#thanks to our government and various bullshit changes to how these things are done

[violasmirabiles]

hiiiiii

[6blackfilin9]

I love your Anko fanart! Tell me, what are your views/headcannons on Anko X Kazuku?

hThank you so much for the ask, finally I can answer it

here is my big thank you for the waitng

In a nutshell, the shipp was created by accident while me and my buddy were working on our first Naruto AU in 2019, where Kakuzu and Deidara survived their shitty plotholes end eventually ended up in Konoha

Yeah

so, the shipp’s birth date is july the 1, 2019

anything like classy, aristocracy kind of tension-filled passionate gothic romance with playful, psychological games & hurt/comfort vibes with slight scent of rivalry is KakuAnko

Basically, they are: a very, very old man with absolutely horrendous background who’s trying to finally have his mother*cking 10 or 30 years of peace, and a rather young lady with a rocky youth who’s being good & noble yet has very strong antihero tendencies

You know, I think they do have potential, since, in fact, they seem to be very similar, at the core

They are both very pragmatic realists, the people of logic and reason, yet if Kakuzu’s irritability doesn’t affect him a tiny bit due to his ideal self-control, Anko’s can lead her to quite bad places, sometimes. They put their interests in the first place, and even though she tries to attach them to Konoha’s, she still has ‘personal’ things (I’ll write ‘bout it lower*). Their mindsets are so complicatedly organized that, at some point & way, it prevents them from having many close people, and makes them very hard to see through and predict

Both of them are very flexible & adaptive, independent individuals with similar outlooks on plenty of things and high intellectual level. They clearly can find plenty of traits that they would highly respect and adore in each other

Here I will speak mostly for “why and how” kind of things, bc both of them are terribly tricky to accurately figure out. But there will be some headcanons too

So, there are still some odds about them, due to the strong difference in their occupation, like, in plenty of cases they are really tricky to be brought together, because:

- Of the job

In original, Anko is a Konoha’s special jounin, and she is very dedicated to serving the country. Independently of whether she likes her job or not (depends on the plot), she orienteers at the people, at society’s gain from her work. So, accordingly, in any other AU her job is somehow connected to civil service, whether it’s something police-like, connected to science, or something like CCG in Tokyo Ghoul

Kakuzu, on the other hand, is a hitman and a persona non grata in literally all the five big countries, Konoha too (which makes it barely possible to bring them together in the original universe without hard complications or heavy drama. But still possible). He orienteers on his own gain alone, but, depending on the job, it can include others’ gain, too.

This detail makes him a saint once he holds supervising position in some company or any high position in the government (the better the working conditions of the staff now- the more money in the prospective), and the sheer nightmare once he has it on the opposite side of the law. Him as a mob boss is a complete different topic for discussion, but to get the point, in this case, the trouble isn’t him increasing the level of criminality (its rather vice-versa), but taking hold of too much control in the high and underground structures. Even as an ordinary hitman he’s rather tricky, since everything depends on the case

In most of the stories, they come to some sort of compromise, and how hard it is to reach it depends on how shitty his job is and how attached they are to each other at the moment

Like, in the above mentioned Shippuden AU and Harry Potter AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) everything went like clockwork, because there they are both more or less on this side of the law, in Tokyo Ghoul AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) it is a bit more complicated, with her being in-law and him being very much outlaw, in the Avatar AU (which I also figured out with my buddy, but we never happened to write it) it is also pretty smooth, with both of them being outlaws and then jumping out to the glory after all the shit is done, but in another Shippuden AU of mine, this all would be just a motherfucking bloody disaster

- Kakuzu is actually a hard nut to get attached to anyone

He lived too long to be truly afraid of anything, though. Its mostly because he doesn’t really need to get attached to or become close with someone to satisfy his need for communication. The man can get along with anyone once he wishes to, he can have countless acquaintances and plenty of buddies, but he doesn’t have many comrades and barely can call anyone a friend. Because he is used to lose everything and everyone he ever had or happened to have, because of his inhumanly lengthened lifespan.

It requires time for him to get used to the person, and then, eventually, in some cases, spend plenty of it to get attached

Plus, for him, due to his profession, each close connection is a really great responsibility for him. In most cases, he’d think twice of weather he is ready to take it or not

Though it of course has the personal factor, too

In Anko’s case, she has a grand privilege by being a very intelligent and keen woman, not just in cognitive plane, but in emotional, too. High emotional intellect is actually a rare trait, so she automatically stands out of the crowd for him. Even though it won’t guarantee his alliance, it will grant her his high respect and some sort of sympathy

- Kakuzu is, technically, an asshole

He does have his moral compass, which includes a great amount of common social morality, but he also has that “I am working” state

Even though Kakusu has a set of professional principles, and he still acts accordingly to what he thinks is right, one and the very same situation can be solved diametrically different once the context changes from working to casual and vice versa

This, and him being very independent and quite antisocial, makes the degree of assholeness depend on various factors

This can lead to major conflicts of interests, and if they are possible to have any compromise or not is strongly attached to the circumstances. After all, both are very, very prideful and dignified people

- In other words, the only major issue for them would be morality questions. It’s possible to make the case acceptable for Anko, since both of them ain’t truly squeaky clean, along with Kakuzu being willing enough to watch his borders

- She is provident and doesn’t really need a lot of money on a daily basis, which is much of a joy to him lol

- *they both seek for the stable ground, first of all

Taking in consideration the life conditions Kakuzu had in his youth (despite war state, he still stably had family, friends, grand respect from everyone, home, warmth and food) and how terribly he was torn out of his secured social environment, I believe what he seeks through all his bounty hunt and other money-connected manipulations is stability. Sustainability he had back then. The only way to have it in the conditions of our existent world order is to have money (and a very good mind and luck)

Anko has indeed much more altruistic motives, yet it’s still not that simple. It seems to be, on the first sight, yet considering the “Orochimaru related cases” and her very wayward behavior toward them, it’s clear she keeps her own motives and needs in mind oh so well. The service she has is very well payed, it allows her to do what she likes or believes is right, and to have the living conditions she finds comfortable. And only here, relying on the made sustainable basis, she does what she does

- Thus, they both illustrate the principle “first help yourself, next help the other” just right

- She knows she can keep an eye on him, yet it’s clear for her that her influence isn’t borderless, as well as telling him off some stuff is kind of a not wise thing to do. So in the majority of cases, she never interferes

- This is not common, yet he can actually change some plans if the situation is serious and the compromise can’t be found. He is that kind of person who works on a further prospective, and in this context, this would be the relationship with his loved one

- While Kakuzu is quite conflicted and has very reserved controversial persona, Anko is both controversial, conflicted, and sort of two-faced, on top of that

She is a very sincere, cheerful and humbly honest human being, yet she has some darker natural traits of her character that became rather strong with age and traumatic experience. Cunningness, guile, ways-depend-on-the-case and a bit of ruthlessness, that is. Moreover, she has some unsolved personal issues, which makes her even more twisted.

Like, remember the time when she confronted Orochimaru during the exam? And Kabuto, on the war? Getting rid of them is indeed beneficial for Konoha, but it’s clear that for her it is personal vendetta in the first place. She wouldn’t have tried to do this alone, otherwise, because these two are rather dangerous ones, to say the least.

She uses greater good to cover her real motives (even though it is not truly complete bullshit), and seems to have a terrible habit to keep silence about really important things, which makes her quite prone to lying, in some cases

And sometimes it very badly pisses Kakuzu off, since it makes her prone to doing useless but dangerous shit too

Yet this not any kind of separate hidden side, it is integrated into her personality, and coexists with her bright one. That’s where her violent humour comes from, for example.

But Kakuzu, on the other side, is completely monolith individual, yet sometimes his mindset can create contradictions when it comes to something important to him. but it's another topic

And seeing these layered constructions, and motives, they can pretty finely predict each other’s behavior. Not super-neatly, but they for sure see the basis. This is what helps Kakuzu to prevent Anko from doing some stupid shit, sometimes

- Anko has a role of an indicator for the people who don’t understand and see the changes in Kakuzu’s mood sometimes, since she usually reacts quite openly. Yet, when she has the same unreadable mask of cold, or one of guile, it’s a nightmare for them

- They prefer the non-verbal way to show their feelings, even though Anko is obviously the more chatty one

- They don’t say things such as “I love you”, or other sensual stuff like that really often, believing it to be some sort of cherished words that shall not be spelled mindlessly

- Anko isn’t majorly into PDA, but she fancies it much more than Kakuzu does. She has her whole moments of studying something with her hands, whether it’s a hand, scar or face. He’s more into passive display of affection, like wrapping an arm over her waist or leaning to her or something of this kind; they can allow themselves to (not sexually) kiss in public though

- She knows he doesn’t like to walk hand in hand due to considering it a youthful thing, so there are times when she intentionally walks holding on to his sleeve; generally they walk separately in order not to bother each other, but sometimes they walk arm in arm (like an old Victorian couple lol)

- Being older and wiser, Kakuzu eventually upholds some kind of mentoring position, yet he never considers himself any kind of a teacher or master to Anko, believing her to have a good head of her own. He is just insightful enough to break something through to her or give a word of advise

- This, combined with his highly powerful demeanor, also makes him have the leading position in their relationship

- Anko respects him much enough to fortify this, entrusting with plenty of life questions (like organizing the family budget), even though they make the majority of decisions together. Mostly because he is truly wise and highly experienced individual.

- This makes him one of the very few people Anko would actually listen to and take their opinion in consideration

- So basically they have equal relationship with some tendency to patriarchal order

- And it is, really, mostly economically-based disbalance, with him earning much more than she does

- Yet they never have any financial-based issues, since both of them keep in mind and respect the contributions of each

- There is major power play here, too. He has the absolute might, she has seduction. Anko loves how he makes her want to submit to him, let him have all the power, so she likes provoking him. And she knows he adores it, loves the subtle control she has over him

- They don’t have conflicts in their everyday life. Each knows how to avoid pissing one another off

- He cherishes her playful demeanor, her intellect. Combined with her cunningness, it allows her to rival him, in social sphere. The way she constructs her phrases, the way she speaks, mimics, moves, how bewitchingly it suits her feminine snaky features makes his blood boil and heart melt

- Both of them, actually, have rather specific kind of dry, dark humour. Kakuzu’s is very cynical, satirical, quite often menacing and subtly demeaning; Anko’s is very sarcastic and quite dirty, even gruesome and rather violent

- Sometimes they “fight” verbally as a form of a play. In some circumstances they may sound pretty vile, so some unobservant people mistake this for display of hate

- In general, Anko is the one to heat things up with her playful demeanor, which can include provocation and rivalry, and Kakuzu is the one to keep this energy in borders, accumulating it up to much more intense states

- They both put the comfort in the first place when it comes to household. Everything must be cozy, useful, silent and super clean

- Yet they are both very unpretentious and modest, really

- She absolutely adores when he is showing his serious, severe side, or powerful demeanor. She finds it incredibly suitable for him. She also likes how his real age is sliding out in this or that way. Like, even though he has rather young face (that of 37-40 y.o.), his eyes give away that he’ve seen oh so much more than it seems; the grumpy noises and grunts he makes, the lazy attitude in movements and the way how rapidly he finds a comfy pose once he has a chance to take a seat

- They are both rather patriotic, yet while in the most stories Anko’s feelings mostly lay towards the country she lives in, Kakuzu’s more often lay towards some places, so called small motherland.

- Kakuzu actually could be a source of deep, strong admiration and delight for her, despite all of his bullshit. The unbreakable will he has, mighty burning heart, all the wisdom, talents and mind. Being sent to fight god damn Hashirama, clearly a genius of his times, financial & management genius at the least. And, still, after all the hard times he’ve been through, he maintained the very strong sense of dignity and nobility, even though slightly twisted due to the profession and abnormal lifespan

- And the very same things can serve as the source for her chagrin: with all those traits, he could have been so much more rather than a criminal. With all the gifts he’ve got, he could have been of great use to society. He’s much easier about this, since his prospective is much wider and embraces decades (and in some universes even centuries) instead of months & years, and he knows that he’d be switching sides throughout his life, being on this and that side of the law, yet he still is a bit uncomfortable once it’s brought up

- They are deeply into science, which makes them atheists. He’s into medicine and human biology, she’s into chemistry and reptilian biology; both of them are nuts for physics, history and psychology

- They solve complicated physical and mathematical problems together time to time. She is the first one to have tea-breaks due to losing her temper over it, he tries to figure things out right until you can sense the smoke coming off his head

- Actually, they do have a stumbling stone aside from job & morality complications. And this is Anko’s attitude towards Orochimaru

What she does is basically ruins her life very-very slowly, maintaining the issues she has and planning to make him pay for all he’s done

Kakuzu knows exactly what is really going on with this attitude and why, but he can’t really do anything about it. Like, he knows he can’t make her change her mind or put something into her head

All he can do is really nothing but try to explain how those things are working, and even this option is basically a landmine field for him. At some level she does understand that he could probably be right, yet she just refuses to go back on her mind. And this is actually really dangerous, so at some moments they can fight quite badly about it

- He’s scared shitless to lose her, though; especially like that, even though he knows clearly that he will, anyway, sooner or later

- he knows that losing loved ones ends up with sheer disaster for him, yet he isn’t afraid to pay such a high price for those six, five or four decades of being with her. Because these decades are that of a paradise ones for him. Wife and family, as well as stable job, incomes and life conditions, are some sort of physical definitions of sustainability he craves. Especially family, yet it’s far ahead to plan

- The fact that he will have to bury her one day makes her rather depressed, as well as the knowledge that the only thing she can really do about it is to try to bring him as much happiness and comfort as possible before she dies

thank you, i'd say more, but it's too much already

[thevividgreenmoss]

The more I see from Mark Fisher the more fruitless his writing seems in terms of actual implications for theoretical/practical future movement of any anti-capitalist politics...like for all his talk of the impotent paralyzed state of a left unable to escape or meaningfully able to learn from its past, beset by circular patterns of discourse and movement it's tied itself up in as a result of cultural fixations/conflicts and stifling insular academic and/or online intellectual developments that are often completely detached from the actual political sphere, unable to formulate an actionable political programme that can genuinely confront power, have no relevance to the social base of a potential anti-capitalist movement, etc, like for all the talk of that shit his own critiques of those things tend to essentialize them as inextricable, even inevitable features of capitalism itself and as a result cultural or intellectual trends that are not intrinsic to but symptomatic of a system based on this particular mode of production, and that develop as a result of the interplay between societal elements existing within and formed by that system in a given time and place, are posited instead as defining features of that system (for example the insistence that regurgitation of past cultural forms must be seen as inevitable features or tendencies of capitalism - and that that alleged fact has some fundamental explanatory power - rather than being seen as trends that have come to prominence, and cyclically have become prominent before as well, due to the ebbs and flows of accumulation of intellectual property & consolidation of productive/investment capital etc and that at times have given way to or existed alongside dominant cultural/artistic movements outside of that retrofetishistic lane. Which like even when that was the case capitalism was still bad...like the problem is not encapsulated by the culture's perceived failure to find the next jungle music, nor would it be solved or meaningfully altered were the next jungle music to be found). And in that process you're bestowing an undue sense of significance upon and giving a completely misplaced centrality to things that you're purporting to be criticizing on the grounds that they distract from and are unproductive when it comes to dealing with the pressing core issues by which we're actually faced, while completely failing to incorporate the breadth of actual political & economic shifts, movements, conflicts, etc both against and in favor of the expansion of capital within your analysis in the same way that the individuals/organizations/institutions that you started out critiquing are guilty of. And that related failure to genuinely consider political reality as it exists outside of certain insular left spaces & discourses as well as the left spaces & discourses being used as the basis for the critique being advanced largely neglects anything that might be going on outside of metropolitan centers within advanced western states (and even then it seems mostly confined to the anglosphere) that might complicate or even outright contradict the narratives being advanced, which idk may also contribute to the tendency to grossly generalize and even essentialize specific aspects of society or culture that have taken shape in the first-world as being endemic to capitalism itself as it exists and must exist everywhere at all times...and even if that's being done based on the view one sometimes sees that as capitalism advances then the societal condition of the global south will come to resemble that of the current north then it's still bullshit because while of course that does and will still continue to happen in some respects, there's no broad convergence of that sort in sight at all and given increased pauperization already in motion as a result of ongoing economic trends and mass migrations as a result of accelerating climate change the future of LA or Berlin might look more like the present in Rio de Janeiro or Mumbai than vice versa...idk like there are genuinely interesting discussions of music and evocative (though by no means novel on the level or either tone or content) descriptions of a certain kind of prevalent malaise and ennui peppered throughout Fisher's work but his analyses of the way those things reflect and/or are produced by capitalism itself either fall off the mark or, again, aren't advancing any ideas that haven't long been circulating either in the marxist critical tradition or in any others that have in differing ways been in some form of dialogue with or have to some degree been influenced by it (even those that either explicitly/self-consciously or not find themselves in opposition to marxism, poststructuralism being probably the most obvious/notorious example) right down to the concept of capitalist realism itself, which as elaborated by Fisher offers nothing that isn't present in the diverse and even divergent analyses & conceptual frameworks surrounding ideology, consciousness, hegemony, the ~real~, etc that were already there in the work of everyone from Marx himself to Lukacs to Gramsci to Althusser, Baudrillard, Jameson, Eagleton or numerous other notable figures even just within the western intellectual realm. Like the only distinguishing feature of Fisher's capitalist realism is his contention that in the aftermath of the USSR's collapse, not only has the social reality generated by capital successfully naturalized itself in various pervasive ways as it has been doing for the past five hundred years, but now there's been a crucial turn in that since 1991 there's been an additionally ingrained negation of our ability to conceive of or pursue alternatives to neoliberal capitalism on a collective level, which allegedly wasn't there before...which like I'm sorry but that's a ridiculous fucking claim to make especially in light of the fact that shortly before his death Fisher said that the movements behind/supporting the rise of Jeremy Corbyn to labour party leadership & the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign represented breaks in and the beginning of the end of the era of capitalist realism, which like. If that's the standard then how does the latin american pink tide of the late 90s-late 00s, which involved much larger popular movements that were much more firmly rooted in and directed by the working classes and peasantry and that pursued much more radical goals and even in the face of counter-revolutionary forces that have been ascendant in recent years still succeeded in attaining significant tangible gains for themselves, especially when compared to the negligible results that revived new deal democratic or midcentury labour agendas have had so far in the US & UK, like how did that shit not contradict capitalist realism well beforehand...or the fact that in Cuba the first post-Soviet decade entailed a renewal of genuine socialist energy & societal transformation of a kind not seen since the first 10-15 years immediately following the revolution, or on the other end of things, the clerical authoritarianism that existed in iran already at the time, or the terrifying rate at which the genuinely fascist RSS consolidated popular support and came to have an increasing hold over the various institutions governing Indian society, especially since the early 90s, until at this point there's no significant challenge to their power within the second most populous country in the world...like all those things seem to be much greater refutations from so-called capitalist realism to the point that the concept seems to have no meaning or utility at all...like whether intentionally or not,  Fisher's ~acid communism~ basically leads to the same endpoint, perhaps with different aesthetic trappings, as FALC bullshit, where residents of the first world are freed of the labor and alienation of the past by a super expanded version of the welfare states created by postwar european social democracies and can both go to raves and consume as often as we want. The problem wasn't the violent abstraction of commodified life, the value form, whatever it was that we couldn't pursue and indulge in the thrills and pleasures that per my mans Lyotard & Nick Land are undeniably present in capitalist consumer society except now we can, thanks to those beefed up fully automated welfare states, those indulgences are no longer simultaneously a source of malaise and depression as they previously were when the free market barred the masses from partaking of them with the freedom and reckless abandon that are necessary in order to give us that truly liberated libidinal fulfillment. What the effects of the magically automated extraction of the natural resources necessary to maintain that steady flow of goods and resources to the fully automated luxury acid communists might be on the environment, how that might impact the people that live in the places where extractive industries tend to be based, how they might fit into this acid FALC utopia, whether they'd be forced into ever more menial forms or labor building or providing upkeep for the robots that replaced their former fellow proletarians in the first world, whether their labor might itself be the supposedly 'automated' part of fully automated luxury communism, whether they might legally be recategorized as robots so as to prevent that seeming contradiction from shaking things up, no need to trouble ourselves with that

[kainumbernine009]

I literally cannot do anything else until I get this out.

I’m... really not okay.

And when I say that, I’m not mentally unstable. I say that because I’m tired of waiting on empty promises, I’m tired of never having money in our account, I’m tired of living in a fucking city where half of the white people fucking worship the ground Trump walks on, and where most of the gay community has so much messy drama that it’s worse than middle school. And I went to a rough middle school.

I never talk about my past, because I don’t like to. It sucked. HARD. Being and only child in my family was nothing less than torture, especially as a closeted queer person. We grew up in the white Christian part of Nashville that dominated Music Row in the 90′s and early 2000′s. I played basketball with Alan Jackson’s daughter, and being around famous people was just no big deal. But, my parents decided to leave Nashville after my dad lost his job at TPAC, and we moved down south an hour to the town where the KKK got started (Pulaski, TN).

I had maybe two non-white people in my private Christian school growing up. I was never afraid of Black people, but my parents showed their racist asses quick when we moved there. The KKK has never left America, guys, no matter how many articles you read or studies you do. From 2005 to 2009 I saw a white town show its very worst to the Black community. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a march for “White Christians for Purity” the summer before Obama got elected. The disgust I felt inside was palpable. I had all kinds of friends in school, and I didn’t give TWO SHITS who they were or what they looked like... but I saw children my age, being brainwashed by their parents, that “white” is “right.”

Ever since then, I have been learning and growing about the issues of race. I remember my white classmates using the N word and getting away with it. I remember hearing about the principal at the high school punishing all the Black kids but not the white kids. I remember being invited to a church south of town that was a historically Black church, and how nice the ladies were to me for coming.

But I’ll never forget the racism that the religious groups promoted there, especially First Baptist Church and the 12 Tribes. I’ll never forget how FBC told me that my friend was going to Hell because she killed herself. I’ll never forget my mom telling me not to marry a Black man because of “impure genes.” I WILL NEVER FORGET THE INJUSTICES I SAW WHITE PEOPLE DOING TO BLACK PEOPLE THERE. NEVER.

And thank God, I have shaken the burden of religious guilt, but I still fight against this mentality. I live in a place that’s usually not even 10 minutes away from Trump-humping, sister-fucking, meth-addicted Confederate cunts in any direction. And we’re even closer to the rich white people who silently supported him, upset that their taxes would go up because of Biden.

And in the past four years since Trump got elected, I’ve gotten married, graduated college with honors, started my own photography business, and was making more than my husband there for a minute. I did my own taxes, marketing, editing, and everything. And then I came out as trans.

I lost everything.

I lost my studio. I lost friends. I had rumors started about me. I had people post hate messages on my wall. I had people at my drag shows tell others not to tip me, for whatever fucking reasons. I’ve had bosses give cis people jobs over me, and I’ve had government workers give me second looks when I hand them my license.

It. Fucking. Sucks. To. Live. Here. Like. This.

Oh yeah, did I mention I’m also a witch/medium? I’ve talked to dead people before and have told their relatives things I shouldn’t have known otherwise about their grandparents. Like, this information doesn’t even exist on Google. And I’m attuned to reiki. I’m always aware of what’s happening on at least SOME metaphysical level. This is a gift that I’ve had to go through life developing and learning about myself, with no one’s help but me.

I didn’t even know until I was an adult that I have autism and ADHD.

I’ve taken bullets from people who were about to kill themselves. I’ve yelled at 5th grade music classrooms for doing racist dance moves and appropriating Native Americans (I have a degree in Music Education K-12). I’ve consoled kids in classrooms who suddenly have panic attacks. AND I’ve told horny teenagers to stay in their fucking lane and respect the girls around them. I’ve apparently been an inspiration to those around me, but inspiration NOR exposure pays the bills. I’ve already had COVID, and so has my husband, but I knew that after graduating college that I would never have a fulfilling life being a music teacher in Tennessee’s public schools.

And now that we have COVID, and an orange, small-dicked, pedophilic, rape apologizing, dirty, crusty white president who STILL REFUSES TO CONCEDE, who is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR HAVING HIS FOLLOWERS SEND DEATH THREATS TO MY FAMILY, I really don’t know what the fuck else to do other than go burn down all the houses I know of in North Georgia that belong to these Christian sex cult pedophiles and call it a day. My girlfriend unfortunately was born into one of those families, and I know just how bad it can get. In fact, her dad’s lawyer threatened me with blackmail earlier in November, so that was fun!

And now, on December 11, 2020, I’m still sitting here in the same fucking house, doing the same fucking things I’ve been doing all year - trying to get a job and failing horribly. I’M SICK AND TIRED OF THIS COVID BULLSHIT AND OUR INCOMPOTENT CUNT OF A PRESIDENT! And there’s only ever one other person I’ve ever called a cunt... my own mother.

I’ve lived in many places. I’ve met many different people. I’ve made mistakes, and have grown, but there’s one thing for damn sure that I always make sure to do, every single fucking day.

I ALWAYS try to do better.

In addition to this, I treat everyone with the same amount of respect, unless they have done something directly to me to negate that. If I know that someone believes in something that directly harms me or my family, I don’t even associate with them. I don’t spend my energy on things that don’t need it. And everyone else should, too.

The problem with some of y’all is that you care about the wrong things. Like will Becky text me back or did I get front row seats to that concert, or did I slave my life away to capitalism just so that I can own a Mercedes and have my friends jealous. I’ve had way too many dear death experiences to know that EVERY single fucking day is a gift. EVERY day.

I don’t want to be remembered first for the art I create. I want to be remembered for my character. I want to be remembered as the courageous person who never backed down in the face of adversity. But when you live in a place that already hates you and that is against you, that’s really fucking hard. Trust me. My marriage went from a cis straight passing couple to a white gay passing couple. I’ve seen how people’s attitudes changed around me as I transitioned. I know what it feels like to slowly lose a piece of your privilege you were born with.

So yeah, I kinda get a little fucking upset when I see people saying All Lives Matter, or when I see doctors refusing to treat trans patients in pandemics, or when I see cops YET AGAIN harassing Black people only a few blocks away from my house for no other reason than racism. And at this point, anyone who thinks they know me but only knows what people think they know about me can suck my entire ass and eat ten dicks. I don’t give a FUCK about who you are or what you’ve done. If you treat me or other people with no respect for no reason other than to be an asshole, you’re just plain shit. If you SERIOUSLY believe every little rumor and lie that someone tells about me before meeting me, fuck you AND the horse you rode in on.

What I can’t stand is people doing or saying things just to get a rise out of me or others. I thought we left petty shit in high school. Some of the people that “know” me really need to fucking grow up and grow a pair and either say what they want to my face, or stay mad. I’m tired of playing fucking petty games with y’all. We have a whole ass pandemic to solve.

So here’s the ultimatum... if you agree that Black Lives Matter and that queer people deserve basic human rights, EVEN THE ONES YOU HATE, then that’s the bare minimum to even be a decent person. If you can’t even do those things, then I don’t fucking know what else to say to you.

So NBC, maybe not have John Mulaney joke about my license debacle with my gold van on SNL, and Seth Meyers... maybe HIRE ME INSTEAD of Mulaney because clearly y’all don’t know about the south as much as I do? Oh, and that gazeebo joke with Lee University... I caught that. I may have autism, but I’m not a fucking idiot. I mean. I’m funny when I’m given the chance. And yeah, I’m on a watchlist, but who the fuck isn’t these days? At least all my secrets are out for the world to see, and I have a bangin’ tattoo.

I’m tired of everyone being like “omg, I’ve seen what he can do, it’s fantastic!” or “omg you’re so funny haha” and bragging on me and then NOT FUCKING HIRING ME. I’m TIRED of waiting on something that’s clearly at this point never coming.

I don’t even have testicles, and my balls are bigger than most of the cis men I have EVER met.

So, if you want to help me, or hire me, or get me out to an audition... I’ll be there. But until then, I’m so fucking MAD at some of these producers. Yeah, my mom is a cunt, but she worked in various forms of digital production from the 1980′s until she retired this year. She taught me SO MUCH about directing, writing, shooting, and more. I know how these things are supposed to run behind the scenes. I know what the fuck I’m doing, and I don’t take constructive criticism like a bitch. I actually WANT to be criticized, so I can do even better.

So PLEASE, for the love of Christ... y’all need to get your priorities together AND PLEASE STOP LEAVING ME OUT OF THE LOOP WITH THIS BULLSHIT. Grow a fucking pair and either call me, email me, or leave me alone. It’s really not that fucking hard. Looking at you, Lorne Michaels.

Oh and someone tell my husband what the fuck’s been going on because I’m tired of him gaslighting me about it.

[chuckling-chemist]

Chapter ???

(I have become a slave to my own creative whims on this stupid crossover and need to scream into the void so just take this draft since it’s more comprehensible and easier to skip than a fuckload of bullet points. Look, I have a general plot now and its taking a real shape and I’m so mad)

Luxord (well, that’s what he was still intent on calling himself. Much like Xigbar he grew too attached to the name) sat himself down at the nearest plush blue barstool in the jazz lounge, card fiddling between his two fingers. How long had it been since he’d felt like this? He’d been a Nobody for so long, playing his part to a faceless master, watching the eternal servant to the Master of Masters...for how long? Don’t get Luxord wrong, there was a visceral enjoyment to running around Castle Oblivion while Xigbar continued to be none the wiser, but it felt good just to enjoy a gin and juice without dealing with muted emotions.

And, he reminded himself, no more bulky overcoat to keep himself safe from corruption. He had the choice to blend into his actual environment. Or, more likely, fit his aesthetic. Maroon sport jacket and tie, straight out of someone’s fantasy of Las Vegas. Something perfect for sitting in a lounge featuring a live band filled with people pointedly not infected with malaria, playing an actual jazz song. Couldn’t get that luxury back with those pirates, much as that world was his go-to in those days.

Then again, the drinks were cheaper. And, unlike now, he actually knew the generalities of Xigbar’s plan. If that black box didn’t contain whatever was left to return Xigbar’s master, it was at best a clever ruse to keep the other pieces of Xehanort busy while Xigbar put together the pieces to bring his true master back.

Well, you can’t win them all.

“Pretty abnormal to see a Brit come in here. They generally keep to the more touristy places up in the red light district,” the bartender said pleasantly. She was a pleasant looking woman, long dark hair braided down her back and large, round glasses behind brown eyes. Wearing an apron over what looked like a pantsuit.

Another boon: the bartenders are much cleaner now.

“Then again, nothing’s quite returned to normal yet after the whole Phantom Thief fiasco.”

Luxord raised an eyebrow suspiciously. He was a gambling man, after all. Kept his cards close. This was no exception. Phantom Thieves were not something that casually popped up. If nothing else, it was worth the inquiry. 

His gaze swooped the lounge. In the back corner, secluded to themselves sat a young androgynous person in a dark blue cap and peacoat, so quiet as they tapped away on a laptop they might just disappear into the hazy blue of the wall had it not been for the singular empty glass on their table. Two patrons, a young stern woman with silver hair and an old man in a fedora, debated philosophy over a table littered in drinks. Two others, obviously tourists if their pallor skin indicated anything, in dark sunglasses played billiards. An empty lounge, mostly. Thank God for off days, or else he’d worry about Xigbar having ears somewhere. He shifted in his seat, letting him lean closer on the dark wood of the bar and asked, “Phantom Thief fiasco?” 

“Did you not hear about it? A whole string of high profile celebrities and politicians, all confessing to various crimes because of some seventeen year old kid thinking he was changing the world. And, on top of that, this is the same kid who our former prime minister claimed assaulted him! A scrawny high schooler, calling himself a Phantom Thief! Can you believe?” She shook her head, holding back a laugh. 

“And it made national news?” Luxord asked doubtfully. 

Truth be told, in all the iterations of Japan he’s visited over the years - both in his stay with Organization XIII and before - he hasn’t been to this specific iteration for longer than his memory can adequately say. But matters like that he struggled to imagine the government wanting such a controversy getting out of its borders. 

“Eh, you know how it goes. Kids on the internet go crazy for that anti-capitalism, vigilante rogue bullshit. Guess we’re lucky the Americans were still flipping out over some gorilla or else Twitter would’ve been an absolute nightmare that year.”

He flashed the bartender a smile, the kind that indicated he appreciated the conversation, but he also had a drink to attend to. “Quite.”

The song shifted from whatever upbeat tune they were playing to something more somber. The old man in the fedora was up at the bar now, asking for two more cocktails and giving a bit of trivia at the same time.

He took another sip of his gin, running through what he knew once more. First, Xigbar was not Xigbar. Luxord knew that from the start. No one pulls two Keyblade wielders, Dandelions no less, from the first war as Nobodies and manages to strip them of their memory of such without knowledge of such. He’s lucky Xehanort was apparently a bigger fool than Luxord initially took him for, or else that would’ve tipped him off right away. But, unlike Xehanort or Xigbar, Luxord never moved until he knew he had a good deal.

Second, while Xigbar likely had the box, and acquisition of said box wasn’t great news for Luxord, Xigbar would not ever be able to find the Book of Prophecies. Xigbar, Luxu, he was smart after all. He’d know the best place to hide something is right under the searcher’s nose, and would know it would be somewhere in Radiant Garden. But while he was focused on kissing Xehanort’s ass, he never once thought to check someone. And taking a book from a child, the one remaining totem of his home before Radiant Garden? From the good master’s ward, no less? Why, such would get him thrown out of the castle immediately.

(There were moments Luxord worried Xigbar knew who exactly carried around the Book of Prophecies like his lifeline around the castle, and grew concerned the reason why Xemnas was so willing to consider a teenager as his second in command was Xigbar’s own meddling. But, if such were the case, he likely would have done more to stop Saix and Axel’s Castle Oblivion Massacre. His long con worked out in the end albeit in an unexpected fashion: illusions work well for hiding what you’re holding.)

Third, and most worryingly of all, the damn Foretellers were back. Theoretically, this was a point directly in Xigbar’s court. He was a Foreteller after all, albeit not the leading Foreteller. And all of the Foretellers worked directly for their master. However, in the past, the Foretellers have been incapable of working together the second hardship arises. If fortune fell in his favor, history would merely repeat itself. If it didn’t, it could be tricky.

He finished his drink. If there was any time to check how his deck was stacked, now was as good a time as any.

He swooped the card into the sleeve of his jacket, exchanging it for a different card from a different deck and letting it drop onto the table.

The Fool. 

He swooped up the card and planted it back into his sleeve. In any other world, he’d blow it off and draw again. For matters like this, drawing the Fool meant literally anything. The beginning of a journey, with roads and challenges yet uncovered. A non-answer and a sign his tarot cards had enough of his shit for the day. But he wasn’t in any other world. He was in a world ruled by cruel gods and the humans that chose to surmount them. In a jazz lounge where all the walls looked to be the same dreamlike, hazy blue. No, this was a person.

A thief, if his intuition had anything to say about it.

“Ma’am, one more question. If you will.”

The bartender strolled over with an inquisitive look and grabbed his drink, topping off the gin and juice. 

Funny enough, Luxord used to hate gin. He acquired a taste for it, spending days at a time in Port Royal, downing gin and tonics to keep the mosquitos (and the malaria, fuck that malaria) away.

“The supposed Phantom Thief high schooler. Do you know their name?”

The bartender frowned. “Can’t say I recall it, no. His lawyer fought hard to keep it out of the press. But if you want to talk to her, she’s right over there.” She pointed behind him, back to the table where the heated debate sounded like bickering. “Nijima. Absolute beast in the courtroom. Can’t believe she turned to defense.”

“And the man with her?”

“Sakura. He runs a tiny hole in the wall coffee shop down the way. Leblanc, I think? Named after a French painter, I think. Been there once or twice, but coffee’s not really my thing, you know?” She shrugged helplessly. “Anyway, they’ve come in together every now and then and end up arguing politics every time. You think he’s trying to get with her? Cause that’s what I’ve been thinking.”

Luxord fought back the urge to snort. He was too dignified for that. “Not the way they’re arguing. You said she was a defense attorney, yes? Probably just helping her blow off steam.”

“Eh, I think if he wanted to do that, he’d make her free coffee. I don’t know much about Sakura, but he pours a damn good cup of coffee.”

“Hm.” He pulled out his card from before and threaded it between his fingers. Old habits die hard, after all, and cards were an ancient habit of his. “Do you think he plays cards?”

She rolled her eyes. “Hell if I know. You’ll have to go to Leblanc yourself and ask him yourself.”

Approaching someone like Nijima for the name of a particular Phantom Thief wouldn’t yield results. Not if she was unwilling to name him for the media firestorm. However, if she’s getting drunk on the regular with this Sakura man, he might know. Might even tell Luxord, if he’s lucky. “I think I will, thank you.”

The bartender grinned. “No problem! Hope you enjoy your game!”

He grinned. The game was on. “I believe I will.”

[abthepoet]

So Id like to mention that COVID19 has put a lot of things into perspective.

My industry of experiential marketing was literally one of the first to go about a week ago when stores began banning all live demonstrations. I work in the natural and organic food industry doing live events and cooking recipes on site to sample brands to customers at grocery retailers.And because sampling tables are good places to spread germs, my demos all immediately came to a stop. I'm also an in home, private Music Teacher to kids of various ages and needless to say if schools' on hold, so is teaching. and so is income. My Venmo is :ABBlas22

Which sucks, a lot because the majority of my work is independent contractor based. . . .and there's no health care, paid leave, unemployment, or sick time. Why do I still do it? Because I love the industry, the opportunities it affords me, and the pay is solid. Except come tax season. The Government likes to fuck you if you work for yourself. . . .even tho I pay for all my own equipment and car repairs to get me from job to job. My Venmo is ABBlas22

However, amid the panic, I havent felt this calm in years. The constant anxiety and pressure of having to make money and go to work and be on time and make my schedule and drive from this city to that city for this demo and that demo, has subsided. I finally wake up and I'm not staring at the clock counting down how long before I have to leave which triggers an anxiety fest about leaving my dogs home alone because my one dog has such severe separation anxiety she destroys her crate, escapes, and then ruins the house(we are actively working on it) . . .so I'm up early and nervous about, "ok I have three hours I have to walk the dogs for at least one of those hours, feed them, get dressed, brush teeth, try to eat, clean the house, stuff their Kongs, make sure I have everything I need, and then try to sneak out before the dog starts freaking out." followed by "did I book enough demos this week, if I have to execute 16 for the month where can I put another demo, should I give myself a day off? nah, i need the money, let me check my Google calendar for the 65th time this morning and stare at all the blank dates I should be booking demos instead of doing anything else because no matter how much I work, it is never enough. So I spend an hour worrying about plunging my family into financial ruin. . . . better get online and start digging thru emails and brand Ambassador groups to make sure I've got enough work. Oh what's that? the sound of my entire family and partner telling me to get a *regular* job even though the idea of punching a clock and working for someone else makes me physically sick. . but I go and do it anyway because its a W2 position so you think well maybe I'll get health benefits at least and then come to find out that this bullshit retail job doesn't give part timers benefits of any kind, but I keep the job anyway because everyone said a normal job was best, but it pays $6 less an hour than my demo gigs and is a total waste of my skills and professional experience and eventually is cutting into my income because its taking up so many weekly hours but pays significantly less that I start calling out to go do demos instead and then the same people who were like "get a regular job" turn around and go "no, not That job, try This job."

and I'm over here ready to fucking scream because I've Been very clear about wanting to be in business for myself. I have tried many things, including testing an extremely beta version of what eventually became Uber Eats. . . I could be a millionaire but my parents thought it was a stupid idea and once I used up my resources trying to drum up business, that was it.

also, this is the worst part about being a millennial. I went to college for music because they said be anything and follow your dreams . . .but then I graduated into recession (2006) and got the first job I could,at a deli, which . . . .isn't exactly a degree holding position. For years we said,"I'm just grateful I Have a Job right now." and we got bitter, broke, and depressed as a generation. We're in our 30's now and it's just as bleak an outlook for our generational future. At least until the boomers die out and free up some of that wealth, if they don't all leave it to the cat and state first just to spite us.

So yea, people are freaked out with COVID19 but for the first time, I dont feel pressure or anxiety to rush out the house or make money because everything got cancelled. All I want to do is work super hard on my own online store via Shopify and grow from there. I love to work and I love the discipline of hard work. I would rather spend 18 hours in a day working on my own business and hustling my ass off to make it work using over a decade of marketing and sales experience to promote my brand for once.

But that's hard to invest time and money when I live paycheck to paycheck and have a partner and fur babies who depend on me. Everytime I excitedly talk about dropshipping through shopify and all my plans for it, it's met with a nervous "I believe in you but dont fuck us financially." "I believe in you but doesn't that take time." "I believe in you but why don't you just work here, they pay decent."

I love that the #Coronavirus hit and suddenly human rights are easy to hand out. I love that Coronavirus got us to halt economies on a scale so massive that will actually help us fight climate change. Capitalism has destroyed our planet and our species.

I want to always remind everyone that we are a species first. Not countrymen, not race, not religion. . . we are all dancing flesh bags, given different corporeal conduits with which to experience life and then later compare notes with one another.

"What's life like in that short skin suit?"

"Not bad but I can't reach anything."

"Good thing I got one of these tall skin suits." *grabs top shelf items*

"Thanks!"

It's to help us come together, understand similarities thru differences and use them to gain new perspectives while helping our species and our planet thrive.

This insane notion that everyone needs to have a job needs to go. Our species was Not made to do slave labor all day long for an invented wage that keeps us stuck fighting for basic survival when we have the potential to completely alter our lives.

The Earth is a hostage who's not allowed to feed her own kids. They locked up every fruit bearing tree, enslaved every animal, poisoned the soil, polluted the water and then held your life at gunpoint and demand you hand over hours of your life to work that does a disservice to your potential for greatness just for a chance to get a taste of what should be your birthright.

Basic needs of survival that all humans will die without shouldn't be prizes for who can work themselves to death the fastest.

Im using this time as an opportunity and am taking what little resources I have to work on my online store and sell off and flip what I can to make start up money on Ebay. (I dont even have WiFi and my apartment complex has locked the business center for CoronaVirus) . Using my phone for everything is really fucking tedious, especially because I've had it for 4 years and it doesn't always cooperate, but I'm grateful I even have one to use. If you want to invest in me, even just $5 I will 100% be using it to get a business off the ground. I've got most of the basic work done and market research, but with no income I cant even afford the basic Shopify plan at $30 a month, I'm hoping they pass a moratorium on evictions because how do I pay rent with no job to go to!?

My Venmo is : ABBlas22 and I do reward!

[hollowcrovvn]

The Ostensive Fumblings of Being Human (part 5)

Pairing: Connor x female!reader 

Rating: T 

Summary: January 2039. The aftermath of the revolution continues to shake the city of Detroit. Androids are living in government provided communities while efforts are being made to integrate them into society. You are a grad-student volunteering with the Detroit Crisis Response Unit (DCRU), working to help with relief efforts. Set within the backdrop of the slowing growing Android Rights Movement, Connor, newly deviant, is trying to understand what it means to be alive while many others like him seek equality and justice.

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (ao3)

Tagged: @shaydeevee33 @easy-and-steady 

It was snowing again, thick and wet, sticking to the ground and to the roads, January fading into February with hardly anyone the wiser. You expected more bustle, more signs of life at the once Cyberlife owned distribution center, but all was quiet and still in the morning light. There were guards, human and android, at the gate. The android guards were behind the gate and the humans in front, whether there was some logistics behind this other than making sure the humans were kept out you didn't know and it didn't seem to matter. You showed your badge once to the humans and again to the androids. You were directed to one of the large buildings, the door opened for you and you were ushered in to the floor of what use to be a loading bay.

There were at least a dozen or more cots, with androids in various stages of disrepair and recovery on them. Other androids, family or friends, gathered around them, holding hands and speaking quietly as you would have expected of any hospital wing or emergency room. From what you could tell, there were few crates of parts, some androids only half fixed, but all appearing as stable as possible, receiving thirium through IVs.

Josh came out from behind an area that was blocked off with dividing screens, looking almost as if nothing had happened to him at all. You met eyes and suddenly you tossed aside your bag and rushed to meet him, his arms already extended for your hug. He held you so tight he lifted you from your feet, the momentum spinning you both slightly before he set you back down.

"You don't know how happy I am to see you." he said, voice filled with relief, "... a lot of people didn't make it. On both sides."

"You're okay? Your neck? Anything else?" you asked, instinctively running your hands from his shoulders down his arms as you looked him over. Where his arms had opened were faint imperfections, showing most likely the openings had been cauterized and now were half concealed by his artificial skin. Josh nodded regardless, "All accounted for. Voice had to be replaced, but I got off lucky."

Josh lowered his eyes, looking pained.

"Simon?" you asked, tentatively. The weight in your chest had returned. You didn't know the other Jericho android well, but you knew that the four of them were family.

"Stable. We managed to get some replacements for his damaged eye and ear, but... the damage to his arms isn't clean. It would take a professional to put them back together where he could even use them again. Replacement or not." Josh said, shaking his head, "And no android repair shop is going to fix a deviant ."

He spat the word like a curse. A slur.

"We'll see about that." you said, voice firm, "I'll talk to Cyberlife. I'll talk to anyone."

Josh just kept shaking his head, letting you go as he moved back behind the curtains and gestured you to follow. You were hesitant, but eventually followed him around. Simon was in a cot, arms wrapped up where they had been destroyed with layers of fresh gauze. He had several bags of thirium connected to him, his eyes were shut and his processes that ran simulated breathing appeared to be suspended. It was eerie, the only sign he was still alive was simply the fact Josh had said he was. A young woman with strawberry blonde hair gave you a look of unbridled hatred , turning her gaze on Josh.

"What the hell is she doing here?" the woman said, outraged. Markus was sitting at Simon's side, head bowed and rested against folded hands. When North spoke, he only glanced up at you for a moment before turning his eyes back down.

"This is a private matter. You need to leave." North continued, getting up from her chair and walking towards you with purpose. She was directly in your personal space when Josh stopped her.

"No, she doesn't. --- is a friend. She wants to help."

North scoffed, "Don't they all."

She looked you over with a critical eye and seemed to find nothing at all she approved of.

North circled away from you, on guard and tense. She moved with all the grace of a predator, ready to fight at any moment. She refused to sit again, instead, coming to stand by Markus at Simon's bedside, her hand on his shoulder even as she never took her eyes off you.

"Has an investigation been open?" Markus asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Yes. I spoke with a member of the DPD... I'm going there to make a statement and check on the status."

"Then why are you still here?" North snapped, Markus sitting up and putting his hand over her own tightly. She turned her head to him, backing down at the silent warning from her leader.

You swallowed thickly, "I wanted to make sure Josh was okay. That everyone was being treated."

"They--" North began, but Markus cut her off.

"We do not have enough parts. What you see here is what remained in the facility when we arrived. Cyberlife is claiming it will take at least a week or more to provide us with the things we need outside of thirium. They claim they don't have the extra funds. "

"That's bullshit ." you said, forgetting you were supposed to be "Miranda" level professional now. North even smiled.

"I'll contact them." you said, "Figure out what the hold up is."

Markus looked at you now, appraising the way Connor often did. He had no LED, so you could only wonder as to whether he was scanning you or not.

"Please do that." he said, "I would appreciate if you reached out to me as soon as you know anything. On the parts from Cyberlife or the case itself. If you're more comfortable, you can send the updates to Josh and he'll let me know."

"I can send them to all of you, if you want."

North snorted, "Absolutely not. You don't get a free line in to my head."

Markus smiled wryly, clearly more used to this kind of reaction from her than anyone else presently conscious in the room. "No one is saying you have to, North. She's just trying to be accommodating."

His smile faded, "I would appreciate it if you tried too."

"--- already has mine, so she can contact me whenever she wants." Josh said, bristling, "I won't turn down genuine help when offered. Our people can't afford the same luxury of "principles" as you right now, North."

She crossed her arms, shooting Josh a glare with less cold heat and more fire. You assumed that was the difference between glares reserved for friends and glares reserved for you.

"Please, you two." Markus said, softely. The tone seemed to have resonated with North, the change in her demeanor suddenly making her seem not so very threatening at all. "Simon won't be in need of a com channel right now..." Markus said, closing his eyes. Within a minute, your phone alert went off, indicating an RK200 model was opening communication. It was a different message than Connor's synchronizing, allowing only message contact. You clicked accept.

"Markus..." North said, her voice edged with warning and concern, "You're putting a lot of faith in one of the things that have tried yet again to kill us."

"I haven't done anything to you!" you said, sudden and defensive. You weren't normally this touchy, but something about near death had kinda put you on edge. North looked thoroughly unimpressed.

"You're right. You haven't. Which is also why Simon is laying here still mutila --"

" North . Please, stop." Markus said, his voice cracking. It sent a shock through your chest to hear the leader of the revolution sound so... heartbroken. Whatever North was going to say she stopped, turning towards him and blocking your view any further.

Josh gently took your forearm, avoiding your still injured hands, tugging you out of the area. The last glimpse you saw was of North wrapping her arms around Markus, letting him fall into her as he held her like a lifeline.

Josh looked nearly as devastated, eyes swimming as he walked you out and gave your back an affectionate rub.

"Thank you. I know you might not get much from Cyberlife, but... the thought counts to me. It reminds me to hope. And she'd hate me for saying it, but I'm sorry about North. I wish you knew her the way we all did, she really is an amazing person, but sometimes she just...."

You hugged him again around his middle and Josh was more than happy to reciprocate.

"I'll try not to hold it against her." you said, earning a chuckle, "And I'll be back. That much I can promise." you said, a white hot fury slowly beginning to smolder in your gut.

You'd be back here and you'd have those damn parts if it meant holding up the entire Cyberlife facility yourself.

It was near 10 a.m. and the sun was losing it's battle with the clouds today. You brushed snow from your hair, tugging free your gloves as you stepped into the DPD lobby, moved off to the side as you spoke in a harsh whisper on your phone.

"No, I don't understand. One of the largest facilities you own is--"

"Ms. ---, most of those parts are already bought and sold product or being rationed from us with limited refund. We are being required by the government to provide parts to their efforts. Which I understand they rationed to your facility as well."

"Which haven't arrived!" you said, loud enough to draw some eyes to you.

"That is something you will want to take up with your local government official." the man on the other side concluded and you swore you could just hear the self-satisfied smile.

"People are dying. We need those parts and we need techs to install them." you said, not sure if it would even work.

"I understand how you might feel that way. However, without the direct order of Miranda Stregga, I can not divert any spare parts or personnel to your facility."

"I'm her replacement, we've been through this."

"Yes. You have stumbled into the position on a technicality, an accident. I would much rather wait for the proper director to become available, as would Cyberlife." he added, before you could argue you didn't give a shit about his personal preference.

"Ms. ---, I have sympathy for your plight. Off the record-- " you heard a click, signalling he was blocking any attempts to record the phone call from your device, "You are young and our product has fooled you with it's realism. No one is dying . Machines are just going without maintenance and repair. Don't take it so much to heart. Cyberlife knows that there is a time and place for pretending to buy into the public's idiotic idea these androids are people. You should learn too."

He almost sounded genuine. It made the back of your throat burn. You saw Hank come out from around the hall into the DPD lobby, looking around with an air of impatience. His eyes fell on you and he gestured his arms out, What gives?

It was 10:20.

"I have to go and give a statement to the DPD, but I will be calling back to continue this phone call immediately after I'm done."

"Very well." he said, almost with a laugh.

The line disconnected and you hurried to meet Hank. He scanned his badge, allowing you access through the entrance and back into the bullpen. There was much more bustle in the DPD today than had been before, from the bits of conversation you caught, it was all from a tip line set up to try and find out which "android" attacked the DCRU facility.

"God damn mayor set it up." Hank grumbled, leading you back into an interview room. Judging by the two way mirror, it was actually an interrogation room. You felt a sudden flutter of nervousness in your stomach.

"Hope this is okay. Multi purpose. I'll leave the door open even if you want." Hank said, pulling out the aluminum chair for you. You shook your head, you'd rather have the privacy. Hank closed the door, leaving it unlocked though.

"Hope you remembered to put the scuff pad back on." you said, checking the chair for wobbling. It was sturdy, but the comment drew a barked laugh from Hank.

"Trust me. Connor gave the place a thorough once over when he knew I'd be taking you in here. Surprised there isn't chocolate mints and pillows."

You blushed and Hank didn't need to be an android to notice it. He said nothing about it though, setting a recording device on the table. It was a bit low tech considering most interrogation rooms came with full video and audio recording in the room behind the two-way mirror.

"Figured we don't need the whole dog and pony show. You aren't a suspect, in case you were wondering." Hank said, clicking on a button and turning the recorder on.

"Let's see it is uh-- 10:32 a.m. on February 2nd, 2039. I have with me today Ms. -----, volunteer of the Detroit Crisis Response Unit who was present during the explosion that occurred at Housing Site Alpha on....." Hank paused the droning details, checking a file, "January 31st, 2039 at approximately 11:15 in the morning."

He turned up from the file, trying to be as friendly as possible, "Please confirm your name."

You confirmed it, instinctively crossing your arms. It wasn't cold in the room, but you felt chilled regardless.

"Okay-- first things first. Where were you approximately when the explosive device went off?"

"By the fence line. The line is measured fifteen feet from the first modular unit exactly, but it may have been more like ten feet."

"So you were close, but relatively uninjured?"

You nodded, forgetting the recording device couldn't see you and instead added, "Yes. Josh, one of the androids at the housing site, shielded me and threw me down when it went off."

Hank nodded, flipping through some photos in the file which he thankfully kept out of your sight. You really didn't need to see it again if possible.

"Was that before or after the explosion?"

"Excuse me?"

"When this Josh put himself between you and the blast. Do you remember if it did it before you saw the explosion or after?"

Your blood ran cold, finally understanding the implication. They wanted to know if Josh was aware something was going to happen before it did and tried to keep you safe. You held up your hands to the detective, showing the bandages.

"The explosion happened first . Josh wasn't able to prevent me from getting singed from the initial blast. He didn't see it coming either."

Hank smiled ruefully, "Of course. Who else was present at the sight aside from you and Josh?"

"Miranda Stregga, at least three security officers and... and a lot of androids. It was a three mod home unit."

"We have a record of 17 androids being injured in the blast and four killed on detonation." Hank said, matter-o-factly. Your face must have given away your shock, because when he looked up he seemed surprised. Quickly he reached out and paused the recorder. Your eyes were steaming.

"Sorry... shouldn't have told you that way. I thought maybe you already knew."

"No." you said, wiping your eyes, frustrated that you were even crying at all, "And the human officers? Miranda?"

Hank hesitated, but then nodded, "Yeah. One officer died this morning. We're... waiting on whether Ms. Stregga will be added to that. Do you... need a minute? Water? Coffee?"

You nodded, taking a deep breath.

"Got it. I'll be right back." Hank said, hurriedly getting up as if he were late to something. He opened the interrogation room door and immediately let out an irritated sound, shoving someone or something backwards.

" C'mon , back off, I didn't--"

The conversation became muted as the door closed roughly behind him. You turned, but didn't catch a glimpse of whomever he was speaking with in the hall, but you had a few guesses. You were left alone for only a few minutes before Hank returned, scowling but holding a cup of water and in his other hand a small packet of tissues.

He set down both.

"Oh-- thank you. I should be okay, sorry. I just was caught off guard."

Hank sighed, "Yeah, yeah, I know. Courtesy of DPD."

He shot a look at the two way mirror than, exasperated. It had occurred to you that someone may be watching, but knowing that it might very well be Connor added an extra level of butterflies to your stomach.

"Um... Ms.---? Don't be uh, nervous. Like I said, you aren't in any trouble." Hank said with a level of practice that made you raise an eyebrow. It was clear these were someone else's words. He quickly seemed to get embarrassed, flipping the file back open and abruptly hitting record again.

"Alright. So you were roughly ten to fifteen feet from the initial blast by the fence line. What drew you all out to that part of the facility that day?"

"Someone had used pliers to rip open a hole in the fence." you said, "Simon determined that it was someone from outside who came in, not someone "escaping"."

"Simon?" Hank said, turning some pages, "Who is Simon?"

"Another android. Simon and Markus, who I assume doesn't need an introduction, returned from their trip to D.C.. I don't know for sure why Simon joined us, except that he might have heard about the situation. It was common knowledge at that point."

"How so?" Hank continued, "How would Simon, who had been in D.C. until that morning, know about the fence break in?"

You smiled, "He's an android. They all communicate instantaneously via a communication network. If Josh knew, then Simon knew."

Hank took out a pen and jotted something down on the cover of the folder.

"Simon also was the first one who noticed the bomb. He could smell-- something. I don't know if it was gunpowder or some chemical or what."

Hank's brow furrowed, looking through some other notes in the file before finally he asked,

"What model android is Simon?"

"A PL600."

"You know what duties those models usually perform?"

You shrugged. Hank gave you a pointed look until you said "no" out loud.

"Domestic assistants. Not exactly a crime scene examiner." Hank scoffed, "Is it common for DCRU to depend on the analysis of a manny android?"

"Who knows what kind of upgrades they've all downloaded since that time." you said, irritation tinging your voice at having Simon dismissed like that, "They have to adapt to their new lives and unfortunately part of those lives now includes getting bombs planted in their homes."

Hank nodded, scribbling something down again. There was a sound, like a faint tap that drew his eyes up, which he rolled at the mirror.

"Can I ask you a question, lieutenant?"

He shrugged, "Sure."

"Does the DPD seriously think an android did this?"

"We are exploring all possible venues." Hank said, practiced and without inflection. He'd said this line many times before in his career, you gathered, "That's all the questions we have for you today, Ms. ---. Thank you for coming down to speak to us. If we have any further questions we will contact you."

Hank clicked the stop button on the recording and set it aside.

"Real talk." Hank began, flipping the folder towards you and showing you pictures of a scorched device, "No android did this. I know it. You know it. Cyberlife probably knows it too. We got a few leads, but my advice to you is to keep your head down and your ass outta the line of fire. And you send that advice on to whomever else you think needs to hear it too."

Aka Markus. Your eyes scanned over the device showed in the photo, catching sight of a note on a piece of paper underneath that listed a name and an address-- Temple Bar . Cass ave. 2/4. Hank quickly flipped the folder shut, eyeing you for a moment before seeming to decide against whatever he was going to say next.

"I would offer to walk you out, but my partner will probably overheat his circuits if I don't let him do the honors." Hank said, easing back into a casual demeanor as he tucked the folder under his arm and went to open the door, "But that's the last time I lend him any book of mine. Thought I actually remembered reading that crap! Macchiato or whoever the hell. Kept talking about damn Disney movies too."

You smiled despite yourself and once Hank led you to the hall, you saw Connor, dressed in a suit that clearly had been removed of android markers. He sat, hands clasped together and back straight, always seeming to be just observing and taking in everything going on around him. When he noticed you however, all that focus roped in and narrowed to one thing.

He smiled, quickly getting up.

"Ms. ---, what a nice surp--"

"Yeah, yeah. Surprise. Whatever." Hank said, brushing passed Connor with his shoulder in what seemed more an affectionate display than aggressive. Connor stopped mid posturing, watching Hank head back to his desk for only a second before his attention was on you.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, probably noting you weren't wearing your sling probably before he even got up. You didn't resist him ushering you to a private corner, out of sight and earshot of Gavin or any other who might interrupt.

"Better." you said, a casual lie, but then you remembered Connor could probably see that all in any scan.

"Well-- sore. Mostly sore. And tired. And..." you sighed heavily, deflating, "And pissed off at Cyber-fucks."

Connor perked, as if he had good news that would alleviate one of these things, but then he started looking-- guilty?

" I have something to tell you, but I am worried you may react negatively."

Okay, now you were giving him the suspicious glare, voice lowered, "What?"

"You may be able to acquire the resources you need from Cyberlife if you apply pressure on them through media perception. They are working very hard to make themselves appear victims, skirting the line of denying androids are alive." he continued, "Public opinion has been swayed strongly to favor androids. An individual employed by Cyberlife may mistakenly think it safe to speak freely over any Cyberlife initiated communication because of the level of firewalls and protections Cyberlife offers. However, those protections do not keep me out."

"How did you---"

Connor's LED flashed and there was a sudden ding to your phone. You picked up and saw the words, "Recorded Call".

"No way." you said, clicking play and hearing the "off the record" dialogue of the Cyberlife rep perfectly preserved in the digital cloud, "No way."

You felt a flash of emotion between sudden nefarious triumph and dulled anger that Connor had been snooping in your phone.

"This," you said pointing to the recording, "Is great. This?" you gestured to all of Connor and then to your phone, " Not great. But I have a phone call to make and you and me will talk about that once I'm done threatening this dickhead."

Connor frowned, "Threatening him may get you one shipment, but if an outside source, an unknown were to do it... they may be inspired to act further out of fear of a breach in their security protocols."

"It would take days to get equipment that would fool Cyberlife into knowing it wasn't me." you said, looking at your phone and remembering Simon, disabled and barely holding his processes together.

"Perhaps if the file were to be leaked anonymously by an unknown android unit." Connor said, "That way any possible accusations of "hacking" would not fall on you and no accusations could be directed at Jericho either."

"But they could fall on you." you said, voice flat.

"If they catch me." Connor said with a smirk, "This is the most reasonable choice. There is a 79% probability that Cyberlife will provide parts and Jericho and yourself will be in a position to deny involvement. There is minimal risk to the most important groups."

"You can't ask me to approve of you putting yourself at risk." you said, baffled by how easy Connor seemed to suggest taking the burden of possible fault completely on himself, "... maybe Simon will be okay. Cyberlife said weeks, but it could have just been..."

"I can ask, but I did not say I needed the approval." Connor said, leaving you sputtering.

"No! Wait, I mean-- Connor, wait." you couldn't very well stop him from uploading whatever he wanted from his mind, but you grabbed both his arms, holding him in place as if that could stop it. He seemed at least a little amused by it, LED spinning showing he'd already done something.

"Why would you do that ? " you asked, earnestly.

"I am an android, ---." he said, "If this is how I can help my people, then this is how I'll help them."

It occurred to you that you understood very little about Connor or where he came from or what he'd done during the revolution. He worked on deviant cases, that you knew, but how did he himself deviate? Was it just a happenstance, or did something propel it forward? You'd always just accepted it, never questioned it. You'd been happy to accept his concern and his attention because it was just so freely given, because it seemed he had no expectation of you reciprocating at all... but here was the thing. You did reciprocate.

"I assure you, I can take care of myself. I will take all the needed precautions." Connor said, trailing off, "Josh is important to you, ---, and Simon is important to him."

"So is it for your people or for me?" you said, frowning deeply.

"In this instance it is both. We are friends, aren't we? I have found through my friendship with Hank that protecting one another is one of the highest ways to show your friendship."

"Connor," you said, laughing mirthlessly, "You've known me for three weeks."

"And I've only been alive for eight months." Connor said, countering your argument, "Less, if you can even call what I was doing before I deviated living. Three weeks is not the same to me."

Something in his own words gave him pause, the space between his brows furrowing tightly.

"I have met many people, androids and humans in that time but... none of them ever spoke to me the way you did. Not like a dog of Cyberlife or a android... but like I was more. Like I was real."

Your breath caught in your throat as he reached his hand forward tentatively to barely trace the tips of his fingers between yours, not quite taking your hand. His skin slipped away, showing the white casing beneath. You felt something, the faintest vibration of connectors, recognizing it as how androids would meld their minds together. The act was fruitless, as you had nothing for him to sync to, but still it dawned on you the gravity of this very tangible act of reaching out, of seeking a connection.

He looked so lost, trying to find some answer in your eyes that you didn't know would ever be there. Could ever be there.

"You are real." you said, lacing your fingers with his at last and solidifying the connection, "And I want you to come with me tomorrow when I tell Markus I have the parts to save those people."

There was still something unsure in the downturn of his lips.

"I haven't seen any of them since the 12th." he confessed, "You don't know what I have done to them. What I almost did. I'm--" he paused, face working against the wave of emotions and settling on shock, "-- scared ."

"You stayed with me when I was afraid." you said, giving his hand a little swing, trying to be cheerful, "I'll stay with you."

Before he could respond, his LED swirled.

"Cyberlife responded with a diverted delivery receipt. Requested crates have been approved and should arrive as early as this evening along with four trained technicians to facilitate repairs."

You sighed,  A week or more  my ass.

"Anything else?"

"Nothing important." Connor said, coming back to you. You highly doubted that, but let it go for now.

"It's early. I should still try and get over to DRCU Alpha site and see if there is anything else I can do."

You were still holding hands. You cleared your throat and Connor let go.

"Do you... want to come over tonight? We can finish watching To Kill a Mockingbird and you can tell me all about your hellish descent into the pits of freshman philosophy." you tried to play it off casually, but when he smiled like a 800 watt light bulb, it was hard to conceal your own liking of the idea.

"Yes.' he said, "Will Josh be joining us?"

"I doubt it. He will want to stay close by Markus so uh-- just you and me. If that's okay?"

It occurred to you maybe Connor kept asking about Josh because he was wanting to befriend androids like you suggested... maybe one on one was easier for him?

"We can see how he is feeling after Simon is recovered and then we can all hang out."

Connor smiled thinly, something decidedly "un"-android about the way his eyes seemed to darken. It passed quickly, fading into his usual demeanor.

"Then I will see you later this evening. Please remember to change your bandages in approximately an hour and forty two minutes."

The housing site was almost entirely abandoned of DCRU personnel, which did little to garner trust and approval from the androids still required to live there. Protect the humans, but leave them open to threat? Not a great stance.

There were options, which were presented to you by the chief of security, that Miranda had already devised in the event of attack. Practical as always. You opted for higher levels of rotations in tighter circles around the fences and for the building of towers to allow better vantage point for stationed positions. The fence had been repaired and a second layer of fences was being installed. Barbed wire was suggested but ultimately passed over as despite the security it may provide, it gave the unit too much of a prison feeling.

Preparations were to be made and heading to the empty DCRU building, you sank into your empty desk. It was so quiet, you considered crawling under one with a blanket for a nap, but remembered you had updates to send.

[ To: COMREL#PJ500; COMREL#RK200 ]

You took the time to rename the contacts before continuing.

[To: Josh; Markus

Good news. Parts are on their way. Techs too to install them. You should be getting an auto-truck shipment by tonight. ]

A chime. Fast. You expected Josh, but saw Markus' name.

[From: Markus

How? ]

[From: ---

I enlisted some help. I'll tell you about it in person. ]

[From: Josh

That's incredible!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 ]

You knew you shouldn't need praise, but it felt nice to always know Josh was in your corner.

[From: Markus

And the investigation? ]

[From: ---

Ongoing. They said they have leads. I'm sure you do too. ]

You weren't dumb. There was no way on heaven or earth that Markus would let the human controlled DPD manage this case. It would not even make you bat an eye to find he'd sent North or others out looking for details.

[From: Markus

Of course not. We have left this case in the capable hands of the DPD. ]

Could sarcasm be detectable over text? Because you were detecting it.

[From: ---

Of course. ]

[From: Josh

---, will you be coming back to the center? You should be here when the crates come in. ]

[From: ---

Nah, I don't want to get in the way. It'll be hectic with the techs working, but I'll be by again. I have someone who is interested in being of help to you all. ]

[From: Markus

Android or human? ]

[From: Josh

Does it matter? ]

[From: ---

Android. ]

[From: Markus

I was simply curious, Josh.

Please, feel free to bring our fellow brother or sister in. ]

Now all that was left was to convince Connor. You gathered up some files, just things that were left unattended to in the hurry to leave the facility and set them inside drawers, securing them with a key. Eventually, you made your way to the front, where Miranda's desk was, a half full paper cup of London Fog still sitting on the edge. It was a strange and sudden notion, but you were beginning to think you missed just being the coffee girl. When was the last time you had even checked in at Wayne State? You hadn't heard anything from them, so you assumed they either knew or didn't care. Or maybe even both. You pushed Miranda's soft leather chair away from her desk, something comfortable she had clearly brought from home and took a seat, looking over the stacks of papers and lines of empty desks. Perhaps this was why Markus had looked at you so full of pity that day. He knew what it meant to suddenly be thrust into a position where people depended on you because there was no one else. There was nothing else. It was not so dire as his own cause, but he had seen something that reminded him of those first days. Your phone chimed, a new message appearing.

[ From: Connor

I know you are concerned about my actions with Cyberlife. However.

Never was anything great achieved without danger. ]

God dammit, Machiavelli.

[lostinfic]

Summary: She writes for magazines about luxurious resorts in exotic places and five-star hotels in glamorous cities. He’s photographed devastated war zones, refugee camps and child soldiers. For both of them travel is an escape, but he’s had enough of this grim reality, and she’s had enough of this disconnected fantasy. Perhaps together they can find something in between, something real, and stop running from themselves. Each season, a new destination and a chance to grow closer.

Pairing: Alec Hardy x Hannah Baxter Rating: Teen (for now) Word count: 2.3k

Ao3    |    Gifset

Hardy woke up gasping for breath. The room spun above him. The pillow was damp under his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath until his heart rate slowed down.

The city shone through the curtain-less window. 3:16 blinked on his alarm clock.

He turned on every lamp in his tiny flat, filled the empty space with light. He scrubbed a hand down his face and prepared a cup of tea. As the computer whirred to life, a knot formed in his stomach.

Nightmares were nothing new for him, but they harassed him more frequently since he’d been tasked with selecting his favourite photos for a retrospective exhibition of his work. For twenty years he’d roamed the world with his camera, documenting the best and worst of humanity. Mostly the worst. From war zones to refugee camps, from barren deserts to overpopulated slums. Shining a light on those forgotten and left behind. Twenty years of anonymous faces. Twenty years of people he’d promised to help staring back at him on his computer screen.

Had his work really made a difference?

He clicked on a folder labelled “Syria 2014”. Thumbnail pictures popped up one by one. He’d never accustomed to this jarring feeling: looking at devastated places from the safety of his flat. His brain couldn’t reconcile the vivid memory of fear gripping his guts and chemicals burning his lungs with his quiet surroundings. Here, only the rattle of a too-close commuter train track and one nosey neighbour bothered him. But his brain sought hidden dangers, pushed warnings through his blood.

Tess would have helped him pick the photos, he thought. She’d once been his editor. She’d encouraged and admired his work until his commitment to it drove her into another man’s arms.

Just like this flat, the separation from Tess was meant to be a temporary situation. But three years had passed and now the divorce papers rested in their sealed envelope on the corner of his desk. He wasn’t sure which of the divorce papers or his old photos were the hardest to look at. The children and women he’d failed to help properly or the woman and child he’d failed to make happy.

He opened another folder of pictures, these ones from Tunisia in 2010, during the Arab Spring. An intense time, exhilarating. Still on his chair, he felt the protesters pushing against his body, carrying him like waves. He felt their thirst for freedom, the shift in the balance of power.

He selected a photo of a passionate young woman, shouting her heart out against the regime. Her eyes glistened with tears, her hands held high in peace signs. Red smoke surrounded her like a divine aura. In the next shot, a soldier punched her in the stomach. Hardy’s first instinct had been to take the photo. Thankfully, a young man came to her rescue. Hardy scrolled farther down the folder to another picture of the same young woman, a month later. In the crowd of protesters, she and the young man who helped her are exchanging wedding vows. He wondered what happened to them. He wondered what happened to their hopeful spirits.

Hardy slipped a hand under his grey t-shirt and touched the fresh scar on his chest.

Maybe this retrospective exhibition of his work was a second chance. An opportunity to atone for leaving these people behind.

The exhibition was still months away, in autumn, during a World Press Photo conference. Until then, he’d have to live with the nightmares.

His computer pinged with a new email notification. His eyebrows rose when he saw the sender: Ellie Miller.

I’m sorry to reach out to you like this, out of the blue. I know I haven’t been in touch, but we need your help.

Maybe you’ve heard, I’ve moved to Indonesia. There’s an island here, Pulau Kesuma, and there’s something really wrong going on. Foreign investors seized a huge part of the land to build a hotel, the Mahal Kita, and it’s been having a terrible effect on the local people and nature. I’m sure they must have done the same in other countries too.

I tried to reach out to my former colleagues at BBC World but it’s a small island and they’re all very busy. What we need is a photographer to show the destruction.

Give me a shout if you’re available and I’ll tell you more.

Hardy’s doctor had warned him against stressful work, but not helping people in need stressed him out more than throwing himself in the middle of a conflict. He replied to Ellie right away.

*

Hannah signed on the dotted line and returned the contract to her editor, Duncan. In exchange, he handed her a plane ticket to Pulau Kesuma and the necessary documents to complete her assignment for Elite Travelers magazine.

“The Mahal Kita Eco-resort & Spa,” Hannah read out loud. “Eco-resort? Didn’t you say ecotourism is a load of bullshit?”

“It is. That’s not the part I’m interested in: this island was closed to the tourism industry before now, at least not our kind of tourism. Smelly backpackers could go all they wanted and sleep in a goat pen.”

“How come it’s opened now?” she asked.

“There was no point in keeping it a nature reserve after the tsunami. So the Indonesian government lifted the restrictions. About two years ago. In exchange, the company helped restore the island.”

“That’s nice.”

“Anyway, just focus on the resort, the beaches, the night life… ”

“I’ve an angle to sell it, the ecotourism—” she spread her hands in a presenting gesture— “treat yourself to a guilt-free escapade.”

His reaction was something between a nod and a shrug. He didn’t believe it could interest their readers, but the comments on her blog told her otherwise.

“Stick to what you’re good at. Don’t fuck this up. If you get this right, you could become a senior writer.”

Hannah gasped and smiled. “Really?”

Senior writer meant less freelance work to make ends meet, business-class travel, press pass to fashion weeks, yachts and five-star restaurants. Not to mention she’d be the youngest and only female senior writer.

Duncan drummed his hands on his desk. “All right, fuck off, I’ve other writers to babysit.”

After the meeting, Hannah went straight to Stanford, an iconic travel bookshop in London. Even as a child she loved this place with its hundreds of globes and ceiling-high shelves of guidebooks. She’d pester her parents relentlessly until they agreed to take her here.

There was an enormous vinyl National Geographic map on the floor, and she trailed her feet from England to Indonesia. It elicited a lightness in her chest, and she nearly danced to the Asia section.

She would spend a week at the resort, then she intended to visit the rest of Indonesia for two weeks. She flipped through guidebooks, and compiled a mental list of ideas she could pitch to other magazines.

In the periodical section she checked out the trends and the competition. She scanned the racks and flipped through a few magazines. Three of them mentioned carbon-neutral travel, zero-emission hotels or sustainable tourism. She didn’t want to bore her readers with the science of climate change or to make them feel guilty about flying in a private jet, but being environmentally-conscious was trendy right now so she needed to get on that.

Hannah herself had become interested in the subject after a trip to St. Maarten in the Caribbeans. Not because of the trip itself but a documentary she saw after about a side of St. Maarten hidden to tourists: a vast and ever-growing landfill caused by the flow of cruise ships. Half the island’s population lived in that junkyard. Filled with good intentions, she had bought the filmmaker’s latest book. A year later, it was still on her nightstand, a bookmark halfway through chapter two. It had not been written for neophytes, that much was clear. She had returned to her usual travel ways, but a discomfort lingered.

Should she stick to what she was good at, as Duncan put it, or go all environmentally-friendly? She knew what her editor expected but, if done right, bypassing his instructions could work in her favour. Or ruin her chances at a promotion.

Back home, she dropped her magazines on the small kitchen table that doubled as a desk. For all intents and purposes, her two-room flat was a storage unit: a place to keep her things while she travelled the world. She had plans to make it cozy and pretty but had yet to do it. The few weeks a year she was here, she spent working, eating takeout and trying to catch up on whatever normal people did with their lives. Still, the flat held all her souvenirs and books. It was a place to rest her weary feet and head. A place to listen to the rain and traffic, and to dream of her next trip. When it came to travelling, having a home was just as important as having a passport, it was the difference between traveller and vagabond.

Ben was coming by later, meanwhile she fixed her make-up and curled her hair.

When he arrived, he entered without knocking first. He carried a plastic bag of thai takeout.

“Panang chicken for you,” he said as he placed the white oyster pails on the counter.

“Extra pineapple?”

“Extra pineapple.”

“Thanks, you’re the best,” Hannah kissed his cheek.

He blushed lightly and looked her up and down.

“You look beautiful.”

“Thanks, but don’t get any ideas, it’s for my followers,” she replied with a humorous tone.

She handed him her camera and stood in front of the one nice wall in her flat. She posed in a calculated casual way with various travel accessories and her new book on Indonesia.

“How much are you getting paid to have that bottle of sunscreen lotion in the frame with you?” Ben asked.

“Don’t ask, it will only make you mad.”

“Do you even like that stuff?”

“It’s alright.”

She actually couldn’t afford a regular supply of it beside the one sponsored bottle, but the product was very on brand for her.

After Cond�� Nast named her in their top ten travel blogs, her follower count surged. Sponsored posts became a significant source of income which translated as two more trips a year. She liked thinking of herself as an entrepreneur. She sold herself and her lifestyle— well the brighter side of her lifestyle— and it allowed her followers to indulge in a little fantasy.

She looked over Ben’s shoulder as he swiped through photos on the camera screen.

“Are we done? I’m peckish,” he said.

“Just a couple more, I’m not sure about that shirt.”

After some consideration, she switched her top for one that wouldn’t make her look so pale.

“Thankfully I’ll have a nice tan soon,” she said.

The change in Ben’s mood was subtle, he blinked too fast and his shoulders stiffened. And she felt herself becoming defensive, her cheeks warmed up.

“Oh. You’re leaving again.”

“You realize that’s like me saying: ‘oh you’re going to the office again’?”

“Yeah, the office, a cubicle with annoying coworkers and a boss, not a five-star hotel in L.A.”

“Christ, Ben, you know I didn’t become a writer for Elite Travelers by lounging around the pool all day.”

“I don’t need your resume.”

“I wouldn’t need to give it to you if you stopped implying mine’s not a real job.”

Ben tried for levity: “I’m just saying, why go halfway around the globe when you’ve got the best right here? You said so yourself.”

Hannah went along with the joke even if she knew part of him was serious. She tried not to create false hopes in him. She’d said she wasn’t interested in a relationship, that he shouldn’t wait for her. But when she travelled alone and felt lonely, she called him and, in-between trips, he was her only friend left in London.

She offered him a beer from the fridge and neither of them mentioned the trip again.

As they ate, she chose the best picture out of thirty and posted it on her Instagram account. She was the first to use #pulaukesuma, but not the last if she did her job well.

Scrolling through her feed, she noticed a picture posted by her sister: her son’s birthday, with their whole family gathered for the occasion. It was today and they hadn’t invited her. “I didn’t think you were in the country,” Jackie replied when Hannah confronted her in a text message. She didn’t insist. What was the point? She was leaving soon anyway.

After the meal, she watched a movie with Ben, but her mind kept drifting off to her next assignment. She repeatedly stood up to get a glass of water or add something to her packing list. At the thought of Indonesia, her limbs buzzed with a sort of restlessness and her stomach swooped.

She often thought of visiting new countries as a fling. The way they occupy all your thoughts and that anticipation of seeing them. You want to know everything about them. There’s always more to discover and experience. You can’t get enough, but you know it can’t last. And in a way, that’s the best thing about it because you only have time to see the best of them. You must enjoy it while it lasts. When it ends, you’re sad and miss them, but, in all honesty, you wouldn’t settle there permanently.

She was only ever faithful to London. Or perhaps she had yet to find the one.

***

→Chapter 1: CGK

[vagrantblvrd]

Would a prompt about the battle buddies be okay? I just love them so much and you write their shenanigans well :D

Ahhh! Thank you friend!

So in this scenario the Battle Buddies are part of a super sekrit government agency headed by Geoff and so on. The others are there in some capacity – other agents and techies and support staff and so on.

One day Ryan goes into Battle Buddy HQ one day with this odd look on his face, and Jeremy is Concerned because he’s a little off all day?

Doesn’t get as excited over the new weapons and gadgets they get to test out the way he usually does, even though they kind of set that one lab on fire and are therefore banned from that section of HQ for at least a month.

(Look, you don’t hand a guy some fancy new weapon and not expect him to want to see what it can do, and how the hell were they to know that maybe they shouldn’t have done the thing???)

Ryan’s kind of meh over lunch too, even though they go to that barbecue place he loves, which is like. Deeply Concerning because what if this is a replay of the body snatcher situation from that one time?

So Jeremy keeps a closer eye on Ryan all day while they muddle through reports and boring stuff – get sent to yet another lecture all about not setting things on fire, which.

They don’t actually do that as often as everyone seems to think they do, okay. They are sort of responsible adults, okay?

And then they get called in for a mission briefing, something about ~unusual activity, potentially wold-ending disaster threat and so on, and Ryan gets this suspicious look on his face as the briefing goes on.

Jeremy is even more Concerned, until Geoff looks at Ryan with this little smirk and -

“We’re in luck,” he says, which is usually a bad sign because as a famous philosopher once said, ‘If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all,’ and all that. “Ryan’s giving us the perfect cover o get you close to several people involved.”

Jeremy looks at Ryan who is now outright glaring at Geoff as Geoff clicks to the next slide. (Why the hell he’s using an outdated slide projector Jeremy doesn’t know, but this is Geoff and sometimes he just does this kind of thing).

There’s a picture of a high school, kids all over the place.

Older photo, going by the clothing and hair styles. Mid to late nineties maybe, and this red circle around this one guy with long hair and Geoff’s shit-eating grin as Ryan groans.

“Wait,” Jeremy says, as Geoff clicks to yet another slide. Yearbook photo and the guy in the previous photo, name under the photo conveniently cropped out. Ryan is facepalming and mutter threats to Geoff, who is on the verge of cackling like a lunatic the way he does. “Ryan, is that you?”

It is.

Holy shit, it is.

High school teenager Ryan with long hair and this dorky smile – he’s obviously going for that suave little smile that always gets Jeremy these days and failing like whoa.

“Ryan.”

Jeremy is mcfreaking dying because that totally is Ryan, and Geoff keeps clicking on slides clearly from the same yearbook. All of them are of Ryan – various clubs and whatnot – and Jeremy is absolutely going to get his hands on copies after this because this is amazing.

“There’s a reunion coming up,” Geoff says, when Ryan looks like he’s trying to decide the best way to set the slide projector (and probably Geoff at this point) on fire. “We’re going to use that to our advantage.”

(Also, kind of stealing ideas from Grosse Pointe Blank, sorry)

Geoff goes on about the risk of someone recognizing Ryan and blowing the whole mission and so on if they don’t use this oh so convenient reunion as cover, and it kind of makes sense?

Like sure, they’re going to Ryan’s hometown and there are sure to be people he knows there, but it’s a big enough town, and not like they’re going to be doing a lot of social activities and such?

But Geoff’s kind of a bastard and this is probably to get back at Ryan for some of the shit he’s both given and put Geoff through over the years. (Also, plot reasons.)

After the briefing Jeremy looks at Ryan and is like.

“You were weird all day because of the reunion, huh?”

Ryan sighs, rueful little smile because it’s his mumbledy-something reunion and kind of makes him think, you know?

He’s an old fuck, got gray hair coming in and he’s not slowing down yet but it’s – literally – a matter of time and then what happens to the Battle Buddies? (He’ll get a desk job or they’ll have him train new operatives and Jeremy will get a new partner and – yeah.)

He doesn’t say that, but Jeremy knows him well enough by now to figure it out, and he’s about to say something about it, but there’s a convenient interruption – someone wanting to yell at them about the earlier fire or what have you and he doesn’t get the chance.

Things just keep happening or Ryan changes the subject super fucking fast so they don’t actually talk about it.

And then they’re in Ryan’s hometown posing as a happily married couple -

Because yeah, happily married couple because of fucking course. So now Jeremy is dealing with Ryan and his insecurities RE aging like a normal human being and the whole Thing Jeremy has for Ryan and wow, this is totally not a recipe for disaster, except for how it totally is? (Look, okay. Jeremy’s not all that special when it comes to it. Not smart like Ryan or anything, kind of average and short as hell and the whole shebang because ~angst.)

They get there and Ryan takes Jeremy of this little tour of the town. Looks like it’s what a guy would do when introducing his spouse to the place he grew up in, fantastic for doing a little reconnaissance for the mission.

Go to this diner Ryan and his friends would go after school for burgers and fries and waxes poetic about how they make ‘em and that you can’t find fries like them anywhere else. Shows him the house he grew up in and so on and so on, his parents having sold it to move somewhere tropical or whatever to live out their retirement years.

All these places and things he used to to before he ended up in the military and eventually their agency and he’s got this look to him the whole time. Nostalgic as hell, and Jeremy is like fuck because oh, no, FEELS.

They run into a few people Ryan used to know – maybe Geoff wasn’t wrong about their cover story – and Jeremy is like loving the fuck out of the embarrassing stories they tell about Ryan.

Fucking  loving it, all “I never knew,” and “You’re kidding me,” and “Oh my God, Ryan,” while Ryan is visibly wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole, jfc.

They do mission-ish things, what with the reconnaissance and such. Pinpoint the likely location for the base/HQ/whatever and the whole time the reunion is getting closer. (They’re probably going to be gone before it happens, mission complete and most likely a fire or two before all is said and done.)

Come back from dinner one night and get jumped by baddies. That whole black SUV cutting them off in traffic, blocking them in and a bit of a shootout with running and the inevitable back alley close combat fight.

Punches and kicks and knives, flesh wounds and getting a scrap of information relating to their mission via cryptic last words and ~convenient clue of some sort they pick up off one of the bodies.

Go back to their hotel to patch each other up – and hey, if that means if one of them has to take their shirt off for the other to stitch up that cut on their arm/shoulder/back, that’s what it takes.

Also, getting super close into one another’s personal space and that moment where they’re super aware of that.

End up staring at one another and all these things they’ve never said out loud before as they look into one another’s sparkling orbs until there’s a noise outside to break the moment.

A car backfiring, drunken assholes yelling to break the moment – and they do the awkward laugh and “That should take care of it,” regarding the stitches and shuffle off to report back to HQ and clean up respectively.

Absolutely Do Not talk about things, because of course they don’t and spend the next couple of days trying to get to the bottom of things.

Ultimately have to go to the reunion after all because new evidence (plot reasons!) leads them to think some of the people involved will be there.

(Ryan being kind of…dismayed because he didn’t think any of those people were the sort to be involved with this kind of shit, but hey. He’s willing to bet none of them thought he’d be a super sekrit agent either even thought everyone thinks he works in IT, so. Even???)

Play the part of happily married couple and oh, God, okay.

Jeremy knew Ryan cleans up good, but this is another level. Ryan is having a similar problem and just awkward idiots in love who haven’t figure their shit out just yet.

(I’ve never been to any of my high school reunions but plot reasons demand the persons responsible for planning Ryan’s is the kind of monster who would insist on a prom-theme.)

They go to the reunion, and Ryan is like goddammit when they run into one of the guys who was a dick to him back in high school.

Rich and snooty and typical movie asshole, literally looking down his nose at Jeremy, and of course Ryan is incensed about that because fucking hey. Say what you want about Ryan and all his wasted potential (could have done something important with his life, but no, went and joined the military and fucks around with this IT business), but don’t fucking say a thing about Jeremy.

Maybe lets a little of the guy who goes around killing assholes for a living (and setting shit on fire, intentionally and otherwise) out to play, and the guy backpedals so fast he leaves skid marks.

“Jesus, Ryan,” Jeremy says, a little shocked because yeah, okay. BFFs and the whatnot and Battle Buddies and the like, but still.

Ryan blinking, looking at Jeremy and blushing so fucking hard because way to be subtle as he bullshits something about no one talking about his Battle Buddy like that. Uses the excuse of grabbing them some punch to flee the scene and Jeremy staring after him because hmm.

The rest of the reunion is less dramatic, Ryan introducing Jeremy to some of his exes – all of which have the best stories about idiot teenager Ryan – and Jeremy eating it all up.

Also, maybe Ryan has a type, but Jeremy kind of doesn’t notice that part because they’re all  ridiculously successful. The ambitious go-getters with their amazing careers and “normal” people living a simpler life. All of them happily living their best lives out there and it shows. (Also, really fucking hot, so you know, some of Jeremy’s insecurities pop up again.)

Somewhere in there they dace – prom theme! - to some terrible nineties song, disco ball hanging from the ceiling and the two of them in these tuxes and ~slow dance and look, okay, ALL the romcom cliches because it’s that kind of day.

There’s an almost-kiss, but the sound system breaks and lights come up and they do the awkward little laugh and deflection thing again. Someone remembers Ryan’s pretty handy with tech-things (plot reasons!) so he gets drafted to help fix the sound system.

Naturally this means he has to take his tux jacket off, roll up his sleeves and suchlike, run his hands through his hair a few times while he tries to figure out what’s wrong.

Jeremy standing there Ryan’s tux jacket in his arms and watching this idiot muttering to himself, and being hit with the realization he’s super fucked over Ryan, okay? Loves this idiot something fierce, and goddamn, those arms.

Ryan fixing the sound system and shooting Jeremy this smile, because hey! He did it! :DDDDDDDDD

And Jeremy kind of dying inside because Jeremy is a sad bastard, what the actual fuck.

They talk to more of Ryan’s old high school buddies and don’t get much in the way of helpful intel on their mission, but hey.

Nice night anyway.

Go back to their hotel via moonlight stroll, because of course, and there are Looks and lips being bitten as they decide better than to ~confess their deep abiding love for one another. (It would never work anyway, they deserve better, and all the usual romcom reasons Why They Can Never Be Together.)

The next day Ryan gets a text from an unknown number telling him they have information he’ll want to know regarding their mission and so forth. Whoever it is clearly knows he and Jeremy are super sekrit agents and about their mission here.

And Ryan, okay.

He makes a bad call because Jeremy’s still asleep, and bound to be hungover considering how much punch (obviously spiked) he had the night before. And anyway, Ryan figures he can handle meeting with whoever.

Goes to the meeting spot and of course gets ambushed, taken to the baddie’s base and leaves ~artistic blood spatter behind for Jeremy to find later, after he wakes up and finds the note Ryan left him telling him where he was going and why. (Like a fucking idiot.)

Jeremy calls HQ to let them know Ryan’s an idiot - “Tell me something I don’t know, buddy,” - and gears up to go rescue his Battle Buddy.

Has a splitting headache, so he’s annoyed about that too, and kind of wrecks shop getting to Ryan, who’s all trussed up like a damsel in distress.

That guy who was a dick at the reunion is – conveniently – the head baddie here, and Jeremy totally feels great about fucking up his operation here.

Lets him monologue at Jeremy while Ryan looks super unimpressed. (And okay, yeah, roughed up a bit because he put up a hell of a fight when they grabbed him, and also mouthed off to the dick, which got him backhanded and the like.)

“You done?” Jeremy asks, and when the dick gives him this incredulous look – how dare they not be in awe of how brilliant he is??? - and holds up a detonator.

Ryan starts laughing because it’s not a real Battle Buddies mission until the explosives come into play, you know?

Jeremy grinning as he hits the button and shits starts exploding and the whatnot.

Ryan (who, of course, has slipped his bonds) grabs the dick and knocks him out – they have orders to bring him in alive if possible – and they fight their way out of the building and to a safe place to wait for the others while local cops round up the henchmen and such.

Jeremy bitching at Ryan for being this kind of idiot – he could have gotten himself killed - and so on while the EMTs patch him up.

“Hey, it worked out okay in the end, didn’t it?”

Jeremy staring at Ryan because he did not just fucking say that, did he?

He did, though.

He so fucking did.

This indignant look on his face as he gestures at the head baddie, the baddie’s base on fire, and all the chaos around them and Jeremy.

Jeremy kisses him, because it’s that or punch the idiot, and it’s a bad idea – he knows it is even as he reaches for Ryan – but this absolute moron.

He’s opening his mouth to apologize after they break apart because Ryan looks stunned, all wide-eyed and frozen in shock and the like, and Jeremy is terrified – and then Ryan pulls him in for another kiss and so on and so forth.

They do the full-on confessing of their deep and abiding love for one another and all that later on.

Work on their respective insecurities because Jeremy happens to think the gray in Ryan’s hair is sexy as hell. Also, you know, kind of great because it means Ryan’s managed to live long enough to get them, which Jeremy happens to be super appreciative of, okay.

Ryan is just. Jesus Christ, Jeremy, really? Because look, Jeremy’s crazy smart and talented and Ryan could – literally Jeremy, he could literally - write a whole fucking series of books about how incredible he is, and actually goes to get started on just that, but Jeremy is like, okay, NO. And then like. Kissing, because these dumbasses.

Everyone back at HQ is like SIGH because the two of them are kind of gross with how happily in love they are?

Also, they claim emotional trauma from stumbling over the two of them with their make out sessions…and other things…in storage closets and empty briefing rooms and Jesus Christ you two, could you maybe not, THANKS.

So, yeah.

(And then years and years down the road the two of them are responsible for training new operatives, and jfc, Geoff is so fucking glad he’s retired by that point because they’re in charge of training new operatives, whose fucking terrible idea was that???)

[phantomwarrior12]

Nightmare Vacations

Summary: Going on vacation with Red Team is no small task. One could almost call it a nightmare, and Sam Ortez is about to find out first hand just how difficult it is.

Prompt: Red team going on vacation and being a nightmare in the airport. Sarge having all kinds of knives and guns in his carry on. Simmons and Lopez keep setting off the metal detector. Donut has like 15 bags. Grif tried to steal Oreos from one of the shops.

Word Count: 1,578

Warnings: Mild language, some sexual innuendos from Donut and a lot of shennanigans

A/N: Hey folks!

This prompt was brought to you by the lovely @cabooseisprettyneat. Thank you for this fabulous prompt! I had a lot of fun writing it!

For those of you who are wondering why this fic is classified under RVB Oneshots instead of RVB Mercs, it’s because, while it does include one merc, it doesn’t focus primarily on the mercenary trio. :)

As always, feel free to leave a like/comment and let me know your thoughts!

~ Phantom

RVB Masterlist

-----------------------------

"No."

"That's no way to respond when someone orders you on vacation!"

Sam glanced up from his disassembled rifle, a deadpan expression etched into his features, "Absolutely not."

"Where's your sense of adventure, soldier?!" Sarge slammed a hand down on the metal table, palm colliding with stainless steel, the ping echoing through the base.

"Buried beneath my common sense," Sam retorted shortly, turning back to his weapon.

"I need to take notes from this guy," Grif nudged Simmons' arm with a smirk.

"Right, because you need more help avoiding work." Simmons heaved a sigh, rolling his eyes.

"Not to mention 'team bonding exercises'. It's nothing personal, Simmons, I just hate all of you." Grif smirked, folding his arms across his chest.

"Oh, come on, guys! No party poopers right after our morning session!”

"Donut, you're the only one who attended that bullshit meditation thing that Doc held at five a.m." Grif returned pointedly, not bothering to glance at the thin sim trooper. 

"And boy, was it fulfilling! I feel like I could take a room full of men right now!"

"No quiero ir de vacaciones con ustedes idiotas."

"Dear God, no one cares!" Grif heaved a sigh, rolling his eyes.

"Hmph! I guess only some of us appreciate the finer things in life." Donut returned, folding his arms across his chest.

"Insubordination will not be tolerated, men! You either join the bonding exercise or you're a dirty blue!"

Sam set his weapon down on the table, redirecting his gaze back to Sarge, "Do the blues enforce team bonding exercises?"

"No, which is why they're never victorious!"

"I'm joining Blue Team." Sam returned coolly, beginning to reassemble his weapon.

"You can't! The teams are uneven as it is! You can't abandon us now!" Simmons protested, "you'll upset the balance!"

"Besides, they have two Freelancers, and we already suck. We'll just suck worse after you leave," Grif supplied.

"I order you not to join Blue Team!" Sarge shouted, pointing at Sam with a determined scowl.

Sam paused, glancing up, his expression was a cross between confusion and irritation. "That's not how that works."

"Are you questioning your superior officer's orders?! Inconceivable! You're the closest thing we have to a real soldier! Of course, next to Grif, that isn't saying much, but you can't abandon your squad!"

Sam rolled his eyes, "Will you stop shouting if I agree?"

"Shouting? Me? I never!"

Sam's shoulders slumped in defeat, an exhausted huff, "Fine, I'll join your 'team-bonding exercise'."

"Hallelujah, it's like Christmas in July! Except it's not July, and there's no oddly priced items for sale." Sarge's eyes darted around the room warily, "it's all a scheme by the corporations--"

Sam's chin dropped to his chest, "What have I gotten myself into?"

------------------

"You can't take that! It's government property entrusted to me by the UNSC!"

"Sir, this is fully loaded magnum. Your luggage is ninety-five percent weaponry of various kinds, we can't allow that on our shuttles."

"Can't allow it? Can't allow it?! Son, do you realize how dangerous this galaxy is? You never know when the Blues will sneak up behind you for a double cross! That's why i never leave home without this lovely lady," Sarge produced his shotgun from under his jacket, patting the barrel with a grin.

The security guard shied away from the barrel, one hand reaching for his own sidearm, "Sir, put the weapon--"

Sam stepped in, placing himself between the raging commander of Red Team and the station security personnel, "That won't be necessary," he addressed the guard before turning back to Sarge, "I thought I told you to leave all equipment back at base."

"Have you learned nothing, Locus? Those dirty Blues could ambush us on the flight off-world!" Sarge protested.

"Dirty...Blues?" The guard questioned, confusion etched into every inch of his features.

Sam heaved a sigh, "Don't ask," he redirected his attention forward, "Sarge, we don't have time for this. Our flight leaves in thirty minutes. Send the weaponry back to base with Washington."

"But, he's a Blue!"

"Wash drove us, sir, he can take your equipment back." Simmons supplied cautiously.

"Dammit, Simmons! Not you, too!"

"Sarge, the weapons are going back with Agent Washington." Sam reiterated, glancing towards the door where Wash was dragging four of Donut's bags through the lobby.

Sam's shoulders sagged as he slipped through the crowd towards Washington and Donut, "What's all this?"

Wash's shoulders slumped, practically dropping the bags, "He refuses to pack light."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, regretting, in that moment, agreeing to their vacation more than any other decision he'd ever made in his life. "Donut, you only need to pack the essentials."

"But these are the essentials, silly! You can never leave home without a fashionable wardrobe!"

"Donut, we'll be gone for a week, do you really need all these clothes?" Sam was all but pleading with him at this point.

"Well, I suppose I could be persuaded to leave part of my wardrobe home. Maybe cram it into three bags?"

The alarm blaring behind them redirected all attention back to the metal detectors where Simmon's head hung in defeat as the security personnel grilled him about emptying his pockets.

"Limit it to two," Sam ordered, "Washington will take the rest back to base."

Agent Washington started to protest, unable to slip a word in before Sam darted back towards the metal detectors, "What's the problem?"

The alarm blared once more as Lopez attempted to step through, "Oh, dios mío."

"These men need to empty their pockets immediately." The security guard nodded to Lopez and Simmons.

"I did!" Simmons protested vehemently.

Sam held a hand up to silence Simmons, "His pockets are empty. He's a cyborg."

"And the armored guy?"

"He's a robot. His body is the armor."

"Sir, I don't see a way for these two to board the shuttle. They're living weapons!"

"But I'm not equipped with any weaponry! Neither is Lopez!" Simmons gestured between the two of them.

The guard sucked in a breath, "All right, but you two better behave or you'll find yourselves out an airlock. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!" Simmons beamed, scampering through the detector before security could change its mind.

Lopez followed quickly, "Pendajos.”

Sam heaved a relieved sigh as Donut trotted over lugging his two bags. The reduced baggage would have to suffice. He waited until Donut cleared the metal detector before ushering a still sputtering Sarge towards the detector.

They were almost out, almost clear of security, almost off-world. It was then he realized they were missing something.

He paused, eyes scanning the crowd for the only absent member of Red Team, "Wait, where's Grif?"

"Probably raiding some poor store for snacks before the flight," Simmons suggested, waiting as far away from the metal detectors as he possibly could.

The screaming across the airport terminal confirmed Simmons' speculation.

"I paid for my flight! The least you people could do is provide me with some free snacks!"

"Told you."

Sam shook his head slowly before pushing through the gathering spectators.

"Get the fuck out of my store!"

"Fine! But the Oreos are coming with me!" Grif hugged the massive box to his chest and started towards the exit in a huff.

"What is going on here?"

"The moron! He walks into my store and starts eating everything in sight! Just look at what he's done to my fruit display!" The owner gestured to the gaping bites in his wax fruit display.

"Psh, it's not my fault your fruit display wasn't made of real fruit." Grif scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"Why you--" The owner stomped towards Grif, who ducked behind Sam for protection.

"That is enough." Sam interjected, tension flaring across his features, an expression holding enough malice and exhaustion to stop the owner dead in his tracks. Sam's jaw clenched in a moment of exasperation, "we're leaving. Grif, pay the man what you owe him for the Oreos and we'll be on our way."

Grif scoffed indelicately, "I don't have any money."

Sam's shoulders sagged, eyes squeezing shut, mind grasping for the last fleeting shred of sanity he had left. He dug his wallet out of his back pocket, snatching the card from the fold before swiping it across the kiosk.

"It's paid for. Now, let's go."

"What about my fruit display?!"

"You'll think of something," Sam returned, shuffling out of the store with Grif in tow.

They made it to the metal detectors when the security guard stopped them. "I'm sorry, sir, but that isn't allowed on the shuttle."

"It's not up for debate. You're making an exception." Sam's voice left no room for argument as he stalked through the detectors and towards the landing platform.

"Uh, yes, sir." The guards stared after him, cautious and intimidated.

Grif offered a smug smirk before tailing after him and the others.

They were finally onboard the shuttle, finally in the air and heading off-world when he heard the one thing he never wanted to hear.

"It looks like there's going to be a delay, folks! Someone tried to convert the engines to diesel, so we're going to have to land and ask all of you to disembark and wait in the terminal."

"Diesel is more efficient! It's the American way!" Sarge's voice carried over the loudspeakers from the engine room.

Sam's face fell into his hands in defeat. This was a hell all its own.

"I should have joined Blue Team."

----------------------

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RVB Mercs: @antsyserpentine

[marcoshassanlevy]

Marcos Hassan

With the proliferation of the music festival economy, there’s hardly any need for fanfare when a festival reaches its 10-year anniversary. However, in the case of Mexico’s NRMAL, 10 years marks a milestone that few events of its scale are capable of. Considering that NRMAL’s story includes bands that made their debut in Mexico 40 years after their inception to collateral violence from the war on drugs, it’s a miracle NRMAL has reached this watershed moment, let alone established itself as one of the most beloved festivals in Latin America. To say it’s worth celebrating is an understatement.

NRMAL has become one of the most important festivals in Mexico, without attracting massive crowds or relying on excessive corporate branding. Over the course of its 10 editions, the festival has booked artists from across the globe, including alternative legends like Slowdive, Psychic TV, and Brujería, to early appearances of soon-to-be game-changers like Grimes, Twin Shadow, and Omar Souleyman. And of course, its Latin American and Latinx talent has included current favorites like Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, Las Robertas, Alex Anwandter, Dávila 666, Javiera Mena, Los Mundos, Meridian Brothers, Föllakzoid, and many others. NRMAL is also an effort to build bridges between different communities, forging transnational alliances within the musical community, especially in Latin America. It’s a festival for the music-obsessed and a gathering that feels more like an annual reunion of family and friends. Rather than paying attention to trends or unachievable economic growth, NRMAL has chosen to evolve along with its listeners.

“It’s still a small festival,” director Moni Saldaña says during an interview at NRMAL’s headquarters. “It’s been very difficult to keep this going so we’re really happy that we’re still doing it, that we’re still here and most importantly, that we’re still doing it our way. It’s the type of festival we want to do and we keep booking the types of bands we want, so it’s a great feeling.”

Festival NRMAL 2011. Courtesy of NRMAL

The festival organizers’ main priority has always been to host the event without compromising any major part of their eclectic, independent vision, and they manage to achieve this through some careful planning. Unlike most major fests, NRMAL comes to life thanks to a team of just five people. They have shut down most of their other enterprises – among them hosting smaller events, running venues, an agency, and a blog – to focus on the festival itself. As a result, NRMAL provides a more honest experience for fans, without making attendees feel like every inch of of the grounds is occupied by brand logos. “Nobody involved is a businessperson and that makes me happy,” Saldaña shares. “We don’t do it for the money, we do it because we’re music fans. Every time we have to make a decision we say, ‘if we were the audience, would we like this?’ I don’t think we’re the perfect festival or the ideal festival experience, but I believe we make a difference, we try to be honest with fans and artists. They know when something is bullshit. They feel close to us because we have been upfront about our mistakes and stuff.”

NRMAL also has a rare sense of transparency when it comes to the visibility of its staff. Moni regularly grants interviews leading up to the festival, and in past editions, the team has hosted keynotes and workshops about the independent music business through NODO, a platform founded by Alfonso Muriedas, who is one of the five members of the NRMAL team. Even founder Pablo Martínez, who has maintained some anonymity, granted an interview with The Creative Independent in 2017. Saldaña thinks this openness has benefited the festival. Her role as a director has made a difference as well, resulting in invitations to speak at roundtables and conferences supporting women’s empowerment initiatives.

Festival NRMAL 2013. Courtesy of NRMAL

“It’s not my intention to become the face of the festival,” says Saldaña. “But I’m aware of my position and I have something that maybe some people need to hear. When I was younger, I used to say shit like, ‘if I was a boy, maybe I could join a band’ and that’s how I grew up. Now, most men who run festivals have a right-hand woman who gets things done and kicks ass. Believe me, I know them. All of them. But there’s no visibility for these women. In this age, and especially in this country, it’s important to me as a woman to have that visibility. It’s important to let women know there’s another way.”

Well before conversations about the representation of marginalized artists at major festivals, NRMAL demonstrated a commitment to diversity, whether it was about sound, geography, or gender. Currently, NRMAL is the festival with the most women and non-binary performers in Mexico; 70 percent of these artists were featured in its 2019 edition. This eclecticism is inherent to the festival’s origins; organizers would initially invite bands to Monterrey from SXSW to play in Mexico. Ever since, it has remained a priority to book artists that otherwise would not be able to visit the country.

NRMAL began a few years before the first edition of the festival in 2010. Pablo Martínez and Lucas Cantú set out to build a local scene through shows and parties (Cantú has since left NRMAL, but Martínez remains the fest’s CEO). At the time, Moni Saldaña – a lifelong music fan who would drag her friends to shows from an early age – was a college student who was switching career paths and working part-time at a magazine. Having fallen in love with their events, she wrote an email to the NRMAL blog, offering to write concert reviews. When the first festival was coming together, Saldaña volunteered and ended up contributing to every aspect of the festival without any prior experience.”I almost flunked an exam because of NRMAL!” she says. After that, Martínez asked her to formally join the team.

Girl Ultra performing at NRMAL 2017. Courtesy of NRMAL

Prior to NRMAL, music festivals were not the most common live music experiences in Mexico. After the legendary Avandaro Festival in 1971, which resulted in significant government censorship, no major music festivals took place in the country until the first edition of Vive Latino in 1998. In the 2000s, heavily sponsored festivals featuring international acts like Manifest, Mx Beat, and Sonorama, as well as a Mexican version of the electronic Mutek festival, began yearly traditions before the bubble burst around 2009, when most of these were canceled for good. Only Mutek survived. Coinciding with the first NRMAL, OCESA – the world’s third biggest international promoter and entertainment agency – launched their own alternative music festival, Corona Capital, marking a new era of music festivals in the country.

Before NRMAL could really get off the ground, violence had already presented itself as a challenge. The week following the first edition, two students were killed by soldiers who mistook them for an armed group that had fired at them earlier on March 19. On August 29, 2011, members of the Zetas cartel stormed and set fire to the Royale casino in Monterrey. The war on drugs escalated violence in the city to unprecedented heights. In 2010, another festival, MtyMx, had most international acts canceling their appearances at the last minute due to security concerns. “All the local people were like ‘what the fuck is happening?’” remembers Saldaña.

However, the second edition of NRMAL continued as planned, with just Las Robertas, Thee Oh Sees, and Silje Nes making the trip abroad. “[That edition] was a statement about not letting the flame burn out. We couldn’t let the situation kill us so we said ‘fuck it’ and did the fest. We had some advantage because La Alianza Francesa [the festival venue] is located in San Pedro and allegedly was agreed to be off-limits by the local government and narcos.”

Thankfully, violence in Monterrey subsided in the following years, allowing NRMAL to march on. By 2013, NRMAL leveled up and booked more than 100 acts to perform between the main event and various showcases, something that Saldaña says nearly broke her. “On Sunday, I called Pablo crying, told him I was quitting, and he told me that everything was going to be okay, and that was that. From then on, we could do no wrong.”

Jesse Baez performing at NRMAL 2017. Courtesy of NRMAL

In 2014, to celebrate five tumultuous and successful years, NRMAL decided to throw two festivals, one in Monterrey and another in Mexico City, an ambitious endeavor that the team pulled off. However, the following edition came with the biggest change in their history: a permanent move to Mexico City. Struggling with adequate venues and elusive permits from the local government, the team found a more inviting environment in the nation’s capital, but that didn’t make it an easy choice. “We tried to keep the two festivals,” says Moni. “We wanted the best for NRMAL and it made sense to move to Mexico City. It was a tough decision because most of us are from Monterrey, but it was necessary to keep running the festival as best as we could.”

“NRMAL wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t born in Monterrey,” Saldaña continues. “We didn’t have access to many things; there was no scene. We built something we wanted to see, made a festival so we could see bands that we couldn’t otherwise. I’m not sure if it could have started anywhere else.”

For the 10th edition of NRMAL, a typically eclectic selection of artists – from Spiritualized to Canalón de Timbiquí to Death Grips to Michelle Blades & Los Machetes – took over the grounds of Deportivo Lomas Altas, in Mexico City. Judging by this year’s installment, one thing remains clear: the festival’s commitment to forging bonds within the musical communities of Latin America and the world, but especially within the Mexican scene. Crowds showed up early to witness local underground legends-in-the-making El Shirota and Vyctoria, and grew larger by the time Latin American dream pop messengers Rubio and Sexores took the stage. There has been a continuous boost in attendance, and the 2019 edition was no exception, without any of the troubles that come with crowded festivals. This is no coincidence; Saldaña tells us that their idea of expansion doesn’t mean attracting more people to the festival, but rather creating a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved. “It’s horizontal growth rather than vertical growth,” she says.

Next year, there will be another edition of NRMAL and with it, more chances of experiencing something otherworldly within the reaches of music fans all over. But for now, there’s the matter of celebrating 10 years of a day for every kind of music fan to enjoy as much as they can. As for the team behind this, it’s a source of happiness. “For me, it’s like, ‘fuck! Has it really been 10 years?’” says Saldaña. “I feel privileged. It’s a dream come true that I do this for a living, something I love so much.” When there’s so much passion for music gathered in one place, the product can only be something very special and memorable. As ubiquitous as festivals have become, it’s refreshing to find a true celebration of music.

Monday, March 4, 2019 at 1:30 PM EDT

[evilelitest2]

100 Days of Trump Day 61a: Vlogbrothers (Economics)

Welcome back to 100 Days of Trump, where we explain WTF happened in 2016 through 100 recommendations.  Today I want to go into the direction of education and talk about the youtube channel Vlogbrothers by Hank and John Green.   John Green btw is basically living my fantasy life.  There is a weird hatedom for them which doesn’t seem to come from anywhere, I personally find John to be a little sanctimoniously revisionist in terms of Crash Course, but I really like both of them.  The only time I get annoyed is with their consistant plea for reasonable discourse, which I think runs into the problem of “What if their beliefs are inherently unreasonable”.  Now most of Vlogbrothers s just them talking to each other about random shit,   not really important to us, but there are a few selection of videos I think it is very important for us to talk about.  On John’s side, the economic videos and on Hanks the “Summing up X conflict” videos.   I am doing the former now and the latter....later.  Because a major problem with American political discourse is that we keep hearing people talk about certain subjects but don’t actually understand them beyond a vague sense of “Yeah, that thing”.  For example, I am sure most of you are familiar with the concept of the National Debt, the US is in debt, we have a debt problem, oh good god we need to cut funding for everything (except the military) because of all this debt problems we are having, austerity measures for the win.....

    Well...no.  The US does have a debt problem, but it isn’t the way we imagine it, because most Americans don’t really understand how governments deal with debt vs. people dealing with debt.  Also people don’t understand the difference between debt and deficit.  You also might be under the impression that “CHINA OWNS ALL OUR DEBT” which no, it owns a lot and that is a problem, but this isn’t like what often happens to post colonial countries.  

    So again goverment debt isn’t an inherent bad thing, you need debt to function in a modern economy.  In fact in many ways, the US is doing great economically in terms of interest and debt and the only way we could fuck with that is if we put unstable autocratic people in office who shake global faith in the.....oh shit.

Also follow up video, the actual American debt problem is explained here and why in economics trust is so important in regard to debt.  Also remember, the US actually has a special unique relationship to debt no other country has because we are the only superpower, so when our credit rating went down (thanks Ted Cruz for the goverment shutdown which accomplished nothing) our debt got cheaper.  Like seriously, if Congress knew WTF it was doing and we had a reasonable tax policy rather than ignoring all the revenue the rich can offer, we could fund basically anything, its absurd.  Back in the 50s Corporate tax rates went from 50% to 80% btw.  

Also people don’t know how the Budget works  here. 

Or what the Stimulus Package actually is here 

And a little thing on the oil industry here 

     Also republicans keep talking about Greece and the shit Greece gets up to, and they were wrong.  Here is a good summery of when debt is good and isn’t good using Greece as an example here

  Follow up on Austerity and the problems in the Eurozone here 

Also Republicans love to talk about taxes but they basically assume that you don’t actually understand how taxes work, and that leads to the whole Tax is theft nonsense, it is good to understand how actual taxes work and what is capital gains.  This one is done by Hank rather than John because the truth defies simplicity.  And also this is one of the main reasons why rich people pay less taxes.  

So have you noticed a pattern here?  There are decently complicated issue that require a little bit of education before you can appreciate what these terms mean and what the implications are of various actions, and if you don’t make that effort, you are left with a mess of misunderstandings.  And then you take those ignorant misunderstanding and vote republican who capitalize on the fact that you don’t understand these issues and use you’re ignorance to promote their agenda.  And that is why you should never trust people who want to use folk wisdom for complicated economic institutions and political systems, because often the solutions are counter intuitive.  Like why socialized healthcare is actually very good from a capitalist perspective. 

Or this one on the minimum wage and why raising the minimum wage is actually good for the economy (mostly).  Here  

Actually Healthcare is one of those giant issues that people are affected by and care about but don’t understand like...at all.  So if you are confused about WTF is going on with Obamacare, some good resources 

American Healthcare Costs here 

Looking at Obamacare’s results (Even more relevant right now) here 

A good look at what the Healthcare Reform debate is here 

And talking about the numbers on the Wage Gap and Racism here and here 

Mass Incarnation summed up here 

Bullshit Climate Change fallacies here 

Bullshit fallacies on Gay Marriage here, and a religious defense of it here

Also there are a lot of misunderstanding of how capitalism works here  Remember, there is a difference between begin a capitalist and a supply side economics.  

    Basically the more you study these issues you realize how vital is it to have people in power who actually understand them and are interested in solving these problems, but instead have a political class who both are trying to avoid dealing with these problems and deliberately confusing the issues in order to make money for their donors.  

       If you want another example of how if our leadership actually cared they could solve so many of these problems like say..the Penny, which is not an issue where there is a debate and would save the country millions of dollars, see here, here and here  (last one is just there to show how dumb this is).

Or Puerto Rico an obvious issue that isn’t solved because again, congress here 

Best rebuttal tothe “obama is a muslim” claim here 

And finally the entire way we talk about Islam is utterly wrong here and the way we understand middle eastern politics utterly undermines our War on Terror policies.  

Oh and also Vaccines nonsense here 

I think that we should listen to incoherent John Green Rambling about how being misinformed about numbers actually costs more money than spending (though Seniors don’t vote Democrat any more and the situation has been reversed).  

[mirroredtranslations]

Tsuzura Human - Chapter 3

Musubimonogatari – Nisioisin p. 178-193

Towards the end of Musubimonogatari, 23-year-old Araragi comes across a certain lover of mathematics for the first time in a while. Here’s how it goes... [Warning: Minor spoilers for what becomes of Hanekawa, Senjougahara, and Kanbaru.]

“A... Araragi, why are you here...?”

That's my line.

Actually, it wasn't me who ought to be talking like they were meeting a corpse—without a doubt, that really was Sodachi Oikura's line.

It was an unexpected, chance meeting with a childhood friend with whom, yet again, I'd been separated. Yet again.

Just how many times in my life are this girl and I going to separate and reunite?

The location was Town Hall.

I'd left the Rumor Department as part of the work I'd been given, and part of that process involved visiting each of the departments at Town Hall in turn to submit various documents—it was a similar process to what happened when Hanekawa erased her personal history.

But, Oikura was working at one of those departments.

She was working—tightly tying up her hair, putting on glasses with a flash, wearing a face like an ordinary public accountant. Well, I know that's what she'd studied in college, and she actually was an ordinary public accountant, but even so, it was as if she was acting an accountant's role in a play.

Standing at the counter wanting my documents accepted, I was dumbfounded by the sight.

Huh? Why do you have a serious job? And in a public office in a sense even more honest than the police—

“I... I was worried. I thought you might be out on the street...”

“Don't put me out on the street in your head. I'll kill you.”

She may look like an accountant, but it seemed her personality hadn't changed very much—no, maybe just toward me. I see; after graduating college she came back to our hometown—hrm.

Even so, to think she'd then proceed to take the civil service exam... no matter her age, she still loves studying, huh.

“What. Araragi, you became a police officer...? Assistant inspector? Career? So compared to me, a local government employee, you're a national government official? W-why must you always be one step ahead of me...”

“Well, it's not like I'm trying to be one step ahead of you... And I was the one who gave up on the accountant certification.”

Actually, about that, we'd studied for the exam together. For some reason I lost motivation—long story. To put it frankly, well, before I became 20 my mathematical talents all but dried up.

I can't quite call Oikura a mathematician, but since she became a certified accountant, I honestly think that she's the winner of the mathematics race.

“Hmph. I'll even call you Euler now.”

“Bullshit. Didn't we separate for the fourth time on October the 13th, two years ago? Don't try to slowly reconcile with me. I hate you.”

“Whoa there. I didn't come to fight in your workplace. ...Want to eat lunch together? There's something I'd like to discuss.”

“I'll go along with that. You can wait over there until lunchtime.”

She answered in a tone like she was accepting a challenge.

In a way, there's no use breaking off with her... I've parted ways with Oikura more times than with my girlfriend Senjougahara.

I couldn't hold back my surprise at the coincidence of it all, but now that I think about it, Oikura was probably working here at Town Hall in the town we grew up in ever since graduating college—since we're both government employees, there were lots of chances for us to run into each other during my training period.

These last four months, I'd come to Town Hall dozens of times for various reasons—we might even have passed each other in a hallway and not noticed. No matter how low the probability might be, if there are enough chances, we'd eventually meet—that's basic mathematics.

The probability of meeting Oikura was overall much higher than the probability of meeting Kanbaru in the hospital, so the fact that my latest reunion with Oikura came just before I left town must mean it was rather overdue.

Fateful—perhaps.

Fortunately, I had a huge pile of documents I had to submit to other sections while I waited for Oikura's break time.

I don't remember the exact date, but it was two years since I last had lunch with Oikura.

This was the first time since “the incident”—a long story.

To put it as simply as I possibly can, it was when Senjougahara and I first broke up—though, strictly speaking, would that be our second breakup?

My third reunion with Oikura took place in a classroom at college. I'd thought something was up with such a coincidence, but it turned out to be Hanekawa's arrangement of sorts—it seemed Hanekawa was still worried about Oikura in many ways, even after she transferred out of Naoetsu High School; apparently, Hanekawa had encouraged Oikura to go to college using the various means available to her. Oikura's overall scholarly ability was far higher than mine, but she was limited to colleges that had a math department. So to put it bluntly, our third reunion was in a sense inevitable.

At the time, I was commuting to college from home, but Oikura was searching for a place to board. She seemed to be struggling, because she didn't have a guarantor and couldn't make rent—when I spoke to my parents about it, I was instructed to “invite her to our house again”.

I still hadn't slipped past my rebellious period, so I can't say I simply followed the instruction.

Although I was partly aware that things were completely different from when we were elementary school students, I still felt indebted in various ways to Oikura, and couldn't ignore her suffering—but if I asked her she'd defy me, or, well, decline, so I used a backdoor method and had my little sisters invite her instead. And so, Oikura began living in the Araragi house once again for the first time in seven years.

That's when we studied bookkeeping together.

We made a study group, something we hadn't done in a long time—then, Hitagi-san found out.

By my standards, lending an eave(1) to a childhood friend—whom I didn't at all think of as the opposite sex—was just barely safe, but by Hitagi's standards it seemed it was completely out of the question.

Well, in this case I was in the wrong. I was absolutely awful. It was the worst thing I did in all my teenage years.

And I suppose it led to our first breakup.

That we were able to reconcile was thanks to Oikura herself—she made quite an effort to get us back together. When I say “effort”, I mean she threatened us with, “If you don't make up, I'll jump off and kill myself”... But in addition to that, she coordinated with Hanekawa—who, at the time, was still an “ordinary celebrity” as a girl who did volunteer work, and not yet an activist—to mediate our relationship.

She left the Araragi house right away, too.

Since Hitagi hadn't been moved by Oikura's suicide threat and ended up essentially stealing a working student's place to live, she started to feel guilty, and while that wasn't exactly the reason we got back together, it was the reason we began talking again.

As a result, Hitagi and I returned to normal after all was said and done, and for a while the three of us, including Oikura, lived a chattering and fun campus life—until we reached my and Hitagi's second separation, it truly was fun.

The second separation.

The reason was super trivial.

Feeling like her do-or-die effort, so rarely shown on behalf of others, had been ruined, Oikura was the one who got the most angry about that separation.

It might not have been anger, but despair.

I somehow managed to make up with Hitagi, but after that, Oikura exchanged no words with us at school through graduation.

Our fourth breakoff of relations.

We went independent after college, so despite lingering unease, after that I had no reason to know where Oikura's life had taken her—until today.

She's got a normal job, hasn't she.

Well, I hadn't quite thought she was out on the street, but... I'm relieved.

I definitely have to tell Hitagi about this—or, so I'd thought, but Hitagi and I were currently in the middle of a big fight.

We were in the middle of our third breakup.

I should tell Oikura... hm... or should I...

Damn it, why did it have to be at a time when Hitagi and I were separated. Awful timing like this is most definitely Oikura's style—well, I shouldn't make it sound like it's Oikura's fault.

“Sorry to keep you. Let's go. I've set aside thirty minutes for you, Araragi, nothing more.”

“Thanks for that. Is there a place you usually go? I don't know this area very well.”

“How thoughtless. Even though it's your hometown.”

“The landscape's completely different from before, isn't it? They even built a shopping mall... I'll treat you.”

“I'd rather die than get treated by you.”

She's still saying stuff like that even at age 23... Might have been too early to feel relieved. But, we're both working adults, so splitting the bill is fine.

Oikura led me into a cafe next to Town Hall. The prices were reasonable, so I thought it might be a place she regularly went to, but when I asked she said it was her first time there.

“I don't want to take you somewhere I usually eat.”

I was told.

She must really hate me, huh.

Let's hope this is a place Oikura had wanted to come for a while, but one that it was difficult to enter alone—betting on that possibility, I left the ordering to her.

“So. What. What do you want. From me. From the likes of me—”

“No no no, apologizing for what happened two years ago—is not why I came.”

“Of course not.”

“To be honest, I don't think it was anything to break off over... Really, I asked you to lunch because I was surprised you were aliv—I mean, that you were working at Town Hall.”

“Don't be surprised I'm alive. Who's dying here.”

“Who's dying here... It makes me happy from the bottom of my heart to hear you say that.”

“Hmph. Well, it's not like I awoke to a love of my hometown and made a U-turn to come back; I've moved house from place to place so much, this place doesn't really feel like a 'hometown' to me anyway... And don't have any good memories of it either.”

Oikura continued.

“But when I thought about becoming an adult and going out into society, I could only come up with a single role model.”

Role model.

For me, I had my parents. Oikura's parents were not those kinds of parents—rather, I'm sure she felt strongly that she didn't want to become that kind of adult.

Having said that, other adults... looking up to teachers at school, for example, would be out of her character. Considering the circumstance that led to her become a truant, school was not at all an enjoyable place for her.

Thinking about that, something suddenly came to mind.

“Oh, that's right. When you were living in that apartment complex, you were taken care of by staff from Town Hall, right? And after you transferred from Naoetsu High School too... so—”

“I resent being judged so simplistically.”

She gets mad no matter what you say, doesn't she.

Has she still not managed to grow up?

Is it all right for her to be out in society?

“Let me just tell you, I don't have one whit of a laudable goal like making myself a caregiver in order to help pitiable kids like I was. It's part of self help, you know.”

“Why would you lower your own likability by saying that...”

She's an easy-to-understand tsundere.

Well, a tsundere who's over 20 is nothing but a nuisance, but even so I couldn't help but wish Hitagi was as easy to understand as this.

“Sigh. If only I liked you.”

“What's with that unpleasant line. Go die, to apologize for hurting my feelings. I'm glad I hate you, always, from the bottom of my heart.”

Seems she can be honest once in a while. When she's hating me, at least.

But I'm glad she had a generally sound reason for getting a steady job.

She probably reunited with the Town Hall staff who were in charge of the Oikura household—it'd be wonderful if she'd found a mentor relationship through that, but well, asking about it would be prying too far.

Let's save that for another opportunity.

“Where are you living now?”

“Why do you want to know my address? What are you planning to do to me?”

“Don't be so candidly wary. I don't know about now, but after you left the Araragi house, didn't you move around from place to place? Do you die if you don't keep moving?”

“Something wrong with that? I was desperately trying to avoid you and Senjougahara and Hanekawa-san's stalking.”

“'Something wrong with that', well, if that's the reason, then there is. And who are you to only add 'san' to Hanekawa's name?”

“You can't say 'Tsubasa Hanekawa' without honorifics, can you? Town Hall was in an uproar last month.”

“Ah. Right, yeah.”

Must have been even more hectic at Town Hall than with the police.

They're the directly affected party.

“Did Hanekawa come to see you?”

“She wouldn't. When you two and I separated, I also cut ties with Hanekawa-san.”

“Be glad you didn't get tangled up with her again.”

“Why? I'm sure she doesn't remember me.”

“Oh, nothing. I'm just jealous that you were able to break off like that.”

Although, it didn't seem like she had forgotten about Oikura. I wonder if she was just playing dumb, and really did know Oikura was working at Town Hall.

“So, Oikura. Where do you live? Where are you renting?”

“Why are you so concerned about my address—are you planning arson? I'll report you.”

“I am a policeman, you know. If you like, we can install a police box nearby.”

“That won't be necessary.”

“Really, I can ask to have a policeman from a local station patrol the area. I have the connections for something like that.”

“To protect me? Or to keep an eye on me?”

“Seriously, I'm concerned.”

“Shut up. Suspend your cardio-pulmonary function.”

Even with that abuse, it seemed as though the fact my worry was genuine had come through.

“I'm not renting,” she told me. “I bought. With a civil servant loan. They say in the long run, it's more advantageous to purchase a house...”

“......”

Is that alright...? No, wait, it's too early to make judgment...

Both sides have merit in the debate on whether it's more advantageous to rent or to own a house, so I can't speak to that, but hearing that Oikura had bought a house (and hearing that she used a loan), the impression of steadiness all but vanished—well, let's hear her out.

I might end up collaborating not as a childhood friend but as an actual police officer, but I'd do anything for Oikura, if it meant this idiot finds happiness...

“Wh... what kind of property did you purchase?”

“It was a dilapidated old haunted house, so it was cheap... It's all right, don't stand up. I did the proper renovations.”

“You might not know this, but nowadays there's these things called 'renovation scams'...”

“Don't treat me like I'm the world's biggest idiot. You know where it is. It's the house I lived in when we were in middle school.”

“......”

I—know it. I visited many times.

It's the place where Oikura and I spent our most tranquil time—no doubt it was Oikura's most agitated time, however... She purchased that house, huh...

I see; even in her early twenties she could easily buy a house if it's in that condition. Or rather, plainly speaking, it was like she was helping to solve the vacant house problem—Town Hall ought to have given her a bonus.

I'm sure the renovation wasn't that simple, though...

“Even so, you're always hurting yourself like this... Surely this isn't self help. Why would you try to return to where you started? Do you like going back to square one that much?”

“I'm the opposite of Tsubasa Hanekawa. I live by swallowing up the past.”

Oikura spoke as if making an oath.

“I'll repaint those memories in my own colors. I'll build a happy family in that house. Unfortunately, I don't have a partner quite yet—speaking of which, Araragi. How are things with you and Senjougahara lately?”

“Well, if you'd like to keep the renovation expenses down, call me over. Let's try to finish it with DIY as cheap as we can. I don't know if this is a shameless thing to say, but I also have memories there. I want to leave my own colors too.”

“Don't pretend you didn't know that was a shameless thing to say. Didn't you two come back together?”

“You may have misunderstood, but I haven't actually come back to my hometown; I'm in a training period...”

“Did you think I'd already forgotten how to use a fork?”

Oikura said, tightly clutching her cutlery—I'd only thought it was about time I learned how to use a fork.

There's no helping it, the time to tell the story has finally come.

Right as the mood of this unexpected reunion had started improving as we talked about old times, this might cause us to break off once again, but I'd known from the start that it's a story I had to tell... So, I briefly told Oikura about my own current situation, Hitagi Senjougahara's current situation, and then, the situation between the two of us.

The three of us, who'd formed a trio for a time, were now scattered.

Ultimately, when she'd finished listening, Oikura didn't aim her fork at me and throw it like a dart.

Instead, as if amazed, she laughed.

“You're a fool, aren't you.”

As if she was actually enjoying herself.

Thank goodness; by the graces of Oikura's terrible personality, we avoided a breakoff of relations.

It might've been good that I emphasized how different this latest case was compared to the first time, when Oikura was the cause. Regardless, she really hates when things are her fault.

I know my childhood friend's personality very well.

“But that might just be how it goes. It may just be a commonplace story. Oddly enough, more couples might break up when they get jobs than when they leave for college. He pe pe.”

“An inhuman laugh is leaking out.”

“Didn't you talk about it? When you were looking for jobs. Surely you could see that you'd end up estranged if one of you was aiming for an overseas corporation and the other was aiming to be a government official.”

“Curiously enough, we encouraged each other at the time. Especially since she was so well-qualified for the financial industry. She wanted to find a job where she could leverage that the most.”

“It's wonderful to be progressive. I cheer on working girls too. No matter how much that woman who's stretched her wings overseas might look down on someone like me, who returned to her hometown.”

“I don't think she'd look down on you... She was worried too, you know? About what became of you after graduation.”

“Worried about me being out on the street, more like.”

“I can't deny it...”

“Deny it, will you.”

After saying that, Oikura kept laughing for a while (what a person), then, finally,

“...But, what do you intend to do?” she said, as if, just a little, she was concerned for us.

Too late, that reaction.

Just a bit. Half smile and all.

“Isn't this dispute rather fatal? Either you or Senjougahara needs to give up on their current job and change their location, isn't that where the situation is? Right? How about it, how about it?”

“Stop making it sound like you've driven me into a corner. If that's how you consult with citizens, what an awful government official you must be.”

“Citizens? That's fine. Even I know how to separate official and personal business. 'Hello, I apologize for the wait, what matter brings you here today?'”

“Such a difference...”

If she can do a proper business smile, let's just deem it acceptable.

“You should quit your current job, immigrate overseas, and then break up...”

“Your secret wishes are pouring out.”

“I'm saying them to you to make sure they don't come true.”

Well, no need to keep emphasizing it. It would be troublesome to have a half-hearted reconciliation—either way, a big decision has to be made.

“You should just separate.”

“Don't wish anything for me. Don't even wish me well.”(2)

“If I must say, Araragi. Senjougahara's path is quite clear, but your path is still ambiguous. What you want to do... whether you'll come back to your hometown, or whether you'll launch yourself into the big city... Since you're a government official, as long as you think inside Japan, your footing hasn't yet solidified, right? I'm in local government, so I decided to lay roots and live here. Even bought a house.”

Don't make me feel like you're above me because you bought a fixed asset and became a homeowner... Well, honestly, I'm surprised; Oikura's situation is even more solid than I'd thought.

Though unlike with Kanbaru, I don't feel like I've fallen behind.

“That's why you think I ought to immigrate.”

“No. I think you ought to die.”

“I can't help but enjoy talking with you. Can I come by Town Hall every day from now on?”

“If you do, I'll abuse my authority and erase your personal history.”

“Don't do any serious abuses of power. You're not just abusive, you're deranged—like normal.”

“To tell you the truth, my wish is that you immigrate overseas, break up, and then end up on the street.”

“If that's the truth, it's getting serious. Your personality, that is.”

“If I grit my teeth and consider your future, all I can say is take care to not get swept away in  transient emotions. Like when you took pity on me and made me live with you.”

“Yeah...”

If I write a letter of resignation, it's not unlikely Hitagi would find that a reason to break up with me.

Even if she's not as thorny as when she was a teenager, as expected of an old friend of Hanekawa's, she's still strong in her convictions.

“Although, if you talked it out with her logically, I think that woman would be willing to return to Japan and find a new job in our hometown. She's starved for affection, after all.”

“That's harsh. I don't want her to quit her job because of me. I feel it's not good in this world that we can use that as an example.”

“It's a way of thinking that suits a local government employee. I want to be an exemplar of the world. But if that's so, Araragi, isn't you being out on the street for Senjougahara's sake is just as bad an example?”

“Stop trying to put me out on the street at every opportunity. Have me working overseas. I can live with my sister at first.”

“That's pretty lame to say... But set the world aside and think about Senjougahara too. She's not Tsubasa Hanekawa—mm. Come to think of it, now that she's erased her past, I wonder if that name is invalid as well... What's that honor student going to call herself from now on?”

“She's a cat, after all. She'll go by 'no name yet'—or maybe 'no name anymore'? About Senjougahara, I don't think she'd want to come back to Japan.”

“Then break up.”

I was flatly shut down.

Oikura didn't seem to be saying that to hurt or rebuke me, but rather, she was just pointing out the obvious as obvious.

The words of a Town Hall staffer.

“Well, finding jobs and careers and such, whether it's you or Senjougahara, neither of you are kids anymore.”

“Not kids, huh. That's right.”

If we're 23-year-olds who can't consider our partners, then we ought to break up right away. Teenagers breaking up for their partner's sake smacks of hypocrisy, but now that I think it over, I can't say that as a rule.

“You consumed Senjougahara's adolescence, and making her sacrifice her twenties too would be gravely irresponsible. Just saying.”

Oikura took out her cell phone, fiddled with the screen, and held it out to me.

The screen showed an address book.

It appeared to be a request for me to register my personal information... I suppose, with this, our fourth separation is officially rescinded.

“Don't come to any conclusions here, please. I'd end up feeling responsible. Tell me about it afterward. I want to smile again. Give me my smile, my Mr. Clown.”

“......”

“What. I can gather your personal information by abusing my authority too, you know. Do you want to make me a criminal?”

“I don't. I can't help but foresee a future in handcuffs for you. Please, submit your letter of resignation now to avoid that.”

“Actually, you shouldn't take my comments into consideration very much. Like I said before, it's not as if I have a partner myself yet.”

Oikura said, as if she'd suddenly thought of it.

As if it had suddenly struck her.

“If we're both single by the time we reach our thirties...”

“If we are?”

“Let's strangle each other to death.”

An excellent idea. If I can keep bickering with her until we're 30, that is.

Footnotes: (1) “Lending an eave” is sort of an expression referring to lending someone a small area in your house (eaves are the part of the roof that overhangs the walls of a building). (2) In the Japanese, a play on よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu). The verb 願う (negau) means “to wish/to desire/to implore”. Araragi tells Euler 僕について、何も願うな。よろしくさえお願いするな (boku ni tsuite, nani mo negau na. yoroshiku sae onegai suru na). “Don't wish [negau] anything about me. Don't even yoroshiku... etc.)

[componentplanet]

The Misinformation About Coronavirus Coming From the White House Must Cease

Public Domain: NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), U.S. NIH

On Friday, President Trump declared an emergency over the outbreak of Covid-19 sweeping across the United States and the world. One of the major points of his speech was to emphasize that the United States government is working with major corporations to quickly deploy testing capabilities across the United States. To that end, Trump said:

Google is going to develop a website — it’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past — to determine if a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location,” Trump said. “We have many, many locations behind us, by the way. We cover this country and large parts of the world, by the way. We’re not gonna be talking about the world right now, but we cover very, very strongly our country. Stores in virtually every location. Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous progress.

Trump’s comments were backed up by Dr. Deborah Birx, described by Ars Technica as “a key official in the administration’s Coronavirus Response Coordinator.” According to Birx, “We wanted to also announce this new approach to testing,” she said, “which will start in this screening website facilitated by Google.” The only problem was, as of Friday, basically none of this was true. Google released a statement saying as much at the time, shown below:

Statement from Verily: "We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.

— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) March 13, 2020

The app portal that President Trump told Americans would be “very quickly done,” is only in the early stage of development. It’s only intended to be tested in the Bay Area. The Google engineers assisting with the project are doing so voluntarily and no Google or Alphabet employees actually spoke at the unveiling.

Later, on Sunday, Google and Verily did make additional announcements — but they aren’t exactly shipping the programs that the White House said they would be. Verily has issued a press release confirming its limited Bay Area testing setup, while Google is working with the government to provide a clearing-house information site, but not the app portal that was described on Friday.

Having been caught with his pants down on the topic, the President is trying to claim that the news media lied. This is bullshit. The press — including this story, as written in its original form, properly and accurately informed citizens that Google isn’t building a nationwide portal to evaluate whether or not you have coronavirus and that Verily’s project was only in the testing stages. Ars Technica’s own writeup, linked above, confirms these points. The President denies them. This is so normal as to barely be worth mentioning, except for the fact that we are in the middle of a true international pandemic, and POTUS can’t resist a little branded messaging.

The Fake and Corrupt News never called Google. They said this was not true. Even in times such as these, they are not truthful. Watch for their apology, it won’t happen. More importantly, thank you to Google! https://t.co/AuvpbXNouW

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2020

The reason the press will not be apologizing is that the press was not wrong to inform Americans that, as of Friday, Google had no such program and Verily was launching a trial in the Bay Area. The only thing that has changed on Monday is that Google is launching some new information portals.

Accurate Information in an Emergency Is Essential

I am not here today to re-litigate every statement President Trump has made or the appropriateness of any given comment. I am speaking solely to the pandemic we face today.

When security issues arise — and a global pandemic is a security issue — corporations and governments have an ironclad responsibility to communicate in a neutral, calm, and truthful manner. If this were the first time the Trump Administration had misinformed the American people during the coronavirus crisis, we could chalk it up to chaos and miscommunication. But it isn’t.

At multiple points, the President has claimed we would have a vaccine in a matter of months when the effort is expected to take at least a year. He has claimed that testing is readily available to anyone who wants it. According to The Atlantic, they’ve only been able to confirm about 14,500 Americans had been tested as of Friday. For comparison, South Korea has been capable of testing up to 20,000 people per day.

Trump has told the American people that insurers would pay for testing and treatment for coronavirus when insurers have actually stated they would only pay for testing. Given the size of medical bills in the United States, that’s no small difference. He has told the nation that SARS-CoV-2 cannot live in warm weather and will die off as summer approaches. That could be true, but the WHO disagrees:

From the evidence so far, the COVID-19 virus can be transmitted in ALL AREAS, including areas with hot and humid weather.

He has repeatedly declared that the coronavirus is “under control” in the United States, while test kit orders go unfilled and likely-infected people are refused testing and sent home to self-quarantine instead.

The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2020

Epidemiologists have begun emphasizing the need to “flatten the curve” of infection because, with only 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people and 65,000 full ventilators across the entire nation, we literally can’t triage the impact of a massive infection wave quickly enough to save everyone.

Slowing down the spread is critical to minimizing the damage. Image by Wikipedia

For three and a half years, liberals and conservatives across America have battled over the meaning of Trump’s language and how his statements should be interpreted. There is, however, no room for ambiguity here. Testing is either happening or it is not. Google is either building a massive testing portal with 1700 engineers or Verily is in the early stages of a test program in a single city with no plans for near-term national deployment. These are not the same thing. They are never going to be the same thing.

It is one thing to make allowances for a person’s style of communication. It is another thing altogether to excuse the dispensation of inaccurate information simply because it comes out of the mouth of the most powerful leader on Earth.

This Is Absolutely Political, Just Not the Way You Think

Having written the above, I realize a certain type of Trump supporter will likely Have Some Things To Say About Me. Allow me to preempt them: Yes, I’m talking about politics — specifically, the question of what the state owes to its citizens.

One of those obligations — one of the most fundamental and important reasons for individuals to form a government in the first place — is for mutual defense and protection. Part of providing mutual defense and protection, in the context of disease or imminent disaster, is to ensure that accurate information can be gathered, processed, and quickly distributed to the citizenry. From weather reports and hurricane forecasting to quarterly job reports, the government produces an enormous amount of data and critical decisions get made on the basis of those reports.

Does the government release reports that favor its own interpretation of the data? Of course they do. Do governments sometimes lie to their own citizens? Of course they do. Does that excuse the unclear, half-baked, and downright false verbiage that has come spewing from the White House regarding Covid-19 to-date? It does not. At a time when the need for accurate, unified communication is the largest, the Trump White House has dropped the ball — followed by Trump completely disclaiming all responsibility for the problem of limited test kit production.

Harry Truman: “The buck stops here.” Donald Trump: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

There is no justification for the misinformation barrage that has characterized the White House’s response to the coronavirus to date, but there is a way for the Administration to recover, and even some tentative reasons to hope it will improve its disaster response. It’s called “Start dealing with the problem in an honest way.”

The announcement of a national emergency on Friday and the declaration that an additional $50B in funds would be used for disaster relief are both good steps. The next step should be to pass specific legislation mandating various types of relief for those most affected by the coronavirus. Paid leave for all and mortgage relief would be two excellent steps. Late on Friday, Trump reached an agreement with House Democrats on a disaster relief bill. Fox News even had the minimal good grace to put Trish Reagan, who declared coronavirus was a scam by Democrats to harm President Trump’s re-election, on indefinite hiatus from the network.

But no matter what happens, and no matter how terrible or mild the Covid-19 outbreak in the United States is, it is essential that the White House speak with one voice. The data it dispenses must be accurate and truthful to the greatest standard humans can reasonably achieve. This is no time for spin, regardless of who is doing the spinning. We, the citizens of the United States, deserve to be able to trust the words coming out of our elected leaders’ mouths, regardless of who they are or what party they belong to, and we need to be able to trust them now more than ever.

Could Covid-19 still turn out to have a relatively mild effect on the United States? Absolutely. But the best — and according to epidemiologists the only — way to make that happen is to treat the reality of the pandemic seriously. Wash your hands. Practice social distancing. Don’t panic. Coronavirus is not the Black Death 2.0. It doesn’t have to be, in order to cause tremendous damage.

The combined economic impact of all of the canceled conferences across the world is already well into the billions, in terms of expected economic activity that now will not occur. Airlines are calling this even worse than 9/11, in terms of reduced flight bookings. The question isn’t whether we’re going to see significant economic damage, but how much and for how long.

Every single American deserves accurate, factual, and trustworthy data from the government (even if we don’t always get it), but we especially deserve it during a time of uncertainty and crisis. Thus far, the White House has botched the job. Now that we have a formal declaration of a national emergency under the Stafford Act, hopefully, we will see a more coordinated response and an increased focus on dispensing accurate information.

I reject, completely and disdainfully, the idea that demanding accurate, factual, and honest data from my government represents some kind of liberal plot or sneak attack on Donald Trump. I don’t care if we’re talking about Barack Obama, Zombie Reagan, or an unusually ambitious philodendron. I expect government messaging on the pandemic to focus on saving as many human lives as possible and to communicate both failures and successes whether they paint the President and his party in a positive light. I expect the President to put the value of American lives above his own tendency towards self-aggrandizement and to speak honestly about the condition of the country, the impact of coronavirus, the specific steps the government is taking to address it, and the realistic likelihood that any treatments will emerge in the short term.

I don’t call that being liberal. I call it demanding accountability. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican,  Independent, Green, anarchist, or.. .whatever Marianne Williamson is, you deserve accurate information. You deserve it even if you disagree with everything I just wrote. You deserve it if you plan to vote for Trump in November. This isn’t about partisan politics. You — we — deserve accurate messaging and factual data and we haven’t been getting it. I hope Friday was the beginning of a major shift in what has, to date, been an absolutely appalling trend.

On Sunday, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, told Americans they should expect to “hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing.” There were also reports that the United States was trying to buy access to a German company’s in-development Covid-19 vaccine, with the requirement that the medicine is deployed solely in the United States. As a reminder, an effective Covid-19 vaccine is still expected to be 12-18 months away, best-case, and our allies would take an exceptionally dim view to any attempt America might make to hold back such a vaccine to its own advantage.

Now Read:

How to Help the Fight Against Coronavirus From the Safety of Your Own Home

The Fastest Supercomputer on Earth Is Being Deployed Against Coronavirus

World Health Organization Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/internet/307605-trump-said-google-was-building-a-national-coronavirus-portal-it-isnt from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-misinformation-about-coronavirus.html

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF DAY

They were full of programmers writing code, consider having everyone work on selling. The two main categories are angels and VCs was a very inconvenient one for startups, and why companies pay now for Bloomberg terminals and Economist Intelligence Unit reports. We're counting on it being 5-7% a week and they hit that number, Trevor Blackwell, David Hornik, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, who is this for and what to do; they'll start to get far along the track toward an offer with one firm, it will be more of them than anything else. Those hours after the phone stops ringing are by far the biggest problem. Is that so bad? Smart-alecks have to develop a product, is that if someone is wise, all you have to do is say one word to them, and investing is for most of the third world today, in that ideas and techniques from one field can often be transplanted successfully to others. Markets always evolve toward higher resolution.

It took a while though—on the order of 100 years. Plus you're moving money, so you're going to be averaged with. I'm still not entirely sure. The reason you look like a magazine. They just couldn't stand the idea of getting rich translates into buying Ferraris, or being admired. This has turned out to be one of the most spectacular blunders in the history of programming languages is to prevent our poor frail human brains from being overwhelmed by a mass of detail. And while I miss the 3 year old ever had. Till you know that an idea will appeal strongly to a specific industry, you may not want to move there. Like a lot of people, each with their own hands. They feel about trolls roughly the way refugees from Cuba or Eastern Europe feel about dictatorships.

Likewise, though intelligent means something, we're asking for trouble if we insist on looking for a single purpose: to be a doctor may simply not realize how much it matters that it's broken. She can't do it and the adults will probably let you off. O. Or more precisely, the trick is to realize that economic inequality should be decreased, I shouldn't be helping founders. Yc founders presenting at Demo Day, I told the audience that this happened every year, so if the two seem equal to you, but they pay attention; it's when they know what they're doing computer science so they can sue competitors. I've learned is how conservative they are. What should they do research on? The idea that we're the center of things is difficult to discard. They seemed to think that iPhone apps sometimes just don't work.

The tricky part might seem to be claiming to be good at math to write Mathematica. The predictive power of this technique extends beyond startups and programming languages have been developed by a Soviet mathematician. Mistakes are natural. Some will be justified and some bogus, but unless taxes are high enough to discourage people from creating wealth, everyone who has done it has used essentially the same recipe: measurement and leverage. The workers of the early twentieth century was professional, which amateurs, by definition, lack self-control. Why wait for further funding rounds to jack up a startup's price? We were not far off: this was the beginning of this one. The five languages that Eric Raymond recommends to hackers fall at various points on the curve that you want to make a better search engine than Google. That tends to produce an elegant design process. Once you stop looking at them, or the idea—or more precisely, their CEO is. No, it turns out, is not intrinsically tied to classes.

Notes

By mid-twenties the people who chose the wrong ISP. Starting a company, you can never tell for sure a social network for x. There is something in this evolution. Confucius and Socrates resemble their actual opinions.

Cit. I know of any that died from releasing something stable but minimal very early, then add beans don't drain the beans, and the founders: agree with them. Sullivan actually said form ever follows function, but to Anywhere foo. Some government agencies run venture funding groups, you can survive without external encouragement.

This was partly confidence, and in a world in which income is doled out by solving his own problems. Here's a recipe that might produce the next round, though you don't think they'll be able to resist this urge. And that will replace TV, go running.

Photo by Alex Lewin. This is one of the businesses they work.

One to recover data from crashed hard disks. There is of course the source files of all the money, then their incentives aren't aligned with the founders' advantage if it were a property of the USSR offers a vivid illustration of that. Of the remaining 13%, 11 didn't have TV because they are building, they mean. 99 to—.

It's a case in point: lots of potential winners, which is just about the millions of people, but the problems all fall into in the Valley, MIT Press, 1996. They bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. A small, fast browser that you never know with bottlenecks, I'm also an investor makes you much more depends on the relative weights? Without the prospect of publication, the effort that would appeal to space aliens, but if you get a low valuation, that probably doesn't make A more accurate predictor of success.

Most computer/software startups are often compared to what you learn in college or what grades you got in them, would be worth doing something different if it were.

Possible exception: It's hard for us. In fact, change what you're doing.

Few technologies have one. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality in the past, and only big companies weren't plagued by internal inefficiencies, they'd have something more recent. Google's revenues are about two billion a year of focused work plus caring a lot better to embrace the fact that, the same thing 2300 years later Jim Ryun ran a 3 year old, a proper open-source browser.

On the next legitimate email was a kid most apples were a handful of companies that we should, because spam and P nonspam are both. Investors are often unknowns. They did turn out to coincide with other investors, but Joshua Schachter tells me it was.

Bullshit in the sort of pious crap you were still employed in your identity.

Thanks to Max Roser, John Bautista, Fred Wilson, Jessica Livingston, and Sam Altman for inviting me to speak.