#it’s solidarity between grieving parties

[h-didanart]

Bloodmoon in dresses collection, round two!

And this ones come with lore!

Starting off with Jack’s friend, Original, the lone Bloodmoon.

Due to living in the theatre he has a lot of access to the costumes, which means he can just grab whatever he wants whenever he wants. He grabbed a tutu and painted it red because any other colors are lame, and drew some patterns on it, it was Jack’s idea to add the ribbons, cloak fluff, and leg warmers.

He doesn’t know why, but he really likes these clothes. They feel familiar.

I spent a “normal” amount of time thinking about this next pair.

Bloody and Harvest aren’t ones to change their clothing a lot, but while they were walking around town they saw something that had a cool pattern that they both liked. This is something that rarely ever happens, their clothing tastes are extremely different, so obviously, they had to do something about it. It was later that they realized the cloth they saw was actually a skirt, and they were saddened by this fact for all of five seconds before realizing that it was actually a good thing, they could just wear it over what they were wearing already!

They really don’t look like it, but they’re actually kinda fine with this whole event (even if they really only have one thing to wear)

And the last one for today, Fang.

Fang wanted to participate because Scythe was participating and seemingly having fun, but Fang didn’t know where to get the clothes from. And then Fang remembered that the Sun-Man (Sunset) had a lot of clothes in his room. So Fang stole the dress from the Sun-Man. Fang also saw some pretty flowers on the way back, so Fang took the flowers too. Scythe helped with the hat and ribbons

Ignore the dried blood, Fang got hungry

[psychreviews2]

Totem and Taboo

After Freud’s initial success, he was ready to start taking his early theories and advance them into other areas outside of Psychoanalysis, and to look deeply at the human condition. One of his most famous and influential books was Totem and Taboo which focused on comparing the mental life of primitive societies, their superstitions, their scapegoating, to that of modern individuals under his label of neurosis. With research from the then current anthropologists and Darwinism, Freud was able to connect his Oedipus theory to a psychoanalytic original sin, and began fleshing out early understandings of Narcissism which he later delved into. The book itself provides one of the best understandings of envy and human conflict in all literature.

Survival

In the ancient world being alone was the same as certain death. The need to be in a group ensured survival. Yet survival is also individual. With scarce resources and a short life span, it was necessary to get your food and sex all in a short period of time to ensure survival of the current generation and to create another generation. The cooperation of the different members of society required rules, regulations, punishments and rituals. The tribes and eventually civilizations were able to thrive when this balance was met and failed when weaknesses were exposed in wars and revolutions.

Self vs. Other

This friction between individual values and collective values becomes a major thread in Freud’s works until his death. How do we get our practical, sexual, and emotional needs satisfied without trampling on other people’s needs? Freud casts this in an emotional ambivalence. On one hand, we have veneration for people who are leaders that help us to survive, contrasted with the envy of their power to access privileges.

For example, when things are going well for me I like the leader more, even if there is no connection to their actions and my success. It changes quickly when my life is falling apart. The smiling leader just increases the envy of their privileges. The unconscious thought is that, “if the leader is doing good and I’m doing bad, then the leader is not doing a good job.”

Freud says, “savages are really behaving in just the same way with their kings when they ascribe to them power over rain and sunshine, wind and weather, and then depose them or kill them because Nature disappoints their hopes of a successful hunt or a rich harvest.”

Entitlement

As powerful as the leader was, their life or death was often on a thin edge when the supporters felt the leader’s magical powers were failing. Freud compares this idealization and devaluation to a paranoic who takes a person and puts all of their responsibility onto them to be a leader so they can blame all their misfortunes on them. It feels better to blame someone else than to take responsibility for your own success. That’s the difference between the hard work of making success and having it given to you.

With these insights it’s very easy to jump to the modern world of politics and backstabbing to see that very little has changed. When a politician fails to provide for their constituents, the envy of their privileges, and the contempt for their lack of success, leads to a regime change. In democracies the blame shifting leads to fights with words on TV, radio and social media. It was more aggressive in the past when blame shifting could include the leader trying to scapegoat someone with lesser power via human sacrifice, or involve a violent revolution to replace the current regime.

Temporary solidarity

The party afterwards was often a celebration of the new conquests that were made and also of the brief solidarity between the members of the new regime. The following crash into mournfulness was a grieving for the memories of success with the prior regime, and also the pressure that the new regime is now under. Can they do better than the last ones? If not, the new regime knows the consequences if they don’t.

Oedipus Complex

Here Freud tries to get at the heart of the earliest sin, which is children trying to replace their parents to access the rewards, and to gain their sexually desirable parent for themselves. The fighting creates a need for the Taboo. The Taboo of incest to Freud is a law to prevent inter-family fighting. To Freud this early taboo is the beginning of society and institutions. Individual desires can go any place, but to keep a society running smoothly, cultures and religions are created. Rituals of eating together, and sharing the same totem are rituals to establish cooperation and to prevent competition. Whether it is the Eucharist or an older ritual, people are trying to satisfy their private desires while making promises not to hurt or steal from each other. If we get enough of our desires met, it’s easier to cooperate. If we don’t, then there’s revolution.

Totem and Taboo

Freud’s example of how a Taboo works is a Totem and how it represents the spiritual and original father of the tribe. By refraining from having sex with people in the same totem group, conflict is reduced and cooperation increases. Another benefit for our ancestors is their avoidance of the consequences of incest and genetic weakness, even if this was achieved ignorantly. But this was the time of superstition and beliefs in magical powers.

Superstitions

One of the more outstanding parts of the book is Freud’s explanation of superstition, which is supported by animal experiments. How we come to magical thinking and superstition is partially our ignorance of science, but also the serendipity of results and our actions. In bird studies behaviourist psychologists were able to see birds performing strange rituals in hopes that food rewards would appear after such rituals. Every random behaviour that gets reinforced conditions the new ritual. A form of hope. With randomness in society it’s easy to see strange rituals regarding interpersonal relationships and what humans then believed was necessary for survival. Hope is transformed. It becomes a method to keep motivation to look for patterns of success in our world, even if there is no science behind the ritual.

Mental representations

Belief in spirits also enters the picture in how people feel neurotic about their evil private desires and how it competes with their need to belong to others. Because everything is impermanent, we need memories to make sense of the kaleidoscope of present moment existence. These memories of people can become our ghosts, Gods, curses, and saviours. We want to imitate the methods of survival from the leader, but we also want to depose them and take their place. We are conversing with mental representations in our minds as much if not more than the real people in our lives. See: The 'Ratman': https://rumble.com/v1gu9qj-case-studies-the-ratman-freud-and-beyond.html

Our neurosis can then be our guilt over hidden desires that are alive and well in our minds but we cannot share with others for fear of punishment. Our fear of imaginary crimes is reflected in the original fear of actual crimes. The mental representations of the dead in our minds can be alive with accusation and demands for justice. Curses can be a form of self-inflicted punishment. Our guilt over what we did or thought about doing can then cause the neurosis.

Projection and Introjection

The above is an example of introjection, but guilt can also be projected via suspicion. If we had guilty actions or thoughts in the past, that knowledge can help us detect guilt in others. With the understanding of transference, we can see that we take our memories and have emotional attitudes towards those memories. Then we can project those attitudes onto other people who we force into a memory pattern we recognize. The way this transference feels in the target is like the person who is talking to us is talking about someone else. They get your personal details wrong and harsh emotions are projected onto you.

Projection feels violating and has a tinge of lies and smears where you are put into a box of their memories of wrongdoing. The suspicion of one person increases the suspicion of others, magnifying the blame. The message the scapegoaters send is that "you are to blame for ALL the things not going well" in their lives. Targets in real life can be innocent or not so innocent. With the distortion of conflation, scapegoaters can take actual blame a target has and increase the blame further by adding suggestions of hidden guilt and add it to the judgment. The desire for revenge in the mob animates them further to essentially “burn the witch.”

Violence and the Sacred - René Girard: https://rumble.com/v1gsnwv-the-origin-of-envy-and-narcissism-ren-girard.html

How it starts

The predictable scenario of a target trying to get their individual needs met against some social mores or taboos IS the beginning. Because these individual desires reside in most other people, there is an envy and resentment of the unfairness. “If they get away with that, then why can’t I?” Leaders often struggle with this problem. They are afraid of the temptation there is to imitate the target, and that others might get their similar desires satisfied. Then the rules and taboos that keep the society together unravel and so does the leader’s power.

The taboo is ultimately something that tempts imitation, and following the taboo is renunciation of that desire to preserve peace in society. This is the origin of collective punishment where leaders punish the entire group for one person’s transgression. It is an attempt to prevent the imitation from being contagious. The threat of this punishment is the source of ostracism, where people don’t associate with the person who violated the taboo, because they are afraid they will automatically be associated by others as someone who wants to imitate the accused. The problem Freud sees with the leader enforcing the taboos is that all people, including the leader, have prohibited desires inside themselves.

Freud says, “In order to keep the temptation down, the envied transgressor must be deprived of the fruit of his enterprise; and the punishment will not infrequently give those who carry it out an opportunity of committing the same outrage under the colour of an act of atonement.” Modern examples would be lawmakers taking part in corruption they are supposed to fight against. The source of hypocrisy is this ambivalence between what I want and what is good for society.

Leadership

The value of the leader is their ability to maintain rules that support the group, and allow enough personal satisfaction so that it doesn’t destabilize the culture. The leader also has to enjoy their privileges without taking too much and neglecting the duties of the leader. Any weaknesses in a neglectful society leads to blame shifting and conflict.

Freud lays it out very clearly and points to some of the experiences victims have at the hands of narcissistic individuals. The superstition they have has a root in the belief of the omnipotence of thoughts. Believing that thoughts are reality and being constantly disappointed by nature, requires a shifting of blame to others. It’s a lower form of existence that hasn’t accepted realistic compromises. Until the acceptance of science happens, then people and objects become an easy target for blame. The need to use talismans, jewels and to ascribe magical properties to objects and leaders only gives way when the real life associations cannot be explained by magical powers. We have to put effort into looking at the real causes and effects to avoid magical thinking.

Worshiping who gets our needs met

Totem worship of a father is replaced by a Father God, and then science replaces God and the Father in the end for Freud. Here there is a divide between René Girard and Sigmund Freud. René looks to Christianity to understand scapegoating and early creations of institutions, whereas Freud puts Christianity into the same boat as the other religions.

We are ultimately looking for a God-Father figure to get our needs met. This fight itself is in Christianity as followers ironically scapegoat each other on which version of Christianity to follow with many of their own members as casualties. But in Girard’s Christian opinion, there is always worship. If we don’t worship a God we worship Experts. Worshiping experts doesn’t stop the violence, in his view, whereas a Christian example does. We are now back at the beginning where the question of getting our needs met is confronted with how we can live in harmony with others. Both atheism and Christianity are accused of failing to find this peace.

Petty conspiracies

What I particularly enjoyed about this book was how it clears up paranoid thoughts about conspiracies. Conspiracies do exist but they are petty and all about increasing consumption of every kind. Power allows for more sexual partners, more resources, special treatment and allies to defend your wealth. My earlier videos on narcissists and their informers shows that basic human society devolves into gangster-ism, and that every individual should realize that their presence and status is being measured by others at all times. See: Narcissistic Control: https://rumble.com/v1gti2z-narcissistic-control-narcissism-3-of-4.html

All the bigotry we see is about is trying to eliminate competition. Our identities are HOW we get our needs met. Competition towards those identities make us insecure, and we feel resentful that the world is unfair and demand vengeance. This leads to violence and war. If we are to aim for better, the highest form of society is one that flourishes with creativity giving a place to all types of people. How we can get our needs met is by meeting the needs of others in ever more creative ways and learning to relinquish our desires and find alternatives if we are tempted by violence towards other competitors.

Totem and Taboo - Sigmund Freud: Paperback: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780393001433/

Herrnstein, R.J. (1961) Superstition: A corollary of the principle of operant conditioning.

Great example of generational pressure:

Philosophy: http://psychreviews.org/category/philosophy03/

[companionship]

okay one big post to get the finale out of my system! it's been lovely reading all of your analyses and reactions, and looking at all your amazing gifs and edits :')

fair warning: this is going to be so stinking long omfg

the things i enjoyed:

vincenzo remaining an anti-hero through and through, especially the fact that he didn't hold back at all when it came to myunghee and hanseok's death. he gave them a taste of their own medicine and then some forreal, their deaths were brutal but oddly satisfying, and i'm saying this as someone who usually hates violence/gore. throughout the show, they've always hinted at what he was Truly Capable Of and boy did we get to see it

vincenzo fumbling in hanseok's house and not being his usual self – a lot of people thought it was ooc, which i understand! i felt like that was the Point, to show that for once, he's not the invincible mafia consigliere that everyone thinks he is. what he did to the man who killed his mother and the army of security guards was a reaction, but this is the first time he's flustered, caught at a disadvantage, and faced with the very real possibility that he might lose somebody incredibly important to him. idk it made him more human to me

vincenzo literally not hesitating for even 0.1 seconds to fold his entire body around hers when he thought hanseok was going to shoot again – yeah that whole bit made my heart clench i feel like a crazy person i won't get over it

the chayenzo hospital scene... my god it was so tender my heart broke. the laugh they both shared, out of sheer relief that she's okay. the little joke about paying for the private room. the way not much was being said, but everything was being said at once. the way they looked at each other, as if it wouldnt ever be enough :( the quiet acceptance that this is their last night together, and that he's going to have to kill a bunch of people after this, but for now they have this. for however brief.

chayoung being chayoung – her big ass personality at the courtroom at the end after winning ms oh's case. her hopping around in those heels, looking elegant and sleek, mocking the hell out of rich conglomorates. she's in her element again and it made me so, so happy to see. i absolutely adore her, she's everything really. after all that loss and the whole ordeal, i'm glad she's able to return to what she does best: putting capitalists back in their place

mr lee being Very Much Not Dead – idk how i wouldve been able to handle it after witnessing hanseo's death like im glad he got the chance to be a dad

the kiss – my god....

the things i didn't like:

hanseo's death – lmao is it even a surprise... say what you will about his death being foreshadowed, but i really just hated hated it. i hate that hanseok won this one. i hate that hanseo worked so hard to redeem himself, only to lose it all. i hate that he was given a taste of what a real family was like, and then having it taken away so cruelly. even though i said above that i didn't mind that vincenzo was ooc at the mansion, i was still screaming at the screen because there were plenty of opportunities for the situation to be reversed. i don't necessarily blame vincenzo for hanseo's death, but i do wish that they had a funeral scene for him. i wish they acknowledged his sacrifice, and how pivotal he was in turning the tables. if not for hanseo, vincenzo really couldn't have pulled any of this off, from the interpol tipoff to the tracking device in the watch. idc idc hanseo is in malta rn, enjoying the sun and the beach, going to therapy, and teaching the local kids how to play hockey even though there's no ice :(

chayoung being bedridden the whole finale – like... NAH lmao this aint it chief... if things went my way, she wouldve gotten out of the hospital depite her injury and dealt with myunghee before handing her off to vincenzo. i loved their animosity for each other, and i wanted chayoung to be the one at myunghee's apartment waiting for her, rubbing it into her face. i wanted chayoung to verbally finish myunghee with that sharp ass tongue of hers and really dump a load of salt on her wounds. then vincenzo could do whatever the hell he wanted. you could argue that the show is called Vincenzo but i really dont care lmao it started with chayoung avenging her dad and she should've been able to strike the final blow. also what was her big second party? are we really just going to ignore her capacity for evil? after all that moral work done, after that time she spent coming to terms with using evil to combat evil, we're just going to... keep her bedridden? park jaebum u will pay for this

vincenzo losing his family – besides hanseo's death, i think this was what i hated the most from the ending. the start of the show showed us vincenzo's departure from the mafia with the very clear intention of Not Returning. the capo died, his loyalties lie with no one, paolo can suck it. throughout the show, we see him repeat over and over that he wants to get the gold and skip off to malta to enjoy a peaceful life there, while reflecting/repenting for the things he's done. vincenzo was gearing up for a lifetime of solitude. the whole point of the show was for him to find a real family and have a real chance at happiness. park jaebum really said FUCK THAT! we're gonna have him ditch the family that he built from scratch with the love of his life and then make him return to the family that tried to kill him AND make him the capo... pjb said we're gonna separate vincenzo from the family that accepts his past and sees it as a strength and not a weakness. the family that was formed out of solidarity, the family that he fought for and fought alongside with blood, sweat and tears. not to mention the goddaughter of his? sorry i would laugh if it didn't actually rile me up so bad

vincenzo not being able to come back to korea – i've said this in another post of mine, but given that he is The Vincenzo Cassano with all those resources at his disposal (guillotine file, mr ahn/mr cho/the chief etc.), the fact that he isnt even able to stay in korea for 30 fuckin minutes after finishing hanseok was ridiculous. the whole police chase was dumb as hell considering that the show has managed to stop politicians and mf presidential candidates from going after him like ? huh LMAO park jaebum had an on-demand pigeon army in this show and Yet he can't stop like 10 suddenly-righteous policemen. another big ass HUH

chayenzo (here we go...):

NOPE! i've reflected on the ending and decided that i'm going to be petty and salty for a while more before coming to terms with it

i can rationalise and try to be positive and tell myself that their love is enduring can transcend space and time and that in due time, they will find their way back to each other, and i have no doubt that they will because they're one soul in two bodies. it's quite literally canon that they're soulmates.

but let me wallow for a second

here we have two people who have done questionable and terrible things in their past coming together, growing together, grieving together, fighting together... you get the gist of it. you have two people who have found a home in each other. two people who, for all intents and purposes, were about to live in a whole lot of bitterness and solitude if not for each other and the life they built together (chayoung didn't have friends like that, and her family is gone too). to separate them like that at the very end is cruel. i know chayoung and vincenzo are mature and incredible and will be able to function without the other next to them. i know that they will still excel as lawyers and will defeat evil with their underhand methods the way they do so well but my god are they going to feel the absence and miss each other

my point is that they shouldn't have to. from what i could tell, they can't even communicate on a regular basis bc he'll be tracked and whatnot, hence the postcards. a postcard every month is a poor substitute for all those nights they stayed up drinking makgeolli and celebrating their wins. its a shitty replacement for coffee dates and fist bumps and all the moments in between. after everything they've been through, after literally fighting to death for their family, they don't deserve this. they don't deserve to meet up once a year for a couple of hours. they don't deserve pockets of time in malta or korea, their life in a perpetual countdown to when they're going to see each other next

they both deserve love and some semblance of peace (finally finally). they both deserve to have someone to come home to after a hard day of work, because doing what they do cannot be easy. they both deserve a family, deserve to have someone next to them that accepts their past and would embrace their future. they both deserve a hand to hold and a shoulder to lean on. i know they will still be It for each other despite the distance, i just wish the distance didn't even exist in the first place bc its stupid and cruel and their love shouldnt have to be proven or tested with time and space. let them stay together. let them grow together. let them be.

side note: song joongki and jeon yeobeen need another project together idc take it up with god

tl;dr: park jaebum u will be paying for my therapy bills

[vanessakirbyfans]

Some may remember British actress Vanessa Kirby, 32, as Princess Margaret in the first two seasons of the TV series The Crown, or as black-market arms dealer White Widow in Mission: Impossible-Fallout, with Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. This year she received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in a Drama from the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for her performance in Pieces of a Woman, by Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó, a role which had already earned her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at last year’s Venice Film Festival. She costars with Katherine Waterston in The World to Come, by Norwegian filmmaker Mona Fastvold, which also premiered in Venice, and won the Queer Lion award for Best LGBTQ-Themed Film.

The story of Pieces of a Woman is based on a tragic loss that really happened to the director and his wife, Kata Wéber, who wrote the screenplay. What did they communicate to you about their experience?

I knew that for Kornél and Kata this was a personal story, I didn’t know exactly the circumstances of how they lost a baby, but as we started approaching the movie, they did share that with me. I felt that it came from such a viscerally deep part of Kata and from a real need to share and break the silence around something that for women is so rarely talked about. So, this was a quite therapeutic journey for them, and it was very healing, between them as a couple, to go through this process. I literally saw that every day on set, the conversation that was happening between them, the facing of really painful moments, and their very different grieving experiences. That taught me a lot actually because when you go through any kind of loss or trauma, everyone processes it differently, but sharing that it’s healing, so we always hoped that the film would offer some small comfort for people out there who might need it.

Ellen Burstyn plays your mother in the film. What was it like for you to work with such an experienced actress and to get to know her as a person?

Ellen has always been such an icon in my life and such a legend, I’ve seen all of her performances, and she reminds me of Gena Rowlands, who’s also one of my favorite actresses. She has such a fire as an actress, such a strong energy and presence, and yet you always feel this vulnerability, this fragility, underneath. So, I was excited to go head-to-head with Ellen, because she’s done so many incredible films and she’s head of the Actors’ Studio. It was amazing to work with her and actually, we became really good friends. During rehearsals she invited me over to her house for a sleepover, she called it a pajama party, and we really bonded, we spent many hours talking, we went to bed at 3 am. Since then, we’ve been really close, and she’s definitely very maternal towards me. She’s such a soulful spiritual person and she’s so wise, that I’m very lucky to have her in my life.

In The World to Come you play a farmer’s wife living in Upstate New York during the 1850s. What did you discover about how women lived back then?

When I was researching the film, I couldn’t believe how ignorant I was that, not that long ago, women were completely owned by their husbands, that the home was your domain, you should serve your husband in his home and the children that you had, that it was your husband’s choice what you did with your time, what your name was and everything. That was the law, that was the religion and the way it was. In those days it was all about convention, what you were expected to do, who you were told to be by society and by the structures of a completely patriarchal system. These women, who are literally our ancestors in a way, had to make so many sacrifices and simply didn’t have the choices in their lives that we have now. So that made me incredibly grateful for the choices that I have today, whether it’s what I do with my afternoon or who I love, or how freely I can love. So, I felt very passionate about that story.

Did you come to understand some of the elements that make it so liberating for women to have romantic or sexual relationships with other women as opposed to relationships with men?

Mona Fastvold, the director, told us that these relationships between women have always been there, throughout history, and it’s important to tell those stories now, because, even in times when it was almost completely impossible, there would have been moments when two humans really wanted to be together and didn’t have the choice to be able to, because the only union that should happen is between a man and woman. I’m really proud of the film because it’s a brief moment in these women’s lives, when they are seen for who they really are and they really connect, they feel what they should have a right to feel, and they had the courage to actually do it and to be true to who they were.  The film is an ode to those women, like a cry for them in a way. I really imagined all those moments in life that may have been lit up by a person or something that made you feel so free in yourself, and you may have had that only for a moment, because of the system and the restrictions on who you were allowed to be by society.

We have all had a very difficult year, because of the Covid pandemic, and many other problems in the world. What have been some of your thoughts during this time, and do you hope that this crisis could bring about a change for a better future?

Yes, this last year has been so hard on everyone, and so much of it has been about readjusting. We’ve all had a year, when in many different ways there has been loss and our idea of how our life always has been having completely changed, for everyone across the whole planet. I finished filming Pieces of a Woman about a week before the pandemic happened, and we filmed The World to Come right before that, and both films were about the loss of a child, so they strangely seem spiritually linked. They are also both about women who don’t have voices, so I felt like they were giving voice to a female experience that is so rarely if ever, depicted and represented on the screen. Doing those films definitely left me with a sense of hope, that we can come to terms with tragedies and come out of them stronger somehow, whether that means that we’re more united or more compassionate, that we feel more empathy or more solidarity with what every single person is facing right now across the world. That’s what I hope.

[nitewrighter]

I've been having breakfast in the same kitchen for the past 4 yrs watching the news with every report on how Monster in Chief has been dismantling the world by every action and the only thing that goes thru my mind is how far? How far can he go before for the people who are suppose to protect us finally take him out of his position and prevent any more collateral damage and death? They really let this orange imp with no sense of decency destroy everything, didn't they?

So... I’m going to talk about my dad for a minute here.

My dad is a very old fashioned guy--to the point where I kind of compare him to Henry Huggins and Homer Price a lot--he’s like... this essence of salt-of-the-earth suburbia, we’re talking some Leave It To Beaver shit. Those Boy Scout First Aid pictures I posted? Those were from his old Scout Manuals. He literally reads the bible every morning. And no, he’s not a conservative. I’d slot him in the section of... I guess constitutional democrat? Federalist??? He accepts me as a bisexual, he’s still figuring out a lot of the nuances of queer culture, but he’s willing to listen and learn. See, he’s an American history teacher, and being an American history teacher, he’s no stranger to firebrand presidents, and while he shares Washington’s sentiment that we were never meant to fall into a 2 party system, he’s kind of always been of the mind that you need balance between maintaining the stability that is while working to improve the situation. Like he views conservatism vs. progressivism from a very bare-bones perspective with an attitude of “How do we improve things without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” Obviously he was as unhappy as the rest of us when Trump got elected, but he had faith in the “Checks and balances” of US government.

For the past 4 years I have been listening to my dad wonder aloud when American conservatives are going to stand up to Trump. When they’re going to say, “No, this is not the brush we want to be painted with. This is not who we want to be associated with.” There was a period of about 4 months back in... I want to say 2017 when I would listen to him say, over and over again, “This is going to become a battle for the soul of the Republican party.” He’s stopped saying that. Because at this point it’s clear: Anyone who would side with Trump, anyone who doesn’t speak out against this fucking disgrace of a president is complicit in fascism. Is complicit in the avoidable deaths of over 100,000 Americans. The Republican party has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it has no soul, that it’s little more than a handful of fascist corporate oligarchs in a trenchcoat, maintaining itself through gerrymandering, mass incarceration, and hate-mongering. Capitalism has painted a thin veneer on a very ugly reality, and if it takes rioters to strip that veneer away for the ugliness it truly is, then fucking riot. Newscasters can wring their pearls about “destroying your own communities” but parasitic corporate storefronts forcing you to work ridiculous hours in a pandemic while funneling the profits of your labor out of your community and to some asshole practicing his putt in a corporate office aren’t a community. Fucking Target isn’t a community. You are the community.

So this brings me back to my dad. A few nights ago we got in an argument over the protesters--he, growing up in a neighborhood that had the safety and privilege for everyone to know each other, for people to greet him on his morning paper route (and yes, he had a fucking paper route), he was obviously upset because “Why would these people be harming their own community like this” and meanwhile I’m pretty leftist thanks to going through several long periods of protest in college so I’m like “Psh. It’s Beverly Hills. If it takes burning trashcans and broken glass and stolen designer handbags for people to get their point across and get these rich assholes’ heads out of the sand, so fucking be it.” But the next morning he watched our local church livestream, and he shifted his position a bit. He said to me, “I remember in the bible--when people are grieving, when they’re despairing, they ‘Rend their clothes.’ They don’t have that much, they don’t have that many clothes, but they rip them apart while wailing, and this destruction is an expression of their grief. It’s not fair to judge someone simply for the destruction of their things without understanding their grief. I was judging on the actions and not where the action was coming from.”

 And like... that’s the thing that’s going to save us. Our only hopes are in compassion, and understanding, and solidarity. We can mock Trump and call him an orange imp all we want, but we’re fucking stuck with him unless we start effecting change in our own communities. So ask yourself if you’re going to let this be Trump’s America. Ask yourself what your America looks like. 

[averygim]

hello all. you can call me cal or jeepers, which is my discord name and i think is funny tbh, but i mostly go by cal. my pronouns are they/them and ‘m in the est timezone. i’m a bit late to the game but i’m still v excited to introduce my child avery to ya’ll. below is a whole mass of text that’ll help you get to know this mess of a child. uwu it’s easiest to reach me on discord at jeepers creepers #5103, but i also try and respond as quick as i can to tumblr ims so it’s really whatever you prefer !!

basics

name: avery gim job: baker at peau d’amour age: twenty-five gender: cismale pronouns: he/him sexuality: grey-asexual / panromantic birthday: february 6th zodiac: aquarius personality type:  advocate | infj pinterest board: HERE

aesthetic

the haunting sound of a piano in a memory you can’t quite reach

a warm summer night spent watching fireflies dance among the trees

a bite of a fresh peach that leaves your mouth sticky and sweet

theme song: the 7th sense by nct u

hatred that will not go away and dreams that torture me the clock laughs at me, it does not give a single error i’m a mess, I don’t even know myself, my future is colored darkly i’m struggling, coloring this night even blacker in the irregularity that’s hard to understand there’s a story that’s deeply hidden eyes are being opened through this song your dreams are being read it’s being awakened from a deep sleep my seventh sense

positive & negative

affable ( adj ) : friendly, good-natured, or easy to talk to.

languid ( adj ) : (of a person, manner, or gesture) displaying or having a disinclination for physical exertion or effort; slow and relaxed.

versatile ( adj ) : able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities.

candid ( adj ) :  truthful and straightforward; frank.

then

it begins when he’s four years old - this obsession in him. his parents couldn’t have expected that sending their son to piano lessons we enact such a wild passion in their small, quiet boy. it was hard to pick out at first. often, they would pick their child up from his lesson to find his small chubby cheeks stained with tears. his parents assumed he was simply being stubborn about learning the instrument. they would see the kids dragged to the lessons bemoaning their distaste to it to their parents and would tell each other “our boy is simply quiet with his dislike for it. he has never been a talker.” and  would keep taking him week after week. the piano teacher couldn’t enlighten them to what was going through their child’s mind in terms of why he seemed to work himself up into such a state. she explained to them that he seemed attentive whenever she would teach him and it was only until he started to practice on his own that the tears would begin. neither parties could get a word out of the child though he often seemed to calm fairly quickly post lesson, spending the car ride home pressing his small fingers into his thighs as though there was an invisible piano etched into his skin. at one point, his parents seemed to give in a bit to their uncertainty of how their child was doing, offering to take him out of the lessons. the aggressive shake of the four years old’s head and high squeaky voice insisting “ no, no !! “ was quite the surprise. it wasn’t until a year later, when he began to find his voice that he admitted to his piano teacher that he just loved piano so much, he couldn’t stop himself from crying whenever he got to play. the teacher passed this along to the parents with much amusement and relief.

the passion the young boy had for the instrument didn’t falter over the years, even as his peers turned to other extracurriculars and sports rather than the piano. his parents opted to get him a keyboard to set up in his room on his seventh birthday, still wary about how long he would remain content with the lessons. they had never enjoyed the instrument with such conviction when they were forced to take lessons growing up. it was, at least, comforting to know that their quiet child still enjoyed spending time doing kid things, such as playing outside, playing pretend and colouring. he even showed an interest in baking, which he often did with his grandmother, much to the disbelief of his father. still, he was a good child and despite the wariness his father had of allowing him to indulge in his more feminine hobbies ( he was very much stuck in the throws of toxic masculinity ), his mother and grandparents supported him fully in whatever he wanted to do. so during the week, he would go to his piano lessons and play with the neighbourhood kids outside. then, on the weekends, he would spend time with his mother’s parents, often baking some sort of treat with his grandmother and listening to his grandfather tell tall tales of his own childhood.

as he got older, his skill in piano progressed more and more. between his lessons and the studious way he practiced, he ended up participating in a variation of different concerts. by the time he reached his early teens, he was playing with the adult orchestra with nine years of lessons and experience under his belt. it was an astounding thing- to hear him play. it was as if this lazy, beautiful human was gifted with talent from the gods, but he wasn’t. he worked for his ability. countless hours pressing fingers into plastic keys. perhaps that is why, for his sixteenth birthday, his grandparents and parents pulled together the money to buy him a grand piano. it was then, upon walking into the home to find the piano gracing the room that used to be the den of their house, that he discovered he hadn’t quite outgrown his habit of crying when overwhelmed with emotion.

between creating compositions, practicing, baking with his grandma, and the hell that was high school, he didn’t have much time for anything else. he didn’t mind. he was content with his work, both with the piano and at school. he had a tendency to overwork himself within the confines of his piano room and bedroom between the two. this led to him developing a bad reputation of being a lazy and privileged individual who got away with sleeping in class. his peers saw him as someone favoured by teachers, when in truth it was simply because he’d had multiple discussions previously with them about being awake in class. many of them had agreed to let it slide so long as his grades were maintained. it was a necessary thing to seek as if his parents found out they would no doubt put restrictions on how he was working. 

despite the peer isolation, which later led to a fair amount of social awkwardness on his part, he seemed to get along great with those he went up against in competitions. perhaps it was their shared love or enjoyment of the instrument. regardless, he created a group of friends outside of the school scene and, despite many of them being older than him, he was respected and treated much better than others his age treated him. 

the summer post high school graduation saw him doing something no one could have predicted ( aside from his grandfather who swears up and down that he saw this coming since he was seven years old ). he set out on a tour of major cities, performing alone on a stage with simply a piano, a mask, and a single spotlight. see, in the latter years of his teens, he really blew up thanks to the internet. he became known under a moniker the he’d used on his youtube channel, which he would post videos of his personal compositions and covers of songs on. it led to some artists and producers reaching out collaborate, which, in turn, increased his popularity.

( car accident tw ) life was good for five years. he got to do what he loved and loved what he did. of course, all good things must come to an end, even if that good thing felt like it is your entire life. at twenty three, the now grown quiet boy got into a car accident. a drunk driver hit the car his mother was driving with him in the passenger seat. his mother survived with a few bruised ribs and a broken arm while he came out of it with severe head trauma. head trauma that, out of all things, resulted in hearing loss. the cochlea and hearing nerves in his inner ears were damaged to the point that it sounded like a hush fell over the world. it was a difficult reality to swallow. 

( depression tw ) it was a loss like no other. he could no longer hear his piano. he could no longer get lost in the world his music created. depression hit him heavy and hard, dragging him under in a suffocating hold. seventeen years. he’d been playing piano for seventeen years and now that ability was severely disabled. he withdrew, cutting ties with almost all of his friends who were apart of the music world. his parents didn’t know what to do with their quiet child who seemed to become deathly silent after the accident. the whole family had signed up in solidarity to learn asl alongside him. the only ones who seemed to muster out any sort of reactions or responses from him were his grandparents who struggled to learn the new way of communicating. he tried hearing aids in addition, however, the damaged required a more intensive solution. cochlear implants. he refused despite the struggle he still faced with the hearing aids. his family tried to get him to go through with the surgery, however he was an adult and it was his decision to make. so he continued to allow himself to waste away in the distorted world around him. his father responded to his state with anger, while his mother grieved and worried over him from afar. his grandparents were around as much as they could be, reaching out with patient hands. it would take two years for him to reach back.

twenty-four and feeling stuck, exhausted, and just down right sick, the quiet boy finally inched out of the shell the accident had left him in. it starts with therapy, then medication, and ends with stepping into the kitchen with his grandmother again. his piano remained untouched, gathering dust in his home behind a locked door. no one brought it up, not yet, and instead slow steps were eventually taken. he spoke for the first time post asl and hearing aids to his mother. his voice raspy and barely there from disuse. he couldn’t hear himself, but his mother had burst into tears as his grandparents smiled at each other with watery eyes. it was progress. slow progress, but they were glad that he was finally taking steps forward. 

it was five months after his twenty-fourth birthday that he decided to undergo the cochlear implant surgery. he held no hope for what he’d be able to do with the upgrade. he didn’t allow himself to think of the abandoned piano or the possibility of getting back into music. no, instead, he simply kept his eyes forward as though the past no longer existed. instead, he spent his time baking with his grandmother, helping with the small business she’d started when he was in middle school. the surgery was a success, but the quiet man did not cry when he was finally able to hear with more clarity. there were no tears of overwhelming happiness, instead he’d simply smiled at his mother when she asked if he could hear her and said yes.

it took him six months to decide he needed to move. despite his family still living in the area he grew up in, he needed to get away. he wanted out of the city and eventually settled on moving to beauhart, a place suggested by one of the few friends he kept in touch with post-accident. the official transition happened three months ago where he moved out of the apartment he bought for himself at twenty and into his own home. it was a bit large for just himself and his mother worried that he would fall back into bad habits, but he loved the old styled place. it had a front porch and was painted a gentle yellow. the front was filled with a garden of flowers and bushes that wrapped around to the fence that encased the backyard. his father hated it, but his grandparents had approved when they first saw it, having travelled with his mother to help with the unpacking once everything had arrived. it held more warmth than his apartment had. perhaps it was because he was going to be living in it full time or the character / personality the house itself had. regardless, he felt settled for the first time in almost two years. no one mentioned the grand piano that had been placed in the third bedroom of the house.

three months post move found him working at the local bakery. the early mornings were tough, but the consistency was enjoyable for him. it helped, significantly, with his mental health. he promised his mother to call at least twice a week and his grandmother almost every other day to gossip. despite his awkwardness with social cues and languid nature, he managed to make connections with other residents. things seemed to be looking up, though there still remained that empty part of him and a door unopened.

extras

he is, for all intents and purposes, socially an idiot. he can’t pick up verbal cues up very well and often chooses to ignore them even if they are glaringly obvious. some kind find this incredibly annoying or be endeared by it. usually it’s the former, though avery has never minded. he has no desire to be liked by everyone and is more than happy to continue going by the beat of his own drum.

definitely often produces the wrong first impressions, especially with his looks. he takes care of himself, has been instilled with the habit, especially after how rough his twenty-third and fourth year was. so it’s not often he goes out looking like the drowned rat he enjoys being at home. it’s part of his routine that has helped him stay on track mentally.

definitely a momma’s boy, but would literally do anything for his grandparents. he is planning on having them visiting him as soon as he manages to get his guest room furnished and decorated. 

 if he wants to avoid something, he ignores it. it’s a terrible coping habit that manifests in small instances and larger situations. it’s very childish in many ways, but his therapist has yet to be able to break him out of it. 

is looking into adopting an animal, but is torn between what sort of animal. he has been looking at the humane society, but has yet been able to decide.

he is very indecisive about the smallest of things, but somehow manages to be able to make the bigger and more important decisions ??? 

has a very weird and varied taste in music.

 learned korean from his grandparents when he was younger but primarily speaks english or asl. 

often moves around his house without his hearing aids and keeps things quiet. a book nerd post accident. his favourite thing to do is spend the day on his porch swing reading.

he has been thinking of taking online business courses to learn more about running/owning his own business. he hasn’t mentioned it to anyone, not is planning to, but when he thinks about the future he’s wondering if owning his own bakery could be a possible option.

honestly a sleepy boy even though he has a perfectly reasonable sleep schedule ???

doesn’t know how to flirt. doesn’t even know how to hold a conversation with someone he has a crush on. is very awkward with them.

likes to try and make wacky things (baking wise) when bored then try and make you try it without any forewarning. 

is actually pretty good at making elaborate cakes and frosting designs. does cake commissions on the side for birthdays, in fact.

gets lost really easily. its been three months and he still sometimes forgets where to turn when driving home.

will steal your pet if you leave him alone with them ( not literally ).

is terrible at texting and is the type of person to call you to have a conversation. this is mostly because he’s too lazy to text.

enjoys memes and quotes them sarcastically, sometimes when it’s definitely not appropriate.

has a habit of staring without meaning too. this could either be off into space or actually at someone. he doesn’t necessarily mean to do it. at times it’s a case of dissociation and others it’s simply him having no common sense and/or is blatant day dreaming.

will not ride as a passenger in a car. he’s been able to drive again post implants but the trauma of the accident has caused him a real fear of being someone else’s passenger. 

sometimes, without him realizing it, he’ll mime playing the piano. the habit of pressing his fingers into invisible keys too engrained to erase. he attempts to avoid music a lot, especially classical. it’s somewhat impossible to do at work and outside of his home. at times, he gives in to his desire to try and hear it the way he used to and will blast the music until he can feel the base thrumming in his veins. it’s as detoxing as it is frustrating. as much as he can hear, it will never be like it used to be for him.

if you read all of this i applaud you. tell me your favourite colour, animal, and/or food and then we can plot C:<

[getdestroyed-staydestroyed]

What are Orsi funerals like? Are they large, small? Are the attendees celebratory or mournful? Are there special rituals differing between social classes? Can humans attend?

Orsi funerals are generally mournful and solemn. Just like every culture there are some regional pockets that practice more celebratory rituals that blend an element of thanksgiving for the life of the individual. The funeral’s size generally depends on the wealth and influence of the deceased individual just like in our world. Black bands pictured above are normally worn around the neck for Orsi both at the funeral and for any self-determined length of personal mourning as a signal to others.

Also pictured above, the most culturally unique element of Orsi funerals is a ritual known as “Raccal” (loosely meaning “the Call”). Raccal consists of an agreed predetermined individual (usually one of the closest to the deceased) supported by a best friend/family member chosen by them, pouring out their grief openly and violently.  

All other parties at the funeral remain silent during this display, which can be as short as 10 seconds, or as long as a 5 minutes (though not much longer as the individual grieving normally has become physically drained by that point). The individual is permitted to do or say nearly anything during Raccal short of attacking others. Crying, screaming, swearing, wailing, clawing the ground, collapsing to the floor, tearing of hair/clothes, and stomping the ground are all common practices.

The friend/family member chosen as support by the Raccal performer’s job is to stay close to the individual, supporting them physically. The support cannot make noises above quiet sobbing, but openly shedding tears or remaining completely composed are both culturally accepted forms of showing strength and solidarity with the Raccal performer. 

Aside from this, most Orsi funerals function like one’s we’re familiar with. Individuals speaking about the deceased, invocations made by religious figures, and sometimes songs being sung upon the conclusion of the ceremony. Orsi are usually always cremated in most customs, which whole internment of the body being rarely practiced outside the royal family. 

[wroughtbetwixtfanfic]

Love, Blood, And Rhetoric, Ch 2.

Fandom: The Society.

Summary: Campbell’s just trying to survive in the new world. He knows he can make it– it’s everyone else he’s worried about.

Rating: Mature.

Tags: Canon Divergence, Mental Health Issues, Family Issues, Substance Abuse, Complicated Relationships, Consent Issues, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Mild Sexual Content, assuming Elle and Campbell are both 18 for the sake of things, Underage Drinking, PTSD, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, implied eating disorder, Fix-It, Campbell has mild ASPD, and is actively trying to not be awful

Word Count: 6971

Ch 1 || Ch 3 || Ch 4 || Ch 5 ||  AO3

Emily was buried in the morning.

They chose the church yard for  her final resting place. The grave was too shallow, and there was no casket. Just a bedsheet, white and clean, and some flowers laid across her body. No one spoke any memorable words. Helena said a sermon from the Bible, ironic for the fact that Emily had been Buddhist, and that was it. They buried her, people cried, and then they went home.

Over  the next few days, cards and handwritten letters showed up around Emily's grave. Campbell brought a few flowers from the front yard, and Harry brought one of his sister's teddy bears. It felt right to show some sort of solidarity. Soon, there were candles and other things left  behind, too. Campbell wondered if anyone would leave tokens at his grave, if he died. Not that he'd care, but it was a morbid little thought, nonetheless.

People hid in their houses, for the most part. Emily's death seemed to solidify what was happening. They weren't  home, they weren't going to be magically saved; that was something else  to be grieved. Harry coped by throwing parties. He never invited Campbell. Not anymore. Campbell knew it was because drugs were involved,  but whatever. Elle would come over in the morning for coffee, anyways.  She wouldn't talk much or stay long, but she'd give him a hug before  leaving. For just a little while, it'd soothe the strange pit in  Campbell's chest.

In the ten days that followed, Cassandra stopped by twice. Once to get some of Sam's things, once to take the food rations he'd stolen for Sam. They didn't speak. Cassandra was pissed. Whatever. He was used to people being fed up with him. At least  on day ten, Campbell got a text from Harry, inviting him to the gazebo.  Apparently, Lexie and some friends of hers were trying to channel God or  something.

They're talking to a stack of rocks, Harry said. You gotta see it.

Campbell  couldn't resist. He found Harry, and the two watched the bizarre spectacle unfolding on the green. Sure enough, Lexie and several others  had gathered up rocks, stacked them, and were sitting in a circle around  them while chanting. He almost felt bad for staring, but Cassandra,  Allie, Helena, and Gordie were in the gazebo and staring just as much.

After  twenty minutes or so, Harry gently prodded Campbell in the chest with  his phone. "Hey, there's a game of Fugitive tonight. It's gonna be the  biggest one yet. You in?"

"Yeah, sure," Campbell replied. He'd rather piss on an electric fence. "Whatever."

"Look,  I know I've been kind of a dick these last few days. But I miss my friend, you know. We've always been partners in crime, haven't we?"

Campbell  looked over at Harry. The poor fuck had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was a mess. He hadn't been taking care of himself at all. It was enough that Campbell wanted to tell Harry to get a shower, and then they'd talk, but... Partners in crime. Campbell had long ago given  up on the idea of Harry ever desiring him, and now Campbell had Elle to  focus on, but when Harry batted those goddamn eyelashes of his and used  that tone? Impossible to resist.

"Yeah, yeah," Campbell murmured. "Forgiven."

Harry  leaned against him, just a little. It was almost enough to distract Campbell from the absurdity that was Lexie attempting to throat sing, but then several people began to shout and point upwards towards the sun. Campbell glanced up, just a bit. Enough to notice that something was happening. He turned the screen of his phone towards the sun. In the  reflection, he could see a dark circle oozing across the face of the  star.

"We asked for a sign!" Lexie yelled.

Her rock-stacking buddy, genius that he was, stared up directly at it. "What does it mean?"

Gordie  saved the day, luckily. "It doesn't mean anything. It's a fucking solar  eclipse. It's not a sign, it's a predictable astronomical event." His  tone turned pointed as he looked at the guy. "Just don't stare at it,  and we'll be fine."

Of course, some people kept staring at it.  Campbell waited until it went completely dark, and the air turned cold;  Harry let out a soft gasp, and Campbell looked up. Totality. It was  beautiful and eerie. The sky was dark, the moon was dark, and around it  was a halo of bright light. It stayed that way for a long, long minute  and a half, before the "diamond" appeared along the side of the moon. It  was ending. Campbell looked away, and soon daylight returned to the  world.

"Shit," Harry whispered.

Campbell nudged Harry.  "C'mon. Like Gordie said, man, it's nothing. Let's go get breakfast and  leave Lexie and the God Squad to freak out."

Harry nodded,  following as Campbell led them to the small coffee shop downtown. It was  easy enough to pick the lock and disable the alarm; Harry had worked  there the last few months, and could make one mean coffee. They found  some of the frozen sandwiches and heated them up, sitting down at the  little table near the window.

"Been a while since we just hung out," Harry said as he sipped his drink. "How have you been?"

"Oh, I've been keeping myself busy."

"I heard you kicked Sam out."

Campbell groaned. "Why does everyone keep bringing that up?"

"Cold move, dude."

"Yeah, well, it's a good thing we don't have to explain shit to each other if we don't feel like it, huh?"

"Whatever you say. I just think it's gotta suck being in that big house by yourself."

"Yeah?"  Campbell picked the sausage off his sandwich and tossed it onto Harry's  plate. He smiled, taking a bite and leaning forward. "Hey, how are  things going with Kelly these days?"

Harry lifted his hands in a  gesture of peace. "Point taken, okay? Damn." He let out a long, slow  sigh. "But if you actually care, I don't know. We haven't talked much. I  keep thinking maybe she's just pissed and will come around when she's  done being pissed."

"Good luck. Chick knows how to hold a grudge."

"Don't be rude. She's sweet."

Campbell  shrugged. He felt the familiar, possessive spark burn to life; he didn't want to talk about Kelly. She was smart, she was gracious. She was polite and elegant and the perfect sort of woman for a politician. Senator Bingham and his lovely wife. They really would have made a pretty picture. But did she know him? Did she see him as he was, and love him anyways? Of course not, but still, he chased after her.

The  bell above the door jingled. Speak of the devil, Campbell thought as Kelly walked in. Her eyes were cold when she noticed him, but she still  strode over. "Could I get a coffee?" she asked, turning her gaze to Harry. "If you're not busy."

Harry's spine immediately evaporated. "Oh, sure. Yeah."

"I  had to get going anyways," Campbell added. He stood and pushed between  them, heading to the door. Campbell paused at the door and flashed Harry  his brightest smile. "Lemme know when you find those balls you were  missing."

There was no point waiting for an answer. Campbell  headed out, wandering the streets and trying to figure out what to do.  He could break into the arcade, steal the quarters, and start a lucrative career in 8-bit gaming. Grizz and his crew were out on the football field. He probably could weasel his way in with them, especially since Grizz seemed almost friendly. Or maybe he could go convert the golf course outside of town into a community garden; Cassandra hadn't taken him up on that whole screw-grass-plant-food idea  yet. He just felt itchy, and he knew that meant trouble if he couldn't  find a productive outlet.

"Campbell?"

He stopped, pulled from his thoughts. Elle was behind him. She was in a nice black and white dress, hair gleaming and just a touch of make-up on. Campbell tilted his head. "Hey, Elle. Going somewhere?"

Elle pursed her lips. "I was thinking about it. Helena's speaking at the church."

"You're Christian?"

"I don't know what I am anymore."

"Would you like me to walk you? I was heading that way."

"Yeah?" That managed to get a small smile from her, anyways. "I'd like that."

Campbell held out his arm, and Elle took it. "Cute necklace. Ballet slippers?"

"Mhm. My mom got it for me when I had my first solo."

"A solo is kind of a big deal in ballet, isn't it?"

"It is."

"How old were you?"

Elle  blushed a little. "Oh, about seven or so. But then I got the part of the Sugarplum Fairy in my old school's production of The Nutcracker."

"That's impressive."

"Well, I'm no Lauren Cuthbertson, but I try."

"Who?"

By  the time they got to the church, Campbell had been well-schooled on London's Royal Ballet. Elle gave him a curious look when he stopped at the church steps. "You're not coming in?"

"Nah, I kinda get hives around the Bible. I'll wait for you here, okay?"

Elle  shook her head as she went inside. Campbell mulled around for a moment,  before noticing Kyle Jasko sitting on the sidewalk nearby. He was in a  wheelchair thanks to a bad accident when he was young, but he never  seemed too down about it before; now, he looked like he hadn't been  getting any sleep, either.

"Hey, Kyle," Campbell called out in greeting. Kyle's head snapped up. He didn't say anything back. "How's it going?"

Kyle eyed him for a moment. "Fine. What do you want?"

"Nothing. Waiting for someone?"

"Yeah. The guys in the Guard help me into the church, but I guess they're late."

Campbell  looked from Kyle to the church steps. That wasn't something he'd thought about before. They were basically in a half-hearted apocalypse situation. What was that like for people like Kyle? He knew for a fact that most of the stores had small doors, narrow aisles. A lot of places  only had stairs. Navigating the world was a pain in the ass as it was.  With wheels, it had to be even harder.

The church doors opened, and one teen wandered out. A few seconds later, Cassandra followed. For a  second, Campbell was surprised to see her; it had been a good five years since Cassandra had gone to anything resembling a sermon. Then again, people were doing all sorts of desperate things these days.

Cassandra  startled a bit when she saw him, but then kept walking, eyes far away.  Distracted. She didn't really look at him, but she slowed her walk so that he could keep up. "Hey. What are you doing here?"

"I walked Elle over." He peered over at her, trying to read her face. She had her  mask up, though, and even he couldn't figure that out. "Message not for  you?"

"Yeah, oddly enough I'm still not into church services. Not  a lot of people are buying what Helena's selling. They're starting to  lose hope."

"I think people are doing pretty well under the circumstances, don't you?"

"For  now, but we both know that won't last. Once reality settles in, I'm worried what they're going to start doing." Cassandra frowned. "People who are scared and alone can do terrible things."

"Well, at least we're not alone. You and I are some of the lucky ones. You've got Allie and I've got Sam."

"You had Sam."

Campbell  stopped, lightly grabbing Cassanda's arm. She looked at him, finally, and it was cutting. So, that was it. She was pissed off. "He told you what happened."

"Of course he did." She yanked her arm out of his grasp. "Campbell, how could you?"

"You  know I'm not going to be able to play by the rules you want everyone else to play by. If I get Sam out of there now, if people think I turned  on him, no one will question why I'm in a home by myself. Besides. I  care about Sam, but I can't take care of him. I can't give him what you  can."

"Fine, but I hope you realize you can't get through this all on your own."

"I've  got Harry. Elle, maybe." Campbell hesitated. Hard to tell where they stood, at this point, but he was willing to hedge his bets. "And I've got you."

Cassandra crossed her arms. She let out a little, irritated breath of air, but the look in her eyes had softened. "You do  have me."

"You're right, anyways. We can't go on like this. We have to figure some things out. Make some rules."

"You almost had me fooled, that night in the church."

"C'mon, as if I'd really hurt you. I did what I had to do. You know who's with you and against you, now."

"True  enough." Another kid left the church. Cassandra led them to the bench nearby; they sat back to back, like then did when they were younger, leaning against each other. "So, you're on board, then?"

"Idle hands are going to be a big problem eventually. The thing is, who's gonna decide the rules, you know? Who has all the power? That'll be interesting."

"You?"

"No," Campbell chuckled. "Fuck that. No, I'm just the idea guy."

"And what ideas do you have?"

"Lawns."

Cassandra's tone turned incredulous. "Lawns."

"We're  gonna need food sources. Lawns are useless wastes of space and water."  It was a rich people luxury that they couldn't afford. Not anymore. "Rip  them up. Get seed packets from the stores and start planting. Also,  Kyle really needs some ramps for his wheelchair. Just saying."

Bringing  out her phone, Cassandra tapped something out. "I'll talk to Grizz and  the others about it. It might be too late to plant anything, but Clark  and Jason were in wood shop. They must be able to use a hammer."

"Cool."  Campbell closed his eyes, soaking up the feeling of the sun on his skin  and breathing in the smell of flowers. Waiting. But she didn't say  anything else. She was waiting, too, and she was never the first to cave. "How is Sam?"

"Mm. He's hurting. He misses you, I think, but he'd never admit to it." Her tone turned dry. "It's something you two have in common, as it turns out."

"So, we both got the stubborn gene. What the hell am I supposed to do about any of this, long-term?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because you think it's a bad idea. You have that vibe."

"I do not."

"Do so."

Cassandra  shifted, sitting up and pulling away so she could turn to face him. "Fine. I think there are other ways we could keep you both safe. But if  you really are going to do it like this, just... Don't come around for a  while. I think you both need time to think things through."

Campbell  opened his mouth to argue, but then people started coming out of the church. "Looks like Helena's lecture is over. I better go get Elle."

"Of course. Thanks for the suggestions."

Nodding,  Campbell turned and headed towards the small crowd of people gathering  on the front steps of the church. His eyes found Elle. She was at the edge of the crowd, eyes down and face drawn. She looked lost. Sad. Still, as he approached, she looked up; her hair shone gold in the sunlight, and her blue-green eyes sparkled faintly. Absolutely gorgeous.  Campbell smiled at her and offered his hand. She took it, and they  began to make their way back towards Elle's home.

"Bleak service," Elle muttered. "Maybe the other kids are right. We're gonna die here."

"Maybe,  maybe not. Doesn't do much good to worry about it, though, right? Like  Cassandra said. We need to just focus on preparing for the long haul."

"How do you keep yourself from freaking out?"

"Lots  and lots of distractions. Speaking of which, Harry said there's a game  of Fugitive tonight. Wanna come? Might take your mind off things."

Elle cocked her head. "What's Fugitive?"

"Like  tag, with cars." Campbell grinned as she shot him a worried look. "No,  you don't run people over. Fugitives run on foot towards a safe zone, and cops hunt for them in cars. One cop drives and the other cop is the  runner. The runners chase down and tag fugitives. It's whatever, but it's something to do."

"Maybe. Sounds a little too intense for me."

"I'll text you the location, if you change your mind. We're starting at ten."

"Alright."

Campbell  sent her the information, but his phone buzzed with a new text a split  second after. Sam. He bit his lip at the preview. Can we talk? Maybe Cassandra had said something, but that seemed unlike her where Sam was concerned. Sure, Campbell finally texted back. Where are you?  A few moments later, and Sam sent a picture of himself posing with a pair of deer antlers. So, their dad's office. "Jesus christ."

"What's wrong?"

"Sam wants to see me. I should go."

"I thought you two were fighting?" Elle shrugged as Campbell glanced up at her. "Gossip travels fast."

"Figures. I bet the town is having a field day with it."

"That you're a homophobic dickbag that kicked out your deaf brother? Yep."

"I deserve that, I guess. It's just not the full story."

Elle  curled her arms around herself. She studied his face a moment, then gave a small nod. "Maybe you can tell me about the full story after Fugitive."

It was a chance to explain. Campbell reached out and touched her shoulder; she didn't pull away. "Thanks. You gonna be okay By yourself?"

"Oh, I've managed before. Good luck with Sam."

Hopefully  he wouldn't need much luck. It was a long walk to the office, which meant a lot of time to think about all the possible scenarios and ways things could play out. When he arrived, though, Sam was surrounded by boxes and up to his eyeballs in paper. Campbell flopped down in one of the office chairs. Sam jumped at the sudden movement, nearly dropping a  folder, and for a split second Campbell almost felt bad. Maybe it'd teach the kid to be more aware of his surroundings, anyways.

"You  rang, Sammy?" Campbell asked. Sam stared at him, shoulders hunched a little. He didn't answer. "Seriously. I'm not gonna bite. What are you doing here?"

Sam still didn't answer right away, but then he swallowed hard and let out a long sigh. "I'm trying to figure out why we're here. In this place."

"Any luck?"

"First one is a letter from some guy named Pfeiffer demanding $1.5 million for the smell  removal." Sam picked up two papers and handed them to Campbell. "The  other is a response, refusing to pay, signed by dad and Uncle Rogers.  It's dated the day before we were taken."

Campbell took the  papers and skimmed. It was actually worse than that; they had payed, but  then they'd cancelled the check. They had purposefully screwed the guy  over. "What do you think it means?"

"The smell, us being taken on the buses. It has to mean something. They have to be related some way. Maybe, I don't know."

Interesting,  and definitely suspicious; it reminded Campbell of something, though he  wasn't sure what. It didn't matter. Campbell focused on the inevitable  outcome if those letters were ever discovered. "You have to destroy  those papers."

"What? No."

"Fucking destroy them. Don't you get it? We're going to be blamed for this."

"What does that mean? We just want to know the truth."

"You're  a fucking dipshit if you think it's that simple." Campbell ignored the  way Sam straightened and clenched his fists. He just get the hell over  it. "You and I may hate each other, but we still share our father's last  name."

"So what?"

"You think things aren't gonna get bad around here? You think it's all just gonna be one big happy camping trip?"

"Is that why--"

"Look,"  Campbell interrupted. He knew what Sam was going to say, and there was  no way they were gonna have that conversation yet. "If we're stuck in this place, things are gonna get so bad so fucking fast. And you want to  tell people that our family had something to do with this?"

Sam  looked down at the papers, then handed them over. Campbell took them, ripping them into tiny pieces and tossing them into the metal trashcan by the office window. One little flick of a match, and the scraps were up in flames. There was a chance Sam had copies on his phone, but Campbell chose not to push it. Sam's phone needed his fingerprint to get  in, anyways. Whatever was there was probably safe from prying eyes.

"No one else knows," Sam signed. "Not even Cassandra."

"Good. Keep it that way, for now."

"What are we going to do?"

"Keep our heads down and play along until we can find a way home."

As  much as Campbell loved being away from their parents, away from the pointless day to day social rules, it wasn't sustainable unless they found some sort of civilization besides their own. Campbell met Sam's eyes, and pondered saying something. Even just an apology. But Sam was the protagonist of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie-- if Campbell apologized, Sam would want an explanation, and then he'd want to talk.

But then Sam seemed to give up, shuffling his foot on the hardwood floor. "Is that it?"

He'd take the out. "I need a car. Can I have dad's key?"

Sam  hated their dad's car. He took the key off the ring and handed it over,  a tiny hint of relief on his face. "What do you want the car for?"

"Game of Fugitive in an hour." Campbell fiddled with the key for a moment, thinking. "You wanna go? I could use a rider."

It was no surprise that Sam shook his head. "I need to keep looking."

Well,  whatever. Campbell headed towards the door. He stopped just outside of  it, looking over his shoulder; Sam was still watching him, a mournful expression on his face. It sucked, but it wasn't enough to make Campbell  budge. Campbell signed one last thing. Be careful. It was the best he could, or would, do.

The  faces at the Fugitive start point were a lot less somber. People were bouncing, laughing, chattering among small groups. There was one group hanging out near Harry, comprised of some of the people he'd known back  in their real home. He hung around the edges there while he waited for  Harry to show up; they were always Fugitive partners, and now that Kelly  was out of the picture, that sure wasn't going to change this time  around.

One face Campbell didn't see was the one he wanted to see most. Elle wasn't there, not yet. Maybe she wouldn't show, after all.

But  then Harry was hopping up onto the hood of a car, yelling at the growing crowd. "Okay, okay, we're gonna... Hello!" People settled, listening. Harry grinned. "I got some texts saying more folks are coming. We're gonna wait a few minutes before we divide up sides, see who else shows up, so just hang out."

"You look chipper," Campbell said as Harry jumped off the car and sauntered over. "Extra strong coffee?"

"What? I'm my normal self."

"Your normal self isn't chipper."

Harry  opened his mouth to reply, but Campbell slid his arms around Harry's waist before her could. "Woah, what the hell? Campbell, you can't just--"

Campbell's fingers closed around a small baggy in Harry's back pocket. He pulled it out and sighed. "Really? This stuff again?"

"Don't  be a hypocrite. You slipped me pills plenty of times. And besides, it's  not like there's an endless supply. Just one last little party before  it's gone."

"You know how I feel about you getting into the  harder shit." It was bullshit. The occasional painkiller or little bag  of weed wasn't the same as a cocaine addiction. "This is the last of it,  right?"

"Well... No. I have one more at home."

"Harry."

"Campbell."

Whatever  fight was about to start, it was cut short by the arrival of Allie. She  smiled at Harry, and Harry smiled back. Campbell stared. No. No, no  fucking way. "What's she doing here?"

"I invited the town. Besides, I asked her to come with me tonight."

Campbell  kept his mouth shut. Harry's eyes were locked on him, almost daring him  to say something. What was there to say? Harry hated being alone. Of  course he moved on to another hot body before his own got cold. "Don't  do anything stupid and get her hurt. I don't need to hear about it from  Cassandra."

"Yeah, okay," Harry answered. Campbell was viciously  pleased that the bounce had gone out of Harry's step, just a little. A  hollow victory. "Whatever."

Clark came zooming up in an actual  cop car, crowing about how the keys were still in the ignition. For some  reason, no one found that weird as fuck; Campbell refused to get near  the damn thing. They were stuck in some parallel world. A cursed car  didn't seem quite that far-fetched anymore. But Clark, of course,  claimed it for himself and picked someone else as his rider anyways.  Good thing about everyone thinking he was evil-- less people roped him  into their terrible ideas.

Harry had stomped off, dividing up the  crowd and explaining the rules. Campbell tuned him out and scanned the  players one last time. He didn't expect to see Elle, but he caught sight  of a small figure along the outskirts of the group, talking to Grizz.  She'd shown up after all. Campbell felt some spark of happiness, even if  it was dimmed by Harry's bullshit.

The starting horn let out a  shriek, and the fugitives took off. Elle froze, looking over at  Campbell; he grinned as one of the guys yelled at her to get moving, and  she bolted down the street with the others. The evening suddenly looked  a lot more fun.

"Nice car," Grizz said as he wandered over. "Need a partner?"

"Would have thought you'd be someone's rider, Mister Football."

"Pulled something playing with the guys. I can still drive just fine, though."

Campbell  considered the offer, then tossed Grizz the key. It'd be a chance to prod at Grizz about Elle. They climbed into the car to wait for the three minute head start to be over; he watched Grizz familiarize himself  with the car, wondering how to approach the situation. The three  minutes ended and they were out on the road when Campbell decided to  just go for the throat. Just a matter of finding the right opening...

"Hey Campbell, how many miles per gallon does this thing--"

"So, interested in anyone?"

Nailed it.

The  car jerked forward a bit as Grizz's foot slipped and hit the gas. Grizz  glanced over at Campbell for a split second, before focusing intently  on the road. "How do you mean that?"

"You know. Romantically. Sexually. Philosophically."

"Uh, that's kind of... Why do you ask?"

"I saw you chatting to Elle in the parking lot, so I just wondered."

Grizz visibly relaxed. "Oh, oh thank god."

"What?"

"What?"

Squinting, Campbell eyed Grizz but decided to let it go. "So, you're not interested in Elle?"

"Nope.  I don't really know much about her, besides the fact that her family's  from Ireland. Hey, I think I spotted someone down that way. Wanna go?"

The  shift in topic was obvious, but Campbell got the information he wanted.  Time to focus on the game. They peeled down the street, and Campbell  jumped out and raced after a fugitive who was trying to go through a  locked fence. Easy. They gave the fugitive a quick ride to the gazebo--  the 'jail' for the night-- and then headed back out. Five more captured  fugitives later, and they took a quick break.

Grizz sipped a water. "You're good at this."

"Eh,  I was super into maps and history when I was younger. I know pretty much every street here like the back of my hand. Useful for this, anyways."

"Yeah? Where'd the best hiding place be?"

"Hm. There's an alley back behind the old video rental store. There's some bushes and a few other buildings that kind of hide it from view. We could check it out."

"Affirmative."

When they pulled up, it looked like an alleyway from a horror movie. It was dark, and utterly  silent. Campbell opened the door and headed in, despite the fact that  Grizz looked like they were in the Upside Down and he was expecting the  Demigorgon to pop out. Sneaking down towards the back of the store,  Campbell paused when he heard a twig snap; he stopped, watching and  waiting.

A shape moved from the shadows and into a single beam  of light from the streets. It was just enough that Campbell could see a  bit of blonde hair, and the glint off a necklace chain. Campbell  couldn't believe his luck. Elle was right there, mere feet away, and she  hadn't seen or heard him yet. He held his breathe, waiting until her  back was to him. Finally, he moved, grabbing her shoulders.

Elle  yelped, jumping and spinning around. When she saw Campbell, she began to  laugh, pressing a hand to her chest. "You scared the shit out of me."

He couldn't help but laugh a little, himself. "I'm sorry. Are you gonna make it?"

"I suppose." Elle smiled and held out her wrists. "Okay, you can take me to jail."

"I can take you someplace better than jail."

Elle's smile faded. She leaned a little closer. "Well, we did plan to talk after the game. Your place or mine?"

"That's entirely up to you."

"Your place, then."

Campbell  brushed a lock of hair from Elle's face, taking her hand and leading her back to the car. They both hopped into the back seat. "Hey, Grizz. Mind playing chauffeur?"

Grizz peered into the rearview mirror. "Not at all. Clark called to say the game's over in ten, anyways. You two going to Harry's party?"

"Nah, just take us to my house."

"Gotcha."

He  began driving, without asking for directions. Any other night, Campbell  would ask Grizz how he knew the way, but it didn't matter. Elle was  still holding his hand. She was looking at him like she wasn't sure yet  if she actually forgave him or not, but she was coming home with him and  her fingers were laced with his. It meant he had a chance to make  things better.

Grizz parked in the driveway, hopping out and  handing the key back over. He smiled, and gave Elle a little wave.  "Thanks for the game. Have a good evening."

"You, too," Campbell replied. "Night."

Feeling  nervous usually wasn't something Campbell had to worry about, but he did feel a small flicker of uncertainty as he let Elle inside and watched her look around the house. She inspected the books, the art, the  furniture and fixtures. Whatever she saw must have passed the muster,  because she was smiling again when she came back.

"I don't suppose a lady could ask for a beer?"

Campbell snorted. "I've got enough stashed away to last a year. A lady most certainly can have a beer."

She  followed him into the kitchen and perched on one of the stools, resting  her elbows on the countertop. "Well, I'll know where to come in a  drought, then." Elle accepted the beer Campbell fished out of the fridge. "You really do have a beautiful home. Awfully big for one person  though, isn't it?"

Popping open their drinks, Campbell let out a rough exhale. "Yeah, I guess I should try and explain that."

"Probably."

"It's  complicated. I know I shouldn't have said what I said, but..." Campbell  ran a hand through his hair. "You don't know Sam. Our parents doted on  him. He always was the center of attention, especially when he got sick.  Our parents just acted like I was a nuisance. I was always a problem to  get rid of."

"What do you mean?"

"Like... Sam got all the  attention. The newest toys, treats, birthday parties. Mom and dad were  too busy for me, because they had work or because of the baby or because  Sam needed them. And they never really got me anything, because they  said I'd just break it. I couldn't have parties because I was rude to  the other kids."

Elle tilted her head. "Yeah? Did you actually do those things?"

"Well.  Yeah. But they never asked why, you know? I broke things because I got  frustrated, and they just didn't care. I got into fights because it was  the only time I felt like I could let the anger out."

"So, what does that have to do with Sam?"

"It  made me hate him. And I know it's their fault, not his, but it fucked things up between us. I felt like I was always fighting over every scrap  of anything with him. And when we got here, I just... I don't know. I  wanted my own space, my own time. And then they start talking about  sharing homes, and I just... I would hurt people. And I didn't want one  of those people being Sam."

Elle rested her chin on her hand. "You could have just explained that to him, you know."

"No,  because then he'd think that we could just work it out somehow. Even if  he left, everyone else would wonder-- why me, and not them? Why do I  get my own place?" Campbell shook his head. "Then anyone could just claim to be crazy and get their way. No, I had to actually do something.  And most people love Sam and hate me, so it was the best way to prove I  was the monster they thought I was already."

"Well, I don't think you're a monster. A little crazy, maybe," she added with a half smile, "but not a monster."

"Yeah, but it's not the cute kind."

"Then what kind is it?"

Campbell  downed the rest of his beer. He wanted to tell her, warn her off or whatever, but he could remember Cassandra telling him not to let anyone  know. Still. When he looked at Elle, something in him made him think he  could trust her. And if she did react badly, who would she tell? They  were both the town social pariahs. No one cared what they had to say.

But...  He couldn't say it. He opened his mouth to try, but it didn't want to  come out. Instead, he just shrugged and tried to smile. "The kind I  don't talk about until the third date."

"Two more dates to go, then."

"Yeah?"  Campbell blinked. Maybe it was the alcohol, but he could swear Elle was  looking at him a bit warmer than before. Who was he to question it? He  stood up and offered his hand. "Wanna go up to my room? It's comfier  than the kitchen. We could watch a movie or something."

Elle finished off her beer and accepted his hand. "Only if you bring that bottle of wine I saw in the fridge."

It  was just some cheap Barefoot Moscato, but he dutifully grabbed it from  the fridge before heading upstairs. Elle followed him into the room; besides his family and Harry, no one else had ever been inside, and he was suddenly thankful that he kept his space clean and tidy. She explored with the same intensity that she had downstairs, not touching anything but studying everything.

"Did you take these?" she asked, pointing to the black and white photographs above his desk.

"Yeah. 7th grade photography class."

"They're very good. Have you considered getting into photography?"

"It was a thought. It'd give me a chance to see other countries."

Elle  looked to his desk and lightly grazed her fingers over a small globe, the stamps he had out to sort through, a small collection of old books on world maps. "I guess I expected you to be more into video games and posters of women in bikinis than nature shots and world travel."

"I mean, I could whip out Super Smash Bros if you're disappointed."

But  then Elle was right there, curling her arms around him and kissing him.  Campbell froze, just for a split second, before kissing her back. Her  lips were soft and tasted faintly of strawberry; when he brushed his  fingers along her cheek, her skin was warm. Campbell had never allowed  himself to get that close to anyone. It had always seemed just out of  reach, but Elle was right there in his arms. His other hand rested on  her hip, and that was when she yanked back. Moment gone.

"I'm going home. This was a mistake."

Campbell lifted his hands. "Woah, woah. Hey. I didn't mean to upset you again. I thought we were having fun."

"I don't want to have fun."

"Elle,  I don't understand what's going on here. I promised I wouldn't do anything you weren't comfortable with, but you kinda seemed into this."

"Yeah, well I'm not just some skank, okay?"

"Okay,  okay. I know I made a mistake at the church, but I didn't mean anything  by it this time. It's just where my hand rested. I don't think you're  easy or anything."

Elle brushed past him and headed towards the  door, but then she stopped and turned back. "Why did you pick me? Why do  you keep picking me? You barely know me."

"Because I like you." Campbell sat on the bed, gesturing at the air between them. "Alright, so I don't know you super well, but we're not strangers. I think that we've got a bit in common."

"I like you, too, but I... Look, I don't like being touched like that."

Campbell  bit back the urge to ask. It wasn't his business. He nodded, raising his right hand. "I swear, I won't touch you without asking. Okay? But I  need you to tell me I'm making you uncomfortable. I'm kind of new to this."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Elle looked up at the ceiling, her eyes blinking rapidly. "Can we watch a movie still?"

"Hey, of course. C'mon. You can pick whatever you want. Our DVD collection has thrilling titles like Lord of the Rings, Top Gun, and Frozen."

"Frozen, seriously?"

"Don't hate on Frozen. It's a beautiful movie about familial love and self-acceptance."

Elle  sniffled and laughed at the same time, coming over and sinking on the bed next to Campbell. They were cuddled up and halfway through Let It Go  when the thunderstorm rolled in; the lights flickered, and Elle pressed  a tiny bit closer, and closer still when the power went out completely.

"Don't worry," Campbell tried to assure. "They'll be back on by the time the movie's over."

"How do you figure? Who's gonna fix it?"

"We've  been here two weeks without anyone at the power plant. Wherever we are,  whatever this is, I have to believe that it'll right itself."

"I wish I was that confident."

Campbell  looked over at Elle, the glow of the DVD player illuminating her taut,  worried expression. "You're safe here with me. I want you to know that. I  won't let anything hurt you."

Her eyes shone as she turned her face to him. "Do you think I need someone to protect me?"

"I don't know. I need someone. I think maybe you do, too."

"Maybe." Elle rested her head on his shoulder. "Can I have some wine?"

They  passed the bottle back and forth for a little while, until Elle shook her head when he offered it back. He set it aside; it wouldn't do any good to get drunker than her. Not again. "Pleasantly warm" was a good place to stop. What wasn't pleasant was that, by the time the movie was  over, the rain was still pouring and the power wasn't back on. He tried  not to think of what that meant in terms of frozen and refrigerated  food, and focused on the fact that Elle had fallen asleep against him.

"Hey." He gently nudged her with his elbow. "It's late. Do you want me to drive you home?"

Elle stirred, but didn't move. "Can I stay here? I don't wanna be alone."

"Yeah, no problem. You can stay here and get comfy. I'll use one of the other beds."

"No. Don't go."

"Are you sure?"

"Mhm."

Campbell  felt torn. Elle was half asleep, and probably a little tipsy. Was she making a choice she'd normally make? But if she really didn't want to be  alone, then he didn't want to make her upset. Waking up to find someone  gone didn't sound like anything he wanted to put someone through. After  a few moments of deliberation, Campbell carefully lowered Elle to the  bed and tucked her in with a quilt. It was warm and a bit muggy from the  storm, so hopefully a light blanket would be good enough.

Stretching  out on his side of the bed, Campbell kept his distance as much as  possible. He was just about asleep himself when a loud crack of  lightning rang out over the house, rattling the windows. Elle mumbled  something, shifting around until she was curled up at Campbell's back,  one arm slung over his waist.

Never pictured being the little  spoon, he thought to himself as he closed his eyes. But for someone like  Elle, he could see himself getting used to it.

[seventeen-teen-teen-trash]

-tw: guns, death, minimal violence-

Seungcheol doesn’t look back as he leaves the food court, the image of Jeonghan’s worried face etched into his mind. Despite the other’s tendency to cover everything up with a veil of nonchalance, Seungcheol could easily see through the cracks.

His mind is running a mile an hour, clinging to the little details like Jeonghan’s stiff shoulders and the unprecedented amount of fear in Vernon’s voice. If he were to slow down and actually process the current situation- that Mingyu is dead and Minghao has lost his mind- he’d break down, too.

You can grieve for him if you make it out alive.

Gently, he touches the bracelet around his wrist and picks up his speed as he runs toward Best Buy. He doesn’t get very far, though, before the sound of shrill screams stop him. Minghao’s voice is instantly recognizable, even from a considerable distance, and despite his most recent state, Seungcheol feels a pang in his chest at the thought of his former friend in danger. He shakes his head in exasperation as he turns back around toward the food court, despite the small voice warning him that if he doesn’t escape soon, he might not escape at all.

“Minhao, I’m coming!” he screams, fear rapidly settling in. He doesn’t think Vernon or Jeonghan would have it in them to hurt Minghao to the point where he’d make that frightened of a scream, leaving only one other option. Someone else is involved here.

He spies a broken rod lying on the floor near one of the empty shop entrances, probably from a clothes rack or something, and picks it up just in case the situation calls for defense.

Another round of screams, clearly belonging to Jeonghan and Vernon.

Seungcheol nearly drops the rod at the sound, too intense to be out of mere panic. Without hesitation, he runs toward the food court, shoving away the gnawing thoughts of guilt and anxiety about his own safety and instead focusing on the feeling of the worn tile floor beneath his feet, every step bringing him closer and closer.

“C-Cheol!” a weak voice cries out.

Immediately, he freezes and surveys the area for anyone nearby.

“Seung-” the voice erupts into a coughing fit, punctuated with sharp gasps and choking sounds. “P-please… Help me… Right-” more violent coughs, “Across from you.”

Seungcheol turns around to look in that direction and immediately sees a dark silhouette huddled in the back corner of the store across from him. He bites his lip, eyes flickering back and forth from the distant entrance to the food court to the shadowed figure across from him. “Are you okay?” he calls, subconsciously tightening his grip on the rod.

Between coughs, the person replies, “Cheol, I-I’m… I’m gonna d-die. I don’t wa… wanna. Pl-please.”

“Can you…” Seungcheol lets out a frustrated exhale, slowly stepping closer to the abandoned store, “Can you hang on a few minutes? Will you be okay?”

“Don’t l-leave me, Cheol…”

That voice… “I’m coming! Hold on,” he says, firmly deciding that Jeonghan, Vernon, and Minghao will have to be okay for a few minutes. Carefully, but quickly, he makes his way inside the store, holding out his rod in front of him. He squeezes between fallen racks and shelves until he reaches the back of the store, drawing in a gasp as he sees the body laying on the floor. It’s dark, but he can still make out that there’s blood all over Joshua’s body and clothes, and his hair is slick with something wet. His heart breaks at the sight of his friend, and suddenly he understands Minghao’s pain, anguish, and fear. Tentative fingers reach out to brush Joshua’s hair away from his face. “Who…” Seungcheol says softly as he crouches down, “Who did this to you, Joshua?”

“Oh, Seungcheol,” Joshua sighs as he sits up effortlessly, voice suddenly devoid of the terror from moments before. In an instant, he grabs something from his pocket and stands up, Seungcheol still on his knees. He laughs, sickeningly sweet, as he presses the barrel of his gun to the other’s forehead. “You did.”

Seungcheol’s throat goes dry. His pulse rattles his skull as he looks up at Joshua, catlike eyes challenging him in an indulgent grin. “W-what,” he chokes. “What’s going on? Joshua, please…”

“It’s been quite the show, this whole game,” he hums, pacing in a circle around Seungcheol, gun still trained at his head. “I must say, I didn’t envision you to be the final contestant, but I suppose it makes for a thrilling finale. You were, after all, one of the many catalysts that led me to devise this brilliant plan.” He crouches down to Seungcheol’s eye level and smiles contently. “So thank you for that.”

A furious mixture of confusion and anger courses through his blood as he stares Joshua dead in the eye. “What are you talking about?” he whispers, careful not to speak too loudly so as to set off Joshua (and his gun).

“Hm,” Joshua stands up again. “You have a very inefficient memory, then. Care for me to refresh it?”

“Yes, please,” Seungcheol grunts, trying to locate the rod as inconspicuously as he can.

But, of course, Joshua notices. He kicks the metal rod across the store to the point where it would be impossible for Seungcheol to retrieve it now. “Can’t have you getting any ideas,” he chuckles. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. You see, our little group at Pembroke was so lovely at first. The richest boys in the school… We practically had the entire school under our feet. But among ourselves, there were definitely a few members who were consistently overlooked, forgotten, ignored.” His smug expression morphs into a bitter scowl. “Namely, myself.”

“You all gave me popularity and status above the other students at Pembroke, but I was never more than a bank account number or an empty house to host parties. Really, it was draining.” Joshua shrugs and continues his pacing. “And then came my golden opportunity, when your father lost his job, and you dropped out. When you left, I checked Wonwoo’s father’s company’s website, and when I saw your father was removed, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. I told a few students, and quickly word spread like wildfire until it reached our group. You obviously assumed it was Wonwoo, deflecting suspicion from me and hurting Wonwoo’s reputation within the group. I thought it was the perfect plan. Without their boisterous, attention-seeking leader, the group would be able to focus on its other members.” He pauses again, momentarily lowering his gun. “Unfortunately, that was not the case.”

“This,” Seungcheol breathes, tensing his shoulders in anger, “Was all because you felt left ou-”

The cold feeling of Joshua’s gun between his eyes stops him from saying anything more. “Shut up!” Joshua hisses. “You’re going to let me finish my monologue!”

Clearing his throat, Joshua resumes. “As I was saying… Even my best efforts to dismantle our group’s hierarchy failed. Me, Joshua Hong, son of the second-richest businessman in South Korea, reduced to nothing? I just couldn’t let that happen. So when Soonyoung suggested this bonding trip, I slowly developed the perfect plan. If I couldn’t rise to the top on my own, I’d make sure to knock everyone else down, peg by peg.”

“How the fuck did you… You’re psychotic, Joshua!” Seungcheol shouts, unable to bridle his fury any longer.

“No.” Joshua clicks his tongue and pets Seungcheol’s hair gently. “You’re just mean.”

“You… YOU did all of this?! You killed Mingyu? Where is everyone else, what’s going on, Joshua?!”

The younger purses his lips, edges still curled in a smirk. “I’ll admit, I couldn’t have done this without Seokmin’s help. Faithful until the end, he was,” he sighs, shaking his head ruefully. “Ah, well. I didn’t call all the shots here. You all picked who was going to die. I just carried out the deed.”

Seungcheol’s eyes widen in shock, body trembling under Joshua’s piercing gaze. “You… They’re all… T-they’re dead…?”

“Yes, Seungcheol. They’re dead.” He taps a finger to his lips in thought. “But as a prize for being the last man standing, I suppose I’ll give you a special offer. You see, I didn’t install the keypads- they were, however, a pleasant surprise- but you could have easily broken a window to escape. I’ll let you take that opportunity. You can leave this mall with all the pride and satisfaction of knowing that out of all your dead friends, you, Choi Seungcheol, survived.” Joshua leans in to whisper in Seungcheol’s ear. “What a fascinating story to tell,” he says. “Or, in the ultimate sign of solidarity, you could join your friends. No guilt, no trauma, no lasting nightmares… The choice is yours, Cheol. What will it be? All? Or alone?”

__________________

part 10 of the dead mall series

<prev | next>

poll link

(a/n) ....ok first of all this is NOT how I view Joshua (or any of the members) at all! I just needed a bad guy for this story, and I felt he would make an interesting villain. so, how did your theories stack up? ending is tomorrow at 7pm cst. see you then ;) -mimi

[tracyclarkabouteverything]

How the West "threatens” to take revenge on Russia for Ukraine

US President Joe Biden, who bears the main responsibility for this grandiose failure, trying to hide behind vassals looking loyally into Washington's eyes, promised a "unified and decisive response" to Russia's actions, which "the world will hold accountable" for "an unnecessary act of aggression against Ukraine, global peace and security." Biden promised that he would monitor the situation around Ukraine and continue to receive regular information about what is happening.

In a conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, he described Russia's military operation to demilitarize Ukraine as an "unprovoked and unjustified attack" and promised more serious sanctions against Russia from the "Big Seven" and other "allies" of the United States. And also - remotely support Ukraine and its people.

American hegemony in the world is collapsing, and the inhabitants of the Capitol are naturally concerned about this, regardless of party affiliation. But the feud between Democrats and Republicans also revived there. There is nothing to say to these figures. All the smart experts who warned not to provoke Russia were dispersed in the USA and in the West as a whole a long time ago. Therefore, they are saying now what they have always said, although the meaninglessness of these words and this course has become obvious to everyone. It's stupid to intimidate with sanctions and fight with Russia with language, but that's exactly what they are doing.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrat Mark Warner, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin tragically put an end to decades of universal peace in Europe, forgetting about NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia and Kosovo. However, from the further words of the legislator, it is clear that the United States plans only to "strengthen the defense of NATO allies" and "demonstrate to Putin that this aggression will not go unpunished." But Washington will only "study" assistance to Ukraine.

The head of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat Adam Schiff, promised to "stand on the side of the people of Ukraine - now and always." He does not know "what will happen next" at all, except for increasing sanctions pressure - up to "the complete cutting off of Russia's leading financial institutions from the global economy and ending Europe's dependence on Russian oil forever." And of course, Schiff is ready to sacrifice the interests of Europeans, especially Germans, because it is beneficial to the United States.

Republican Senator Kevin Kramer did not understand anything: "We should have imposed sanctions a few months ago to prevent exactly such actions." And his colleague, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, James Risch, expressed a desire to fight to the last Ukrainian.

The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, Kiev's main European sponsor, had the opportunity to force Ukraine not to provoke Russia, but Berlin did not take advantage of it, because more than anything else he wanted to curry favor with the United States. Now Scholz can only work with his tongue and grieve about "a terrible day for Ukraine and a dark day for Europe." And also to declare a "blatant violation of international law" (in his opinion, everything was fine with Yugoslavia and Kosovo because of the Serbian "genocide") and to claim that Russia's attack was "not justified by anything." Is Scholz blind and deaf? Don't worry, he's fine – he's just a coward, that's why he shows "full solidarity" with Ukraine and its people. Yes, German investments have gone into the sand, Germany is likely to lose Nord Stream 2 – this is the price of the lack of genuine sovereignty.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called an extraordinary meeting of the Defense and National Security Council to discuss the situation in Ukraine. He spoke previously by phone with Zelensky, the latter demanded support from the French. There is no clear statement from Paris regarding Russia's military special operation in Ukraine at the time of writing, and it will most likely be standard. Thanks to this telephone conversation, however, the general public learned that Macron was not an "honest broker" at all, because Paris also supplied the Ukrainian regime with weapons for the war with Russia.

There are also "kings" of one strange "kingdom" in Europe – the European Union. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a long-time enemy of Russia, made one of the most cynical statements. She had never seen or acknowledged the crimes of Kiev. But he habitually blames everything on Moscow, promising to impose "the toughest sanctions", "weaken Russia's economic base and its ability to modernize" after Moscow's "barbaric attack on Ukraine." She said she would submit "large-scale and strategic" sanctions against Russia for approval. The goal is "to cause serious damage to the Kremlin, their interests and their ability to finance the war."

Thus, no one in the West is going to fight for Ukraine, because everyone understands how scary and pointless it is. The West realizes that its policy has failed, the map is broken - Russia will not become part of the "world villainy". However, they don't understand what to do there. The West has no plan "B". Except for one thing – to spoil the life of Russians as much as possible. But there is a risk. They will see the West, not the Kremlin, if Washington starts this seriously. And Russia probably also has many ways to punish the West.

[orbemnews]

Little Village police shooting: Mayor Lightfoot vows justice after Chicago police fatal shooting of boy, 13 CHICAGO (WLS) — Mayor Lori Lightfoot is vowing to bring to justice whomever is responsible for putting a gun in the hands of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, who was fatally shot by Chicago police. “This is a tragedy. The most tragic of circumstances. Let’s not make it worse by passing judgment,” Supt. Brown said Monday. He said one of his biggest fears has been “a deadly encounter between one of our officers and a juvenile,” amid the recent spike in violence crimes involving Chicago youth. “That fear became a reality on March 29, 2021 with the death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo,” he said. At around 2:30 a.m. last Monday, Chicago police officers were responding to a ShotSpotter alert of eight shots fired when they came upon Toledo and a 21-year-old man in an alley near 24th and Sawyer in Little Village. They say a foot pursuit ensued and during an “armed confrontation,” an officer shot Toledo in the chest. A vigil to remember Toledo was held in the Little Village neighborhood Monday afternoon. “We are here today to stand in solidarity with Adam’s family and our community, to grieve and pray together,” said Jacqueline Herrera, Violence Prevention Director at Enlace Chicago. “He had a big imagination and curiosity since he was a baby. Adam was 13 years old,. He still had a full life ahead of him.” WATCH | Vigil held to remember 13-year-old boy fatally shot by Chicago police Toledo wanted to be a police officer, but Lightfoot said Monday that the teen had fallen victim to the allure of gangs. “I had the privilege of speaking briefly with Ms. Toledo,” Lightfoot said. “I called to offer her my condolences, and my help for whatever she needs. She was as you might expect overcome with emotion and profoundly grieving.” COPA is now investigating and is arranging for the mother to view the body camera video before publicly releasing it. The family is asking for peace after gangs reportedly called for shooting at police cars in retaliation. The mayor has now ordered an immediate review of the police foot pursuit policy. She is also vowing justice. WATCH | Supt. Brown gives update on fatal Little Village police shooting of boy, 13 Police shared a photo of a gun allegedly recovered at the scene. “Our officers have to make split-second decisions when it comes to the use of deadly force and that is a heavy burden,” Chicago Police Supt. David Brown said. A second suspect, 21-year-old Ruben Roman, is charged in the incident with a misdemeanor for resisting an officer. A source told ABC 7 Chicago Roman is a known gang member. “We will not tolerate [gangs] using our children pawns and setting them up for a life of misery… here is where we must, must draw the line,” Lightfoot said Monday. The mayor vowed Monday to find who is responsible for giving the young teen a gun. “I am determined,” Lightfoot said. “We will find the person who put this gun in Adam’s hand. We will not be deterred by threats from gang members. An adult must be responsible for putting that gun in that child’s hand.” An attorney for the Toledo family released a statement that said, in part “…want to correct the hurtful and false mischaracterization of Adam as a lonely child of the street who had no one to turn to. This is simply not true. Adam was a loved and supported 13-year-old boy. He lived with his mother, his 90-year-old grandfather, and two of his siblings. His father was in his life. They all loved him very much… Adam was not alone.” Pastor Matt DeMateo, whose New Life Church works with at-risk kids, stood with his 13-year-old son, who went to school with Toledo. They were also neighbors. “We lost a son, a neighbor, a student, and there are no winners in this situation,” he said. People in the neighborhood said they invited the police commander to Little Village Tuesday night for a peaceful community conversation. WATCH | Mayor Lightfoot gives update on fatal Little Village police shooting of boy, 13 “Adam was a good kid. He had no criminal history, he went to Gary Elementary School. He shared time with his four siblings and all we know is that he was shot,” said the Toledo family’s attorney, Adeena Weiss-Ortiz. “Officers must make split-second decision when it comes to the use of force and that its a heavy burden,” Brown said. Toledo’s mom said he used to sneak out at night while she was asleep and had filed a missing person’s report for her son the Thursday before the shooting after she noticed he was missing. She told ABC7 that Toledo eventually came back on Saturday, but had snuck out again Sunday night. The boy’s family released a statement last week claiming that Toledo’s mom wasn’t notified of her son’s death until two days after the fatal shooting. Brown addressed this Monday, saying that Toledo had no identification on him at the time of his death and that Roman provided a fake name to police, which resulted in difficulty identifying the boy. After reviewing missing persons cases, including some who had returned home, investigators found a report with a description they felt resembled Toledo. The teen’s mother was then notified and confirmed it was her son, Brown said. Brown also promised the department’s full cooperation during COPA’s investigation. WATCH | Mother demands justice for 13-year-old son killed by police Toledo’s mom Elizabeth said he had aspirations of becoming a police officer one day. “He was so full of life,” she said. “They just took it away from him.” The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is expected to release body camera video of the shooting this week after it is viewed by the family. Last week, the agency released a statement saying, “COPA has determined that certain provisions of state law intended to protect the confidentiality of juvenile records do not prohibit the agency’s release of material related to its investigation of a Chicago Police Officer’s fatal shooting of 13-year old Adam Toledo. COPA’s General Counsel concluded that the Juvenile Court Act does not bar publication of the body worn and third-party video camera footage the agency has obtained to date. COPA will therefore follow established City policy, which requires public posting of material at the earliest point possible but no later than 60 days after the incident. COPA is currently working with the Toledo family and their representative to arrange for a review of the troubling video footage. Again our condolences are with the Toledo family during this challenging time.” WATCH | Family of Adam Toledo, teen killed by CPD in Little Village speak out The family is waiting to see that body camera video of the shooting next week before deciding to file any potential lawsuit. The officer involved in the shooting was placed on desk duty for 30 days while the Civilian Office of Police Accountability investigates the shooting, police said. FULL STATEMENT FROM TOLEDO FAMILY The family of Adam Toledo appreciates the personal and public condolences expressed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown, Pastor Matt DeMateo of New Life Community Church Little Village, and others who have reached out to them in this time of excruciating grief. We are concerned by presumptions, implications, and statements made today that are not supported by the facts made public so far regarding what transpired on March 29, 2021. We are unable to refute or respond to these statements until we obtain the evidentiary facts, which so far are known only to the police. We are working diligently to learn the truth about what happened in the early morning hours of March 29 when Adam’s life was so tragically cut short by a police bullet. We have requested expedited meetings with pertinent authorities to obtain evidence and to review the police body camera footage and other available video. To date, we have not received confirmation of a time to view the footage. We are not going to let the anguish and emotion of the moment interfere with our objective to obtain the facts. We will address all public statements about the circumstances of Adam’s death once we have the facts before us. We do, however, want to correct the hurtful and false mischaracterization of Adam as a lonely child of the street who had no one to turn to. This is simply not true. Adam was a loved and supported 13-year-old boy. He lived with his mother, his 90-year-old grandfather, and two of his siblings. His father was in his life. They all loved him very much. The Toledo family is a close-knit family. They look after each other. Adam attended Gary Elementary School where he had the support of his teachers and his classmates. Adam was not alone. Copyright © 2021 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments); if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '120854971962341'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); Source link Orbem News #13yearoldshotinlittlevillage #adamtoledo #boy #Chicago #chicagonews #chicagopolice #chicagopoliceshooting #chicagoshooting #CPD #fatal #Justice #Lightfoot #littlevillage #littlevillagenews #littlevillageshooting #Mayor #Police #RubenRoman #shooting #village #Vows

[whopooh]

Miss Fisher when Everybody Hurts: the May trope challenge

“What just happened?”

Although April is supposed to be the cruellest month, in the MFMM fandom that designation must be given to May instead, as it saw the monthly trope declared as hurt/comfort. What, we asked ourselves, were the poor lambs going to be put through now? Haven’t they already been enough through the wringer?

Hurt can come in so many different ways – physical, emotional, or maybe more symbolical or feared than actually happening. Unsurprisingly, the Miss Fisher fanfic included them all. It has – again – been a delight to read the trope fics of the month! (here is the full collection: Everybody Hurts.)

So, how to structure the hurt and its comfort in the best way? I decided to do it based on where the hurt comes from, and how the comfort for it is created. Most of the hurt is comforted through the relationship between Phryne and Jack, while some of the hurt also comes from it. As a rule, Jack takes most of the hurt, but there are also quite a lot of Phryne hurting.

First, there is hurt through what could have been. The hurt is coming from the fear of things that could happen, the ever present possibility of a sad ending.

First, @firesign23‘s beautiful and intense “Blame It On The Wireless”, where Phryne receives bad news about a raid Jack was leading. In the view of fatalities and Jack not contacting her, she fears the worst. One of the beautiful things with this fic is the way that nothing has happened to Jack, it is all in Phryne’s imaginations and fears and in the failed attempt to communicate. She is driven by worry and by the nagging feeling from never having told him to be careful. As Phryne drives to the hospital she fears the worst, and when she there encounters a Jack without a scratch, behaving as if nothing was unusual, she explodes. 

Time stopped, her stomach flipped, a small, strangled sob escaped her mouth. He was standing in the hall, deep in conversation, with nary a scratch on him. Her eyes flicked over him twice. His suit wasn’t even rumpled, for heaven’s sake! As if sensing her presence he looked up, excused himself, and began to walk over.    Phryne did the only thing she could think to do: she turned on her heel and walked away.

She drives home without a word, and when Jack comes to see what’s the matter, she tries to expel him but instead drags him into a frantic lovemaking: “She screamed when her orgasm hit, guttural and unfamiliar. The sound of grief that almost was.” The things that could have happened are looming above them, and the need to learn to deal with these kinds of things is pressing.

Another version of the “what could have been” is @scruggzi’s “Without Regret”. Thos gives -- in a unrelentingly sad and poetic way -- small snippets of alternate endings to Phryne’s and Jack’s story. The alternate endings are given shape and weight, flesh and blood, and the sadness is both in how they would not work out, and in how Phryne would die, proudly, but incredibly sad. There are lines like “When she sells the house, Mr Butler, with a sense of trepidation, returns a toy badge to its owner by request” and “The crystal glasses that never made it to his wedding arrive for him with her Will. He can’t believe that she is really dead. Then he can’t believe that after all this time he has finally succumbed to the myth of her invincibility.” In the end, @scruggzi not being an incredibly cruel writer, there is the possibility of those versions not happening -- but the conjuring up of them and giving them this weight lingers with the reader. In this way, the happy ending stands out as even brighter, in contrast to the sadness of the ones never (probably) really happening. If the answer to “who is hurting” in @firesign23’s fic is Phryne, in @scruggzi’s, it is rather the reader that is hurting the most.

Another unabashedly both sad and sweet hurt/comfort fic is @loopyhoopyfrood‘s “Last Words”. Here, the soulmate trope makes a comeback, in an ominous way. The system of soulmates is rather cruel – the words you have on your skin are the last ones your soulmate will say to you. What this would mean in terms of worrying, I can see this world consist of rather neurotic people. In this case, it turns out that the last words Jack’s soulmate will tell him is “Come after me, Jack Robinson”, and when Phryne says this to him at the airfield, he becomes scared. When he later receives news that a plane has crashed over the Indian Ocean, it’s perhaps not so surprising that Mac finds him “with bleeding knuckles and a hole in his office wall” -- a wonderful image. And yes, it’s definitely Jack that hurts on this one. There is comfort too, but how I’ll leave for you to read.

“Do you love her more than you once loved me?”

One fic has taken the trope outside of the Phryne/Jack relationship, exploring Rosie’s hurt and heartbreak in a lovely, and lovingly, way, @longlineoftvdetectives “What Comfort in Truth”. “Do you love her more than you once loved me?” That is Rosie’s question to Jack as she has been bound to stay over at Wardlow for the trial after “Unnatural habits”. It is such a poignant question – how does one compare loves? – and it is beautifully done since the answer is not a simple one. We follow Rosie’s perspective and feelings at meeting Phryne and seeing Phryne and Jack together, and it’s really agonizingly heart clenching.

“I love you too darling,” Phryne said, in the easy manner of a woman who said this to the man on the other end of the phone several times a day.    There was a time Rosie was that woman. But now she was utterly alone.

I just want to hug Rosie, and I feel so much for Jack too and how this makes him feel, and this fic shows us how they cannot really help each other, but that a third party like Phryne can step in and help untangle their complicated web of guilt and sorrow. The solidarity between women, Phryne’s way of being, is what finally provides some kind of comfort for Rosie, who then proceeds to give her testimony in court in a confident and strong manner.

The next group of fics is those where the hurt is coming from the outside, and the comfort is the relationship itself – either given as a part of an established relationship, or the comfort is the very breakthrough and start of the relationship.

Have you been drinking, Inspector?

Two fics that capture sad, grieving Jack is @ladyroxie‘s “Bid farewell” and @omgimsarahtoo‘s “Fault Lines”. The settings are different – in the first, they are not in a relationship but there are promises of one in the end, in the latter they’re in an established relationship. In the first, Jack learns about the death of a longtime friend, having survival guilt, and in the latter the guilt is acutely present, as a young man under Jack’s command has died. Both explore beautifully how Phryne reacts to a Jack in grief.

In @ladyroxie‘s fic, Phryne telephones since Jack has forgotten they had a rendez-vous:

When she spoke, her voice seemed to reach through the telephone and stroke his cheek. He bit the inside of it, hard. “Do you need anything, Jack?” He willed himself to picture soup and headache powder though her voice suggested other things. “No.” He swallowed. “Thank you. Goodbye Miss Fisher.”

but Phryne sees through this and comes over:  “Why are you here, Miss Fisher. I told you, I'm -” / “I know what you told me, Jack. You're a terrible liar.”

The fic mirrors some of the ways the show lets Jack take care of Phryne, like the protest against her guilt. In @omgimsarahtoo’s story, Jack is even more wallowing, stricken by guilt, and in his sorrowful and drunk state he feels he is not worthy of anything, definitely not of her, and he takes the blame for people getting killed under his command:

“Superior officer,” he murmured. “Inferior, more like.” He took another swig of his drink and turned his face away from her. Phryne took a mouthful of her own whiskey, not knowing quite what to do. Jack’s quiet confidence was so compelling—it had never occurred to her that he had moments like this, where he doubted everything. 

But Phryne figures out how to be the comforting figure, cradling him and telling him “I’ve got you. It’s all right.” A night’s sleep is the best remedy. In”Fault lines,” this is then ending in a real bout of love-making, and Phryne thinking “It was good, she thought as her mind drifted into sleep, that his cracks lined up so perfectly alongside hers.”

@adverbally‘s fic “Sillage” -- her first for MFMM, welcome! -- has Phryne as the one hurting and needing their relationship as comfort. A case with domestic violence reminds her a little too much of René and what could have happened if she had stayed with him. Jack comes home to her to check on her, after she disappeared suspiciously quickly from the crime scene, and Phryne compares the two men, seeing how Jack is different, strong without being dominating:

She leaned in and pressed their lips together, relishing the way he relaxed against her and opened his mouth to her. It was moments like these that made her most aware of how unlike René he was. René was all fire and urgency where Jack favored tenderness and sensuality. René kissed as hard as he hit and used his touches to force her into submission. Jack touched her like she was something precious and awe-inspiring and let her guide their love-making.

In @whopooh’s ”The Marrying Kind” the hurt is so small, and the comfort unexpectedly rational for this trope. The hurt is the outside world’s view of Phryne’s and Jack’s relationship, and how Phryne sees this giving Jack problems, so it is rather related to the group of fics I will talk about later on – where the relationship in itself is the hurt. The twist here is that although the relationship is the comfort, it is so in an unexpected way, by denying it to become too ‘conventional’. Phryne attempts to provide comfort by offering to marry Jack, but he says no – not wanting the easy way of making everything right. If the relationship is going to be a comfort or a haven, it has to be in another way, not via the formality of their bond, and not by Phryne offering to give in to a demand he hadn’t even made.

A similar way of holding the most thorough comfort at bay is @longlineoftvdetectives “Head Injuries” that explores the time when Jack is out cold from the nerve tonic and the blow to his head in “Death Defying Feats”. It is a short scene where Mac comes by to assess the assault victim, and also sees through Phryne and her feelings for the unconscious detective. The comfort is not the relationship per se, but the offered possibility that there might eventually be a relationship, and Mac telling Phryne, from her long-standing friendship, “Let yourself be happy”.

There are so few pictures of Mac and Jack together, but here’s one!

Over to three fics where the burgeoning relationship is the actual comfort.

First @flashofthefuse “Two’s Company” that has some real physical hurt – Phryne and Jack have been injjured in the job, and while Jack is recuperating, Phryne is simply not waking up after surgery, to Mac’s and Jack’s great worry. Just as in @longlineoftvdetectives’s above mentioned fic, Mac is the pillar of reason and loveliness, and also huge amounts of sass. Here it is with Jack she has her conversation. So even if the end point of the fic is comfort from starting the relationship, there is first the very important – equally important – comfort of Mac’s friendship, which is wonderful.

The first chapter is all about Mac and Jack bonding over their joint love for Phryne. Jack refuses to leave her hospital room -- “The look he gave her was one of a man that knew he had no secrets and didn’t particularly care.” And they come to a mutual understanding: ”Their eyes met and something passed between them. An understanding that of all the people that knew and loved Phryne Fisher, they were, perhaps, the two that knew and loved her best. Unconditionally.” Then, when Phryne wakes up, Jack retreats, and so the hurt is double – not only the fear for her life (and before that his, since he was injured too), but also the hurt of his withdrawn attention and the insecurity of what their relationship actually is, as well as a call-back to the hurt of “Blood at the Wheel” too – altogether a delicious mix. Phryne realises something of her affections when she sees Jack hurt, but he retreats so much she doesn’t know whether he wants them, which results in a lovely mutual pining. The way she slowly worms her way into knowing this, via a case and with a good help from Mac, is lovely and with a lot of tension.

In @missingmissfisher‘s & Comeaftermejackrobinson’s “Of hope also one lives” (not yet completed) there is also a real physical hurt. Jack has lost his memory after being hurt on the job, and his mind has decided that he is Archie Jones, and that Phryne – Fern – is his wife. Phryne thus finds herself in a situation where she must play wife to Archie Jones while worrying whether Jack will ever come back to his right mind again. The hurt is extra tangible because they had just been on the brink of starting something -- Phryne had invited Jack to dinner, when he had to enter into the raid and was hurt. First, Phryne is fearing for his life, remembering her time in the war, then she has the scare of him not knowing who he is, and then small snippets of him coming back. As the fic is not finished, we’ll have to see how the comfort part will play out. 

In @rositalg's chapter 9 of “Chasing Shadow”, we are given a new ending to "King Memse’s Curse”. The hurt that permeates the fic is the close call that was Phryne’s dealings with Murdoch Foyle and that Jack acutely feels:

All night long, he’d stood along the fringes of the party observing, quietly acknowledging that all of this might have been lost if Phryne had been allowed to let herself die at the hands of Murdoch Foyle.

This night, after all this has happened, when she asks he cannot say no: “If it were any other day, he might have been stronger. Any other day, her touch, her eyes might not have broken him. But here, on this night, standing in her parlor, he didn't have the will to deny her.”

Jack practicing his “letting Phryne go”-technique.

Then, we move on to the really hurtful things: hurt that comes not from outside, and is not physical, but emotional and from the relationship itself: their differences, doubts, and the way they can hurt each other -- particularly the problem of holding fast or letting go. 

The first one is sassasam/ @phrynesboudoir’s “Goodbye Hello”. This is a kind of melancholy diptych, like two ‘still lives’ of Jack and Phryne respectively, alone, contemplating the relationship and what they might be heading towards, while the other one is asleep beside them. There is something serene in these two nights, and their symmetries and asymmetries say as much as possible of the respective character. First it is their last night, the night before Phryne is flying to England with her father, and Jack thinking about perhaps losing her. Then it is their first night, after reuniting, and Phryne thinking about perhaps staying with him. They both need to understand what might be their biggest fears, emotionally, while thinking about the other’s personality as well as physicality, as s/he is sleeping just beside them. The longing, the fear, the love – all very beautiful. Jack, the last night, wants her to stay but is letting her go, and he notices he has left a mark on her neck: 

He’d marked her, branded her, wanted the world to see that for one shining moment she had been his and his alone. He imagined her waking in the morning to find the mark, winding a scarf about her throat to hide it but still, knowing it was there. And for a few days hence, she would carry his mark with her and remember Jack Robinson.

There is a slight hopelessness to Jack, and he has difficulties aligning what has happened with that:

And so they’d had their gaudy night. Or at least that’s what he’d told himself it would be. One night of passion and possession. One night and then he’d let her go. But he hadn’t expected her to love him back.

Phryne, in chapter 2, is watching Jack and thinking about “the way her body responded to his every touch, ignited with a passion and longing for closeness that she’d thought long gone in her.”

In @ollyjayonline‘s “Old Habits Die Hard” Phryne and Jack have trouble adjusting to a life together; as the title says, habits and ways of behaving are hard to change, and in some ways, they are very different people. They don’t manage to speak (yes, this would be an excellent contribution also to the Miscommunication trope) about their needs, especially as they hardly see each other, but keep different times and more or less communicate through notes and absences. What starts as a generosity – to let the other do their thing, and that is something that is so much Phryne and Jack – instead develops into a nagging doubt that the other might not want them anymore, small snippets of un-generosity slipping in at the hurtful feeling of that. There is a fine line between letting the other make his or her decisions and not seeming to care, and that is really explored by this fic, all from Phryne’s perspective. The questions she asks are legitimate and hard: "Christ, did they even have enough in common to be in a relationship? Come to that, what did she know of relationships anyway?" And then the comfort, them actually talking and understanding each other, is a wonderful oasis just when you thought you would choke on all that desert sand.

In @whopooh’s ”Retreat Is Impossible” it is again their differences that are the problem, and the idea that one of the things Phryne loves about Jack is what makes it impossible for her to have him: “She had come to count on Jack to do the right thing, to resist her, to jokingly lock eyes with her but to not take any of her suggestions seriously.” When Jack at one point ceases to resist Phryne and gives in to her flirtations, kissing her, she realises this problem. Phryne rejects him, and a hurt Jack has to come to terms with what happened. This is a Jack that knows how to keep his emotions in check, knowing that he cannot force Phryne into something, and knowing that it isn’t fair either to call her fickle or cruel. “I know I cannot make you love me,” he says to her, and promises that he won’t disappear on her again, the way he did after the car crash. His repressed pain is rather palpable, and when the comfort comes, it’s from Phryne realising that she does want him fully, a realisation she can only have because he didn’t pressure her or tried to force her hand.

"That’s all I have to say.”

Finally, there are two wonderful fics that scrutinize the trope through joking with it and ideas about trust, betrayal, hurt, and comfort. @kidnthehall‘s “Breakfast in bed” is a wonderful romp where Jack is upset that Phryne has finished all his favourite cereal, a type of food she doesn’t even like, and he challenges her about this betrayal:

”I thought I could trust you. I asked for one thing!” ”I don't...” ”One thing! And behind my back? All you had to do was ask first!” ”You don't feel like you're overreacting just a bit?”

Apart from joking with the hurt/comfort trope, the fic also has a glorious take on Jack’s liberal man-talk: ”I need to make something perfectly clear, Phryne. You know I'm a generous man, maybe not as generous or sharing as you'd like me to be or as much as I would like me to be. For you. But I don't want you to think that my breakfast cereal is like all the other food.” To which Phryne can of course only react in one way: ”What other food?” And once the hurting is finished, there is plenty of comfort taking place through the specific delights of the relationship.

The final fic is @olderbynow‘s “A Shortage of Sympathy”, where Phryne is portrayed as rather “cruel”, not being very sympathetic to a Jack in pain. This might seem harsh, especially the way @olderbynow teases us in her way of writing it, an impression that lasts until we realise what his pain is about.

He looked very much like she ought to expect to be breaking in a new detective inspector in the near future because her current one wouldn’t be around much longer. She nearly felt sorry for him. But not quite. “Come on, Jack. It wasn’t that bad.”

Then the fic explores what the pain is about –  let’s not give it all away, but just say that this fic too is food related. Phryne teasing Jack is wonderful, as well as the way he manages to almost – but only almost – give as good as he takes. The dialogue and both of them attempting to win over the other just glitters and sparkles all the way to the natural conclusion: that Jack has found a new thing he dislikes almost as much as operetta.

And on that light and lovely note, this trope overview is done, and there is nothing more for us than to look forward to the June trope “undercover”.

Earlier trope overviews of MFMM year of tropes: January (soulmate), February (miscommunication), March (bottle episode), April (bodyswap/role reversal).

[labourpress]

Jeremy Corbyn speech in Carlisle after the London Bridge terrorist attacks

In a speech tonight in Carlisle, Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, said: 

**check against delivery**

"After the horrific events last night in London in which seven people have died and 21 remain in a critical condition, I would like to start by asking everyone to stand with me for a minute’s silence.

"Tonight we are once again meeting in the aftermath of a terrorist atrocity, and returning to the election campaign in shock and anger at the brutality and horror that was perpetrated on the streets of London last night.   "Let me start by repeating what I said this morning sentiments I know are shared by all of us across our country.   "This was an appalling terrorist atrocity committed by those warped by a depraved inhumanity. We have to stand together, united and determined in our communities, as the people of Manchester less than two weeks ago.   "We all express our love and solidarity to the families and friends of those who have died, and of those who have been so grievously injured, and though we find it difficult to fully imagine their pain, we feel for them, we are with them, and we grieve for those who have died.   "We pay tribute to the Ambulance Service and the Fire & Rescue Service, for their bravery and professionalism.   "And especially to the Police and British Transport Police.  They acted quickly and decisively to save lives, their professionalism was again exemplary.   "And also our magnificent NHS staff, who are still working now to save lives and heal the injured.     "And let us express our admiration too for those members of the public who put themselves in danger to assist and protect others even to the extent of confronting the murderous attackers.   "As in Manchester last month, their actions represent not just the best of Britain they represent normal, decent Britain, the quiet courage and compassion that will always defeat fear and hatred.   "Those who wish to harm our people divide our communities and attack our democracy will not succeed. Our values of solidarity, humanity and justice will prevail.   "The violence and brutality of last night’s attack, the targeting of innocent people going about their ordinary business is a depravity familiar from similar attacks in Manchester, across Europe, the Middle East and beyond.   "That is why we are ready to consider whatever proposals may be brought forward by the police and security services more effectively to deal with the terrorist threat.   "If Labour is elected I will commission a report from the security services on Friday on the changing nature of the terrorist threat.   "Our priority must be public safety and I will take whatever action is necessary and effective to protect the security of our people and our country that includes full authority for the police to use whatever force is necessary to protect and save life as they did last night as they did in Westminster in March.   "You cannot protect the public on the cheap the police and security services must get the resources they need not 20,000 police cuts.   "Theresa May was warned by the Police Federation but she accused them of “crying wolf.”   "As Labour set out in our manifesto we will recruit another 10,000 new police officers including more armed police who need to be properly rewarded as well as 1,000 more security services staff to support our communities and help keep us safe.   'But it is the timing of yesterday’s attack that we must also address today the aim of the terrorists is plainly to derail our democracy and disrupt or even halt this election.   "The general election is of course about the democratic choice between the Labour and Conservative parties and our very different visions and plans for the future of our country.   "But it is also now about something even bigger it is about the struggle between terrorism and democracy itself.   "The mass murderers who brought terror to our streets in London and Manchester want our election to be halted, they want democracy halted. They want their violence to overwhelm our right to vote in a fair and peaceful election and to go about our lives freely.   "That is why there can be no doubt that next Thursday’s vote must go ahead. Neither can we suspend our campaigning, so I am glad to be here in Carlisle as scheduled and launching our housing policy with John Healey.   "Across London today, people have been carrying on upset and appalled but carrying on to act otherwise would be to hand the twisted and depraved strategists of ISIS the political victory they crave.   "So it is right that we return to the choices the British people face on June 8 in the sure and certain knowledge that we have together, whatever our party views, already made the choice between democracy and terrorism between freedom and fear.   "The choice you face on 8th June is a Conservative party which has made clear it will press on with another five years of austerity and cuts to essential public services to pay for even more tax handouts to the richest and the big corporations.   "Or the Labour Party, which is guaranteeing 95% of taxpayers will pay no extra tax but is asking the best off and the largest companies to pay a bit more to fund our hospitals, police, schools, decent pensions and childcare to invest in good jobs and a growing economy for the many not the few.   "I don’t hesitate to make the case for more tax from those who can afford it.   "It is taxation that underpins our peaceful, tolerant and civilised society the police, security services, fire and rescue service, our NHS they have all suffered cuts to pay for tax giveaways for the big corporations and the very richest.   "Here in Carlisle you have felt the effects of austerity and that’s why we will increase funding in flood prevention and halt the Sustainability and Transformation Programme that threatens to close hospitals, A&Es and maternity units.   "We are the fifth richest country in the world, it doesn’t have to be like this.   "And that is why the Labour Party will end austerity and lift the public sector pay cap our nurses, firefighters, police, doctors and paramedics deserve a pay rise.  They cannot just get warm words for their heroism, they deserve our respect every day.   "If I am elected Prime Minister on 8 June I will be asking the Commissioners of the Met Police and the British Transport Police for the names of those whose bravery should be commended, to acknowledge their heroism and of many others in our emergency services and among the public who intervened   'At this time it is more important than ever that we stay united in our communities it is the strength of our communities that gets us through these awful times as London Mayor Sadiq Khan recognised but which the current occupant in the White House has neither the grace nor the sense to grasp.   "Whether we are Muslim or Christian, black or white, male or female, gay or straight, we are united by our values, by our determination for a better world, and that we can build a better society.   'Our democratic values must be maintained we must resist Islamophobia and division and turnout on 8 June united in our determination to show our democracy is strong, however you vote.   And yes we do need to have some difficult conversations starting with Saudi Arabia and "other Gulf states that have funded and fuelled extremist ideology.   "It is no good Theresa May suppressing a report into the foreign funding of extremist groups. We have to get serious about cutting off the funding to these terror networks, including Isis here and in the Middle East.   "No government can prevent every attack sometimes the most depraved and determined will get through but the responsibility of government is to do everything we can to minimise the risk.   "Labour has spent this campaign setting out our detailed plans and costed policies for a fairer and better Britain.   "On 8 June, we have a real to chance to invest and to build a country that reflects the best of us that we saw on the streets of London and Manchester a country that is truly for the many not the few."

Ends

[atlanticcanada]

Suspect in Quebec City mosque shooting charged with 6 counts of 1st-degree murder

A Canadian man has been identified as the lone suspect in a mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque, where six were killed and five others critically injured during evening prayers on Sunday.

Alexandre Bissonnette, 27, is charged with six counts of first-degree murder and 5 counts of attempted murder.

He was arrested along with one other individual following a shooting at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday, in the Sainte-Foy neighbourhood. The second person is being treated as a witness, according to Surete du Quebec.

The Department of National Defense confirms that Alexandre Bissonnette was a cadet between 2002 and 2004 in the Quebec City area. He was an air force cadet briefly in 2002, then an army cadet. Cadets are not members of the Canadian Armed Forces and they do not receive military training.

Six people were killed in the mosque shooting, including a professor and a grocery store owner.

Five victims were taken to hospital in critical condition. Police say the victims were all men between the ages of 39 and 60. More than a dozen others suffered minor injuries.

Of the five victims taken to hospital, three remained in intensive care Monday morning. The other two were in critical but stable condition, a hospital spokesperson said.

Investigators are asking for members of the public to come forward with any information that might help with the case.

Patrick Lalonde, assistant director of the Service de Police de la ville de Montreal, says security has been increased around mosques in the area. "We have asked for all our police officers to increase the levels of vigilance and surveillance around mosques and other community services," he said at a news conference Monday morning.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard both condemned the incident as a terrorist attack.

"It is heart-wrenching to see such senseless violence," Trudeau said in a statement. He also offered his sympathies to the victims and his support to Canada's Muslim community. "Diversity is our strength, and religious tolerance is a value that we, as Canadians, hold dear," he said. "Muslim-Canadians are an important part of our national fabric, and these senseless acts have no place in our communities, cities and country."

Tonight, Canadians grieve for those killed in a cowardly attack on a mosque in Quebec City. My thoughts are with victims & their families.

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 30, 2017

Trudeau repeated his condemnation of the attack in the House of Commons Monday afternoon, where he again called it a "terrorist attack." He is slated to visit Quebec City later in the day, along with Rona Ambrose, interim leader of the Conservative Party, and Thomas Mulcair, leader of the NDP.

"We must stand united," Trudeau said. "Senseless violence has no place in Canadian society."

Premier Couillard urged Quebecers to stand in solidarity with the Muslim community. "Let us unite against violence," he tweeted in French. 

"This is your home, you're welcome here," Couillard said at a news conference, speaking to the Muslim community. "We are all Quebecers."

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale later told reporters that the motivation for the attack is not known, but that it meets the “broad definition” of a terror attack.

He said Canada’s terrorism threat level remains at medium, where it has stood since October 2014.

Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume said the city is in mourning. "We have the impression we are dreaming," Labeaume said at a news conference Sunday night. "I have often said in recent weeks that, despite the peace we have here, we are not immune (to attacks). Well, this has just proven that."

Video from the scene shows several police cars outside the mosque on Sunday night.

Vigils are planned at mosques in several parts of the country, including Quebec City and Montreal.

Members of the Muslim community have condemned the attack, with many calling for tighter security around other mosques in the country.

"We are horrified by this despicable act of violence," Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said in a statement. "This act of wanton murder must be punished to the fullest extent of the law."

from CTV News - Atlantic http://ift.tt/2kLHrCE

[brajeshupadhyay]

Has Rahul Gandhi given up hope of leading India? There are signs that appear to show he has

This man has been radicalised.

That is what we would say if somebody got on stage in solidarity with those who grieve incarceration of a terrorist who plotted the attack on a nation’s Parliament, those who raised slogans of breaking his own country into pieces.

That is what we would say if that man questioned and mocked surgical strikes by his nation’s army on the enemy. Or echoed the enemy when his own army conducted airstrikes to avenge the killing of soldiers.

That is what we would say if that man tried to shame the nation abroad at seminars and talks, or made friends in West Asia with a bigot who repeatedly attacks India on religious lines. Or congratulates journalists for winning a prize by undermining one’s own nation’s sovereignty.

This man has been radicalised, we would say.

What would we say about Rahul Gandhi? One isn’t sure. But his latest gesture of congratulating Pulitzer-winning journalists who don’t acknowledge the sovereignty of India in Kashmir has to be a first for an Indian politician who ever fancied heading the nation.

Even Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, the big daddy of Muslim votebank politics, was most hawkish in his 1996 to 1998 tenure as defence minister, never ceding an inch on Kashmir or the nation’s sovereignty.

The descent into subversiveness

Rahul, however, seems to have descended into a spiral of far Left, subversive standpoint since Narendra Modi swept to power at the Centre and the Congress started losing state after state.

It perhaps started with a conscious decision to position oneself as the counterpoint to Modi’s nationalism. But the line between opposing what the Congress calls “hypernationalism” and opposing the nation swiftly started getting blurred. Rahul walked into a trap. While pillorying Modi, he started attacking the core ideas that safeguard the construct of a nation: identity, security, sovereignty.

Whether it is the military strikes against Pakistan or confrontation with China at Doka La or the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to recall when Rahul has shown the political maturity of standing with the government during national crises and emergency.

Instead, Pakistan quoted him in its petition to the United Nations after India withdrew special status from Jammu and Kashmir.

“These and other acts of violence have even been acknowledged by mainstream politicians such as the leader of Congress party, Mr Rahul Gandhi, who has noted ‘people dying’ in Jammu and Kashmir, in light of events ‘going very wrong there’,” the Pakistani petition said.

It got so embarrassing that the Congress had to hurriedly issue clarifications. “The name of Rahul Gandhi has been mischievously dragged to justify the pack of lies and deliberate misinformation being spread by Pakistan,” it said. “Let no one in the world be in doubt that Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh were, are and shall always remain an integral part of India.”

If that is so, then why did Rahul stand at Jawaharlal Nehru University in solidarity with organisers of an event which mourned terrorist Azfal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist who plotted the attack on India’s Parliament?

Why did he mock Indian ground troops’ and air force’s strikes across the border?

Why did he congratulate three journalists who got the Pulitzer prize for their work on ‘Indian occupation of Kashmir’?

There is a clear pattern of Rahul undermining India’s sovereignty.

Why would Rahul do that?

A political system doesn’t choose as its leader someone who demonstrably undermines it. A nation won’t choose a renegade as prime minister. Rahul and Sonia Gandhi know that.

So, why is he self-destructing?

First, it could be to reclaim the Muslim vote, fanning the community’s fear and mistrust of the Modi government. Is it effective?

No. No party today can win elections by alienating the Hindu vote, relying only on Nehruvian seculars and Muslims. Even Muslims don’t vote in mass, and back regional parties which have a better chance than the Congress in the states.

Second, he is hopelessly stuck in his comfort zone of far-Left politics – like a confused rich kid finding his ‘cool’ in elitist woke activism, his anger against Modi and RSS finding an anchor in the dissent politics of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders (both just got roundly whipped by voters).

Third and the most ominous explanation for this political kamikaze could be that Rahul has given up. Maybe he has abandoned all hope of coming back to power. The brash utterings at broadcasts, childish swipes on social media, radical NGO activism, taking online tutorials from experts (a fumbling spectacle with zero mass connect), and a petulant teenager-like relationship with the nation… all point to dismay.

And that is dangerous for India: Its main Opposition leader making his pyrrhic way out of a failed job with a bad imitation of Joker in The Dark Knight: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3cmYnXa

[brajeshupadhyay]

This man has been radicalised. That is what we would say if somebody got on stage in solidarity with those who grieve incarceration of a terrorist who plotted the attack on a nation’s Parliament, those who raised slogans of breaking his own country into pieces. That is what we would say if that man questioned and mocked surgical strikes by his nation’s army on the enemy. Or echoed the enemy when his own army conducted airstrikes to avenge the killing of soldiers. That is what we would say if that man tried to shame the nation abroad at seminars and talks, or made friends in West Asia with a bigot who repeatedly attacks India on religious lines. Or congratulates journalists for winning a prize by undermining one’s own nation’s sovereignty. This man has been radicalised, we would say. What would we say about Rahul Gandhi? One isn’t sure. But his latest gesture of congratulating Pulitzer-winning journalists who don’t acknowledge the sovereignty of India in Kashmir has to be a first for an Indian politician who ever fancied heading the nation. Even Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, the big daddy of Muslim votebank politics, was most hawkish in his 1996 to 1998 tenure as defence minister, never ceding an inch on Kashmir or the nation’s sovereignty. The descent into subversiveness Rahul, however, seems to have descended into a spiral of far Left, subversive standpoint since Narendra Modi swept to power at the Centre and the Congress started losing state after state. It perhaps started with a conscious decision to position oneself as the counterpoint to Modi’s nationalism. But the line between opposing what the Congress calls “hypernationalism” and opposing the nation swiftly started getting blurred. Rahul walked into a trap. While pillorying Modi, he started attacking the core ideas that safeguard the construct of a nation: identity, security, sovereignty. Whether it is the military strikes against Pakistan or confrontation with China at Doka La or the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to recall when Rahul has shown the political maturity of standing with the government during national crises and emergency. Instead, Pakistan quoted him in its petition to the United Nations after India withdrew special status from Jammu and Kashmir. “These and other acts of violence have even been acknowledged by mainstream politicians such as the leader of Congress party, Mr Rahul Gandhi, who has noted ‘people dying’ in Jammu and Kashmir, in light of events ‘going very wrong there’,” the Pakistani petition said. It got so embarrassing that the Congress had to hurriedly issue clarifications. “The name of Rahul Gandhi has been mischievously dragged to justify the pack of lies and deliberate misinformation being spread by Pakistan,” it said. “Let no one in the world be in doubt that Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh were, are and shall always remain an integral part of India.” If that is so, then why did Rahul stand at Jawaharlal Nehru University in solidarity with organisers of an event which mourned terrorist Azfal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist who plotted the attack on India’s Parliament? Why did he mock Indian ground troops’ and air force’s strikes across the border? Why did he congratulate three journalists who got the Pulitzer prize for their work on ‘Indian occupation of Kashmir’? There is a clear pattern of Rahul undermining India’s sovereignty. Why would Rahul do that? A political system doesn’t choose as its leader someone who demonstrably undermines it. A nation won’t choose a renegade as prime minister. Rahul and Sonia Gandhi know that. So, why is he self-destructing? First, it could be to reclaim the Muslim vote, fanning the community’s fear and mistrust of the Modi government. Is it effective? No. No party today can win elections by alienating the Hindu vote, relying only on Nehruvian seculars and Muslims. Even Muslims don’t vote in mass, and back regional parties which have a better chance than the Congress in the states. Second, he is hopelessly stuck in his comfort zone of far-Left politics – like a confused rich kid finding his ‘cool’ in elitist woke activism, his anger against Modi and RSS finding an anchor in the dissent politics of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders (both just got roundly whipped by voters). Third and the most ominous explanation for this political kamikaze could be that Rahul has given up. Maybe he has abandoned all hope of coming back to power. The brash utterings at broadcasts, childish swipes on social media, radical NGO activism, taking online tutorials from experts (a fumbling spectacle with zero mass connect), and a petulant teenager-like relationship with the nation… all point to dismay. And that is dangerous for India: Its main Opposition leader making his pyrrhic way out of a failed job with a bad imitation of Joker in The Dark Knight: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/05/has-rahul-gandhi-given-up-hope-of.html