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the-bar-sinister · 3 months ago

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Deicide: Red Shift (14117 words) by VickytheSnake, thesavagesabretooth Chapters: 4/?

Summary: A mysterious signal is drawing ships across the Grand Line to a place called Elegia for the first ever concert by the rising star singer, Uta. Following the signal are Cross Guild and fallen emperor Shanks, the Charlotte family, the Donquixote Pirates and the shattered remnants of Law's crew, and Kid's crew, and Cavendish and Bartolomeo.

And the Straw Hats and their captain Luffy, who hasn't seen Uta since they were both little children at their idol Shanks' knee.

Perhaps this meeting was ordained by fate. Perhaps, in the end, there was only ever one tragic outcome possible.

But Luffy has other plans.

catch up here

It had been a hell of a week. Defection from the Marines after Cross Guild's raid on their ship shortly after the final straw that broke his loyalty's back had turned into an invitation to a seat on Cross Guild's council.

He'd had enough. Enough of the Marines' increasing willingness to wipe entire islands off the face of the ocean with Buster Calls, the willingness to slaughter innocents in the name of justice, and the hypocrisy of everything. Of saying that the unaligned deserved slavery or death for being 'inferior' in the eyes of the fucking Celestial Dragons.

His sense of justice couldn't allow him to keep working in that system, so he'd agreed. Hina and Tashigi, too—it didn't surprise him that they'd had enough too. So they were pirates now. They'd had a few minor events the last few days, but mostly it'd been getting to know the crews and the people. Settling in. Getting the lowdown on the people they'd meet in the coming days.

Being a pirate wasn't bad—especially with the quality of cigars Crocodile kept breaking out to welcome them.

Crocodile offered him one now, as they lingered in the ships' communication room. The pirate smoked like a chimney— he smoked almost as much as Smoker did, and handed him one with the tip already freshly cut as he continued to talk about the mysterious signal that they were following. He talked about it insistently, in a way that told Smoker, who was getting to know him more closely already, that he definitely had something else on his mind.

"So it's obvious the marines are going to show up, right?" Croc said, leaned over, offering his own cigar to light off from.. "With the way they've been behaving lately there's no way they're going to let some huge illegal concert slide."

"They're going to send an admiral. At least one." Smoker said it without hesitation, leaning in and lighting his cigar off Crocodile's and taking a deep puff before he exhaled. "This signal is worldwide, interrupting transponder signals from here to Mary Geoise. They're gonna see this as a threat. Doesn't matter if it's some kid throwing a concert for her fans, the Celestial Dragons are gonna see this as spitting in their faces. This is a military level crime. They might even fire off a buster call."

The cigar hung off Crocodile's lips as he rubbed his temples– one side with his fingers, and the other with the crook of his hook.

"A buster call. Fantastic. I was worried you were going to say that. We should not fucking be heading here with the firepower we have right now…" He took a deep breath. He'd been saying that for a day now, but always contradicted himself right after, and this time was no different. "But fuck it, right? We'll handle it. Shanks wants to see his kid."

Emperor Red Haired Shanks. They'd dredged that fearsome legend of the sea out of the fucking ocean after Straw Hat—fucking Straw Hat Luffy, who Smoker had been chasing around the Grand Line since that sham of an execution in Loguetown—decimated him in some personal disagreement.

After that, the 'fearsome legend' had been shambling around the ship, drinking their alcohol stockpile dry and crying on the clown. It was—pathetic wasn't the nice way to put it, but he wasn't a nice man—kind of pathetic. They'd talked, but admittedly not much. The impression he'd gotten from Buggy was that he was a good guy when you got to know him, but good fucking luck getting close when he had the waterworks going.

He took a long drag off his cigar, blowing the smoke towards the ceiling. Not that he blamed him of course, the snippets he heard were basically 'everything the man was fighting for was a lie—somehow, and now all his old mistakes are coming to haunt him'. Including, it seemed, his long lost daughter.

Which, admittedly, Smoker had no fucking clue the man had and had NOT expected it to be some musician girl he'd heard Hina go on, and on about for years now.

"Shanks wants to see his kid," he repeated dryly. "The pop star."

"His kid the pop star." Crocodile shook his head.. "Funny ol' world, ain't it? I don't know if she's actually his kid by blood or what. Apparently she used to sail with him, but she asked to be put ashore at this fucking island we're headed to."

"She asked huh?" Smoker leaned forward, his fingers tented. "Dunno much about Elegia. Only that it's a pretty small island. Small population, too. Some kind of musician's paradise, right? No wonder she'd wanna stay, if that was the case."

"That's what I've heard. It's off the log pose too, so it's not like they get a lot of visitors. Must be a lot of farming and music." He shook his head again. "Sure as hell not likely to be able to stand up to a Buster Call– unless there's something real wild going on."

"It'll be a slaughter if nobody stops 'em. Especially with whatever fans decide to show up. Dead civilians and farmboys everywhere." Smoker's brow furrowed. "It'll be nasty—which makes me wonder why the kid decided to risk it. Someone there has to know the scale of crime hijacking that signal was."

Smoker's leg tapped on the ground, his brow furrowed. "Unless something really wild is goin' on."

Crocodile perked up suddenly, and a long smile like his namesake rolled over his face. He was clearly having some kind of idea."Smoker— she's going to be broadcasting this concert? I mean, we know she's capable of broadcasting."

With a raise of his eyebrow, Smoker nodded slowly. "She said as much in the announcement. She said 'for any of my fans who can't make it in person, I'll be broadcasting the concert live over this channel' and told 'em to make sure to hook up a visual transponder snail for it."

Crocodile took a long, luxurious puff of his cigar and held it for a moment before blowing out the smoke. "That means, intentionally or not, she's going to be broadcasting when a bunch of marines show up to slaughter innocent civilians attending a concert. Not great for marine PR. But fantastic for Cross Guild."

It was true, wasn't it? Smoker's pale eyes narrowed as a grim smile crossed his face. "Now imagine, Crocodile—if the whole world sees the 'villainous pirates' of Cross Guild protecting civilians from the marines as they try and gun them down at an innocent music festival."

Crocodile slipped his arm around Smoker's shoulders. "You know, Smoker, you have a fantastic imagination. Because that's exactly what I was imagining."

With a rough chuckle, Smoker took his cigar from his lips to grin at Crocodile, shoulder to shoulder with the former enemy turned—well. The two of them really got the hell along, he'd say that much.

"Great minds think alike, Croc."

They had been nearing whatever island that 'Log Pose' thing had been pointing towards when Luffy had suddenly been overcome with a kinda feverish excitement for the first time in days. 'Uta', he'd exclaimed repeatedly, his sister the 'idol', which Yamato took to imagine was something like the musicians that played in his mother's brothel, or the shogun's court.

It was enough to shift their course rapidly towards some small island in the middle of nowhere at full sail, for a solid handful of hours now. Yamato was excited, it was infectious if nothing else, and it was the promise of a fascinating new experience unlike anything Wano had to offer.

So he was excited, padding around a little aimlessly on the lawn and cleaning his club as he let his thoughts circle the concert and— as much as he tried to avoid the topic, his father. Oden wouldn't have fixated on the man…or maybe he would have? Either way, it was only when he saw Luffy walk out from below deck that his phantom tail began to wag, and he bounded over with a grin.

"Hey Captain." Maybe Luffy could help him work off some of his aimless, restless energy. Or maybe Yamato just wanted to talk.

Luffy smiled brightly, which was a relief to see after the last several days where his mood had been more downcast than Yamato had ever seen it. He immediately hopped his way up onto Yamato's shoulders, and looked down at him upside down from there.

"Hey!"

Yamato grinned at him, the edges of his fangs poking up and out of his lips as he latched his arms around Luffy's legs.

"Good leap, handsome. Excited for the big…ya know. Thing?" He blinked before he grinned "Music Festival."

"I donno." He reached down to poke his fingers on Yamato's fangs. "I've never been to a music festival before. But I'm excited to see Uta."

Yamato flushed a bit, Luffy's interest in his fangs was refreshing as it was a little embarrassing. It wasn't the first time he'd poked around at them, and certainly wouldn't be the last. His fangs were marks of his heritage, the same with the long and curved horns that rose from his head.

The marks of the 'oni' tribe, a subset of humanity residing on the small isle of Onigashima in Wano, a tribe often feared and distrusted by the people of Wano. But Luffy almost made him feel proud of them.

He nibbled lightly on his finger teasingly before he answered. "I bet…she's your sister, right? Were you two close?"

"We were pretty close," he said. "But we didn't actually get to spend much time with her. I only knew her for a few months, really…" He continued to poke at him gently, his rubbery body contorted so that his head was rested between his horns while he sat on his shoulders.

Yamato squeezed his legs with a quiet 'huh'. The touch was nice too—the casual and friendly touching and closeness that Yamato hadn't known most of his life, reminding him that he was far from Wano and the painful chains he used to wear.

"Only a few months, really?" He was surprised but then again, he'd heard story after story from Ace about his brother Luffy and not a word about Uta. "I guess that ain't a surprise, I mean, I heard a lot about you before, but nothin' about her."

He made a face and wrapped his arms around Yamato's horns instead. "It's kinda complicated… do you want to hear the story? It's got Shanks in it."

Shanks. Luffy had been so excited when he'd come aboard a few days before. And then everything had gone wrong. Now when Luffy said the name it was thick with anger and resentment. Bitterness.

Yamato made the point to nuzzle the smooth horns against his arms, his soft and pale hair falling back against Luffy as he carried him idly around the deck's lawn.

"If you wanna talk about him, Captain. The guy seems like a real bastard, but I am curious about this whole thing. It's—well, it's new to me. Siblings, this music, all of it."

"You didn't have any siblings, huh? I mean, I guess technically I don't either but I just… picked them up. My version of crew before I had a ship…"

"Picked 'em up like your version of a crew before a ship," Yamato mused, leaning his horns back into Luffy's chest with a peek up at him. "That makes a bit more sense. So Uta was someone important, like a crewmate…and then you lost track of her till just now."

He bit his lip, his fang digging into his flesh as he took a breath.

"I didn't have any siblings, no. I mean, I'm gonna be honest Luffy, I didn't have much of anyone. Before I told my dad I was a man, I was kept on Onigashima except for special occasions. Spent a lot of time with my mom, I guess. After I told him I was a man, it was— well. Father's expectations changed. Didn't have any siblings, and he wanted a strong heir, so I got sent down into the pit to fight my way to survival."

Luffy nodded against him, squeezing his legs around him. "Into the pit… to make you strong, right?"

"Yeah," Yamato's voice was a little raspy as he laughed, "the Oni Prince has to be strong enough to lead the Beast Pirates when Kaidou finally died right? He told me that if I wanted to be a man, then I'd have to be a strong man. That strength, haki, and grit were what mattered in a man. I think— maybe a little bit of it was punishment for latchin' onto Oden as a hero, too. He hated the man, and I wanted to be him."

He gripped Luffy's legs with his arms. "So yeah. He clapped me in irons rigged with explosives and dumped me into the prisoners pit, the cave systems we used to hold enemies of the oni. Had to survive off scraps of food stolen from prisoners, and lickin' the goddamned water off the cave walls. Fought every day, fought the old man and the prisoners until I became strong like he wanted."

"That's a lot like what my old man– my grandpa– did to me," Luffy said in a gravelly, grumbling tone. "It did make me strong, I guess. But it wasn't because of him. It was because of me."

Yamato smiled despite himself, his captain and him had a lot in common—they were both stronger men on the other side of an upbringing Yamato wasn't entirely sure was 'normal' .

"I try to think it was because of me, too. Not the old man, but my own dreams." He patted Luffy's leg. "You though, Captain? I know it was all because of you. You ain't the kinda guy who lets anyone dictate who or how he's gonna be. It's impressive stuff."

"Nobody tells me who I'm going to be," Luffy growled. He squeezed Yamato, and then hopped down to lean against him instead. He looked thoughtful, a little distant.

Yamato looped an arm around him, glancing down through his long and pale lashes. "you're strong for that, Luffy. Real strong— stronger than a lot of people. But it looks like ya got something on your mind."

"A few things I guess," Luffy said. He bonked his head with his fist gently as if to indicate emptiness despite his words. "Feels like I've had too much on my mind lately."

He watched Luffy for a moment as he rubbed his shoulder with his claw-tipped hands. "Me too, honestly. Way too much."

Luffy arched his back under Yamato's touch and sighed, spreading his shoulderblades under his hands. "Can I ask– did you feel like Kaidou was trying to tell you who to be? Grandpa was trying to make me into a marine."

"I…I dunno," Yamato murmured. "It felt a lot like he was trying to tell me who he didn't WANT me to be, if that makes sense? He tried to beat my actin' as Oden outta me. Starve it out, train it out."

He grimaced as his clawed fingers slowly traced down Luffy's shoulder blade. "but he didn't exactly try and make me anythin' except a 'proper man' . The man he expected me to be if I said I was gonna be one. I think he wanted me to be more like him, I dunno….the Marines, your grandpa wanted to make you a marine? Like that …that guy. The horrible tree man."

Luffy didn't seem to mind his claws– if anything, he leaned in to enjoy the sensation more. "I mean, tree man was a marine, yeah. I don't think grandpa would have thought he was a good marine, but I don't want to be like that, either. Marines are people who force other people to obey them. They're like soldiers or police, telling people what they can and can't do."

"They sound like bastards if you ask me," Yamato murmured as he obliged Luffy's enjoyment, lightly scratching his claws against his back, pressing the tips lightly against him through his vest. "Now that I think about it, my old man used to talk about how much he hated 'em. Bossy, controlling folks who beat down whoever don't agree and ain't strong enough to defy 'em."

"That's exactly them," Luffy nodded, making small, pleased huffs despite the growl at the back of his voice. "I guess that's another thing your dad and I have in common…"

Yamato laughed , trying not to sound tense as his fingers curled against Luffy with the scrape of his nails on the fabric. "A lot in common, huh? Guess…I can kinda see some of that, yeah. You were saying that during the whole thing with Shanks, I remember that."

The feeling roiling in his chest was a strange emotion, one he wasn't exactly used to with the deliberate simplicity of his life. No time for complicated emotions the poets wrote about in their illustrated scrolls when you were desperately clawing from one day to the next with the taste of yesterday's blood in your mouth.

He liked Luffy. There was a lot about him; his stubborn and gregarious personality, his intensity, his ambition, his warmth to people he got attached to, the way he lifted the oni's spirits. He was a bright spot in Yamato's life like Ace had been that one fleeting night years ago.

But his father. Any memories of affection from the old man when he was younger were drowned out in the wake of everything after, the brutal training, the isolation and the disdain. He could still feel the phantom chains around his wrists and ankles, and the pangs of hunger and thirst mingling with the taste of stone and salt from the water collected from the walls of his cave prison.

Was Luffy really like him? Were the same things he admired in Luffy the same things his father held in himself? He worked to dismiss the feeling along with the memories as he murmured. "I can see why you say that."

The captain craned his head to look back over his shoulder, turning his head just slightly further than a normal person might be able to. "Sorry if that's weird, or anything. It's just… something I've been thinking about."

"It ain't weird," Yamato turned his head doggisly to the side as he thumped his shoulder against Luffy. "I was just turning it over in my head, you know? You wanna talk about it?"

Luffy looked uncomfortable for a moment, his mouth stretching oddly on his face, before he thumped Yamato back. "Okay, but I warned you, alright?" he smiled a little back at him.

"I've had worse than whatever you're gonna say, Luffy," Yamato chuckled sharply. "you warned me. You got my word as a man…as a samurai, that I ain't gonna get upset or 'weirded out' or anything."

The captain nodded, and shrugged, and plopped down to sit in the grass on the deck. "I can't remember how much we actually talked about and how much was just me yelling at people, so I don't really know where to start."

"There was a lotta yelling," Yamato dropped down opposite him, his legs crossed under him and a weak smile on his face. "We can start at the beginning, I guess?"

Luffy pressed his feet against Yamato's knees. "I guess it started when I heard that stuff about Kaidou— your dad— and his guy King and everything, and how your dad wanted to be the pirate king.. And it got in my head that it made me think of me and Zoro."

There was a tense, frustrated look on his face as he spoke. Luffy, as far as Yamato could tell and in his little experience, was not a man who felt comfortable talking about himself or his thoughts.

He could relate— the difficulty of expressing thought, feeling, of opening up and being honest about that kind of stuff was something Yamato knew well. He rubbed his neck.

"So it's 'cause he saved King and he became his blade—and because he wanted to be the pirate king?" Yamato smiled awkwardly. "You probably wouldn't wanna hear how he met some of the other people he surrounded himself with."

It was a joke, a light jab at the stories he'd heard the few times he could mingle with the Beast Pirates and his mother, compared to the strange outsiders of Luffy's crew.

You could find similarities if you looked close enough. Maybe they were more similar before his old man's dreams of 'pirate king' came to a long stall.

Luffy seemed to take it seriously though, his mouth drawing again, and he dropped onto his back, laying up to look at the branches and the sky between them with his feet rested on Yamato. "Probably…"

Yamato rested one hand on his legs, just over his ankles, and leaned back to look at the sky with him.

"Met my mom when she was gettin' run out of the red light district in the Flower Capital," Yamato mused. "She told me the story once. About how the people of Wano saw the mark of the Oni on her. Her horns, teeth, claws. That sort of thing. Called her a demon, hunted her out of every town she'd ever stayed in until she got run outta that last brothel and met my dad."

He looked up at Yamato again with big, dark, frustrated eyes, and then let his head flop down to the grass again. "Ugh. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. And then the voice in my head wanted me to kill him."

Yamato rubbed the spot above his ankles with a weak laugh.

"I see what you mean, yeah…him and his crew, they got some…I dunno. Sameness. Similarity." "...and then the voice in your head…" His brow furrowed.

The terror of wondering if his father, a man he loved and hated in equal measure, was going to be butchered by his new friend flashed in Yamato's mind again. That sick feeling of 'please don't hurt him' when all— all he wanted to do was prove to him that he was his own man and protect Wano's heir.

"The voice in your head wanted you to kill him."

"Yeah," Luffy huffed. His toes curled against Yamato's knees. "It wanted me to kill him. But I didn't want to do that. And that's how I realized there was even a voice at all."

"I'm glad you didn't listen to it, Luffy," Yamato murmured. "Things are complicated with my dad, but…I dunno. I never wanted to kill him. Just…"

Just to make him admit, just fucking once, that he was proud of the man Yamato had become. Even if he'd gotten there by carrying the name of Oden.

"Yeah," He shrugged his shoulders, and squeezed Luffy's leg hard enough for his nails to brush against his skin again. He looked up at the sky. "but you learned there was a voice 'cause it wanted you to kill a guy you saw as a kinda weird mirror, right? And you and the voice disagreed."

"Yeah," he huffed. "And you heard the stuff with Shanks, right? I was yelling that stuff pretty loud."

Everyone on the ship had heard it, had felt it, as the dueling haki washed over the deck. Shanks , whoever the hell he was, had come onto the ship to tell Luffy all about some destiny he was supposed to fulfill.

That he'd eaten a devil fruit that made him an incarnation of Nika, the sun god, and that he was supposed to 'save the world'. Something that it was clear to Yamato was at odds with Luffy's own personal dreams and ambitions.

The fruit, Nika the good and just god of liberation, had decided that Yamato's dad had to die—Luffy hadn't stood for it. He'd yelled about how similar they were, how Kaidou and King were like him and Zoro, and how his fate was his own to choose. Shanks even invoked Ace, but Luffy shot him down.

Yamato had been too shaken by the revelations—too shaken by the knowledge that the god the people of Wano adored hated the blood in his veins—to do much more than listen as his feelings on his father twisted in his stomach to be shoved down as best he could.

"Yeah, you were. I got the feeling you felt real strongly about the fact that it wants you to kill someone who reminds you of you, and about losin' your dream of the One Piece."

"Yeah. I don't like it. Not at all. It makes me mad."

Yamato huffed doggishly, his eyes turned towards the sky again. "Hey Luffy…just so ya know, it makes me mad too. Furious, and…I dunno. Hurt."

He rolled over onto his stomach and crawled around to face him, laying his chin on his crossed arms. "Yeah? How come?" His dark eyes were as deep as the bottom of the ocean as he looked at him intensely.

Yamato looked deep into his eyes, his own like the subtle smolder of a dying bonfire as he took a breath and tried to summon the will to be honest, open.

Being open with your feelings invited violence. A man knew when and how to hold it inside. But, well. Luffy was looking at him with those eyes, wasn't he?

"Because a man should be free to choose whatever path or future he wants to. That's what Oden did, that's what my bastard of a father did—and that's what I wanna do too. The idea of one mistake forcing you down a single road is awful, Luffy. What if the fruit I only ate 'cause I was starving to death started telling me I had to give up my humanity and be a divine dog, damn whatever other dreams I have? I'd be devastated."

His fingers tightened. "and the fact that Nika…NIKA. The god who everyone on Wano talks about with such fucking love and hope is inside you and wanted to kill my dad? I didn't even wanna kill my dad and he beat and isolated me for years! I just wanted him to acknowledge me, Luffy, and to show him that I could stand up to him. But Nika, who everyone adores, wants him dead—not talked down or convinced, dead. It's…it's…argh!!" He growled out a sound of frustration as he punched his fist into the deck.

"It's bullshit," Luffy huffed. "I'm glad you're mad about it too, because it makes me so mad. I don't want the stupid fruit if it's going to tell me what to do! And I sure don't want to be a god for everybody who won't even help themselves!"

Yamato sat up to point at Luffy "EXACTLY!" he said as his voice took on its canine growl "You get it! People gotta help themselves—to at least try. That's what strength is! And a god that takes that away is a god that doesn't respect human strength!"

He frowned deeply "I'd heard a lot about Nika but it was all so fucking passive."

Luffy scrambled to his feet, and offered Yamato a hand up. "You wanna fight for a bit?"

Yamato grabbed his hand with a jagged edge to his smile. "I thought you'd never ask—one of the few lessons I took away from my old man. A little sparring goes a long way."

Luffy's smile finally stretched across his face. "Yeah!"

Luffy might have had some in common with Yamato's dad– but he had a lot in common with Yamato, too.

They were kindred spirits, weren't they? A couple of rough and tumble warriors with big dreams, set out on the open sea despite the entire world seeming to try standing in their way.

They both understood the benefit of a good fight, and the way it could express feelings better than awkward words could.

He squeezed his hand with a wide grin. "don't hold back, okay? I wanna really work this shit outta my system."

Yamato realized later that Luffy had never actually told him the story about Uta and Shanks. They'd gotten completely distracted talking about other things.

Maybe that was for the best.

#crocsmoke #sir crocodile #white chase smoker #yamato one piece #monkey d. luffy #straw hat luffy #one piece film red #film red #one piece #fanfiction #fan fiction #fanfic #archive of our own #ao3 #fic: one piece deicide

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hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard · 2 years ago

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SEXY SIGN ALERT

This beauty’s full legal name is the NFPA 704: Standard System for the Identification of the Hazards of Materials for Emergency Response, but most people like to call her by cute pet names like “Fire Diamond”, “Safety Square”, or “Sweetcheeks”.

Signs that consist of only numbers usually don’t make it on here, but mmm~ this babe’s different.

Have a nude, too. My treat.

🤤

She was born to the Charlotte Fire Department (who is a total MILF, if you ask me) on a sunny day in 1960, on which three angels descended directly from heaven to bless her with ultimate utility (and hotness).

You see, unlike most hazard signs, NFPA 704 doesn’t communicate just one danger. She tells you about FOUR. And she gives you the intensity of those dangers.

You see, every smaller square communicates a different danger.

Now, every space is equally easy on the eyes, so I think each deserves a section of its own.

RED

Red communicates the flammability of a given material, and damn is she smokin’!

The higher the number, the more flammable the material:

0: You would have to REALLY try to set this thing on fire. Like, you’d either have to be a chemist, or a major dumbass.

1: This could possibly light up, but it’d be pretty hard to actually get it to go up in flames.

2: If you put a fire up against it, it’ll probably catch on fire. But it’s not gonna ignite on its own.

3: Take the cigarette out of your mouth and use extreme caution

4: Ignites at room temperature or lower. Get the fuck out of there.

YELLOW

Yellow, in my opinion, is the most difficult to grasp. She’s seductive and fleeting. But if you take the time to get to know her, you can understand her.

Yellow communicates the chemical reactivity of a material.

0: Solid as a rock, baby. If you like her, put a ring on it, ‘cause she’s never gonna change.

1: She can get angry and reactive, but you’re gonna need a lot of heat/pressure!

2: Crazy bitch at elevated temperatures and pressures, but otherwise pretty cute

3: She needs a strong initiating source, but when she blows, she blows.

4: Will explode under normal conditions. Don’t even think about touching her!

BLUE

Blue is for health hazards. Might wanna keep some of these relationships short-term.

0: Touch it, lick it, stick it up your ass… You’ll probably be fine.

1: This one might sting! But irritation is the worst it’s gonna do to you.

2: Intense or prolonged exposure may cause temporary incapacitation or permanent small injury.

3: Short exposure could leave you seriously injured and/or moderately disabled for life.

4: If you’re close enough to read the sign, you’re already dead. Or left with a serious lifelong disability.

WHITE

Free space! White is for other hazards, and contains a symbol rather than a number.

She only has three authorized symbols, but that doesn’t stop some people from getting creative.

STANDARD SYMBOLS:

OX: Oxidizer - can burn without a supply of oxygen

W: Reacts with water in a dangerous or unusual manner

SA: It’s technically safe to breathe, but it’s also… not air. You can suffocate if you breathe it instead of air. Because it’s not air.

COMMON NONSTANDARD SYMBOLS:

COR: Corrosive

ACID: Acid

ALK: Alkaline

BIO/☣️: Biological hazard

POI: Poisonous

RA/RAD/☢️: Radioactive

CRY/CRYO: Cryogenic

The NFPA 704 gives clarity and efficiency to emergency responders.

And I’d definitely give it a good fuck in my condo. Just sayin’.

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lyledebeast · 10 months ago

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I want respond to @malicious-compliance-esq this way because my original post is already very long, and I've reblogged it a couple of times already to give more people a chance to see it. The original post with your added commentary is linked here.

First, I think we're talking about the closet and its impact on Martin's identity in different ways.

And it’s tricky business negotiating any of that when one hasn’t even gotten latitude to understand one’s sexuality completely in the first place—as often happens for bisexual folks and those who occupy other liminal queer experiences. Without that coming into identity, the closet remains not only constraining but also shadowy and fathomless. I see this happening with Ben Martin absolutely, which likely explains a good bit of his approach-avoidance behavior towards Tavington. He defaults to the language he speaks most fluently: physical violence, and threats thereof. It’s foreplay and cover all rolled into one.

I think it's very generous to Martin to present his violence as a cover up for his sexuality. What I'm arguing here is that his lust for violence is what is being covered up and represented as "justice" the way Roy Cohn's AIDS diagnosis gets relabeled as "liver cancer." Yes, Martin's rape-y violence is carried out exclusively against men, but is his queerness really to be prioritized here over his horrendous ways of enacting it? Also, he's enacted it with other men long before meeting Tavington, and while he certainly seems to be savoring the opportunity to kill him particularly after Thomas's murder, he also engages in extremely brutal violence against a man who is just following orders.

The other part I wanted to respond to is your reading of Charlotte Selton in contrast to Martin and Tavington.

Charlotte Selton certainly constitutes a fit match for Ben Martin in her own unique propensity for violence; a generous interpretation of her character would frame her as passively reproducing harms against Black people by not freeing her slaves. Parallels between Ben’s history at Fort Wilderness and Charlotte’s own life on her plantation before it burns invite themselves readily. What even happened to the other people impacted by the fire? Did the enslaved people living there lose what passed for housing, winding up caught by patrols and tortured? What happened to the families of all the people Ben and his men killed in that previous bloody war against local Native American communities?

For someone who claims to find such regret in past violence, Martin seems to accept the lot blithely if it means he gets to kill Tavington and not constantly have that reminder of his own unexamined sexuality following him around. He returns to a bland facsimile of the life he once knew with his late wife—which ironically spotlights how in many ways Will might have been the more upstanding choice of partners. And that’s after he killed two of Martin’s kids. Structural violence is a thing, folks.

I'm as critical of Charlotte Selton as anyone, but I think this is conflating oppressive systems with individual actions in a way that presents her in an unfairly poor light. She is guilty of not freeing the enslaved people she inherited from either her father or late husband--the film is unclear about this--and that is evil. But while structural violence is a thing and she is guilty of participating in it, however passively, murder is not a thing she is guilty of. Tavington may not own slaves personally, but not only does he force free Black men into servitude, he kills enslaved Black men. It is historically unlikely that a man of Martin's station would employee free Black men when slavery was so common in his community, but that is not a reason to doubt the truth of what the field worker who speaks to Tavington tells us. Tavington shoots two enslaved people (I think) and would possibly have shot more had Martin not arrived to lure him away.

At the same time, Martin does not just passively benefit from Native genocide; he has gotten his hands dirty in that ugly business in the most literal way. And unlike Martin with his so-called remorse, if Charlotte ever had a change of heart about slavery, the enslaved people she inherited were still alive to be set free! Or they're alive to free themselves, as many enslaved people in South Carolina did after the British arrived. If the people on Charlotte's plantation are left homeless by the fire--a situation in which the British soldiers who set it are at least as culpable as her--it is entirely possible that they did just that.

With the exception of a couple of British officers and Martin's younger children--characters who have comparably few lines and tiny amounts of screentime--everyone in this movie is kind of shitty, but there are degrees of shitty-ness. Charlotte is evil in a very banal ways as befits her banal personality, but the hero and villain are in a class by themselves as far as violence goes.

#the patriot #the closet #violence #american slavery #racism #genocide

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umichenginabroad · 10 months ago

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Swinging by Singapore (Week 4)

Hello from Singapore! Having always wanted to travel to Southeast Asia, I was ecstatic to learn that one of my roommates had a similar dream. I couldn’t believe it when we started discussing the trip just two weeks in advance, but I seized the opportunity to immerse myself in a new culture. My schooling at UNSW is split between the Summer semester which runs from Jan 2 - Feb 5 and term 1 which runs from Feb 11 - May 9. During the summer semester, I have been taking a single Ecotourism class which is entirely asynchronous until the end of January when the class takes a trip to the Great Barrier Reef! This meant that I could travel with no fear of missing class. After a 9hr flight, Lauren, Charlotte, Shaunak, Evan and I landed in Singapore and got right to exploring. The Jewel is a mall containing the world’s largest indoor waterfall located just outside the Changi Airport. As soon as we got off the plane and laid eyes on the beauty we were speechless. Luscious trees and shrubbery surrounded the waterfall and staggered up all around it. The light shone through the windowed ceiling and made me forget about any stress I ever had. We might as well have been standing in a jungle. The surrounding mall was just as exciting. Several minutes were spent wandering around the Pokemon store where I got a pack of cards in honor of my ever growing childhood collection. The chocolate croll I got at a little bakery stand was one of the best things I had ever eaten in an airport. After 2 hours of exploring, it was clear to me that airports in the US need to step up their game.

Utilizing the very reliable train system known as the MRT, we made our way to our AirBnB located in Little India. For reference, Singapore is a melting pot of cultures with a 74% Chinese, 14% Malaysian, and 9% Indian population. This means that when you look around, all signage is in Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, and English. The fact that English is widely spoken across the country made transport and communication extremely easy and not something we had to worry about. After settling into our single room with just enough space for our beds and bags, we made our way towards Kampong Gelam which is Singapore’s Muslim Quarter and the site of the remarkable Sultan Mosque. Starving, we found a restaurant for dinner which was full of new foods and a particular favorite of mine – Kothu Paratha which I’d only ever had at my favorite Indian restaurant in Ann Arbor. We called it a night soon after that, but I was excited to be on a new continent and get right to exploring.

The next day we hit all the major stops including Gardens by the Bay, the Cloud Forest, and Marino Bay Sands. The first two attractions, like the Jewel, emphasized the appreciation for nature that Singapore has as many of its major attractions are centered around greenery.

Pictured first is Gardens by the Bay. Second is me in the Cloud Forest!

Nearby was a Hawker Center called Satay by the Bay where we got lunch. Hawker Centers in Singapore are essentially large food courts with countless stalls of diverse Indian, Chinese, and Malaysian foods and drinks for incredible prices. On average, you could get a whole meal for about $5 and a side drink for another $1 so needless to say I seized the opportunity to try as many foods as possible. That lunch I had chicken satay, my first ever stingray, carrot cake (a dish local to Singapore containing absolutely no carrot nor cake), and pineapple juice. I can’t even begin to describe how delicious everything tasted so I’m afraid you’ll just have to imagine through the picture below.

Hawker Centers like that one are scattered all throughout the city, so we made it a rule to seek them out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. At Marino Bay Sands, one of the most unique buildings I have ever stepped foot in, we made our way to a restaurant called Lavo at the highest floor where we got drinks, incredible views, and a 20-layered chocolate peanut butter cake. We may have been exhausted from walking around all day, but we did not leave until that cake plate was clean, even if it meant spending the next hour there.

Marino Bay Sands is the building pictured above followed by the equally-as-intimidating chocolate cake.

The next day we ventured to Sentosa Island where you could take cable cars across the island and see the beautiful beaches and various amusement parks. Though the weather wasn’t in our favor, it was nice to see what beaches look like outside of Australia since they reminded me of just how lucky I am to be living on Coogee. Sentosa was followed by Chinatown and Clarke Quay in the evening, both of which are full of rich culture and were a pleasure to roam in. Before our flight to Bali, we concluded our trip with the MacRitchie Treetop Walk where we were greeted by monkeys and even more beautiful greenery.

Though we were only able to spend a few days there, I fully intend on returning to Singapore one day and making my way to those Hawker Centers. Until then, back to exploring Australia!

David Bayer

Biomedical Engineering

University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia

#umichenginabroad #ipewinter24 #australia #ipeunsw #davidbayer

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toyotaofnorthcharlotte · 1 year ago

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The 2024 Toyota GR86 TRUENO Edition is Here

Toyota has announced the 2024 Toyota GR lineup – and we’re so excited to show you one of our favorites on the lineup. The 2024 Toyota GR86 TRUENO Edition is all the buzz in the sportscar community, and one of the main reasons is that it commemorates the Toyota AE86’s 40th anniversary. Since this N Charlotte Toyota sportscar has so many cool features, we will make it simple for you.

2024 Toyota GR86 Trueno Edition Performance

The 2024 Toyota GR86 TRUENO Edition comes with an upgraded performance package – that comes in both manual and automatic transmissions. You’ll be able to add this performance package to your 2023/2022 Toyota GR86, so don’t worry if you’re not able to get your hands on this particular N Charlotte Toyota. Let’s get into it.

There will be ZF SACHS Dampers and Brembo brakes that come standard on all models.

These features will enhance the consistency of handling, ride comfort, and brake system.

Automatic and, now, manual transmission models are equipped with Active Safety Suite. The system has features like Pre-Collision Braking and Adaptive Cruise Control.

Plus, this Toyota is super light at 2,811 pounds with the aluminum hood, front fenders, and roof panel – making it one of the lightest sports cars on the market.

The naturally aspirated 2.4-liter FA-24 engine has 228 horsepower and 184 lb.-ft. of torque. This makes this N Charlotte Toyota go from 0-60 in just 6.1 seconds for the 6-speed manual transmission and 6.6 seconds for the six-speed electronically controlled automatic transmission.

Finally, you can go into track mode with the push of a button and switch off vehicle stability control.

What does the 2024 Toyota GR86 TRUENO Edition interior and exterior look like?

As mentioned earlier, this N Charlotte Toyota sportscar is an homage to the Toyota AE86, which is very popular in the anime and manga community because of the anime ‘Initial D’. If you don’t know – although you should – Initial D is about a character named Takumi Fujiwara and his rise to being a downhill racing hero in his Toyota AE86. Since the anime is so well known, the Toyota AE86 has been coined the ‘initial D car’. Now, let’s get into what the modern initial D car will look like when you first take a look:

To start with a bang, it will come with a number plate that marks the 2024 Toyota GR86 TRUENO Edition.

It comes with a black-wrapped hood, black TRUENO Edition side panels, and a black duckbill spoiler.

As a tribute to the 1980s model, this N Charlotte Toyota sports car will have a ‘TRUENO Edition’ badge on the front bumper lip and rear decklid.

Also, other accents this ride will have are black metallic 18-inch, 10-spoke aluminum alloy wheels with black door handles and mirror caps.

This is what you’ll step into:

Ultrasuede sport seats that are trimmed with red leather, a red-stitched shift boot, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel.

‘TRUENO Edition’ shift knob and all-weather floor mats.

Finally, an 8-inch touchscreen has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Those features are complemented with 8 premium speakers to rock out to on your drive.

2024 Toyota GR86 Trueno Edition Price

We don’t have the exact MSRP of the 2024 Toyota GR68 TRUENO Edition, but we can guesstimate that it will be around $35k-40k because the 2023 Toyota GR86’s starting price is $28,400. And with all the special features and it being limited, there will be an obvious bump in the price.

Stop by Toyota of N Charlotte

If you want to get behind the wheel of this sports car, then stop by Toyota of N Charlotte! Also, stay posted on our social media for any updates about this ride. We’re located at 13429 Statesville Road. Take exit 23 off I-77 in Huntersville.

#ToyotaofNorthCharlotte #Toyota #sportscar #Best sportscar #ToyotaGr86 #2024 Toyota GR86 TRUENO Edition #Toyota sportscar

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cenobittten · 1 year ago

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Purple and colour in FNAF character designs

Since the early days of cinema, colour has been used to convey important information. Five Nights At Freddy's is no different but I'd posit it's been a neglected area of analysis. Some people have drawn some widely accepted conclusions but I think its a topic that warrants deeper analysis.

So, lets look at the following questions:

- How should we use colour as part of FNAF theorising?

- What or who does purple represent in FNAF?

One of the best ways to theory craft is to make hypotheses - statements that make a prediction about your theory's conclusion. This allows us to look at patterns across a series in a broad way, rather than hinging conclusions on specific evidence.

This is particularly important for something as subjective and unspoken as colour - where each colour has a large number of potential meanings. All colours have existing associations. For example, blue can mean cold, calm, air, freedom, inspiration, sky, sea, trust, wisdom and many more just based on existing colour associations. Colours can also be assigned specific artistic, thematic or character associations depending on the work, meaning applying the wrong approach will reach faulty or shakey conclusions.

So, here's my three hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: The colors represent particular characters

Hypothesis 2: The color design is based on existing color associations

Hypothesis 3: The colors used represent ideas or values communicated by the series specifically

Let's test these ideas one by one

Hypothesis 1: The colors represent particular characters

One of the most common arguments I've heard around the fandom is each color has specific character associations within the series.

For example, people often stipulate that green is the color of Charlotte - the child inside of The Puppet - due to her wearing a wristband of that color.

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Other floated associations are Baby with red and Chica with yellow.

In my opinion, this is the easiest hypothesis to reject. While the idea is sound, there is not as much supporting evidence as you might think.

Let's use Purple as a case study

Purple is undeniably the most important colour in the series, being the color of the series antagonist, William Afton i.e Purple Guy. Does this mean purple always implies a link to William Afton? In my opinion, no.

If we look at the character designs, purple is used on multiple characters with no association to Afton. For example, Bonnie, Ballora and Funtime Freddy all have predominantly purple designs. Even more characters have purple design elements, including the Puppet, Glamrock Monty and Rockstar Chica, who have no special associations with Afton as far as we can tell.

Even the idea that Afton is purple is debatable, given that his character wears a golden suit.

The evidence against this theory gets even stronger when you consider other colours. Let's look at yellow - we have both Sun and Chica - which one is more relevant? Chica isn't even yellow in all of the games. Likewise, pink is associated with Funtime Foxy and Glamrock Chica - does that imply the link between the two? What about light blue, which is used in multiple designs yet has no specific character associations at all? The logic doesn't follow.

In conclusion, I think it's unlikely this is what Scott Cawthorn was aiming for. There is little evidence of systemic color use to represent specific characters.

Hypothesis 2: The color design is based on existing color associations

So, let's look at that second hypothesis. What can existing color associations tell us about the character designs?

In my opinion, this is a more fruitful direction. The fact that there are - for example - multiple purple characters suggests that purple is an attribute conveying particular characteristics or themes.

It also explains some interesting quirks in designs going back as far as FNAF 2.

Take Mangle. Unlike all the other toy variants which mirror the original's colours, Mangle is predominantly white and pink, setting them apart from Foxy and the rest of the animatronics. Why is this? Could it be that these colours signify Mangle's personality or attributes in some way?

The color white has associations with purity, coldness and innocence. Pink has very strong associations with love, kindness and femininity. Red, the colour of their lips and cheeks, is strongly associated with danger. This paints a picture when it comes to Mangle's personality - at least in theory. They appear innocent and kind but present a hidden danger.

This also makes the sudden shift in animatronic color design in Sister Location, Pizzeria Simulator and Security Breach far more meaningful. It makes each character design communicative, rather than just aesthetic. In my opinion, this is especially so in Security Breach where there is very little uniformity in design.

However, this still doesn't tell us what each of the colours means. Looking at existing colour associations, they don't always seem to give us meaningful or helpful attributes.

Going back to purple, it's a colour with more ambiguous meaning, with lots of weaker associations. It's linked to royalty, nobility, luxury, power, ambition, devotion, peace, pride, mystery, independence and magic. None of these aspects appear to fit or have particular relevance. This means we need to look deeper, considering colour use across the series.

Hypothesis #3: The colors used represent ideas or values communicated by the series specifically

Some suggest that purple is the color of evil, as Afton's character is associated with evil deeds. However, while this is a logical assertion, it actually doesn't have much evidence. As far as we know, none of the other characters with purple in their design are especially evil. So what could it mean?

In my opinion, there are several particularly notable uses of purple that can help guide us.

During Sister Location, after being scooped and inhabited by Ennard, Michael looks in the mirror to see his eyes are purple. Ennard did not have purple as part of his design so I think this shows the purple colour must have a symbolic meaning.

Next, we have Security Breach. When we upgrade Freddy, his claws and bowtie become purple. While his voice is impacted, this doesn't have any effect on his character. In fact, from a game narrative POV it does the opposite - enabling Gregory to access and battle against Burntrap. That said, I will note that Burntrap himself has purple eyes and his influence on Freddy has this colour which adds a layer of complexity to things.

We also have the princess in Princess Quest. As part of the puzzles, she summons a purple shadow to enable her to light torches her other form cannot. This purple form of light is just as important as its golden counterpart in solving the puzzle.

With this in mind, I think the series is indicating that purple isn't a colour with purely negative associations. I think it instead symbolises the greater good - where necessary evils and shadowy deeds must take place for a larger goal. This links back to the game's theme of science and experiments - where people are sacrificed for the sake of bettering mankind or scientific discovery. It still represents negative activities but ones with a wider, positive goal in mind. It could be argued that this is what Purple Guy does - he sacrifices the children to experiment with soul possession.

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This idea also makes Michael's purple eyes make more sense - Ennard has instilled in him a need to find and end his father - and arguably Freddy's - for the greater good.

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This also provides a better symbolic meaning for Glitchtrap's purple eyes. He's the Greater Good virus. A virus that takes over your body, locking your 'self' away in the interests of pursuing the greater good. Finding the tapes could even be seen as a metaphorical representation of the process of becoming radicalized, with each tape illuminating the bigger picture and need for the greater good.

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The more you approach purple in character designs with this mindset, the more sense it makes. For example, the Puppet's purple tear marks become symbolic of the painful act of reviving the dead kids in inferior metal bodies.

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Fredbear becomes a symbol of necessary evil, both Crying Child's friend and tormentor as part of William's experiments and our guide through FNAF World.

If this line of logic is correct, it suggests that colour has more meaning in the series than we first thought. I'm working on more analysis of the other colours and character designs generally so follow me for more if you like my line of thinking. Here is a summary of my findings/ideas so far.

Find more of my theories and my FNAF-inspired lore-driven story Into the Rabbitverse on my website.

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fnaf lore #fnaf theory #Youtube

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absensia-archived · 2 years ago

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"happy birthday to my favorite partner in crime."

no one ever saw them coming. this far outside the central circulatory system of las vegas, the star - speckled star was much clearer, especially on a moonless night like tonight. in fact, the sky was so laden with stars that one could imagine that the sky was sinking with the weight of all those gems. there was hardly a spot of absence between the sparkles. for those that milled about and lived in the house on the hill in the desert, this was a fantastic sight. romantic even. clearly, there was a reason why maxwell jennison had built his home all the way out here, far from the artifice of the boulevard, despite that being where the body and soul of his business belonged. who needed all those dizzying lights, buzzing and throbbing with the constant current of electricity, when you could have this: a starry night so bright you could reach up and touch the glittering sky yourself?

of course, a huge house placed atop a hill in a gated community in the middle of an expansive desert also had its benefits security - wise, and charlotte had to figure that that surely accounted for something to one of the top mob bosses in the city. but like a king in his castle, jennison had grown comfortable and complacent in the safety of his estate and under his blanket of stars. no one has ever dared to breach the natural fortress he had created; the vast barrenness of the desert was, in and of itself, already an intimidating challenge. next was the uphill climb that could offer nothing except massive disadvantages in the cases of speed and probable detection. the estate itself was sprawling and the house! fuck, the house was a goddamn maze, littered with twisted corridors, false alcoves, dead ends, and a team of guards that paced the square footage in neat little loops: SPECTRES FOR HIRE. it was a haunted house modernized and styled in excessive splendour.

yet while all that shone and glittered might've be found up above their heads, the shadows that were missing from the sky were busy prowling down here, in the dirt, through the sand, and up that hill. and these shadows knew a thing or two about haunted houses. NO ONE EVER SAW THEM COMING.

in the night, the desert was nothing more than another abyss. the ground could not be trusted and the darkness was so dense, the horizon itself ceased to exist. but there was one beacon of light in all this void and that was their target. charlotte and nox approached from the desert side, where there were the fewest guards to worry about because no one ever figured anyone would be crazy enough to march through all that SAND AND SHADOW. that same sand would make for a quiet send - off as they rolled the few bodies that had the misfortune of patrolling this border tonight and met their end with the deft snap of the neck or the precise insertion of a blade into the throat. sand, shadow, and now, blood too. those bodies were left for the sun to find.

the rest would fall, bleed, and stay exactly where they died: on the cobblestone of the steep, winding driveway, in the dirt of the flourishing gardens, on the polished marble floors of the house's interior. no one saw them coming. none of the dozens upon dozens of cameras could capture them. the men watching over the monitors could hear the shouts and gunfire of one reality and yet, turn to witness an entirely different reality on their screens: one comprised of static nothingness, darkness, and the eeriness of a false calm. TO SEE NOTHING WHERE THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING, ANYTHING, and yet, there is nothing.

nothing but shadow, blood, and the awful feeling that someone was staring right at them through the camera lens. the same someone who was out there laughing in tandem with the screams of terror as those who finally did see them coming, always saw them too late. the men in the monitor room also discerned much too late that the shadow that suddenly enveloped them was different from the usual shadows. by the time a certain blonde head poked into the room, only a few loose eyeballs were left to stare and keep watch over the flickering images. the bodies, however, were gone.

charlotte walked over to the desk, picked up one of the eyeballs, a green one, and rolled it back - and - forth across her knuckles as she considered the screens in front of her, smiling as a tendril of darkness stretched out pulled at a bloody strand of her hair. " Not my blood, don't worry. " she hummed to herself as she waited for a few discernible images to appear through the flickering of colour and static. most of the cameras were already dead, but there was one that eventually showed her what she wanted to see. one of the few rooms they had yet to gut. grinning, charlotte raised the tip of her knife and tapped the tiny, glitching picture of the boss running about his office as two of his men tried to hurry him. " I found you, " she sang. charlotte whipped around and trained that ghoulish grin on nox, her bright eyes meeting the twin pits of darkness on their gaunt face. " Looks like he's trying to get the vault open, " she remarked, leading nox out of the security room and down the hall to the central staircase.

in the end, it was too little too late. the first of the last two guards saw them coming up the stairs as if they owned the place. he was quick, in possession of the kind of reflexes men like maxwell jennison paid very well for. but quick wasn't quick enough. moving with practiced precision, charlotte maneuvered behind nox as the gunfire began. perhaps, ( and this is being generous ), only the first bullet fired had any chance of hitting either of them. the rest sprayed in an uninterrupted upward arc, bullets tearing apart the floor and ceiling until the arc finished with a deafening crack of bone as nox snapped the man's arm in two, the barrel of the gun now facing the man, spitting bullets into its owner's face. then, and only then, did the man's finger release the trigger.

inside the office, the second guard was trying to open a false door embedded in the eastern wall. maxwell stood shaking in his multi - thousand - dollar suit beside him, shrieking when he saw a blur of red, black, and blonde, come through the door. the last guard didn't last more than another seven seconds. in that time, charlotte managed to drag maxwell by the collar, with her knife pressing a fresh wound into the slant of his cheek, all towards the still unopened vault. to his credit, maxwell was attempting to pull himself together even as blood dripped down his face, over her fingers, and into the collar of his white shirt. I don't know the code, he was trying to say. I can't remember the code. " That's because you're panicking. It'll come back once you calm down, right, look at me. Let's take a nice, deep breath, " she told him, then inhaled through her nose, holding the breath and stench of his rancid fear until he followed her example. " Good, now let it out. Very good! He's a natural, " she said, smiling at nox. " Here, breathe with Nox and when the numbers come back, you just let me know, okay? "

the code, as it turned out, was the birthday of his firstborn child. quite the thing to suddenly forget, even if in a panic, but that was neither nor there anymore. the man, now tied up with his own tie and shoelaces, could only watch as charlotte cheerfully sat on his desk with a large folder in her hands. the folder contained everything to do with an old business he had stolen from a rival: deeds to land and buildings, records to stolen and laundered money, evidence and documents once used as leverage for blackmail. it was all there and now, it was all theirs: an agent of chaos and a shadow for hire. next to charlotte sat an open box filled with diamonds and a handful of gold bars. this, they might take as well. and lastly, out of the vault, was a very expensive bottle of champagne. whatever celebration jennison was saving this for was now obsolete. charlotte cooed and reached to take the bottle from nox, wanting to see the elegant label for herself.

@mimeticry / HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE PARTNER IN CRIME.

charlotte gasped and hugged the bottle to her chest, coating in slick red blood, even as she trained a gentle, astonished gaze on nox. " You remembered, " she exclaimed softly, her eyes flickering over their face before settling on their mouth, as bloody as her own hands. placing the bottle on the desk, charlotte reached for nox and pulled them in by their shirt until they were close enough for her to hold their face between her hands. " Come here. " a whisper and then, a laugh, both swallowed immediately as she slanted her mouth over theirs. legs parted to either side of the shadow's hips and she pulled herself closer until she was flushed against them. the desk jostled and the box of diamonds tipped over, landing with a thud while the stones skittered across the hardwood like the sound of rain. charlotte turned her head to look at the glitter at their feet. the furthest of the diamonds had rolled to where the mob boss lay on his stomach, his cut cheek pressed to the ground. he looked from the diamond back to the embracing couple, his gaze the textbook definition of doleful.

turning back to nox, charlotte nudged their nose with her own before making a satisfied sound placed somewhere between a pleasant hum and a moan. without taking her eyes - or hands - off the shadow, she jerked her head over at the man on the ground, a fiendish grin smeared across her lips. " What d'you think? Should we let him live? Everyone else is already gone. . . "

#mimeticry #in.#// long post #/ long post #CLEARLY this got away from me but i had so much fun writing it #just wanted a bit of fun and violence for these two. ended up w a whole episode of the nox and char show im sorry alkgnakln #icb vegas is still standing after these two icb it #anyways i hope even a fraction of this is decent ily <3

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cadoutsourcingservicesindia · 2 years ago

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Affordable Electrical BIM Outsourcing Services Provider in Tennessee, USA under $49

CAD Outsourcing Consultants has a wide range of Electrical BIM Outsourcing Services that covers every facet of Electrical Structure, Designing and Engineering that is sorted with the aid of Electrical Building Information Modeling. Within the Electrical BIM, we also offer BIM Engineering, BIM Drafting, BIM Design Solution, BIM Outsourcing and Electrical Building Model.

CAD Outsourcing provides the following Electrical BIM Services:

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uselectriccontractor · 14 days ago

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5 Reasons to Hire the Best Electricians in Charlotte for Your Electrical Needs

When it comes to electrical repairs, installations, or upgrades, finding the right professional is crucial for safety and quality. Whether you’re facing flickering lights, installing new outlets, or planning a home renovation, hiring the best electricians in Charlotte ensures the job is done right the first time. Here’s why choosing a skilled electrician near you in Charlotte, NC, matters.

Expertise and Experience You Can Trust

Electrical work requires a high level of expertise and precision. A qualified Charlotte electrician is trained to handle various tasks, from simple repairs to complex wiring jobs. With extensive experience, they can diagnose issues quickly, recommend effective solutions, and complete the work to code, ensuring safety and functionality.

Reliable Services Near You

Searching for an Electrician near me charlotte nc offers the convenience of local, timely service. Whether you’re dealing with an electrical emergency or planning an upgrade, hiring a nearby electrician means shorter response times and a better understanding of local building codes. Their proximity allows for faster assessments and quicker resolutions, giving you peace of mind.

Why Professional Electricians Are Worth It

DIY electrical work can be dangerous and often leads to costly mistakes. Professional electricians prioritize safety, using the right tools and techniques to avoid hazards like electrical fires or shocks. Additionally, they ensure compliance with Charlotte’s local codes, protecting your home’s value and reducing the risk of future issues.

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hospitalterrorizer · 1 month ago

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diary417

11/14-15/24

thursday - friday

i didn't draw...

but i did watch like 4 movies today. very crazy.

so i guess i'll start with this thing i just watched, and work backwards? it's a funny narrative that way.

so here:

this is a film called ray gun virus, don't watch it if you have any kind of photosensitivity. it seems like it may make you have a seizure!! however i found it quite pretty, i think you probably have to see this on display to actually get a good feeling for what it does/how it feels to see, watching it on a screen may not communicate the full effect, however, like i said, i found it rather pretty, for some reason it made me cry, i just really like all the flickering and the sensation i got of seeing things underneath the colors almost, rotating discs, letters, whole different shapes, it felt i guess exciting, especially because it feels so scientific and precise a thing. here is a quote re the film:

Although affirming projector, projection beam, screen, emulsion, film frame structure, etc., this is not an "abstract film"/projector as pistol/time-colored pills/yes=no/mental suicide and then, rebirth as self-projection. "... just colors and strobe ... 'light-color energy patterns (analogies of neural transmission systems) generate internal color-time shape and allow the viewer to become aware of the electrical-chemical functionings of his own nervous system' ... It's true." - David Curtis, International Times

it really did feel rather chemical, seeing something designed take place. which is beautiful, and overwhelming, and strange. i kept thinking of the sun, staring at the sun and the afterimages there, it felt like that act transposed onto an object, a series of images, which is i suppose what a film is but it feels a little reductive to that strange thing. it is itself, which moves me.

anyhow, i came to this film because a friend dmed me, she saw my review of caveh zahedi's sex addict film and said she appreciated my writing, i don't know if i thanked her enough for that i think i kind of just kept chatting as if she weren't nice to me. so i guess now i am lamenting the fact i missed out on expressing how thankful i am when anyone reads the junk i throw up on that website. anyhow, her messaging me compelled me to go look at her account, and i saw she reviewed a gaspar noe film, which i found funny, so i read that.

also in our conversation i asked about something she had mentioned (i swear i heard about what she mentioned in a vc or something? maybe my friend she was talking to brought it up when i was talking to them, but really this filmmaker i was trying to remember while seeing some of caveh's stuff (as she brought him up re: this other filmmaker), she brought up talking to them, how strange of me to remember it how i did, feel stupid and weird), when i asked she recalled, she told me what i was remembering was anne charlotte robertson, whose first diary film i also watched tonight. i took some screenshots of it. i found it pretty, and lovely, interesting and a much better approach to creating a diary in film than anything caveh achieves but i also haven't seen all of what her ways of thinking have to offer. i like how in this one, it begins on thanksgiving, she focuses a lot on what feels like to me the desire to be thin, i say like, i don't know why like, i'm not happy about that necessarily but i guess i like the honesty but the way she approaches it is more interesting, reading off dictionary definitions of the words fat, thin, and so on, as that plays in the right channel, in the left you can hear her moving around the house, showing you her groceries, other bits of voices, sound, humming, this i imagine is just a kind of test, of what the diary film can be like, however i was very interested, the way she approaches food related anxieties, and films food, moves me. it's hard to say more concretely, as it's a diary, each chunk of time is going to build into the next, and on and on, yeah. so i guess i'll have more to say as i go through that. maybe once a week i'll approach that.

it looks so pretty, right? it feels subtle, how she makes it pretty, as in, it feels precise how she does things in the film and maybe it wouldn't feel that way, like what she does might be taken for granted. i liked when she showed herself doing all the dishes after cooking dinner. i should have screenshot when she finished the dishes, the drying rack. i felt rather seen by her inclusion of that, and it brought to mind how lots of other directors would ignore that kind of household work or make it seem lighter than it really is. obviously when the director is also the one doing the work she will know how to express it, however, oddly, this is bringing to mind a line from the open curtain, how rudd hadn't ever washed a dish in his life, how he did it awkwardly. anyway, what was i on about? i don't know. i am overfull today i guess, with other people's things.

the other films i saw today, were 3 alan clarke films.

that all started because my friend showed me this insane video of bing crosby and david bowie singing together, and then i posted a gif of bowie in the man who fell to earth. then they told me to watch the alan clarke david bowie film and i was like, he was in an alan clarke film and then they were all, yeah, it's called baal, and then they showed me this insanely haggard david bowie, and i was like, i need to see this, so i found it and watched it.

as always, with alan clarke, it was really incredible. i decided after the film i need to read the play because it's insane and i think i missed things and i'd like to grasp it better, it felt like a strange observation of decadents in some way. the language of it was beautiful, i thought. and then these shots composed of 2 screens, one shot a closeup of a painting, the second, the actors in a soundstage, walking, those were lovely to me. very hard to say more, as i saw it in the morning. not that i forgot it all but it's dropped to the bottom of me, it's a kind of sediment, i guess, some inchoate and murky thing sinking, wrapped in kelp, coldblooded things rest upon it, i don't know, it feels as if it will be wrapped up into my insides in some way i guess. which means it is nourishing, or was. all of the stuff i saw today was, though.

the 2nd clarke of the day was made in britain, his movie with tim roth, this one is even harder to talk about, since it is less overtly pretty, although i think the way it's filmed is totally incredible, the steadicam stuff, the parts where tim roth is followed, just like this angry and dispossessed ghost wandering through a urban environments, all kinda falling apart, aimless and violent. the film felt like the part of discipline and punish about this vagrant boy, where he, while living in a way which put him at great risk, maybe we could endeavor to critique it (frankly the vagrant boy in foucault's discipline and punish is much more cleanly aspirational where tim roth in this film is not, he is complicated, everything is complicated (and handled with a graceful ambivalence and straight-faced, a kind of total eye contact with what is being examined)), his fact of existing being a problem to a system which will produce for him a more painful and difficult existence because he will not fall into line, will refuse discipline, he is this thing which exposes and critiques that reality, and at points this skinhead 16 year old protagonist, who is horrific in plenty of ways, is utterly right, and for most of the film the class struggle is the thing more clearly trying to be approached, and it's a very incredible thing clarke does. he is, rather than moralistic, trying to create something you can walk away from with like, a solid 'knowledge', is happy to create disquiet and frustration in the face of disquieting and frustrating facts of existence that we are all forced to submit to. a total hatred of the police, the film possesses, his way of expressing that is also great.

after that, i watched a film which i do not think i have so much context for, though, because of that, it came off super duper uncanny and strange, and leaning more into the steadicam tracking shots, it was really pretty in that way. actually it was super pretty in most ways, even the dead bodies. it was his film elephant, which was about the irish troubles, which i know little about...

youtube

really excellent and surreal film though, if you like watching people move through very empty and abandoned places, places falling apart, this kind of sense that the world is failing, falling apart, decrepit, this to me as i watched it made me think about people's lives collapsing because of collapsing economy, these industrial places just totally becoming reminders of what life you might have had, at some point. super haunted, feeling, even beyond the people pointlessly dying.

tomorrow i think we're going grocery shopping, which we need to do. we'll see how that makes me feel. hopefully, since my sleep is super normal, and i'm mostly feeling normal lately, i'll be normal, and not get wigged out by her mom tomorrow, or their whole super tense thing that either happens or doesn't happen but i wait for it to happen. really, i'm just a drama queen and i want to make everything about myself, don't i?? ugly, evil.

it's strange how i have to disavow myself in my own diary to feel okay with myself. it makes me want to do it more, like, do i do it so people feel bad for me? am i that manipulative? i do it without thinking, but how do i know i'm not thinking, or, that i'm actually putting my thoughts out as i have them here. there's some editing, and i hit send, so after the fact does it mean that's happening? i can't tell. right now, i am moving my head back and forth in an inquisitive way, like i'm trying to make this line of questioning sillier for myself, so that way i feel less bad or something? so i guess not so normal, or normal, but tired. i'm always like this when i'm tired i guess. it's good i know how much more bad to myself, i guess, i get when i'm tired now. the diary makes it evident i suppose.

i read more of the evenson short story book, too, i'm very glad to be reading shorts, it feels like it's been a while since i've read anything like a collection of shorts. they're very good, today i finished the first and second shorts in the book, i expect or hope for more tomorrow but i also hope to make myself draw!! something will budge...certainly... anyhow, the 2nd was much more disturbing than the first, this terror about waiting to be punished, i like how much he leans into the kafka-isms in that one, there's something cute and sweet about seeing him go there, even if the story is disturbing, i like seeing this kind of, it seems like it's this pleasure to be stepping in league with a hero of his or something, articulating the feelings which that writer helped him learn to articulate, sort of, it is distinct, i don't want to make him out to be some kind of mimic, just an interesting thread to think along. the terror of waiting, the impossibility of waiting, trying to manage time. the first i quite liked, since i like people riding horses dealing with strange cosmic nightmares.

i just read another one about a guy holding coming upon a grudge after years of having forgotten something, sort of unearthing knowledge and anger, though never being or feeling particularly angry, all over a strange children's game called "the punish" which is very funny. evenson is an oddly funny man, when he decides he ought to be.

i also wrote what feels like a decent amount today, just a whole bunch of little things, but too many to just feel like, oh, it's just a small thing. it's all basically poetry but of a weird sort. 2 things were joined to another piece of writing, the 3 feel like an odd, i guess triptych, two pieces of poetry surrounding a brief piece of prose. each 2 pages long or so.

it is 1:30 now, though. so i ought to sleep,

so,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#Youtube

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laresearchette · 3 months ago

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Saturday, September 21, 2024 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: FALLING TOGETHER (W Network) 8:00pm 48 HOURS (Global) 9:00pm

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME CANADA/CBC GEM/CRAVE TV/DISNEY + STAR/NETFLIX CANADA:

AMAZON PRIME CANADA NWSL: KANSAS CITY CURRENT VS. WASHINGTON SPIRIT

CBC GEM CARMEN HAPPY PLACE

CRAVE TV BAKUGAN: EVOLUTION (Season 1)

DISNEY + STAR THE JUDGE FROM HELL (two-episode premiere)

MLB BASEBALL (SN) 3:30pm: Jays vs. Rays (SN Now) 9:00pm: Yankees vs. A’s (SN) 9:00pm: Rockies vs. Dodgers

MLS SOCCER (TSN5) 4:00pm: Charlotte vs. New England (TSN) 10:30pm: LA Galaxy vs. Vancouver

2024 PACIFIC NATIONS RUGBY (TSN/TSN3) 5:00pm: Final - Fiji vs. Japan

CFL FOOTBALL (TSN/TSN4) 7:00pm: Blue Bombers vs. Elks (TSN/TSN3) 8:00pm: Wild vs. Jets

SHORT FILM FACE OFF (CBC) 8:00pm: Amanda Parris presents Canadian directors sharing their films and vying for a cash award; films in this episode: "Datrin," "The Mess We're In," "The Teacup."

DANCING WITH THE STARS (City TV) 8:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): Thirteen new celebrities are ready to hit the ballroom floor for their first live performance.

TERRY MCMILLAN PRESENTS: TEMPTED BY LOVE (Lifetime Canada) 8:00pm: Returning home to care for her aunt, a renowned chef gets picked up at the airport by a handsome driver who's 20 years younger than her. They soon make an unexpected yet passionate connection as they share a mutual interest in food, family and fun.

FOR THE LOVE OF LILY (Super Channel Heart & Home) 8:00pm: When a no-nonsense consultant is blindsided by her boss's switch to a greener, more natural office space, she'll partner with the rooftop florist to make her building come alive with the beauty of nature.

HAPPY PLACE (CBC) 9:00pm: A group of women residing at an inpatient mental health clinic form a makeshift community after experiencing personal crises.

AMUR TIGER: SECRET KINGDOM (Nat Geo Wild) 9:00pm: The filmmakers shed light on the remote kingdom of the Amur tiger to unveil long held secrets about these elusive hunters and how they use secret messaging to communicate and hunt their prey.

POOR THINGS (Crave) 9:00pm: Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

PICTURE HER DEAD (Super Channel Fuse) 9:00pm: When aspiring artist Chloe accidentally takes credit for a painting of a murdered woman, she must discover its true origin before the killer sets their sights on her. She finds a history of murdered models, all leading back to the unknown painter.

THE TEACHER’S LOUNGE (Crave) 11:25pm: Teacher Carla Nowak decides to get involved when one of her students is suspected of theft. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.

DEADPOOL 2 (CTV) 12:30am: Wisecracking mercenary Deadpool must protect a teenage mutant from Cable -- a genetically enhanced soldier from the future. He soon joins forces with Bedlam, Shatterstar, Domino and other mutants to battle Cable and his powerful advanced weaponry.

#cdntv #cancon #canadian tv #canadian tv listings #short film face off #mlb baseball #mls soccer #rugby #cfl football

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xtruss · 2 years ago

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Fractured: The Wait Inmates With Mental Illness Endure Because They’re Too Sick For Trial

— April 18, 2023 | By Dana Miller Ervin | Frontline | PBS

You’ve probably heard a lot about our country’s mental health crisis.

Crisis also describes North Carolina’s mental health system. It is harder to access mental health care here than most other states, and that affects everyone … particularly the most vulnerable. Like inmates who are too sick to stand trial. They often wait months in custody for the treatment they need just to be well enough to go to court. As of last month, there were 201 inmates in North Carolina waiting for a state hospital bed.

Crisis describes those who cycle between jail and the streets serving, as one public defender put it, a life sentence … 30 days at a time. Nine in 10 North Carolina jails routinely have no psychiatrist on site, one expert found. Most offer less than two minutes of psychiatric telemedicine per inmate per week.

And crisis describes those who get better in jail, but get little or no follow up on the outside and end up back behind bars.

These are stories of incredible suffering, often hidden. To bring them to light, WFAE, with support from the PBS series FRONTLINE, conducted a year-long investigation that involved more than 100 interviews with inmates, their families, lawyers, sheriffs, doctors, state officials and mental health experts.

We also gathered data, contacting North Carolina’s 100 courthouses and most jails to build an original database. We wanted to know: How long do inmates with severe mental illness wait for a hospital bed, so they can get well enough to stand trial?

State Officials Don’t Track

Our investigation found that half of North Carolina’s inmates who are incapable to stand trial wait longer than 300 days — sometimes with minimal in-jail treatment — before they get a bed.

State officials say the system reflects chronic underfunding and the nation’s overall mental health crisis — exacerbated by slowdowns and staffing shortages that worsened due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Kody Kinsley, secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, says the state’s recently passed Medicaid expansion will help.

Another solution might be a new pilot program that aims to restore some inmates to capacity while they’re still in jail or out on bond. The pilots are “a big passion project for me,” Kinsley said. “It’s really where it all comes together.”

For now, behind each of these numbers is a real person, real families whose suffering rarely comes to light. Over the next several weeks, WFAE will tell some of those stories.

In this series, we’ll examine why getting access to mental health care has been difficult in North Carolina. We’ll report how the system strains hospital emergency rooms. We’ll explain why it burdens the jails, the courts, even crime victims. We’ll look at how our fractured health care and legal systems disproportionately affect the poorest and communities of color. And we’ll report on potential solutions in North Carolina — and other states.

Our series is called FRACTURED.

Today, we start with a story about an inmate who’s been in custody awaiting trial almost five years, his lawyer told us, and getting sicker as he waits.

Too Sick To Stand Trial

His name is John. We’re not using his last name to protect his identity. The 32-year-old Charlotte man was charged with arson and attempted murder in 2018, but he’s never had a trial. He’s been cycling between the jail and a state psychiatric hospital for almost five years.

Three months after his arrest, a court found John was incapable to stand trial because he didn’t have the mental capacity to understand the charges against him or assist in his defense, said his attorney, Jason St. Aubin. The legal term for this is “incapable to proceed.�� That means he’s not able to stand trial under the U.S. Constitution.

We don’t know John’s exact diagnosis — that’s privileged information. But we know the law says only people living with a mental illness or a “mental defect” like an intellectual disability can be found incapable to proceed. And John’s lawyer, Jason St. Aubin, said his client needs the medication, therapy and services that only a hospital can provide.

So, a court ordered John to a state psychiatric hospital for “restoration” of his capacity. That typically involves medication, some therapy, and a lot of education about the court system … including watching clips from courtroom dramas like Matlock. The restoration worked for John, and in September 2020, he was returned to jail to wait for trial, St. Aubin said. But the pandemic was raging, and the state paused all jury trials. During his long wait for court, John deteriorated. Once again, he was too sick to stand trial.

“I’m pretty angry,” said Eric Witherspoon, John’s stepfather. It was a day in late June and Witherspoon was standing outside Mecklenburg County’s detention center trying to visit John. “He’s been gone for four years, and they still haven’t got a trial for him. I can’t put my hands around it.”

Photo of Eric Witherspoon (Dana Miller Ervin/WFAE)

Witherspoon was turned away. Family members are not allowed to visit inmates who are in isolation in a disciplinary unit.

John’s there because he’s accused of spitting and throwing feces at guards while he waits. But that kind of behavior is typical of someone who’s mentally ill and isolated, a North Carolina study found. They’re more likely to harm themselves or others. And the American College of Correctional Physicians warns prolonged isolation can worsen mental illness.

Now he’s racked up eight additional felony charges while he’s again waiting for a bed. If he’s prosecuted for the charges from jail, he could get more than 18 years to his sentence, his attorney said.

“The system is so messed up,” Witherspoon said. “I don’t understand how you can put somebody that needs mental care — you can put them in lock him up like he’s in prison. … He’s like thrown to the wolves, and nobody cares.”

Jail officials don’t discuss specific cases like John’s. But Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden said jail staff also feel the consequences of the system every day. “You think about their charges. Can we get them to a point to understand their charges, where they can go to court or even sign a plea agreement? That is what we’re working towards. But simply having people waiting here for that simply puts a strain on my staff.”

How Long Are The Wait Times?

We know there are 201 inmates with mental illness or deficits waiting for one of the 894 state psychiatric hospital beds so they can be “restored” to go to trial, according to NCDHHS. But, based on conversations with state officials as well as dozens of sheriffs, jail officials and court clerks around the state, we found the state doesn’t track how long inmates actually wait from the time they’re incarcerated until the time they get a bed.

So WFAE wanted to find out. To do that, we contacted all 100 courthouses. We got lists of the defendants who were found incompetent to stand trial, then asked the jails when they were incarcerated, and when they got a bed. Our data represents 63% of the state’s population, and spans from 2016 to 2023.

We found that half of those accused of felonies waited more than 313 days in custody for a bed. The longest waits are in the western part of the state, where John is. In that region, half of those charged with felonies wait more than 363 days.

Julia Ingram and Layna Hong contributed to this graphic. Data collection by Mona Dougani, data analysis by Julia Ingram and Robert Benincasa.

It’s a problem that has been a long time in the making in North Carolina. As of 2016, it ranked 39th to 40th in the country for state psychiatric beds per population, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. Only 600 of the state’s 894 state psychiatric hospital beds are operating — that’s for the state’s 10.7 million residents — due to pandemic-related staffing problems, state officials said.

That’s down from 1,572 beds in 2000, before lawmakers overhauled the mental health system with plans to guide patients to get more mental health care in the community. But that overhaul didn’t work as planned. And the state’s population has since grown by more than 2 million. We’ll detail what happened later in the series.

But long waits are a problem around the country. Mental health advocates in more than a dozen other states have sued over wait times. A federal district court for Washington state held that wait times of more than seven days are unconstitutional, but the state has been unable to meet that timeframe, and litigation is ongoing.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, inmates had to wait for restoration at only one of North Carolina’s three psychiatric hospitals, said Dr. Carrie Brown, lead psychiatrist for the state hospitals. But wait times really blew up during the pandemic. Shortages in the mental health workforce meant the “whole system got backed up,” Brown says. State hospitals lost one-quarter of their workforce. And staff shortages in outpatient and community settings meant it became harder to discharge hospital patients. As a result, Brown said, patients have been staying in the hospital twice as long as before the pandemic.

Brown says expanding Medicaid will ease the waits because some people who are currently uninsured, will be able to get care before they need a hospital bed.

NCDHHS is also now piloting an in-jail restoration project in Mecklenburg’s detention center. It’s for inmates who are willing to take medication, and who get along with others, according to Nathan Andrews, the psychologist in charge of the pilot in Mecklenburg’s jail.

“Why should you have to only go to the state psychiatric hospital to get capacity restoration services?” Brown asked. “Why can’t you get some capacity restoration services while you’re in the detention center?”

How John Ended Up in Jail

WFAE accompanied John’s attorney, St. Aubin, to the jail seven times over a five-month span. He refused to leave his cell. We’ve pieced together his story from court documents, public records and conversations with family members and St. Aubin.

Here’s what we know about John.

As a child, John liked to sing and play with animals, his stepfather said. But he struggled as a young man, and in 2018, his struggles came to a head.

According to a police report, June 30 of that year, a fire broke out at a Charlotte home for intellectually disabled adults where John was living. No one was injured, but the smoke damage was extensive. Police arrested John for arson and attempted murder. A judge denied WFAE’s request to get bodycam footage of his arrest.

“Earlier in the day, he had a disagreement with folks at the house,” St. Aubin said. “I believe it was over access to video games. He was upset and started allegedly a small fire that became a larger one.”

John was taken to jail and was denied bond. St. Aubin worried John was too sick to understand his legal situation or help with his own defense. An evaluator and a judge agreed. That was the first time John was sent to Broughton psychiatric hospital in Morganton for restoration, but he was kicked out for attacking staff.

“My client operates on the cognitive functional level of a child. All the tests show that he has no coping mechanisms or way to process these kind of emotions or thoughts,” St. Aubin said.

Photo of Jason St. Aubin (Dana Miller Ervin/WFAE)

John was eventually allowed to return to the hospital. His stepfather, Eric Witherspoon, saw him there and said he was doing well. After over four months of medication and education about the legal process, evaluators decided he was ready to stand trial, his attorney said.

But by then it was September 2020, more than two years since John’s arrest. The pandemic was raging. Court schedules slowed, and jails quarantined inmates to contain the virus’ spread. John was isolated.

“So by the time I was actually able to see him, several months had passed,” St. Aubin said. “And in those several months, he had already stopped taking his medication. You could see visually how he has become disheveled. His hair is unkempt and his stare more vacant.”

Doctors say it’s not unusual for people with serious mental illness to refuse medication. They don’t think they need it. North Carolina jails will only force it with a court order, and that rarely happens.

St. Aubin thought John needed to go back to the hospital. But just getting the evaluation and the court order necessary to make that happen took another six months. In October of 2021 — a year after he returned to jail — John was again found incapable to stand trial. A month later, a court ordered John back to Broughton Hospital. It would be another 14 months till John got a bed, most of that time in isolation, St. Aubin said.

Unlike family members, attorneys are able to meet with inmates in the disciplinary unit. But by last spring, John was in such bad shape that he repeatedly refused to see even his attorney. He felt angry and helpless, and blames everyone connected to the court system, St. Aubin said. He didn’t understand the process that’s enveloped his life.

On one occasion, a deputy told St. Aubin that John had “no mental health.”

On another visit, officers explained through the plexiglass in the visiting area that John wouldn’t get dressed.

“They said that he had ripped up his uniform,” St. Aubin said. “They can’t bring him out because he’s not able to be clothed. So we were told they would try to put him in a new uniform, but they didn’t sound too optimistic to be honest.”

At times, John wouldn’t respond to officers’ commands.

“He decided to lay back down on his bunk,” an officer told St. Aubin. “He won’t respond at this point to any of our verbal commands.”

They Lose Ground

There’s no tally of the number of people who are restored and returned to jail, then get sick again. But a 2017 state health department working group found this cycle was “relatively common” based on anecdotal evidence from the state hospitals.

Dr. Tony Frasca was a psychiatrist at Broughton Hospital in 2015. He remembers patients coming back after they’d gotten better.

“On more than one occasion, I saw the same people,” Frasca said. “Mostly men, mostly Black men, but not exclusively, come back to Broughton in as bad or worse shape as I met them the first time. And that was incredibly disheartening.”

In 2019, Black people made up 44% of North Carolina’s jail population, double their numbers in the general population, according to the Vera Institute of Justice. Later in the series, we’ll detail how, on the whole, poor people and people of color are hit hardest by this system.

Frasca’s never met John, and he doesn’t know the specifics of his case. But he said restoring someone a second time may not be as easy for patients who suffer from the some mental illnesses.

“Every time you treat them, they get less well,” Frasca said. “Every time they get sick, they get sicker, and every time that you try to bring them back, they don’t get quite back to where they were the last time. They lose ground.”

The law requires those who are incapable to proceed to be admitted to a restoration program within 24 hours. But there aren’t enough beds, said attorney Beth Guzman. Now she represents patients. But she represented the hospital on behalf of the state for over a decade. While working there, she came up with a fix:

“What we came up with several years ago was to ask the prosecutor to have the judge write ‘pending bed availability’ on that order, so we can get around that 24-hour requirement,” Guzman explained.

Guzman said hospital staff try to coordinate with attorneys so restored inmates won’t wait long upon return to jail. But that doesn’t always prevent the deterioration. “If you’ve got somebody who is charged with murder and there’s still a lot of work to be done on their charges, they can decompensate and come back to us,” Guzman said.

She describes decompensation: “smearing feces, throwing feces, throwing urine, washing their clothes in the toilet, attacking staff.”

Some of the things John’s accused of doing.

After waiting over a year, John finally got a hospital bed in January. WFAE hoped to visit John. But St. Aubin said John still isn’t healthy enough to speak with visitors, not even his lawyer.

He’s still stuck in the system.

— Mona Dougani, Julia Ingram and Robert Benincasa contributed data analysis to this story.

— This story is part of a collaboration with WFAE through Frontline’s Local Journalism Initiative, which is Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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overheaddoorcompanyofcharlotte · 4 years ago

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Commercial Products

Dock Levelers & Lifts

McGuire loading dock levelers include industry-leading features which increase productivity and improve safety to the loading dock.

Mechanical Dock Levelers

McGuire mechanical dock levelers set the industry standard for durability, dependability, and safe operation. Mechanical dock levelers have a single-point adjustment extension spring counterbalance, unlimited float hold-down, an integral maintenance strut, and lip support latch features.

MP Mechanical Leveler

Hydraulic Dock Levelers

Hydraulic dock levelers provide the highest capacity rating and are designed for busy loading docks. McGuire hydraulic dock levelers are high-performance, low-maintenance, fast, safe, and have an easy push-button operation.

Autodok® H Series Hydraulic Leveler

HP Hydraulic Leveler

Air Powered Dock Levelers

McGuire Air Powered dock levelers are safe, easy to operate, and with advanced technology used in heavy-lifting industries. It offers a low-maintenance solution and operational efficiency. A simple push-button activation rises the deck effortlessly.

CentraAir® Air Powered Leveler

MA Air Powered Leveler

Specialty Dock Levelers

McGuire specialty dock levelers deliver reliable powered up and powered down performance.

VSH Vertical Storing Leveler

Portable Steel Yard Ramp

RRH Hydraulic Rail Ramp

Edge of Dock Levelers

Edge of dock levelers provide accessibility to docks and permit the safe and efficient transfer of products.

HED Hydraulic EOD Leveler

MEDLF Mechanical EOD Leveler

Dock Seals & Shelter

Dock seals or shelters cover the gap between a dock and a trailer by creating an extension of a facility that seals the top, sides, and back of a trailer.

Dock Seals

McGuire dock seals create an airtight seal between a dock system and trailer.

TS101 Fixed Head

TS103 Curtain Head

TS500 CWT Adjustable Head

Dock Shelters

McGuire dock shelters enclose trailer tops and sides for ultimate sealing efficiency. Dock shelters offer reliable performance and protection from compression and reversing trailers.

TC300 Flexible Steel Frame

TC400 Rigid Wood Frame

TC900 Soft Sided

TC1000 Weather Sentry™

Safety Equipment & Truck Restraints

Loading dock safety equipment prevents dock accidents during loading and unloading.

Vehicle Restraints

Vehicle restraints keep a truck or trailer stationed at the dock.

Hold-Tite® Push Button Vehicle Restraint

Stop-Tite® Manually Operated Vehicle Restraint

Stop-Tite® Push Button Vehicle Restraint

TPR® Automatic Vehicle Restraint

TPR UniLock® Automatic Vehicle Restraint

Light Communication System

Light communication systems improve security and productivity at the loading dock.

Edge Lights

Light Communication System (LCS)

Safety Barriers

Safety barriers protect personnel, goods, and equipment from accidentally rolling off the dock.

Bar Lift Barrier

Barrier Lip Leveler

Commercial Door Products

Rolling Steel Doors

Overhead Door carries a full line of rolling steel doors including coil-away rolling steel service doors, rolling fire counter doors, rolling steel fire doors, insulated rolling steel fire doors, rolling steel service doors, and rolling sheet doors. Rolling steel doors provide long-lasting performance and are reliable solutions for self-storage facilities, warehouses, pharmacies, hospitals, offices, schools, and retail businesses.

Overhead Door – Fireking 630 Series – Insulated Rolling Steel Fire Rated Service Door

Overhead Door – Fireking 630 Series – Rolling Steel Fire Rated Service Door

Overhead Door – Fireking 631 Series – Rolling Steel Fire Rated Service Door

Overhead Door – Fireking 634 Series – Rolling Steel Fire Rated Service Door

Overhead Door – Model 600 Coil–Away Rolling Steel Service Door

Overhead Door – Model 610 Rolling Steel Service Door

Overhead Door – Model 620 Stormtite Rolling Steel Service Door

Overhead Door – Model 625 Stormtite Insulated Rolling Steel Service Door

Overhead Door – Model 640 Rolling Fire Counter Door

Overhead Door – Model 641 Stainless Steel Rolling Fire Counter Door

Overhead Door – Model 660 Integral Frame Rolling Fire Counter Door

Sectional Doors

Overhead Door Company of Charlotte carries Overhead Door commercial sectional doors include aluminum full view sectional doors, insulated sectional doors, steel sectional doors, screen doors.

Overhead Sectional Doors

Overhead Door™ sectional steel and insulated steel doors are economical, durable, and reliable. An assortment of door panel profiles, track and hardware, and specialized options allows the further customization of doors to your specific project requirements.

Overhead Door – Model 416 Steel Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Model 430 Steel Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Model 418 Insulated Steel Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Model 420 Steel Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Model 422 Insulated Steel Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Model 424 Steel Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Model 426 Insulated Steel Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Model 432 Insulated Steel Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Model 511 Aluminum Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Thermacore 591 Insulated Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Thermacore 592 Insulated Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Thermacore 593 Insulated Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Thermacore 594 Insulated Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Thermacore 595 Insulated Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Thermacore 598 Insulated Sectional Door

Overhead Door – Thermacore 599 Insulated Sectional Door

Screen Doors

Screen doors are an economical solution for screening bugs, birds, and other unwanted pests from your industrial facility.

Bug Blocker Sectional Screen Door

Screen Pro Roll-Up Bug Door

Knock Out Doors

Knock out doors, the most rugged option, are designed to prevent damage to door panels and tracks when impacted. Knock out doors are the best solution for damaged dock doors in busy loading docks.

Pflow Model M Vertical Lift System

TKO Cruiserweight Knock-Out Door

TKO Thermalweight Knock-Out Door

TKO Welterweight Knock-Out Door

High-Performance Doors

Overhead Door high-performance doors optimize efficiency, improve production flow, operate quickly, raise the number of opening and closing cycles, and require less maintenance and repair cost.

High Speed Exterior Rubber Door – 990

High Speed Exterior Rubber Door – 991

High Speed Exterior Rubber Door – 992

High Speed Exterior Rubber Door – 993

High Speed Exterior Rubber Door – 994

High Speed Exterior Rubber Door – 995

Door Operators

Commercial door operators provide security and reliability for business facilities. Overhead Door and LiftMaster door operators have a compact design, an emergency chain hoist with an electric interlock, and with adjustable friction clutch.

Liftmaster 115v Hoist Logic Operator

Overhead Door RHX™ Heavy Duty Commercial Operators

Overhead Door RMX™ Medium-Duty Commercial Operator

Overhead Door RSX™ Standard Duty Commercial Operator

Aftermarket Products

Aftermarket products prevent energy loss and ensure dock personnel and equipment are protected from accidents.

Energy Saving Products

APS LED Guide Lights

APS E-Saver LED Bulb

APS Turbo-ES™ Fan

ENERGY GUARD® Retrofit Kit

G-Flex LED Dock Light™

High Impact LED™ Dock Light

Rytec Turbo Seal INSULATED Door

Serco Energy Guard™

Serco S1000 Ultra Seal w/ fixed head pad

Equipment Upgrades

APS Air Bag Conversion Kit

APS Flexback Panel

APS Hydraulic Conversion Kit

Industrial Fans

Industrial fans are High-Volume, Low-Speed Fans that efficiently move air through an industrial space. HVLS fans are ideal in climate-controlled and non-conditioned areas.

Aeratron

AirVolution

AirVolution-D 370

AirVolution-D 550

AirVolution-D 780

Loading Dock Equipment and Commercial Doors Uses

Auto Dealers

Cold Storage

Distribution Centers

Energy Efficient Facilities

Food & Beverage Plants

High Security Areas

Industrial Operations

Manufacturing Facilities

Parking Garages

Pharmaceutical Facilities

Retail Businesses

Service Centers

Transportation & Transit

Warehousing Facilities

North Carolina’s Most Trusted Loading Dock and Commercial Door Distributor and Installer

Overhead Door Company of Charlotte, a division of DuraServ, supplies loading dock equipment and commercial doors products to Charlotte, Concord, Davidson, Fort Mill, Gastonia, Huntersville, Lake Wylie, Monroe, Mooresville, Rock Hill, and Weddington, NC. With skilled technicians, fully equipped service trucks, and an expansive loading dock equipment and door parts inventory, Overhead Door Company of Charlotte is a company you can depend on.

Whether you need a simple part or searching for efficiency and safety improvements to a current loading dock design, turn to Overhead Door Company of Charlotte!

Call Overhead Door Company of Charlotte today at 704-594-5094 or connect with us online to discover safe, smooth, and cost-effective loading dock equipment, commercial door products, and installation services.

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eelhound · 2 years ago

Text

"People don’t take public transit because it’s not giving them what they want. Some of this is because of a decades-long history of bad American land use policies which have encouraged the development of places that require a car to get around. Undoing car-centric sprawl is a very long-term project, but well-designed, well-run transit can be successful even in places seemingly ill-suited for it. Houston, for instance, redesigned its bus routes with a focus on giving people frequent, reliable service and saw a substantial increase in ridership. Charlotte’s light rail system has seen healthy ridership numbers and boosted development. The U.S. is not automatically doomed to have unreliable public transit that serves as the 'locomotion of last resort.' As Bloomberg notes,

There are good, viable models of transit systems that … are successful both at attracting riders and at being financially viable, from places that have more in common with American cities than one might expect…. [Yet] all too often, transit planners—and even advocates—find themselves resigned to fatalism about the prospect of transit in American suburbs. They’re convinced that these spread-out and car-centric spaces are fundamentally irreconcilable with public transportation.

Christof Spieler’s fascinating book Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas of U.S. Transit profiles the transit systems of dozens of U.S. cities, showing how some places are succeeding where others are failing, and demonstrating the principles that make for quality transit that attracts riders.

Some of those principles are straightforward. Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives lists seven demands that potential public transit riders have, which will determine whether they decide to actually use the system:

It takes me where I want to go.

It takes me when I want to go.

It is a good use of my time.

It is a good use of my money.

It respects me in the level of safety, comfort, and amenity it provides.

I can trust it.

It gives me freedom to change my plans.

Seems straightforward, but plenty of cities lack transit systems that meet the criteria. For instance, here in New Orleans, the average person can reach 89 percent of the jobs in the area with a 30-minute commute via car. They can only reach 12 percent of area jobs with a 30-minute commute on public transit. This means that those who can’t afford cars are severely limited in the work they can accept. Transit is not taking them where they want to go.

A lot of transit systems are disappointing because they’re not built around reaching these intuitively obvious basic goals. But when public transit delivers great service at a low cost, people will use it. Plenty of improvements can occur without redesigning entire cities, and Walker argues that cities often measure the wrong things, seeing expanding transit in terms of adding more miles of rail or making sure the entire city is covered by bus routes. Such approaches may appear successful because they make lots of impressive lines on a map (and allow for mayoral ribbon-cutting ceremonies), but cities can end up spending a lot of money to serve areas with few riders.

Some improvements that attract new riders are decidedly unromantic. Increasing the frequency that buses arrive, for instance, makes it much easier to incorporate bus travel into one’s day, which is why part of Houston’s bus system overhaul focused on frequency. ('Frequency is freedom,' Walker says.) Dedicated bus lanes and stoplights that give buses priority will keep buses from getting stuck in traffic. Making sure the routes, fares, and schedule are all easy to understand will make transit less of a headache, and thus make people more likely to consider it. It should be obvious: the more public transit is an attractive alternative to driving, the more people are likely to consider it. In general, research shows that the thing people want most is for the transit system to get them places efficiently; they don’t care nearly as much about whether they’re riding a beautiful, comfortable train or a janky old bus (so long as that bus is reliable).

[Elon] Musk, then, is right that the central measure of public transit’s success is whether it gets you where you want to go, but he’s wrong in thinking that cars will always and everywhere beat public transit on this measure. We can have a public transit paradise, but we have to keep the goals in mind. Public transit should not just serve as a form of unsatisfactory transportation welfare for the carless. It should be able to liberate all of us from dreadful, environmentally harmful commutes in vehicles. We need to be committed to mass transit that truly serves the people, that people do not take because they have to, but take because they want to. It can be done, but getting world-class mass transit in the U.S. will require taking on the Koch brothers and steadily redesigning cities, in ways both small and large, to be for people rather than their cars." - Nathan J. Robinson, from "We Can Have a Public Transit Paradise." Current Affairs, 9 October 2022.

#nathan j. robinson #quote #quotations #public transit #public transportation #mass transit #public good #infrastructure #commuting #american culture #city design #architecture #politics

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