#maybe if i had gotten her early game i would be more inclined to main her but as it is idk

[nicohischier]

MORE ISSUES I HAVE ACTUALLY

[kuiperblog]

Most band kids are “conveniently gifted”

Talking to people who were part of middle school bands, there’s a story that comes up again in various forms.  Here’s one example:

Jimmy always liked the idea of being a trumpet player from a very young age.  But musical instruments are expensive (both to rent and to buy), and so are private lessons, so his parents weren’t about to plop down four figures based on the whim of a third-grader.  As a public school student, Jimmy long-anticipated his elementary school graduation, because middle school was the first point at which he could get a publicly-funded education in music, with lessons and instrument both provided by the school.

During the summer between 5th and 6th grade, Jimmy and his mother went to meet with the middle school music teacher to talk about Jimmy’s involvement in the band program, and to get him signed up to borrow one of the school’s trumpets.

However, when Jimmy and his mother arrived to talk to the music teacher, the music teacher sized up Jimmy and remarked, “You know, with arms like his, I bet Jimmy could play the trombone.  Take this mouth piece and blow into it for me, would you?”  After a demonstration of Jimmy’s lung capacity, the music teacher offered another approving nod.  “Good breath, and good square mouth, too.  With lungs like his, he could be a great trombone player.”

Jimmy and his mother, of course, are both ecstatic to hear this.  For years, he had dreamed of being a trumpet player, wondering if he had what it took, but all this time, his real unique gift was being a trombone player.  Both mother and son walk out of the classroom, beaming smiles on their faces, as they take the school trombone home so that Jimmy can spend the rest of the summer practicing.

“Jimmy’s got a real talent for the trombone,” mother immediately begins telling all of her friends.  “The music teacher could tell it from meeting him.  He’s got a trombone player’s arms.  And those lungs!”   Jimmy feels special in a way that he hasn’t since the early days of elementary school.  All his life he dreamed of being a musician, and at last an authority in the world of music has vindicated his dreams.  Granted, things deviated slightly from how he originally planned them, but the change in instrument has only renewed his vigor and enthusiasm for music.

Jimmy then goes on to have a fairly unremarkable career as a trombone player.  He enjoys the experience of being in band, but his talents are fairly unexceptional, and by the time he gets to college he’s moved on to other extracurricular pursuits.

And then years later, he looks back fondly on his memories of being in the school band, and recalls, “You know, I was the only trombone player in my middle school band.  It’s funny, because there were five trumpet players, but I was the only trombone player.”

And then he flashes back to the meeting he had with the band teacher and realizes, “Oh, I didn’t actually have a 'unique talent’ for playing the trombone that the music teacher saw within moments of meeting me for the first time.  He just had too many trumpet players, and no trombone players, so he steered me in that direction instead.”

You might think that this would lead to a fair degree of disillusionment, as Jimmy’s entire career as a trombone player in the school band was premised on a lie, but I’ve never heard a version of this story where people come out bitter and resentful about having been denied their right to play their favored instrument. Your dreams and aspirations matter far less than the time you put in, and by the end of the summer, Jimmy’s two months of practicing the trombone had pushed him further down the trombone path than years of fantasizing about the trumpet had pushed him down the trumpet path.

(Jimmy’s story here is not so different from my own.  I played the clarinet not because I had any particular inclination toward the clarinet, but because my older cousin had a clarinet, and so if I wanted to play in the high school band, it was either play the clarinet that was already in the family, or spend several hundred dollars a year to rent an instrument instead.  I just happened to know from the start what Jimmy realized only in retrospect: his “choice” of instrument was really just driven by what instruments were available.)

There are times when I have gotten trapped in my own head, playing out the alternate versions of my life.  What would my life have been like if I’d gotten into my number one choice of college, instead of number two?  What if I’d majored in computer science, instead of mechanical engineering?

Increasingly, I’ve come to feel the same way about the later parts of my academic career that I feel about music.  In the same way that my college years had basically nothing to do with what instrument I played in the school band, my adult years have had basically nothing to do with which college I went to and what I studied.

At this point, what matters most about my high school band experience isn’t the musical skills that I practiced, but the memories I formed during that period (and maybe the broader skills of teamwork, discipline, and “learning how to learn”), While I learned these things by playing the clarinet, I could have learned them playing other instruments.  Likewise, I learned a lot of things in college, but the most important things I learned were not part of the curriculum, and I probably would have learned a similar set of lessons by attending a different school or studying a different subject.

Of course, my position is far from universal.  While my decision to start playing the clarinet at age 12 didn’t have a big impact on the trajectory of my career, Jimi Hendrix’s decision to pick up a guitar turned out to be pretty important to his career. (There’s a Pepsi commercial based on this premise: what if a young Jimi Hendrix hadn’t chosen the guitar?)  Likewise, my college roommate ended up getting a job at Google, so his decision to study computer science probably mattered a great deal.

The things is, you don’t know what the inflection points of your life would be.  Go back in time and ask teenage me which of these 3 life choices would be most important: 1) what college I attended, 2) what subject I studied in college, 3) what video game forums I spent time on after graduating from college.  One of these choices resulted in the career that I have today.  You get two guesses as to which.  Hint: I now work in video games.

Life is a series of high-consequence and low-consequence decisions, and oftentimes the things that appear to be high-consequence decisions turn out to be low-consequence, and the things that appear to be low-consequence turn out to be high-consequence.  (For examples of the latter, see stories of people who went out one night on a whim and happened to meet the person who eventually became their spouse.)

As a personal footnote: I think I spent my younger years assuming that I knew what the high-consequence decision points in my life would be, then at a certain point I realized that I didn’t know where they were as well as I thought I did, and since then I think I’ve made peace with that fact.  I think over time, I may have developed better intuitions and better sorting mechanism for what’s really going to be a high-consequence decisions, and my models are based more on my own observations and understanding of the world rather than axioms drilled into me by the authority figures in my life.  (Why did I believe that college was so important?  It was largely because starting from around third grade, teachers -- who are one of the main authority figures in every child’s life -- had drilled into me the importance of getting good grades so that I could get into a good school and get a good job.)  Now, I still have a certain amount of respect for “authorities,” but my definition of “authority” tends to be more, “This guy succeed in the field that I’m trying to succeed in, maybe he knows a thing or two about how I might achieve that success,” and less “This person gives instructions that I’m supposed to follow and if I don’t follow their instructions then I get punished, so I guess I better do what they say.”

[thesportssoundoff]

“Boom or bust potential off the charts” UFC on ESPN 4 Preview

Joey

July 15th, 2019

Another event on ESPN, another makeshift card! These ESPN cards seem to have a bit of a theme or rhythm to them now; give folks a name main event, give them a main card featuring fighters they've had in fights they may/may not care about and then just fill in the rest of the prelim slate. That's no different here with the UFC's return to San Antonio where there's a "name" (sorta) main event, a main card filled with names like Ben Rothwell, Andrei Arlovski, Greg Hardy, James Vick, Daniel Hooker, Alexander Hernandez and Walt Harris and the prelims are just kinda there with intriguing fights featuring people you've probably never heard of. The headliner for this ESPN gimmick is Rafael Dos Anjos vs Leon Edwards; a solid welterweight fight on paper well worthy of the main event spot even if the "winner" is somewhat inconsequential to the title picture. It's as close as we're going to get in theory to an all doughy guy bonanza so settle in, pour yourself a drink and get after it!

Fights: 13

Debuts: Gabriel Silva, Domingo Pilarte

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 1 (Liz Carmouche OUT, Jennifer Maia IN vs Roxanne Modafferi)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 13 (Rafael Dos Anjos, Leon Edwards, Greg Hardy, Aleksei Oleinik, James Vick, Dan Hooker, Andrei Arlovski, Ben Rothwell, Alex Caceres, Raquel Pennington, Sam Alvey, Roxanne Modafferi, Ray Borg)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 6 (Andrei Arlovski, Ben Rothwell, James Vick, Rocky Pennington, Ray Borg, Sam Alvey)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 3 (Leon Edwards, Walt Harris, Irene Aldana)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 33-20 (2)

Leon Edwards- 5-0 Rafael Dos Anjos- 4-2 Walt Harris- 4-2-1 Aleksei Olenik- 4-2 James Vick- 4-2 Dan Hooker- 4-1 Greg Hardy- 1-1 Juan Adams- 1-1 Alexander Hernandez- 2-1 Francisco Trinaldo- 2-2 Andrei Arlovski- 2-5-1 Ben Rothwell- 0-1

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Bantamweight- 3 (39) Heavyweight- 3 (21) Lightweight- 2 (44) Welterweight- 1 (39) Light Heavyweight- 1 (29) Featherweight-  1 (34) Women’s Bantamweight- 1 (13) Women’s Flyweight- 1 (19)

Middleweight- (23) Women’s Strawweight- (19) Flyweight- (8) Women’s Featherweight- (6)

2019 Number Tracker

Debuting Fighters (20-41)- Domingo Pilarte, Gabriel Silva

Short Notice Fighters (19-27)- Jennifer Maia

Second Fight (38-16)- Mario Bautista, Jin Soo Son, Klidson Abreu, Felipe Corrales

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (14-27)-

Undefeated Fighters (25-28)-  Gabriel Silva

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (9-8)-

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (19-17)- Felipe Corrales

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- A lot of folks took offense to Dana White not rushing to grant a #1 contender in the WW division but let's play this out real quick:

Jorge Masvidal has two back to back highlight reel KOs

Tyron Woodley is still around and has a justifiable claim to being the #1 contender

If Colby Covington beats Robbie Lawler, he'll have wins over RDA, Lawler, Bryan Barberena, Demian Maia and Stun Gun Kim in the past three years

If Robbie Lawler beats Colby Covington, he's the super popular former champ who beat Donald Cerrone and then Colby Covington

If Anthony Pettis beats Nate Diaz then he's got wins over two of the more recognizable faces in the UFC on back to back fights

Nate Diaz may have been a simple “Yes” away from a title fight in December of 2017 so let’s see what happens if he beats Pettis

Guys like Elizeu Zaleski, Vicente Luque and Santiago Ponzinibbio are racking up finishes and wins at a crazy rate

Then you throw in these two guys and you can see why a clogged picture with an inactive champion is not ideal at all. Leon Edwards took a big step up from beating the so-so guys on the European scene to racking up wins over the likes of Bryan Barberena, Donald Cerrone and Gunnar Nelson. He's a tremendous welterweight who has a not so thrilling style at a time where the UFC kind of sort of has a very hit or miss level of interest. It would be tough to deny a guy on this kind of winning streak (finishes or otherwise) that he isn't a top contender. With a win by RDA, It's totally fair to point out that RDA will have snapped Leon Edwards' winning streak after stopping Kevin Lee with wins over Robbie Lawler and Neil Magny backing that up. RDA was dominated by Kamaru Usman so he's probably not in the title picture with a win but his value only goes up if he develops into that title shot gatekeeper/contender. The UFC's welterweight division is very cluttered and Usman being out has only made it even more cluttered.

2- Does the makeshift-y nature of this fight allow put RDA in the driver's seat? Rafael Dos Anjos has been frequently tasked to become a short notice main eventer a la Donald Cerrone as evidenced as recently as 2017 where he fought in June, September and then December. Guy keeps himself busy and if you remove the 15 lb weight cut, he's more inclined to take quicker turnaround fights. Leon Edwards tends to be the kind of guy who fights on a bit more of a laid back fighter sched; often popping up whenever the UFC needs a fight in Europe. It's also worth remembering that RDA is pretty much used to these grueling violent in tight fights (which Edwards is going to chase) and seems to always be surprisingly well conditioned despite the pacing. Edwards will probably be the hardest hitting WW that RDA has faced since Robbie Lawler but even Lawler was compromised by a torn ACL but he's also a space and pace guy who either needs to be far away or in REAL tight to operate. This fight is as close as the numbers would suggest it to be.

3- He had zero problems dealing with Donald Cerrone in Singapore so it's probably not a big deal BUT it is worth pointing out just for sniggles that Edwards' two UFC losses have come outside of Europe. Consider this one a Pondering padder if anything.

4- It wasn't his first loss ever BUT Alexander Hernandez is coming off of his first stoppage loss at the hands of Donald Cerrone. The UFC apparently had designs on him coming back sooner but he took a bit more time off. Trinaldo is not much of a one shot finisher but he's really strong, is abnormally good despite his age and if he senses a fighter wilting, he tends to pour on the pressure. Trinaldo's sort of settled into the bottom half of the top 15 in my estimation while Hernandez has top 10 upside on paper but has sort of looked overwhelmed at times vs Donald Cerrone and Olivier Aubin-Mercier. I'm not sure if he'll ever really reach that upside although I'm betting on upside still. Hernandez vs Francisco Trinaldo is an interesting fight between two guys who could really use a high profile win.

5- The UFC signed Walt Harris in 2013. He's officially in a co-main event in 2019. He was cut once, suspended for PEDs once, a no contest, a DQ loss, had two not fights vs Mark Godbeer, fought Werdum at 3 hours notice and now has finally elevated himself up to co-main event status. Hard work (and being around when nobody else is around) has paid off!

6- Seriously though when you consider that Walt Harris and Olenik are in the co-main and Rothwell and Arlovski are still kickin' around at this point, is it any surprise the UFC is TRYING to make a somebody out of the Adams vs Hardy winner?

7- The winner of Aspen Ladd vs Germaine de Randamie was always going to have a slight step up over her but it's fair to point out that Irene Aldana has a relatively clear path to a title shot now.  Aldana is on a three fight winning streak (and I thought she beat Chookagian so it could in theory be four in a row) and Rocky Pennington if she's "right" is probably the best test of whether she's gotten over the stylistic woes that hurt her vs the likes of Evinger and Leslie Smith. Pennington has relatively good striking when she chooses to let it go, works the body well vs fighters who like to move, has a tremendous array of chokes she can go to at any time as evidenced by her subbing Ashlee Evans-Smith, Jessica Andrade and nearly breaking Meisha Tate's neck in the process of one. Aldana has struggled with fighters who can box her straight up and in and when she's needed to hit with some pop, it hasn't always been there in fights. This is really about whether Pennington's first two losses can be attributed to rust (and talent) vs whether Aldana has tightened up the really big holes in her game that prevented her from achieving success early in her UFC run. Pennington when right is a tremendous pressure action brawler while the "perfect" form of Aldana is something like a Max Holloway; an output machine who can rack up points offensively with scrambles and submissions to back up her potent striking game. IF both fighters are right (and Pennington thus far post leg break is a mystery), we could be looking at a fantastic fight.

8- Andrei Arlovski is about to embark on yet another career renaissance! Maybe. Or maybe not. Arlovski is 0-3-1 in his last four fights and he's really truly 0-4. He has shown signs of life though! He gave Tai Tuavasa some problems before he just got clinch elbowed mercilessly down the stretch and against Agusto Sakai, I think most people would say he deserved the nod. The "new" Arlovski is not as good as the guy in 2014 and 2015 who reinvented himself as he's slower, doesn't hit as hard, is perhaps way too patient for his own good and spends most rounds teasing his right hand because it's pretty much his key weapon at this point. I'm actually figuring he vs Rothwell will be a ton of fun for a round or so. At the same time, this fight pretty much exemplifies the "You know these guys now watch them fight!" aspect of matchmaking.

9- Totally forgot Rothwell vs Arlovski is a rematch.

10- Really curious to see what remains of Dan Hooker after that brutal as shit fight with Edson Barboza. He's got an opponent who can he style on offensively in James Vick but Vick offensiely provides all sorts of problems for Hooker defensively. I also feel like Hooker vs Vick is going to prove yet another story about intense MMA weight cuts one way or another.

11- Somebody in the UFC office decided to put Roxanne Modaferri and Sam Alvey back to back on a card ON ESPN and I hate them so much on a visceral level.

12- They're buried on the card but the trio of bantamweight fights are all pretty interesting. Domingo Pilarte vs Felipe Corrales is interesting because Pilarte had the best DWCS fight of all time (vs 1-2 UFC vet Vince Morales) and Felipe Corrales is fighting in the dangerous "it's their second UFC Fight so they're good now" weight class. Jin Soo Son had a BRAWL with Petr Yan in his debut and is a massive 135-lber while Mario Bautista showed glimpses of high level athleticism at least while getting ran through vs Cory Sandhagen. Lastly you have debuting undefeated fighter Gabriel Silva vs Ray Borg and man does Ray Borg need a win in the worst way. He also absolutely needs to make weight here too.

[lavenderhyrdrangea]

Game plan

Wally barely had his foot in the hero bizz, but he knew getting an official suit was the equivalent of getting a license or at least a permit. Like a license or permit, the suit would come after a test. With the way Uncle B trained him, he figured he’d might as well start thinking of a code name.  After all, Speedy was already taken.

“Sorry about the early rising, Kid. Especially on the weekend but I rather you get used to it now—Heroing is an around the clock gig with no pay,” His uncle said, soft rays of sunlight slowly chasing away the shadows on the side of his face.

“Is that part of the test? The rest will be pretty easy then!”

Uncle B laughed, “You wish.” His hands on his lips, he surveyed the landscape.

It was the most cliche cityscape Wally had ever seen. Yeah, there were nice, long roads, windy roads, and bumpy ones(thanks to pot holes and the city taking its sweet time to get around to them.) There were side walks, street lamps, and apartment complexes and businesses that just seemed too close to one another. This definitely was a normal city until the hill street thing they were standing on came into play. The high standing street took a sharp dip within a few footsteps or an inch of car. It wasn’t European stair steep but whoever designed it had to be related to Evel Knievel somehow. The adrenaline junkie wasn’t done either. Once you rode the flat street surface, it would climb up again. It was mostly smooth sailing after that but God, everyone hated this little stretch of road. They even called it, DMV Street in spite of it being part of Pearson Avenue. You go in mildly ticked then it was just down hill from there.

Heh.

Downhill.

Wally supposed you be would rewarded with the sight of Central River once you made it to the bridge but with ferries offering cheap prices for a ride it didn’t seem worth it. Plus, the river was never as pristine as one would hope. Wait a while and you’d see and hear the trash skimmer boat going by.

“I brought you here to test out your coordination in a real life environment. Anybody can train in a lab or on a treadmill but out in the field?  That’s the hard part.”

“Coordination?” Wally looked down at the street and couldn’t help but think of all it’s imminent frustrations.

“Yeah. I was thinking I could make it a little more fun by making it a race. With how early it is there’s shouldn’t be that many people up and out. But there’s just enough people for it to be challenge. Plus, we’re near Star Labs so if anything makes it to the news most people will suspect it’s them.”

“Race!?”

“A little nervous?”

“You wish.”

Uncle B tried to ruffle his hair but was met with the ugly black cowl of his training suit. “Gotta get use to that.”

“I hope not,” Wally whined.

“We’re running all the way to Grocer street. You make it there and you won’t ever have to wear that thing again.”

“Simple enough.” Wally gained resolve. “I’m so getting that suit.”

“Excitement. That’s what I like to see. I put a tracker in that suit. If you run into any problems—literally or otherwise—I’ve got Jay near by with a tracking device. He’ll zip right to you.”

“You might as well tell Jay to put his feet up. I’ll clear this test on the first try.”

They decided they would each have a part in counting down to the race. They chose the ready-set one. It sounded better off the tongue and got him pumped more.

As always, he and Uncle B started off slow which he hated, it felt like he was running through quick sand but as he picked up speed he glided. Obviously, he couldn't glide as fast as his Uncle. Wally at least thought he could stay neck and neck until the next hump but there he was staring at his blurry back, trying to will his feet to take him faster.

They zoomed through the next hump with ease(aka without Wally tripping due to him having to adjust his speed to the incline.) Uncle B was still ahead of him.  How could he be a blur? He trained with him so why wasn’t he that fast?

Dang it, Uncle B. Run into something.

And of course as he thought that he narrowly missed running someone’s car door off of it’s hinges. He felt someone’s arm wrap around his shoulders then a subsequent yank and a rush, whooshing him backwards.

“You got to be a little more careful than that, Kid.” Jay said, smiling as they stood back at the very top of the first hump.

“I know. I know,” Was all he could offer.

He spent the next few weeks of the test bombing it. So much for it being easy. On his second run, Uncle B manged to get so far ahead that he’d gotten lost. The questions about that one were the worst. Explaining how he got lost even though he knew where the race was supposed to end was a whole new level of embarrassing.  He just got so deep into the whole catching up thing, that he couldn't pull himself out of it long enough to really grasp his surroundings.

His third run was just dumb. Who delivered oranges that early in the morning? Er, well, aside from produce truck drivers. Alright, who would drop oranges so they could roll on the ground? Well, he would if he were a produce truck driver. It was probably Uncle B’s gush of wind that knocked the oranges over in the first place. Either way it didn’t help him at all. Maneuvering around the oranges was like trying to learn how to roller skate all over again. The very next week, he ran into this fruit frenzy yet again. This time around he bolted ahead to try to catch the fruit before it fell but maybe his grip was weak or he got a little ahead himself with all the excitement because he ended up tripping himself up. They were just in his arms and he fumbled them. He was also pretty sure the fruit produce man thought one of his orange crates vanished into thin air.

His fifth run was the closest he got to ever finishing the test. He’d made it all the way to the bridge with Central river flowing underneath. The problem this time around was the opposite of the problem he had during his second run.  He stayed focused on his surroundings and his own footwork. Too focused.  Now, he really didn’t know how it happened but Uncle B was gone. Again. Did he expect him to run on water? Cool as it was they hadn’t gone over that and it had been ages since he practiced his backstroke.

Later on in the evening, his mom made a dinner of chicken Alfredo with peanut butter cookies for dessert and invited Uncle B and Aunt Iris over. His father was eager to talk with Uncle B about the test. Wally’s speed had been just as much a bonding experience for these two as it had been for him, his uncle and his aunt. Before then they had little in common. It wasn’t on purpose, both tried, but ended up being awkward elephants. One thing that they did have in common was that they were both fairly hands on people in their respective fields.

“So,” his mom lifted a forkful of rolled up noodles to her mouth,” did things go better today, Wally?”

It was well meaning but he wished she didn’t ask right in the middle of dinner.

All eyes were on him.

He leaned back from his plate. “Uh, it was alright.”

“Alright?” She pressed.

“Okay, slight correction. The first half was alright. The second half...” He trailed off and thought of how he could talk about the whole thing without making his parents freak out on Uncle B. It didn’t matter that neither one of them were speedsters and thus couldn’t honestly give their two cents on the finer details of his training. They were going to do it anyway. And with their input Uncle B would be babying him in no time.

“With how you talk about your powers, I thought you’d take to this like a fish to water,” His father said.

Being the awesome hero that he was, Uncle B dashed in, “It took me a while to figure out coordination when I first started out. I was running on nerves and awkwardness.

“Awkwardness? You?”

Aunt Iris almost choked on her food, she laughed so hard. “Honey, I’m so sorry,” she said to Uncle B who was narrowing his eyes by then, “but you’ve told me stories about how odd you were before everything. I’d still love you but you weren’t always Mr. Hotshot.”

“I’d argue he’s still odd now,” His mom added.

“So you’re tag teaming me now?”

His father slid in “Well...”

“Et tu, Brute?” He looked at Wally. “Looks like it’s just me and you, Kid.”

Dinner ended on a lighter note, and with his mom insisting that Uncle B and Aunt Iris take a boat load of leftovers home. His mom got use to the appetite of two speedsters like it was nothing. It wouldn’t have surprise him if it turned she enjoyed it as some sort of hobby.

His dad told him to help them carry the trays to the car. Powers or not he still had to have manners.

He was putting the last tray in the trunk when Aunt Iris tried to drop some knowledge. “I think what your Uncle was trying to say earlier is that even with meta powers there’s still a trial and error phase when trying to get better at something. And don’t forget the main focus of a test shouldn’t just be the grade. Every X you see there is to help you. If they weren’t there you wouldn’t know what you need to work on.”

“Yeah, and what if I flunk the whole paper?”

“Still helpful,” She singsonged.

“Great. I’ll tell that to my English teacher the next time time I get an F on my essay.”

Aunt Iris glazed over his quip in exchange for one last word of advice.   “And, remember don’t compare your work to others’ too much. It’s good when you want to better yourself but sometimes it’s bad for the esteem when done obsessively.  I can’ tell you how many times I’ve beat myself up over the fact that another reporter released a story quicker than me only to realize my work was suffering because of my fixation with their work.”

Uncle B suggested a break from the test for just a little while. No doubt a result of Aunt Iris doing her news reporter read on him the last few seconds before they left. She probably made him look pathetic to Uncle B. Like he needed anymore of that.

His father didn’t really like all the extra time he had since he was soft benched, so he thought it was best he got his blood going. His dad suggested that they play baseball. He was little of iffy about that. His dad was really obsessive when it came to baseball. The thought of his past little league seasons made him cringe. But he suggested gathering up the neighborhood kids and playing football instead and Wally wasn’t doing to do that. So they settled on playing catch with the baseball.

“That’s a shame,” His fathered lamented. “Football’s a great game. I’m supposed to be teaching you everything I know. Taking you to games. Cheering you on from the bleachers.  I feel like I’ve missed out you know?”

“It’s just that I don’t like to be tackled.” Or dealing his father’s weird sports lust.

“You’re going to get tackled chasing after the Flash aren’t you?”

Wally stayed quiet.

“I know people don’t think it’s something that requires a lot of brain work but anyone who says that never looked beyond the news articles they find on the internet talking about rowdy fans trashing their home towns after their team lost. It’s a game of wits. You need a game plan if you plan on winning, “Zeal overtook him. “What’s the quickest way to advance down the field? Which defensive player is the one you should keep an eye on? What tactic or strategy is better suited for all the players on your team? What plays into their strengths? It’s much more than tossing a ball back and forth. Take you for instance. You’re fast now, right? You’d make a mean running back—A tail back to be precise. You’d be able to rush the ball to the end zone no problem.”

“I can’t use my powers like that, dad. That’s cheating.”

“Oh, fine. Steal all my fun. Focus on the strategy, boy.”

“Alright, alright. You said that you start off with a plan. What if it seems like the plan isn’t working?”

“What you’re talking about is a quarterback. Possibly one of the most important members of the team. They reiterate all the coaches plays to the team in a way they all understand and they have to have quick thinking too. They can change a play at the scrimmage line if it looks like the play they’re going with won’t work out well.”

“And how do they know a play won’t work?”

“Something’s usually off with the defensive line. Look at it this way. Strategy or the game play is all about understanding yourself, your team and your opponents.”

“Mind games.”

“Yup.” His dad said proudly.

The cogs in Wally’s head whirred. “Do you think that that works on things outside of football?”

“I don’t see why not.”

He told his father to hold off on the catch and that he needed to study. The man was miserable. He probably planned to spend the whole day with him.

“Uh, dad?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks. Remind me that I owe you a game one of these days.”

With that, Wally went to craft a game play of his own. Instead of begging Uncle B to start that test again, he asked Jay to take him to DMV Street and to watch him run. With every problem he ran into, he and Jay would take note of them and analyze why they thought he was having such a problem with it. Jay was much better at it than he was because he could go beyond just a practical understanding of his problems. He didn’t only focus on implementing more jumps to avoid danger but he zeroed in on why Wally was so hesitant when it came to jumping. They found out that it was, duh, because he was nervous. There was a layer underneath that as well that for once Jay couldn't get to since he claimed Wally wouldn’t budge. Whatever that meant. It was starting to seem like his problems had problems.

Eventually he felt ready enough for the test again. Like the last few times, Uncle B took them to DMV Street early in the morning.

“Sure you’re ready?” He asked.

“Born ready.”

“Alright. Why don’t you start off the countdown?”

“Ready,” Wally said.

“Set,” Uncle B supplied.

“Go!” They said in unison.

The test started the same way it had since the beginning—slow and steady then fast. He kept close to his Uncle’s heels for a few seconds. He even ribbed him.

“That suit is mine.”

After the second hump he ended up falling back. This freaked him out at first but he knew he had to stay on it. He had to think and be aware of everything yet not to the point of hyper focusing.

He could tell how long it had been since his Uncle passed by the way his surroundings reacted. A skirt that billowed too harshly was a good marker. A crate of oranges spilling over was an even better one. The oranges rolled all over the street and adrenaline made his heart pound as he vaulted over them. He weaved in and out of the way of the people and things that threw themselves onto his path: The blockheads who must’ve wanted to live the rest of their lives without a car door and the plastic bags and pamphlets that use to smack him in the face and temporarily blind him. Man! At times he had to deal with his own two feet.

He tried to suppress the overwhelming relief that resonated in all parts of his body when he made it to Central bridge.

Something in the back mind chanted, “thisisitthisisitthisisitthisisit!”

Again, Uncle B was just gone. He steeled himself. His uncle unlike, most teachers, wouldn’t test him on things they’ve never gone over before.

The horn of the trash skimmer boat blared.

Yes.

He waited until it made its way from under the bridge to the other side. Determined, he leaped over the railing and into the boat’s dustcart.

Uncle B was waiting there on top of a pile of trash with his arms behind his head and a grin.

“Wait til they dock then it’s back to hitting the pavement to Grocer street for us.”

“Yeah.” He agreed, a little dazed.

Uncle B ruffled his hair—or better yet the cowl of his ugly training suit—and said, “You’re pretty cool, Kid.”

He grew dizzy with joy.

A/n: I really liked working on this one! Writing Wally was actually a lot of fun. His parents were slightly difficult to grasp since I had to teeter between the lines of...good and bad I guess? In the comics, Wally’s parents are depicted as no good but they’re never depicted as out and out abusive. They loved their boy. It was just at times they ended up screwing other people over in process of loving him. His mother was always depicted as the lesser of the two “evils”.

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: All Your Dreams Are Strange (Ch. 1 of 4/5)

Earth-2's Mayor Leonard Snart is navigating a post-Zoom world--squabbling with the city council, dealing with his best friend, escaping his security detail--when he meets an intriguing newcomer to Central City. Now, if they can just figure out how to navigate these things together. (Prequel to "Another World, Some Other Time."

I don't know what's gotten into my muse lately. But I'm running with it!

Way back when I started writing fanfic again, one of my first Legends/CC fics was "Another World, Some Other Time," in which Leonard and Sara "meet" their Earth-2 counterparts. Sort of. At random a week or two ago, I started turning around the idea of a prequel, a story about how E-2 Len and Sara met.

This is that story.

Right now, I'm thinking four or five chapters. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta! Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

Leonard Snart has escaped again.

There’s no pursuit and no security outcry, no alarm or notice. Just one mayor, walking quickly down the Main Street sidewalk away from City Hall with a grin of insurrection and smug pleasure in his own cleverness—and the knowledge that his secretary is going to glare at him on Monday, although she probably won’t make him pay in other ways.

Probably.

That’s only fair, really. He’s supposed to keep office hours until 5 p.m. on Fridays, and only his appointment to meet with the new YWCA director was going to get him out of that a little early. Skipping out a little earlier still, while Mariah was occupied with a delivery, will just allow him to ensure that the conservative, anti-meta faction of the city council doesn’t have another chance to beard him in his den before the weekend, making him late for the other appointment and ending a long week on a note that will sour things even more.

He counts that as a win.

Mariah was going to be disapproving anyway, he decides, taking off his suit coat, nodding to a passing older couple he recognizes as local business owners. Not only does she have old-fashioned ideas about how the mayor should require others to come to him instead of going to them, she’s going to be appalled he didn’t take a security detail, or at least someone to take notes.

Now, it might be a breach of protocol to go by himself. Not all that long ago, it could have been a death sentence.

But Zoom is gone, and the fall day is mild and sunny, and he’s made it out of City Hall without saying something he shouldn’t to one of the obstinate council members or anyone else. He’s on his way to a place he recalls fondly, to talk to someone he’s really quite curious to meet, and life…is good.

(A bit lonely, maybe, a tiny voice inside comments, but good. Right?)

Then it gets even better.

“Snart!”

“Oof!” Leonard finds himself lifted off his feet in a bear hug, but although he’s taken by surprise, he knows who this is, knows the voice and the hug and even the faint scent—woodsmoke and spice, an incongruous combination. “You…Mick! Down!” When he’s lowered to the ground and can breathe again, he adjusts his shirt and tie, picks up his fallen jacket and runs a hand over the close-cropped hair that’s nearly incapable of being mussed, giving the other man a glare that would make Mariah proud. “What the...” A glance around. “...hell are you doing back in the city? I thought you were in Gotham.”

His oldest and best friend roars with laughter, unconcerned with his friend’s mayoral dignity. “Meetings with the publisher finished early,” he says cheerfully, clapping Leonard on the back. “So I decided to come home a bit. Maybe do an impromptu signing. Relax, you know? I’m not a workaholic like you.”

Leonard gives that statement the eyeroll it deserves.

What seems long ago now, Leonard Snart and Michael Rory had been challenged to make something of themselves that belied their trouble-prone beginnings. They’d both, independently, gotten in minor trouble with the law and both, independently, been remitted to a program designed to keep young offenders out of juvie. While the program—run through the Central City YWCA—had been designed to help the plethora of fatherless or orphaned boys still affected by the fallout from the War of the Americas, Leonard (whose father had died in the line of duty, technically, as a Central City cop) had been accepted due to a thoughtful judge.

There, he’d met Mick, one of those fatherless boys, and they’d hit it off nearly immediately. Neither of them had had a good relationship with a father society now remembered as a hero (war casualty and cop, respectively) and both were really too smart for their own good, although Mick’s natural inclination was to hide his intelligence and Leonard had a tendency to flaunt his to an occasionally obnoxious extent.

Dr. Diane Carberra, director of the program, had seen something special in them both. Instead of punishing them or scolding them, she’d challenged them—to become the men their fathers hadn’t been, to use that intelligence, to set goals, to make a difference. And they’d responded.

Now, decades later, Leonard was the mayor of Central City, lauded as a hero himself (by some, anyway) for holding things together as much as possible during Zoom’s reign of terror. Mick was one of Central’s most loved native sons, an award-winning and best-selling author known for both his wildly entertaining novels and his detail-filled travelogues.

And they were still best friends.

“What, they let you out without a keeper?” Mick comments, glancing around the city streets as if to pinpoint a member of the security staff or some other sort of handler. “That’s rare, isn’t it?”

Leonard doesn’t dignify that with an answer. “You didn’t say you were going to be back in town,” he merely observes, setting off at a walk again. “I’d have cleared my schedule.”

Mick falls into step beside him. “I gotta a key,” he shrugs. “I can get in the house. But I figured I’d go looking for you.”

Some of the more conservative residents of Central hadn’t been quite sure what to make of a mayoral candidate whose easy acknowledgement of past relationships with men and women meant they were required to look up the word “pansexual.” Then, at least one blogger had tried to make an issue out of the fact the candidate lived with author Michael Rory (at least, when Rory was in town) only to be confounded by the facts that, one, the vast majority of the voting public didn’t care all that much— especially if Leonard was a strong enough leader to hold the city against Zoom—and two, this cohabitation didn’t at all suggest what he thought it did.

Mick might write romance adeptly, but he wasn’t interested in, in his words, “playin’ those damned games” himself, not when it came to romance and not when it came to sex.

They’d found their labels together, back when they were starting college—pan for Len, and aro/ace for Mick—and if some people thought that made them something of an odd pair, well, that was OK. They knew what they were to each other.

“I’m actually heading to the YWCA,” Leonard comments to his friend as they continue. “Going to meet the new director. There should still be familiar faces there, if you want to come with me. Just don’t glower at the new director. She didn’t oust Dr. Carberra, she’s just succeeding her.” He smirks a little at Mick’s noise of annoyance. “Don’t ‘hmph’ about it. Doc deserves her retirement. And last email I got, she’s enjoying California.”

Mick mutters to himself, but shrugs. “I know,” he acknowledges. “I promised to do a signing at the library in her town when the new book comes out. But it don't seem right. She’s part of Central City to me, always will be.”

“I hear you.”

The old brick building, one of the oldest in the city, has been expanded and updated through the years, but it still looks much the same. The security system is much more in-depth than when they were kids, and Leonard buzzes at the door, politely identifying himself and Mick for the receptionist and security and waiting for the double doors to unlock.

“Michael!” The eager call makes them both laugh, and Leonard steps back, grinning, as a small, white-haired shape hurtles (as much as a fairly spry 86-year-old woman can hurtle) toward them. The receptionist…a volunteer since they were teenagers, one who’d decided the two scruffy teens needed some mothering and provided homemade food and occasionally questionable reading material accordingly…latches on to Mick, holding onto his arm and speaking earnestly to him.

“…I loved ‘Playing with Fire,’ it was amazing. And so did my book club! I was wondering, dear, if you might be able to speak again sometime. Oh, yes, hello, Lenny…oh, sorry, Mr. Mayor. Michael, and I know the new one comes out…”

The mayor, hardly difficult to track down in Central City, is relatively ignored in favor of the famous author. Len, grinning at Mick’s patient expression, nods to the amused security guard and strolls down the hallway toward the director’s office, figuring that there’s no reason he can’t just politely introduce himself. No need to stand on ceremony.

Unless this Sara Lance is the sort who stands on ceremony. He hopes not. He’d rather like to hope he can work well with her.

Leonard pauses outside the closed office door, eyeing the shiny new plaque with the new name on it. He studies his suit coat and the dusty marks from where he’d dropped it, then shrugs, leaving it off. And then he reaches up and raps on the door, waiting as the sound echoes.

No answer.

Maybe he should have checked at the front desk. Or maybe wires had been crossed and she had gone to his office? No, someone would have said something. Leonard checks his watch. He’s a few minutes early. He should just wait.

Instead, he does something he knows is foolish. He tries the door handle.

It opens easily, and Len, feeling vaguely sneaky, peers around the side of the door. The office is, indeed, empty of people. The obvious lack of some familiar furnishings—Doc’s big painting of the sunrise over the Central City skyline, the Tardis lamp a much younger Leonard Snart had given her—causes a sudden pang, and he leans in just a little more, thinking about the time he’d spent in this office, and challenges given and accepted.

Then something in the corner catches his eye, intrigues him enough to push the door open and take an illicit step inside.

There’s a training dummy in the corner of the big office, an empty weapons rack on the wall next to it, and mats spread around it. Leonard blinks at it, trying to make his brain catch up to the image.

Doc had been very committed to the philosophy of nonviolence; she and Leonard had talked about it, over tea or coffee in this very office—debated, really, especially when Zoom had been at large and Leonard had been first running for mayor and then serving his first term in office. He hadn’t completely agreed then, and he doesn’t now, but given that he knows Doc had hand-picked her successor, the martial arts equipment is a slight surprise.

“Hello?”

The tone is dry and just loaded with enough question to hold an edge of threat. Len spins, feeling sheepish, ready to offer smooth apologies and explanations, but he freezes when he actually first sets eyes on the new owner of this office, who’d entered through the door at the rear.

Sara Lance is gorgeous.

She’s dressed fairly casually, a black shirt and a sleeveless blue blouse, her blond hair loose around her shoulders. He can see the muscles in her bare arms, testament that the martial arts equipment is, indeed, hers, and her blue eyes are direct, studying him. She holds herself like a dancer, a fighter, balance and strength and grace, and oh hell, is he a sucker for that sort of badassery.

A bit younger than he is, but he’d already known that. Doc had tried to fill him in, but loathe to acknowledge she was leaving, he hadn’t listened much.

Doc is probably laughing her ass off in California right now.

“Hi,” he says after a long moment, one in which he’s aware he’s been staring.

The blond woman’s lips quirk. “Hi,” she returns, leaning against her desk, relaxing just a tad and watching him. “Mayor Snart, I presume? I admit, I wasn’t just expecting you to just saunter in like you own the place.”

Ah, hell. “Yes. I’m sorry, I...ah.” He sighs. “I spent a lot of time here back in the day,” he says, moving closer, meeting her eyes and training to convey sincerity. “Your predecessor was...is...a friend. A mentor.” He pauses. “Actually, she probably saved my life.”

Lance tilts her head, watching him, but her eyes have softened just a little. “She’s spoken of you,” she says. “Dr. Carberra. Said she thinks we’ll work well together.”

Oh, she did, did she? “I’m not usually one for breaking and entering...well, there was no breaking involved, really, but...” He looks around the office. “It’s odd and a little disconcerting to see things looking different.”

Lance nods, accepting that, as he takes in other differences: New books on the shelves, new photos on the desk, the empty spot on the wall where the big skyline painting had hung.

“I’m surprised Barbara didn’t let me know you were here,” she comments, still eyeing him closely.

Oops. “My friend’s distracting her,” he admits. “That wasn’t on purpose. She’d just rather talk books with him than city business with me. And he’s the one who spends a lot of time on the road.”

That gets her attention. “Friend?” she questions. “I’ve read...Michael Rory? I’d like to meet him.”

“I think that can be arranged.” The author is always more interesting than the mayor. “Anyway...let’s start over.” He extends a hand. “Mayor Leonard Snart. Welcome to Central.”

His hasty recovery gets a smile and she lets him get away with it. “Sara Lance,” she returns, giving him a firm handshake. He can feel weapons callouses. “Thank you.” She gestures to one of the overstuffed chairs off to the side, not the more formal ones around the desk. “These are more comfortable...”

“I know them well.”

Once they’re settled, Sara with the iced coffee she’d left the room to get, Len with a bottle of water, they regard each other again.

“So,” he says finally, “breaking and entering notwithstanding, I just wanted to introduce myself, to tell you welcome, and to see what you might have in mind for your tenure here.” He shrugs a little. “Doc...Dr. Carrera was always very involved with the community, and she was here a long time in one capacity or another. And now that things are starting to get back to normal after...after Zoom...we’re starting to find our feet again. It’s an interesting time.”

Lance acknowledges that with a tip of her head. “Zoom,” she muses, staring into her coffee. “I’ve read...that must have been...yes. Interesting.”

There are other words for it. Leonard lets his eyes focus on the spines of the books on the shelf behind her, the titles blurring. So many people had just left the city, but he’d stayed, determined to do something. And then, elected to office, walking the line, protecting his city and keeping himself alive and his people safe without bowing down to the meta any more than he had to...

There’d been days he couldn’t imagine a life without that tightrope walk. It’s still a shock, sometimes, the absence of that tension. Compared to that, city politics are a piece of cake.

Sara takes a sip of her drink, and Len blinks, aware suddenly of how long he’s been silent. He takes a swig of his water, mustering his thoughts.

“Yes,” he says finally. “They say there’s a lot of PTSD being diagnosed in the city now, and I get that. But we made it through. We have a meta protector now, a speedster, and we have...resources. We can come back.” He darts a glance at her, deciding not to go into the meta question for now. “So, you’re from Star City, originally?”

Sara’s eyes are on his, and he thinks for a moment that she won’t let him change the subject. But then she nods.

“I grew up in Star City. My mother still lives there,” she says, then pauses, as if considering something, then nods to herself.

“My father died in an accident when I was 11,” Sara continues, nodding again as she sees him register that she’s willing to get a bit personal. “My older sister, who’d always been the disciplined one...she promptly went off the rails.” She glances away; the subject is obviously difficult for her. “Made it through high school, then vanished. We haven’t seen her in years now.” She shakes her head as Leonard tries to figure out what to say. “I guess I tried to compensate—I’d been the wild one before that—and I wanted to work with women in crisis.”

“Understandable,” he murmurs thoughtfully, and gets a small smile in return before she continues.

“I had my bachelor’s degree three years out of high school, went on for a master’s in social work. During that time, I started working  in National City, at a women’s shelter, then moved back to Star for a year. I met Dr. Carberra when she visited, and she encouraged me to apply for this job when she decided to retire.” She spreads her hands out. “And that’s me.”

Leonard lifts an eyebrow at her, then turns his head to glance over at the training dummy and weapons rack. Lance follows his gaze, then laughs.

“And, yes, I’m a black belt, in a few disciplines,” she allows, grinning at him and getting an answering smirk in return. “I like the activity, and I’ve found teaching classes to women gives them a feeling of...of control, not necessarily in a self-defense way—although sometimes that—but simply in having control over an aspect of their lives.” She shrugs and smirks a little.  “And it occurred to me that, in the never-ending battle to be taken seriously as a woman, the clear signs of weapons proficiency couldn’t hurt.”

Leonard can’t help himself; he snorts in amusement, liking Sara Lance a good deal. “I can’t argue with that,” he agrees. “Maybe I should borrow something, have an unsheathed sword lying on my desk next time I squabble with the council.”

“You’d be welcome to,” she tells him solemnly, then smiles again. “And you? I know the basics. But most of the articles I’ve seen are more about city business than anything…” A pause, and a shrug. “Personal.”

He’s not deluding himself, is he, that there are sparks here, or at the very least, interest that’s more than polite? Len doesn’t think so. Well…he won’t overstep, but he’d like to see if he’s correct.

“My dad was a cop,” he tells her slowly, shifting in his seat, trying to feel his way through this story he’s rarely told anyone, wondering why he wants to tell her. “He died on the job when I was 8.”

She murmurs condolences, but he’s already waving them off. “Of course, he’d been an abusive jerk to me, my mom, and my baby sister,” he said drily, “so it was kind of hard to take when people started lauding him as a hero. My mom kind of checked out and then got sick; I was caring for Lisa; I was angry and desperate. I might have gone down a different road, but...” He looks around the office, knowing his thoughts are pretty clear on his face, then back at her.

There’s understanding there, a degree of understanding he thinks he’s seen in few others. She nods, conveying that, and Leonard continues.

“I know there’s been criticism of the programs here that deal with men and boys, given that the stated mission is to protect and uplift women,” he says quietly. “But…they broke the cycle, with me. And with Mick, too.” He shrugs, then moves on.

“I went through Quad-C—Central City Community College—then transferred to the university. Then I went to law school. Passed the bar, then practiced here a while, dealing with kids like the one I could’ve been. And then…”

“Zoom.”

“Yeah.” He frowns. “No one wanted the job, with all the violence and the deaths…the only one who steps up to run was an...” He catches himself. Don’t swear in front of the lady, Leonard, at least not until you know her better. “…a bit… unprincipled. So I did it. And I won.”

Lance regards him a moment, then nods. “And the rest is history?” she says with a smile.

“As they say.”

They watch each other, both smiling a little, then Len turns his head with a sigh as he hears Mick’s bellow of laugh coming closer, knowing that their time here alone is coming to an end. Lance seems to get it, nodding again as she gets to her feet.

“I think we will work well together, Mr. Mayor,” she says, a sparkle in her eyes, holding out her hand again. “And I look forward to it.”

“So do I.” Leonard is carefully not to hold on to her hand any longer than necessary. He finds himself loathe to leave, wondering what this intriguing woman thinks of the meta programs he’s been responsible for, the safehouses for LGBTQ+ teens he’s been fighting for, the…

He lets go, wondering if he’s imagining reluctance in her own demeanor, then turns for the door…

And for once, he gives in to impulse.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks suddenly, turning back. “Sometime? Coffee? Get off on a better foot, without the, ah, breaking into your office? Show you a bit of the city?”

You’re babbling, Snart.

Lance looks momentarily surprised—but then, yes, pleased, he thinks. Oh, thank god, maybe he hasn’t screwed this up.

“I’d like that,” she says simply. “I’m busy tomorrow, but…Sunday? Maybe late morning? It looks like It's supposed to be a lovely day.”

Leonard nods, feeling oddly like the teenager he’d been here, long ago. “How’s 11 a.m.? I’ll meet you at the CC Jitters by the waterfront?”

“The one near the sculpture park?”

“The same.”

“You’re on.”

Yes, that’s definitely a spark in her eyes. He grins at her. “Again, pleased to meet you, Director Lance.”

“The same, Mayor Snart.”

[tsaritsa]

against the run of play

hi @yanumii​ i was ur secret santa this year!!!! u asked for fic, a modern au, and royai: so i went a bit crazy and wrote a 7k multimedia fic extravaganza. i hope u enjoy it, and that u have a safe holiday period into 2k18!!!

you can also read on ao3

“Riza Hawkeye,” she lifted her glass in greeting.

He inclined his head in return and took the chair next to her. “Roy Mustang. What brings you to a charity gig this evening?”

(In which Roy Mustang is a national rugby hero and falls in love with neurotrauma specialist Riza Hawkeye as soon as he lays eyes on her).

He’s been seen out and about in Briggs with internationally-ranked ice-skater Olivier Armstrong, 36.

But rugby royalty Roy Mustang, 28, stepped out solo for his trip to East City last week, and tried to go incognito as he arrived at Bardowick-Lyles station late Thursday afternoon. 

The captain of the Drakes cut a casual look with oversized black shades as he tried to dodge the prying eyes of the afternoon commuters.

Braving the cold in a black winter coat with pearl buttons, Mustang kept it cosy in a light blue jumper and worn black jeans.

He matched his elegant coat with midnight Tom Ford boots, emblazoned with a bold red strap over the foot. 

He stylishly pulled the look together with a tan messenger bag with statement buckle to give off a touch of glamour. 

The sighting comes after a report from the Central Star that the rugby superstar is getting serious with ice-skater Olivier Armstrong, who has just come back from the competition circuit in Drachma. Though there have been no photos of the two together, several sources have reported on their dates. 

Olivier attended his last home game in East City last November. And Mustang headed to Briggs with her where they were both spotted enjoying the sights at Lake Yastreb, well-known in the region for its picturesque views and opportunities to skate on the lake itself.

'Roy and Olivier are definitely dating,' a source tells Central Star. 'They’ve gotten to know each other really well and are very comfortable from one another. 

'Olivier sends Roy music to get his opinion on what she should choreograph her pieces to. It’s more than just a fling.' 'They’ve been dating since early autumn and spend most nights hanging out at his holiday home in northern Central and laying low,' another source told the Central Star. 

'His friends already love her and see how happy she makes him,' it was claimed.

The Drakes face off against Creta this Saturday at the Eastern ‘Cake Tin’ Stadium, in which punters are expecting the professional debut of newly-signed scrum-half, Edward Elric.

Roy Mustang is supposedly single!

While it was previously reported the Rugby Union star was ‘casually dating’ the pretty figure skater Olivier Armstrong, he says he's not worrying about his love life for now (though he did not outright deny that he and Olivier have been seeing!)

He told The Bell:

"It's not that I'm not pursuing love in some sense, but I'm just focusing on the team right now. We have some really exciting games coming up against the new Creta lineup and training has been non-stop. The spare time that I do have, I want it to be fun and casual and light and easy-going."

Well, there's nothing wrong with fun and casual!

Anyway, Roy isn't worrying about being in a serious relationship at the moment, but maybe some time in the future:

"I'm sure there will come a time when I'm ready to make a more serious commitment and be in a relationship like that – one where I can really focus my time on someone else – but I'm thrilled to be able to keep things simple at the moment."

And for now he's focusing on his fellow teammate (and self-proclaimed best friend) Maes Hughes' happiness in his engagement to Gracia Barker:

"I was really excited and anxious to hear from Maes on the day that I knew he was going to pop the question. When I finally did, it was just the best. I think they’ve found their other half in each other and it's wonderful to see them so happy. It's rare in a lot of cases and when you see it happen it brings you an overwhelming sense of joy."

Aww!

Roy can live vicariously through them AND still enjoy the single life!

Riza huffed as she adjusted the dress she wore, cursing under her breath as she shot a pained smile towards her grandfather across the dance floor. She understood that the job her grandfather had – as the leader of their country – was important, but he made it very hard for her to appreciate his role when he forced her to attend these soirées as his informal date. You’ll meet plenty of men this way, he had cajoled her, eyes twinkling.

Of course, it didn’t matter to Führer George Grumman the III that his only grandchild had no current plans to meet a man and settle down – she was having plenty of fun focusing on her job as a doctor in a small borough just an hour out of Central City. It was challenging work, as well as rewarding, and it frustrated Riza to no end that her grandfather refused to see her as she was, rather than as someone she could potentially become.

She would, however, give him credit for the dress she was trying to wrestle with discreetly as she could manage. Despite the awkward way she felt it sat on her body, she would admit that she looked damn good in it. It was one of the more scandalous-worthy dresses on show tonight – she had been approached by an up-and-coming designer who knew her through a co-worker that worked on the surgery side of head trauma (she thought it was funny how small the world could be at times) – and the designer had arrived last week with this hip-hugging, gossamer affair. Truthfully, the dress actually stopped at the top of her thighs: the rest was a delicate gauze embellished with floral appliqués that accented the long length of her thighs and calves. It was a bold choice that Riza knew had some of the high society girls fuming – technically she hadn’t broken the dress code, but she knew she was walking on a very thin line between looking chic and modern and looking downright scandalous.

Whatever. If she had to be dragged to be paraded around on her grandfather’s arm, at least she could look stunning while doing it.

Tonight was a charity event – these were par for the course for her. The causes were almost always something she could easily support, and the press tended to be minimal (and generally only the legitimate forms of press would even turn up to these sorts of events).

Unfortunately for Riza, this particular charity event was something she was struggling to find an ounce of support for. It didn’t help that their supporters and partners had hadn’t really given much thought to the security of the whole event. Gate crashers kept seeming to wriggle their way in, and the few men on duty had their hands full trying to ensure than nobody was unduly accosted.

It was just her luck that the entire Drakes team had been invited to attend, and with them, every person with a smartphone and a nametag saying, ‘Hello I’m an invasive journalist’ had turned up to report (intrusively investigate, a little voice in the back of her head whispered).

The main speeches that had practically bordered on self-congratulation had already been done (thank god), and the dinner had been alright (the only saving grace). The mingling afterwards was what she didn’t enjoy, but it was barely ten o’clock yet and she had promised her grandfather that she would stay until at least half past. This event had been sponsored by the national rugby board, celebrating the commencement of a new initiative that would see coaches and equipment being deployed to the poorer regions of the country. If her grandfather was considered the head of this nation, rugby was undoubtedly the heart. And the lungs. And the kidneys. And any other vital organ in the body. Amestris without rugby was…well, a country of little international standing and an awful lot of sheep per capita.

It was in their blood, or so the saying went. Everyone either played or watched the national sport. There was never any discussion about disliking rugby: naturally, that never factored into the equation at all. Riza could remember playing it as a young child – even the other sports made available at her school all paled in comparison to the funding and exposure that rugby got.

Her grandfather knew she wasn’t the biggest fan of rugby – being a neurotrauma specialist meant she often dealt with people suffering from concussions and other injuries that were common in the sport: so spending an evening with the people who actively ignored any warnings she and her colleagues put out about the inherent dangers of such an oft-contact sport was just peachy.

Also, Roy Mustang was here. Riza didn’t have anything against the man personally; she was just sick of seeing his name and face plastered across her newspapers, social media feed, christ – even her bread wasn’t safe from his smarmy expression, endorsing her use of wholegrains and encouraging her to learn more at playrugby.co.am

The overexposure of such a man was to be expected, she supposed. He was the captain of the Drakes – the national rugby team, and played in the local league for the East Eagles. Alongside Hughes, Armstrong (the male one, his older sister did figure-skating and was reputed to be as cold as the ice she worked on) and the up-and-coming Elric Brothers, the national team was formidable, to say the least – and that was only the names that she could remember off the top of her head. The Drakes were currently ranked number one in the world, and for good reason. She’d give him this, Mustang was talented – after years of embarrassing defeats and almost-wins against Creta (their arch rivals), Mustang had swanned onto the scene and essentially rebuilt the team from the ground up. The drinking and bashing tabloids went away, the team practically became good at rugby overnight, and the country’s morale was at an all-time high.

Mustang had given the country something to be proud of, and that in turn made the country better for it.

She spied him across the room, talking with her grandfather and other men in suits. George was a big fan of the rugby, and Riza knew her grandfather would certainly be enjoying himself tonight, surrounded by plenty of players to natter off to. She remembered that he used to play when he was haler and heartier: tonight would probably be the highlight of his social engagement calendar for this season.

It was rather funny to watch the man try to extract himself from what looked to be a very one-sided conversation with her grandfather – Riza was well-versed in various modes of escape from him once he got into an animated discussion, but in this case Mustang seemed to be at her grandfather’s mercy. Eventually another team member had wandered over and she saw him quickly duck his way out, skirting the edges of the ballroom.

“I see you’ve met the ‘real’ Führer,” she called out to him as he passed her table. He turned back to look at her, confused.

She smiled kindly at him and his face lit up in understanding. “You saw that, then?”

“It’s been fun watching everyone realise what they’ve gotten themselves into. You did remarkably well.”

She poured herself another flute of sparkling wine and raised her eyebrows at her companion.

“Riza Hawkeye,” she lifted her glass in greeting.

He inclined his head in return and took the chair next to her. “Roy Mustang. What brings you to a charity gig this evening?”

“I’m here as my grandfather’s date,” she replied. It was the truth, after all. But with men like Mustang, she relied on their own fame and notoriety to eclipse hers. There had been no spark of recognition at her first name (which usually gave it away). It was refreshing to be a simple civilian, talking to another, slightly more (okay, extremely well-known) civilian. Besides, she was interested in seeing how he was off the field, and out of the press scrum after every game. He had always presented himself as polite and engaged – but here, amongst his peers, Riza would have an opportunity to see the real man.

“That’s very kind of you,” he said politely, fiddling with the stem of his glass. “Is he involved with the board?”

“Not quite,” she hedged, ducking her head. “To be honest he’s not a very important person in the scheme of it all, not here certainly. Not like you, however.” A teasing smile pulled at her lips. “You’re the man of the hour.”

Roy sighed, shifting in his chair to see her properly. “It’s a good venture.”

“I never said it wasn’t,” Riza said coolly. “But you don’t look like you’re having fun, despite all the attention.”

Roy folded his arms over his chest and Riza tried to ignore how his dress shirt pulled in all the right places. “You don’t sound like you’re having much fun either.”

“Why would I? Your board never listens to me: being stuck in a room with them is not my idea of a good Thursday night.”

He paused, frowning. “What do you mean about the board?”

Perhaps it was the all the wine she had drunk throughout the night (well, something needed to get her through their inane speeches); perhaps it was the fact that she would be able to give Mustang the slip in just under ten minutes; perhaps Riza had the slim hope that maybe he would listen to her, even if nobody else would.

The words spilled out of her before she could think to what impact they might have. “I’m a neurotrauma specialist. I’ve written entire books on how a blow to the head affects your cognitive function later on in life. Your board seems to think their players are immune to those effects.”

His eyes bugged a little out of his head and Riza allowed herself a small smirk. It wasn’t an attack on him directly – hell, he would probably be one of the worst-off players considering how long he’d been playing for the Drakes now – but there was something perversely fun about educating the star of rugby about its inherent failings and dangers.

“I mean-” he was struggling for words here, moving forward in his seat. “I’d heard the rumours but – surely they would listen, at the very least?”

Riza shrugged, finishing off her glass. “You tell me. Every paper I send them – internationally peer-reviewed, mind you – is quickly ignored. They don’t want the proof that the current form of the game is slowly killing their star players.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe you’ll have more luck with them than I do. I mean the game no disrespect, but with how it’s embedded into our day-today-lives-” she waved an arm around for emphasis. “It’s not just retired players and people with over twenty concussions. I’m getting children in now because they’ve have a hard knock and it’s screwed them up. There’s absolutely no focus on safety, just on how manly it is. And a gala like this? It’s only going to exacerbate the problem.”

He had grown quiet, looking at something over her shoulder with apprehension.

“I heard from your grandfather that you had come along with him tonight, but I never imagined you would be so rude as to spread lies when you’re here as our guest,” an oily voice said from behind her.

“Chairman Raven,” Roy said carefully, moving out of his chair and shaking the older man’s hand.

Riza stood up to, and made a point of extending her hand towards the man as well. His cologne was overpowering as he gripped her hand with more force than necessary, she could feel it settling onto her skin like the sardines her grandfather liked to eat for lunch. Everything about him screamed money and power.

“It’s hardly a lie, I’m afraid,” she replied coolly, enjoying how his gaze hardened. “I have nearly eight years’ worth of data now. Every year you ignore me I just add to my statistics some more.”

“Chairman, I think it might be worth looking into this,” Roy said earnestly, and Riza felt a rush of affection for him as he stood next to her, their shoulders barely brushing. “I saw Basque only just last week and he had been telling me-”

“A conversation for another time, I think,” Raven said pointedly, still looking at Riza with barely contained distaste. “You’ll have to forgive Mr. Mustang: he sees a pretty face and simply loses all common sense.”

Riza felt the smile freeze on her face. Roy had grown very still next to her, and she willed for him to say something – anything. The silence stretched on, and Raven’s lewd smile grew.

“I think we should give Mr. Mustang more credit than that,” she said eventually, tasting bile on her tongue. “At least he doesn’t judge at first glance.”

“Because there’s so much to judge the granddaughter of the Führer on, isn’t there?” Raven inclined his head at the two of them. “It was nice talking to you again, Miss Hawkeye.”

“Doctor Hawkeye,” she ground out.

Raven laughed loudly. “Of course, silly me. Doctor Hawkeye.”

Roy turned on her as soon as the older man was out of earshot; Riza let go of a breath she didn’t realise she was still holding onto.

“You’re George’s granddaughter?”

“Yes,” she said distractedly, checking her watch for the time. “My grandmother doesn’t have the patience for these sorts of things, so I come along instead.”

“His granddaughter-”

“I need a drink,” she said tiredly, finally looking up at him. His mouth was gaping open inelegantly and she smiled softly, placing her fingers on his underside of his chin to close his mouth gently. “Would you care to join me? I find Chairman Raven robs me of all energy.” Her fingers lingered on his jaw for a moment, savouring the heat of his skin against her own.

He stared at her, confused, before nodding and offering her his arm. “I know a good bar a few blocks from here,” he said lightly.

“You read my mind, Mr Mustang. Lead the way.”

She woke with a start, and immediately wished she hadn’t moved so quickly. The room swam; her vision swam; her head swam.

Riza had the worst hangover in living memory. Her legs were wrapped awkwardly around a sheet and she struggled for a few moments before flopping back onto the bed, breathing deeply and trying her best not to hurl onto the ground.

How much did I drink last night? Her head was throbbing painfully now, and she realised with growing dread that she didn’t recognise where she was.

She also wasn’t wearing anything.

FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckityfuckfuckFUCK.

Another wave of nausea passed over her and she rolled onto her side, blearily opening her eyes to figure out exactly where she had ended up. The room was familiar – maybe one of the hotels in the CBD? The room was pretty basic in its setup, but the furniture spoke of moderate wealth. Riza sat up slowly, not caring how the bedsheet fell and pooled around her hips. She could spy her dress crumpled up on the floor, and her shoes kicked off on the sofa.

How in the fuck am I going to get out of this?

She heard movements to her left, and watched with horror as Roy Mustang’s head emerged from beneath the other half of the bedsheet, like the birth of the world’s most hungover butterfly. He blinked slowly up at her, his mouth opening and shutting.

“Where did your dress go?” he asked, puzzled. Riza shrieked, quickly grabbing the sheet back up.

“God, not so loud I beg you-”

“What the fuck happened last night-”

“Did we-?”

“I think we-”

“Christ, I would never mean to take advantage of you like that, I’m so sorry-”

She held up a hand and took a deep breath. “We were both obviously drunk – it’s – it’s not ideal. But it’s alright, it – this shit happens.” She gripped the bedsheet tightly against her chest.

He curled around a pillow and looked at her with an expression she couldn’t be bothered to figure out. “I’m glad it was you,” he said honestly, wincing at how tactless he sounded. “I mean – you know, people throwing themselves at you for your fame?”

“Yeah…” she nodded her head uncertainly. “I-”

“ROY!” A voice boomed from outside, the two of them tensed, and looked at each other warily.

“Fuck, it’s Maes,” he whispered harshly, running a hand through his hair – if it was his bedhead before, Riza didn’t know what to call whatever the mess was now on top of his head. He pushed himself off the bed and puttered around the bed; Riza found it hard to tear her eyes away from his body. Yes, she knew he was fit but – it was different seeing it in the flesh.

“You won’t want to wear that out,” he said, gesturing to her dress on the floor while shimmying on his boxer shorts. “I think I have some spare clothes you can borrow.”

“It’ll be fine-”

“Dressed to the nines?” He laughed and shook his head. “We’ve got press with us at the moment – they might be sport-focused, but I’ll wager they’ll be quicker to pick up on who you are than I was.”

She bit her lip: he had a point, despite her apprehension. Of course the media would be here – it was a bloody miracle that Roy had taken them to a little bar off a side street where nobody seemed to care who they were.

The knocking on the door was becoming more insistent. “ROY WAKE THE FUCK UP YOU LAZY SON OF A-”

“I’M COMING, MAES!” He yelled back, throwing her a wrinkled t-shirt and shorts; she quickly put them on. They were a loose fit, but it would have to do, at least until she could hail an uber to take her home. He ducked into the bathroom, she could hear the taps running at full tilt.

She was just bending down to pick up her wallet when the door suddenly flew open and Maes walked in, looking harried and ready to draw blood.

“Roy, I swear on my grave you are gonna get it-”

He stopped as he saw Riza crouching by the side of the bed.

“Oh shit, Roy. What have you done?”

Roy walked out the bathroom, scrubbing at his face with a washcloth. His shoulders slumped as he saw his best friend, and he walked over to where Riza was standing, frozen like a deer in the headlights. “Look, I’ll-”

“It’s fine,” she whispered lowly, very aware of how this must look to the deputy captain: here was the Führer’s granddaughter dressed in his best friend’s clothing and looking thoroughly shagged. “I’ll go, and you can – can deal with whatever is going on-”

“Riza-”

She placed her free palm against his chest and breathed in deeply. “It’s fine-”

He dipped his head and kissed her chastely on the mouth, a little part of her melted at the fact that despite his being needed elsewhere, he was still here, with her. His fingers curled against the side of her face and she tried her best not to see too much into this: he was just being a gentleman and –

“Roy this can’t wait-”

He ripped his lips from hers and breathed deeply, resting his forehead against her own.

“I swear-”

She nodded, trying her best not to let her emotions get the better of her. “Maybe we’ll – later.”

“Later,” he breathed, kissing her forehead lightly before picking up her shoes and handing them to her. “Take the stairwell, it’ll lead you to the back entrance and away from the main road.”

Maes was quiet as he watched her gather her purse and slip out of the room. “You didn’t answer your phone,” he explained, handing his own over. The local news site was loaded, and Roy sucked in a breath as he read the headline.

BREAKING: ZOLF J. KIMBLEE FOUND GUILTY OF DOPING DRAKES ON BEHALF OF DRACHMAN BEARS. MORE TO FOLLOW.

“Christ,” Roy muttered, skimming the article before handing the phone back to Maes, quickly putting on his team jacket. “Of course it was Kimblee.”

Maes shrugged. “We all knew something was coming. What I’m more interested in is-”

“Absolutely not.” His voice brokered no argument and Maes deflated a little. “It’s not – we’ve got more important things to worry about right now.”

“Is she just a one-off or-?”

Roy rubbed his eyes roughly, sighing. “For fucks sake, you know me better than that. Later mate, when I’m not hungover.”

Maes slung his arm around Roy’s shoulders, and coaxed him down the hall towards the elevator. “I’ll hold you to that. Anyway, Kimblee was found with the drugs in his room, and his phone’s been confiscated by the police. All you need to do is look solemn and refuse to answer any questions.”

“That should be easy.”

UNKNOWN NUMBER, 5:28pm when did u manage to put ur number into my phone

elizabeth, 5:31pm Sorry, who is this?

UNKNOWN NUMBER, 5:32pm man this is embarrassing UNKNOWN NUMBER, 5:32pm it’s roy UNKNOWN NUMBER, 5:32pm y’know UNKNOWN NUMBER, 5:33pm the dude u marked to hell and back UNKNOWN NUMBER, 5:33pm i had to fend off so many questions from maes about u

elizabeth, 5:34pm Oh shit elizabeth, 5:36pm Thank you for sending back my dress. I owe you

concussion boy, 5:37pm go out to lunch with me tomorrow and i’ll call it even

elizabeth, 5:39pm They said you were slick on the field

concussion boy, 5:40pm meet u at the café on the corner of elm and lyles? 12ish?

elizabeth, 5:44pm I’ve got a meeting at 1pm back at the hospital so it’ll have to be a short lunch

Looks like Roy Mustang scores on AND off the field!

On Saturday, the Drakes star was snapped out and about with the gorgeous First Granddaughter Riza Hawkeye, and it seems like these two had quite a ball on their lunch date!

The precious pair hit up Il Pomadoro in the Carlston borough of Western Central, and they were totally getting their flirt on after the meal!

The accomplished neurosurgeon and the captain of the Drakes were caught on camera smiling and laughing, and Riza even tried to grab for something in the athlete's hands!

And close sources say this isn't just a hit-it-and-quit-it date! Insiders say that these two are, in fact, dating, but it's still very new, which is why they're trying to keep it on the down-low.

For example, when the sports star was asked about being spotted on the outing later that week, he responded by saying:

"I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about."

Playing coy, Mr. Mustang?!

We appreciate the effort, but those snaps are pretty telling!

[Images courtesy of Lily Marrell.]

Things are heating up between Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye in the cold winter weather… literally!

On Tuesday night, the blonde beauty and the charismatic captain were spotted hanging out together once again! The stars were caught on camera at a Starbucks near Mount Kahma, about five hours north of New Optain.

Since the cosy ski resort is probably one of the few places in the Eastern District that actually gets cold, the precious pair was most likely trying to get their body heat rising… with some coffee! LOL get your mind out of the gutter!

The romance rumours surrounding these two have been in a flurry ever since the pair were spotted talking at a charity ball sponsored by the National Rugby Union. Miss Hawkeye, a talented neurotrauma specialist at Central General had apparently charmed the Drakes Captain with not just her enviable fashion sense, but her brain as well. Sources say that Roy was smitten with her from the very beginning, while Riza took a little time to warm up to the fly-half.

Do you think the relationship between this dynamic duo is more than platonic? Or are Roy and Riza just friends? This girl hopes that Roy Mustang isn’t off the bachelor market just yet!

[Image courtesy of Lorne Yoki.]

It’s heartbreak on top of heartbreak for Olivier Armstrong, 36, and Roy Mustang, 28, and sources claim to The Daily Star that Roy has betrayed Olivier by seeing another woman for the past five months. ‘Roy finally admitted to Olivier that he had fallen in love with another woman! They had to hide their feelings, but they’ve been seeing each other on the sly whenever they could over the last five months,’ an insider reveals. ‘Their friendship turned into something more as time went on.’ OMG!

So who is this alleged mystery woman? None other than the granddaughter of the Führer, Riza Hawkeye. ‘She’s a neurotrauma specialist, and often attends charity events as a date to her grandfather,’ the source adds. Sounds like they run in the same circles. ‘As such, they had crossed paths at numerous events, both in Amestris and abroad, for some time,’ the insider reveals. ‘She’s classically beautiful and was educated in Creta, as well as here at Central U — and the attraction between her and Roy was immediate!’ Whoa, sounds pretty serious.

Miss Hawkeye has been described as somewhat of a gold-digger in certain circles – she was largely left out of the public eye as George Grumman soared to power in the election of ’19, and the insider reveals that there’s talk amongst those closest to the rugby star that she’s after a ring to solidify her social standing amongst the WAG’s of the Drakes. ‘She grew up in a very poor household until her grandfather took her under his wing, so she’s very hungry for any kind of power. We honestly can’t see what he sees in her.’

Of course, Roy had to eventually tell Olivier about his secret love. ‘Roy finally came clean to Olivier about his new woman just a few days before her Grand Prix competition at North City,’ the insider says, referring to that dramatic and shocking exit by Olivier in the semi-finals. ‘At first Olivier was stunned — and certainly blindsided — by Roy’s confession. But then she got furious. It wasn’t pretty,’ the source shares. We can only imagine. Olivier is considered one of the strongest skaters in the world – she must have truly been heartbroken to be affected like this.

Perhaps Riza will see her true influence now – not as a doctor saving lives, but as one ruining them too.

concussion boy, 2:31pm i know u saw the daily star article. rebecca dm’ed me. concussion boy, 2:31pm u can’t just keep ignoring me concussion boy, 2:32pm we need to talk about this

elizabeth, 2:26pm there’s nothing to talk about

concussion boy, 2:27pm i’ll make sure i get a concussion next match unless we talk concussion boy, 2:27pm u know i will concussion boy, 2:28pm and then u will have to treat me and be a professional while i ogle u concussion boy, 2:29pm har har

“You never thought to tell me it was a PR relationship?”

“It didn’t seem – I mean, if you had met Olivier-”

Riza let out a shriek of frustration. “But I haven’t, Roy. I don’t move in the same circles as you! Was it her? Did she tell them to write this?”

Roy held up his hands in defeat. “No, she wouldn’t. She doesn’t get revenge that way. I just – I know our lives have been busy! Between you, and getting the team through this fucking doping scandal-”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Because I’m such a hassle, aren’t I? You know that’s not what I meant. It’s not like I’m deciding to date the next guy I meet in the bakery – you’re Roy Mustang! Every man, woman and unborn child knows who you are. It was foolish to think that we’d be able to keep it quiet for any length of time, you’ve always got media after you-”

Roy snorted, shaking his head. “And you’re the Führer’s granddaughter, who is known in the public eye-”

“Because he asks me!” She wrung her hands, trying her best not to get upset. “He always gives me the option to say no! You never asked me if this is what I wanted, you just took me out on a date and hoped like mad the press wouldn’t catch wind-”

“Didn’t stop you from fucking me in the hotel.”

She stood there, mouth open and gaping like a fish. “That’s not – you can’t just – we-”

He laughed humourlessly, a pale imitation of a smile on his face. “Right. I see how it is. You’re allowed to hang that over my head for as much as you care to do, but as soon as I try to make a point you won’t even fucking listen. Are you sure that it’s me who’s has the multiple head injuries?” It was an a needlessly cruel jab and part of Roy regretted it the moment it left his mouth. His idea of a ‘mild press day’ was probably far beyond whatever she had experienced – but still –

She sat down on the sofa, her head in her hands. Her shoulders were trembling. “Don’t,” she said forcefully when he went to sit next to her, her arm flung out in a final stand.

There was an ugly silence as Roy stood there, hand hovering in the space where her own was being held. She swallowed what sounded like a sob before she raised her head and tucked her arms against her body, blinking her watery eyes.

“Never use my job against me again,” she said coldly, before shifting on the sofa, inclining her head slightly. He sat down, and she sighed, resting her head against his shoulder.

“You’re used to the press,” her hand found his and she laced her fingers with his tightly. “You’re used to how they write about you, how they-”

“But-”

“Please let me finish, Roy.” Her voice was firm, but tired. “You have an entire team of people who coach you in how to deal with the media; that same team protects you from the worst of it. I don’t have that luxury. Being the granddaughter of the Führer means that people are aware of me, yes – but I’m no more than a line in an article; perhaps included in a single society photo with my grandfather because he wants one of the two of us. No more than that.” She paused, and shifted against him.

“I have complete strangers approaching me at my work. Making up fake head injuries so I’ll see them – taking up a spot that could be used by somebody who actually needs the medical attention. The girlfriend of Roy Mustang.” Riza laughed bitterly. “It’s like I’m in zoo or something. Back when people saw me for who my grandfather was, not for my own achievements. I worked hard to get to where I am today – to be reduced in such a way, it’s–”

She sighed heavily. “This is the reality I’m living with. Please understand that.”

Roy nodded slowly, squeezing her hand lightly. “I didn’t consider,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

She lifted their joined hands and kissed his knuckles delicately. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when it happened. I just…I thought I could deal with it. They’re only articles.”

“And you’re just a person,” Roy soothed. “A brilliant, smart, and kind person-” she laughed shakily, “-but a person nonetheless. I’ll see what I can do about the tabloids. They weren’t this harsh on Gracia.”

dickhead bf, 09:28am sorry to inform u but i’m breaking up with u dickhead bf, 09:29am i know this will be hard for u dickhead bf, 09:29am i'll send some flowers so the world knows i’m a gentleman

ice monster, 09:40am fuck off ice monster, 09:40am i’ve seen the articles. is she staying for longer than 2 months?

dickhead bf, 09:48am har bloody har. she just doesn’t want any press cooking up a story we all know to be fake dickhead bf, 09:50am they haven’t been kind to her

ice monster, 09:52am cry me a river mustang. she knows what’s she’s getting into right? fuhrer’s grandkid and all that ice monster, 09:54am seriously tho, congrats. didn't think there was anybody who could deal with ur arse 24/7. wish her luck from me

dickhead bf, 09:55am you’d probably like her. doesn't put up with any of my shit and makes me ring my mum once a week

ice monster, 09:56am real wife material there ice monster, 10:11am oh ffs DO NOT propose to her yet otherwise i’ll get stuck with ur press cycle again. ur meant to make me look GOOD

dickhead bf, 10:28am i know. say hi to jon for me

Olivier Armstrong may have a new man her life!

On Monday, it was reported by The Standard that the renowned figure skater has been spending time with Jonathon Buccaneer for the last few weeks. AH-Mazing!

However, the 32-year-old's family have declined to comment on her possibly changed #RelationshipStatus. Well, that's not a no!

According to the paper, the twosome went on a romantic getaway together to Beaumont, Western District where they supposedly went on scenic hikes into the mountains and basked in the sunshine. Too cute!

Still, we have to wonder, who exactly is this mystery beau?? Ch-ch-check out these five fast facts on Olivier’s (possible) new squeeze!

Mr. Buccaneer has an automail arm: Apparently, he has a variety of different get-ups for different jobs. It’s unknown how he lost it, and no sources close to the man have offered up any hints. We can’t imagine how he lost it, what with working in the military and all…

He has NOTHING to do with professional sports: Surprisingly, Olivier is dating a normal guy who works at as a military analyst for the Briggs outpost for the military. Mind blown!

Olivier’s rumoured BF is SUPER smart: The 35-year-old is said to have gone to not one, but TWO ranked universities. Yep, Jon went to the University of Amestris for his undergraduate education and also attended Briggs Military Academy. Remember, the blonde beauty graduated from Central U herself!

This possible boyfriend is ALSO a fan of nature: Reportedly, his now private Instagram account showed a series of pics of Jon being in the great outdoors, hiking, and camping in the Northern Ranges. Colour us impressed!

Jon may be exactly what Olivier needs to finally move on from her supposed ex: the athlete was said to be heartbroken following the news that rugby player Roy Mustang had given her the slip and moved onto the granddaughter of the Führer, Riza Hawkeye.

Maybe now Olivier feels ready to be happy with someone new. Is that someone Jon?

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Rebecca asked worriedly, glancing around the now deserted gangway of the stadium: the cheers were muffled, but still echoed hollowly against the cool concrete. “Like follow your heart and all that shit but it’s not gonna be a decision you can just turn your back on-”

“I know ‘Becca,” Riza replied quietly, toying with the shirt in her hands: the deep blue fabric slid easily over her fingers, the flecks of silver embroidery glinted back at her merrily. “But…I’ve got to meet him halfway, don’t I?”

Rebecca snorted. “This is more than halfway. Halfway is following his actual twitter handle instead of the spoof one – you do know it’s a spoof right? It’s important to me that you know it’s a spoof account-” Riza didn’t respond, watching one of the nearby television screens with interest as the Drakes began to run out onto the field.

Rebecca’s cheeks puffed out as she waved a hand in front of her friend’s dazed face. “This is like…eighty-five percent from you and only fifteen from him. He’s playing a game anyway – he’s not gonna see you until the second half at least with where we’re sitting!”

“That’s the point, ‘Becca. I do not want to be blamed for his fucking up of a conversion.”

Rebecca sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes. “It’s Drachma, Riza. They’re not gonna lose.”

“And I am not going to take any chances,” Riza replied primly, quickly putting on the shirt over the top of her singlet. It was a little baggy, but the fact that she was even able to have one – she’d have to think of something to give to Hughes to say thank you; the man was surprisingly cunning and determined. She never stood a chance of getting out of this anyway. She smoothed down the fabric and spun on her foot. “How does it look?”

“Like the cheesiest gesture since that nineteen-page spread of Hughes’ kid.” She fixed her friend with a hard stare. “You have thought about this? Like I’m not trying to jump the gun or anything here but if you guys get married or have a kid-”

“Yes, I have,” she answered irritably. “We’ve talked about how we move forward. I know the press is never going to go away but…it would be nice to give them something positive to spin. This entire week has just been about how I broke Olivier’s heart by stealing Roy away and-” she bit her lip and smiled weakly at her friend. “I need to show that I’m serious about this too.”

“This is the best way?”

“Hughes reckons it is. The press seems to like him, I’ve got no reason to suspect he’d prank his best friend quite so publicly.”

“Alrighty,” Rebecca said with an air of finality, gesturing to gate 28. “Are you ready to face the music?”

Riza nodded. “Let’s go.”

It’s official! And in the sweetest way imaginable.

The Drakes may have had their best win against the Drachman Bears yet (74-6), but nobody is going to be talking about that (not even about the Drachman doping scandal), not after Roy Mustang’s reaction to seeing his now-confirmed girlfriend Riza Hawkeye wearing his rugby number to the game last night.

It wasn’t until after the final whistle had blown that Roy had noticed her, sitting in the front row alongside friends, insiders say. As they were congratulating their opponents, running back Maes Hughes had quickly caught up to his friend on the field, motioning to where the Führer’s granddaughter was watching. Obviously someone had been paying attention to more than just the game!

Roy was meant to be making his way over to be interviewed post-game – as Captain, it’s his job to represent the team immediately in the aftermath. Not last night though!

Instead, he made his way over to where Riza was sitting and jumped the billboard boundaries with ease, motioning at the nearest security guard to open the gate to where the seating was. Riza was quickly pushed out of her seat by an alleged friend and all but fell into her beau’s arms onto the pitch proper, smiling widely from ear to ear before Roy kissed her soundly on the mouth.

If the cheers from the stadium crowd were anything to go by, Central City appears to back this couple too!

A love story like this comes once in a lifetime – let’s hope it goes the distance!

[Watch the video 1:32m]

fin

the spoof account is a reference to holy musical b@man – “someone already took the twitter name ‘roymustang’ and all they do is tweet about how dumb i am.”

three guesses to who owns that account (and no, it’s not hughes)

[trulycertain]

Random Acts

He could live with the nightmares, but he's out of cigarettes. In which Jensen has a bad day, and learns that he's not as subtle as he thought.

(I just realised that I’d posted this on AO3 but not over here. Anyhow: this seemed like a logical extension of all the scrapes and side quests you can get into trying to help people, the melodramatic tech-as-divine imagery and how damn uncanny augs must seem to most NPCs. Gen, 1.4k.)

Most days are better. This isn't one of them. 

He blames having too much time on his hands: a week off, now the fallout from the London mess has settled down. Miller said it like it was relaxing, rather than enough time for his brain to dig up old wounds. He muttered something about how stop moving and you can drown, and got a weary retort. You're not a shark, Jensen. Even you're human, Jensen. You never relaxed in your goddamn life, Jensen? Sounded something like that. Probably more formal. He was running on a couple days without sleep at the time, so he let himself get shoved out of the office.

The first couple days, he managed not to think too much, aside from a scrap with some Dvali. Even caught a game while looking over the reports he wasn't supposed to be editing. He messaged Malik, and she asked pointedly if she'd ever get to see Prague. He's had worse weekends. The third day, he wakes up from dreams of dark water and scalpels. He tries to get his head together and breathe, half-expecting to see his old place, to hear Megan working on something in the next room. It takes a second to hit him. He scrapes his hands down his face and feels sick when he sees black metal instead of skin. He hasn't had a day like this in a while. Can't say he's missed it.

Turns out showering is pretty hard when you're trying not to look at the butchered mess of machinery that used to be your body, but he gets through it. He skips breakfast, even though the augs won't thank him later. The Sentinel would stop it coming back up, probably, but it isn't worth it for how off it'd feel. He closes his eyes, inhales. He'd call it steeling himself, but all that comes to mind is some crack Pritchard made. Here I thought you were mostly titanium and fibres, Jensen. He opens them and tries not to look down too often, shoving a cigarette into the corner of his mouth - and pausing. He checks the packet. He even shakes it a little, in the hope his luck has somehow improved in the past five minutes.

Shit. Empty.

He puts it aside with a sigh. He only stops to get dressed, put his last cigarette in his mouth and light it before he shuts the door behind him, listening to the triple security system engage. Then he heads out to find the kiosk down near the station that doesn't keep hiking up their prices for "the weird American aug, not like he can read the labels anyway." Once he gets onto the main streets, the noise of the crowds almost drowns out the noise in his head. But that fades once he gets close to the side alleys near the shopping district, and he focuses on the nicotine instead. Leans on a wall next to some multi-tool place, slips into the shadows where no-one's likely to bother to bother the clank, and takes a decent drag. Wonders about trying to get a hold of Alex, even though the Collective's more of a "we'll call you" operation. "You don't understand. He moved like lightning." He recognises that voice, though he can't put his finger on where from. It's coming from round the corner, and he considers looking before figuring it's none of his business and giving a mental shrug. He's done enough invading other people's privacy, one way or another. He tries to shut it out. She's speaking Czech, anyway. He could always shut off the CASIE translator, but he'll need it to haggle in a few minutes, and he's gotten good at not listening over the years. "And there was lightning - I think it was his augmentations - " Another voice, female. Scoffing. Disgusted. "Some clank saved you?" Her voice is low. "Don't use that word. It makes you sound like a bigot." She sighs. "Without him, things would have been much worse. He sent the ones that weren't on the ground running." Wait, that was - He knows exactly who they're talking about. Yeah, now he remembers. The owner of one of the tech stores. She was opening up early in the morning, and some Dvali thugs had been hassling her on her doorstep, offering "protection." He'd really did try to keep walking, but he's never been good at walking past rather than walking into. Call it a cop thing. "Then what was he?" her friend asks. "You won't listen." "Try me." "He was... It was like he didn't even have to think. I've never seen anything like it. Anyone. He was beautiful, Marta." He shuts his eyes. He's pretty sure he shouldn't be hearing this. He exhales smoke near-silently, tries to make himself move. "What, so he was a handsome clank?" "Yes - no - yes. But that's not what I..." "You're some kind of aug fetishist now?" "It wasn't the augs... They weren't... He was kind. And his eyes... It was like he understood." For a second, he has to wonder when he took the shields down - then he remembers. She was still shaking. She flinched away from him, and he backed up, tried to show her he wasn't going to hurt her. He asked her in halting, mangled Czech if she was all right, if the Dvali were usually a problem. Probably came out more like Thugs shop often? The translation mods are good for some things, but not for that. He figured she'd get the idea. The Dvali owned half the neighbourhood. No, she said, that's a recent thing. She smiled, still hesitating, and finally met his eyes. You know, you can speak English. I studied in London. He took the out. The accent give it away? That, and you're dressed like an American TV show. He looked down at himself, a little self-consciously.

Do you think they will come back?

He looked back over his shoulder. It'd be better if they didn't. "I don't remember you being a fool for a pretty face." Her voice was flat. "He sat in the front for nearly an hour with me, just to make sure they wouldn't come back." Well, it was his day off. Not like he had a prior engagement. My name is Jana, she said eventually, after offering him tea. He refused, told her she'd done more than enough. You have a name? Jensen. Is that a first name, or last? Last. Day off, he reminded himself. The first's Adam. Thank you for keeping me in business, Mr. Jensen.

He nodded awkwardly, recalling the labels he'd read on the way in. You're the only place within five blocks that doesn't overcharge.

Mm. She looked at him, amused. So really, you were doing this for better supplies. Nothing to do with the goodness of your heart.

He inclined his head, letting that be an answer.

What brought an American to Prague?

He considered his answer, knowing most of it was redacted and red tape. Work, mainly. He looked down and realised that a plate had appeared on the table next to him. It had some kind of shortbread on it. He glanced back up.

Are you police?

I... Not anymore. Not for a long time. Just bad at keeping out of trouble.

I thought you couldn't be. At his questioning look, she said, Too nice. She laughed at the look on his face, and there wasn't fear in it. "Did they come back?" "No. And the crowds came in, after that. Enough people to make the Dvali hesitate." "You got crowds with some aug glaring at them?" "He was... quiet. Not glaring. I didn't even see him leave. But he probably saved my life. Or at least my store. I'd only seen the domestic augmentations, the construction augs. I'd never realized - the ARC posters." "The yellow ones at the station?" "Those. There's a reason they paint augs like angels."

He stares at the opposite wall, unblinking. Drops the cigarette stub and crushes it underfoot, and pauses. He looks down at his fingers, considering the glint and shine of sunlight on metal. He's pretty sure taking the shortbread on the way out was proof of humanity. "And that's not overdramatic at all," her friend says, with a laugh.

"I know, I know. But I can't help thinking it."

"I always knew you liked shiny things, but this is a whole new low. Come on. I'm making you tea."

He steps out of the alley and keeps walking. Coffee. Maybe coffee'll help him wake up, after the kiosk. He keeps walking, and in the sunlight, he blinks away the last of the nightmares.

[vivarocksteady]

[Brooklyn Nine-Nine] fic: Influence

Raymond and Kevin adopted Jake as a baby. Now Jake is 12 and just made friends with a little hooligan named Doug Judy, and Raymond is concerned.

Actually, he's outraged.

Fic below, or on AO3.

INFLUENCE

Raymond had anticipated a lot of headaches when Jacob entered his early teen years, but he expected most of them to be girl-related. Jacob had been afflicted with bone-deep crushes from the first days he started socializing with other children. Of course, Raymond knew fully well that Jacob could easily feel that way for another boy, but he wasn’t sure that’s what was happening here. This was almost like hero worship, and for Jacob to have hero worship for such an unsuitable boy was simply unbecoming for their family.

Jacob was intelligent, and between Kevin and Raymond, he was certainly brought up to be a critical thinker, to not follow silly trends, and to always do what was right. They had taken him out of private school when he said he was being bullied, but they knew the real story was that he had struck an older boy for using a slur against another student. At the public school, he had no such problems, and didn’t want for friends. Though, Raymond realized, his friends were almost exclusively girls, with the exception of Charles, who might as well have been a girl.

Maybe that was the problem — but with two fathers at home, why would Raymond have been worried about Jacob lacking a male presence in his life? If anything, a plethora of female friends was a good balance for the rather masculine household in which Jacob was growing.

Nevertheless, as soon as Jacob started seventh grade and told them there was an older boy in the class, who had been held back for two whole years (and Kevin had the good grace to keep his shocked face out of Jacob's line of sight) who was super cool (Raymond did not have the good grace to keep his scowl out of Jacob's line of sight), they knew they were in trouble.

The boy's name was Doug Judy, and as far as Raymond was concerned, he was nothing but trouble.

"Doug is soo cooool," Jacob continued over his meal, after regaling his fathers throughout dinner preparation about this new friend of his. He was twelve years old now, and late for a growth spurt, so he still kicked his feet out when he got excited about something. “He has a leather jacket and he knows how to drive a car, and he has a switchblade!”

“Good heavens,” Kevin said.

“Yeah, he’s awesome,” Jacob went on, obliviously. “At recess we went to Next Level, and Doug showed me how to get unlimited lives on Soul Calibur. We got up to Kratos!”

“Well.” Kevin lifted his wine glass and caught Raymond’s eye. “That is impressive.”

Raymond was not impressed.

After Jacob had gone to bed and they had enjoyed their nightcaps, Kevin patiently listened to Raymond illuminate all the reasons this Doug Judy was not a suitable friend for their son. “A switchblade carrying ruffian who loiters about game parlours? Unacceptable.”

To Raymond’s surprise and dismay, Kevin did not share his outrage. He patted Raymond’s hand condescendingly as they pulled up the covers. “All will be well. I’m sure you had your share of bad influences growing up.”

Raymond barked out a laugh. “When other children were concerned with picking up sticks and games of jack, I was busy mastering the works of Franz Liszt and attempting to solve the Black Dahlia. I had worthy hobbies, and suitable influences.”

“Well,” Kevin said in that maddeningly calm manner of his, the one that alternately enraged and aroused Raymond, “you weren't a normal child.”

“Neither is he!” Raymond retorted. Kevin gave him A Look and Raymond pursed his lips, unable to say I didn't mean it like that, but knowing that he probably should.

—

Raymond brought Jacob home when he found the squalling, six month old baby at a crime scene. His mother was naive, teenaged, and besotted with an older man who happened to be a drug dealer. She insisted that she loved her baby, but the house was in no shape for a child, especially not with the body of an overdose victim nearby.

It wasn't really her fault, the little voice that Raymond associated with Kevin said, but Raymond didn't usually have the luxury of listening to that voice when he was on duty.

Officer Jeffords was the first to express interest in adopting Jacob, and he was also the first to get the child to stop crying, cradling him in his large arms and making faces as he gently bounced around the precinct. Jacob smiled and laughed in Jeffords' arms, and only started crying again when Raymond held him.

Unfortunately, Jeffords was newly out of the academy, making a beat cop’s salary, and had only met his current girlfriend a month ago. Raymond was a sergeant, and had been "common law" married to Kevin for a few years now, though they had no legal rights. (They could’ve driven to Massachusetts to get married, but to only have an out-of-state marriage felt like a poor man’s version of marriage, and if they couldn't have the real thing, they weren't going to settle for a knock-off.)

Raymond would be lying if adoption wasn’t the first thing that crossed his mind when he met Jacob. Kevin had always wanted children, but Raymond had not entertained the thought, assuming it would always be off limits to him. However, the idea of another little soul at their table, in their home, in their lives, sparked an ache in a part of him he hadn’t realized was empty.

Kevin expressed a desire to adopt Jacob sight unseen, so Raymond started the paperwork. It was a longer process for them, gay and unmarried as they were, and Kevin suggested that getting married in Massachusetts might help their case. In the end, it didn’t, but they drove to Springfield and got that knock-off marriage, the first of many sacrifices they would make for their child.

It took about half a year to get custody of Jacob, but since they were both in positions of standing in the community, they were often able to visit Jacob in his foster home and take him for weekend stays. From the very beginning, Jacob was inquisitive and impulsive and wanted to touch everything in the world. Almost all their interactions involved Jacob reaching for candy, or a strange dog, or something on the floor, Raymond taking it away, and Jacob crying. It would set the tone for their whole relationship — Raymond denying Jacob, and Jacob not realizing that Raymond only wanted what was best for him.

—

Raymond felt that there must be a type of dramatic irony that would demand the incident happen when Kevin was out of town. Kevin would lecture him, probably, because it wasn’t ironic at all, but that didn’t make Raymond feel any less cosmically wronged. “It’s only ironic because you didn’t expect it,” Kevin would probably say, “but of course you should have expected it, because all children get into trouble.”

Holt children never got into trouble, and if Raymond expected anything, it was that his child would be a Holt.

Jacob and Doug Judy had been caught vandalizing the wall of the school. Since Kevin had spent two days at a conference at Wesleyan University, and was currently on the road home, the call came to Raymond while he was on duty at the precinct, and he had no choice but to leave work and collect his wayward child.

They had spray painted a riotous eyesore on the wall, and at least they were smart enough not to do it by the entrance, though perhaps smart was relative. It was non-representational, and the main declarative tag was illegible to Raymond, but he identified Jacob’s childish scrawl in the words ‘Dante Thunderstone’ running along the bottom of the piece. Kevin might have something to say about the folk art merits of Doug Judy’s work, but Raymond was a police officer, and all he saw was evidence of his child involved in a crime.

“Well, he’s got detention for a week, obviously,” the harried principal told Raymond. “But he’s never gotten in trouble before, you know, beyond just being a distraction in class. I’m sort of at a loss here.”

Raymond looked out the principal’s window at the two giggling boys sitting on the bench in the secretary’s office. “It was Doug Judy’s bad influence,” he intoned.

“Well, yeah,” the principal admitted. “But on the other hand, Doug’s behaviour has been much better since he became friends with Jake. His schoolwork, too. I don’t want to discourage that, so besides detention, I’m not really inclined to punish them any further.”

Raymond didn't quite agree — in his day, such a transgression would have automatically warranted a damn sight more discipline than just detention. However, Raymond wasn't the principal of this school, so he wasn't in charge, and all he could do was deal with Jacob in the privacy of their home.

Doug Judy was a heavyset boy a full foot taller than Jacob, with a round head and laughing eyes. Laughing, disconcertingly shrewd eyes. Raymond had encountered enough criminals in his career to discern from one look at their eyes whether they were hapless and dim, or smart and cunning. He had yet to discern which type of criminal was worse.

“Jacob, get your things,” Raymond said, in his I'm not entertaining any complaints from you voice, which, to Jacob, was the same as all his other voices. "We're going home."

"See you later, Jayman!" Doug Judy said flippantly. He and Jacob performed some elaborate, ridiculous secret handshake.

"Is someone coming to pick you up, Doug?" The principal asked from his doorway.

"Nah," said Doug Judy. "I'm just chillin’ like a villain."

Jacob snorted a laugh at that, which distressed Raymond, especially since it was almost exactly the same cute, little laugh that Kevin would snort when he read something amusing.

"Come along, Jacob," he fairly barked, and Jacob almost jumped. The boy might often tease his father for being a robo-cop, but he certainly responded when Raymond used his police sergeant persona around him.

Jacob was silent in the car ride home, which was fine with Raymond, because he knew as soon as they got in the door, Jacob would try to charm his way out of this situation. Which, of course, he did.

"Okay," Jacob said as he shrugged off his hooded sweatshirt, sounding for all the world like he was trying to sell Raymond a used car. "I know you're probably mad, but please keep in mind that it was only paint, and the wall was ugly.”

"What on earth were you thinking, tagging a wall like some common street rat? Everybody knows you are the child of a police sergeant, how do you think this reflects on me?”

"Oh come on," Jacob whined. "Graffiti's not a crime!"

"Yes, it is! It most categorically is!"

"Oh," Jacob had the shame at least to look a little chastened. "Well, it shouldn't be."

“And yet!” Raymond wagged a finger disapprovingly. “Don’t you think for a second that I would give you any special treatment, Jacob Holt-Cozner. If this happened off school grounds and you and that hooligan were arrested, I would not pull any strings.”

Jacob had the absolute gall to roll his eyes.

Punishing Jacob was always difficult, because the boy had some kind of biological imperative to argue, which frankly wasn't helped by Kevin's encouragement of the boy’s inquisitiveness. Jacob never accepted a punishment without a thorough detailing of why it was fair and just, and it was hard to take things away from him, since his attachment to games or objects was so fickle and fleeting.

“You’re grounded for two weeks.” Raymond advanced on Jacob, who stared back up at him, neither of them giving an inch. “And you are not to see that boy ever again,” he said.

“What?!” Jacob exploded. “You can’t tell me who I can be friends with!”

“I can and will,” Raymond retorted. “Doug Judy is a bad influence and I don’t want to hear about you hanging around with him anymore.”

“I don’t understand why you won’t give him a chance! You’re such a fascist!” Jacob had learned the word fascist a few months ago and had accused his fathers of being such no less than three times since. “You think you’re so much better than everyone else! This is bullshit!”

Then Raymond did one of the most embarrassingly cliche things he’d ever done in his life. He shouted: “Go to your room!”

Jacob emitted a wordless, enraged snarl. He stomped upstairs and slammed his door shut so hard that Cheddar, who was fast asleep after an invigorating walk with the girl they hired when Kevin went away, snapped awake with a confused whine.

Kevin arrived home half an hour later, oblivious to the drama and carrying hot apricot chicken tajine and lentil rice from Whole Foods, and cupcakes from his favourite Connecticut bakery. He found Raymond sitting in the study and scowling at a wall, which was his version of pacing and muttering maniacally.

“I should speak to him, but I’m not looking forward to his… pouting,” Raymond said after he told Kevin the story over brandy.

“He certainly is a champion pouter, that son of ours,” Kevin agreed. “I’ll talk to him.”

—

Kevin sneaked a cupcake up to Jacob’s bedroom, Cheddar clambering up the stairs behind him. He knocked on Jacob’s door and slowly peered in. Jacob sat up from where he was flopped on the bed.

“Hey, Pop,” Jacob said miserably. “Hi, Cheddar.” The corgi toddled over and leapt up into Jacob’s bed and shoved her face in his face, making him laugh.

“Your father is quite upset,” Kevin said as he put the cupcake on Jacob’s desk and kneeled on the floor besides the bed. “What’s this all about?”

“Dad’s being a jerk! He won’t let me hang out with Doug!”

“I see. Is this the Doug that encouraged you to graffiti the school wall?”

Jacob was silent for a second. “He’s not bad,” he protested weakly.

“We’re worried, Jacob,” Kevin said. “You met this boy only recently and you’ve seem to become friends with him at the expense of everything else. We haven’t heard anything about Charles or Gina in a long time. It rather reminds us of your little crush on Jenny Gildenhorn.”

“Oh,” Jacob said, running his fingers through Cheddar’s fur. The biggest friend fight in his life had been when he neglected Charles and Gina in favour of trailing around Jenny Gildenhorn, carrying her books and doing whatever she said.

It would have been cute if Jenny hadn’t been a spoiled little brat, Kevin thought. Gina felt much the same way, and let Jacob know with her personal brand of devastatingly caustic words in inappropriately public settings, Charles sobbing behind her. The whole melodrama was apparently the talk of sixth grade, and regrettably resulted in Jacob asking Kevin what the word cuck meant.

“You have a big heart, Jacob,” he said. “And we love you very much for that. But when you find a new friend you seem to not see their less desirable traits, until you get hurt.”

“Like with Jenny and Gina,” Jacob said softly.

“Yes. We just don’t want you to get hurt, sweetheart.”

Jacob mulled it over a bit, not lifting his gaze. “I don’t have a crush on Doug, though. I don’t think so.” He mumbled the next part: “Can you have crushes on both girls and boys?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Kevin said.

“Have you ever had a crush on a girl?”

“No,” Kevin answered, definitively. “But there are many people who have crushes on both, and that is quite acceptable.” He got up from his crouch and went over to sit on the bed with Jacob. “You are still grounded, by the way, starting on Monday. You are to come straight home after school, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I will send my secretary to bring you to my office.”

Jacob sighed heavily, but didn’t argue. He hated having to spend time in Kevin’s office, so that was probably punishment in itself.

“Now,” Kevin continued, “you were technically correct when you told your father that we couldn’t forbid you from being friends with somebody. However, we would like you to at least think about cooling things off a little bit. Just see this Doug Judy at school. No more going off campus with him, and we would rather you spend time with Gina or Charles when neither of us are home. If you’d like to spend time with Doug Judy outside of school, you may ask us first. And if it’s all right with your mother, you may invite him to your bar mitzvah, but only if she agrees.”

Jacob was quiet for a little while, playing with Cheddar’s ears. “Okay,” he finally said. Then he huffed and rolled over so he was resting his head on Kevin’s knee. “I still want to marry Jenny,” he said. “I’m going to invite her to my bar mitzvah as my date.”

Kevin swallowed a sigh. “Would you like to hear a story?”

Jacob nodded.

“Have I told you about the Thrymskvitha?” Kevin asked.

“Wonder Woman’s home world?”

“No,” Kevin laughed, and he could tell from Jacob’s little smile that he, of course, had already told him the Thrymskvitha, but he wanted to hear it again nonetheless. Kevin settled into his storytelling voice, and recast Thor and Loki as undercover detectives in drag, and the trolls as blundering buffoons trying to run an organized crime ring, until Jacob was laughing.

—

Jacob’s mother Karen still lived with Jacob’s grandmother, who adored Jacob, but who herself had several health issues that had precluded her from taking care of a child, though that was to Raymond and Kevin’s benefit.

Karen had been amicable during their process of adopting Jacob, but had requested an open adoption and the ability to visit. They saw no reason to deny this, as long as Karen went to rehab, which she did. It took a few tries before it really took, but when Jacob was about five, they started mediated visits in the presence of a social worker, and when he was ten, they settled into a routine of once-monthly weekend sleepovers.

Jacob was sullen to Raymond when he was packing his things, but apparently civil to Kevin, who drove him over and dropped him off. On Sunday, when Raymond went up to Karen’s house, he was surprised when Jacob greeted him with a hug.

“Hi, Dad!” he said cheerfully.

“Hi, Ray,” Karen greeted from the table where she was sitting with a few hastily made scrapbooks — they had evidently been planning Jacob’s bar mitzvah. “You want some tea? Jake hasn’t packed yet.”

“I wanna say goodbye to Nana, too,” Jacob said, as a kettle whistled angrily from the kitchen.

“Go, then,” Karen said, not looking up from where she was cutting a picture of a cake out from a magazine.

Jacob pounded upstairs.

“I’ll help myself to tea,” Raymond said, and went to silence the kettle before the whole house burned down. He returned with two mismatched mugs and set Karen’s down in front of her. “How was he?” he asked.

“Oh, a handful as always,” Karen laughed her scattered, slightly manic little laugh. She had recently completed training to be a teacher and had been looking for work, but with a drug charge on her record, it was difficult. She was only fifteen when she had Jacob, and all those charges were expunged, but one of her relapses after turning eighteen had resulted in her arrest for possession.

Unfortunately, the hearty recommendation of an openly gay, black police officer was apparently not enough to tempt schools.

“We had a good time,” she went on. “He told me about Doug Judy, and I said he could invite him to his bar mitzvah. If that’s okay with you?”

Raymond didn’t answer, but instead stared into the middle distance. On the one hand, neither he nor Kevin were Jewish, so he didn’t feel comfortable making any pronouncements about the bar mitzvah, and he had agreed with Kevin about letting Karen decide who was invited. On the other hand, Doug Judy!

“You know,” Karen said slowly, “when I was a teenager and my mother told me not to see someone, that would send me running in their direction.” She laughed a little harshly. “That’s exactly what happened, actually.”

Raymond sighed. “I just don’t want this all to end in tears. I’ve met a lot of people like Doug Judy, and there’s only so many chances you can give a person.”

“I know,” Karen sipped her tea. “I definitely know all about that. But he has to make his own mistakes, right? Otherwise he won’t know they’re mistakes.”

—

Things calmed down for a little while. Jacob served out his detention sentence and grounding with some semblance of grace. Charles and Gina came over for a sleepover, with Charles in Jacob's room and Gina in the guest room, and all seemed to be well.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, Jacob brought the spectre of Doug Judy once more to the dinner table.

“I was thinking. I don’t really need to go to CSI camp this year, since I’ve been twice before, and you’re a cop, and I already know I’m going to be a cop,” Jacob said. “But Doug really wants to go, and he can’t because his family can’t afford it, so maybe he can go instead of me? It can be, like, my birthday present to him.”

Raymond felt a sudden, inexplicable rage in him. Now Doug Judy was infiltrating their summer?

Kevin could read his face, even if no one else could. “It’s a very generous thought,” he said. “But you have to understand that when we send you places, that’s not an offer for other children. If you decide you don’t want to go to camp, you don’t get to decide how to spend that money.”

"Why does Doug Judy want to go to CSI camp, anyway?" Raymond asked, suspiciously.

“Well, since he found out my dad was a cop, he keeps asking about it. He’s really into it.”

"I'm sure Doug Judy would have fun at the police department's junior academy," Raymond said. "The program is free and they're always looking for young people to sign up."

"Yeah, but junior academy kind of sucks," Jacob said. Raymond raised an eyebrow and Jacob wiggled a little. "I mean, the cops who run it act like they're so bored. Gina and I spent a whole day at the mall instead and they didn’t even care. CSI camp is so much better, and it's an actual camp and you get to sleep in a cabin and go swimming and stuff!"

Raymond made a note to look into the lacklustre officers running the junior academy. "Unfortunately, they probably won't allow Doug Judy at CSI camp."

"Why?" Jacob leaned forward, challenging. "Because he's poor?"

"Because of his record!"

There was an uncomfortable silence at the table.

"He hasn't done anything, besides the wall," Jacob said softly. "I mean, I don't know. Did you look him up?"

Kevin was silent, giving Raymond his Look.

"I was worried that Doug Judy wasn't a good influence on you," Raymond said. "So of course I looked up his record, and yes, he does have one."

"Did you look up all my friends?" Jacob asked, sounding a little scandalized. Before Raymond could even answer, Jacob turned to Kevin and asked, politely: "May I be excused?" Kevin nodded and Jacob went upstairs quietly.

It was the quietest dinner table storm-off Jacob had ever performed, so this was all uncharted territory.

"Raymond," Kevin said, once they were alone for a little while.

"A criminal record exists for this very reason, Kevin." Raymond took a long drink from his wine.

“Yes, but surely a little boy should be allowed to make friends without those friends' parents digging up mistakes that he's already been punished for,” Kevin said gently. They didn't often argue about their philosophies around policing and incarceration, since it often came uncomfortably close to their philosophies around parenting.

“Doug Judy is a teenager, and my priority is our son,” Raymond said.

“Yes,” Kevin sighed. “I know. I trust you.” He got up and kissed Raymond on the forehead, and cleared away the dishes.

—

It was less than a week later when Jacob called Raymond at the precinct in the middle of a day.

“Hey!” Jacob shouted down the line. He was only supposed to use his cellular phone for emergencies, and the initial panic Raymond felt was quickly reined in by his police training.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“Doug wants to talk to you. Can we come in after school?”

Raymond narrowed his eyes. “And what does he want to talk about?”

There was a little shuffling on the line, and Raymond could hear Doug Judy’s flippant cadence muffled. “He doesn’t want to tell me,” Jacob said. “But he says it’s important and he only wants to talk to you. It’s about his step-dad. He wants to make a statement!”

Raymond’s police training made him sit up even straighter. “He wants to make a statement about his step-father?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what it’s about, though.”

Raymond was already calling up Doug Judy’s juvenile record, and was searching for the name listed as “father”, though it was likely that wouldn’t be the person Doug wanted to talk about. “Yes, you may come to the precinct after school. I’ll send Jeffords to pick you up.”

“Yes!!” He heard Jacob cheering in the distance before the boy clumsily ended the call. “We’re gonna get to ride in a squad car with Uncle Terry!”

Doug Judy was all smiles and swagger when they came in. “Sup, Uncle Ray?” he called when Raymond walked over to them. Raymond didn’t dignify that with an answer.

“Jacob, you may sit with Jeffords in the break room, and do your homework,” he said. He ignored Jacob’s put-upon sigh and turned to Doug Judy. “We’ll speak in the interrogation room. Would you like a bottle of water, or a box of a juice?”

“A juice box would be dope,” Doug Judy grinned.

Raymond had their civilian administrator bring over a juice box, and commended her professionalism when the boy clumsily flirted with her.

He led Doug over to the interrogation room. “Now, don’t be intimidated. You may have seen rooms like this on television,” he said, knowing full well Doug Judy had seen them in real life, too. “But you aren’t in any trouble and there is nobody else listening in.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Doug noisily broke his straw off the side of the juice box. “I know the deal.”

They sat in the quiet room and Raymond looked at Doug expectantly. He had interviewed children before, but it was something he never quite got the hang of, usually leaving the duty to gentler members of his team, like Jeffords. “Jacob tells me you have some information you’d like to share.”

Doug got quiet then, and lost a little of his devil-may-care attitude. He fiddled with his juice box. “Cops help people, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Raymond said. “They’re supposed to,” he added a second later, to be fully truthful.

“No cop has ever helped me,” Doug said very softly, looking at the table.

That was always painful to hear, and Raymond never had a worthy reply for it, so he said nothing.

After a moment, Doug spoke again, his voice younger, softer, and breaking. “It’s Derek,” he said.

Raymond’s pen was ready at paper. “And who’s Derek?” he asked. Derek wasn’t the man listed as father on Doug Judy’s juvenile record.

“He’s my step-dad. Well, not really. My mom says to call him step-dad, but they’re not married.” Doug was quiet again for a little while. “If I tell you this, what’s going to happen to me and my brother?”

“You have a brother?”

“Well, he’s a foster brother,” Doug said. “My mom took him in. He’s only little. What’s going to happen to us?”

This was never an easy question to answer, and another reason Raymond tried to avoid interviewing children. “It depends on what you have to say. It’s possible you’ll go to another home, and since he’s not your biological brother, you may be split up.” He decided to speak to Doug as if he were speaking to Jacob, and he leaned forward and put his hand on Doug’s arm. Doug didn’t shy away, so he left it there. “But we’ll do everything we can to help you, Doug.”

—

Two hours later, Doug and Jacob were sitting in the break room, eating vending machine candy and laughing at each other.

“This is a ton of information,” Jeffords said, with six other files open on his desk, cross-referencing what Doug Judy had told them. Doug’s “step-dad” was involved in a startling amount of car thefts, and had apparently taught Doug how to hot wire cars so he could assist him. What had led Doug to turning “snitch” was that Derek had also started training Doug’s little brother — and Jacob’s endless praise of his “super cool cop” dad.

“Yes,” Raymond agreed. “There’s enough here that we can get a warrant today. But I want you to make the arrest tomorrow, during school hours,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Jeffords chirped dutifully.

Raymond glanced over at the break room, where Jacob and Doug were now looking at one of Jacob’s school books, which is perhaps the last thing Raymond ever expected to see. He made another mental note to call the CSI camp people about setting up a scholarship.

—

When it was all said and done, Kevin smiled sweetly and ran his hand over Raymond’s head the way he liked. “I told you all was well,” he said.

“You did,” Raymond conceded.

“I find it interesting,” Kevin went on. “You were worried about Doug Judy being a bad influence, but you didn’t consider that our Jacob might be a good influence.”

THE END.

[atomairbus1-blog]

Pot Is Super Popular Among My Fellow Boomers. So Why Can’t I Get on Board?

City

One of Philadelphia’s most celebrated novelists tries to rekindle the spark.

Turns out, plenty of Baby Boomers smoke marijuana. Photo illustration by C.J. Burton.

I’ve been doing the cha-cha with a novel I’m working on where the age-55-and-over main characters regularly smoke marijuana to get high. Really high. So much so that when I’m writing about them, whiffs of that unmistakable aroma akin to a rope on fire with a punch of wood and thyme rise from the page. I get giddy as I write, suddenly craving sweet ginger tea and crunchy carbohydrates as I pull down memories to authenticate the scenes, memories that have long lain dormant in the dusty attic of my brain.

I’m 14 or 15 again, riding up Montgomery Drive on a brilliant summer Sunday in the backseat of my father’s car, slightly nauseous from the smell of his cigar. Having been the victor in the tussle with my sisters for a coveted window seat, I lean my head out of the car as we curve around Montgomery and approach Belmont Plateau. I say I’m hanging out of the window to get relief from the cigar, but I’m really trying to catch a contact high from all that hippie hemp smoke (my mother’s term) informing the air around the plateau, which is already charged with the jolting sounds of electric guitars mixing with mellow vibes of Make love not war.

Or I land on that memory from 1973 when I went to see Pam Grier and her fabulous ’fro in the film Coffy. My date and I had gotten off the D bus, now the 21, at 18th and Chestnut and walked first through Rittenhouse Square to get a couple of hits of what we hoped would be “the killer,” our term for really potent weed. It did not disappoint. We laughed our way to 16th and Chestnut and into the movie theater. We settled in with butter-saturated popcorn and cherry Cokes that were heaven to the weed-altered palate and proceeded to tilt our heads in confusion as Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford commanded scene after scene. At what point would Pam Grier rush in and pull the weapons hidden in her enviable woolly hair and kill the drug dealers who’d messed up her sister? We wouldn’t be seeing it that night, because, high and discombobulated, we’d sauntered, not into the Duke, where Coffy was showing, but instead into The Way We Were, playing at the Regency next door.

That’s actually a timely recollection as I two-step through my novel-in-progress and consider my love affair with weed: how it changed as I did, and how the words to the title song of the movie I watched in reefer-fueled error — would we, could we referencing the chance to do it all again — shimmy in my head to the beat. The lyrics tantalize, as if egging me on to join the legions in my age group who would, could and are smoking, eating, sipping, spraying, rubbing on weed in any of its myriad forms. So many boomers, in fact, are getting high that according to recently released results of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, marijuana consumption is as common among my generation as it is among teens! I would be in familiar company, then, should I decide to reintroduce a ganja-stuffed bowl to my recreational pursuits. But would I, could I, pull on a pipe, or joint, or bong, and hold it until I cough, and recapture the high-heady, floaty times of my youth?

•

I began smoking marijuana in earnest in the early ’70s. I was fresh on the University of Pennsylvania campus from my cloistered West Philadelphia neighborhood — where I’d been a glasses-wearing, youth-church-ushering, teacher’s-pet-type good girl — and smoking a joint was a way for me to dip my toe in the counterculture. My then-boyfriend knew people, and on Friday nights he’d bring me cheesesteaks from Jim’s, Boone’s Farm apple wine that his older brother procured at the state store on Market Street above 40th, and a precious plastic baggie filled with a half-ounce of the most beautiful mix of brownish-green buds and twigs and seeds. I say precious because the half-ounce bag cost $20, and if there were several of us putting in, that could amount to more than five entire dollars fished from my very shallow stream of disposable funds.

Mythology had it that weed was legal on campus; it was not, of course, but I’d never heard of anyone getting arrested for smoking in Penn’s high-rise dorm. Still, out of an abundance of caution, we’d stuff a blanket in the slip of space under the door to keep the smoke from selling us out. We’d burn apple-scented incense, insisted upon by my non-weed-smoking friends, and then get down to the business of moistening sheets of Top paper to envelop the stogies we rolled. We’d toke and pass and toke and pass to the rhythm of Bloodstone crooning “Take to the sky on a natural high” (irony noted) until the munchies hit and the cheesesteaks were devoured and the table got cleared for marathon pinochle games interspersed with chatter about world affairs and campus gossip and how generally effed up everything was; or funny, hysterically so; or deep, too deep to dig, maybe, because much of the commentary was followed by Can you dig it?

I, for one, dug the weed. I much preferred the giggly high to the sloppy buzz of the cheap fruity wine, more a bring-down than a laugh-maker. And although the 1936 propaganda film Reefer Madness would have one believe that marijuana is highly addictive, I was never so ensnared that I suffered withdrawal when I was without it. Nor did I need to smoke increasing amounts to get that pleasurable feel of pings melting in my head. That sweet joint or hit from the bong or pull from the pipe was sufficient, my reward for getting through the week — or the day, depending on the day I’d had. Penn was hard, and I’m not talking academically, because the “heavy booking” — our term for studying — had been expected, accepted. The real energy-sapper was the constant stroking and kicking to keep from drowning in the high-tide oceans of whiteness and privilege. It was exhausting. Weed made it less so and was certainly preferable to the tranquilizers Student Health had prescribed for the tension headaches that befell me.

In a similar way, all of the inhaling a couple of years after college softened, if only a little, the jags of heartbreak and grief as I watched my mother die from esophageal cancer. My father would prepare lavish Sunday dinners in the weeks after her death, and his house would be overflowing with food and people, and at some point those of us so inclined would look at one another with subtle raises of eyebrows and casually move in the direction of the back of the house and into the yard, where a joint or two or three got quickly smoked. We’d make our way back inside, red-eyed and thumb-burned, laughing as we piled plates high with Dad’s signature bread pudding, swooning over how good it was. He must have known that I’d just been out in the yard getting high, likely in view of the neighbors, who’d talk. He never acknowledged it, never discouraged it. He was probably relieved that for the moment I seemed to hurt less, and if it was the result of the weed, so be it.

Then I stopped smoking abruptly, in my late 20s: Pregnant with twins, I put away my bong, my array of pipes, the Top papers, and expressions like Who’s got the killer? and What you got for the head? I needed to adult with clarity. Caffeine was my new go-to. Also new was my shifting attitude about getting high. This was now the early ’80s, when crack cocaine was beginning to thrash and burn its way through black communities, bombing out families. My sister lost a college friend to the epidemic — rumor had it that someone laced her marijuana with crack, addicting her. I witnessed a cherished friend descend into a heroin swamp — he didn’t die physically, but his potential died, his spirit. This was before all classes of white people became casualties of the opioid epidemic. Back then, there was no push for addiction to be recognized as a brain disorder. People afflicted with addiction were at best considered weaklings incapable of just saying no; at worst, dregs.

I never grew so callous as to fail to see the humanity of a person suffering from addiction, but my attitude toward highness was becoming, dare I say, conservative. So much so that I confess to being somewhat affected by that PSA that began airing regularly in 1987 that showed a hot skillet sizzling with butter, and then a voice-over warning This is drugs; a raw egg is then plopped into the skillet, and as the egg begins to quickly fry, the voice further intones, This is your brain on drugs. Any questions? A decade earlier, I might have said to the television, “Yes, I’ve got questions: Can you sprinkle a little salt and pepper on that, maybe a side of bacon with some cheese melted over the top, and slip it between two slices of pumpernickel?” The ad would have been worthy of such jokes to anyone who smoked as I did yet still moved through life with brain intact, synapses still firing. Also, the PSA didn’t distinguish the wide range of detrimental effects that lay between puffing on a marijuana-stuffed pipe and injecting heroin. Amazingly, I had begun to do the same thing. I lumped them all, weed, crack, heroin, LSD, speed; they were all tools the devil him/herself employed to establish a bona fide hell on earth. I was in good (horrible) company. The Controlled Substances Act signed into law by Richard Nixon had classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, right up there with heroin, meaning that at the time, it was thought to be highly addictive and to have no medical value.

By the time my twins crossed over into adolescence, I had completely exchanged my laid-back attitude toward marijuana for mom pants and zero tolerance. I’d convinced myself that should my kids smoke weed, the results would be abysmal SAT scores, lackluster college admissions essays, the death of motivation. Forget inhaling; merely walking around with reefer might jeopardize their freedom. Especially my son’s, given that young black men were routinely being stopped and searched and, even when in possession of just tiny amounts of marijuana, finding themselves on the periphery of the modern-day slavery that is the criminal justice system. And I’m not being hyperbolic with the slavery reference; I watched Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th.

•

Fast-forward to today: My kids didn’t go to jail, and my attitude toward marijuana has become nuanced once again, helped by all the related headlines that have managed to grab my attention from the horror show that is national politics: marijuana’s availability in the dispensaries that are popping up in the Philadelphia area like, well, weeds; its inchworm moves toward legalization here, where Mayor Kenney has called for green-lighting adult recreational use and having it sold in state stores; its medicinal use by people in my generation, who are increasingly lighting up or eating or rubbing on oils or swallowing pills containing weed derivatives to treat the chronic pain of rheumatoid arthritis or the nausea from cancer treatment, or to mitigate the symptoms of glaucoma or multiple sclerosis, or to reverse cognitive decline. Cognitive decline? I’d assumed that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, caused that very condition. But an NIH-supported study found that cannabinoids may remove plaque-forming Alzheimer’s proteins from brain cells. And a headline in Scientific American blares out to me: “Marijuana May Boost, Rather Than Dull, the Elderly Brain.” Apparently, senior-citizen mice treated with THC improve on learning and memory tests — perhaps another reason the National Survey on Drug Use found that boomers are using as much pot as teens.

I’ve been fortunate so far in not needing medical marijuana for the host of maladies proponents claim it will help ease. But since I’m a writer, boosting the brain is something I’m definitely open to — even as I talk back to those “The Way We Were” lyrics stuck in my head and struggle with my reluctance to light up for the sole purpose of getting high.

Part of my resistance has to do with the inequity of it all — who benefits, who suffers. Take the hoopla over Elon Musk, billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, puffing on a joint on a live podcast. That’s some rich-white-male privilege on display, because even though recreational weed is legal in California, where he lit up, imagine the likes of rapper and criminal-justice-reform advocate Meek Mill, a black man, doing a similar thing. (By the way, Meek, please don’t try that here at home.) And then there’s former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s lightning-rod tweet months ago announcing that he was joining the board of Acreage Holdings, formerly (cutely) known as High Street Capital Partners, a marijuana processing and dispensing operation currently licensed to operate in 14 states and with plans to expand. He’d once famously said he was unalterably opposed to the legalization of marijuana. Now he claims that his thinking on marijuana has evolved. Sadly, his evolution can do nothing to evolve the criminal records of the countless young black men caught up in the system because they were stopped and frisked and found to be carrying maybe a single marijuana cigarette. I know a woman who had to shell out hundreds of dollars for legal representation for her college-student son, who was caught with paraphernalia that had trace amounts of weed. Trace amounts!

Another part of my resistance to getting high has to do with the learning curve. There are so many new-to-me ways to use marijuana now — edibles and oils and mists and capsules and tinctures and patches and creams. One can spray it like a breath freshener or consume it on a dissolvable strip. I shudder to think I might end up like New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who ingested a cannabis chocolate in a hotel room in Denver in 2014 and ended up curled on the bed for hours in a state that sounds more like a bad LSD trip. Do they still smoke plain old joints? Yes, according to a man I know who asked to remain anonymous — the only person who would even talk to me about still getting high once I disclosed that I was writing about my marijuana journey. He cautioned against buying it on the street the way he did years ago: “There’s nothing but crap out there,” he said, adding that his bud in New Jersey uses medical marijuana and the quality is much better than it used to be. He rushed to add that he himself, of course, would have no way of knowing other than what his “friend” has told him. Apparently his “friend’s” assessment would be correct. Generally, marijuana today is much more potent than it was when I was puffing away. Most of the weed that found its way to Penn’s Superblock in the ’70s had made a long, hot trek from places like Colombia, causing its potency to decline. Back then, the THC level might have been three percent. Today, it could be upward of 12. That sounds much stronger than the “killer” of years ago that sent me into the wrong movie.

A while back, I attended a dinner with people I knew from decades ago. Somewhere around dessert and coffee, a few of them disappeared from the table, but not before giving that slight raise of the eyebrow I’d used myself during my father’s back-in-the-day dinners. They met up with the rest of us later as we milled around outside; they were giddy with the type of laughter that scrunches the eyes practically shut. But it wasn’t just the laughter fusing their eyes. I joked that they smelled like 1975, even as I felt a swath of regret that I hadn’t joined them. Why didn’t I? I’m still asking myself.

I could validly claim any or all of the reasons my contemporaries have expressed for why they choose not to smoke weed: They stopped because of the children and never looked back; they live with or very close to someone recovering from addiction; they’re afraid of an adverse physical reaction; it feels immature at this age; wine is legal, and they’re not trying to break the law at this point in life. When I asked, “What if it was legal?” my sister Paula said, “If it’s legal, I mean, well, yeah, but only if it’s legal, not just decriminalized — fully legal at both the state and federal levels.”

And yet, the illegality is what enticed me all those years ago when I stuck my head out of the car window to gulp in the weed-tinged breeze moving through the be-in on Belmont Plateau. I got high on the anticipatory thrill of it before I ever smoked a joint. I was on the precipice of young adulthood. Marijuana wasn’t just about getting my head right, as we used to say about a good high. Marijuana also represented the revolution that was all around me, growing me up. I was doing this absolutely taboo thing — good-girl me — and that enhanced the pings firing and melting in my brain, getting me higher still. Smoking again would feel like desperately chasing a thrill that’s long gone because it should be gone, because it no longer serves a purpose.

So, for now, since the lyrics from “The Way We Were” are stuck in my head anyway, I’ll hum the part about memories lighting the corners of my mind, grateful to know that should those memories grow too dim from age-related cognitive decline, there will be the medically sanctioned option to swaddle crumpled buds of weed inside sheets of moistened Top paper and toke away.

Published as “Joint of No Return” in the February 2019 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

Source: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/01/26/baby-boomers-smoke-marijuana/

[murasaki-murasame]

Danganronpa V3 Liveblog Part 2 [Chapter 1 - Daily Life]

Yeah I may as well put the rest of this under a read-more right from the start since I wanna get right into spoilers.

Just to jump right to the end of what I played because it’s the elephant in the room, I called Rantarou being the first death before the game even came out in Japan. But I think everyone did. It was really obvious that either he was going to survive for most/all of the game, or be killed off immediately to troll everyone because he’s set up as being so mysterious and presumably plot-important. I’m not really angry about it, but it’s just kinda funny that I called this nearly a year in advance. Thankfully the rest of the game should be less predictable than this, since this was the only real thing I confidently predicted back then. Also for the record I had no actual, genuine idea about this in advance, it was just a guess of mine.

It’s weird that in the demo version they had him [and Keebo] sit out of the trial, when he ended up not surviving long enough to take part in a trial in the main game.

Either way, it’s at least kinda amusing that he died immediately when he felt so similar to Komaeda. Obviously it’s still lame to see him die so soon, but at least his character played out differently to Komaeda.

[Also for the record I’m hoping that Kokichi saying ‘my dearest Rantarou’ was just him making an inappropriate joke, because hoo boy it was bad enough when DR3 ended with the Bury Your Gays trope. I’d be genuinely angry if this game STARTED with it. I’m pretty sure it’s just a joke, but it does remind me that Kokichi/Rantarou was actually a relatively popular crack ship in the fandom, at least back before the game came out in Japan]

I stopped playing directly when the investigation officially started [so technically I played a few minutes of the Deadly Life segment but that was because the game didn’t let me save for a while], so I can’t exactly speculate much about the case, and I don’t want to. I’ll save that for after I play the investigation, since I’ll actually have proper clues to work with then. I know that the investigation part will probably be a lot shorter than this part, but I want to take a break between it and the trial so that I get a chance to sit down and post some speculation before I go through the trial and figure out what happened. So my next post might be a bit short. Maybe. Knowing me, it probably won’t be.

Since I was scared this would happen, I tried to talk to him as much as possible, but I only managed to have one actual scene with him. I also had one with Shuichi. Now that Rantarou’s out the way, I guess Shuichi will be the person I prioritize most in free time events. Not sure who else I’d go with. I’m kinda curious about Keebo since his backstory seems interesting, but I dunno. I kinda want to see what Kokichi’s deal is, but part of me also feels like he’s probably gonna stick around for a long time so I’m less inclined to prioritize him. Maybe I should talk to Maki more, since she seems like the type who I’ll need to really get to know before I see more sides to them.

Overall, I was sorta surprised by how much I really liked this part. I mean, I’m a big fan of the series in general, but I’ve been a bit worried about whether or not I’d actually enjoy this game and it’s cast. Thankfully those fears are getting dissipated. I was also afraid that it’d feel too similar to the first two games, but there’s enough different things happening that it’s enjoyable.

One of the things that surprised me most was the motive. Or, well, motives. I did not expect the stakes to get so high that quickly. The whole idea of ‘the first murder will happen consequence-free’ is actually really interesting, and an effective way of motivating a murder. But it definitely makes Monokuma seem way more desperate than he used to be. Especially when, like a day after the first motive, he was like ‘oh and if nobody dies soon, you all die’. At that point he’s literally forcing people’s hands, more or less. Which isn’t a criticism, really. It’s an interesting approach to take. Especially since nobody ended up actually using that motive to kill. The whole part where nobody outed themselves as being Rantarou’s killer, and Monokuma announced that they’d hold a class trial in that case, was really intriguing. It’s really making it hard to guess at the culprit’s motive.

On a similar sort of note, I was not expecting the part where Ryoma suggested that somebody murder him so they could escape and find help. I thought at first that he’d just generally suggest the idea of someone going through with murdering someone, but I probably should have expected him to be all self-sacrificial, given his attitude. I said it last time, but I REALLY like Ryoma as a character thus far.

I said I wouldn’t speculate much about the murder, but lol I can’t help myself now that I’ve seen the body. I can only make vague judgments about it, though. Like how it seems pretty obvious that Rantarou wasn’t directly murdered by someone, but instead somebody probably set a metal ball on the bookcase so that it’d roll off and hit his head when it opened. Maybe that’s just my first guess because Kaede already brought up the idea of Rube Goldberg machines earlier in the chapter. It’d also explain how the murder will remain mysterious even with photographic evidence. There probably wasn’t anyone else in the room. I assume that Monokuma would still consider the identity of the hypothetical ball-placer to be the culprit, so then the big mystery is figuring out who did that, when there’s presumably no evidence. But then again the ball could have only, in this scenario, been placed on the bookcase after the equipment was set up, otherwise Shuichi would have noticed it at the time, or the alarm would have gone off. Unless he’s the killer, which I’m really doubting.

Ignoring the option of Shuichi being the killer, he and Kaede at least have alibis. I don’t know if anyone else would have. I’ve kinda forgotten if the equipment got placed early in the morning, or right before those two hid in the classroom, so I’m not sure what time frame to work with for this one, in terms of figuring out alibis.

I feel like the seven people who went to the game room are probably being set up as people who all have mutually-verified alibis, at least. Which leaves like seven other people.

Oh well, I won’t think about it too hard until I finish the investigation.

On the topic of Shuichi, I also really like him as a character. I liked him after the prologue, but learning a bit more of his story made me like him even more. He’s a really interesting take on a detective character. I’m glad he’s not just another Kirigiri. I can really get why he feels so uncomfortable about the idea of pursuing the truth, when he ended up exposing someone who did a revenge-killing for sympathetic reasons.

I also just really like his dynamic with Kaede. They’re just adorable and mutually supportive and I love it. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda low-key ship them already. I have low standards for this sorta thing, lol.

Kaede’s also pretty interesting as a protagonist, especially in terms of how people react to her. It was kinda sad seeing everyone [well, nearly everyone] hate her for being optimistic and leader-y and wanting everyone to keep trying to escape. Considering how it’s already giving her confidence issues, I wonder if that’ll be an ongoing thing, with most of the cast not wanting to be bossed around by her. I couldn’t really blame them after how the Death Road of Despair part went, but they still took it too far.

Also on that note, fuck the Death Road of Despair. That was so awful to experience. Considering how the story played out, I imagine that the game was genuinely rigged against you, and it sure as hell felt like it. I hope that if this game ever shows up again in a less evil context, the controls aren’t so weirdly floaty and hard to control. I kinda wish I could have recorded the way my reaction to it went from ‘oh this sounds simple, just run and rump’ to ‘wait the fuck why is everyone dead’ in ten seconds.

Anyway, I’m really enjoying seeing more of the characters, and seeing them start to form their own dynamics and stuff. It’s only just starting, but it’s already interesting to watch unfold. I’m especially surprised by how Tenko pretty much immediately got a crush on Himiko and is now just following her around and acting so excited about the idea of magic. It’s really endearing me to her.

This part also continued to reaffirm my love for Gonta. He’s an incredibly sweet boy who doesn’t deserve the death that he’s presumably going to experience. He tries his best.

I’m happy that Kaito is at least trying to be on Kaede’s side. He’s a good dude thus far.

Conversely, I probably should have expected that Maki would be rude and unsociable. I’ll probably still try and spend free time with her and get to know her, though. It makes me feel like there’s something really interesting under her cold exterior that I’d never get to see if I just avoided her.

Angie’s kinda starting to creep me out, which I wasn’t expecting. Like, the blood sacrifice joke was one thing, but now she’s talking about happily accepting imminent death because Atua will welcome her into his kingdom, or Atua punishing liars, and stuff. But then again she also unironically says bye-onara and that makes me really like her.

I guess I may as well comment on Rantarou’s character in general, since this might be my last time to. I wish I could have gotten to know him better, but the one event I had with him didn’t tell me much. I’m still not sure what to make of him. He’s also kinda creepy, but I still like him. I’m not gonna deny that most of my bias toward him is still because I love [most of] his design, though. I wonder if we’ll ever learn what his talent was, since that’s still a mystery. Maybe it’ll be a plot point during the trial. I’m also curious about the fact that he seemed to have some memories related to the Ultimate Hunt, which is still suspicious to me in general as a concept. I really can’t help but feel like this game is set in some future post-DR3 where the rest of society decided to criminalize talent or something. Or they had a grudge against the whole Ultimate Initiative, and Hope’s Peak Academy, and thus they decided to hunt down everyone related to it, or something. Who knows.

I’m really surprised by the fact that none of the characters have said anything about the implication of them being criminals, with how they’re in an academy for Gifted Juveniles. You’d think that’d raise some questions from them.

Also, I wonder if everyone’s labs are going to be actual places we can at least see on the map. I think thus far we can only see Kaede’s and Miu’s rooms. Maybe the rest will open up as time goes on. On the note of their labs, I should check and see if I can go to Kaede’s one now. I kinda forgot to check it out. I think I tried to check once but the plot was railroading me elsewhere and I forgot about it after that.

Oh, and before I forget, I didn’t miss that one line from one of the Monokubs where they were obviously teasing at what’s going on in the big picture, but basically blotting out the important info. I can’t quite remember exactly what he said, though, but I remember it seeming immediately important.

And also, on the note of Monokuma, that one Monokuma Theater joking about the idea of getting confused about what happened and in what part of a long-running franchise really felt like a self-deprecating joke about how long this series has gotten. [Also the Yokai Watch reference was pretty hilarious]

I guess that’s all I have to say for now. I’ll probably just play the investigation part tomorrow, even if it might be kinda short, and then I’ll do the trial the day after. I don’t really have any predictions about who the killer is, other than that Shuichi seems really damn suspicious right about now.