#the assumption that i will get all the once i submit This week correct. which is unlikely

[pallases]

i am this close to collapsing i cannot DO THIS ANYMORE!!

[sams-venting]

Previous anons are continuing to make assumptions about people and dragging things out again like one of the other anons was advising people to STOP doing.

What good is pointing fingers and blaming people now when doing so caused this whole entire mess with Lux and Biased-tsams-confessions where y’all were shitting on and making up lies about the “big blogs” because you misinterpreted their intentions and ran with the lies that Biased pushed.

Y’all complain and say the big blogs gotta apologize and take responsibility for shit, but what about all of you and Biased dragging in random big artists who had nothing to do with what was going on just because they interacted with a post? Pixel Chills runs a small business and could have sued for libel and slander over what happened but instead chose to just bring awareness to the harassment and help expose the truth of what they went through instead.

And then y’all turn around and take issue with their doing so when none of this would have happened if some people, a very SPECIFIC one mind you as they are known to go into people’s inboxes, deciding to go around warning people over other uses over the slightest offense. Full on name dropping blogs, exposing their PERSONAL accounts unrelated to FNaF or SAMS, and even turning on some of the people they tried to “warn” when that person attempted to correct and explain how they got their info wrong and claiming they were in support of whatever narrative they had spun in their head.

That same person had attempted to submit a list of FIFTY PLUS PEOPLE to Biased, which thankfully they rejected, just for interacting with the post. The same thing a lot of you complain got you on the temporary list found on Alex’s doc that was taken down before any of you received harassment (because I checked in on all of your blogs for a couple weeks after the fact when I initially saw it out of concern. None of you got any sort of harassment at all like one anon previously claimed. I only saw it after the podcast episode and even then people unrelated to the doc were getting harassed).

And another thing I don’t understand: why was it when the doc on Lux came out from his victims who learned about what was going on with him were you all quick to blame shippers and the big blogs for the new doc? It very clearly stated it was by the victims, most of them still minors, but I saw so many claiming otherwise and more recently saw someone telling the creators of that second doc to “grow up” cause they “were adults”.

But they aren’t adults.

The people who made that doc are Lux’s victims, NOT the big blogs.

All of you claim to support victims, but then when actual victims come out and call out their abuser wish evidence you dismiss it in favor of demonizing the popular people ended up reblogging it for awareness but had nothing to do with its creation.

I tried telling Biased that initially but my ask about that got deleted as they were more willing to believe and spread the narrative that it WAS made by them.

Anyway, my point:

Biased-Tsams-Confessions has not apologized for any of the false allegations and lies they spread while the big blogs have more than once.

And can we PLEASE just fucking move on already?

Opinion in tags.

[merge-conflict]

word search tag game

Tagged by @wanderingaldecaldo Couldn't resist turning this one around quickly - I love doing these because I get to search not one but two badly organized scrivener projects and then try to remember what the hell I was working on and how long ago.

Anyway, content warning for some suggestive/sexual content under the cut, but nothing explicit.

privacy (I used to carry you home)

For two weeks [V] had been waiting for this moment, and it took a considerable amount of self control not to bare her teeth in the elevator and unsettle the other occupants any more than they already were. There was a gentle warning pulsing in her notifications, advising her to avoid unnecessary stress. She practiced her box breathing until the car slid to a stop on her floor and she exited into a cloud of frantic misery so thick it made her teeth itch. Oh how she had missed this!

Everything was falling into place at once, her limbs strong and steady, her head clear, and anticipation fluttering in her lungs. Johnny would have hated the bold clean lines of the architecture, the cramped conference rooms, the cubicles that gave not a single pretext of privacy– but she was so glad to see it she could have cried. There were plenty of threats here, to be sure, but she knew the shape of all of them, and if she was going to cheat death she wanted to do it somewhere climate-controlled. She cut through the atrium like a blade through water, drawing attention in her wake without turning to see it.

claim (old WIP)

Let Abernathy watch as V took him, played with him, staked her claim. Perhaps it would finally wipe the superior smile from her face as V interlaced her fingers with his, responding to his warning with vigor that would take him right over the edge. Surely she could not contain herself when he pulled V into his lap, kissed her deeply, submitted himself to her good-natured teasing–

“Takemura?”

Abernathy was looking at him now, one eyebrow raised. Someone must have asked him a question, and he wasn’t entirely sure who it had been. He avoided looking at V.

“Forgive me, Director,” he said, unhurriedly. “My attention was on another matter.”

It was embarrassing in the extreme, to have been caught out in a childish daydream, and unforgivably rude to have lost focus during a meeting he was nominally a part of. But his colleagues seemed ready to believe he had been fielding some important request, and he saw no reason to correct the assumption.

suspicion (old WIP)

The meeting started late, as it usually did, as it followed some other weekly meeting for the operational managers which was held three floors away. [Goro] had a suspicion Abernathy had planned it that way on purpose, so that most of her reports were left scrambling, entering a meeting with their department head left waiting. Sometimes she liked to single them out as they came in, throwing them directly into the spotlight to begin.

But it had been a quiet week, and Abernathy seemed to be in a good mood. There was plenty of old business to discuss, none of it requiring his direct attention. His presence, like the increased security within all levels of the tower, was as much a reminder to keep in line, as it was anything else. CounterIntel had one of the lowest turnover rates of any local department, but as Hanako-sama had reminded him, that was not necessarily an indication of loyalty. The skills they used to foil and track Arasaka’s enemies could just as easily be turned against the company.

V spoke very little in the meeting, except to prompt for clarification, a talent she sometimes wielded brutally– backing reluctant execs into a corner until they admitted their failures. Less frequently she would call attention to an idea, unfolding it to be put on display, giving praise without ever uttering a compliment. She was, as she had told him, Abernathy’s right hand– a role which seemed to primarily consist of controlling the flow of the meeting, as Abernathy herself remained distant until her judgment or direction was required. It was a far cry from their internal meetings, where the two fought as often as they agreed, and V had pitched most of the plans that Abernathy spoke about as if they were her own.

flush (when her edges soften)

There was an intermission before the next pair came out, and V got up without speaking to [Johnny], leaving only her jacket as a thin sort of reassurance that she’d be back. He drained his drink and wondered whether he should be concerned about whatever shit she had planned. All he could think about was her chasing down his sloppy seconds. Fuck. He’d just start to think he’d let her make the next move, and then she’d say something like that. If whatever fucked mind game she was playing wasn’t the most fun he’d had in ages he might have taken a swing at her himself to start.

“You keep drinking like that, you're going to go soft.” V pulled her chair out, so that it was no longer flush with his own, leaving half his right leg hanging over the edge.

chords/chord

none!

There's a lot of folks tagged in this already, so I don't want to overwhelm anyone- although rest assured I love to read people's writing so if you wanna use these words or just share your work and tag me please do. :3 (Pls rec your own work honestly I have some uninterruptible reading time coming up and I need to start downloading all y'all's fics off ao3)

[angelsfwrites]

BLOOD | JASPER HALE

This prompt was submitted by anon:

I hope you enjoy xx !

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀         ❉

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀BLOOD  

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀❉

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ JASPER HALE X READER ONE SHOT

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WARNINGS: Blood, a bit of gore, injuries, broken bones, and violence ! Please, read with caution !

IT was a regular Saturday and you were just waiting for Jasper to come over to watch some movies with you. You two had planned this day a while ago and were both eager to just spend some downtime together. You had a list of movies ready on your phone- even being old as dirt, Jasper hadn’t seen too many films- and the list consisted mostly of rom coms and scary movies.  

You already had the bag of movies set on your dresser, near the TV, and were just waiting for Jasper to show up at your window like he usually does. The very first time that you heard knocking outside scared the shit out of you and you ended up whacking him with a bat when he climbed into the room. Now, the knocking was a welcome sound; a sign that the comforting embrace of home would soon be around you.

When the sound of knocking broke you from reminiscing, you were happy to see Jasper gracefully climb into your room.

He smirked at you, eyes lighting up, “Hi, darlin’. I missed you.” His southern drawl washed over you like a warm blanket when he spoke- you absolutely loved the sound of his voice. 

You smiled wide at him and walked over to cozy up in his arms, “I missed you, even more, Jazz.” Though his body was ice cold on your heated one, his arms never failed to feel warm around your body. The temperature shock had been a bit weird at the very beginning of the relationship, but now it was something you always longed to feel. Plus, it had its perks; you were never too hot sleeping at night with your body tucked into his.  

His hand ran through your hair as you rested your head in the crook of his neck. His scent was something you wished you could bottle up and save forever. You never knew if it was Jasper’s emotion manipulating ability or just the scent of him, but being near him eased your anxiety by tenfold. 

He rested his head over yours as he spoke in a soft voice, “Not even possible, darlin’.”

You smiled softly into his neck because you knew there was no way you would ever win that argument with him. The very few times you tried, the vampire would begin to list a million reasons why it was impossible that you missed him more than he missed you. There was never any point in trying to counter back with reasons of your own; Jasper made sure he won every time.

When his hands stopped running through your hair, confusion ran through your body. But, when his cold hands lifted your head up by the cheeks and he leaned down to plant a sweet kiss on your lips, it vanished quickly. Jasper would only ever leave lingering pecks to your mouth, never anything too long or hot and heavy. His self-control was something he still struggled with, especially being near you- a human- all the time. He was slowly getting better with the help of his family and constant exposure to the smell of human blood. 

Your lips reached after his to grab them in another short, sweet kiss. You knew better than to push your luck with him and you rarely ever tried to. 

When you leaned back, you asked, “What took you so long, baby?”

The smile fell slightly from his face when he responded shortly to you, “I had to feed before coming.”

Feeding was never something Jasper liked to talk about and it was avoided most times in conversation. He still felt a lingering sense of shame around you because of his nature, even when you reminded him it was something that you didn’t really care about. That confession alone always seemed to pull the anger out of Jasper every time you said it. He claimed he was dangerous and could kill swiftly in a second. He reminded you that his nature wasn’t something that could be easily forgotten about; he was still the predator and you were still the prey. 

You ran a soft hand over his cheek, “It’s okay, Jazz, I understand.”

He gave you a look full of adoration as he leaned into your hand, “You’re too sweet to me, honey.”

Instead of answering him, you gave him a small smile with your nose scrunched up into your face. He leaned down and nuzzled your nose with his own; you really loved it when he did that. He could be so loving at times it almost made your heart melt right out of your chest.

“Why don’t we start the movie now, darlin’.” He chuckled at you when he saw your mouth turn from a smile to a pout at his words, “If we don’t start now, it’ll be almost too late to watch another one.” The pout stayed on your face, but you knew he was right, “Alright, Jazz,” You sighed, “I guess you’re right.”

His laugh rang through your ears, “Of course I am, darlin’.”

“Just let me go grab the movies; they’re brand new, I just picked them up from the store a few days ago.” With those words, you turned to shuffle through the bag sitting on your dresser. You heard rustling behind you as you grabbed the first movie- Jasper must’ve sat down on the bed to get comfortable. When you turned to face him and your assumption was correct; Jasper was propped up against the headboard with his arms tucked behind his head.

He smirked at you, “So, which one are we watchin’ first?” 

“Midsommar; it’s one of my favorite horror movies and I know for a fact you’ve never seen it,” You said with confidence laced through your words.

He raised an eyebrow at you and asked, “Darlin’, you’re not gunna get too scared, right?”

“Psst, I rarely ever get scared at horror movies,” You waved a hand at him and rolled your eyes.

His hands raised in defensive, “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

You rolled your eyes at him again and began to fiddle with the movie packaging, “Now, I just have to get the damn thing open.”

Once you got the first plastic layer off of the movie box, you sought to remove it from its cardboard cover. However, when you tried to slide the movie out, your finger slipped and the cardboard cut through the delicate skin. Immediately, your face paled and anxiety coursed through your body. Fear was making your heart begin to pump faster; Jasper’s self-control was still extremely faulty. As far as you knew, he’d never been exposed to human blood since his diet was changed strictly to animal blood. You didn’t know how this situation would end, but the white-hot fear that coated every nerve told you it was bad.

Before you could even wrap it in your shirt and ask Jasper to leave, he grabbed you and pushed you into the dresser. His eyes had changed from the light amber you loved to a much more sinister, dark orange. He had one arm pressed over your throat and his free hand had your bleeding finger gripped in the other. The arm over your neck seemed to push down more and more each second; breathing was starting to get extremely difficult as the pressure prevented most of the air from reaching your lungs.

You breathlessly whimpered out in pain, “Jasper, please, you’re hurting me.” Your words were broken up by gasps and whimpers and sounded completely breathless. 

There was absolutely no one to help you out of this mess, so you relied on Jasper being able to stop himself from doing something awful. Even if you had a lot of faith in your boyfriend, the likelihood of him being able to stop and pull himself from this daze was slim.

You gripped his arm with your other hand and began to try and wiggle around to hopefully shock him out of it and let you go. But, at the first sign of struggling, Jasper began to bear his arm down harder on your delicate throat. Your mouth opened in desperation and shock as you felt something near your shoulder snap. Pain from the snap caused you to breathlessly cry out as tears dripped down your cheeks. 

So, you changed tactics and relied on the other thing that would hopefully push Jasper out of his daze; emotions. You knew he could feel and manipulate emotions and that fear was among the worst to feel. Jasper had told you that when he was under Maria’s command, she would have him kill most of the newborns. He said that feeling their fear and their deaths was something that would forever haunt him.

You did the best you could to push the fear and anxiety you felt into him; it wasn’t hard, considering this was the first time in your life you’d ever felt fear as strong as this. You hoped this would work because he was getting extremely close to crushing your windpipe under his arm.

Suddenly, the arm left your neck and Jasper’s presence was removed from around your body- it worked, your plan had actually worked. Your body sunk to the ground as your hands rose up to touch your throat. You heaved air into your withered lungs and almost cried in relief when the air reached them. However, when your hands brushed over your left collarbone, you winced in pain; Jasper must’ve broken the small bone when he pushed you down into the dresser.

When you gathered enough courage to look up, what you saw nearly broke your heart. Jasper was back over by the window with his mouth open and air being sucked into his lungs at a rapid pace. You knew vampires couldn’t cry, but the look of pure devastation and self-hatred told you that maybe they could if they tried hard enough. You wanted to tell him it was alright; that it was your fault it happened, but as he tried to move closer to you, all you could muster was a frightened whimper. He backed away immediately and his face fell more when he saw you push yourself into the dresser to put distance in between the two of you. Jasper gave you one more painful look as he slipped out of your window.

You took a few minutes to try and calm down before you moved to take yourself to the hospital to get checked out. You didn’t have it in you to try to register the fact that Jasper had left you like that. Right now, you still felt extremely threatened by him and needed a few days.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀❉

IT had been about a week and a half since you had last seen Jasper. Once the fear of seeing him left you after a few days alone, loneliness and longing took its place. He hadn’t hurt you as bad as he could’ve and you can’t even find it in you to blame him. It was his nature and you knew from the very start that this could be dangerous at times. He wasn’t like the other Cullens, as much as he wanted to be, his thirst was still something he struggled to control every day. You should’ve been more cautious around him. 

You found yourself wishing that he would climb in through your bedroom window every night and just hold you while you slept. But, at the same time, you were too depressed to leave the house to go see him. You didn’t want to hear one of the Cullens say he didn’t want to see you- that would break your heart even more than it already was. 

Your head raised a bit as the sound of someone knocking on your front door broke through the silence and turned to check the time: 11:47 PM. You didn’t know anyone that would come knocking on your door at this hour and curiosity began to fill your body. You shakily raised yourself off from your worn spot on the couch and moved over to the door to peer out of the peephole. On the other end, you saw what you had been longing to see for days, Jasper.

You quickly moved to unlock the door and throw it open. Once he was in front of you, you went to reach out to him. Jasper flinched and backed away from you and your hand dropped as your heart cracked even more. 

You choked out his name, “Jasper.” Hot tears began to sting your eyes as you watched him flinch again at the sound of your voice- still hoarse from his attack.

He took a shaky breath in, even though he didn’t need to, and started to talk, “I’m so sorry.” The sound of utter dejection and grief in his voice was almost enough to bring you to your knees right there, “God, I am so sorry.”

Tears made their way down your face as you choked over your words, “Please, just let me touch you.”

Jasper shook his head and desperation rose into your voice, “Please, Jazz, please, God just let me hold you. It’s alright.” 

At those words, his head shot up and he looked angry, “How could you even say that? I almost crushed you with my bare hands and you tell me it’s alright?” His voice was starting to rise and he was shaking more and more by the minute, “You were scared of me! I watched you whimper and try to make yourself as small as possible to get away from me!”

You knew you weren’t the one he was mad at- his own self was what he held anger for. You also knew that he wouldn’t try to hurt you again, but the small voice in the back of your mind wouldn’t stop talking about the possibility of it. ‘No,’ you thought, ‘I won’t be scared of him right now; he’s tearing at the seams.’

Jasper fell to the ground and you heard the small crack of his knees meeting the wood of your porch, “I have no right to even be here right now. I could snap again and hurt you even more,” His voice sounded wet with tears, even though his eyes couldn’t shed any.

Finally, your voice came to you in a small whisper, “You won’t.”

Jasper’s hands were tearing into his jeans and he spoke with his eyes to the ground, “Look at yourself in a mirror,” His voice was eerily quiet but soon rose again with agitation, “Look at yourself in a goddamn mirror! I broke bones, bruised your neck, and your fucking hand!” His volume grew each word he spoke, “I would’ve killed you and I wouldn’t have been able to save you!”

Jasper heaved on the ground and when he spoke this time, his voice was quiet and broken, “I felt your fear. I felt your panic. Feelin’ you scared because of me should’ve been enough to kill me; I wanted it to,” He sounded like a sad little boy in front of you, “I almost lost you and that would’ve been on me forever,” His words were choked with heavy sadness- they devastated the very core of your being.

You couldn’t watch the man you love crumble and break in front of your eyes, in fact, you refused to. You finally moved and fell to your knees directly in front of him. Before Jasper even had the chance to move anyway, you threw your uninjured arm around his shoulder and pulled yourself close to him. The movement aggravated your broken collar bone and a couple sore spots on your body, but you didn’t care. You just needed to hold him close and try to piece together each broken part of him.

You felt relieved when he accepted the contact and even more so when he buried his head into your neck opposite to the damaged side. Your voice was quiet and comforting in his ear as you whispered, “Jasper, it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault; I know you have a hard time with self-control. I should’ve been more careful.”

He shook his head into you, “How can you say that? I’m a monster- a terrible monster.” God, the sound of grief in his voice was making you break. How could this man ever think he was what he said he was? 

You tried to swallow the tears as best as you could before you spoke again, “I will never think of you as a monster because you aren’t close to being one, Jazz.”

He began to shake his head again, but you interrupted him before he could speak, “If you were one, you never would’ve come here to see me and you definitely wouldn’t have let me go that day,” You gripped his face by his left cheek to move him so you were directly staring into his eyes with your next words, “You’re no monster, Jasper Hale; you’re the man I love and he’s an absolute angel.”

His unneeded breath was shaky and hitting your lips every time he breathed out, “I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head, “Stop saying that, I’m fine. I’m healing and I’m fine, alright? I’m not going anywhere; you’re stuck with me forever, baby.”

Jasper was starting to look more relieved after you spoke and you guessed he was probably calming down now. He was beginning to see that you were alright, bit banged up around the edges, but still alright.

He lightly touched the bruises around your throat and swallowed harshly. He examined your broken collar bone and your arm snug in its sling along with it. Jasper let his finger trace a line down the sling, but stopped at your bandaged hand. Once again, he swallowed and bent down to lightly kiss the wrap. Tears flung to your eyes as your heart swelled with love; how could he be anything less than angelic?

You sniffled through tears and choked out, “I love you so much, Jazz.” He peered up at you in panic, “Did I hurt you?” He was getting frantic again.

“No,” You shook your head, “I just missed you and I love you more than anything.”

He moved up to your face again, “Can I kiss you?”

Your heart almost broke at the question- he sounded so small. But, you pushed it back and nodded your head, “Of course you can.” His lips met yours in a sweet, soft kiss. His hand threaded through your hair carefully so as not to pull and hurt your neck more. When he pulled back, the misery in his eyes was dimmed a bit and a new emotion was beginning to take its place, love. He ran his hand softly over your cheek to lightly trace over your mouth with his fingers. When his index finger reached the center of your lips, you softly kissed the pad of it. 

“Will you stay with me tonight?” You could hear the fear of rejection threaded through the sentence as your lips moved against his finger.

Jasper looked hesitant and like he might say no, it wasn’t a good idea. But, you pleaded with him, “Please?” You put your best puppy dog eyes on.

He smiled softly at that, “Okay.”

Relief coursed through your veins with just that one word, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, sweetheart, I always wanna be with you,” Even though he spoke with love, you could still hear some fear hiding behind his words. 

You decided to ignore it and began to stand, “Let’s go to bed then.”

Jasper began to stand with you and wrapped a light arm around your waist to help you up. Happiness filled you when he didn’t move to remove his arm when both of you were finally standing.

He looked down at you gently, “Lead the way, my lady.”

You gripped his hand in your good one and led him through the door. He moved behind you as you shut and locked the front door. You turned back to face him with soft, tired eyes and asked, “Bedroom?”

Jasper lightly nodded his head and intertwined your fingers with his again as he led you to the bedroom. Once you were both in, the door closed behind you with a soft click. 

You walked to the side of the bed that you normally slept on and moved the covers back. When you heard no movement from Jasper, you turned back and questioned, “Jazz?”

He was standing where you had left him, looking at the spot on the floor you fell to after he let you go that day. You quickly moved in front of him to block his view and raised your hand to his cheek. He turned his eyes to you and they were once again filled with self-hatred and misery.

Instead of bringing it up again, you said, “Let’s lay down now, okay?” You were gentle with him- scared that any fast movement or mention would send him running with his tail tucked. 

Jasper softly nodded his head and walked to his side of the bed. He slid under the covers with you sliding in after him. He helped you move around so you were resting on your back with your good shoulder tucked into him and your head laid down on his upper arm. Even though he didn’t sleep and had no reason to lay down, he always did with you when it was nighttime. 

You snuggled deeper into him and his scent, “Please, don’t leave me again.” Jasper swallowed, “I promise I never will, darlin’.”

“I love you infinitely, Jazz,” You spoke strong, hoping to engrave it deep into his bones. 

“I love you forevermore, darlin’,” Jasper spoke in a way that made the smile on his face visible to you even though you weren’t looking. 

You closed your eyes with the words and let the warmth of the covers combine with the cold of Jasper’s body pressed into yours. For the first time since that incident, you were able to fall asleep wrapped in love, warmth, and most of all safety. 

Jasper was yours just as much as you were his.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀    ❉

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Hi guys ! First, I wanna thank anon for giving me this prompt and kicking my ass into writing something for this fandom. Anon, I really hope you enjoyed how I wrote your prompt ! Twilight holds tons of special memories for me and the movies definitely have a special place in my heart.

Secondly, I hope you all enjoyed this and feedback is always welcome ! I work hard to put stuff out there and make it the best I can so people enjoy reading it. I have a few more requests to write, but my inbox is always open for more, so submit away !

Thank you so much for reading ! Please stay safe and healthy out there !

Happy reading !

- K :) !

[anangelicday-mrwolf]

Wolfsbane : Noblesse Fanfic (post-ending)

(previous chapter)

Chapter 45 – Suspicion with Good Cause

“Miss Lunark, what was the codename of that agent you ran into? Was it Kespar?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“Are you sure? Are you sure it was Kespar?”

“She specified it herself. And my ears are more loyal than you’d think.”

Lunark added a touch of playful sneer in her reply, but in turn Tao’s face was rendered much more serious than she had envisioned.

Making a slight regret that perhaps she sounded more aggressive than she had intended, Lunark lifted her gaze to find the largest monitor blinking with life.

Immediately she cocked her head, upon the sight of a woman she had never seen before.

Judging by the color tones of the screen and the faint noises, she presumed she was looking at a screenshot of footage from a security camera.

“Is this what she looked like?”

Lunark’s bouquet-like hair waved side to side.

The picture could have used some magnifying, but difference of appearances of the rat she met and the one in the screen was so very obvious. Even the blind would have noticed they were two different people.

“Eyes, facial line, hair color, hair length... I could go on forever to point out the discrepancies I see. Who is this?”

Tao squeezed his lips for a second upon her retort.

“...This is Kespar.”

Say what?!

Her exclamation silently echoed inside her voice box, having contracted regardless of her will.

“This is Kespar...?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you’re not mistaken?”

“I’m positive. I give you my word I’m not the one with a misunderstanding here.”

“...Are you absolutely sure? I know what you can pull off with computers and all, but there’s possibly no way that you’d know every single agent ever registered in the Union.”

Her argument was legitimate; despite the fact that she was once the elder of the Union, during her history as one she had never once memorized names and faces of all agents.

And with the topmost personnel not setting a good example, things were nothing different for lesser agents and researchers.

Not to mention there was no need to stress out one’s brain to do the job, with computers readily available to provide A to Z for whoever they seek.

However, Lunark had overlooked one thing – she was talking to none other than Tao.

“Since my time at the Union, I have taken a liking to hacking. It’s both my specialty and hobby. I used to surf through and collect all sorts of data stored at Union whenever I could, to nobody’s knowledge.”

“...You mean you already knew about this agent?”

“Yep. It took me some time to remember ‘cause I first got to learn about her long time ago, but a conversation with you managed to refresh my memories. And based on what I know, the one you met is not Kespar.”

“...Any chance that you might have learned wrong in the first place?”

“There’s none. This screenshot is not the only file I have to show you what she looks like, and most importantly... Kespar died several years ago during a mission.”

By the end of Tao’s sentence, the invisible net that had been keeping Lunark’s heart barely safe from downfall at last snapped.

In an attempt to somehow retrieve her heart from plummeting towards the soles of her feet, Lunark posed one last question.

“You swear that... That Kespar is dead...?”

“As much as I’d sound like I’m joking, I can swear upon this mansion and everything under its roof. Kespar is dead.”

Nobody would ever swear upon Frankenstein’s possessions as a joke or a lie or an assumption.

Upon processing the fact into her brain, Lunark suddenly felt like the entire world began to shrink into the vortex centering on the bottoms of her feet.

Kespar is actually dead.

However, that orange-haired modified human dubbed herself as Kespar.

Just like the list of dossiers she received.

“But why...?”

Her lips mumbled on their own, momentarily cut off from her cognition.

Tao interpreted the situation as how he viewed it and began to spill the unasked.

“Probably because she had to hide herself – but not too much. Because Kespar is the best alias you could make use of if you want to conceal your true name but maintain your identity as a Union agent.”

<What do you mean by that?>

Tao asked, his curiosity nudging at his mouth.

“According to what I found out when we were still part of the Union, most people there had considered Kespar as a missing-in-action or a renegade, instead of a deceased. And I believe that hasn’t changed.”

<But how is that possible? Even when a random agent that nobody really needs goes dead in no man’s area in Antarctica, Union would have no problem finding out who-when-where-what-why-how and composing detailed record in less than a week.>

“That would have been the case for any other agent. Or should I say, any other time? In Kespar’s case, however, she died at a wrong time, in a way. Back then there was a political struggle of a sort within the Union, and they decided to make Kespar’s death handy. So Kespar’s real data – which happens to be in my collection – is the only record containing her death; any other data have her marked as missing. And they did a really good job of veiling her current status. If you even blink during your search, you’ll end up with the faux data.”

“And with Union’s system completely tattered as of now, nobody would be willing to correct her information. Does that mean it’s safe to suppose she will be remembered as missing-in-action or renegade?”

“Precisely.”

Tao nodded in agreement, with Lunark still frozen in silence.

She could not spare even the slightest of her attention to her surroundings, her mind caught up in review of anomalies that finally started to glint.

During her first encounter with the agent who called herself “Kespar,” she voluntarily flung the name at her, even demanding that she will keep it stuck in her head from now on.

Which is against the fundamental rule and value for any Union agent: anonymity is the greatest treasure.

Now there was more than enough reason for Lunark to suspect that she wanted her to believe she was Kespar.

To top it off, there was another reason why Lunark has come to recognize the orange-haired modified human as Kespar.

On the list submitted by 3rd Elder, the picture of the woman with orange hair and blue eyes was labeled as Kespar for codename.

And there was only one conclusion she could draw from such fact: 3rd Elder and the false Kespar deceived her, and the odds are terribly high that they are as a matter of fact in secret alliance.

“Why, you sly fox... You dare to play tricks on me?”

Just like that, the lab was hit with an unseeable blizzard, her tone throwing delusions at them as if they are stranded in the middle of Siberia during winter.

They kept their eyes fixed on the werewolf warrior, not moving an inch.

“I gave you a warning, and you know it...! You took all that hospitality that you did not even get close to deserving, and you decided you’ll stab Frankenstein in the back! You useless piece of unrecyclable garbage...!”

“W-what do you mean by that?”

Lunark gave them a brief explanation; now she could see no reason to hide it. She could see hiding would be no good at all.

She told them about help she requested from 3rd Elder to deduce who could be shutting down Crombel’s secret facilities, along with the list he produced for her.

She also told them how on that list she read the real Kespar’s dossier adorned with false Kespar’s picture.

The RK’s faces turned awfully beyond pale upon her confession.

“If this is true... There’s no telling what he could be plotting behind our backs as we speak.”

<And there’s no telling what he’ll do to Frankenstein in the future.>

“That does it. I’m going to see Frankenstein right now.”

And make sure I give that sneaky little bastard an unforgettable kiss with the Earth’s core.

Lunark was about to turn upon her heels as she gritted her teeth, before Tao yelled, “Wait! I know you’re in a hurry – and for a good reason – but could you please give me a moment? There’s something I’d like to give you.”

“Do you have to do it now? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“It’s something that can help my boss. So please...”

“Spit it out. And be quick.”

Bewildered at how fast Lunark changed her stance, Tao grabbed the USB on his desk.

‘Sorry, boss.’

Tao knew that if Lunark is to walk up to 3rd Elder now, chances are more than high that there will be a physical skirmish.

And chances were horribly high that Frankenstein would be made part of the skirmish.

At the same time, Tao knew what Frankenstein is going through because of the Dark Spear.

Which is why in preparation of cases that require Frankenstein’s participation in a combat, he had been picking and sorting data that could prove helpful for him.

‘I know you made me promise not to tell anybody. But I’m afraid I can no longer keep your secret.’

Sighing with guilt tugging at his conscience, Tao began to unlock the USB.

The screen shimmered with several programs, and the lock was nearly removed when Tao lamented, “Oops, my bad. Wrong USB. Sorry about that. Seriously, my mind is not in its right sta...”

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep...!!!

Out of blue, red-toned noises spread throughout all monitors.

They noticed what this was about; it was similar – no, identical to the phenomenon they witnessed when their computers and communications were made useless on the day they first initiated the QuadraNet.

“No...!!”

Luckily, they had Tao, a master artisan like none other in computers, who experienced this before.

With him as the firefighter, the fire was put out in no time.

“What just happened? Why did we see reenactment of trouble from the QuadraNet incident?”

“...Miss Lunark, did you see how I was trying to remove the lock on the USB just now?”

“Of course I did, though I failed to recognize what exactly you were doing.”

“What about you, M-21? Did you identify the steps I was following?”

M-21 merely tilted his head upon his inquiry.

He would not have recognized it, if Tao did not tell them what he did just before was unlocking the USB.

The only thing Tao did ever since he implanted the USB was playing around with basic programs installed in every computer, in the following steps:

Opening and closing MS Paint for 3 times.

Entering what looks like a secret code on Notepad and saving the file.

Opening a new Notepad file and typing in the same code.

Opening Calculator and deleting the first Notepad file in the meantime.

Entering a certain calculation into Calculator before closing it, to go ahead and close the second Notepad file.

The moment his mind retraced the last step, M-21 felt something knocking on his head.

“Wait a minute...”

“That’s right. It’s the unlocking procedure for the secret USB.”

“Secret USB...? I don’t think this is my first time hearing it.”

“I bet it isn’t. A secret USB is the Union invention created for agents in the old days, when they were sent for infiltrations. If you plug them in like a regular USB, they will display files that seem no worthy of interest. But once you follow a special procedure, it will yield hidden files. And to unlock it, you must carry out the exact steps that make use of basic programs that are installed in every computer available in public.”

“Yeah, now I remember. The procedure is less than a yawn for modified humans proficient in device control like you, but it was deemed inefficient for cases of battle or emergency. Hence it was abandoned by Union long ago.”

“Quite. Which is why I chose it as a method to unlock my USB. At least the current Union agents wouldn’t even dream of such method to dissect my kits.”

The moment Tao’s speech was marked with a period, the lab was enveloped by a dreadful silence.

Because the USB Tao just used was not the one he had kept for Frankenstein, but the one that was laid right next to it, wrongfully chosen by the supreme computer technician due to his lack of coherence.

“...So this is the USB that Yuhyung gave?”

“...Yes.”

It turned out the mostly-new USB that belongs to Yuhyung is to be unlocked like a secret USB.

With new revelation came a new missing link for the occasions they could not dare point out or discuss.

And their question grew into suspicion with good cause.

Now that they have found what could serve as an evidence, they realized evasion is not an option anymore.

Even though some mysteries remain, they will soon be deciphered, once they capture and investigate the human who is to return home.

“I believe I can leave him to you guys. Isn’t that right?”

“You can count on us. You go ahead and give Frankenstein a claw he needs.”

(next chapter)

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen - it’s not Adne but Yuhyung who is the traitor! Very soon his past progress as a traitor will be revealed, via the hints I inserted in the previous chapters. By the way, the secret USB and its unlock procedure are my creation, unrelated to the original webtoon, so I hope there won’t be any confusion regarding this. And we’re slowly moving on to the highlight of this fic. Even though this is a Noblesse fic, I’m aware that there were battles on rare occasions. Which will be made up by the highlight that is approaching. It’s always a challenge to compose battle scenes, but I’ll do my best with this! :)

[newstfionline]

When a Stranger Decides to Destroy Your Life

Kashmir Hill, Gizmodo, July 26, 2018

Monika Glennon has lived in Huntsville, Alabama, for the last 12 years. Other than a strong Polish accent, she fits a certain stereotype of the All-American life. She’s blonde. Her husband is a veteran Marine. Her two children, a boy and a girl, joined the military as adults. She sells houses--she’s a real estate agent at Re/Max--helping others realize their own American dream.

But in September 2015, she was suddenly plunged into an American nightmare. She got a call at 6 a.m. one morning from a colleague at Re/Max telling her something terrible had been posted about her on the Re/Max Facebook page. Glennon thought at first she meant that a client had left her a bad review, but it turned out to be much worse than that.

It was a link to a story about Glennon on She’s A Homewrecker, a site that exists for the sole purpose of shaming the alleged “other woman.” The author of the Homewrecker post claimed that she and her husband had used Glennon as their realtor and that everything was going great until one evening when she walked in on Glennon having sex with her husband on the floor of a home the couple had been scheduled to see. The unnamed woman went into graphic detail about the sex act and claimed she’d taken photos that she used to get everything from her husband in a divorce. The only photo she posted though was Glennon’s professional headshot, taken from her bio page on Re/Max’s site.

Glennon was horrified. The story was completely fabricated and she had no idea why someone would have written it. Someone on Facebook named Ryan Baxter had posted it to the Re/Max page; Baxter also went through Glennon’s Facebook friend list and sent it to her husband, family members, and many of her professional contacts.

“Sorry to be the one to let you in on this,” Baxter wrote to Glennon’s husband, Scott, in a Facebook message.

Glennon waded into the comment section on the Homewrecker story and wrote that it was completely fabricated. A woman named Amy responded skeptically, “Hmmm, so why would someone make up such an extravagant story?”

The story was re-posted on other sites, including one called BadBizReport.is where it has been viewed over 95,000 times. It quickly became the top search result for Glennon’s name on Google. Within a year, Glennon was experiencing the repercussions: Her number of listings dropped by half. She estimates that she’s lost $200,000 in business since 2015.

She was mystified as to the post’s author. She thought it could be a rival realtor, or an acquaintance who was angry at her.

“I was looking at every person in my life and every stranger and wondering who did it to me and why,” Glennon told me by phone. “It makes you rethink every relationship in your life.”

Eventually, after $100,000 in attorney’s bills, Glennon was able to unmask the culprit. It turned out to be a complete stranger who had been offended by a comment Glennon had made about a news article on Facebook.

In 2014, a teenager from Alabama visited Auschwitz and tweeted a smiling selfie from the former concentration camp. It went viral, as people across the internet debated the teen’s choice of self-portraiture. WHNT News, a Huntsville, Alabama-based TV station, posted a story about the incident to its Facebook page asking readers to “share your thoughts.”

A heated discussion ensued. Monika Glennon was among those defending the teen, saying that kids make mistakes, that at least she was visiting the site, and that the condemnation by an internet mob “shows the same judgmental and senseless pack mentality that led to this horrific time in history to begin with.”

A woman named Mollie Rosenblum disagreed. She responded to several of the teen selfie supporters, including Glennon, saying that Auschwitz was a somber place for reflection and not an appropriate place to take selfies. She identified herself as being of Jewish descent and suggested that others didn’t have a full grasp of the Holocaust. Glennon responded to Rosenblum, telling her Auschwitz isn’t “her” place, that it “belongs to all and was a former killing zone of all,” including, originally, Polish people.

If you’ve ever argued with someone online, you’re probably not surprised to hear that neither person was convinced by the other person’s arguments. Glennon forgot about the exchange and went about her life. Rosenblum did not.

Rosenblum stewed over the exchange for a week. It was a low point in her life; a single mother with two sons, she was, by her own account as posted on Facebook, then “in the throws of full blown methamphetamine addiction” and making very poor decisions (including, in 2016, kidnapping). She spent a few hours researching Glennon online and soon knew enough to fake having met her in real life. It was the online version of road rage; instead of pulling a gun on another driver, Rosenblum decided to drop a bomb on Glennon’s reputation. Rosenblum submitted her fabricated story to She’s A Homewrecker, and then, according to an account she later gave to a local news outlet, forgot about it.

There is a constellation of sites on the internet that exist solely as places for people to exorcise their demons, and more importantly, their grudges; She’s A Homewrecker is one of them. It offers the opportunity to publicize a person’s misdeeds so that they are available not just to an inner circle with access to relevant gossip but to anyone who Googles that person’s name. The terms of service specify that posts must be factually true, but if they’re not, it’s not a problem for the site. It’s protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from being sued for the things their users say.

Rosenblum wrote and submitted the story in August 2014, but it wasn’t published until September 2015, long after Rosenblum had forgotten about it. It may have languished in obscurity there if not for a person who went by Ryan Baxter on Facebook. Baxter was the one who posted the story to Re/Max’s Facebook page, emailed it to Glennon’s bosses, and sent it to many of her Facebook contacts. Apparently a regular reader of She’s A Homewrecker, Baxter had a habit of compounding the damage to people shamed on the site. Glennon found numerous instances of Baxter posting She’s a Homewrecker posts to the Facebook walls of other people’s employers and friends. Such are the strange hobbies of the modern age.

Glennon wrote repeatedly to all the sites that had posted the story telling them it was false but none of them would take it down. Her only option was to go to court, so she filed a lawsuit in 2016 against John Does, alleging libel and copyright infringement, because the post used her professional headshot, which she had ownership of.

Through the suit, Glennon was able to subpoena She’s A Homewrecker and Facebook for IP addresses, as well as Internet Service Providers to find out the identities of the people behind the IP addresses. A couple of months after she filed the suit, yet another post appeared on yet another site, “Report My Ex,” written by a man claiming to be the husband who had cheated with Glennon, again luridly detailing a sex act that never happened.

“That really scared me because I was afraid men would book me as a realtor expecting me to have sex with them,” Glennon told me by phone. “So I had my husband start coming with me to bookings at vacant homes. We installed a surveillance system in our house because I was so scared.”

Through the subpoenas, Glennon discovered that Ryan Baxter was a stranger in Oxnard, California, named Hannah Lupian. Shortly after Lupian was served with a legal complaint, the Ryan Baxter profile disappeared from Facebook. Glennon has never heard from Lupian, and I was unable to get in touch with her.

Rosenblum was another matter. After becoming aware that her identity would be revealed by her ISP, Mollie Rosenblum doubled down. She emailed Glennon’s attorneys, apologizing but saying that if Glennon continued to pursue her legally, she would “protect [herself] by making their initial contact public.” Six months later, in September 2017, Rosenblum acted on her threat and took to Facebook and the comment section of the BadBizReport, where she apologized for lying about Glennon being an adulterer but said she did it because of Glennon’s “veiled antisemitism.”

Glennon was horrified. She didn’t want more terrible things written about her online.

“I’m not a Nazi sympathizer. I grew up in a poor family in communist Poland,” Glennon said. “I saw the comments and reached out to [Rosenblum] over Facebook Messenger and said, ‘This has reached an awful level of damage that you have done to me. Let’s meet. Please ask me what you want to ask me.’”

They agreed to meet at a restaurant in Athens, Alabama, a town an hour from Glennon’s, where Rosenblum lives. The meeting lasted four hours.

“She had thought I was this mean, rich bitch. That’s the problem with social media. You just make these assumptions about people,” Glennon said. “After meeting me, she did an affidavit admitting everything she did. She understood who I was then.”

Rosenblum did not respond to media inquiries via email or Facebook Messenger. She appears active on Facebook as recently as July 4, but she has been sentenced to four years for kidnapping and the Alabama Department of Corrections website says she started her term in November 2017. Her thinking, however, is well-documented online and in court documents.

Meeting Glennon in person seemed to defuse Rosenblum’s anger. She returned once again to the comment section of the BadBizReport to retract what she had said and apologize.

“Mrs. Glennon is in fact a kind and compassionate person with whom I share many common values,” wrote Rosenblum. “Please accept my deepest regret for the harm I have brought to the lives of her and those whom love her.”

Rosenblum wanted to take the posts down but she couldn’t. On submission sites like She’s A Homewrecker, there is no delete button, not to mention the copies of the post that appeared on other sites.

“These sites should allow original posters to take these posts down,” said Glennon. “I see a lot of people in comments saying they regret it and want to take it down but they can’t.”

Glennon won her lawsuit against Rosenblum and Lupian, with a federal court in northern Alabama finding in her favor on claims of copyright violation, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and interference with her business. The judge ordered websites that published Rosenblum’s story to remove it. She’s A Homewrecker has already taken down the post, but it remains up on BadBizReport. BadBizReport’s website states that it doesn’t respond to court orders and that “there’s no way in hell to get off of BadBizReport once you’re listed on it,” adding “American lawyers make us laugh.”

Luckily, the judge also ordered search engines, “such as Google,” to de-index all versions of the post “to ensure that it does not appear as a search result when Ms. Glennon’s name is searched.” In Europe, the right to remove irrelevant or false information from your search results is enshrined in the law as “the right to be forgotten.” In the U.S., you have to pay for it.

“You should be able to remove untrue stories without spending $100,000,” said Glennon. “For a person making minimum wage trying to clear their reputation, it would be impossible.”

There is a question as to whether Google and others will comply with the order.

A Google spokesperson said the company reviews all court orders requesting links be removed from search and prefers when parties resolve among themselves in court whether a page should be removed from search results. Last year, Google removed links from search in the U.S. because of defamation over 30,000 times.

Glennon says the experience has left her more cautious online. She locked down her Facebook account so that strangers have less access to her information and, importantly, can’t see her friends list. Surprisingly, she still comments on news articles.

“But nothing too provocative,” she told me.

[sharongotcha]

Week 2: Case Study - Houdini

Background story recap:

- There is a lady named Mina "Margery" Stinson Crandon. She is one of the most controversial mediums of the twentieth century.

- As quoted from the dictionary, medium means “a person claiming to be in contact with the spirits of the dead and to communicate between the dead and the living.”

- Her second marriage was with Dr. Le Roi Goddard Crandon in 1918 who is a senior Boston surgeon who was a highly respected instructor at Harvard Medical School.

- In 1923, Dr. Crandon became extremely interested in psychical research and one evening he invited a number of friends to his home for a “home circle” meeting. The group gathered around a small table and soon had it tilting in response to the sitter’s questions. Crandon found out that Mina was responsible for the paranormal activity.

- After a few sessions Mina’s deceased brother Walter, who died in a train crash in 1911, announced his presence as her spirit guide and within a brief period of time, he began speaking through Mina and demonstrating a wide variety of spirit phenomena.

- In November of 1923, Scientific American magazine was offering a prize of $2,500 to anyone who could provide conclusive proof that psychicphenomena truly existed, and Bird asked Mina to submit to a series of their tests.

- To protect Mina Crandon's social standing as the wife of a prominent Boston surgeon and Harvard professor, Bird gave her the pseudonym of "Margery," which is how she shall always be remembered in the annals of psychical research.

- The tests began in January 1924 under the general supervision of Crandon. The strictest of control conditions were enforced to ensure that fraud of any kind, conscious or unconscious, on the part of the medium could not go undetected.

- The most controversial aspect of the tests has to do with the role of the famous magician Harry Houdini in the experiments. Houdini was outraged by mediums after some of them attempted to con him during his despair at his mother’s death. Houdini was determined to expose Margery as a fake by whatever means necessary.

- During one night of tests, Houdini brought an electric doorbell into the seance room and said that he would challenge the spirit to ring it for the circle. Once Margery was in a trance state, with the help of Walter, they exposed that there were pieces of rubber on the contact points of the bell so that it could not possibly ring. Houdini offered no defence of his actions.

- The words of admonishment were scarcely out of Bird's mouth when the electric bell began to ring in vigorous spurts of clanging sound, and Walter's booming voice filled the seance room. "How does that suit you, Mr. Houdini?" the spirit control mocked.

- When it seemed apparent that there was no general consensus accepting or rejecting Margery's mediumship as providing proof of survival, Houdini became furious, he even went so far as to accuse two of his fellow committee members, Hereward Carrington and J. Malcolm Bird, of having assisted Margery in perpetrating her fraudulent mediumship.

- In spite of crude and careless acts on the part of certain members of the committee throughout the grueling tests, Margery Crandon retained her goodwill toward the persistent investigators and produced a remarkable variety of phenomena, ranging from breezes, raps, spirit writing in several languages, independent voice manifestations, apports, and the imprint of spirit fingerprints in paraffin.

- Unfortunately for Margery, it was discovered that a fingerprint that had been allegedly left in wax by Walter was found to be that of a Boston dentist, Dr. Frederick Caldwell, who admitted that he had given Margery a bit of wax in which his own print had been pressed.

- One such exposure of fraud could not prove that all of Margery's spirit phenomena had been produced as products of clever deception, as Houdini had declared, but the falsification of her spirit control's fingerprint caused the majority of researchers who had examined and tested her mediumship to decide that perhaps she had, after all, been too good to be true.

References:

http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Mediums-and-Mystics/Mediums-and-Channelers-Mina-margery-stinson-crandon-1888-1941.html

https://www.americanhauntingsink.com/margery

Analysis Question:

Suppose you are Houdini, and you need to devise the protocol to share with your trusted partner.

Q1. State and briefly justify the most important properties your protocol should have.

Q2. Give your protocol.

Personally, I don't really believe in mediums and spirits, but if theoretically I'm Houdini and need a way to test whether medium-spirits communication is true and not a fraud before I die, here are some possible ways:

The first way is to leave a locked combination padlock behind to my wife and not tell anyone the password. My wife then can ask what's the password to the lock to the medium who is supposedly in contact with my spirit. If the medium can tell the correct password and unlock the padlock in one go, then there is a chance that medium-spirit communication is not a fraud.

The second way is for my wife to ask several personal and private questions to the medium, something that only me and her know the answer to. This way there is less chance for the medium to lucky-guess it.

The third way is to for my wife to ask the medium questions and for me to give an unrelated answer that had been agreed upon before I died. For example, my wife could ask, "What is my favourite colour?" and I could answer "Hamburger". This will give the medium a lower chance to lucky-guess it.

Assuming that spirits can go anywhere at anytime, another method is for the wife to ask the medium something like "What did I eat today for breakfast?" or "Which side of the bed did I sleep on last night?". This way only his spirit husband can know the answer to, other human beings wouldn't know. Again the medium could lucky-guess it, or he/she could ask other spirits to tell him/her the answer. But either way this proves that medium-spirit communication is not a fraud.

All the methods above has the chance of the medium lucky-guessing it. To solve this problem, the wife could ask several questions or I could leave several locks, not just one. The more questions asked the less chance the medium could lucky-guess it. Another problem with these methods is that the wife could forget the pre-agreed answers to the questions, or that I could forgot what is the lock combination after I died. Since it would be unwise to write the answers on papers (since someone could have seen it) both the wife and Houdini will have to make sure they completely memorise the answers.

Another way is for Houdini and his wife to agree on a simple magic trick before he died. When he died, his spirit would tell and teach the medium to do a simple magic trick. The medium has a very low chance on lucky-guessing which magic tricks were agreed upon.

All these methods were under the assumption that his wife is loyal and cannot be bought off. However, even if the wife is loyal, there is a chance that the medium is a hypnotist and hypnotise his wife beforehand to get all the answers to the questions.

[nancydsmithus]

Creating Your Own React Validation Library: The Features (Part 2)

Creating Your Own React Validation Library: The Features (Part 2)

Kristofer Selbekk

2019-05-23T13:00:16+02:002019-05-23T11:44:04+00:00

Implementing a validation library isn’t all that hard. Neither is adding all of those extra features that make your validation library much better than the rest.

This article will continue implementing the validation library we started implementing in the previous part of this article series. These are the features that are going to take us from a simple proof of concept to an actual usable library!

Part 1: The Basics

Part 2: The Features

Part 3: The Experience (Coming up next week)

Only Show Validation On Submit

Since we’re validating on all change events, we’re showing the user error messages way too early for a good user experience. There are a few ways we can mitigate this.

The first solution is simply providing the submitted flag as a returned property of the useValidation hook. This way, we can check whether or not the form is submitted before showing an error message. The downside here is that our “show error code” gets a bit longer:

<label> Username <br /> <input {...getFieldProps('username')} /> {submitted && errors.username && ( <div className="error">{errors.username}</div> )} </label>

Another approach is to provide a second set of errors (let’s call them submittedErrors), which is an empty object if submitted is false, and the errors object if it’s true. We can implement it like this:

const useValidation = config => { // as before return { errors: state.errors, submittedErrors: state.submitted ? state.errors : {}, }; }

This way, we can simply destructure out the type of errors that we want to show. We could, of course, do this at the call site as well — but by providing it here, we’re implementing it once instead of inside all consumers.

See CodeSandbox demo showing how submittedErrors can be used.

Show Error Messages On-Blur

A lot of people want to be shown an error once they leave a certain field. We can add support for this, by tracking which fields have been “blurred” (navigated away from), and returning an object blurredErrors, similar to the submittedErrors above.

The implementation requires us to handle a new action type — blur, which will be updating a new state object called blurred:

const initialState = { values: {}, errors: {}, blurred: {}, submitted: false, }; function validationReducer(state, action) { switch (action.type) { // as before case 'blur': const blurred = { ...state.blurred, [action.payload]: true }; return { ...state, blurred }; default: throw new Error('Unknown action type'); } }

When we dispatch the blur action, we create a new property in the blurred state object with the field name as a key, indicating that that field has been blurred.

The next step is adding an onBlur prop to our getFieldProps function, that dispatches this action when applicable:

getFieldProps: fieldName => ({ // as before onBlur: () => { dispatch({ type: 'blur', payload: fieldName }); }, }),

Finally, we need to provide the blurredErrors from our useValidation hook so that we can show the errors only when needed.

const blurredErrors = useMemo(() => { const returnValue = {}; for (let fieldName in state.errors) { returnValue[fieldName] = state.blurred[fieldName] ? state.errors[fieldName] : null; } return returnValue; }, [state.errors, state.blurred]); return { // as before blurredErrors, };

Here, we create a memoized function that figures out which errors to show based on whether or not the field has been blurred. We recalculate this set of errors whenever the errors or blurred objects change. You can read more about the useMemo hook in the documentation.

See CodeSandbox demo

Time For A Tiny Refactor

Our useValidation component is now returning three sets of errors — most of which will look the same at some point in time. Instead of going down this route, we’re going to let the user specify in the config when they want the errors in their form to show up.

Our new option — showErrors — will accept either “submit” (the default), “always” or “blur”. We can add more options later, if we need to.

function getErrors(state, config) { if (config.showErrors === 'always') { return state.errors; } if (config.showErrors === 'blur') { return Object.entries(state.blurred) .filter(([, blurred]) => blurred) .reduce((acc, [name]) => ({ ...acc, [name]: state.errors[name] }), {}); } return state.submitted ? state.errors : {}; } const useValidation = config => { // as before const errors = useMemo( () => getErrors(state, config), [state, config] ); return { errors, // as before }; };

Since the error handling code started to take most of our space, we’re refactoring it out into its own function. If you don’t follow the Object.entries and .reduce stuff — that’s fine — it’s a rewrite of the for...in code in the last section.

If we required onBlur or instant validation, we could specify the showError prop in our useValidation configuration object.

const config = { // as before showErrors: 'blur', }; const { getFormProps, getFieldProps, errors } = useValidation(config); // errors would now only include the ones that have been blurred

See CodeSandbox demo

Note On Assumptions

“Note that I'm now assuming that each form will want to show errors the same way (always on submit, always on blur, etc). That might be true for most applications, but probably not for all. Being aware of your assumptions is a huge part of creating your API.”

Allow For Cross-Validation

A really powerful feature of a validation library is to allow for cross-validation — that is, to base one field’s validation on another field’s value.

To allow this, we need to make our custom hook accept a function instead of an object. This function will be called with the current field values. Implementing it is actually only three lines of code!

function useValidation(config) { const [state, dispatch] = useReducer(...); if (typeof config === 'function') { config = config(state.values); } }

To use this feature, we can simply pass a function that returns the configuration object to useValidation:

const { getFieldProps } = useValidation(fields => ({ password: { isRequired: { message: 'Please fill out the password' }, }, repeatPassword: { isRequired: { message: 'Please fill out the password one more time' }, isEqual: { value: fields.password, message: 'Your passwords don\’t match' } } }));

Here, we use the value of fields.password to make sure two password fields contain the same input (which is terrible user experience, but that’s for another blog post).

See CodeSandbox demo that doesn’t let the username and the password be the same value.

Add Some Accessibility Wins

A neat thing to do when you’re in charge of the props of a field is to add the correct aria-tags by default. This will help screen readers with explaining your form.

A very simple improvement is to add aria-invalid="true" if the field has an error. Let’s implement that:

const useValidation = config => { // as before return { // as before getFieldProps: fieldName => ({ // as before 'aria-invalid': String(!!errors[fieldName]), }), } };

That’s one added line of code, and a much better user experience for screen reader users.

You might wonder about why we write String(!!state.errors[fieldName])? state.errors[fieldName] is a string, and the double negation operator gives us a boolean (and not just a truthy or falsy value). However, the aria-invalid property should be a string (it can also read “grammar” or “spelling”, in addition to “true” or “false”), so we need to coerce that boolean into its string equivalent.

There are still a few more tweaks we could do to improve accessibility, but this seems like a fair start.

Shorthand Validation Message Syntax

Most of the validators in the calidators package (and most other validators, I assume) only require an error message. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just pass that string instead of an object with a message property containing that string?

Let’s implement that in our validateField function:

function validateField(fieldValue = '', fieldConfig, allFieldValues) { for (let validatorName in fieldConfig) { let validatorConfig = fieldConfig[validatorName]; if (typeof validatorConfig === ’string') { validatorConfig = { message: validatorConfig }; } const configuredValidator = validators[validatorName](validatorConfig); const errorMessage = configuredValidator(fieldValue); if (errorMessage) { return errorMessage; } } return null; }

This way, we can rewrite our validation config like so:

const config = { username: { isRequired: 'The username is required', isEmail: 'The username should be a valid email address', }, };

Much cleaner!

Initial Field Values

Sometimes, we need to validate a form that’s already filled out. Our custom hook doesn’t support that yet — so let’s get to it!

Initial field values will be specified in the config for each field, in the property initialValue. If it’s not specified, it defaults to an empty string.

We’re going to create a function getInitialState, which will create the initial state of our reducer for us.

function getInitialState(config) { if (typeof config === 'function') { config = config({}); } const initialValues = {}; const initialBlurred = {}; for (let fieldName in config.fields) { initialValues[fieldName] = config.fields[fieldName].initialValue || ''; initialBlurred[fieldName] = false; } const initialErrors = validateFields(initialValues, config.fields); return { values: initialValues, errors: initialErrors, blurred: initialBlurred, submitted: false, }; }

We go through all fields, check if they have an initialValue property, and set the initial value accordingly. Then we run those initial values through the validators and calculate the initial errors as well. We return the initial state object, which can then be passed to our useReducer hook.

Since we’re introducing a non-validator prop into the fields config, we need to skip it when we validate our fields. To do that, we change our validateField function:

function validateField(fieldValue = '', fieldConfig) { const specialProps = ['initialValue']; for (let validatorName in fieldConfig) { if (specialProps.includes(validatorName)) { continue; } // as before } }

As we keep on adding more features like this, we can add them to our specialProps array.

See CodeSandbox demo

Summing Up

We’re well on our way to create an amazing validation library. We’ve added tons of features, and we’re pretty much-thought leaders by now.

In the next part of this series, we’re going to add all of those extras that make our validation library even trend on LinkedIn. Stay tuned!

(dm, yk, il)

[invertedfate]

Fate of the Fallen (Fan Theory)

Hey, guys! I know I haven’t done Theory Thursday in a long time, but I just got a really detailed speculation submission! Hopefully this’ll hold you guys over until I can get through my behemoth of an inbox. Anyway, without further ado, here is the submitted theory!

---

How did the 6 humans die? This is a theory I started shortly after the release of Part 15 late at night. After weeks, I concluded my ask about it was eaten. Now with new information in Part 19, I'm determined motivated to restart this.

With the arrival of plaques, the topic of the fallen humans brought up in the asks frequently.

http://invertedfate.tumblr.com/post/159399530537/so-the-order-of-the-fallen-children-was-i-think

Q: so the order of the fallen children was (I think): Patience, Kindness, Bravery, Integrity, Perseverance, and Justice?

A: Correct. This is the order in IF’s canon, as inferred by the colored laser puzzle. As for the fates of each kid, I have hinted vaguely at how a few met their ends, but I won’t go into detail at this time. Obviously, Chara is the one who was “claimed by illness” on that plaque.

The mentioned plaques are in http://imgur.com/a/HVgq5, and “hinted vaguely at how a few met their ends”.

One claimed by illness, one claimed by the crown, one claimed by recklessness..

One claimed by hammer and flames.

But the one the flames claimed took more than what their death could repay.

So how can we trust the one that remains?

One claimed by the crown

It is obvious the crown symbolizes royalty, but it leaves 2 suspects, Toriel and Asgore. In http://imgur.com/a/HVgq5, there’s a locked door to be solved with a riddle.

Who does the crown symbolize?

Write your answer to proceed.

KING

CORRECT!

YOU MAY PROCEED.

King Asgore is responsible, but this says nothing about which child died. What does reveal it is the second volume of Royal Guard History, http://imgur.com/a/NXcCd.

In just a few short days, word spread of a human in the RUINS.

The king moved swiftly. He returned with the first SOUL.

This would have to be the first human (after Chara), which is Patience.

Patience was killed by King Asgore.

One claimed by recklessness

It is notable that up to now, the “claimed ones” are listed by the order they fell. (Chara who was claimed by illness, then Patience claimed by the crown.) This assumption needs more evidence.

The most possibly reckless soul would be Bravery. The only mention of them is in http://imgur.com/a/HVgq5, and http://imgur.com/a/90C2W containing their items and more.

Name: [REDACTED]

Preferred Weapon: Glove

Known Kills: Five; Snowdin

Reportedly stopped after guard intervention.

Although Queen Toriel offered safe have in New Home, they

..The rest of the report is burned.

PAPYRUS: DREADFUL ACCIDENT, THAT WAS.

PAPYRUS: I NEVER GOT THE FULL DETAILS..

PAPYRUS: BUT THE QUEEN HAD A COLD WHEN SHE RECEIVED THIS REPORT.

PAPYRUS: ALL IT TOOK WAS ONE SNEEZE, AND IT WENT UP IN FLAMES!!!

PAPYRUS: …AT LEAST, I THINK IT WAS A SNEEZE.

With suspicious circumstances, it is very like the burning of part the report was intentional. This is not a swap-au, meaning that Toriel still cares about her children despite their crimes.

If Bravery was claimed by recklessness, it would be after Toriel offered safety, and in an accident, of, well, recklessness. Toriel would blame herself for a lack of vigilance, and burning the report would go along with it.

One claimed by hammer and flames

The deaths no longer follow the pattern the humans fell in. This death had been given special attention, and an extra description:

But the one the flames claimed took more than what their death could repay.

There are TWO mentions of “hammer and flames”. But the one the flames claimed took more than what their death could repay. http://invertedfate.tumblr.com/post/160000633032/ono-was-gerson-part-of-the-waterfall-incident-rip and in http://imgur.com/a/90C2W.

Q: ono was gerson part of the waterfall incident? rip you fabulous turtle.

A: Gerson’s still alive, yo. “One claimed by hammer and flame.”

(This is referring to Gerson’s old nickname, “The Hammer of Justice”.)

When all seemed lost, Queen Toriel took a stand, joined by Gerson and a gifted mage.

Through hammer, flame, and healing, they triumphed, but the victory was bittersweet.

The dead would never return, and the aftermath left many seeking vengeance

In the end, Fort Aquarius was constructed with a simple premise.

Never again.

Hammer and flames refer to Gerson who has a hammer, and Toriel who has fire magic, the mage being unknown for now. The one “claimed” by them is the human, who caused the “Waterfall Incident” Volume 8 is about. They took too much their life could repay, as in take lives.

http://imgur.com/a/NXcCd is about the perpetrator of the Waterfall Incident.

A graceful assassin, a dance of death.

Word spread swiftly through Waterfall and beyond.

The Royal Guard, once tasked with defense, took up arms and attacked.

And still, all seemed futile. The dust continued to spill.

Integrity, who has ballet items, and a dance-related fight scene in canon, was killed by Gerson, Toriel, and an unnamed mage.

One that remains

According to the order the fallen children fell in, and the order their deaths were listed: Patience fell and died second, Kindness fell second, Bravery fell third and died second, Integrity fell fourth and died third.

So how can we trust the one that remains?

Kindness stayed passive because of their nature, and so survived the Waterfall Incident. However, the resulting paranoia was targeted towards all humans after, in this case, Kindness.

Conclusion

Chara falls and dies after their plan.

Patience falls and is killed by Asgore.

Kindness falls down.

Bravery falls and dies from recklessness.

Integrity falls and is killed by Toriel, Gerson, and a mage.

Kindness is suspect to paranoia from the Waterfall Incident.

Chara, Patience, Bravery and Integrity have definite deaths, while Kindness does not. Based on the literal racism against Frisk, decades after the Waterfall Incident, it’s likely they didn’t survive very long. Still, that is mere observation of a vague fate, much like Frisk’s fate.

A fate that is still far from now, that we have yet to see.

(PS: Do not attempt to imitate the submitter. This submitter made the unwise choice of theorizing until 11:25 PM instead of finishing schoolwork.)

[songketalliance]

Lessons in Feminism in the Middle East

A Contribution by Amalina Yusri

On my 30th birthday, my parents decided to grant me the trip of a lifetime as a gift. An all-expenses paid voyage to the Middle East for two whole weeks to perform my umrah with them. My first reaction was to feel terrified, followed by a cloud of self-doubt on whether I could really go through with it. But eventually, the obligation to be a good daughter and a good Muslim compiled me to say yes. But before you can judge me to sound ungrateful, allow me to elaborate further on why I had inhibitions in going.

The Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, is well-known in its severe and unfair treatment towards women. Everything that a feminist hates, happens every day over here towards a level many would describe as extreme. Child marriages, honour killings, gender segregation, victim blaming, the ludicrous value on virginity, and how women aren’t allowed to drive are just a few examples. It’s important to remember that these horrors occur all over the world, but as a Muslim feminist, it feels personal. The religion of Islam has been the scapegoat for the many ways women become oppressed here and it reminds me of my own limitations and how my parents also used similar methods in bringing me up. I held a deep resentment for many years and even now it’s still something I struggle to healthily process.

But the concept of feminism, once I truly embraced it, opened my heart and mind in ways that were almost spiritual. I felt less alone because I discovered that I shared similar experiences with women all over the world. Many of us have had our gender being used as a means to bring us down. Many grew up feeling envious of their male counterparts and we all have definitely questioned the ways of the patriarchy. I learned new ways to be compassionate, to forgive other women and genuinely understood what it means to accept someone as they truly are; I owe it all to feminism.

I started to look at the world with fresh new feminist lenses and it was nothing short of an obsession. Everywhere I went and everything I saw, I just couldn’t switch it off. I had permanently wired my brain to see sexism and criticize the clinging grip that the patriarchy had on society. It made me feel brave to be this way. So, I got over my fears with the Middle East and decided to take the experience to learn and grow.

One prominent incident happened in Masjid Nabawi in Madinah. As pilgrims, one step in the umrah is to visit to Prophet Muhammad’s tomb and pay your respects. Situated in the middle of the mosque, the queue can be tedious and long. There is a separate queue for special needs pilgrims so I accompanied my grandmother, who was in a wheelchair. Standing in line amongst a sea of elderly women, slowly shuffling towards the tomb, I had plenty of time to observe my surroundings. I couldn’t help but wonder about Prophet Muhammad’s eleven wives and how little I knew about them, especially the ones that came after Khadija. Khadija is known as the “Mother of Believers” and historical accounts said that she was the Prophet’s favourite and is still regarded at the most important woman in Islam. Her success at being a merchant made her an oddity of society at the time but never was there a better role model to what a Muslim woman can be. She was born almost two thousand years ago, but Khadija embodied the notion that you can have it all, a career, a family and respect from society.

As my grandmother and I made our way closer to the front, I noticed a petite Arab woman dressed head-to-toe in a black burqa managing the queue. Her rapid hand gestures and strong command of voice made me understand that she was no pushover. It cannot be an easy job, trying to hold off the over-excited crowd of female pilgrims. It was truly an impressive sight and I took an instant liking to her, even though she also intimidated me. She reminded me a little of Khadija, working hard to protect Prophet Muhammad by every means possible. I did not want to mess with her and felt appalled at the other women who were showing her disrespect by attempting to cut the queue.

The longer we queued, the more I began to wonder, was she happy? In fact, were any of the women from this part of the world happy? I knew that I had plenty of unhappy times because of the struggle to be a good Muslim woman. It requires so much of you, from the way you dress to how you’re supposed to act. What doubles the struggle is also how some Muslim men are truly clueless on the guidelines in how to treat Muslim women and lazily submit to being sexist because it’s just easy to do so.

Did the husbands of these women treat them well? Did she ever get the chance to further their education? Do these women feel oppressed or depressed? Was the hijab even their choice? So many questions were floating in my head, as I continued to observe the activity around me. I felt powerless and sad for the women whose struggles I will never know of. When it came to our turn, I prayed for happiness to be bestowed upon these women; it really was all I could do.

Once we were done with our turn, I wheeled my grandmother towards the exit. Walking through this massive mosque, with its towering gold columns and never ending pathways, I suddenly felt ashamed. Praying for these women made me feel better but the reality of the situation was that I did it for me and my own satisfaction. Who was I to assume the worst for these women? What I see in the news or the Internet could be very different from what it really is. My point of view came from a source of privilege because I had more choices in life and it was narrow-minded of me to think otherwise for the women here. I had subconsciously judged them from a shallow viewpoint, like she’s in a heavy burqa, so she must be unhappy. It was ridiculous because I was also wearing a burqa and I know who I am under all this cloth. I know the values that I stand for so why did I not presume that for other women. That under it all was a real person with a personality and hopes and dreams, just like me.

I realized that before I could become a good Muslim or feminist, I had to become a good person first. It goes back to the core of what feminism is; it is about seeing and respecting someone for what and who they really are. It is about allowing women the choice for what they want in life and withholding any judgment I might have. My mother told me that they treat women with deep respect in the Middle East and that Western media would often paint a more despicable picture because of political agenda and their own lack of understanding of Islam. So far, the only oppression I saw was through my own assumptions and I am therefore waiting to be stand corrected. Prophet Muhammad himself said, “Treat women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers and you have no right to treat them otherwise.” So there is a real possibility that the women here are alright and truly don’t need my pity. What they need is for me to be a better ally and to not be so ignorant. What they need is for me to seek out the truth and to voice out the real problems, not the assumed ones derived from harmful stereotypes. There are areas they are more higher in status in than other women in other parts of the world. For instance, Saudi women’s access to beautiful mosques is far more superior than the space given to women in Brunei’s mosques--ours of which are battered, partitioned, invisible,

As of now, my journey in the Middle East isn’t over, it’s only halfway done. But as for the journey of being a true feminist, I need to be ready to commit for a lifetime. Never have I been more challenged, more vulnerable in my views but I also have never felt more confident in standing up for what I believe in. Feminism changed my life, inevitably for the better.

A Contribution by Amalina Yusri

More March’s Month of Women.

Interested in contributing to Songket Alliance? E-mail us at hi@songketalliance.com with your ideas and article.

Like Songket Alliance on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

[aviationfiction]

XV

Autumn Dupont

“Step through please ma’am.”

I slowly brushed my trembling hands over the upper portion of my body, stopped midway, and gently patted the pockets of my form fitting denim shorts. With a deep breath, I walked through the body scanner and stood on the other side awaiting the bucket filled with my possessions to slide through the second scanner. The police officer standing just a couple inches away from myself stared in a knowing manner; they all do. He didn’t open his mouth to speak or say anything absurd but I’m assured in my assumptions about his thoughts and what he’s biting his tongue over. This famous city thrives on various attributes; South Beach being one of them, but the men who leave their blood, sweat, and tears on the court in the American Airlines Arena are the heart of it. People of all walks of life crowd into that building to experience the loose fun of the regular season, the electrifying playoffs, and if they’re lucky, the gut wrenching finals where either victorious confetti and golden trophies are handed out or tears and disappointment leave the entire building silenced until the next season. I’ve been amongst it all, often having professional cameras snapping away at me, or game goers unknowingly turning me into D-List Miami celebrity by asking for photographs. I’ve met the celebrities, I’ve been introduced to the executives, and I’ve sat amongst the wealthy all for the sake of supporting my husband and it has left it’s lasting affects not only on myself but just as much on the city. My husband’s no mayor or governor but I’ve been stupidly called “The First Lady of Miami” by women much older than myself although Gabrielle Union and Savannah James’ husbands have far more importance within this city than any coach, staffer, political figure, or musician. Well, Lebron is no longer here but the two championships he gave to this city hold their significance. As selfish as it may sound, I felt the affects of his decision to return home to Cleveland far more than anyone else in this city. My husband mourned the loss of his star player far more than he mourned the demise of our marriage.

“Here you are Mrs. Harrington.” We made eye contact when he boldly used my formal name and I swiftly grabbed the bold violet cross body bag out of his hand purposefully making sure skin to skin contact never happened.

“I have a mediation session. Can you direct me to where those take place?”

“You take the elevator to the second floor, make a left once you step out of the elevator, and walk down the hall. The office is at the end of the hall. You won’t miss it.”

“Thank you.”

The sound of my heels ceaselessly striking the mahogany marble flooring flooded my ears far more than the voices surrounded me and I allowed the leather chain strap of my bag to fall over my shoulders as I neared the elevator. As my finger tapped the button, a silent prayer was all that I could think of. I’d been standing alone and if God favors me, I’ll continue to stand alone as I’m enclosed inside of the confined space. A faint ding sounded off and I watched the heavy doors slowly open; bringing a crowd of six people into my line of view. As they filtered out, I quickly stepped inside and pressed the silver second floor button. The thrashing of my heart slowly began to ease itself as the doors began to close and within a second, my blessing was cut short.

“Whew! I’m glad I caught it. Excuse me.” As I stepped aside, the fair skinned woman tap the button for the third floor and tiredly leaned against the wall to catch her breath. As her chest heavily heaved in and out, she slightly turned her head to the side and her eyes panned down to my feet.

“Cute shoes girl.” Her eyes remained locked on the luminous yellow leather printed sandals and her body instinctively leaned forward so she’d be able to get a decent look at the tone-on-tone decorative bows and feathers; added on for a touch of extravagance and eccentricity.

“Love your top too.” She gazed over the lavender and white checkerboard patterned top and nodded her head to further make note of her approval. It’s deep v-neck framed the material off both of my shoulders and the exaggeratedly ruffled short sleeves fell over my arms. The cropped hem wrap around design showcased a hint of skin from my stomach and the bow I’d made with the loose ends rested perfectly on my side. I put effort into the look; the best style effort I’d put forth in quite some time. I prided myself on looking good for my husband; always wanting him to be proud to have me on his arm and to never need to turn his gaze to any other woman. While I wasn’t the typical kept woman who visited high end department stores many days out of the week, purchasing the latest and most expensive pieces from top of the line designers, I did make sure to go maybe two or three times a month to make sure I kept myself up to par. Despairingly, I felt like my closet full of garb was purposeful for game nights rather than date nights. The Agent Provocateur and La Perla pieces ultimately served as typical undergarments rather than sex driven flimsy pieces of material I so badly wanted Andreas to anxiously peel off of me. Today, I’d like for him to do a double take and realize I am the same woman he vowed his life to and inevitably destroyed. He was my Dre and I was his Bella, the woman whose picture he carried around in his wallet despite having a smartphone. I am the one. I was the one.

“Thanks.”

The double doors opened as soon as the elevator stopped and I bid the friendly woman a wave as I stepped outside of it. I glanced back and forth between both ends of the hall and made the left turn as instructed. The more I neared the fate of what was behind the door, the eager I was to turn around and continue to avoid this entire process. Courtesy of Issac, I’d been in communication with Sorrell Trope ever since Joanne’s ambush and he’s been handling the logistics of my divorce. He informed me that he represented Britney Spears, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Nicolas Cage and cheerily boasted about his most recently high profile case; representing Elin Nordegren in her divorce from Tiger Woods. He’d already submitted requests for disclosures and production of Andreas’ bank statements, statements of income, and numerous other documents I’d never seen throughout our six years of marriage. I can’t even began to tell you what the man is worth or what he owns besides our home, his mother’s home, and the two cars sitting in our garage. It never mattered. Frankly, it still doesn’t.

“Mrs. Harrington?” The stocky woman sitting behind the off black desk adjusted her thick glasses and checked off something on the paper sitting in front of her without ever confirming if her assumption was correct or not.

“Yes. I’m Autumn Harrington.”

“You’re all set up in the room over there. Your husband arrived about fifteen minutes ago. There’s paper and pens in the room if you should need them. This is a private mediation which means that there will be a charge per session where as a court ordered medication is of no cost. This mediation is confidential. Anything mentioned within the walls of that room can and will stay within the walls of that room unless you or your husband should decide otherwise. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Okay then. Also, the mediator is running a little late due to car trouble but she did say that she’ll be here within the next fifteen to twenty minutes; possibly sooner. I asked your husband if he would like to reschedule but he informed me that he’s okay with waiting. Will that be a problem for you?” Andreas and I, alone in a room together? The last time that happened I was sent home in tears.

“It’s fine. I can wait.”

“Okay then. Go ahead right in. She should be here soon.”

She turned around in her chair and lazily rolled over to the file cabinet to dismiss my presence and I proceeded in the direction she pointed in. As I opened the door, I immediately spotted Andreas standing at the opposite side of a wooden table and a window, which I’m sure I may consider jumping out of a ton of times before this first session is completed. His baby blue collared shirt was button down three bottoms from the top and in his usual fashion, he rolled up the sleeves until the cuffs were snug around his elbows.

I could barely stand to look him as he stood there, slightly shuffling, with his hands stuff down into the pockets of his khaki pants. His beautiful ocean blue eyes peered into mine and my heartbeat didn’t speed up in anticipation of his touch or a kiss, instead my stomach felt like it’d been dropped into a bottomless pit; free falling with my emotions tied to the tail end of it. To say I feel disparaged would be an understatement.  I used to be able to immediately feel the love between he and I as soon as either one of us entered a room and now there’s this eerie nothingness that radiates from his frame and harshly penetrates my reality. I will never understand how we ended up with this fate and there is nothing a mediator, lawyer, or even he can say to change that.

There are two seats left; the one facing Andreas and one placed at the head of the table which I’m sure is for the mediator. I have no choice but to sit across from him and allow the very eyes I fell in love with to scold me.

As I plotted down into the chair, I rested my hands on the table directly across from his own and our empty ring fingers turned into the focus of my attention. Rather than verbally greeting me, he gently ran his hand over my own and gave it a small squeeze. The gesture wasn’t one of comfort or sincerity, it was one of assurance; assurance that this is what he wants and needs from me.

“Hey Bella.”

Silence.

The ticking sound of the circular antique clock mounted on the wall was louder than any breathing or movement we made. As I glanced up at him, it became obvious he’d been waiting  for me to say something first and quite frankly, I’m speechless with rage.

“You’re waiting for me to speak? You’re divorcing me. You should be doing all of the talking here. Not I.”

“Please don’t start that. Let’s just keep this peaceful. I’m not here to fight with you. I don’t want to fight with you whatsoever. We’re two adults here. You and I can sit down and have a conversation without coming at one another’s throats. There’s no need for that.” He sat back in his seat and grimaced at the smug expression on my face.

“You have a lot of nerve telling me what there is no need for. You’re telling me that? The man with the new family?”

His jaw tightened. I used to love when that happened. I’d purposefully do or say something to anger him all for the sake of attention. His frustrations were the turn on that I often needed. Sometimes he’d take care of it; often times my index and middle fingers did the trick.

“We’re not here to talk about my unborn child or Amber. This is about us. Why are you taking this in a direction that has nothing to do with any of this?”

“But it has everything to do with this. Are you kidding me? We’re married. If you should walk out of this door today and something happens to you, do you know who’s responsible? It will not be your mother nor will it be that woman you’re involved with. It’ll be me. I know given the circumstances that happened to me nearly two years ago you may not understand that concept but that’s how it works. I am responsible for you until a judge signs those documents and dissolutes our marriage and vise versa. So for you to sit here as an engaged man with a wife, you must be out of your got damn mind if you believe that plays no part in why we’re sitting here today.”

“Yeah, well, you know what Autumn? This is a mediation. We’re not in marriage counseling. The mediator will be here to make sure we figure out what we want and what we don’t want so that we can move forward with the divorce. Luckily we have no children so there’s no need to discuss living arrangements, child support, nor custody. That makes this process far easier than it usually is.”

“Luckily?” On the ride here, I ran three different scenarios of how this session would go and I made mental notes, strategies, and promises to myself about how I’d handle all of them. In each, there was one rule: Do not cry. I’ve cried enough. I’d go to bed crying and I’d wake up with either tear stains on my face or tears rolling down my cheeks. I’d cry in the shower and stick my face into the water to manipulate myself into believing that it was nothing more than water droplets trickling down my face. I’d cry during physical therapy, personal therapy, breakfast, lunch, during my runs. Name any place, time, or location, and I’m sure as some point there were tears either threatening to fall or streaming down my face. It was a result of keeping everything bottled within. It was the only coping mechanism I had. As I slowly began to open up to Dr. Jill, the need to cry transitioned into a lot of thinking. The weekly assignments she’s been giving me helped tremendously and yet here I am, falling apart. My eyes began to burn as I tried my best to withhold them but gravity and my overdriven emotions defeated me.

“That’s not how I meant it, I…Autumn. Let’s not make one another upset.”

“How many times are going to say that? Should I expect that statement any and every time you say something that you know is either insulting or hurtful? I am not perfect but I didn’t do anything wrong to you Andreas. I don’t deserve to be spoken to that way nor do I deserve any insults that you may have for me. Think before you speak. First you dismissed your new life having anything to do with why we’re here today and now you’re feeling lucky because you and I never had children together though you know I wanted to have a child more than anything you could have ever given me. What’s next? You’re on a roll.”

“You know what, I apologize. I honestly didn’t mean it in the way you took it.”

“Yes you did.” I glanced over at the window, taking in what I could of the scenery and left him to drill a hole into the side of my neck with his eyes.

“Can we talk about the house?”

“What about it?

“Both of our names are on the deed to it and we agreed upon co-owning it from the very beginning. I don’t want to fight about it nor do I want to turn it into an ongoing back and forth. I am willing to give you the house. As of two years ago, the house is paid for in full. All you’d have to worry about are the properly taxes, the upkeep of the house, and any additional utility bills. You spent more time inside of that home than I did and you handled the interior and exterior design of every single aspect of the house. It's only right that it should be yours. ”

“You seriously believe I want that house? The house that you and another woman are currently living in and have created a child in? My God. You’re ignorant.” I shook my head as a chuckle slipped past my lips and he began to uneasily tap his fingers on the table.

“You don’t want the house?”

“No. I don’t want your house. I don’t even want to live in Miami.”

“Well what about the car? The car is yours. I can have it shipped up to New Jersey within a couple of days if you’d like.”

“I’m not interested. You have both sets of keys to that car so God knows who’s been driving it. No thank you.”

“Autumn, grow the hell up. It’s a freaking car. It gets you from point A to point B. Who gives a damn who’s been driving it? Do you think people sit back and ponder about who’s been driving a used car when they’re at a dealership purchasing them? The car’s in excellence condition. There’s no wear and tear on it. It’s yours. Take it.”

“I don’t want the car. That’s my final decision.” Andreas sat back in his seat, huffed obnoxiously, and glanced over at the same window I’d been staring out of while he offered me these pity gifts. There’s this arrogance slightly slithering through his tone. He believes offering me the house and car is an olive branch in the midst of all of this madness.

“You know what, let’s just cut straight to the point. Twelve million Autumn. We can settle this with our lawyers and get it done. I believe a twelve million dollar settlement is fair. You talked about wanting to return to school and with that, you’d have more than enough money to pay your tuition and live your life comfortably. I love you and I do want what’s best for you.”

Twelve million dollars. I’ve never sat back and attempted to figure out how much I’m worth numerically. How do you calculate those figures? Is it based upon intelligence? Physically capabilities? Liabilities? Were my duties as his wife worth two million dollars per year? How’d he even come up with that estimate? It sounds like such a bribe and a quick figure tossed at me to quickly get this over with but most of all, to get him down the aisle with his fiancee. It’s a payoff without any regard for what I feel or want. It’s a twelve million dollar “thank you for your services, now be gone” notice.

“You love me and you want what’s best for me? Do you really?”

“Yes, I do. Us parting ways doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped caring about you. I’m a human being and you’re the woman I’ve spent just about seven years of my life with. It didn’t work out but that doesn’t mean that everything that we’ve experienced together and gone through is erased from my mind. I do want to see you succeed and be happy despite what you may think about me right now.”

“You love me? Andreas, I’m so tired of you lying to my face. You’re so locked in on what you want for yourself that you can’t even take a step back and realize where you’ve gone wrong. You continue to behave like this divorce is mutual but you know what it’s not, though I wish it were.”

“I am not behaving like it’s mutual. I’m handling it in a peaceful manner.” I laughed. I had to.

“Peaceful? Why couldn’t you handle our marriage peacefully and respectfully? You’re a liar. You lied to me about her. You told me that she was just an old friend and I believed your ass. I stood by you and I believed every word you said to me because I just knew my husband would never do anything to jeopardize what we built together despite whatever issues we may have and you lied. You lied about our issues; painting me as the villain and you as the victim when I tirelessly put up with your shit. I put up with your absence. I dealt with you traveling with that team, being in practice day in and day out, traveling for camp, press, and whatever the hell else you had to do. I didn’t complain. I dealt with your absence while you were here. You’d be right there in front of me and I felt nothing from you. You were like an empty vessel and I just couldn’t get through to you. I didn’t complain.”

“And that’s the problem right there. Maybe you should have. You’re condescending and passive aggressive. Open up your mouth sometimes. You expect people to just get it or get you. You think that everyone’s supposed to automatically understand you, as if you’re some open book. You’re stubborn. You always have been and you always will be. I had to deal with that.” He slammed his hand down on the table, causing it’s wooden legs and the chair at it’s head to rattle in response. His scowl turned into a deep frown and he stared at me, testing me to challenge his statement.

“Open up to a man who doesn’t listen? How could I have opened up to you when all you did was complain? You complained about the job, the team, the city, your previous coaching job in LA, and your busted ass knee that you injured before you and I were together, and yet it somehow became my fault that you cannot play professional basketball. I dealt with you coaching a bunch of men that you quietly envied because you cannot do what they’re doing. You didn’t take that shit out on Lebron and Dwayne. You took it out on me. I dealt with you constantly swallowing pain killers for what you explained as necessary for the so called constant pain within your knee, only for it to turn out that you were physically and mentally dependent on them. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell your mother because I didn’t want to ruin her warped ass picture perfect image of you. I kept it a secret while helping you ween off of those shits without rehab. I was your verbal punching bag as you insulted and argued with me daily for and about them. I dealt with your months and months of erectile dysfunction because of you doping yourself up on those pills and then you stressing while I got you off of them. You made me feel unattractive and you blamed me for it. I dealt with you waking up in cold sweats, pacing, obsessing over championships, and crying because your dreams were ruined.” As I stood to my feet, he stared at his hands while they rested on the table. I awaited a response to my truth but I met with his silence. I could feel and hear my heart thumping against my chest as I attempted to catch my breath. The trembling of my hand, matched the tapping of my foot, and the tightening my stomach trekked it’s way up into my esophagus. He’ll be the death of me if I don’t get out of here.

“I dealt with you denying me of the children I so badly wanted. You continued to tell me that we weren’t ready and I contemplated stopping the birth control but I refrained from doing so to honor you. I didn’t want to ruin your trust in me. I stuck by you. That for better or for worse part of our vows played in my head every single day because I firmly believed we hadn’t hit rock bottom yet and if we did, we’d pick up the pieces and rebuild. I stuck by you at some of your worse times and you left me during mine. I don’t want an apology. Twelve million dollars? What I did for you as your wife is priceless. You wouldn’t be able to make enough money over the entire span of your lifetime to repay me for it. Take that twelve million and fucking drown in it.”

The sound of his voice was muffled by the door closing behind me. I could no longer bare to stand another moment within a room filled with his enormous ego, insincerity, and self-interest. That’s not the man I married; the man I’d share cups of hot chocolate with as we humorously observed our surroundings and made conversation about anyone who stepped inside of our cozy little coffee shop. He’s not the one who I’d go and observe as he coached the men’s basketball team just so he’d wink at me or bid me a knowing smile in the midst of him shouting out plays and strategies to bring his team to a win. He’s no longer the man who I didn’t mind being locked up inside of his apartment with; hiding from the world and basking in one another mentally and physically. We dreamed together, mapped out our goals, and worked towards our future. When it felt like the entire world was stacked up against us, we refused to let one another go and would not allow them the victory of ripping what we built into shreds of oblivion. We were a true union; a partnership crafted by God that no man could put asunder.

As I stood in that room with him, I now know that man has died and our romance perished with him.

A slow, cold, and tarnishing death that has left my love as a forsaken widow.

Dim rays from the setting sun filtered through the small opening of the plush white curtains while the faint sound of the ocean’s roaring waves filled the room. My now adjusted eyes panned up to the ceiling and a small yawn slipped past my lips while I attempted the guess the time. I’d been transitioning from sleeping to watching a random marathon of The Brady Bunch on TVLand since my return from the courthouse. I skipped breakfast while physically and mentally preparing myself for the mediation and the interaction with my husband ruined any desire for lunch. I’m sure the only reason why I’m awake is because of hunger. I deliberately took half of an Ambien so I’d be able to sleep throughout the rest of the afternoon and night, but my body or rather mind ruined the strategy. If I spent any more time watching that family while confined to the memory foam mattress, I’m prone to either scream or check out of this place.

With one roll, I reached over and grabbed my iPhone off of the nightstand and checked the time; seven forty five.

I missed one phone call from my mother, surprisingly one from my father, and two text messages from Heather asking me how the mediation went. Had Heather been in Miami with Mario, we would have been together right now having mojitos and stuffing our faces while she profusely slandered Andreas until she couldn’t find anymore words to say. In this instance, I would have allowed her to do it because I could use the laugh and I’m certain she can use yet another moment when she’s able to have a bash fest over the man she deems to be the biggest mistake of my life. She never excuses me for it because of the love, instead she does so because he has a “pretty face with demonic blue eyes”.

After eating, she’d find someway for us to work off the meal by randomly showing up to some club, rooftop, or yacht party she knew about refrained to mention to me. From there, we’d attempt to relive our college days that I cut short and left her heartbroken over. Though she no longer mentions it, I’m still making that up to her. The guilt is still there; not only for her but also because I should have finished my studies. Before we parted our inseparable ways to began our own lives, we should have walked across that stage together but that’s the past. I’m ready and willing to do it alone.

My fingers scrolled along my list of contacts and I hesitantly paused on his name. I hadn’t heard from him since we arrived in Miami. When we landed yesterday evening, we shared a car service to the Mandarin and he informed me that we’d be staying in town an extra day before we parted ways. Throughout the duration of the twenty minute drive from the airport to the hotel, he adamantly spoke with someone on the phone and didn’t hang up until he said those very brief words to me. I don’t know the ins and outs of his life but what’s obvious is how serious he takes what he does for a living. Though he does not live for it nor does he genuinely enjoy it, he admirably conquers all that he has to do without ever breaking a sweat or faltering. He’s powerful while basking in a modest and reserved demeanor that entrances you almost immediately. He’s unrealistic; the impossible. He’s a figment of my imagination manifesting into my reality.

Pizza? It’s Autumn.

I tossed the phone beside myself and my eyes returned to the french vanilla painted ceiling. As I prepared for a lack of a response, my phone faintly vibrated against my skin.

Meet me in the lobby in ten minutes. I’ll be near the revolving door.

I wish he’d of said twenty minutes, but I mindfully used the ten he offered to slip back into the shoes I’d been wearing earlier in the day and to run a bit of mousse into the wavy curls I’d been enjoying for the past couple of days. While riding the elevator downstairs, I reapplied my favorite MAC “Spite” lip glass to my lips.

As soon as the doors opened, I made the familiar sharp left and walked through the main entrance of the lobby. Just as he told me, he stood by the revolving door in a casual look that I wasn’t expecting. Since our first encounter with one another, I’ve yet to see him in anything other than a two or three piece designer suit. His slender frame is always masked behind the perfectly tailored material representing not only his professionalism but also his very old school taste. Tonight, he opted for a pair of simple navy blue slacks, a button down dress shirt of the same color, and surprisingly, a pair of sneakers. They’re no Nike or Adidas. He decided on a designer pair to mesh well with his entire look. His right arm adorned a simple gold watch; most likely a Rolex, and he left that as his only accessory. Clean, straight to the point, but highly effective.

“How are you?” I spoke first. He’d been too busy staring at whatever is going on outside to notice me coming.

“I’m well. How about yourself?”

“I’m alive.” He chuckled with a nod of his head.

“I can see that. That’s not telling me how you are though. So, how are you?”

“I’m alright.” He glanced in the direction of the glass doors once more and pointed at the Mercedes Benz a valet stepped out of.

“That’s us right there.”

“You were already down here when I texted you?”

“Yeah, I actually just arrived back from a last minute meeting with the second contractor. I was walking to the elevator as soon as you texted me.” We stepped inside of one section of the revolving door together and he did the pushing until we were outside.

“Were you going to relax?”

“No. I was going upstairs to order room service. You saved me from having to do that.”

He opened up the passenger side door for me and waited until my body was comfortably resting against the maroon leather seats before closing the door. He slipped the valet a twenty dollar bill as his towering body lowered down into the drivers seat and he closed the door behind himself. In unison, we put our seat belt on.

“Any place in particular you want to go?” Lauryn Hill’s soothing whistles notes filled my ears as the infectious beat of Nas’ “If I Ruled The World” vibrated against the cool seats.

“Not really. Pizza is pizza. Visa-O1 is decent. Blocks too.”

“I know a spot. It’s not a pizza place but they definitely serve pizza. Is that alright with you?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s fine.”

“Windows up or down?” My eyes followed his hand as it switched the car’s gear into drive and they slowly panned up to his face.

“Down.”

He obliged my answer and immediately began drive down Brickell Key Dr. I thought we’d be taking a local route and would be able to take glances at the melting pot of people having a joyous time outdoors but instead I was left to enjoy the scenic US-1 South for nearly fifteen minutes. By then, I could no longer quietly guess where we were going. In my time of living here, I never familiarized myself with this city as much as I should have. I don’t believe he’s ever lived here and he knows this place far better than I do. I couldn’t give him directions to anywhere beyond the handful of places I frequented. During date nights, Andreas and I usually visited same places and those became our spots to go out and have a bite to eat when we could. For Heather, social media announcements and Google Maps takes her wherever she needs to be down here. She goes wherever the night takes her and can barely recall where exactly that place was in the morning. She actually knows nothing more than the way to Mario’s home and mine. Actually, we know the beach too, but who doesn’t?”

“Is this a private road?” We crossed a bridge that I’d never seen or heard about and the surroundings didn’t ring a bell no matter how many times I looked around to familiarize myself.

“Yeah. This is sort of a beach club. Well, actually it is. It’s called Palmeiras.”

“You have a membership here?”

“Well, not technically. This place is represented by the company and the owner is a nice guy so he welcomed me to come by and enjoy the place whenever I have the time to.”

“So how is it? It looks great from out here.”

“I don’t know. This is my first time coming.” I couldn’t help but to playfully suck my teeth and we shared a laugh over my assuming. He didn’t used the navigation system, took the quickest route, and we arrived without him ever losing the way. It was easy to believe he comes here often.

“You’re such a prankster.”

“Hey, you assumed.”

As we stepped out of the car, I realized we’d come as close the Amalfi Coast as we were going to get. This hidden gem basks in the sweeping, unobstructed view of the stunning Biscayne Bay with a picturesque view and peaceful atmosphere that’s rare to find within this area. It marvels after the French Riviera in taste with hints of Italian and Greek structuring. We’d only been walking along side one another for a couple of minutes and I couldn’t take my eyes off of the extensive amenities and beautiful decor. Unlike any other waterfront restaurant, the views of the Bay from here are paranoramic, dazzling in what feels like a small paradise.

“This is incredible.”

“Fredrick was one of the three architects who designed and worked on this place. Miami is his playground and he’s surely done his part in making some of the more recent structures look incredible.”

“He has a great eye. I’m speechless about the view. My God. My house sits near the bay and I don’t believe the view is this incredible from there.”

“Yeah, he does. He’s excellent at what he does. He has an artistic eye that goes beyond being an architect.”

“I can tell.”

“You want stay outdoors?”

“Yes. I’d love that.”

He only left me for two minutes to have a short conversation hostess and it only took another three for us to be seated a table for two with an unparalleled view of the bay. Though he’d chosen not to drink for driving purposes, I indulged and ordered a peach mojito. The Absolute Peach, Pyrat Rum, and Apricot Liquor would compliment the view of the bay in calming my nerves. Though the Mediterranean style dishes throughout the menu were attention grabbing, I settled on a margarita pizza and he; a chicken sandwich.

“This place is so nice. I can’t believe you don’t come here whenever you’re in town. You sure you haven’t been on a date here?” I playfully raised an eyebrow at him and he quickly shook his head in response to it.

“No. I’m being truthful when I say this is my first time. I don’t understand how you were living here for so long and have never been here.”

“Oh you’d be surprised about all of the places I haven’t been throughout my duration of living here. I’m still a newbie in this town.”

“Were you home sick?”

“Uh. Kind of. I didn’t know anyone other than Andreas so I stuck around my house rather than hanging out with myself all the time. I didn’t make any real friends. I know you’re probably wondering why I didn’t become friends with all of the player’s wives but I wasn’t interested. They were pleasant; Savannah, Gabby, Adrienne, and the others, but I just kept to myself. Heather visited every now and then and we hung out a bit, but it still wasn’t enough for me to know and learn a lot around here.” I took my second sip of the chilled drink and nearly sighed in bliss as it steadily slipped down my throat.

“I like it here; not to live but it’s a nice place to hang out. I usually have fun when the guys and I make a trip down here together.”

“You said it’s Fredrick’s playground right?”

“Yeah, but not in the manner that it used to be. He’s locked down now. He’s in love but don’t let him know I told you that.” He chortled at the thought of his best friend and his possible disdain for that statement.

“Oh, he’s fronting about it?”

“Big time.”  

“What about your other friend Mike?”

“Mike’s a chill guy. He’s the joker out of all three of us and the big mouth. Honestly, I don’t know what’s up with him. I think he’s seeing someone. He’s secretive with that type of shit though. You don’t know until he wants you to know. He’d rather be in everyone else’s business, especially mine.” It was my turn to laugh when a frown appeared on his face. If anything Mike to him is what Heather is to me; obnoxiously nosy and a know it all.

“He’s always in your personal business?”

“Hell yeah. He asks a lot of questions. Fredrick will set me up on blind dates.”

“Blind dates? So they’re like match dot com for you?”

“Yeah, in the worse way.”

“As annoying as it sounds, I’m sure it’s just their way of caring about you. They want to see you happy and I think that’s cute.”

“Cute?” He curved his lips to the right and jerked his head back. “Yeah right. What about you?”

“Well, Heather used to try that in high school and at our early beginnings of college but it literally never worked out. I was the master of the curve back then and rather awkward if I must say so myself. I developed late, had a big ol’ forehead. I said that like it vanished. Anyway, I had no boobs or butt. I was kind of a tomboy and eventually shed that as I became older. By the time I was ready to date, I fell for one man and he became my first….everything. So all of that was cut short.”

“How did today go?” I didn’t expect that question after my answer and I nearly finished the rest of the drink as flashbacks of today’s courthouse nightmare played in my head.

“That bad huh?” He didn’t need an answer. I just nodded.

“We don’t have to talk about it. It’ll all turn out for the best. Just believe that.”

“I’m trying to.”

“It will. You want to go back to talking about my dull ass dating life? I don’t mind talking about it.” And just like that, he flared up yet another fit of laughter from me.

“Why do you call it dull?”

“Because it is. Everyone knows that.”

“When was your last girlfriend?”

“Uh, it was during my days at Columbia. Jessica. We dated for three months.”

“How long was your longest relationship?”

“Three months.”

“You’re lying.” I snickered until I nearly choked on the sip of the peach cocktail. He smirked while shaking his head and I glared at him awaiting his admission to that lie.

“I had a situation with someone that lasted a couple of months but it was no relationship. It was an agreement. Samira.”

“So Samira was alright with you two just….having sex?” I playfully side eyed him. “With no strings attached?”

“Yeah. We went out on dates occasionally but it never turned into anything serious though we played with the idea of it. I never met her family and she just so happened to meet my mother because we randomly ran into her. It wasn’t something that I wanted.”

“What did your mom say?”

“She was excited because there was finally some spice in my dull ass love life.”

“Stop calling it that.” Each time he said it I laughed. There was a playfulness in his tone that made it all the more funny. If he can turn something like this into a joke, I don’t see why anyone else can’t. The dating world can be hilarious. Heather and Rachel have stories that are amusing enough to leave you with both a headache and bellyache.

“And then you two parted ways?”

“Yeah. She’s engaged now……and then there’s me.” He snickered as I continued to laugh at his “sob story”. He seems content with his relationship status. I don’t get a lonely vibe from him. I can tell that he’s a loner by nature; not desperate for company, attention, or aggravation.

“Well, you don’t have to be single. There are women awaiting a chance. Before I even knew who you were, Rachel would sit at the desk and verbally lust over you. It’s not just her either. The women in that building and over at Meridian lust when you walk through those doors. You and your brother.” Dante impishly cut his eyes at me and I nodded my head with a smile to assure him that I’m telling no fibs. The Legend Of The St. James Brothers is famous within the companies.

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true. They turn into high school girls when you walk in with your designer suits on and your oxford shoes. The leather briefcase takes it over the edge. They giggle, whisper, and come up with all types of scenarios that they’re never going to execute because they’re too afraid to ask you out. You’re also very poised. There’s no exact way to approach you without the fear of looking foolish.” My eyes shamelessly followed his tongue as he ran it over his bottom lip and he shrugged his shoulders. We hadn’t touched our food since the waitress place it down in front of us.

“I don’t come there for that.”

“Your brother flirts.”

“With you?” He leaned forward just a bit and I shook my head.

“With everyone, honestly.”

“He’s married.”

“Oh, I know. Seems like I’m the only one who does know.”

“If he had it his way, no one would know.”

“You two are polar opposites.” It was his turn to finally sip his drink; a Sprite.

“Yes.”

“Are you close despite that?”

“No.” I finally grabbed a slice of the personal pizza and took a small bite out of it as he continued to stare at me. I expected him to finally take a bite out of his chicken sandwich but he didn’t.

“You work very hard. I’ve picked up on that ever since we flew down here for the first time together. You nearly bit my head off that day.” He grimaced; causing a snicker to slip past my lips. “What do you do to relax?”

“Play basketball, watch sports center for an hour or two. I’ll hang out with the fellas. That's about it.”

“You don't go on vacations?”

“No, not really. It’s funny that you mention that. My mother is pushing for this huge family vacation and I'm avoiding it like a plague.”

“Why?” He smirked. I wouldn’t mind vacationing with my parents for as long as Issac doesn’t attend it. I’m convinced we’d most likely try to drown one another at some point.  

“Because it won't be a vacation. It'd be seven days of horror. I’d rather not.”

“Well, what about with your friends?”

“They don't like going on exotic vacations without women, which is fine and I get it. They’re at that stage in their lives where companionship is important. We went out to L.A. with one another not too long ago and we come down here every now and then. That’s our vacations together. There’s work and a bit of play.”

“You need to enjoy your life and enjoy the fruits of your labor. There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t make you arrogant or wasteful to splurge on something that will be beneficial and relaxing for you. You give back to God and the universe more than enough. You should allow God and the universe to give back to you. You haven’t been blessed with all of your success only for you to ignore it and overwork yourself. You should have some fun. I’m not the best at advice but I mean well when I speak.”

“I know you mean well and that advice is something that I’ll take into consideration. You’re not the first person to say it to me but you’re the first person to mention God within it. You’re Christian.”

“I am. I’m no church girl. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve gone to church. That’s probably why I’m a mess now.” My eyes panned to the moonlighted calm waters. “But I know he’s looking out for me; looking out for all of us. I questioned him quite a bit over these last two years because I just knew he was reeking havoc on my life but my aunt Sharon always told me if he brings you to it, he’ll bring you through it. I’m here. My story isn’t over. I still have my life, as my boss told me.” I winked at him and he nodded his head with a small chuckle. His lax body enthralled my own and I too relaxed into my seat and leaned against the back of the white chair.

“I own a home in Malibu. Only three people know about it; Mike, Fred, and Stacey. I had it built over the last couple of years. I’d been dreaming of having a huge house of my own since I was a kid. By the time I was eighteen, I began to save up for it and ever since then I’ve been working to be able to afford it. It’s completed now and as of a couple of months ago, it’s fully furnished.”

“So you’re moving out of New York?”

“No. I haven’t stayed in the house and I don’t plan to, at least not yet. The week we were in California, I went there, and as beautiful as the house is, it doesn’t feel like home yet. It felt empty with me standing in it. That tells me that I have a lot of unfinished business to handle and more to accomplish before I can settle my life there. That house will be my relaxation. It’ll be me enjoying the fruits of my labor. I have to wait though. It’s all in God’s timing right?”

“I’d say so. How long do you think it’ll take you to feel and be ready? A couple of months? A year?”

“I’ll be ready when it’s worth it in every single way possible. I can’t estimate how long that will be but I’m willing to wait.”

The moonlight glimmered in his unfathomable deep brown eyes as the confidence within his statement rattled me. In his reserved manner, he’s so assured in himself and what he wants. I mistook him to be still finding his way much like I am but he already knows the way. He’s practical and sensible with just enough assertiveness; unbelievable and yet so tangible. Vulnerable.

My eyes traced his jawline as he stared at the view that took my breath away upon our arrival.

Unreal.

[kpopscenarios4u-blog]

We've Got This, Jagiya

Word Count: 5,476 Requested by: anonymous Themes: Fluff, Slight Smut. Triggers: Hospital Setting, vomiting, rambling about abortion A/N:I couldn’t bring myself to split this one up into parts, I’m sorry. If you make it through, I’ll bake you kookies. I wanted to try the interactive fic button, so let me know if it works for you and if you’d like to see if used all the time. It’s such a great add-on created for scenario writers. Anyway, enjoy this fluffy fic.

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You had been dating Kim Namjoon from BTS for a little over a year now and the two of you often found yourselves fantasising about your future and having children, even more so after you had announced your relationship to the world and had been met with, mostly, positive wishes and comments. As a popular solo artist, your schedules were often so busy that you missed periods here and there, but it had never gone for three straight months. Once you began to get extremely sick, you decided to bite the metaphorical bullet and take a home pregnancy test. You’d bought it quite late at night, hoping that not many people would be out but still wearing a wig and glasses. The elderly woman at the counter hadn’t recognised you as you paid for three tests - you had to be sure, alright? - and no one bothered you as you smuggled them home. Over the course of a week, you had taken all three and all three had given you the same answer. You were pregnant.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea overcame you and you rushed to hurl whatever was left in your stomach into the toilet. Your heaving was so violent that you didn’t notice Namjoon enter your apartment until he was knocking at the bathroom door. “Jagiya? You’re still sick?” His voice oozed with concern. For the last three months you had been so sick with a stomach - well you supposed you should refer to it as it’s proper name now that you knew what was wrong - morning sickness so terrible, that you’d spent weeks at a time in the hospital. Several of your schedules had to be canceled, which made you feel terrible but your fans, and even some of Bangtan’s fans had been so lovely and understanding that it helped lessen the guilt. “G-go away…” You sobbed, trying to catch your breath. How were you supposed to enjoy what was supposed to be such a wonderful time in your life when you were so sick and miserable. It was difficult to even keep down water. “Nice try, I’m coming in.” You tried to kick out with your leg to stop him from opening the door, but it was too late. Namjoon’s eyes softened as he saw you crouched so pathetically on the floor. “Oh baby girl… He sighed, and moved to hold your hair back as another wave of nausea hit you. He crouched behind your and held your hair with one hand as he rubbed your back with the other. “Let it all out, baby. You’ll feel better.”

“How do you appear whenever I’m sick?” You groaned, retching once more. “Do you have this place bugged?” “If you have the energy to sass me, then you must be feeling better Y/N.” Namjoon joked just before you heaved once more. “Hey, Y/N, maybe I should take you back to the hospital…” He murmured, his worry growing. As much as you hated to admit it, not wanting to see another hospital for as long as you lived, he was right. “Alright.” However, if he was to go with you, he might end up hearing from someone else that you were pregnant and you didn’t want that. “Could you do me a favour first?” He looked conflicted, worried that you might start being sick again. “I’m fine, I feel better for now. Can you pass me that white stick on the sink?” You knew Namjoon too well, as he couldn’t help but glance at it as he passed it to you. It took him a second to realise what it was but when he did, his jaw dropped. “I-is this…” He stuttered, bringing the pregnancy test closer to him. “Are y-you?” Chewing your lower lip, you nodded. “I’m pregnant.” “Then the stomach flu…” “Morning sickness…” You nodded, studying his expression and growing worried. Had his talk of wanting a family just been a way to make you happy? Was he changing his mind now that he was actually going to be a father? “Abortions are illegal in Korea.” You told him, rambling a little, looking down at the ground. “And if I were to go to America to have one, I think it would be difficult to find anyone to perform one unless this wasn’t a healthy pregnancy - but other than the morning sickness being so bad, I don’t think the baby isn’t healthy - as I’m probably about 12 weeks and that’s pretty late. You can get it done up to 18 weeks in some states but it becomes riskier for the mother if you leave it that late. Besides, I don’t want to have an abortion. You can leave if you want, I can do this on my own--” Namjoon finally registered that you were talking about abortions. “If you abort my baby, I’ll never forgive you, Y/N.” He said, his eyes narrowing and his voice dark. “Hey, I said I didn’t want to have one. Were you even listening, Kim Namjoon?!” You growled back, getting defensive. “I want to keep this baby.” “So do I!” He argued back. “Then why are you arguing with me if we want the same… Wait, you want to keep the baby?” “Jagiya… Of course I do. I just, I was trying to let it sink in while preparing myself for you to be pulling a sick joke.” “I couldn’t joke about that. You know kids are important to me. Granted I thought we’d be starting a family a little later in life.” You laughed gently. “You’re going to be a daddy, Joonie.” If it were possible, you wished to ingrain the beautiful, beaming look that your love gave you in your mind forever. “I’m going to be a daddy.” He said reverently before pulling you into a crushing hug and whooping. “I’m going to be a daddy!” Your stomach jumbled again. “Namjoon!” You pulled away and threw up into the toilet once more.

-

“Well, you were correct in your assumption, Y/N,” Your gynecologist confirmed as she ran a cold ultrasound wand over your flat stomach. “It looks like you’re about 13 weeks pregnant. Congratulations.” Namjoon stared at the screen showing your uterus and the fetus it contained, his eyes shining with awe and with a few nerves mixed in. Your gynecologist smiled at him and then you. “Would you like to hear your baby’s heartbeat, Mr. Kim, Y/N?” “Can we?” He asked, the awe shining through his voice. She nodded and soon the rapid beating of your baby’s heart filled the room. “Oh!” Namjoon excitedly grabbed your hand, his eyes flicking to you almost staring into your soul. In that moment, you fell in love with the father of your child. “That’s our son.” He breathed. “Or daughter.” You smiled softly. “I don’t think so. I really feel like it’s a boy.” “Well, you can find out in about 3-7 weeks.” Dr. Lee told you, smiling at your conversation. “If that’s something you’re interested in, I can book you in for three weeks so we can have a look and see if baby wants to co-operate. Otherwise, I’ll just book you in for a 20 week anatomy scan and that will be it until it’s time for you to come in and discuss your birth plan.” You looked at Namjoon, a small frown on your lips. “I’d rather not find out, Joonie.” You told him, worried that he would desperately want to find out if he was having a boy. “Alright,” Namjoon said simply. “I’m already confident he’s a boy, so why do we need a scan to tell us that?” You could only laugh at his determination. “Just don’t be disappointed if we have a girl, Namjoon.”

-

At fifteen weeks, after telling your parents and your companies, the two of you decided to fill in Namjoon’s groupmates before breaking the news to the rest of the world. They were the most important people in his life, excluding you and his parents. You planned on inviting the guys over to your place and cooking them dinner before telling them, but as soon as Jin got wind that you had big news to share, he insisted that you went to their place so that he could cook. You had a feeling that he had known what was going on even before you did. He’d been quite careful of you since you came down with your “stomach flu”, especially when the younger members tried to rough house. You’d become a Noona to them, even before you and Namjoon had become a thing - even if you were only a couple years older than Jungkook, the youngest member.

Thanks to Jin, the meal went off without a hitch and as the lively conversation had begun to die down completely, the topic of your news was brought up. “So what’s up, Namjoon, Y/N?” Hobi asked, his eyes darting between the two of you. You glanced at Namjoon and smiled with a shrug. He moved closer to you and rested his arm on your shoulder. “Y/N and I…” You both looked at each other and everyone around the table. God, what if they hated you. “Are going to have a baby.” “Damn.” Taehyung groaned, putting his head down on the table. “Hey,” Namjoon growled as your face fell. “Watch what you say, Kim Taehyung.” “Why? Now I own Jin $50.” He whined, when he lifted his head, he had a massive grin on his face and the rest of the boys burst into laughter. Even Namjoon couldn’t help but smile. You, however, burst into tears your hormones getting the better of you. “That wasn’t a nice trick, Taehyung!” You cried, hitting Namjoon in the shoulder as he snickered at the worried look on Taehyung’s face. “I’m sorry Noona, I’m really happy for you I swear!” It didn’t matter. You continued to sob. Namjoon couldn’t hold his laughter in a second longer and as you cried, he laughed. The boys never looked so confused or conflicted.

Once things had settled down, you all piled into the living room to watch a movie. Taehyung sat the furthermost away from you despite your protests. “I’m sorry, TaeTae, I can’t control my feelings right now. I didn’t mean to. I was just so worried how you would all react.” You pouted, but he still tried to keep his distance. “If you don’t stop being weird, I’ll cry again.�� Your threat seemed to work as he shuffled closer but still couldn’t meet your eye. Half way through the movie, you began to doze off as Namjoon slowly rubbed your stomach, which had just started to become a small potbelly, humming softly. While Namjoon wasn’t a great singer, his voice was special to you. You felt relaxed and content as you tried to focus on the movie. Then you felt it. A tiny fluttering from the pit of your uterus. “Oh my god.” You gasped as your eyes shot open. Namjoon retracted his hand quickly, panic showing in his face. The other members were panicked too, but you only had eyes on Namjoon. “What? What’s wrong?” “Shhhh!” You gasped, excitedly. “Do it again, rub my stomach and hum again.” While everyone was looking at you crazily, Jin paused the movie and Namjoon did as he was told - though he seemed more self-conscious with everyone’s eyes on him. You waited and waited for something to happen, but nothing did. “Come on baby, I know you’re in there.” You murmured. Perhaps it was a trick of your imagination, something you imagined as you feel asleep. But then, it was there again, stronger this time. “Oh my god, I can feel you. I can feel the baby moving.” You felt new tears well in your eyes as Namjoon sang a little louder at this revelation and the baby continued to flutter away. “Can you feel it?” You asked but Namjoon shook his head. “It’s OK, I will eventually. Right now, I’m just happy that you can feel it.”

-

For the most part, the public had reacted well to your happy announcement. Of course, you were never going to be able to please everyone, but you’d learned not to let that bother you over the years. Namjoon had been a little upset at first, more worried about how you would react and that it was causing stress for you and the baby, but he’d calmed down pretty quickly when you explained that it honestly didn’t bother you. There would always be negative people in the world and maybe some of the fans just needed time to accept that he would be a father. Once they saw that things wouldn’t change so much unless for the best, then they wouldn’t worry as much.

Your pregnancy was progressing quickly. The baby grew more active every day and you’d started to feel kicking and bigger movements, but Namjoon was still yet to feel anything. Not long after your dinner with the boys, Namjoon had moved out of the dorms, you had moved out of your little one bedroom apartment and the two of you had found your first home together. The new apartment wasn’t much bigger than your old one, but it had two rooms that would eventually accommodate your growing family. You’d both decided that you wanted to keep the baby in your room until it became too crowded. This way one of you would never be alone when the other was away for work. You both had to get back into your jobs fairly quickly after the birth - though your schedule was pretty light for the first four months after the baby was due - and your companies had been great in working it out that at least one of you could be with the baby for the first six months. Then your mother and Namjoon’s mother would be helping out. For now, the second bedroom was going to be an office/studio for you both to use when you were working from home. You’d placed a futon in there so that, if one of your mother’s needed to stay the night, a bed could be easily made up for her.

Namjoon was still adamant that your baby was a boy, and it took all your control to rein him in when the two of you went shopping for baby things. Everything he picked up was very gender specific. “I just think, until we know for sure, we should get gender neutral clothing.” You told him, for what felt like the 50th time that afternoon alone. “But jagiya, I do know for sure that we’re having a boy.” He teased, rubbing your stomach that grew bigger every day. At 20 weeks, you finally looked somewhat pregnant and not just bloated. Your stomach was still small, but it was definitely more rounded. “Ugh, sometimes I want to smack you.” You complained, feeling a headache developing behind your eyes. “Alright, alright,” At least he knew when to stop teasing. “Only gender neutral clothing… Until I’m proven right.” You rolled your eyes and smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

-

You needed Namjoon and you needed him now. At 24 weeks pregnant, your sex drive was through the roof. You simply could not get enough of him and this usually worked out to both of your favour. Except for now. Namjoon was working hard on a new song and trying to get it done quickly so that he could join you in bed. Lately, you were having trouble falling asleep unless he was there. While you had been told over and over by your doctor that everything was fine, you continued to have various levels of nightmares. Some were more real, in one you gave birth to a girl causing Namjoon to leave you. In another, he was grossed out by your ever-expanding body and left you for another woman. In another, you went into labour and pushed and pushed for an entire week only to be told that you weren’t pregnant and to go home. Some were silly, but they still made you wake in a sweat. Just last night you dreamt that you went into labour and gave birth to a foul that had Hobi’s face. When you told that dream to Namjoon, he nearly pissed himself laughing and had to text it word for word to the other members. You weren’t impressed.

Finally, you saw the living room light switch off and Namjoon - glorious, shirtless Namjoon - appear in the doorway to your bedroom. “Still not asleep, Jagiya?” He yawned, making his way into the bathroom to get ready for bed. You whined impatiently, rubbing your thighs together. He stuck his head around the doorway and raised a brow studying you. God, he was sin incarnate, even with foamy toothpaste and a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. “How are you so fucking attractive?” You purred, kneeling on the bed and crawling toward him. “Hurry up and get over here now, Namjoon.” His adorable puzzled expression turned into a sex smirk before he disappeared back into the bathroom. When he returned, sans toothpaste, he pushed you back gently and crawled between your legs, leaning down to kiss you hungrily. You savoured the taste that was him mixed with minty toothpaste before he pulled away and freed your left nipple from your pyjama top, sucking it as he ground against you lightly. The mint left in his mouth from the toothpaste only heightened the experience, making you see white as you cried out in ecstasy. Namjoon stilled, released your nipple and watched you in awe. “Did you just… Did you cum from that alone?” Blushing, you reached for a pillow to bury your face in but he stopped you. “That was so sexy, Y/N.” He kissed you hungrily, his cock hard against your core with only his pants and your underwear separating you from what you both wanted. You were so hot and wet. “Let’s see how many more times I can get you to cum from just my mouth.”

His lips met yours once more before they began to make their way down your body. As he placed a kiss low on your stomach, you felt the baby start to kick but you were too lost in the sensations to care. Namjoon still couldn’t feel the baby anyway, so why freak him out and ruin the mood by mentioning that the baby was awake. That was until you notice he’d stilled, his hands and face pressing against your small bump. “Did he…” His voice was low and childlike as he looked up at you in awe. “Jagiya, did he kick? I felt him. I can feel him.” The passionate mood that you had both been in quickly changed, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care as you watched your boyfriend openly weep knowing that he could finally feel his child move inside you. “Hi baby,” He breathed, running his hands over your stomach, his lips pressed against the tight skin there. “It’s me, daddy.”

-

It was hard watching him go. He was off on tour for four weeks around Korea, Japan, and China and you were now thirty-three weeks pregnant. It just wasn’t safe or practical for you to see him off at the airport. Instead, you said goodbye outside your apartment building. The rest of the group had arrived to pick up him and had piled out of the van to say goodbye to you. It was hard to focus on them and your emotions while blocking out the sound of screaming fans. Someone had caught wind of them being there and a small crowd had formed to also see them off. “I’ll be back in four weeks.” He said, ignoring the fans calling out to him. The others were had all climbed back into the van and were trying to give you guys some privacy. “You message me for any reason at all. Even if you’re just feeling lonely.” You nodded, feeling miserable. “You’re going to be wonderful, Appa. We’ll be here cheering for you.” You smiled, a few stray tears rolling down your face. Lately, you’d taken to calling each other Appa and Eomma. It had started off as a way to creep out the other members. You’d been talking to the baby while you waited for Namjoon to come home when the boys burst through the door and made themselves at home. Namjoon coming in last. ‘Ah, here comes Appa.’ You’d said to your belly, only to have the boys freak out. However, it had developed into something more. Somehow, it made you truly feel like a family and the countdown till you finally got to meet you baby more bearable. “Thanks, Eomma,” He grinned as he took you in your arms and kissed you tenderly. The crowd cheered, most of the fans had come around to your relationship and the idea you were having a baby by now. Especially those who lived in and around your neighbourhood. Usually, they were quite respectful of your lives and give your plenty of room. You’d always loved Namjoon’s fans because they loved him and BTS so much, but you’d really grown to love them during the time your relationship had been made public. Kneeling down, he kissed your stomach, his hands either side of it before resting his forehead there. You blushed, not used to such displays in public, smiled and waved awkwardly to the crowd who grew louder at the display of affection. “Now, you be good for Eomma, son.” He said, just loud enough for you to hear. The baby kicked and he looked up at you with glee. Your baby’s movement never grew old for Namjoon. He still had that same look of awe and happiness that he did the first time he’d felt it. “Appa, fighting.” You cheered, though your voice cracked a little with emotion. “Be safe jagiya. I love you.” The two of you kissed and embraced once more and then he was in the van and heading to the airport.

“You two are so cute together.” One fan cried and you smiled, though tears were now freely flowing down your face. “Thank you for loving him.” “Please don’t be sad, Eonnie. He’ll be back soon.” Another called. “Thank you for loving him so much.” You told them, showing your true emotions. “He needs your love just as much as he needs mine.” Waving to them as they cheered and called out, you made your way back into the apartment.

-

One more week. Just one more week. You chanted, ignoring the pain that was currently coursing through your body. You mother had been staying with you while Namjoon and BTS were on tour, but she had gone down to the store to get some last minute things you wanted to pack in your hospital bag. You’d been having little tweaks of pain all morning, but had just chalked it down to Braxton hicks contractions which you’d already had two lots of since Namjoon had been gone. You’d called him the first time, and he’d been in the middle of organising a way back to you when they’d gone completely. That time, he’d been in Busan and was much closer. You’d told him the second time, while they were in Tokyo, but you’d known straight away that it wasn’t real labour and told him as much. He’d worried, but he hadn’t been tearing about trying to get a plane back like he had the first time.

This time felt different, though. At thirty-six weeks pregnant, you could safely go into labour and be classed as ‘full term’, however, you had been told that you would make it to at least thirty-eight weeks as you and the baby were both healthy. That’s why you’d been more at ease about Namjoon going away at such a late stage. You couldn’t be going into labour now, he wouldn’t be back for another week.

You were pacing around the apartment, practicing your breathing, when your mother returned from the store. “Y/N? What’s wrong?” She asked, her voice was calm but you could hear that she was slightly worried. “Are you having Braxton hicks again?” You shook your head, just as another contraction hit. You breathed through it, remembering what you had been taught. “I think this is the real thing, mum.” You told her once the contraction ended. “They’re not close together yet, I just feel uncomfortable.” You were amazed at how calm you were being. “I’ve called the hospital, she said not to come in until I’m 3cm dilated.” You mother opened her mouth to speak. “I checked and I’m not, however, I’m not quite 2cm though. I was resting, but I got restless and needed to walk. Would it be silly to take a walk around the neighbourhood?” “I don’t see why not, but you need to call Namjoon first and let him know.” “I couldn’t get a hold of him, I think he’s on stage but I left a message.”

When you got back from your walk - which was really more of a shuffle - Namjoon still hadn’t called. You left your phone with your mother and went to shower. You’d just turned the shower off and reached for your towel when your water broke. “Namjoon’s calling.” Your mother explained as she opened the bathroom door and stuck her hand through the crack. You answered, not wanting him to think something was wrong but called out to your mother first. “Mum, I think my water just broke.” “What?!” You heard Namjoon call from the phone in your hands. “I’ll get the bags.” You mother said, her voice teary. “Jagiya.” You said weakly, bringing the phone up to your ear. “I’m coming home. I’ll get someone to book me on the next flight out and I’ll be there before you know.” Namjoon was saying, you could hear the other boys making a commotion in the background, set off by the panic their leader was in. “Y/N? Why aren’t you answering me?” You were in the middle of a particularly contraction and couldn’t hear him as you’d brought the phone to your chest. When it was over, you brought it back up to your ear to hear Namjoon going nuts. “I need the next flight out, hyung! Isn’t there anything sooner? Y/N? Y/N? Damn it!” “Relax, sorry, I was just having a contraction. I think it’s probably best you jump on the first flight available, though. Mum’s going to take me to the hospital now. I’m still wet from my shower, Jagi, I’m starting to get cold.” “Well get dressed then!” He cried in frustration. “I will, but I need to go to do that. It’s hard to have contractions, get dressed and hold a phone at the same time. I love you. See you soon.” “She’s sassing me.” You could hear Namjoon say sarcastically. “The woman is in labour and she has the time and energy to sass m--” You hung up the phone.

-

You’d been in active labour for seven hours. Namjoon had boarded the plane from Hong Kong three hours ago but he still wouldn’t touch down for another half an hour. Then there was a thirty minute trip to the hospital - if traffic was good. You stared worriedly up at the ceiling as the nurse examined you. Out in the hall, you could hear your mother on the phone to Jin, updating the boys on how things were progressing. “Not long now,” You could just make out her saying. “I’m not sure if he’ll make it.” ‘Please hurry, Namjoon.’ You thought, snapping to attention as the nurse straightened up and lowered the sheet covering you. “I’m sorry, Y/N, but I’m going to have to get the doctor. It’s time to deliver a baby.” Your heart sunk a little. There was still time, though, right? It would take longer than an hour to deliver the baby. Your doctor entered the room and also examined you. “Y/N, it would seem that you’re actually further along in your pregnancy that we originally expected.” She said. You frowned. What did that mean? “Will that affect the baby?” You asked, worry creeping into your stomach. This on top of everything else was just too much. “Well yes, but not in a bad way. It just means that the baby is more developed. We thought you were thirty-six weeks when in actuality, you’re thirty-eight weeks. Just two weeks off your due date, instead of four. Babies are born at this stage all the time and with no health problems at all. He or she may be a little slow to latch on for feeding, but other than that, you have nothing to worry about.” You sighed, at least something was going to be alright. “Now, let’s deliver a baby, shall we?”

You held your baby in your arms, wrapped up safe and tight. It was impossible to think that something so small and perfect had been inside you less than an hour ago. Your mother and Namjoon’s mother, along with the doctor and the nurses, had stepped out to give you a moment with your new baby. 7lbs exactly and 18 inches long. A hand came free from the bundle and the baby yawned, stretching and wriggling before settling once more. “How are you so perfect?” You cooed, running your finger along the softest baby cheek you’d ever felt. “Where is she? Y/N?” You snapped out of your sleepy content at the sound of Namjoon running, calling for you through the hall. You heard his mother chastise him and his muffled apology before the door opened. Your stomach twisted slightly, how was he going to react. “Hey, Eomma.” You burst into tears. It had been a long, distressing day and now he was going to hate you and your baby. “Hey, hey… What’s wrong?” He rushed over to you and stopped, his eyes on the baby. The words fell from his lips like a prayer. “Oh... you’re perfect.” His eyes met yours. “May I?” Though the tears wouldn’t stop, you held your baby out to him. Maybe just holding your child would be enough. “What… which kind did we get?” He asked in awe, not taking his eyes off the bundle in his arms. “I’m sorry, Namjoon… It’s a girl.” You sobbed harder, causing the sleeping baby to start to fuss, “Hey now,” He soothed. “It’s ok, it’s ok. Eomma’s just tired. You put us through a lot little one.” “Aren’t you disappointed?” You asked once the tears had subsided. “What, why would I be disappointed?” He asked incredulously. “Didn’t I tell you we were going to have a girl?” If he hadn’t been holding your child, you would have throttled him.

-

A week later, you were back at home. Both you and Namjoon were struggling with parenthood and were incredibly tired, but you had an amazing support team in your mothers. There was a new energy in the apartment today, however. Even the baby could sense that something was going to happen. Today was the day that the uncles met their niece for the first time. The members had been thrilled to find out they had a niece, Jin especially, he texted you constantly with pictures of pretty dresses and accessories. Though she hadn’t met them, your daughter had successfully wrapped six other men around her tiny finger.

You’d just finished feeding her and was tucking yourself back into your dress when the doorbell rang. The baby fussed a little but was quickly distracted by you rubbing her back, trying to coax her into burping. Namjoon hurried to the door and checked the intercom. “These punks.” He laughed, opening the door as you rocked your, now settled, daughter. They entered the apartment but hung back in the doorway. “She isn’t going to bite.” You smiled looking up from your girl’s precious face. “We have someone we want to introduce you to.” Reverently, the boys entered the flat and stood around you. “Boys, this is Luna Kim. Luna, meet your uncles.” “Can I hold her?” Taehyung asked the first to slip out of Luna’s spell. You nodded and stood so he could sit in your chair. “Watch her head.” You said softly, placing her in his waiting arms and watching your friend melt. Namjoon came and stood beside you, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling your close. “She’s going to be trouble, isn’t she?” He teased softly. “Nah, not with her Appa and six uncles wrapped so tightly around her finger.” You replied. “She won’t have time for other boys.” Namjoon must have been content with that response as he let out an appreciative hum. “Good. We've got this, Jagiya.” And he was right.

[juliusmbuo701-blog]

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[ruminativerabbi]

Monsey

Most—but not all—of the responses to the horrific incident last week in Monsey struck me both as reasonable and heartfelt. But what was lacking even in the most sincere comments I read or heard was a clear sense of where we go from here, what specific path we must or should now follow forward into the uncertain future that lies beyond Pittsburgh and Poway, beyond Jersey City and (now) Monsey. And that is the specific issue I would like to address this week in my first letter of a new decade to you all.

Yes, some of the responses were outrageous. Particularly tone-deaf, for example, was the suggestion of Avigdor Lieberman, former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister, that the only truly viable solution to the problem of anti-Semitic violence in America would be for all American Jews to move to Israel. Problem solved! Although most Israeli officials have traditionally shied away from encouraging mass aliyah by the Jews of the United States (which advice they certainly have not held back from offering to the Jews of other nations, including most recently France and the U.K.), Lieberman clearly saw no reason to hold back. (Click here for the Jerusalem Post account of his remarks.) Apparently unaware—or at least unwilling to accept—that American Jews are patriotic, deeply engaged citizens of their own country who have zero interest in solving their problems by running away to seek refuge in some other country, even one they hold as dear to their hearts as Israel, Lieberman’s comments betrayed such an abysmal understanding of the American Jewish community that I felt ashamed for my non-Jewish co-citizens to read accounts of his remarks.

His comments, however, did not sound entirely unfamiliar: In fact, I found them weirdly reminiscent of the position set forward by those people in the first half of the nineteenth century who felt that the most reasonable solution to the slavery issue that eventually did tear the country apart would have been to pack the slaves up en masse and ship them back to Africa. But the Back-to-Africa movement, predicated on the assumption that American society could never just consider black people to be “regular” citizens possessed of the same rights and privileges as white people, foundered precisely because it sought to solve a deep societal problem by shipping it overseas instead of solving it in the only way that injustice and inequity are ever successfully addressed on the national or societal level: for like-minded citizens to find the political will, the spiritual stamina, and the moral courage to morph forward into a finer, better iteration of their former national self. It was a simplistic, unreasonable solution to the slavery issue then. And it is a simplistic, entirely unreasonable solution to the problem of anti-Semitism in America today. And because the American Jewish community isn’t going anywhere at all, the resolution has to be to address the affliction and not simply to exile the afflicted.

Other responses were more reasonable, if mostly banal. Bernie Sanders, for example, pointed out that his own father came to this county as a teenager to escape anti-Semitic violence in Poland and that Monsey, by reminding him of his father’s plight, only made it clearer to him how important it is “to say no to religious bigotry.” The President called upon his fellow Americans “to fight, confront, and eradicate the evil scourge of anti-Semitism.” Mitch McConnell referenced Monsey as “another reminder that the fight against hate and bigotry, especially anti-Semitism, is far from finished,” adding that this was true not only on the global level but also “right here at home.” Isaac Herzog, the chairman of the Jewish Agency, called for “a relentless battle” to be waged against “this horrifying and painful spate of violent anti-Semitic attacks.” Israeli President Rivlin expressed his “shock and outrage,” and called for a worldwide effort “to confront this evil, which is raising its head again and is a genuine threat around the world.”  You get the general idea: bigotry is bad in any event, but violent expressions of racial or religious bigotry represent the kind of societal evil that cannot merely be dealt with by being roundly condemned but which must be addressed by some combination of law enforcement officials, government legists, and civic-minded civilians acting together forcefully and effectively.

So much for the macro level. On the ground here in the actual Jewish community, however, I sensed a far more equivocal response as people tried to negotiate the straits between Over- and Under-Concern.

When Governor Cuomo referenced the incident as “an act of domestic terrorism,” for example, it was hard to decide if he was speaking a bit exaggeratedly about an attack that seems to have been perpetrated by a mentally unstable man acting alone or if he was realistically assessing a new reality for the Jewish community, one in which the possibility of having one’s synagogue or one’s home invaded by angry anti-Semites armed with guns or machetes truly is part of a new normal that somehow crept up on us unawares.

Nor was Governor Cuomo alone in seeing a clear line from Oklahoma City to Monsey. Bryan Barnett, the president of the U.S. Council of Mayors, also unequivocally categorized Monsey as an act of domestic terrorism and called upon the nation “to recognize them—he was referring to Monsey and Jersey City—for what they are and work to prevent them from occurring in the future with the same commitment we have made to preventing international terrorism.”

But here too, I sensed uncertainty in the communal response as Jews on the ground tried to decide if a handful of violent acts undertaken by Jew-hating crazy people has really put the clock back to 1938…or if what this is really all about is the Jewish community taking its unhappy place in the mainstream of a nation so inured to gun violence that the incident of just two days ago in in White Settlement, Texas—a violent assault incident in which a gunman with no apparent motive entered a church during Sunday services, murdered two worshipers apparently at random, and was then himself shot to death by armed parishioners—was considered a front-page story for one single day and then vanished into the back pages of the paper where it will eventually be entirely forgotten other than by people directly and personally involved. Speaking honestly, it’s not that easy to say. And yet, despite it all, just waving Monsey away as another instance of senseless violence aimed arbitrarily at victims whose specific misfortune was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—that seems entirely inconsonant with the way the facts on the ground feel to me…and, I suspect, to most within our Jewish community.

And so we enter a new decade on the horns of several dilemmas at once. The justice system will deal with the suspect in the Monsey incident, just as it will deal with the Pittsburgh shooter as it would have dealt with the Jersey City shooters if they hadn’t been killed. But how are we, the people on the ground, to respond as these incidents become more frequent, less unimaginable, more expectable, less shocking? To beef up security at our synagogues and schools is an obvious first step. To keep our doors locked and our powder dry, ditto. But the more profound question is whether we should allow these incidents to alter our self-conception…or our sense of ourselves as free citizens of a secure, democratic state, as people whose right to assemble where and when we wish is constitutionally sacrosanct, as Americans whose right to self-identify as Jews in public and to walk securely down any city street is non-negotiable? Is it weak and self-defeating to allow the sonim to affect who we are and what we do? Or is it merely prudent, even wise, to allow these incidents to guide us forward in a way rooted in realism rather than happy fantasy? I’m not speaking about whether we should or shouldn’t hire another security guard to watch over the synagogue when we’re gathered there in large numbers for some specific reason. I’m asking something else, something far more challenging to answer honestly or, even, at all: whether the noble path forward—and the clever and proper one—should involve allowing these incidents to shape who we are and how we understand ourselves (and, yes, how we do or don’t behave in public)…or whether the correct path into the future should specifically feature us refusing to accommodate the haters by altering our behavior at all…or our self-conception.

As Bari Weiss’s very admirable recent book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism, showed unequivocally, anti-Semitism is a feature of the extreme left and right in our country; neither extreme is immune. As of now, no thoughtful Jewish American can imagine that anti-Semitism is a thing of the past, a feature of older, less tolerant times. The origins of anti-Semitism run deep in Western culture—and that too is something known to all. So the real question is whether things have changed…or whether they’ve mere clarified. And that question leads to the one stated above: do we need to rethink everything because of a handful of violent incidents or should we simply refuse to submit to the crazies and insist on carrying on as we always have—as patriotic citizens well aware of our civil rights and as secure in our skin as were our parents before us? To my way of thinking, that is the real question that the Monsey assailant inadvertently lays at our feet: can knuckling under to a new normal be reasonably described as growth…or only rationally as surrender?

[marymosley]

Democrats Attack The “Arrogance” of Bill Barr As The Attorney General Prepares A Public Report

There was a time when deadlines had a real bite. The term originated from the Civil War when a line was laid out around the notorious Andersonville prison camp. If Union prisoners crossed the line, they were dead.

Thankfully, a deadline is not nearly as lethal or a literal as it once was.  Particularly in politics.  The Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives garnered a great deal of excitement – and press – over its deadline to Attorney General Bill Barr to turn over the unredacted Mueller report yesterday . . . or else.  The House Judiciary Committee also demanded Barr’s immediate appearance as a witness. Barr’s response was a yawn that you would hear all the way down Constitution Avenue.  That fact is that Congress can do little in forcing such a release and it knows it.  Barr has promised to release a public report within a couple weeks – an impressive feat in redacting a report hundreds of pages in length for a variety of protected forms of information.  Congress can certainly subpoena the report, as it has promised today, but such a fight can take months if not years to work its way through the courts.

The problem in such a challenge is the Democratic rhetoric has outstripped political reality. After Barr produced his summary of the conclusions of the Special Counsel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced Attorney General Bill Barr’s actions on the Special Counsel Report as “condescending” and “arrogant.”  Others called it all a “cover up.” The reason for this attack may a bit difficult for those outside of Washington to understand. Barr submitted a four-page summary of the conclusions of the Special Counsel to Congress and the public in a remarkably short time.  Within a couple days of receiving the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Barr publicly released a four-page summary of his conclusions.  Pelosi was outraged by the sheer arrogance of the act and declared “it wasn’t the right thing to do.”  The problem is that it is precisely what Barr is required to do under the Special Counsel regulations and, even though the Democrats are loathe to admit it, Barr has been faster and more open that most critics antificipated.

The Summary

Pelosi was objecting to the fact that Barr would presume to offer his summary of the conclusions rather than yield to the demand that the entire unredacted report be released immediately: “I have said, and I’ll say again, no thank you, Mr. Attorney General, we do not need your interpretation, show us the report and we can draw our own conclusions.”  

The problem is that Barr is required to share those conclusions in a summary. The regulations controlling the investigation stipulate that, after the submission of a confidential Special Counsel report, the Attorney General will issue “brief notifications, with an outline of the actions and the reasons for them.”  In order words, Barr is being denounced for being “condescending” and “arrogant” because he is following the rules that Congress demanded that he follow.

On Friday, Barr himself tried to correct the widespread misleading statements about the summary.  Noting that House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler referred to the notification as a “four-page summary of the Special Counsel’s review,” Barr stated the obvious that this was merely the “summary of its ‘principal conclusions’—that is, its bottom line.”  Nevertheless, experts and hosts on CNN and MSNBC continued to fuel the false narrative that this was a summary of all of the investigative findings.

Some have even argued that those principal conclusions may be misrepresented by Barr since a couple days is simply not enough time to digest hundreds of pages of the report.  These attacks are based on two flawed assumptions. First, they absurdly suggest that Mueller’s report did not have its own summary of its findings or conclusions.  Second, they suggest that Mueller was not consulted and has remained silent in the face of a false summary.  Neither seems plausible or likely.  Mueller (who has a long friendship with Barr) is working with Barr on the redactions to the report and has remained active in this process.  Thus, it is not only likely that the summary was an accurate account but that Mueller was fully briefed on that summary.

The Report

Various Democratic members have insisted that nothing will suffice unless Barr releases the full and unredacted Special Counsel report. Indeed, in his confirmation, various Democrats demanded that Barr promised to release the report even though it was not completed and Barr had not seen its content.  If Barr had made such a promise to secure his confirmation, he would have been manifestly unqualified for the position.  Various types of information are by law prohibited from public disclosure including Rule 6(e) information from grand juries – information that can only be disclosed by court order.  There are also three areas noted correctly by Barr that require redactions: classified information, statutorily protected privacy information and information related to ongoing investigations.

There were two notable exceptions involving the release of investigative reports containing grand jury information but both cases involved findings of criminal conduct by a president. The Justice Department released such information as part of the Watergate investigation detailing criminal conduct by President Richard Nixon.  Later, in 1998, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s report was made public with grand jury information with allegations of criminal conduct by Bill Clintoin, including lying under oath.

 Barr has confirmed that the Mueller expressly concluded that there was not evidence establishing criminal conduct linked to collusion by Trump or his campaign. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that there was not a basis for a criminal obstruction charge.  Accordingly, Barr is proceeding with conventional redactions before making the report public.  Of course, if Congress concludes that there is a basis for impeachment in the report, it can revisit the issue and seek a court order for the unsealing of the information.

The Process

Most importantly, Barr has announced that he does not intend to give President Trump a copy of the report before it is made public.  Barr noted “Although the President would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review.”  

         In his letter, Barr cited the four areas of possible redaction but did not include executive privileged information, which would normally be included. He expressly declared that he had “no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review.” The waiver of all executive privilege claims in such a report is as commendable as it is unprecedented.  Indeed, for all of his inappropriate comments on the investigation, Trump has far outstripped the Obama Administration which routinely refused core oversight material to Congress. In this case, Trump is waiving all privilege arguments and will not even been given an advance copy of the public report. 

What is particularly impressive about this decision is that Trump’s legal team has been reserving privilege claims.  Disclosures to Mueller did not constitute waivers since it was all within the Justice Department but there appears to be a complete waiver and Trump (and Barr) deserves credit for that decision.

On Friday, Barr again reaffirmed his intention release the report, stating “Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own. I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report or to release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.”

So to recap.  Barr already issued the required notification without even a reasonable delay.  He has committed to releasing a public report in a matter of weeks – no small feat with hundreds of pages with statutorily protected information.  He is making all redactions with the assistance of Mueller and has confirmed that executive privilege claims have been waived.  

When I testified at the Barr’s confirmation hearing, Democratic senators asked what Trump expected in nominating Barr as Attorney General.  I responded that I did not know what Trump thought he was getting in Bill Barr but I know what he got.  Barr could be expected to do two things. First, he will do exactly what the law demands. Second, he will do exactly what he promised to do.  He promised to get as much of the Special Counsel report to the public as possible. Thus far, he is doing exactly that – and in a fraction of the expected time.

Democrats Attack The “Arrogance” of Bill Barr As The Attorney General Prepares A Public Report published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

[abbyfdenton]

Late Night Jokes Packet

I submitted a packet to one of those late night writing fellowships. Nothing’s gonna come of it, so here, if future submittees want to compare their packet to some random asshole’s work:

Topical Monologue Jokes

Pharmacy giant CVS recently finalized its purchase of health insurer Aetna, a deal that entered negotiations two months ago, making this the fastest anyone has bought anything at a CVS.

A drunk man took the Internet by storm when he entered a Waffle House late at night and found the staff asleep. He helped himself to the kitchen to cook himself dinner and, like far too many Waffle House patrons, forgot to tip.

Facebook has announced an instant messenger app just for kids under 13. In other news, former Alabama Senator Roy Moore was spotted registering a new Facebook account.

Some cinema owners, desperate to pry moviegoers away from Netflix, have been releasing fake snow and gusts of wind at pivotal points in the movie Coco. I guess they're trying to attract the pivotal longshoreman demographic. We've tried immersive movies for years. In the sixties theaters had electrified seats and scratch-and-sniff cards. More recently, the 3-hour runtime of Justice League made you feel like you'd been stuffed in a dark hole after getting all your bones broken. Chief of Imax Richard Gelfond was skeptical of these techniques and said, "The great revolution will be in virtual reality and augmented reality. Perhaps there’s a dinosaur in a movie and you see them sitting next to you.” (This actual quote is probably goofy enough to get a response, but if not:) I like to imagine Gelfond's dream project, about a wise-cracking, movie-watching dinosaur.

On Sunday the scheduled demolition of the Pontiac Silverdome, once home of the Detroit Lions and the Detroit Pistons, completely failed to trigger an implosion, making the Pontiac Silverdome Detroit's most intact building. Onlookers hoping to see a Detroit landmark fall to ruin were disappointed to learn they'd picked the wrong scheduled demolition that day.

Phone giant Apple recently broke with Dialog, the company making its microchips, and decided to start manufacturing their own. Amish experts were brought in to assist with the production of Apple chips.

In Pittsburgh a cow has now escaped from a live Nativity display twice, both times found walking along a major highway, away from the Nativity and... towards a mall, which I think is more than a little heavy-handed. The Baby Jesus remains at large.

A surgeon in the U.K. pled guilty to burning his initials onto patients' livers while he performed organ transplants. A gruesome case, but if you really want gruesome – how did they check the livers? Generally, you put your initials on rocks, or trees – things you know will last a long time, right? I say, this just proves he was confident.

A Connecticut town councilman recently resigned after a political opponent discovered that he'd spent years under a penname writing furry erotica. You'd think the giant mascot suit would have given him away. (Super an image of a guy in a furry mascot suit in the middle of a city council meeting) “Will the terrifying dog-man from Bridgeport yield the floor?” Meanwhile in the furry community a respected writer faced censure from his peers when it came to light he had been participating in degenerate human society. (Super the legend: FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD)

Meanwhile a town in Ireland recently complained that fumes from a nearby factory producing Viagra were affecting local dogs in, uh, a Viagarrific way. A Connecticut town councilman was quoted as asking, “Where was this?”

The UK has begun punishing people who have used Bitcoin to launder money. It took five years to reach that point for a product with the slogan “Bitcoin: We're for Doing Crimes.”

A New York woman was accused of funneling Bitcoins to ISIS. The Bitcoins totalled a US value of over sixteen thousand dollars... No, just under eight thousand... No, right around fifty-seven thousand dollars.

A report recently asserted that the computer farms processing Bitcoin use more electricity per day than the entire country of Denmark. Many people are saying this proves Bitcoin is a force for global evil, but have we considered that Denmark just doesn't use enough electricity? They let the wind do all their milling. It's a waste of perfectly good wind.

Australia recently voted to legalize gay marriage, which is wonderful news for everybody, especially for my side business selling young people excuses not to commit. (Super an appropriate fake business logo, perhaps of a blue footprint. SLOGAN: Cold Feet? De-Devote.) Notably 80% of the Australian voting public voted in the gay marriage referendum. 80%. In America we're lucky if 80% of the public can spell gay marriage referendum.

A prosecutor in a Chinese mortgage fraud scandal was quoted today as saying, “If everyone is doing it, you can't put them all in jail.” Michael Flynn was quoted as saying, “Bullshit!”

President Donald Trump recently attracted accusations that he was attempting to ignite more violence in the Middle east today when he referred to Jerusalem as the true capital of Israel. Less clear, however, is whether this is a change in US foreign policy or just a guy who doesn't know the capital of Israel.

Refillable desk bits

The Paris Review of Goosebumps

Two very pretentious figures provide contrasting scholarly reviews of an indefensibly silly kids' book, such as Baby-Sitters Club, Animorphs, etc, starting off debating themes but always devolving into schoolyard slap-fights.

Coming of Age

If a bit is risky or seems like it might not land in front of warm bodies, prep a contingency plan – the stage darkens, the host turns to look off-stage thoughtfully, and a voiceover is delivered by an older, folksier voice than the host about the bit's failure and what we've learned. Think: Stand by Me. “Now, I don't know why I thought they'd go for a photoshop of a dog jet-skiing over some dolphins. I guess back then I was a fool.”

Stuff We Did Before the Internet

In light of the FCC's commitment to rollback net neutrality, the host brings someone out to demonstrate past-times and hobbies people had before the Internet which may return to vogue, such as reading books (which the host tears apart while trying to figure out how to turn them on) or hand-churning butter.

Your Dad Explains the News

The host puts on a bad fake mustache, sits on a chair backwards and has a talk with the audience about something he doesn't understand. He loves comparing things to World War II documentaries, and most stories leave him wondering, “Why are these boys so angry?”

Regular Guys Riding a Bus

Following from the assumption that 90% of all problems would be solved if the rich and powerful had to bump noses with the average joe on public transit, the host conducts a political interview from the back of a city bus. A lot of the fun would come from the inconvenience – stop announcements interrupting the guest mid-sentence, stuff like that. Ideally the host and guest pause to offer seats to new passengers and switch positions as often as possible.

Next Week Tonight

Technically 2 segments:

1. A few predictions of what will happen in the coming week – not out of nowhere, upcoming events, releases, etc. Essentially predict results that are either comically bad or impossibly good. “The running of the bulls in Pamplona will cause an unusual amount of property damage, but the bulls will stick around to help rebuild.”

2. Footage of the previous week's predictions, contrasted with similar or completely dissimilar things that happened. Will tend toward gallows humor.

Segment is presented by the host and a shady gangster figure, whom it is implied extorts and bullies the host for gambling on these future predictions.

Animal House Epilogue

Take a clip from a movie or current events, freeze frame over different significant figures, and caption what happened immediately afterwards. e.g. Han Solo: Recovered from stab wound, now manages a Denny's.

Last-Minute Recast

The host interviews two guests, but gets their names mixed up. When they try to correct him, he laughs and says he's not going to fall for their “prank.” The guests attempt to remain in-character and answer questions on behalf of each other, even launching into convincing and obviously fake anecdotes about working on movies they weren't in, until a “producer” comes out, whispers to the host, and the mix-up is cleared up.

Normie Brewster

Soleil Moon-Frye complains about managing an Old Navy.

The Prophesied Return of Urkel

Jaleel White appears and begins to upstage the host much like how he replaced the original main cast of Family Matters. The jealous host banishes him in increasingly bizarre ways, by calling security, by winning an arm-wrestling match, or through a Charlie Daniels-esque fiddlin' duel. It is implied that Jaleel White is some manner of leprechaun.