergeant Crassus, motioning her into a wide storage space with a high ceiling along with the rest of the team. “Although you are an off-world recruit, you should learn our traditions quickly”. Looking back with an equally stony expression, he signalled for them to take their designated positions.

“Yes sir” she replied as she came up to his flank and pulled her military-grade laspistol out of its holster and hid it behind the folds of the hooded cowl she had worn over her regular blue and beige carapace armor for the mission.

“Begin operation. Mark 0:12:35” stated the sergeant in a cold, dispassionate voice as disgruntled workers began to spill into the cavernous warehouse, the expressions on their faces ranging from irritation to outright hostility.

As they approached the ten undercover officers of the Vigil Opertii, a tall, burly figure came forth from the mob. A shaven headed man who barely fit into his orange factory overall on account of his muscle mass and height came up to meet Crassus, a look of confusion on his face.

“Are you the plant manager’s representative?” he asked, the words causing a curiously hopeful murmur to arise from the crow behind him.

“We are here to resolve the…inefficiency” Crassus said, pulling down his hood and smiling at the worker. She knew that smile. It was just one of the false facial expressions all of the Opertii were trained to show in order to put a subject at ease. Though the sergeant’s patrician features, consisting of a finely cut jawline, close-cropped but vibrant blond hair and rich hazel eyes, did make the process much easier in her opinion.

“Then you’re here to stop them from working us to death” the man snarled, his face wrenching into a sneer. Cassia stiffened and tightened her grip on the laspistol as she heard the crowd start to grumble.

“The effect of the recent extensions in work hours has been accounted for by managerial staff and approved by the district council” Crassus replied, his voice agreeable but slowly gaining a sense of authority. “An appropriate increase in your monthly credit payments has been made to compensate-”

“Credits are not the problem!” snapped the man “Ever since the announcement from the Lord Governor, the work quotas are being increased weekly without an end in sight. What the feth is the point of credits if we’re going to be worked to death in the first place? If much of it is going to be worthless in a few years anyway?!”

Cassia frowned. She had heard similar complaints before on Calth too, though not to this extent. The restructuring of Ultramar back into the 500 Worlds as dictated by their reborn Primarch was stretching the resources of the star empire to their limit and decision to increase the supply of credits to account for this had led to moderate inflation across the entire sub-sector, wiping out the savings of much of the lower classes such as manufactorum workers and overall reducing the quality of life.

In addition, the rebuilding of many planets that had suffered the wages of war had sparked a minor sector-wide economic boom at first but as time dragged on, the increased need for more raw materials, machinery and commodities to speed up the reunification of Greater Ultramar had put a major strain on the general population as they witnessed their work hours increase while their payments slowly degraded in value.

The cause was, as she understood, the series of tumultuous events that had befallen Ultramar several decades before her birth. A series of sector-wide invasions by the Archenemy had pushed the star empire to the brink of defeat and ruin.

Then he returned. News of the miraculous resurrection of Roboute Guilliman had apparently spread like wildfire across his realm. Its amplifying effect on the fighting spirit of its defenders only eclipsed by the crushing military victories the Primarch achieved over the hordes of chaos, eventually driving them from Ultramar entirely.

Retired members of the Ultramar Auxilia spoke with unabashed awe of how the Ultramarines annihilated the Archenemy invading Macragge in just under a month after the return of their Primarch. Wizened old captains of the Defense Fleet told tales of the myriad descendants of the Ultramarines, along with Chapters they had never even heard of before, sailing across the void to the aid of Ultramar with massive fleets whose guns turned entire armadas of the Archenemy to desiccated husks. Ecclesiarchs preached of how the majestic light of the Saint Celestine ultimately caused the tendrils of Chaos reaching into their empire to wither and die, a permanent reminder that the Emperor protects.

Cassia was not born in such interesting times however. She was born a full half-century after the Lord of Macragge left for Terra. A time of grim rebuilding and fortification for the darkness that was sure to return. A time where the citizens of Ultramar needed to look inward for threats. A time where the Vigil Operatii were most needed.

Some said that the Opertii were no better than the paranoid wolves of the Inquisition. That the very idea of a secret police was antithetical to the idea of peace and civilization that Ultramar championed. Nothing could have been further from the truth in her mind. Where humanity existed, discord, dissatisfaction and inefficiency always sprung up like malignant tumors in a healthy body.

However, the Inquisition would simply use whatever means they could to crush dissent, heedless of the damage it caused to the fabric of society or to overall efficiency. By contrast, the Vigil Opertii existed to smooth out the problems that arose in civil society, removing malcontents and returning misguided citizens to their proper role in the grand scheme of Ultramar. All done while maintaining the satisfaction and productivity of the populace. It were these thoughts that prompted Cassia to step forward and address this agitator.

“We all have a duty to the vision of Lord Guilliman” she said confidently striding up to the crowd and lowering her cowl. Cassia wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, though her short, raven black hair and slightly demure face with low cheekbones often attracted a certain amount of looks from men back at the academy. She put on a fake smile but was irritated by the mans lack of perspective. “You may be suffering now, but think of how many have suffered to save you from a fate beyond imagining. Think about your commitment to Greater Ultramar and how-”

“Don’t lecture me about duty you pompous bitch!” roared the man, stabbing an accusatory finger at her while motioning to the crowd. “Not a single man in this crowd ever neglected his duty. All of us gave decades of our lives to this single fething manufactorum! Some of are even ex-Auxilia. We served Ultramar and will continue to serve it till our dying breath. All we ever asked is that we are allowed to support our loved ones!”. The crowd was beginning to get agitated now, many shouting in support of the man.

Cassia blinked and took a step back, fingers tightening around her weapon and her mouth slightly agape. No one had ever talked to her that way. She had trained for hostile encounters at the academy but to have this happen before her eyes…was different. “You…you insolent-” she began, her face losing all measure of control and becoming a mask of wounded pride.

“So you refuse to return to the production lines then?” interjected Crassus with a clinical tone. She turned to face him, expecting to see a disapproving look on his face. By contrast he gave her a satisfied nod, as if to congratulate her.

“No, we shall not” the worker said defiantly, and a chorus of angry affirmations rose from the crowd. “We will not slave away for an uncaring governor who has forgotten the principles on which Ultramar was founded. What is the point of sacrificing ourselves if our loved ones will continue to suffer? What is the point of struggling if we will never see a better future for our children?! What-”

The ringleader never had a chance to finish his screen before the entirety of his head was turned into a fleshy, molten slag that underwent a temporary heat expansion before bursting apart and showering the crowd behind him in a spray of blood and brain matter.

Cassia’s eyes widened and a look of panic crossed her face as she saw the recently fired laspistol held by her sergeant. She opened her mouth to speak when a flurry of las shots sounded echoed through the cavernous room. Dozens of workers collapsed into steaming heaps and the rest scattered, panicked as the Vigil Operatii began to systematically gun them down.

She felt numb, her senses momentarily deserting her as she lurched backwards barely maintaining her balance. She weakly pulled out her own pistol but kept it lowered, unsure of what to do. Her brain refused to accept what her eyes told her. Refused to accept that the Operatii were carrying out a wholesale slaughter of unarmed civilians. “W-what…” she began, her tone wavering as she simply stared at the ensuing horror.

One of the civilians, an older man that was surprisingly quick for his age and probably former Ultramar Auxilia, quickly identified her as the weak link in the group and rushed at her.

“Stop!” Cassia yelled, her voice lacking any sense of authority however as she half-heartedly tried to raise her weapon at him.

The man hit her at full sprint, knocking her to the floor and sending her laspistol scattering away as he took off into a service corridor. She hurriedly crawled over to her weapon, drawing up to full height and regaining a measure of her composure. The rest of the Opertii including her sergeant were busy finishing off the remaining workers and had apparently not noticed the man who had ran at her.

Perhaps they thought that she had killed him.

Perhaps I should let them believe that

For a moment she considered it. Considered just letting the man go. Then her sense of duty got the better of her. Her duty to Guilliman and Greater Ultramar. The duty that had been bred into every citizen of the Star Empire and reinforced constantly since then. No matter what her orders were, she still had to follow them, damn whatever moral conflict it provoked in her. Clenching her jaw and steeling her resolve, she began to run after the man.

“The duty of the state is to best serve the citizenry. The duty of the citizenry is to best serve society. The duty of the enforcer is to protect the citizenry and serve the state” she repeated to herself, remembering the words of Guilliman that were drilled into the minds of every cadet of Ultramar’s military academies. As she repeated the mantra she felt her resolve hardening.

“Stop! Or I will open fire!” she shouted as she finally came to a halt to see the man making a final, exhausted sprint towards an automatic access door. She froze. She had studied the schematics of the lower levels before the operation. That access-way led to the central corridor of the communal halls where hundreds of workers would currently be congregating through during their sanctioned rest period. If they saw him…

“Please stop!” she was pleading now, her tone wavering and her fingers shaking even as she pointed the nose of laspistol at the fleeing figure. She couldn’t do it. This was against everything she believed about her home, her empire, her Ultramar. Were they really no better than the paranoid wolves of Inquisition after all?

“Take the shot! In Guilliman’s name take the shot!” her sergeant yelled at her as he sped towards her from the opposite walkway. The invocation of the Primarch’s name did it. It banished her doubts, if only for a moment, replacing them with the strength she needed to fulfill her duty.

The man went down, a smoking crater in the back of his head. A few more meters and the doors would have automatically opened, revealing to at least a hundred citizens of Ultramar the sight of a Vigil Opertii officer training her gun at a panicked worker.

She sank to her knees as her strength deserted her, dropping her weapon as scent of burning flesh made its way over to her. Her mouth was dry and her eyes wide open in a state of utter shock as implications of what she had felt like an icy grip slowly tightening around her chest. She was vaguely aware of wet drops sliding off her cheeks. Not tears of sadness she thought. That was her body reacting to the mental trauma of having everything she had believed in her entire life shattered in the space of an hour.

“You did your duty” said a reassuring voice behind her and a warm hand gently brushed the side of her face, wiping away the tears. She leaned into it, all her inhibitions dissolved as her mind desperately sought a source of comfort and stability. Looking up, she saw sergeant Crassus looking down with a genuinely warm smile on his face. He had taken off the glove of his right hand to touch her directly.

“Why” was all she managed to manage in a weak voice.

“I should thank you, Ensign. You helped expose their unwillingness to co-operate sooner.” His voice was kind and soft; he had never heard him to talk to anyone this way. Perhaps he was doing on purpose it to calm her down but she didn’t care, not now. He looked at her fallen laspistol.

“We needed to make it look like they were killed by another work gang. They were killed by agitators and extremists who wished to prevent them from reaching a compromise with their overseers. Once this news spreads among the industrial districts, public support of these malcontents will plummet and the civil authorities will be able to make arrests of well-known dissidents” he explained.

“Oh…” Cassia mumbled pathetically. It made sense now. It was logical. With the deaths of a few dozen, peace would be restored. Order would be preserved without the use of extreme actions and the prosperity of Ischara would be unspoiled. They had eliminated the root of the problem without disturbing the fabric of society. They were nothing like the Inquisition or those corrupt tyrants of the Imperium. No, they were better. They were civilized.

“I realize the first time can be difficult, Cassia” he said, brushing strands of loose hair from her cheek with delicate care. “Soon though, you will become a fine officer of the Opertii. You did well today.”

His words steeled her resolve. They added stability and comfort to the whirlwind of thoughts racing around her head. The same stability she had just lost and needed again. She removed her own gloves and clasped his bare hand with hers, turning to look into his eyes as she felt her lips forming into a smile. Fresh tears began to spill down her face as a wash of relief overcame her.

“Ultramar is civilized” she said.

She believed it once more.

@pholcidae @askrobouteguilliman40k @fuukonomiko @beans345

#warhammer #ultramarines

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petalouda85 · 7 years ago

Text

Koi No Yokan, Chapter 9

There’s a lot of things in here: a new character, new information about Neerav and Ge, info about the Genian Jedi Order, and some cute moments between Paro and Ben. You ship them yet? :) Deepavali will be next chapter!!!

You can also read this on AO3

When he was born, he was cursed. Doomed to die at 18 unless he joined the Dark Side. Snoke is confident but there remains one threat, it coming in the form of a prediction made by one of the Jedi Masters: Ben would meet his true love on his tenth birthday and this elusive individual would be the only one that could awaken Ben from his eternal sleep

With Deepavali tomorrow, Neerav was overwhelmed with last minute preparations that the Queen had no time to attend to and ensuring that everything else was ready to go. Everything appeared to be in order – Paro would attend a puja at the Temple, then a performance at the Akshara Theater, and later watch the lighting the lights from the royal barge on the bay. It all looked simple and straightforward but the Vizier had run into a problem: there wasn’t enough security. Yes, Paro’s personal guards would be there as well as the military but it was not enough. Adding to the problem was that majority of the soldiers would be distracted by the festivities and many were demanding higher pay in compensation for working during the festival. Not necessarily an unfair demand but it significantly increased the overall cost of the festival.

“You look ready to tear your own head off.” Gulna, the Minister of Defense, noted as she walked in.

“A fair assessment.” Neerav responded, returning his sight back to his tablet to look over the numbers once more. “Is it at all possible for you to get assign more soldiers for the festival?”

“Not likely.” Gulna answered as she grabbed a golden goblet and poured herself some wine. “The resources I have at my disposal are already stretched thin and the soldiers that are already working aren’t happy to begin with. The only way I could convince more to help would be if they were paid more.”

“That would only add to costs.” Neerav threw down his tablet and went to the window, both to calm his anger and gather his thoughts.

“Hire mercenaries.” Gulna offered.

“I don’t want that scum anywhere near the Queen. You can’t trust someone whose loyalty only lies with money.”

“You don’t need to trust them. You only need to pay them. And it’s only for one night. After that, you can kick them back onto the streets and never look them in the eye ever again.”

“Are you, by chance, speaking of the Rus mercenaries?” Neerav asked as he returned to his seat.

“I am. As mercenaries are concerned, they’re a calm bunch. Other than complaints of their existence, I’ve had zero reports of incidents from them.”

“That makes them more decent than majority of the mercenaries I’ve encountered. Find the leaders and bring them here; I want to speak with them. Confiscate any weaponry or suspicious item you find.” Gulna nodded and, after finishing her drink, left the room to find the leaders. As he waited, the Vizier attempted to complete more of the preparations. However, he soon felt the recurring pain in his legs and his head. He reached for pain medication, which proved to be a challenging as the paralysis in his hand made it difficult to remove the lid of the container. He managed and thankfully, the pain in his legs subsided quickly. The paralysis in his hand, however, was stubborn and he had to continue his work as best he could with one hand. That he had to stop quickly too as he felt the paralysis on the left side of his body intensify. He knew he should go to the medbay but there was no time. The knock on the door told him Gulna was back.

“Come in.” The Vizier said.

Two men were brought in, one in his thirties and the other in his early twenties. Only the elder man gave the Vizier a nod of acknowledgement, the younger man immediately sitting down, either not noticing Neerav’s look of distaste or just not caring. Eventually, the elder man sat too but he at least waited until the Vizier gave an indicator that he was allowed to do so.

“You might be wondering why I called you here.” Neerav began, a servant entering to serve them refreshments for the length of the meeting. The Vizier was given a golden cup of wine first, then the elder mercenary but when the servant came to the younger one, the man took the decanter from the servant and began to drink from that.

Immediately, Neerav didn’t trust the younger mercenary. In addition to the abhorrent manners he had been displaying thus far, he was obviously a man who was up to no good. His tattoos were evident enough of that. On his hands alone, Neerav counted at least three, two in the palms and the third on top his left hand. Peeking underneath the edge of his dark blue jacket was the evidence of two tattoo sleeves. Furthermore, he had noted that the hands of the young mercenary were shaking slightly. Caused by drugs no doubt. He was certainly not the type of thing he’d want anywhere near Paro; he would need to place them far enough from her but close enough that they would be useful.

“It is odd for us to be called be a high-ranking man as yourself.” The elder mercenary said, his voice laced with a Rus accent.

“I have a job offer for you.” Neerav explained. “Tomorrow, there will be a festival and I find myself lacking proper security for the Queen.”

“What is payment?” The younger mercenary asked after taking a large chug of wine.

“5000 credits.”

“Per man or for the entire job?”

“Per man.” At the answer, the two mercenaries leaned closer and began whispering in their language.

“We accept but we will require our weaponry back.” The elder mercenary declared.

“They will have to be confiscated again once the job is completed” Neerav reminded the man, who nodded.” Then we have a deal. Report to Gulna early tomorrow morning. What are your names? I will tell the guards at the gate to expect you tomorrow.”

“Aleksy Czajkowski.” The elder mercenary answered and the younger one said,

“Nikolai Petrenko.”

-----

For the first time in what was probably an eternity, Ben had slept well. It was a surprising but welcome relief. It was slightly odd too as this sudden fitful sleep had come out of the blue and he had changed nothing in his usual sleeping routine. No medicine or sleep inducing activities. The only thing that had changed were his dreams. For once, they had been pleasant.

He had had two dreams the previous night. In the first dream, he was lying in the grass with his friend next to him, Paro dressed in white with a black shawl wrapped around her. It was nighttime with the sky clear and thousands of stars sparkling above them. Then a meteor shower happened and they just lay there, enjoying the sight, their hands almost touching.

The second dream was also at night but this time, they were in a boat, drifting in the bay near the palace. Countless little clay diyas floated on the water while fireworks were launched into the sky, filling the night with light. At one point, Ben looked away from the fireworks to look at his friend, whose smile was brighter than all the lights visible. She handed him a lit diya and together, they put them in the water, watching them float away to join the other lights.

He wished they had never ended; they were so beautiful, so peaceful. They were such a contrast to the nightmares he was used to. He would gladly sleep forever if it meant he see those dreams.

Eventually, he dragged himself out of bed, not that he had anything to do that morning. Paro was busy and wouldn’t be free to do anything until later in the day, which she apparently had already planned as she had told him to meet her on the rooftop in the evening. He supposed to he could spend some time with Paro’s sisters, all of whom seemed to actually like him, but he found they were with Sarika, as they usually were. The woman only needed to glare at him to get him to turn around and leave; he already knew she hated him so he’d rather avoid provoking her more.

He sought out Neelam, who was more than happy to take Ben out into the city once more. They didn’t go in a palanquin and with an entourage of guards, they went into the city, quickly stumbling into the market. Without the thick covers of the palanquin, Ben immediately noticed the people staring at him, some of them in curiosity, others in fear, others in revulsion. He wasn’t surprised though; no doubt many of them had never seen a non-Genian and there was still rampant mistrust of the outsiders thanks to what had transpired between the planet, the Empire and eventually, the Republic; Neelam had explained it all.

Under Imperial rule, Ge was a planet on which wealthy imperialists lived and used to get away from the dredges of war. Compared to the bland food, the bland colors, fear of battle and the almost constant struggle to keep planets at bay, Ge was heavenly, with its vast green forests and rich resources. The Imperials took it all; the spices, the teas, the wines, the silks, the jewelry and rarely did the Genians ever see compensation for their hard, slave-like manual labor. Tensions between the Genians and the Imperials were high but there were never any rebellion; farming tools make poor weapons against the armored Stormtroopers and their blasters and nothing could inspire the Genians to fight for their freedom.

Neelam explained that the Rebellion did spark more tension and occasional squabbles between stormtroopers and Genians occurred but full out rebellion did not happen until a child and her mother were publicly beaten without provocation by patrolling troopers.

Led by Ajit, the Genian rebels drove the Imperials from the planet. That was when the hatred towards the Republic began. During the Rebellion, Ajit had send several distress signals, almost begging for help fighting off the Imperialists but help never came. Not from the Rebellion nor the Republic. The Genians prospered over their oppressors eventually, but at a great cost of life.

Then the clypsoate was discovered. Once it became public knowledge how powerful the material was, the Republic and the Empire remnants flocked to the planet, wanting to get their greedy hands on the material, knowing that the one that controlled it could change the power balance in the galaxy, placing the Empire back in power or lifting the Republic to the dominant power. For a time, it seemed that the Genians would give over the metal to the Republic. No one knows why the alliance between the two broke. The Republic said that Ge refused to honor the agreements made; the Genians claimed the Republic were going to use the clypsoate to rule the galaxy like the Empire did and that they had attacked neutral ships when the responses were late. Whatever it was, the Republic never received any clypsoate, the planet had been closed off and festering hatred for the outsiders had dominated politics and life on Ge ever since.

When Paro became queen, there was hope that this hatred would suspend enough that travel would be easier as well as trade but those hopes had been unfilled; it is challenging to change the mindset of an entire planet.

Neelam and Ben looked from stall to stall, only buying a few pieces of candy for the festival tomorrow. They eventually stopped by a small jewelry stand, it overflowing with bangles and earrings and naths and tikkas and necklaces.

“There is so much.” Ben gawked. “Why is there always so much jewelry?”

“Many reasons, young prince.” Neelam enthused. “Wearing the precious metals of gold and silver invoke the blessings of Laxmi. Wear jewelry and luck will always be near. Besides, they are very beauti- oh!” They couldn’t finish their sentence as a girl, perhaps eight years old, rammed into Neelam. “Hello, little one.” The girl, who was obviously not Genian, began to say something in an unknown languages, probably apologizing. She looked scared.

“Yelena!” A voice called and a man in his twenties, dressed entirely in black with the exception of a dark blue jacket and tattoos on his hands, ran up and addressed Neelam. “Forgive us; she has tendency to run off.”

“No harm done, good sir!” Neelam assured, smiling warmly at the child, who had taken the man’s hand and was hiding behind him slightly while glancing at the pile of jewelry next to them. “She was just excited to see the beauty here and I was just a little too close.” The man smiled at Neelam in response and he said something to the child. She smiled back and then promptly returned to the jewelry, admiring all of it.

Ben continued to look to, thinking about giving another one to Paro, as she really liked the other one he gave. In his peripheral, he saw the girl grab a plain silver bracelet. She spoke excitedly to the man, likely asking if she could get it; judging by their clothing, such luxuries were rare treats.

“How much is this?” The man asked the merchant at the stall.

“200 credits.” He sneered. At the answer, the man’s face immediately deflated, reaching into his pocket to grab a small pile of credits; something told Ben that that was all the man had left.

“Would you accept 120?” The man asked.

“No. 200 or nothing.” The merchant reached forward and snatched the bracelet from the child’s hand. She gasped and looked on the verge of tears but remained silent.

The man obviously wanted to say something, even looked ready to attack the merchant. Instead, he knelt down and began to speak softly to Yelena.

“Here.” Neelam said as they handed 200 credits to the merchant, who reluctantly gave them the bracelet, muttering something in Genian. “That is not nice to say. You should be ashamed of yourself.” Neelam scolded before they turned towards Yelena and the man. They held out the bracelet to the girl. “Here you go.”

The man and the child stared at the bracelet, unsure of how to react to such a kindness. The girl moved first, taking the item from Neelam. She muttered in her language, possibly a thank you, while the man continued to look at the bracelet in awe, his disbelief so potent that Ben didn’t even need to look into his mind to feel it.

“Here.” The man said suddenly, hurriedly reaching into his pocket to retrieve his own credits. He tried to hand the pile to Neelam, who closed the man’s fist and pushed it back towards him.

“It is a gift, sir.” They said kindly.

“Nobody ever gives anything for free.” The man said. Most people would interpret his tone as accusatory, maybe even as a sign he was insulted at the thought of being a given something because he couldn’t afford it on his own but Ben didn’t interpret it as that. Again, it was disbelief; he wondered what the man had seen and done to make him adopt such a view.

“I do. And if you try to give me money again, I will slap you.” Neelam responded. That made the man smile a little. Once again, he tried to protest, but when Yelena put on the bracelet and he caught sight of her smile, Ben sensed a change within the man.

“Thank you.” The man said to Neelam. “I will never forget this.”

With an acknowledgement, Neelam said goodbye to the man and Yelena, the child waving at them once more before they disappeared from sight.

The two quickly became bored of the market as it got even busier. Thankfully, Neelam was extremely knowledgeable of the city and took him to sites that Ben hadn’t been able to see in his previous visit to the city. The last place they went to was the Temple of the Order of Santulan, or the Temple of Ge’s Jedi Order.

Ben immediately felt the Force in the Temple when he stepped in but everything was just as different as the rest of the planet had been. Other than the different architecture, Ben saw immediate differences in uniform. While the Padawans and Jedis at the Temple wore mostly browns and whites, the Genian Jedi wore robes of a reddish orange or a deep red, their equivalent of a Padawan in the former color and their Jedi Knights in the latter. And, instead of the infamous Padawan braid, the Genian Padawans would shave all their hair once their training had initiated, never to allow it to grow until they had finished it.

Ben also caught sight of their method of meditating. While his order would typically meditate by sitting down cross-legged, the Genians meditated through movement, the moves coordinated, smooth and in time with their breathing. As explained by a practitioner who had noticed him watching, this method could also be utilized in combat as defense. The practitioner, whose name was Kiran, joined Neelam and Ben, answering questions and showing more of the Temple.

The Order’s beliefs reminded Ben of stories of the Gray Jedi, mainly in the fact that the Genians practiced both from the Sith ideology and the Jedi ideology. The ultimate goal was to achieve a perfect balance between the Light and the Dark, to become a Bendu. Much like the Jedi, they learned combat with the lightsabers but that training was a mixture of offense and defense. IN addition, they learned many forms of martial arts to aid their path to balance. In their lore, there was a Bendu so powerful and balanced that they could engage in combat with a host of opponents, without weapons, with their eyes closed, and still emerge victorious; many of the practitioners wanted to achieve such balance in the Force that the Force could act as their eyes.

Kiran continued to speak but eventually, Ben couldn’t hear anymore. A voice sounded through his mind, a voice he didn’t recognize. However, he knew it wasn’t the dark voice he often heard in his nightmares. This voice was filled with wisdom and kindness.

“Trust the Force. It will guide you. The path is long and uncertain but all shall be as it should. The Force will prevail.” It continued by saying, “with every temptation, there will be a way of escape.” And then silence.

From there on, the time flew by at the Temple as Kiran showed him more of the many places within it and even allowed him to meditate and spar with the other Padawans. According to them, he had much to learn. He wasn’t used to their style of fighting, which he discerned to have come from Jar’kai, and when he attempted their method of meditation, he found himself picking up the movements quickly but having trouble connecting to the Force through it. He wasn’t too upset about any of it though as Kiran and the other Padawans were all supportive and made sure his experience was enjoyable.

They left the temple after Ben received a message from Paro, where she asked to meet her on the rooftop of the palace in an hour. That same hour went by slowly as Ben’s excitement made him check the time often.

Finally, with five minutes to the hour, Ben headed towards the meeting spot. Emerging from the broad staircase, he was greeted by an astonishing view, it taking his breath for a moment. He could see everything, the city, the forest, the mountains, everything. During his visit, he had been shown many wondrous sights but this put them all to shame. He headed to the spot where he could see the city best, spotting that everything was now much quieter compared to a few hours ago. He then went to the spot that held the best view of the forest, which seemed endless from this vantage point.

“Quite a view, isn’t it?” He turned around and saw his friend by the staircase, a wave of her handmaidens coming up and moving to a spot to the right, some carrying bowls, others a large round tray, and a few more carrying a carpet. He looked back over the far expanse of the forest.

“It’s breathtaking.” He said softly. But when he looked, he saw something. In the distance was a large plume of black smoke.

“And just as fast, you discover the one thing that ruins the appearance.” Paro said softly as she joined him, looking at the black smoke.

“What is that?”

“That is the smoke of a clypsoate mine.” Paro explained.

“So that is the source of the metal that everyone in galaxy wants.” There was no turning back now.

“Indeed.”

“This will probably sound stupid but why is that stuff so special?” It was a genuine question. He had heard of the material and he knew it was valuable but why it was so valuable, he had no idea. Neither the Chancellor nor his mother had told him and everyone else was in the same situation as him. He wanted to know before he made his decision.

“Turn on your lightsaber.” She said, moving towards one of her guards and saying something to him in Genian. As Ben pulled forth his saber and turned it on, the guard unsheathed his sword and handed it to his queen.

“The primary weapon of a royal’s guard.” She explained, showing the curved blade to her friend. “The blade is made entirely from clypsoate. Swing your lightsaber against it.”

“Won’t it break?” Ben protested. Paro took the sword by the handle and pointed the blade towards him. He swung but, instead of searing the metal in half, the lightsaber was blocked by the blade as if it were a lightsaber itself. “How?” Ben sputtered in disbelief as the weapons were put away.

“Clypsoate has the ability to absorb energy almost 200 times more effectively than durasteel.” She explained. “A star destroyer made entirely of it could easily withstand 20 simultaneous blasts from ventral cannons and continue its way without as much as a scratch. Powerful and yet, dangerous. In the wrong hands, this material could cause immense damage.” She sat down upon the carpet that her handmaidens had laid down. As Ben joined her, she continued to speak. “The Chancellor wants it. I know she does but she will never get it.”

“Why not?”

“Ben,” She began slowly, “the only person I trust with this material is myself; how can anyone expect me to trust strangers with it? If I’m the only one controlling it, I know where it goes, I know how it’s being used. But if I give it to the Senate or anyone else, they can use it to make weapons, ships with which to start more wars and perhaps, create a more formidable foe than the Empire. I know my own goals and desires and ruling the galaxy is not one of them.”

“So is that why the shield is there? To stop people from taking it?”

“Among other reasons.” Was the only thing Paro responded with, her expression more than enough to tell him she didn’t want to speak about the topic anymore. Perfectly timed, another topic presented itself as another handmaiden arrived with a few more golden bowls.

“What is all this?” Ben asked, examining each bowl that lay before him. They were all filled with food but he recognized none of it.

“Supper." Paro answered. “Neelam told me you haven’t had a chance yet to try a wide range of food yet so I decided to make some.”

“You made this?” Ben asked as Paro took a smaller, empty bowl and scooped some food into from one of the larger bowls.

“You sound surprised that I know how to cook.” She said with a smile, giving the bowl to her friend once a sufficient amount was there.

“It’s not exactly something you’d expect from a Queen.”

“True but I get a sense of normalcy when I cook; it’s something so many people do.” They exchanged smiles and Ben looked down at the food. It looked delicious, it smelled delicious too and his mouth began to water.

“What is this?”

“Aloo Gobi Masala. It’s potatoes and cauliflower.” Paro responded as Ben took a small piece of the food and put it in his mouth. It was delicious but its savory taste lasted for five seconds before the spice began to burn his mouth. He could feel his nose start to run once he swallowed and grabbed the cup that Paro was holding out for him. He took a long drink of the soothing liquid, his eyes wet. “You could have warned me that it was spicy!”

“Sorry.” Paro said sheepishly, filling up his cup once it was empty. “I eat it so often that I forget it’s spicy for others.”

After that, supper continued without much trouble, though Ben constantly needed to refill his drink. The food was delicious and he enjoyed it, even if the spice tortured his mouth. They talked, avoiding topics of politics, neither wanting to dampen the atmosphere of the dinner. Perhaps that was a good thing. Then Ben wouldn’t have to reveal the chip he had been carrying since he arrived on the planet.

The Chancellor’s chip had been hiding in the inside of his sleeve, it small enough that it could easily fit into a sewn in slot. But now that he knew what clypsoate was and what it could do, the small chip suddenly felt heavy.

He had made his decision: he would not give the chip to Paro. A material like that didn’t belong with the Republic and neither should it be controlled by them; it belonged here, on Ge, under the control of someone who could control their urges and had no desire for galactic dominance.

The decision seemed absolute and certain but come nighttime, that decision prevented sleep. He didn’t regret his decision and even if he did, the chip now lay snapped in half in the garbage chute. However, what kept him awake were the thoughts of the consequences of his decision. The galaxy would be safer but he had taken away the last thing that could broker a peace between Ge and the Republic. Now there would never be peace between those two powers and negotiations would continue and nothing would ever come of it. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

Eventually, his raging thoughts became too much and he rose from his bed. He wandered until he reached Paro’s private garden, knowing that he would be alone and that he would get an amazing few of the night sky. He sat down on a bench and looked up. The sky was clear and there were no ships in sight, inside or outside the shield. Even the force field was invisible, it making him think of the night sky back at the Temple.

“Can’t sleep either?” He looked at the source of the voice and saw Paro.

“I rarely have a night where I can sleep. You?”

“Same. It’s gotten better but being queen means that sleep will elude you. There is always so much on your shoulders.”

“Don’t remind me.” Ben said with a light chuckle. “Everyone is expecting me to take over ruling Alderaan one day and I have no idea how to do any of it.”

“Neither did I.” Paro reminded him. “But I turned out alright.” She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You would make a good ruler.” After a moment of silence, she said, “come on. I want to show you something.”

After wrapping the black shawl she had been carrying over her head and shoulders, she took his hand and led him away from the garden. For some reason, he anticipated they would be going to the roof, considering there would a good view too and just as peaceful but she led him out towards an open field behind the palace. From there, they went up a hill, stopping at the top, before them laying a field of flowers and the forests and the mountain in the distance.

“This is one of my favorite spots.” Paro sat as she sat down, Ben following her. “If I ever want to be out of the palace or if I’m feeling stressed, I usually come here. There’s something so tranquil about it.”

“There is.” Ben said softly, feeling a sense of calm washing over him as he looked out over the scene.

“Watch this.” Paro grabbed a small stone that lay near and she tossed it into the field of flowers. When it landed, thousands of fireflies flew up, their little lights illuminating the flowers and the surrounding areas. Ben let out a laugh of awe.

“Amazing.” It was magical and the smile on his friend’s face made him happier than he had been for a while. Looking at her, he noticed something, it taking away his smile. There, on Paro’s forehead by her hairline, was a scar. It was small and one would have to squint slightly to see it but it was prominent enough for Ben to figure out that the cut had been deep and had no doubt bleed a lot at the time. He couldn’t recall if he had ever seen it, though he thought he would’ve remembered if he had. He wondered how she got it, his mind instantly drifting to a single reason.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Paro said, looking down at the grass, her smile now gone, “I didn’t get this from my father or anyone in my family.” She reached up and touched the scar, almost cautiously.

“Then how did you get it?” For a long time, Paro said nothing, uncertain how to start.

“Did Neelam tell you about what started the rebellion against the Empire?” She said and continued once Ben had answered yes, “The child and the mother that were attacked... that was me and my mother.”

“That was you?” Paro nodded.

“My mother said that I bumped my head when the attack happened and it must have hit a sharp stone.” She fell silent, tears slowly falling from her eyes. “I always hid it. Not out of shame or because I think it is ugly. My mother… she couldn’t bear to look at it. That attack… it destroyed my mother and I didn’t want to remind her of what had happened to us. I don’t think it worked as I could always feel her fear but I convinced myself it could have been worse if I showed her my scar.” Then she finally led out a sob, pulling up her knees and sobbing into them.

Ben immediately shuffled closer and with only a brief moment of hesitation, he embraced her, allowing her to cry into his shoulder, feeling the grief within her about her mother. He had no idea what she had been like, what she looked like, he didn’t even know her name but it was obvious Paro had loved her deeply.

“What was your mother’s name?” Ben asked.

“Shailaya.” Paro answered, her voice a little hoarse from her tears. “But everyone called her Shai.”

“It’s a beautiful name. Tell me about her.”

Paro gladly told him about her, the many happy memories she recounted to him removing her grief. With each story she told, Ben grew a little more upset that he never had a chance to meet Shai. From the stories recounted, she sounded like a devoted mother, a loving wife, serious but still playful, much like Paro.

Eventually, they lay down in the grass, switching between looking at the sky and looking at each other while Paro continued to regale him with stories about her family, the stories now including stories of her father and siblings. They laughed a lot, especially at the stories of pranks Paro and her sisters had committed against their cousins; it was quite the contrast at where Paro had been only minutes ago.

After a time, the stories fell silent and they continued to gaze up at the sky, watching as meteorites created lines of light above them.

“Ben?”

“Hm?” Ben responded. Paro looked at him and for a moment, Ben thought he felt her hand brush against his, though he dismissed it as his imagination.

“Thank you.”

#kylux #huxlo #ben solo #oc #sleeping beauty au #koi no yokan #my writing

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