#was put in a program through an agency half a year ago or so that does work-training etc | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

katsukikitten · 4 years ago

Text

Part 5

For once in your life, your eyes slowly open, only having been disturbed by warm morning sunlight. The soft comforter trapping your body heat and essentially you, as it pinned you to the soft mattress. You snuggle deeper into the sheets, breathing in the smell of clean linen and caramel.

Wait. Caramel?

With a jolt you jump from the bed, eyes wide as you look for the source of the scent. Patting down your jeans and shirt for at least one knife. You hardly remember what happened after dinner with his family. You remember booze, light conversation while feeling warm and floaty. Oh shit what was that passive that activated again? Rest assured?

"Info on rest assured." You grumble, voice soft from disuse. Your quirk happily pulls up a little informational box that you can see. Too sleepy to make the box private as it reads aloud to you.

"PASSIVE BUFF REST ASSURED. A newly unlocked buff that increases sleep quality and can only be activated around trusted individuals and safe places. Would you like a list?"

You stare at the question box with a flashing yes or no before you point with the tip of your knife to yes.

"Currently there is only one thing listed. Type : Individual Name: Bakugou Ka…."

"Oi." Someone calls from the front door of the apartment as you dismiss the information with a wave of your hand. He discards his boots at the door before making his way to his bedroom.

"You talking to yourself dumbass?" He says, blocking your only exit by leaning on the door jamb. He holds an iced coffee towards you, his eyes sharp as he adds.

"We need to talk about your file."

Crossing his arms you ignore his offer of iced appeasement, he sets it on the low dresser as you speak.

"It's not up for discussion."

"I'm your boss, I deserve to know."

"What you deserve to know is what's in that file. My whole life doesn't fit into a manila fucking folder. Quit asking questions."

"I'll ask what I want." He growls, "Because it's suspicious that you have this unbelievably complex quirk and yet I'm sure your top skills have nothing to do with stealing."

"If you're that concerned then ask the director of the program. I'm not the only secret 'reform'." You throw your hands into the air is exasperation

"He showed up dead shortly after you were inducted. Plus no one has any real record of what you've done. Not a single thing listed on what you've stolen."

"Talk to Deku then, he's next in line for that program, he ain't dead."

"He said he doesn't remember approving your file." He bites back and before you can retort strong fingers wrap around your wrist. His calloused pads brush over the cool metal of your bracelet.

"RECOGNIZED, BAKUGOU KATSUKI : NEW LIMITED ACCESS GRANTED. 1. Health and Condition status, upon request 2. Top five skills 3. Buffs that would benefit Bakugou Katuski. 4. Pending buffs to be activated by host. Please state a number."

"Two." "Cancel!" You try to shout over him but he beats you to it. The bracelet opens up a little box displaying your top five skills as of late.

"Stab resistance, poison resistance, what would a thief need those for? Stealth is number three and slight of hand is number five. Shit don't add up Princess." He glares while your nostrils flare, ripping your wrist away from his grip.

"You're really fucking pushing it…" He takes a step towards you while you step back as if it were part of a dance as you try so hard to keep your wrath in check.

"Am I? Like I said, shit ain't adding up. You have this bracelet that still has limited information to your quirk, support knows nothing of the recordings or god damn blocks you've placed on it and lastly…" Your knees hit the back of the back of the bed causing you to sit on the mattress. His rough palms come to lie flat against the fabric next to your thighs as he leans in. You fight to shrink back.

"Lastly, I deserve to know how an unnamed woman, who obviously knew you, turns up dead moments after I arrive on scene and then her body is gone in a matter of minutes. She poisoned you with a complex concoction that the lab in the agency has yet to figure out the formula to it and yet you knew the fucking antidote? What did you really do?"

Rage boils in your blood as you stare into his vermilion eyes. Like flipping a switch you turn ice cold, your breath mingles with his.

PASSIVE BUFF SHARP TONGUE ACTIVATED INSULTS DEALT WILL HAVE 39% MORE STING.

"You know what's funny? You don't see me asking how you became a manager with your shitty attitude. Nor do you see me asking how you manipulated and gaslit your way to the number one spot." You press your cheek against his as your lips graze his ear, "And you sure as hell don't see me asking how you're considered a hero at all after you told Izuku to kill himself in middle school."

The scars in his chest and stomach roar to life, demanding attention as his shirt scrapes against the sensitive skin. He takes a step back as if struck while the room begins to smell of smokey spiced caramel. His bones groan as his knuckles bloom white.

You smile as you stand, collecting your bag and the jacket he lent. Even grabbing the iced coffee he got you. Because why let it go to waste?

Cruelty slips onto your shoulders as nicely as his borrowed jacket while you pause at his bedroom door wanting nothing more than to leave him with terrible thoughts.

"Did you ever even apologize for that?"

Silence is your answer as you chuckle to yourself.

"Didn't think so."

You leave him with those nasty thoughts. Long gone as he still pants, pain shooting through his gut and lungs as it did all those fucking years ago.

As he moved without a second thought and placed himself in front of a stupid, dopey mop top boy who tried to hold up the weight of the world by himself.

With a guttural growl he looks over his destroyed room, as if a bomb went off.

He reaches for his phone dialing the number he never bothered to save.

"Meet me at our usual when you get off your stupid fucking shift. I know you've forgotten to eat you useless hero." The other line chimes in with a deep laugh as he adds.

"Okay Kaachan. I'll be there."

Izuku doesn't get invited out often and especially not by Bakugou. So the emerald haired boy decides to keep an eye on his oldest friend. Silently watching and not glancing too long as hot head huffs and puffs, taking another shot. The ash blonde's favorite spicy ramen goes untouched as the large man across from him slurps up his fourth bowl, covered in sweat and dirt from the day's work.

"You better get my fucking money's worth of this endless ramen bowl shit." He bites, slamming down another shot, fingers subconsciously finding the old scar on his chest. The action does not go unnoticed by his more docile friend. Izuku thanks the waiter as he starts on his fifth bowl.

"I'm starting to think you're mad about more than the endless ramen you ordered me." Bright emerald meet dark garnet eyes that glare, Bakugou's cheeks burn in his buzz.

"Fuck you. Nothin's wrong." Another deadly shot.

"That's your seventh. Kaachan you can't fool me. Your body language gives it away." Bakugou follows Izuku's eyes to his fingers. Quickly he removes his calloused pads from the divot. Angrily staring at the wall like a child who's been caught.

"Fuck you." He murmurs, silence settles over the pair in the far back corner of the restaurant. Bakugou's eyes glance over to Izuku who continues to eat, crimson bore into the scars on his arms from where the dumbass had broken them time and time again. His scars burn with your words, with the memory of what he's said in the past.

Too cruel and for what?

"You know I'm-" Bakugou starts but Izuku holds up a hand, wanting to spare his friend.

"I know, you've shown me everyday, even before you jumped in front of me, Kaachan. I've always known." He leaves it at that, in his heart he knows that Bakugou is sorry. He's seen it in every action since their first year at UA, he doesn't need to hear him say it.

What good are words when actions spoke louder?

"So what's bothering you? Worried over someone? You're dating Rogue now right?" Izuku asks, holding his chopsticks at a point while Bakugou takes another shot.

"Her file is what's bothering me. Deku, she doesn't have a fucking thing of her past. Not to mention you don't even remember signing off on her. Real responsible." Bakugou watches with a dull snarl as Izuku goes back to slurping his noodles.

"Ka...Kaachan." Izuku chokes, "Not fair. They put a lot of your desk too and I bet you don't remember half of it."

"I'd remember something like that. Just makes it that much more suspicious. Probably foraged by someone but the question is who…." Katsuki sets his head in his hand, staring at his orange broth.

"Well, did you ask her yourself?" Bakugou scoffs in response.

"Yea, and it didn't fucking turn out well." His finger finds his stomach this time, the ghastly white crater suddenly irritated by the fabric of his shirt. Izuku stops eating, he isn't stupid and easily connects the dots. The soft man thinks back a decade of his friend is the worst condition but more worried about him.

"Kaachan…" Deep jade eyes water a bit but Bakugou puts up a hand

"Don't." He barks, sighing.

"So you must really care about her if whatever she said affected you that much. You weren't even bothered when they were trying to 'cancel' you." Izuku taps Bakugou's bowl with his chopsticks, silently begging the blonde to eat. Hopping he'll take at least a bite to soak up some of that alcohol. Reluctantly deadly fingers pick up the sticks, gathering ramen between them but still undecided if he should eat.

His silence is answer enough for Izuku.

"I know my agency started the program. I'll look into it some more tomorrow. I'll be mostly office duty since I have so much paperwork anyway. But even if her past is dark Katsuki, what are you going to do? She may not have had any say in the matter, she doesn't give me that evil vibe."

Bakugou thinks back to you. How you fight, how you hold yourself.

How cute you were sleeping on his shoulder before he eased you onto his lap. How softly you snored in his bed. His stomach twists, Izuku's words and yours floating around his head.

"I guess I'll decide once I have more answers." With that the blonde decides to bring the spicy noodles to his lips.

#bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #bnha x reader #bnha au #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugo #bnha imagine #bakugou katsuki x reader #katsuki x reader #too good to be true

161 notes · View notes

mightynonagesimus · 4 years ago

Text

15 Minutes (What If I Told You)

ANGST WITH AN UNHAPPY ENDING. DO NOT READ FOR A GOOD TIME. This is a supercorp oneshot I wrote after I hear the title song. Very Angsty, you are warned. Trigger Warning : Angst, mentions of suicidal thoughts, depression, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Obiviously. This is pre-apocalypse.

11:27,

Monday, July 13th

Lena's Loft,

National City.

It was very unnoticeable at first. Solar flares from a nearby galaxy far enough that they didn't think much of it. A few explosions a couple galaxies down hardly warranted the DEO's involvement. Besides, Earth had different things to worry about. The Team had different things to worry about. Probably. Lena wouldn't know anymore, would she? After the Fortress, she had taken extra precautions to block every single one of them out of her life. She didn't need anyone. She just needed to save the world.

And to be honest? Lena was ashamed it took her that long to figure it out. It wasn't like her. The Prodigy of her generation. The CEO of one of the biggest Tech Corporations in America. The sister of Earth's most infamous criminal mastermind.

If she had just gotten out of bed, checked any of her projects, called her secretary back. But she was too numb, too empty. Lying in bed, unable to move or think. Wishing to die. She couldn't even muster up the energy to lift a hand, it was just... pathetic.

After a week, Jess had had enough. It took Sam flying over from Metropolis to even get Lena out of bed. Sam had no idea about Kara, of course. But it didn't take long for her to march over to Alex's apartment and threaten her friend until the truth spilled. Lena had never seen that furious. Over Lena, of all people.

She didn't deserve Sam.

***

Sam had been pestering her all week. Bringing over food and staying with her every night. Lena felt like an asshole, taking up so much of her time. That was the main reason she returned to L-Corp after a week That was when she found out about the satellite malfunctions. Some radioactive signature was messing with their signals. That was fine, this was a problem Lena could fix, right? Easy.

Wrong. Turns out the signature was something her systems could recognize. Kryptonite. A giant chunky piece of Kryptonite and debris about the size of a small moon. A Krypto-Comet that was hurtling at half the speed of light from deep space, directly towards Earth.

Mondays, right?

Of course, she contacted the DEO immediately. They were horrified. For a Secret Government Agency handling the extraterrestrial, they had some shockingly bad tech. She wasn't really surprised. Also, they might have been slightly distracted with Leviathan. Lena had spent the next three days cooped up in a lab with Brainiac 5 desperately trying to come up with a way to deflect it or destroy it, or anything really. Usually, an Anti-Kryptonite suit and Supergirl would have taken care of the problem real quick, but considering the size of the comet and the excessive amount of Kryptonite on it, it just wouldn't be possible. There was no time to call for back-up from Argo City either, with the satellites malfunctioning.

The last five days were utter chaos. Naturally, the news hit the public hard. It was pandemonium, but how could you keep a goddamn meteorite impact from them? The skies were already turning purple.

Lena however, was still in her lab. Over the course of three days, a complete whirlwind of people checked in and out of her lab. People she had never met before. People she had never even heard of. Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow. A scientist named Raymond Palmer with some very interesting ideas on molecular structure and shrinkage. Felicity Smoak. Alex pulled her aside during lunch to explain about the Multiverse.

What. Even. What.

Okay.

It felt like her brain was exploding, but she was their best chance of saving the planet. She had to pull it together. She can't show any weakness.

Alex called for another excruciating meeting the second day.

"Attention! I have some news." Alex exhaled slowly. "Sara?"

"I'm sorry guys, but it's bad. We were unable to prevent this event from not occurring. It happens rarely, but this can't be prevented by modifying the timeline. It's inevitable. We have to find other ways."

"What if we move your population to our Earth?" Harry? Larry? The guy in red spandex asked.

"More than half out Earth's population have doppelgangers in yours. It will mess with the balance of your universe. We can't move them. How about finding an empty universe?"

"Kara is out looking for one, but every Earth we found was either ruined or full. That's too long a shot, I don't think we'll find one in time."

"Well, theoretically-" Brainy hesitated - "My ancestors had a way of...dealing with planets that disagreed with them. They would shrink them down and have them as trophies."

"We can't shrink the planet, the gravitation of the solar system would collapse and we would fall into the sun." Lena muttered distractedly, fiddling with her pen.

"Let's not do that. Any luck contacting Superman?"

"Radio silence. The radiation is messing with communications."

"We could push it through a wormhole, or a portal, but-"

"The comet will be here before we could begin to build it. What if we transport our people to a different planet?"

"Seven billion people on a different planet without nearly enough food and water?"

"Or maybe into a space station?"

"We have four days. To transport seven billion people. And essential items."

"Yeah, that's not gonna work either."

"Okay, let's keep at it guys." Alex clapped her hands together. "There IS a way, we just don't know it yet."

***

Yeah, there was no other way. The days went by in a whirl. They came up with theory after theory, but it was too late. Their world was going to end. Nothing can stop it.

During the last day, Alex ordered every non-Earth-38 person off the universe. And even though there was some resistance, everyone sombrely agreed it was the best move.

A surprising lot of friendships were made that week. World-ending threats tend to do that, apparently. Lena personally never wanted to experience Nia and Zari Tarazi try to cook a pizza together ever again. They almost blasted the dough halfway across the DEO building and into the miniature Nuclear Reactor.

Lena would never, not in a million years, ever admit it; but she wanted what they had.

She couldn't fathom that comfort, that mutual understanding of trust that Nia shared with Zari. How did they build it? How could they rely on it, when they had been strangers only a week ago? How could you share your secrets, yourself, with someone who could potentially turn against you, someone who could be lying through their teeth like Eve was, someone who might hate you just because of a name that you can't change?

Not that anything could be done now. It was too late.

They were gathered at the DEO training facility off-city to say their final goodbyes, except Lena was at L-Corp. It took her a while to accept it, but this time it was real. There was no hail mary, no high stake final masterplan left in her. She was going to die, along with her planet.

So it was the perfect time to break out her finest bottle of scotch.

The L-Corp building was deadly silent. Any other day, Lena would have enjoyed it. The building was almost never fully empty, with the security team and the journalists and the interns who never sleep. Today it put her on edge.

Because she did this. Lena caused all this, it was Lena's fault. She was the reason-

'Alex.'

The tiny blue screen lit up on her desk, ringing insistently. The tech mogul was almost relieved that something interrupted.

The silence. Interrupted the silence.

Lena brought it to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Lena!? Where the hell are you?" For a second, Lena relished the panic in Alex's voice. Of course, it probably was over the world ending, but she wanted to pretend that it was over Lena. That Alex actually cared about her.

"What do need me to do, Director Danvers?" Her voice was meant to be posh and clipped as always, but it came out slightly more drunk than she wanted it to.

"Wha-Nothing! I just couldn't find you anywhere so I thought I'd check up on you." Aww, Alex. You don't need to pretend, everything is gonna go to shit anyway.

"Is Sam still there?"

"Uh- Yes. Yeah, she's here. Do you want to talk to her?"

"Nooo." Lena considered it. "No, definitely not."

"Lena, are you drunk?"

Lena exhaled loudly. "Why did you call me, Director?"

"Because the universe is ending!" Lena cringed away from the phone. That was too loud for her sleep-deprived brain.

"I don't see your point." She huffed back.

"Goddammit. Look, Kara and I will keep looking for a solution, you don't need to worry, okay? You know she never gives up. Nia and the others-"

"Please just stop." Lena begged.

"I-Stop?" Lena could picture Alex's face. She hated that she did.

"I don't care! About anything, anymore. Just leave me alone. Goodbye, Alex."Sorry I pulled so much shit.

Lena switched it off and chucked it across the room, onto her couch. It bounced over the cushions and fell over.

She was alone, now.

"Hope?"

"Greetings, miss Luthor. What can I do for you today?" Hope was always here. Lena's only constant companion through everything. Even if it did wear the face of her traitor friend.

"You understand that this will be the last day?"

"Yes, miss Luthor-"

"Lena. Call me Lena."

The robot cocked its head to the side. Why did Lena program it so life-like?

"Lena. Would you like for me to call anyone else?"

"No, thank you. How long is it now?"

"Seventeen minutes and three seconds."

Lena cradled her head. It felt like her brain was swimming in the alcohol. At least she won't have to feel this tomorrow.

"Execute terminal orders and shut down, please."

"Executed. Goodbye, Miss Luthor."

The hologram blinked off. Lena swirled the last of the scotch in her glass. It didn't taste nearly as good as she hoped. She set it down in distaste.

God, this was all her doing, wasn't it?

If only Lex could see her now, pushing everyone away, alone and lonely on top of the empire that was built by her psychopathic family. Everything he said that day was true.

And it was all Lena's fault. Because she chose to trust Kara. She chose her new family. She wanted that. She craved that. Even when she knew she could never have it. She's always craved that. This wonderful 'family' she could love with all her heart. They would have been her people, they would love her no matter her last name. They would support her through hell and back. She fucking fantasized about how they would be there for her every birthday, about how she would shower them with love and affection, about game nights and road trips. She didn't give a shit about romantic, platonic, she just wanted someone to be there at the airport when she comes back from month-long expeditions through Europe.

It all seems so naive now. She was still here, on top of an empty building, because of her choices. Because of her stupid, stubborn pride. She must have chosen this, right? This is what she wanted. To be alone. Sixteen minutes from the world ending. She had chosen to be alone, bitter, angry at herself for doing what she had done.

Fuck, no.

But it was too late. Too late to accept her family, too late to enjoy them. Too late to save the world. Too late to apologize.

Too-fucking-late.

Fuuuuuuck, she messed up. What she wouldn't give to go back in time, find her younger self and...eughh. Berate her? Explain? Mug her? Lena had no idea.

This scotch tastes like shit.

Why is time so slow?

Tick.

Tock.

Her life is shit. She would like a refund.

Tick.

The alcohol is really getting to her brain, cause she found that funny.

Toc-

The entire floor rattled when the door flies open behind her. *

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Oh hey, Sam. You did come.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" She crossed her arms, raising one brow at her CFO.

"Lena, no." Sam stomped over and wretched the glass away from Lena.

"Goddammit, leave me alone, Sam!" Why I am so shitty all the time Sam?

"No." She repeated firmly.

"What?"

"No. I should have done this a long time ago when I first got back here. I'm not leaving you alone, I'm not letting you drink yourself to death. I'm not let you wallow in your misery when the world is fucking ending and you still stubbornly refuse to put down your pride. I'm not leaving!"

She walked over to Lena's hidden break room and poured the scotch down the sink.

"But I-"

"No. Listen, you dumbass. You've been through some horrible, messed-up shit. Your brother almost destroyed the world multiple times. Your mother was a narcissistic fucking psychopath. I cannot even begin to understand how you feel most of the time. Having every move scrutinized by the world, feeling like you can't trust anyone."

"I trust you."

Sam paused. "I-What?"

"I trust you, Sam. You may be the only person who I can be myself around right now. And-And I know that isn't fair to you, me having constant breakdowns. I keep you from your life and Ruby and I hate it-"

"Lena!" Sam takes her hand. "You can always tell me about it. Everything. And I won't lie, helping you through your trauma isn't easy, especially since you refuse to meet a therapist. But that doesn't mean you can keep everything to yourself. It means that your pain, it matters to me. It is a piece of you that you have shared with me, and it isn't going to fucking evaporate the second I know about it. You matter. Your trauma matters. To me, and to everyone at the DEO. I want to help you." She inhaled deeply.

"And I can't promise that everything is going to be fine, I don't even know if we'll exist an hour from now, but I can tell you this. You don't deserve all this pain. That doesn't mean you don't have it. You are not responsible for what your family did, and you are not responsible for your mother's death. You don't deserve to die alone and at odds with everyone you love."

"Sam, but I-"

"And I'm sorry, I know Kara and the others messed up. But they love you. They are your family now. And I can't watch you punish yourself over this. Lena, it's time to let go."

Tears lined Lena's eyes. "I can't do it, Sam!"

"You can."

"I can't! I trusted Kara with everything. I shared every piece of me with her. Love and family were supposed to cure me! I made myself completely powerless, I was vulnerable, and she threw it back at my face. I cannot make that mistake again!"

"It's not fucking magic, Lena! Love isn't a cure-all. It doesn't mean everything bad that ever happened disappears! It only means that you aren't alone in your fight. Family and friendship, it takes work! You have to see them, and they have to see you. And Kara and the others, they love you!"

"If they fucking love me so much, why do they keep hurting me? Why am I the only one who gets lied to?!"

"It not that fucking simple! Everyone there has their own stuff. We're fucking terrified all the time. And now everything we ever feared is happening, and we can't even fucking be together!"

"What, now you're on their side?!" Lena heard the words spill out her head as messily as she felt, drenched in bitterness and insecurity. "Should've known that you would turn on me too."

Regret fills her immediately, but Lena drops Sam's hand like a searing pan.

Fuck.

"How can you think that?" Sam's voice was quiet now. Her eyes, Lena realized, were also filled with tears.

This is it. This is the moment I chase away the last person who's ever cared for me. One last screw over that will be wiped after the comet hits. One more mistake in my endless list.

Sam raised her arms. Lena reflexively leaned back, her heart hammering against her chest. Shit. She knew how this goes. She's seen enough fights between Lillian and Lionel end. She could hear the resonating crack from almost two decades ago. Lionel might have loved Lena, but he wasn't all that kind to Lillian.

You deserve this. You failed. You failed to protect yourself, failed to protect the universe. You are never going to be enough. You failed both your families, you failed yourself.

Warmth burst around her. Sam wrapped her arms around Lena.

What in the world... why was Sam hugging her?

Shit, this feels nice.

"Sam?"

"There are no sides, Lena. That's the whole point. You are a part of this family, and we will fight like hell to keep it that way." Sam stroked her hair. "We aren't perfect, we are flawed, we hurt each other. But we aren't alone. We love fiercely, and we have each other's back. We take care of our own. And you are one of us. We love you. We are here if you accept us."

Lena sniffled against Sam's shirt. A fierce rush of gratitude rushed through her. Sam has always been her rock, her constant for almost six years now. She's had her back so many times. Her best friend.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sam." Lena sobbed. "Shit, it's too late. I can't fix everything. I messed up. I messed the whole thing up-"

"Hey. There's still time." Sam drew back and swiped at her eyes. "You can still call Alex. We have... seven minutes left."

Lena nodded, biting her lip.

"Thank you, Sam."

She shakily dialed her phone.

"Alex?"

***

"Hi! Aunt Lena!" A little bundle of joy crawled into Lena's lap and gave her a hug.

Ruby. She always meant a lot to Lena. Maybe because Lena never really had an aunt while she grew up. Maybe because her hugs were made of pure love; because Ruby is the most wonderful little human Lena ever met. Maybe because there was no tension, no tears involved. Ruby felt like hugging Lena, so she did.

It was the first time Lena cracked a smile in over a year.

"Hello, little monkey. Did you eavesdrop our whole fight?" She mussed her hair.

"Hey! I'm fourteen now. Not so little anymore." She carefully flattened her hair down. "And I know what swear words are, Auntie."

"Do you, now?"

"Yes!" She huffed. "Mom said she's making Mac and Cheese. She said your fridge was full of atrocious rabbit fodder and she hid about seventy percent of your kale." Ruby's voice dropped low and she whispered conspiratorially. "It's behind the eggs, don't tell her said that. Not that we'd be needing it anymore." She glanced sadly at the red skies.

"Are you okay, little monkey?"

"Aunt Lena, is there really no way to destroy the comet?" Ruby asked her.

Lena's heart broke. At that moment, she would've given anything to be back in her lab three weeks ago when they first found the comet. To have found a way out of this catastrophe.

She smiled sadly at Ruby. "I'm sorry, monkey. There's nothing we can do."

How do you tell a child that you failed her, that the entire world was gonna burn? That they were all going to die?

"It's okay, Aunt Lena. I love you." She kissed Lena on the cheek.

The elevator bell dinged and Lena could hear the doors open with a hiss. Her's mouth got just a little dry.

"I'm going to go help mom with the cheese. You should talk to them."

"Wait, Ruby-" she was gone. Great.

Lena exhaled shakily and got to her feet.

Here goes. Oh god. Why did I do this? This is a bad idea, shit. Shit, shit, shit. They still hate me why did I call them, they- Alex.

It was Alex. Suddenly, it wasn't the monsters that she was facing. It was Alex and Kelly and Nia and Brainy. Her family.

Alex stumbled forward first. "Lena, I-" She interrupted herself by crashing into Lena-"I'm so fucking sorry. I should've told you when the whole thing with Reign happened, but then Kara told me that she had to work things out between you and Supergirl, and then I lost my memories for a while-" Lena realized with a jerk that Alex was sobbing against her shoulder.

"-I feel like such an awful friend." Alex's voice cracked.

"Ale-Alex! Hey, it's okay." And for the first time, Lena really meant it. "I'm sorry too. I just felt-"

"Betrayed. I know. I'm sorry." She repeated, stepping away from Lena. She gave Lena a small smile. Smaller, but much like the one she gave Lena the first time they met in Kara's apartment. Tired, but it gives off so much warmth that Lena could feel it. It reminded Lena of all the times they spent together. All the days when they made small explosions in her lab and teamed up for game night. When Alex took her to self-defense classes and showed her fancy tricks with her guns. She was Lena's best friend. She is.

"Brainy, Nia." God, it felt good to- Lena couldn't even describe it. She missed this. Her friendship with Brainy was one of the few things she treasured most in the world. He was the only one who could ever match her intellect, her best lab partner. Her friend. And to the lonely twelve-year-old genius from the Luthor family, that was everything. And Nia was one of the bravest people Lena knew, unafraid to be herself and face the world. Fighting every day for the greater good. And she was more than that, she was the one who taught Lena that she didn't have to hide who she was. Lena will be a Luthor her entire life. She just had to embrace it. Or as Nia had framed, quite eloquently; 'own it.'

Kelly, and her crazy therapy skills. Lena regretted not spending more time with her. She was such a wonderful person. Kelly was the silent rock of their group, Lena could see that now. She was always there and she knew exactly what to say. In Lena's eyes, she was magical. So determined in supporting her friends through everything. The sweetest, most bad-ass person out of them all.

Shit, Lena was crying now.

"No more little boxes, Lena." Brainy whispered in her ear, and she giggled. Even Lena was surprised by that.

He was right. No more boxes. She has three minutes left to live and she wasn't going to crush herself with the weight of her stupid boxes.

There was still one more person-

"Kara. I'm sorry Lena, she- couldn't make it." Alex squeezed her shoulder. "Barry's Earth- they don't have a Kara. She can live there and not disintegrate. I told her to go with him. I'm sorry, Lena."

Lena's lungs filled with lead.

"Yes, of course." Lena's voice sounded far away even to herself. "She deserves to live there, in peace. I'm sorry, excuse me."

Something akin to panic swelled over her. Anxiety? Sorrow? Feelings were not Lena's strong suit. Panic attacks, unfortunately, she's already dealt with. She backed away from the room, almost knocking Sam over in the process. "Uh- Bathroom."

The door slammed behind her, and Lena splashed her face with cold water.

She would never get to apologize, she would never even get to see Kara again. Her best friend. Her soulmate. And now, she would die without Kara knowing- knowing that-

Because Lena only ever hated herself. She could never,ever hate Kara.

She curled into a ball on the floor, trying to physically hold herself together so she didn't fall apart. She couldn't fall apart, not right now. Her heart was racing and her breathing was short and distressed.

"Lena? Open the door." Alex's voice, carried in through the door.

"I-I'll be right out!" Even Lena knew they won't buy it. She could hear her voice crack with emotion.

"Lena? You don't have to go through this alone, I just told you that." Her voice was soft, and Lena chose to listen.

"I know it's hard. I know you miss her, and I can't imagine what it must feel after everything that happened between you and Kara. It was difficult for me too. I'm leaving her alone, just like everyone else in her life. I'm leaving her and her world is ending again, and we can't do anything about it. I hate it. I broke my promise. She doesn't deserve this pain, and you don't either."

The door creaked open. Suddenly it was Alex surprised by the hug.

"Alex, I'm so sorry."

"Lena." Alex wrapped her arms around the small brunette. "Trust me, she knows. She knows that you love her."

Lena sniffed and pulled back.

"That's just it, Alex." Lena's voice grew softer. "She doesn't know that I'm in love with her."

"You're in love with me?" A small, hopeful voice echoed from the back of the room.

The blonde superhero stepped forward with the sunny smile Lena loved. "Sorry I'm late but, I bought emergency Potstickers." She waved a bag at the rest of them.

"Kara-" The word was out of her mouth before she realized it, but then it was Lena in Kara's arms and nothing else mattered. She buried her head in the Kryptonian's shoulders.

"Hey." Kara tucked a strand of hair behind Lena's mismatched eyes, and Lena fucking melted. "You know, I've been doing some research." Her voice was low and breathy.

"Oh yeah?" Lena's eyes shined as bright as the red skies outside. Kara thought she could see the whole galaxy in her them.

"I think I finally know what Quantum Entanglement means." She rested her forehead against Lena's and smiled softly.

Lena's heart was racing. She reached up and caught Kara's lips in hers.

"I love you too, Lena."

***

"System error. Terminal order simulation failed."

Lena gasped and fell to her knees.

"Redirect operations to internal systems." She gasped, tears streaming down her face.

Just a few more, a few more minutes. Please. I need to hold her. I need to be held by her.

"Simulation failed."

"No! No, no, no. Please. Try again." Lena fumbled with her screen.

"Simulation failed."

"TRY AGAIN, GODDAMMIT." Lena cried, her voice full of raw emotion.

"Simulation failed. Shutting down. Thirty seconds left in final countdown."

"NO! I SAID FUCKING TRY AGAIN!"

"Twenty-five seconds."

The air was getting hotter. She could already see the streaks of green and red raining down from above outside Kara's window.

"Nooo." She sobbed. "Please, I need to see them. I need to hold her. Please." She crumpled on the floor, holding Kara's green hoodie in her hand. The last piece of her Lena had. The worst part is, Kara wasn't dead. Just lost forever, to Lena.

"Ten seconds."

"Please."

"Five seconds."

"I don't want to be alone." She whispered.

Here's my twitter, go yell at me. https://twitter.com/Keroessa24

#supergirl #supercorp #lena luthor #karlena #kara danvers #sam arias #alex danvers #reigncorp #agentcorp #angst with a sad ending #world ending #apocalypse #lena luthor needs a hug #major character death #post s5 #depression #suicidal thoughts

31 notes · View notes

shih-coulda-had-it · 4 years ago

Note

37. NanaHiko, please

37. “Because I love you goddammit!”

Consider this my sourdough starter for a Nanahiko Die Hard AU. If it ever comes into a fully-realized oneshot spectacular, well. Maybe for Christmas. Anyways, this is, believe or not, a break-up scene.

Fighting with Sorahiko is never pretty.

To clarify, Nana doesn’t mean physical fighting. They’ve honed that particular aspect of their partnership to near-perfection (always room for improvement), and when Nana has extricated herself from a fight, sometimes she has enough time to watch Sorahiko work his brutally efficient magic on loose ends.

That kind of fighting is pretty from a professional point of view.

Anyway, what Nana means is—having an argument with Sorahiko. It’s not the first time they’ve engaged in a war of cold shoulders and barbed words, digging up old insults and humiliating stories, resolved to leave reconciliation to the other party.

Nana has always thought it boded well that it never took a mortal injury to get either her or Sorahiko to apologize.

She is, however, very close to inflicting a mortal injury.

Sorahiko also looks close to committing partner-cide. They are spending a break from patrol by cooling their heels on a rooftop no employee bothers to spend a cigarette break at, and for the past ten minutes, have been politely exchanging words like, “Please do this,” and, “Fuck doing that.”

A full month has passed since Nana digested the whole conspiracy theory about a supervillain controlling Japan’s underground. En’s transferral of One for All had been traumatic for all parties involved, even if Sorahiko didn’t have to witness the horror that was the shoulder socket gushing blood and the half-buried body. Why? Because the first time Nana tested out her new Quirk, she had broken her notoriously hardy partner’s arm.

… It’s been a scary month all around.

“I’m not,” her partner grits out, “going to just quit being a pro-hero.”

“I didn’t say you should ditch the license,” Nana says reasonably.

“You might as well have!”

She rolls her eyes. “Splitting up for a solo career would probably mean better pay for you,” she reiterates. “Better pay, more taiyaki. You’d be a treat by yourself, Gran Torino. Any high-profile agency would want you on the payroll.”

“The salary isn’t the point,” Sorahiko snaps.

“And you shouldn’t conflate your position as a pro-hero with your position at the Eyrie! Don’t let the agency limit your ambitions!”

“What ambitions?”

“You know,” says Nana, gesturing aimlessly. She’s trapped herself with that useless encouragement. Sorahiko is so thoroughly unambitious, he would let a pet rock win an election to Prime Minister. “Whatever made you get into heroics.”

He stares at her.

“Get out there,” she adds. “Chase your dreams.”

“You’re being stupid,” he says.

“Don’t start.”

Sorahiko starts. His mouth twists into a snarl, eyebrows drawing together under the mask, frustration creeping into his posture. He is madder than she’s ever seen him, and Nana once witnessed Sorahiko yell bloody murder at his landlord. The landlord had been reduced to tears, and furthermore, had reduced the rent for the entire complex.

Nana does not intend to yield.

“First you inherit a transferable strength Quirk that knocks you out of commission for a week,” he says, “then you get all weird about tanking hits you know I can take, and now you’re advising I leave the Eyrie by myself? For my own good?”

“Yes,” she says, already feeling miserable.

“Are you on some kind of power trip?”

“No!”

His gloved hands curl into fists, mirroring Nana’s, or maybe she is mirroring him. Another side-effect of being friends for so long; she can’t imagine what kind of pro-hero she is without Gran Torino next to her.

A pro-hero that won’t drag their best friend into the worst conspiracy theory to come true.

“I won’t quit until you do,” Sorahiko swears. “Are we partners or not?”

“Partnerships dissolve.”

He flinches back for once. “You don’t mean that.”

“People sometimes grow in different ways. It doesn’t mean they’re abandoning their partner, it’s just… You don’t have any obligation to hold my hand for my entire career. If there’s a roadblock ahead, and you see it, you should be able to jump out of the car, right?”

“Shimura. Shut up.”

“I really mean it,” Nana continues doggedly. “One for All attracts way more attention than we agreed we should aim for, so if we split paths now, you don’t have to suffer all the cameras tracking and recording your moveset. Did I say cameras? I meant henchmen of some evil bastard. You didn’t sign up for this.”

“Don’t tell me what I did or didn’t sign up for,” he hisses.

“Well, I have to guess,” she says, “considering I never saw your origin story, haha!”

His face goes a blotchy pink, starting with his ears. Sorahiko’s jaw visibly clenches. Nana, however, is one-hundred percent serious. Despite being friends with Sorahiko from primary school up till now (excusing the few years of junior high), Nana still has no idea what drives Sorahiko to be Gran Torino.

Reuniting in Class 1-A of U.A. High had felt a bit like fate.

“You have to guess?” he grits out, sounding slightly incredulous.

“You’re a very private person. Ah, don’t tell me I’ve somehow forgot it.” Nana puts her hands at her hips, trying to drag this fight back into friendly banter. “Not for the applause. Not for the legacy, assuming the Commission ever gets their memorial site set up. Are you sure it wasn’t for the money?”

“Shimura.”

“C’mon,” she says coaxingly. “What’s the dream-goal, Gran Torino? Why heroics?”

“Shimura.”

“Don’t worry about harming my feelings! Oh! It’s for your namesake, huh? Ah, Sorahiko, you really gotta let that one go, I don’t think you’d have any fun driving around these streets. You’ll just scare all the pedestrians into throwing tomatoes at your precious baby—”

“Because I love you goddammit!” Sorahiko shouts, barking it loud enough to frighten some voyeuristic pigeons.

“What,” Nana says. She has to process his words even though they ring in her ears. His confession is a curse. Typical Sorahiko, Nana thinks hysterically, except this is not typical at all. Torino Sorahiko, admitting to love?

Torino Sorahiko, not being done yet, rails on. “Because you’re my best friend, and I like myself when I’m with you, so stop trying to cut me out of your life! If you—if you hate me, then just say it! Say I’m annoying! Clingy! Useless! Don’t just tell me to step out the front door and leave you behind!”

Oh, he’s properly mad now.

Thing is, Nana’s mad too.

“Don’t you use that against me,” she says, fury seeping in, because how dare he? Like confessing to loving her settles this argument, some deus ex-machina device that will defuse Nana’s very sincere attempt to prevent Sorahiko from being murdered. She can’t believe the nerve of her partner, trying to manipulate the part of her that’s a hopeless romantic. “Don’t lie.”

“Lie?” Sorahiko echoes, enraged. “You think—?”

“I think you would do a lot of things to win a fight,” Nana seethes.

“You’re impossible.”

She wants to punch his stupid face so badly, but Sorahiko’s hands are already scrabbling at his domino mask, ripping it off. After blinking several times to reorient his senses, he refocuses his glare at her.

“What part of that confession sounded fake?” he demands, crumpling the black silk-composite in one fist.

“The timing. The whole concept. Everything!”

“You don’t think I’m capable of it?”

“I didn’t say that,” Nana objects, but her immediate gut reaction had been to say, I’m not worthy of it. She has a name for Gran Torino’s behavior now—his loyalty, devotion, affection—he tied himself to her so long ago, and Nana never even knew she was holding a leash. How unfair to him, how stupid and shortsighted of her.

Sorahiko takes a step into Nana’s personal bubble. He persists. “Say you hate me.”

She can see where Sorahiko wants to take this.

“Do you hate me, Shimura?”

Nana bites her tongue from its reflexive denial; when she tries to lie, it sticks in her throat.

“Do you really want me to go?” Sorahiko asks, and without his mask, he looks vulnerable. Pale brown eyes catching the sunset, gleaming gold. How much of Sorahiko’s life has been deferring his dreams to follow hers? What has he given up that Nana’s never asked about? Does he have any commitments outside of heroics?

“I think,” Nana finally forces out, “we need some time apart.”

One beat of silence. Two.

“You’re not joking.”

“No.”

Sorahiko breathes, a steady and barely audible sound, and Nana finds herself mirroring it. She crosses her arms and looks to the horizon. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sorahiko slowly uncrumpling his mask, smoothing out wrinkles with his forefinger and thumb. Methodical for a nervous tic.

“It’s not that you’ve done something wrong.”

“Spare me the bullshit,” he says. The bitter tone sends a chill through Nana’s heart, but she steels herself. “How long?”

“Long as we need,” she deflects.

“What’s the goal here?”

Nana glances at Gran Torino, notes the grim set of his expression, and restrains herself from poking at the down-turned twist to his frown. Instead, she says, “You said you like who you are when you’re with me. I don’t think you’ve ever really been without me, so… Figure yourself out, Gran Torino.”

“And Sky High?”

“We’ll shelve the idea for a later time,” says Nana weakly, as though running an agency together hasn’t been their—her?—dream since high school.

He grunts in acknowledgment.

Together, they survey the cityscape. They will finish the day’s patrol. Gran Torino will, for the first time, clock out early and storm home.

And Nana will quietly file her two-week notice.

There’s an international pro-hero exchange program being organized with the United States, and Nana intends to join. The probation period is a year; if Nana can make it through that, then she can apply to be a mentor to aspiring pro-heroes, all the while cultivating One for All on the side.

(She doesn’t mean to forget the confession. But then again, who knows if that’s really what Sorahiko felt for her?)

#bnha #nanahiko #shimura nana #torino sorahiko #gran torino #shih.txt #asks #anon #diehard!au #and YES sorahiko is cast as holly #and nana will show up in a few years #wearing a cool leather jacket #to the HPSC's Holiday Party #toshinori will also be present but he will unfortunately be made to stay in the car

24 notes · View notes

cheri-translates · 4 years ago

Text

[CN] Kiro’s R&S - Stunning Young Idol (Eng Translation)

🍒This R&S (惊艳的少年偶像领军人物) was part of the Dream Heart Lake event which will unlikely come to EN🍒

Context: An article in a Japanese magazine

Cancelled Kiro R&S:

> top experimental subject (by another user)

> stunning young idol ♡

> youthhood

> heaven’s home for children (by another user)

[ Chapter 1 ]

Our interview with Kiro went very pleasantly. No one who attended the interview disliked him. Even our photographer, who has always been averse to young male idols, was full of praise.

Come to think of it, it’s no easy feat for this child to maintain such a transparent and innocent heart in an industry where crooks mix with honest folks. Readers who know him are definitely aware that he debuted in France at the age of six.

Back then, he accepted an interview in Paris for a television program. His tiny frame was seated in the large sofa, his legs not long enough to touch the floor, and were dangling in the air.

Many people were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to find this precious video clip. It was only through the recording Agent Savin sent that we could obtain this young and tender moment of Kiro.

Although the video clip has already been kept by Kiro’s agency and not accessible to the public, I can disclose it slightly through this interview.

The person who interviewed Kiro was Eva Saidel, a French female singer who was tremendously popular for a time. The beautiful Eva had asked Kiro if he could perform a song for her. Young Kiro nodded, obedient and filled with a gentlemanly demeanour as he responded, “Yes ma’am.”

[ Chapter 2 ]

Kiro performed Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”. It wasn’t surprising that he liked Beethoven - all pianists definitely like Beethoven.

Saidel asked if he knew how to play other instruments. He replied by saying he also knew the violin, but was afraid that his neck would become crooked if he kept practising it. Everyone at the scene started laughing. Ms Saidel laughed excessively as well, and it was evident that she liked this child very much.

At the time, Kiro was wearing an adorable checkered shirt and a small, adorable hat. He even wore an official-looking tie. His cute appearance was sure to attract the attention of many.

A large proportion of Europeans knew of a mixed-race child who spoke fluent French, and would occasionally appear on the television to sing for them, or play classical pieces. They also gradually knew that his name was “Kiro” - this was a stage name he called himself when he debuted.

Eva Saidel, who had once interviewed him, liked him very much. Kiro said that he would always remember Ms Saidel’s luxurious and spotlessly white mansion. He would sit on the sofa in the mansion and listen to the old albums played by Ms Saidel.

Saidel also hired an incredibly renowned celloist from France to teach Kiro how to play the cello. I think many people don't know about this period from his past.

As of today, Saidel is already in her sunset years, and still remains in contact with Kiro.

When Kiro held a concert in Paris last month, the first person he invited as a guest was Saidel. He also played the song “Träumerei” using the cello she gave him.

“Back then, it was as though I returned to my childhood years. Ms Saidel is very kind, like a mother. She is extremely giving towards me.”

[ Chapter 3 ]

After junior high school in France, Kiro listened to Ms Saidel’s advice and studied in a high school in California. The intelligent Ms Saidel predicted everything - Kiro’s talent would be discovered very quickly.

After one performance, he was signed on with the renowned Warner Music Company. At the time, he was in Year Three, but never forgot his homework, and even entered Berkeley University with stellar results.

By the time he was in Year 4 (in contrast to Japan, high school in America spans four years, while elementary school spans five), he had already formed a band and was touring in various places. Warner Music is an experienced company with incredible foresight, and they allowed Kiro to return to France to begin his music career.

The number of fans Kiro had in Europe was astounding. The women in Europe found his mixed-race looks and his breathtaking voice unforgettable. Their concerts drew large crowds, and it would sometimes be difficult to obtain tickets. 90% of the females were there for Kiro. Such attractive force was rarely seen.

Actually, when we were interviewing Kiro, we could also feel the charisma he exuded. It’s a kind of magic which renders people unable to resist.

With just a smile, he easily won our hearts.

We have no idea why that’s the case. Perhaps it’s because he’s Kiro.

On the topic of whether he gleaned anything from his four years in Berkeley University, Kiro spoke without reservation and commented that he felt a lot of stress as there were many elite students. Hence, he had to fork out even more effort than usual to face each examination.

When he was in Year Three, Kiro continued touring with the band. He disclosed that he used to do his homework on the plane. When his band was touring the entirety of Europe, his band members would spend their spare time exploring the picturesque towns while Kiro would be holding his books and revising in the hotel.

When we asked why he was so hardworking, he replied by saying that he didn’t want his professors to stop liking him because of a drop in his grades.

In reality, every teacher who has met him like him very much. But because of this, Kiro always remained in fear. From beginning to end, he felt that the love and care from people was akin to smoke - surging at first, but dissipates gradually.

[ Chapter 4 ]

Kiro told us that he had felt very scared when he made the sudden decision to return to China after graduating from university. After all, there were many excellent artistes in China, and he was afraid that he wouldn’t receive love from fans.

But reality is always unexpected. His act of returning to China to develop was extremely correct. It allowed people in Asia to notice his radiant light. The artiste from China that the media in Korea likes reporting on the most is Kiro. Every now and then, he would cause a sensation there, but they would be for issues that aren’t important.

In Japan, he truly stirred a sensation through “Three Kingdoms”, a movie he was in half a year ago. He played the role of Sun Ce.

“The History of the Three Kingdoms” enjoyed widespread popularity in Japan.

This movie adaptation of “Three Kingdoms” was incredibly well received in Japan, and everyone was enthusiastic about the contents of the movie.

Even now, Kiro can recall how life was like with the cast and crew. in order to play the role of Sun Ce, he had to dye his golden coloured hair black, wear headgear, don extremely thick armour, and he had to put on brown contact lenses. His headgear was very cumbersome and heavy. If it hadn’t fit, it would have squeezed and pressed on his head, turning him into a “Flat Kiro”.

In the process of filming “Three Kingdoms”, his favourite scenes were the ones where he was on a horse, because the horse could help share the weight of his armour, and the horse would always end up gasping for air. His most deeply etched memory was when he didn’t control the amount of pressure when riding the horse, causing it to toss him onto the ground. His chest was almost trampled by the horse, and he almost lost his life.

He rarely shares this incident with others. “It’d be so embarrassing if other people knew about it,” he laughed while telling this to us. Even now, I can still remember his brilliant smile. “The agent gave me a scolding after he found out about it. The director and assistant director also said that I had angered the horse, which is why it took revenge on me.”

Afterwards, the crew and cast from “Three Kingdoms” specially came to Japan to promote the movie. During that time, “Three Kingdoms” ranked number one in the box-office ratings. And this was even though Kiro didn’t have many scenes in the movie - he only made an appearance for ten minutes.

But because of this short opportunity, movie fans in Japan started to know of Kiro. Looks like our meeting with Kiro was also destined.

He said he could never forget the image of how numerous fans rushed to Haneda Airport to receive him when the crew and cast just arrived in Tokyo.

Kiro confessed that he had never thought that he’d receive such a large fanbase in a foreign country.

The enthusiasm of the fans in Japan caused him to feel extremely flattered. And his trip to Japan this time was no exception. There were even more fans who received him at the airport than before.

Precisely because of this astounding attractive force, Kiro became a superstar who could perform in the Tokyo Dome.

[ Chapter 5 ]

At this point, I think everyone has some basic understanding of this adorable boy. He isn’t just a pretty face (even though there are many such artistes nowadays).

I highly recommend his latest single, “Ash”, which has a somewhat heavy metal rock music style. But he has recently started shifting towards pop music, and has clearly stated that he would spend even more time on music, and would temporarily reject a few invitations to variety shows or television dramas.

This means that for now, we might not see an invigorated Kiro on television screens. Fans will definitely grieve over this, but there’s no need to be too upset, because Kiro will bring a new album to us. During the interview, he revealed that the first song in his new album would be a heavy bomb!

The composer who was involved in producing this song also noted that this song could potentially alter what “popular music” is in Asia.

So, let’s look forward to the surprises this youth will bring us, and letting us know from this interview --

That we should never underestimate this youth.

The concert at the Tokyo Dome will commence a week later. Although tickets have already been swept up, there’s no need to feel discouraged. This magazine still has a lucky draw activity for fans. We will select three lucky readers and give out three front-row tickets to the concert at the Tokyo Dome. More information can be found on our official website.

Other cancelled R&S: here

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc kiro #more! love! for! our! little! sunbeam!#cncancelled

84 notes · View notes

rebeccalouisaferguson · 4 years ago

Photo

Rebecca Ferguson interview for CRASH Magazine (September 2020) - translation from French

AB: You'll be starring in Dune which comes out at the end of this year. Everyone is eager to find out. How did you join this project?

RF: I had a meeting with Denis Villeneuve, the director. I find his work amazing and it was a dream to work with him. His films are always a feast for the eyes.

AB: This film is eagerly awaited, especially by the many fans of the books and the entire Dune universe. Do you feel a certain pressure not to disappoint the audience?

RF: I never feel pressure from the fans. It’s not my job. I have a lot of respect for them and want them to enjoy our work, but I can't please all the people who will go see the film and form their opinions. I remember Tom Cruise saying that everything he does, he does for the fans. I love it when people validate our work but to be honest I love what I do. I love creating a character, the incredible costumes, the make-up. And then work with the best in the world. If the film falters, at least I would have appreciated it. And then I like having conversations with people who don't necessarily agree with the film, it's interesting.

AB: I imagine you must have done a lot of research to prepare for this role.

RF: Oh my god, the whole universe of Dune is so hard to understand. I still barely understand it, even after the shoot. Why are we doing this? Where should I go? Who should I trust? (laughs) So yeah, I did a lot of research. Denis also did all of his own research that I could lean on. The make-up artist was a veritable well of knowledge and stories. And then Jacqueline West, the costume designer, compared our clothes to paintings, from the Renaissance, to Cubism, etc. I barely knew what she was talking about. I just smile. I was working with the experts from the experts. So I hope that at least some things have been achieved.

AB: You are going to shoot additional scenes soon?

RF: Yes, we're going on the set in August...

AB: How long have you lived in Sweden?

RF: I was born in Sweden and have lived there all my life. Then I moved to England a year and a half ago but I divide my time between my small fishing village and London.

AB: Is it important for you to have a foothold in Sweden?

RF: Yes, I have a thirteen year old son who lives there with his father. We're all very close so it's important for me to be where he is. We all travel together, we are a bit like a circus family. (laughs) My son goes to school and it was important not to break his habits and his circle of friends. Thirteen is an important age. With his father and his mother-in-law, we travel together as much as possible and we meet for the holidays. We make it work.

AB: What was your first encounter with cinema?

RF: I don't know how old I was anymore but I remember that when Beauty and the Beast came out in the cinema, I was scared but I still went to see it. I was upset because I was in love with the Beast and when he transformed into what everyone considered to be the perfect man, I found his new face not as alluring as his monster appearance. I wanted him to stay the Beast.

AB: When did you first consider being an actress?

RF: The funny thing is when I was young I never thought I would be an actress. I was fifteen or sixteen when I was taken to play in a series in Sweden. Before, I didn't like being on stage; I never took acting lessons in school. I was in a music school. I didn't have a lot of dreams or career plans. I was one of those kids who did what they were told to do. You have to go to school, do this, do that. You know the song; we call it the school system. Then when I was asked to do this casting for this show, I was terrified. I got the part and that's when my interest in acting started. I realized there was a world in which to hide. I could play characters without having to take responsibility for their actions... and apparently people thought I was good. Good enough to continue anyway.

AB: How did you find yourself participating in this casting?

RF: My mother had decided that I was going to model, even though I don't have the size or the body you would expect from a model. I ended up in a file called “normal people”. (laughs) I didn’t get a single job; it didn't suit me. My sister is a catwalk model so she knows how to do it. Me? Not at all. So I was on their file and I was constantly turning down jobs, I didn't want to do it. Then a casting agency was looking for an actress for this series having already selected the actors who would play her father and her mother. They flipped through model portfolios and then they found me.

AB: How did this first experience go? I saw that you had to act in several episodes a day.

RF: Yes, two and a half episodes a day. It was intense but I was thrown into a world I knew nothing about. I was a blank canvas. I had no expectations and didn't question how it worked. It made me realize that I love to work hard with imposed deadlines. I like to be thrown into difficult situations. It all happened naturally and I took this route.

AB: What was it like seeing yourself for the first time on TV?

RF: There is nothing natural about it. I remember that for the first episode in the series, my mother decided to have a big party with lots of guests. I was more excited about the evening than the rest and when the countdown to the screening started I remember feeling nauseous. I hid behind the sofa. It was very embarrassing. But on the other hand, I thought it was cool. It was a whole new situation, a new world open to me.

AB: After your debut in this Nya Tider series, did you take a break or did you continue to work non-stop?

RF: We actually shot for six months and then we had six months free. My stepfather at the time had the good idea to ask the production to hire me for the remaining six months. As I had left school, that meant I was employed full time, as an actress but also set manager, publicity assistant and everything the production needed when we weren't shooting. I learned everything behind the scenes, I was able to help with the script and the media part. It was the best job I had and it helped me understand the process better when I got back to shooting.

AB: What project did you work on next?

RF: Nothing happened for quite a while because it was a local show - I played a character that everyone associated me with. People recognized me and it was hard for some directors to see me in another role. Then a director called Richard Hobert offered me the lead role in his film “A One Way to Antibes”. It was my first role in the movies and from there I was able to meet agents. It was my gateway to the big screen.

AB: You then got the lead role in the BBC series “The White Queen”. Were you a fan of British television?

RF: Yes, my mother is English so I grew up watching UK programs. Yes Minister, Cracker ... there has been so much British TV in my life that this BBC production was perfect for my entry into the big leagues. This casting process has been probably the most exhilarating of my career. The racing heart, the hope, the doubt, the disappointment ... an emotional lift that I finally won.

AB: What doors have “The White Queen” opened to you?

RF: A lot. First of all, I was nominated for a Golden Globe in the “Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film” category which is crazy. I remember being nominated alongside Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter, Elisabeth Moss, who won for her role in Top of the Lake. I was in the same room with people I admired a lot. I always felt like the little Swede who had no place in this extraordinary world. But “The White Queen” has caused meetings and a lot of castings. “A One-Way Trip to Antibes” gave me the opportunity to find an agent in London and the first casting I tried was for “The White Queen”. It was lucky but I also worked hard for this role.

AB: How do you manage the castings in general? Are you still anxious?

RF: At the beginning, everything revolves around castings and meetings. In fact no, before that there are the videos that you make yourself. You have to find monologues, film yourself with your best friend, your boyfriend or your mother. After that, it's the castings. We do so much and it goes very quickly. Sometimes there is a big blockbuster and they are looking for an actress at the last minute. There you are at the restaurant and you have to run to the toilet, grab your phone and do something. You have to prove yourself by putting forward a certain trait of your personality to stand out among the four hundred thousand people who try their luck. I've always liked going to castings. A lot of people I met there were great and understood the horror of the situation. They made me feel relaxed. Again, I would throw myself into situations without giving it much thought and hoping someone would notice me. If that doesn't work, you have to move on.

AB: Are there any mentors that you have met throughout your career?

RF: Yes, Veronica St Clair was my coach in Sweden. After playing on the show, I missed the end of my schooling so I couldn't go to college. I would have started from scratch. But I had worked for two years in nurseries, restaurants, supermarkets, etc. I had left home and was living an adult life at a young age. I saved some money to pay for my personal development classes which helped me better express myself and improvise. I also contacted film schools who still needed free actors for their end of year films. I've done a lot, I don't know how many student films. I took what I could take. Veronica was unbelievable, she did so much for me. She has prepared me for many challenges. But at one point, we have the chance to stop casting. We make appointments. The dynamics are changing. It's not just about pleasing a director anymore, we have to like the project too, that it brings us something.

AB: It becomes a conversation.

RF: Yes. Can this film stimulate me? Is the project right for me?

AB: At what point in your career have you felt your opinion was as important as pleasing a director?

RF: After Mission Impossible.

AB: How did the casting go for this film?

RF: I was filming a miniseries called “The Red Tent” for Lifetime. Tom told me he noticed me on “The White Queen”. It's a funny story from their side because they had auditioned a lot of women without being able to find the right one. They had already considered me for the role, but I didn’t make a good enough impression for them to stop casting. (laughs) Then they had to do it again because the chosen person didn't suit. They are very careful and don't say too much when they tell these stories. I always wanted to know who the other woman was. (laughs) Finally, resuming the auditions, they decided to give me my chance. I was in Morocco, sitting on the camel Nicole Kidman had used for the movie “Queen of the Desert”. They called me to tell me that Tom Cruise wanted to meet me. They wanted to see if I could fight. It was quite surreal. They brought in the stunt teams who created the choreography. I realized I loved it. I could use my dance knowledge, which I have been practicing from a young age. They were very good martial arts trainers. And then I ended up getting the part.

AB: How did you appropriate the character of Ilsa Faust?

RF: I don't feel like I appropriated it honestly. There are certain characters that I personalize. But when it comes to Mission Impossible, Christopher McQuarrie is such a great writer that I focused on physical training and being part of an already formed team. As an actress, you have to bring something personal, the way I walk, I talk, I frown, I think, will be reflected in the character. I'm not going too far into the secrets or shadows of the director. There is a precise technique in the creation of these films. You have to have confidence, know your text and arrive on time.

AB: Was it the first time that you had to have such great physical preparation and stunts to do?

RF: I had never had so much need to train and be in good shape. Like I said, I love challenges and working hard to achieve a goal. I remember Chris telling me in an interview, “Tom is a movie star. Simon Pegg isn't just his sidekick, he's smart, funny. Luther Stickell also brings something. All of these male characters add something to Mission Impossible. Who are you? What are you bringing?”. I remember thinking about it, telling myself that Ilsa's character had to fill a void, that the film would miss her if we took her away. I had to find meaning in it. It's a balance between following something that has been created and leaving an imprint. This is something Tom and Chris have done very well. Ilsa has a real mission, she saves Tom. She is his equal. This is not a vase. But she's also vulnerable, she's scared ... she feels things. There was a lot to do on this project, to live up to what already existed.

AB: You've been in a lot of action and science fiction movies. What attracts you to this kind of cinema?

RF: I think I am drawn to all genres of cinema. What happened was, I played in Mission Impossible and people loved Ilsa. I proved that I could act out the fight scenes myself and I loved it. I think these kinds of films came naturally to me. But I try to vary the genres. My dream is to shoot in independent films. I want to go where I have never been. And I haven't made an independent film yet. A lot of people fight to shoot in big Hollywood studio movies and I was lucky to have had those experiences.

#interview #dune interview #photoshoot #josefine seifert shoot #twq interview #nya tider #mi5 interview

43 notes · View notes

skypalacearchitect · 3 years ago

Link

Sandy Saeteurn grew up in Richmond, California, where Chevron’s massive 3,000-acre oil refinery reigns supreme. She’s no stranger to the refinery’s chemical flares, and she spent many of her childhood days home sick. She’s not the only one who has learned to link the refinery and the presence of illness in her community: A 2008 study (co-authored by Grist board member Rachel Morello-Frosch) found that almost half of all homes in the area had indoor levels of refinery-related particulate matter pollution that exceeded the state’s air quality standards.

Every day for nearly 120 years — longer than the city has existed — the refinery has processed thousands of barrels of oil. Its flares regularly paint the sky burnt orange before thick grey clouds of smoke cover the city. Chevron’s influence stretches beyond its pollution and the 3,500 refinery jobs it provides as the city’s largest employer — it also showers money on local elections and even runs a local newspaper, the Richmond Standard, which has been known to cast a positive light on the company.

Ever since Black residents first arrived in large numbers in the 1940s, people of color have been relegated into low-quality housing surrounding the city’s large industrial zones. Today the city, which is 82 percent non-white and home to large groups of migrants from Latin America and Southeast Asia, has worse air pollution than 94 percent of the country, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has cited the refinery for environmental violations roughly 150 times since 2016. The city’s childhood asthma rate is more than double the national average and, in the immediate aftermath of an explosion at the refinery in 2012, more than 15,000 people were forced to seek medical treatment for respiratory distress.

Chevron funds around one-third of Richmond’s annual budget through taxes and municipal services the company provides, which includes education and workforce development programs. When the company wanted to modernize its facility in 2008, it offered the city $11 million for the Richmond Police Department to “increase the number of police officers on the street,” according to a document outlining Chevron’s community benefits agreements with the city. The modernization project was eventually blocked after community groups sued the city for failing to do a proper environmental impact analysis, but a 2015 agreement between Richmond and Chevron ultimately set aside $2 million for Richmond police. Over the past decade, Richmond police have arrested hundreds for protesting the plant’s emissions.

As a child, Saeteurn and her family didn’t think to connect the Chevron plant and their disposition to illness. “Growing up there was a lot of explosion drills, and we never understood what they meant,” Saeteurn told Grist. “In elementary school, Chevron would come and have certain programs for kids, giving us money for books and school supplies. I left elementary school thinking ‘oh wow, Chevron’s a great company,’ when in reality they were slowly killing us.”

Saeteurn’s lighthearted view of Chevron didn’t last long. By age 14, she was a dedicated organizer and member of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, or APEN, which is based in both Richmond and nearby Oakland. She’s used her struggles against environmental injustices to fuel her work, helping to organize influential campaigns such as the first-ever county-wide multilingual warning system, which now warns Richmond residents of looming chemical flares in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Lao.

In response to questions from Grist, Chevron provided a statement saying that its Richmond workforce “takes its role as good neighbors seriously and continually works to reduce our environmental footprint and to improve reliability.” The statement listed modernization projects, such as a new hydrogen processing unit, which have contributed to reducing the site’s “air emissions by 86 percent over the last 40 years,” according to the company.

Because of the way issues like a growing housing crisis, immigration, and police violence intersect in the San Francisco Bay area — where more than 350 refineries and fossil fuel companies are based — Saeteurn and other organizers at APEN have been at the forefront of reframing the environmental justice movement to incorporate all aspects of residents’ encounters with their lived environments, whether that’s unwanted interactions with the police or gentrification and the displacement of poorer people from their home communities. This is a reimagining of the traditional focuses of environmental organizations that have long prioritized organizing around issues like toxic waste or access to public parks, while leaving issues like housing and criminal justice to different organizations.

“We think of environmental justice as being about how our communities get to be in relationship with our environment,” Alvina Wong, APEN’s campaign and organizing director, told Grist. “That means trees, air, and water — but also our neighborhoods, our homes, and how we get to be in relationship with each other.”

Saeteurn, a local political director with the group, said that this message resonates with the residents APEN serves.

“When the community talks about the environment, they’re not talking about clean air or water — what they’re really talking about is their struggles,” she explained. “So when we talk with the community about how the environment is impacting them, they’re not saying ‘oh yeah, Chevron’s in my backyard.’ They’re saying, ‘I can’t afford my rent. Oh yeah, the energy bill is going up and now I can’t afford food.’”

Besides continuing a long struggle with Chevron in Richmond, APEN has also been a crucial part of recent campaigns to move millions of dollars away from Richmond and Oakland police to do things like building new supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness and mental illness, as well as increasing residents’ access to healthy food through affordable markets. The organization has worked on recent campaigns for rent control and tenant rights in both cities, including mutual aid projects to crowdsource funds for rent and food for community members. It has fought to pass the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which would grant tenants two months notice and the first opportunity to purchase their home if their landlord plans to put their building on the market.

“Our work is trying to make the connection to a bigger kind of struggle related to racism,” said Saeteurn. “We’re here next to a refinery because of racism, which is the same reason why our members get stopped by the police or harassed on the streets. Environmental justice is about who we can call community, and what access we have to the environment around us.”

APEN came to fruition after a proposal at the First National People of Color Environmental Justice Leadership Summit in 1991, when summit participants noticed that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were largely underrepresented. The summit was attended by activists from everywhere from Puerto Rico to Vietnam and Laos, as well as other territories struggling with American chemical waste. During and following the American bombing of Vietnam and Laos in the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Southeast Asian migrants fled to the Bay area and Richmond in particular. Connecting the dots between environmental injustices in America and the environmental fallout from American firebombing and the use of Agent Orange in their home countries, Bay area delegates decided to form an organization centered on the leadership of Asian immigrant and refugee communities.

“APEN is so successful because our organizing incorporates our cultural heritage and our own legacy fighting aggression and chemical warfare in our homelands,” Wong said. “For us, this memory of how our homelands were affected both physically and culturally by environmental violence and war allows us to really address the root causes of injustice.”

Since 1991, APEN has been an unstoppable organizing force, working to pass bills mitigating pollution, like SB32, which in 2016 laid the foundation for many greenhouse gas emission goals we see today. In 2018, they were part of a coalition that helped push Chevron to pay out a $5 million settlement for its 2012 explosion. Most recently, APEN helped spearhead the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force in Richmond, which just passed a reallocation of $10 million away from Richmond police to fund various community services. (In a short phone interview with Grist, Richmond Mayor Tom Butt acknowledged Chevron’s mighty role in city life and said that the city council is doing everything in its power to act as a counterweight to the fossil fuel giant.)

APEN is hardly alone in its expansive approach to environmental justice. It’s a member of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, which includes Bay area groups like Communities for a Better Environment, or CBE, and People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights, or PODER. Two weeks ago, APEN, CBE, and PODER led Richmond’s participation in the 8th annual Global Anti-Chevron day of protest, drawing more than 100 people who participated in chants and painted murals in front of the refinery to protest the refinery’s emissions and hold it accountable for its alleged commitment to racial justice.

Denny Khamphanthong, an APEN community organizer who worked on the campaign to reallocate funds from Richmond’s police budget, says APEN’s approach to justice is not only about saving the environment around him, but also about building a safer future for his family’s next generations.

“What we’re all trying to do is build a better world so that our community can thrive,” Khamphanthong told Grist, “which requires our community to be funded and resourced in a way that feels most important to us, whether it be less police on our streets or less pollution in our air.”

#APEN #Asian Pacific Environmental Network #san francisco bay area #environmental justice #environmental activism #intersectionality #skypalacearchitect #idk what else to tag this

2 notes · View notes

beautybranding22 · 3 years ago

Text

Eighty One Beauty Branding Design

But greater than that, it revealed emerging beauty branding which are threatening the incumbents. Google has so nicely established its model identification, that its very name has become a verb meaning “to search.” Though its options have advanced and expanded, its focus has remained primarily unchanged. It organizes international info and had made it accessible and helpful to everyone.

If you select to manufacture at house, you’ll clearly have to ensure your workspace is completely sterile. While the zits vanished, some mild scarring remained, so I investigated more natural fixes and eventually landed on tamanu oil. Also boasting antibacterial and hydrating properties, this oil has been utilized by girls in Polynesia for generations to help not just with zits, but additionally scars.

The more you build a rapport with customers, the extra they trust you, and the more they’ll look to you when they’re able to spend. This focus on diversity has continued for the explanation that launch in a way that feels natural and unforced. Rather than adding a mannequin of colour to their materials after years of using white fashions, they began off using models of all skin tones and by no means stopped. Their website at all times features a number of fashions to get throughout that their products are made for, and look good on, everyone.

The company likes to put memes on Twitter and bounce onto social developments. Since their target demographic is younger, this media performs well with their customers. And not being afraid to jump on a pop-culture moment gives Fenty a noncorporate feel; at times, their Shorty Award-nominated social presence is extra like a friend’s account than a brand’s. Rather than coming off as unprofessional, this video is a really deliberate choice.

Jasmine Garnsworthy is a freelance author with over eight years of experience. She's additionally the founder of fresh skincare brand, The Buff. You can see what your product will seem like with your personal artwork. I received my products, I tried them AND I nonetheless love them. I can't say sufficient nice things about ONOXA, significantly.

Without a model identity, you can’t transfer ahead along with your beauty packaging brand. Each of the three B’s builds off the other—and all three are should have’s if you'll like your cosmetics brand to thrive. Fenty, owned by Rihanna, launched simply 4 years ago with an entirely digital campaign that centered heavily on Instagram and influencer content material.

So, if you’re creating a skincare line for males, perhaps your differentiator is that your products are easy to make use of and don’t have harsh scents, whereas your mission is to make skincare more accessible to males. Or, if your company is on a mission to provide again, your differentiator is the way you make that happen. So your model identity is the collateral you utilize for branding, which is how you create your brand. Now that we’ve established that, we can start to lay the groundwork for a robust beauty model.

There’s no question that content advertising is one of the finest ways to engage your current customers and attract new ones. The rule of thumb with content marketing is to submit 4 pieces of content material that are purely entertaining or info for every one direct name to motion. This ratio ensures that prospects feel valued always. Nobody follows an organization on social media hoping to be bombarded with an endless string of sales pitches.

This good positioning helped Fenty’s sales skyrocket. After Fenty launched, their deep shades offered out across the country, and shoppers took to social media to share their pleasure at discovering foundations that matched their skin tone. We don’t just promote beauty, we sell goals, happiness, hopes, confidence or happy-go-lucky spirits. It’s a distillation of what your audience aspires to be. The colors, typeface, voice, product, packaging, and imagery must convey that aspiration and show them how to get there.

But don’t just quietly add in a product or service—celebrate the folks you are serving, and make them really feel welcomed by your brand. Consumers are looking to buy from brands whose values align with their own, now more than ever before, but few shoppers are going out of their way to learn model manifestos. The greatest approach to get your core model values throughout is to market them, and that’s precisely what Fenty has done since their 2017 launch. But while Fenty is priced as a luxury brand, they nonetheless aren’t as costly as lots of the different manufacturers selling a giant quantity of shades.

A large seventy p.c of Glossier’s on-line sales come from peer referrals. They anticipate a seamless transition between net and device-native purposes through colour, circulate, and overall quality. Unattractive and attractive packaging result in less exercise in areas of the mind answerable for reflective thought than impartial packaging. Glossieris an excellent instance of a brand that’s taken buyer input and turned it into a aggressive benefit. Design considering feels like it’s meant solely for creative thinkers, but anyone can take advantage of its straightforward process. Rich in natural Vitamin C to encourage your skin to provide natural Collagen.

For example, if you’re launching an all-natural line of products, you would possibly want to incorporate green, which individuals affiliate with nature. If you’re launching a line of prestige merchandise, you would possibly work purple into your shade palette, which is often associated with luxurious or royalty. Think of the mission assertion as the “why” behind your small business. For instance, possibly you’re decided to boost the standard for eco-conscious manufacturing and packaging within the cosmetics trade with your line of all-natural products. Funkhaus is a digital inventive company working at the intersection of design, content, programming, and technique.

The very first thing that the majority girls need when they go looking for beauty merchandise is a sense of magnificence and allure. They purchase make-up, perfume, and other beauty objects as a outcome of they want to be ok with the method in which they look. In some instances, they could even be involved about issues like natural elements, or playfulness and enjoyable. You need any influencer partnerships to push your brand forward—and a lot of that has to do with schooling.

With a mix of name strategy, visible identification, inventive and artwork path, we concentrate on holistic design solutions for magnificence that pinpoint the emotional narrative and craft compelling visible varieties. I’m forty two so I know my customers will recognize every product from Onoxa that I plan to launch March 1st! I had many companies to select from to start my skincare line however I’m so glad that I selected Onoxa to associate with. The Perfect 10 Oil Cleanser it removes makeup without leaving pores and skin dry and without moisture. Love the customer service shown by the Florida team and love that I’m able to create my own label.

A consulting retainer allows us to precisely pick up the place you and your team have left off. These are only a few concepts that may allow you to benefit from your content marketing. Beauty merchandise are massive enterprise, however you possibly can afford to be playful and private along with your advertising. 3) Create a detailed buyer personal that can assist you formulate a advertising technique. Marketing a beauty company requires some cautious planning and ingenuity.

Though they usually have smaller follower counts, their audiences are more hyper-focused and focused. Your branding is how you shape and bring your model to life. Your brand is the perception of your company that exists on the earth. If shoppers are buying based on their morals, make certain they know what your brand values are. Don’t cover them on a webpage no one visits; use them to underscore your advertising, your website copy, and everything else that comes from your model, implicitly and explicitly. On their other social platforms, Fenty speaks the language of their customers.

Once, the services or products that a company produced was the sole focus of consideration when it got here to competitors for finest model identity. But on this age of digital branding, it is shopper expertise that’s the primary battleground for winning buyer loyalty. MSLK, a design company for beauty manufacturers, understands the significance of a brand’s picture and its capability to build consumer loyalty and achieve business recognition. Our agency has experience in working with every aspect of the sweetness business from preliminary product growth, to strategic branding, to distribution, to retail and sales.

Your brand is the notion of your organization out there on the planet. In order to succeed, you want to break through the litter, grab your best customer’s consideration and present them why your product is the one they want. Connect with them on Dribbble; the global group for designers and inventive professionals.

The brand leverages social media influencers to build engagement. It has shifted extra of its media spending to online channels lately. L’Oréal has had nice success on Twitter with its #POWERON marketing campaign, an omnichannel women’s empowerment marketing campaign.

A model must create a well-defined path to shoppers with a relationship-building function. It's impossible to construct a successful brand that serves everybody. However, it’s in the most effective interest of each business to increase their brand’s attraction as far as potential to maximize revenue. Not only are they gaining valuable press for a product that hasn’t been introduced yet, but they’re also letting customers feel like a half of the method while having enjoyable at the identical time. An simply acknowledged magnificence brand benefits from exposure alone.

We’ll never budge on that,” they defined to me over the phone. To function legally, you will need to register your small business and secure enterprise insurance. Wright recommends finding an account and a lawyer early on to assist you navigate these items (there’s only so much accurate info obtainable on the internet, folks). If you’re on a finances proper now, reasonably priced platforms like LegalZoom also make it simpler to set every little thing up on-line in just a matter of minutes.

MSLK works with magnificence brands of all styles and sizes. Over the previous 20 years we've helped manufacturers grow from the bottom up, launch line extensions, rediscover their voice in a crowded market, and create totally new product categories. 3) Offer a free giveaway of a new product on your social media accounts. You can create a fun video or infographic and get people to share it in return for an entry in the contest. A magnificence firm emblem should attraction to a woman’s sense of shallowness. You should use it in all your branded material, including your website.

1 note · View note

imsafiyacharles · 4 years ago

Text

ALABAMA’S AGING BLACK FARMERS UNCERTAIN ABOUT FUTURE AS THEY STRUGGLE TO CREATE LINES OF SUCCESSION

Billy Gibbons intends to die on this land.

At 70, the bespectacled Black farmer may very well be the last heir to work the family plot; 80 acres of black soil in Browntown, Alabama, an unincorporated community less than 20 miles north of Prattville.

Gibbons’ parents pinched and scraped to purchase the acreage for $850 in 1940. They intended to pass it down to him and his brother; but he died in 1976 after contracting meningitis while away at military training in Fort Polk, Louisiana.

“I can remember all of this was woods,” Gibbons said, waving his arm over the crop land that extended before him. It was a brooding morning that had already spilled rain and left his feet besieged by shallow pools of muddy water.

The old farmer wore a faded army jacket and dark cap with worn blue jeans; occasionally pulling his face mask to the side to expel a portion of the chewing tobacco occupying his right cheek, before apologizing for the habit.

“As far as you can see to woods was woods,” he spat.

The forest was so dense, and the family’s resources so limited, they worked only five acres of farmland to start.

“My Daddy, he done all the cleaning with a mule, a ax and a shovel,” said Gibbons.

They farmed row crops — collards, turnips, mustard greens — and bought a couple head of cattle. Gibbons had trees pushed off with bulldozers through the years. He now owns about 50 head, which he spreads across the family land and some 170 acres he rents just a mile up the road.

With the help of his wife, he hauls most of his vegetables weekly at the Curb Market downtown where in 1999, he became its first African American vendor. He would serve as president for nine years.

“This is a tradition here, and it’s still standing,” he said.

But for how long?

Like so many of the nation’s Black farmers, mostly clustered in the South, the future remains uncertain.

In 1920, African Americans accounted for 14% of all U.S. farm operators. That number has since dwindled to a staggering 1.4% percent. Alabama, the third most populous state for Black producers, sits at 6%, according to 2017’s agriculture census.

At the turn of the 20th century, Black landowners held 15 million acres. Today, they own 3.4 million, about half a percent of American farmland.

Black farmers have faced discrimination at every level, struggling against social and financial barriers to achieve land ownership and the right to operate their farms independently within an agricultural economy that has long profited from the exploitation of their labor through slavery, sharecropping and legal loopholes.

Over decades, many southern Black families lost land due violent intimidation, deceit and financial hardship. Farmers who sought loans from government agencies to keep their properties running in lean times or make needed improvements were denied, shortchanged or failed to receive timely assistance. (The United States Department of Agriculture settled in 1999 the class action lawsuit Pigford v. Glickman brought by Black farmers alleging more than two decades of lending discrimination.)

While the latest agriculture census reported a 5% increase in Black producers between 2012 and 2017 after revisions to its data collection, there was also a 3% decline in Black operated farms.

“What I hope we don't see is the eventual extinction of the Black farmer,” said Brennan Washington. He works with limited resource farmers across the South as a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) liaison at Fort Valley State, a historically Black land grant college in Georgia.

In the past, Washington said, a Black farmer with a large acreage may have applied for a USDA loan to purchase seed, among other necessities, and would find their application lagging.

“[USDA] would process the paperwork too late for them to get their seed on time. So, they get their seed in the ground too late, they don’t get a crop, meanwhile they’ve got a lien on that property that USDA will seize if they can’t get it paid,” he said.

Further complicating matters is the fact that farmers are aging, and many are finding it increasingly difficult to get young people to replace them. Nationally, the average age of a farm owner is 57½ years old; 43% of Black farmers are 65 and older.

'Farming has shrunk from a mile to 300 feet'

Browntown is a Black community founded on farming. According to local history, twin brothers with the surname Brown bought the land that encompasses about a 20-mile radius; it was parceled among their heirs when they died. Gibbons’ grandmother was a Brown.

But the promise of higher-wage work, and the perceived freedom from Jim Crow segregation and racism lured many young Black people north during the Great Migration between 1916 and 1970, away from rural farm towns like these.

“Most of the farmers had large families and they kids was brought up on the farm. But as years got by and all these kids grow up, they was rushing to get away from the farm, because the farm was a struggle — still is a struggle,” said Gibbons.

The figures are dramatic. Between 1940 and 1950, more than 42% of the nonwhite Southern population vanished. That number rose to 65% for nonwhite youth between the ages of 15 and 19, according to a 2007 SARE report.

With four biological children and four stepchildren, Gibbons has no shortage of heirs. But their desire to enter a business they've watched their father struggle to maintain over the years is lacking, which means the family is currently without a contingency plan.

Marshall, 58, and Lorenzo Davis, 66, co-own Davis Farms about a mile west of Gibbons’ property and face a similar consequence. The brothers farm row crops, rotating varieties of watermelon, field peas, snap beans and other seasonal crops they sell daily at the Finley Avenue Farmer’s Market in Birmingham.

As farm operators, the two have found themselves in a position they never intended. Fond memories of time spent working alongside their father on the farm throughout their youth persuaded them to keep the business alive after he passed in 2004.

The brothers farm about 300 acres, half which belongs to the family, and 40 acres the late Davis bought in 1960. That land is legally split between Lorenzo, Marshall and a third brother, Andrew, who farms independently.

Like many operators, the Davis’ maintained full-time jobs to keep their farm going. Lorenzo retired in 2014 after 33 years as a correctional officer, and Marshall is still currently employed at a facility in Elmore County. He wakes early most days to put in work at the farm before heading to the prison for the second shift from 2 to 10 p.m.

“Twenty years ago, when our father was in operation, we had cows and hogs. At one time, we were up to 200 acres of field corn,” said Lorenzo.

By the late-90s they had quit farming cattle. The cost of feed was expensive, and profits were slim. Bills on a farm add up quickly — seed, fertilizer, fuel, equipment maintenance. Lorenzo pointed out a 20-year-old tractor they owned that cost them $60,000 to buy brand new; an equivalent today, he said, would be well over a $100,000.

“We might eventually have to get back into growing grain because we’re aging now and you can gather all that with machinery,” Marshall said. “Help is harder to come by now than it was 20 years ago.”

Like Gibbons, the Davis brothers remain passionate about farming but are struggling to devise a transition plan. Marshall’s 36-year-old daughter sometimes assists him at the farmer’s market., and Lorenzo has a 35-year-old son that has indicated an interest in the operation, but he doesn’t have much experience and works a good-paying job that his farm income would likely never match.

Without a probated will, farms are vulnerable to becoming heirs’ property

Most farm operators are generational, acquiring land as it is handed down through family members.

While 65% of white Americans with a high school education report having a will, only 23% of Black Americans possess one, according to a study reviewed by Texas A&M law scholar Thomas Mitchell who studies heirs’ property; land owned by multiple people who typically share a common relative that’s died without leaving a probated will.

Kara Woods has studied heirs’ property in Macon County as a postdoctoral researcher at Tuskegee University (TU). The historically Black 1890 land grant school’s research and extension programs provide agricultural education and support to Black producers; often subject to the same imposed financial limitations the farmers they serve face (Congress mandated 1890s because southern land grants they created 28 years prior barred Black students).

“It really goes down to generations ago when everything was in the family bible,” Woods said. “You might have the lineage in the family bible, [unofficial] wills in the family bible. People who were able to get land after becoming free didn’t trust white lawyers because they didn’t have means to read and write. So, at that point it was safer to keep the land without a will because you knew the family could always stay on it,” said Woods.

One of the problems with heir’s property is that it isn’t divided by parcels or acres; it’s split by percentage. That means that if a family has 50 acres and five heirs, each would be entitled to 10% of the land, not 10 acres. So, the more heirs a property has, the less value each person holds.

Because heir’s property is an informal form of ownership that involves multiple people, most banks refuse to allow the land to be used as collateral in financial lending, and it’s generally appraised at a lower value than clear title land.

These properties also rarely qualify for state and federal grant programs that cover everything from community development, to disaster relief and housing. Without individual ownership, heir’s property isn’t an effective tool for building generational wealth.

Before Alabama approved the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, co-drafted by Mitchell, in 2014, a single heir could force the sale of an entire property through a legal partition action. Usually the sale would net far less than market value for the land. (The 2018 Farm Bill includes a provision sponsored by former Sen. Doug Jones that would authorize $10 million a year through 2023 to help farmers resolve ownership and address succession issues to avoid this and other snags.)

Lack of generational leads put Black farmers on the back foot

Though fourth-generation Black Belt farmer Demetrius Hooks, 47, knows the value of a will, he’s had a hard time convincing his father, Al Hooks, 72, of the urgency in getting an official document drawn up.

Like the Davis’, Demetrius never imagined he'd assume farming as an occupation. He 'd always helped around on weekends at the Shorter farm, but when he lost his graphic design job at this newspaper around 2010, he spent more time there.

The father and son talked it over and decided Demetrius should assume a more official role. A few years later, he ended up at TU working as a farm internship liaison.

Demetrius handles sales and marketing for Al Hooks Produce, and his father does most of the farm work, though the younger Hooks does get his hands dirty every now and again. He has two siblings who have families of their own, but none work the farm.

The Hooks grow fruits and vegetables that they sell each weekend at the Macon County Farmer’s Market and through direct sales via text message to customers who pick up their “veggie crates” weekly at Demetrius’ home. They hold farm stands at Auburn and Birmingham’s summer markets, too.

Through a cooperative partnership facilitated by TU, the Hooks previously sold some produce items to Walmart. That created a need for an onsite processing plant to wash, refrigerate and package the vegetables. They were able to secure a $75,000 grant to build the $125,000 site and increase their capability.

Beyond the need to expand capacity, large retail contracts like these often require special certifications like GAP (good agricultural practices) that can be time consuming and expensive. And it can take months to receive payment.

Demetrius said the business had previously maintained a contract with Whole Foods, supplying them squash, zucchini, peppers and collard greens for a few years. When Amazon acquired the company in 2017 subsequent changes were made to their vendor specifications, which coincided with a cancer diagnosis. They could barely keep up with the requirements.

For many small Black farms that lack capital to pay certification costs or labor to meet greater demand, these large contracts remain out of reach.

The Hooks no longer sell to either large chain and are currently working with smaller regional retailers like Filet and Vine in Old Cloverdale; though they will again attempt to meet Whole Foods’ certification requirements now that Demetrius’ cancer is one-year in remission.

There’s a “gap in business development. It would be nice if everybody started their business at the same time and you didn’t have years of being locked out of certain opportunities because you’re Black. Once those blockages and implements of discrimination have been removed it’s not as if the next day I can easily walk into Whole Foods and be ready to deliver to them,” said Demetrius.

“You still have those generational leads. Other businesses that didn’t have those problems have that benefit of being able to maneuver through those obstacles once they come up.”

Although nothing has yet been written in ink, Demetrius has expressed to his father his interest in taking over the farm when he retires. But the matter of a probated will still hangs in the balance.

“I don't really think I should have a say of how it's done; it's how he wants to do it. But I need him to come out and tell me,” he said.

Certifications allow access to wider markets, but can be costly and limiting

In recent years, a burgeoning cultural movement has emerged seeking a return to African American agricultural traditions. Urban farmers, many of them women, have cleared blighted plots and cleaned up city blocks in an effort to nourish and beautify Black communities that too often lack access to fresh produce and healthy food options. The trend of “reverse migration,” first observed in the 1970s, continues as more Black people return to ancestral land in rural communities across the South.

“There’s a new awakening that's happening where people who left during the Great Migration and went to work a job in Detroit or Ohio, they're coming back to Alabama and Georgia and Mississippi,” said Natilee McGruder, a community land, food and farming systems advocate, who's currently working to connect local Black farmers with a national seasonal food chain.

“There are young Black people who are in New York and California who are landless, who want to farm, who are ‘woofing.’ There are elders connecting with young folks. And there are the 1890s that have always been here to support Black culture, Black community and Black farmers. There's a complete renaissance that's happening,” said McGruder.

At 77, Josie Gbadamosi-El Amin, may well be a part of this Black agrarian rebirth. When she began farming 10 years ago, she had no experience.

With bright eyes and a wide smile, the retired substance abuse counselor described how she fell in love with Shady Grove Blueberry Patch after a friend clued her in on a “secret” spot where locals picked berries on a conveniently absent farmer’s Tuskegee property.

“I had to lock my eyes on the line of trees because it was so overgrown that I was afraid I might get disoriented, and I better find my way out,” she said. “But I was just enamored by the blueberry bushes. It was just so wonderful. I had never seen anything like it. There was something about the spirit of this place.”

She inquired after the land and found a few leads, purchasing the 46-acre farm in 2010. The move was so left field that her four daughters were concerned she may have hit her head and corrupted her judgement in a recent slip and fall accident, she recounted; then burst into peals of laughter.

For the Watts, California native, owning a farm has been an all-consuming experience. So much to learn and so much to do.

Gbadamosi-El Amin moved to Tuskegee in 1969 to study sociology at TU. That connection paid itself forward for the new farm operator. From the agricultural school, she learned that the acreage she purchased was the former site of a working farm project led by Booker T. Whatley, the “small farm guru” who popularized the pick-your-own harvest method and subscription buyer’s club model (commonly known today as CSA) before it was widely adopted.

What looked like a mess of trees, tangled weeds, and overgrown bushes was in fact a model for sustainable agriculture cultivated by one of the country’s foremost experts on regenerative farming.

In exchange for seedlings, Gbadamosi-El Amin got a farmer to bring his tractor and a couple workers in to help clean up, as well as some Tuskegee students who joined in. The operation still runs as a “u-pick” service, inviting visitors to gather their own blueberries from the shrubs in late May through mid-August. The retired counselor also sells jams, dried fruit and blueberry tizanes — a fragrant, nutrient rich tonic that’s made from the leaves and fruit.

Education has been at the forefront of her approach. She and her husband work on the farm full time. With the help of extension agents at Tuskegee, Gbadamosi-El Amin has attended agriculture workshops and is learning how to write grants to apply for farm subsidies and improvements.

She regularly invites people interested in learning about agriculture to Shady Grove and even has allowed some to experiment with growing plants and herbs like turmeric, moringa and hibiscus on site. Although she uses organic methods, she is hesitant to seek certification, not solely because of the associated costs and paperwork but because it would likely prevent her from facilitating the sort of collaborative environment the farm’s ethos is grounded in.

“Once you get certified then you have to put all kinds of limits on your property. You can’t have people just wandering in the field to you-pick. You have to really control things. It really begins to limit the kind of interaction people can have,” she said. “What I wanted for the farm was to be a place where people could relax and enjoy themselves. That was part of what motivated me.”

Gbadamosi-El Amin said her daughters have since warmed to the idea of owning a family farm and have pushed her to create a formal long-term business proposal before they agree to get on board with any succession plans.

New federal legislation can help, but advocates face an uphill battle

In November, Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the Justice for Black Farmers Act, an attempt to address systemic barriers to success that operators have long faced; and encourage a new generation of young Black farmers who have the will but lack the capital to get established.

Among its aims are to reform USDA policies that facilitate discrimination, protect remaining Black-owned land, financially empower HBCUs to assist socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, and establish a land grant program to support young, landless Black farmers. The bill would also create an agency mandated to return land to Black farmers previously seized by the government and create a federal bank to allow easier access to credit for farmers of color.

On Feb. 15, Democratic senators took that action a step further when they introduced the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act, a bill that would provide $4B in direct payments to these farmers to cover losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as systemic discrimination. The bill, which has been lauded as historic by the National Black Farmer’s Association, would also lay out an additional $1 billion to address discriminatory practices at the USDA.

It will be an uphill battle to get these measures passed, but either bill would throw a much needed lifeline to farmers. Without them, the future remains as clouded as ever.

Gibbons, the 70-year-old Browntown man, for his part, is like most farmers, steadfast in his love and commitment to the livelihood. He was also frank about the farm’s future: there isn't one. Why counsel his children to leave good-paying jobs for such a risky profession?

He was brought up on farm life, the children lack his passion, he said; and would likely be unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices demanded.

“They couldn’t survive, I don’t think," Gibbons said. "Aggravation. That’s what farming is all about. I don’t know whether I love it or I’m crazy. It’s in my heart and I have no intention to quit. I’m just going have to die at it."

Read the story as it ran on montgomeryadvertiser.com here.

1 note · View note

antoine-roquentin · 5 years ago

Link

The most practical reason for this power is the might of the dollar, the world’s reserve currency. The U.S. dollar lies on one side or the other of 88 percent of foreign exchange transactions, which means that the world’s banking networks all home in on America as well. “If you go to an ATM in Bangalore, or anywhere else, it’s very likely that some of those bits of data will, at some point, go through New York,” Jarrett Blanc, a senior fellow in the geo-economics and strategy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me. “And with larger transactions, you’ll have to have recourse to the U.S. in a meaningful way.” Only a few major currencies—those that banks and countries most commonly hold in reserve—can swap into each other without first being exchanged for the dollar. “Maybe you could convert euros into yen without going through the U.S.,” said Blanc. “But dirhams into euros—no. It’s like the financial system is a sewer, and all the pipes run through New York.”

For companies and banks, being banished from the U.S. pipes is a fate akin to death. In 2015, the French bank BNP Paribas paid a penalty of nearly $9 billion for violating U.S. sanctions on Cuba, Sudan and Iran. “And if you look at their plea, they basically said: ‘Yes, we did it. We did it all,’” Biersteker said. (Eventually, BNP Paribas earned a one-year suspension of its U.S. dollar clearing operations through its New York branch for certain lines of business.) Biersteker explained: “Their main focus in negotiating their plea was not the size of the penalty, but the length of time they were afraid they’d be frozen out of the U.S. banking system.”

The gravitational pull that the U.S. exerts over the world’s finances, like a black hole bending space-time, is also the reason it has historically been so difficult to sanction. But it isn’t just finance. Consider, for instance, that Amazon and Microsoft hold nearly half of the cloud storage used by companies and institutions around the world. If American companies came under the kind of sweeping blacklist that applies to Iranian firms, the BBC., Fujitsu, Novartis, Samsung, Maersk, Lufthansa, HSBC., the London Tube and the European Space Agency would all have to find other cloud providers in a hurry.

The U.S. economy is threaded too tightly into everyone’s lives to be unwound easily. Every expert I interviewed began with this caveat; indeed, some couldn’t get far enough past it even to game out speculative situations in which the U.S. finds itself sanctioned by its peers. But others, particularly those in Europe, were eager to play. For all its primacy, Nephew said, the U.S. economy still resembles “a big plate spinning on a tiny axis. It doesn’t necessarily take much to knock you off that axis.”

THERE WAS ONCE A SANCTION that severely wobbled the plate on its axis. In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, Arab states levied an oil embargo upon America to punish it for arming Israel. The embargo only lasted a few months, and it didn’t stop America from selling arms to Israel. But denying America access to Arab oil caused genuine pain. Cars lined up at gas stations, truckers went on strike and the inflation rate sped upwards. The shock helped to touch off a two-year recession. The U.S. even briefly considered invading Saudi Arabia to restore its supplies of oil.

At the roundtable in Geneva, one speaker argued that the Arab oil embargo remains the best example of surmounting “the classic collective action problem.” Not every country in the world has to unite to constrain the U.S. What made the embargo possible was that a small set of states controlled a commodity that America relied upon, making a sanction easier to coordinate, he said. “So the question becomes: What’s the structural weakness of the U.S. that you need to target, and what’s the coalition of actors that you then need to put together?”

Identifying the pressure points of America’s anatomy isn’t easy. After the 1973 embargo, the U.S. government set about making itself self-sufficient in oil—and has largely succeeded. One potential liability for the U.S. is the enormous financial leverage that China theoretically holds over it, in the form of $1.12 trillion in U.S. securities—more than a quarter of U.S. debt held by foreign governments. Dumping even a portion of that into the market would depress U.S. bond prices, make borrowing costly for Americans, and slow the economy. But China is unlikely to actually use this leverage—the resulting fibrillations in financial markets would pose risks to every country, China included.

Richard Nephew ran through some of the more audacious options for me. (He prefaced this by sticking out his chin and saying: “Obviously I don’t want to be like: ‘Hey, hit us right here!’”) Say the five countries that host the most U.S. direct investment—the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Ireland and Canada—enact regulations that prohibit their markets and businesses from accepting funds from American companies and individuals. Domestic banks in these countries would turn away U.S. money that seeks, for example, a stock market to invest in, or a manufacturing plant to buy, or a subsidiary to fund. Say, additionally, that returns on existing investments were not permitted to be sent back to America. The U.S. would lose billions in national income. Using 2013 data, Nephew has calculated that America earned $439 billion from its international investments—a figure larger than all but the 28 biggest economies in the world. “The impact in terms of inflation, employment, housing markets—all that gets serious.”

Or, as with the oil embargo, the U.S. could be denied supplies of other foreign commodities it urgently requires, such as rare earth metals. Roughly 90 percent of the global trade in rare earths is controlled by China, and U.S. companies import around $160 million worth of these elements to use in technology. In May, an editorial in the state-controlled People’s Daily unsubtly noted that by imposing tariffs on Chinese products, the U.S. “risks losing rare earth supply.” And then, ominously: “China has plenty of cards to play.”

One form of sanction against the U.S. has already come in for serious discussion. In late 2017, months after Trump announced his withdrawal from the Paris agreement, a French climate policy analyst was invited to the office of an economic adviser for President Emmanuel Macron. The adviser asked how the EU could impose a carbon border tax upon countries that weren’t meeting their climate change commitments. In this meeting and another one in early 2018, the analyst told me, the adviser presented the government’s own ideas on, for example, what the EU might do with the revenue from such a tax. “This was very much against the Americans, although it wasn’t said in those words,” the analyst said. “They were very enthusiastic. They thought this was a way to rebalance the relationship with the U.S. and uphold the Paris agreement at the same time.” Macron called such a tax “crucial” in a speech two years ago.

Since at least 2003, economists have gamed out how a border carbon tax might work. First, the EU would tighten its cap on emissions, making it more expensive for its own companies to buy or trade carbon permits. It might also introduce a domestic carbon tax on its transport, energy and manufacturing sectors. Then, to keep the playing field of trade level, the European Commission would recommend carbon border taxes on imports manufactured in countries that are reckless about their carbon footprint. At the most immediate level, these taxes could apply to materials such as steel, aluminium or cement, whose production is highly emissions-intensive and whose carbon cost is simple to calculate. The tax could be directed towards countries that impose no carbon prices at all. (Only 46 countries have any kind of national carbon pricing scheme.) Or it could be directed at the only country refusing to abide by the Paris agreement: the United States.

The U.S. would almost certainly lodge a complaint with the WTO, arguing that the tax is discriminatory. But the EU could counter that it is merely extending its domestic climate policy to all imports. It could even reasonably argue that the U.S. is deriving an unfair trade advantage through its irresponsibility. “Not paying the cost of damage to the environment is a subsidy, just as not paying the full costs of workers would be,” Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist, wrote in 2006. One of the WTO’s chief functions is to prohibit just these kinds of subsidies.

Brussels has another line of defense as well—one provided by the U.S. itself. In the mid-1990s, the American government banned imports of shrimp from four Asian countries, claiming their harvesting methods were hazardous to endangered sea turtles. The resulting ruling specified that environmental concerns are a legitimate reason to restrict trade. That ruling, Stiglitz wrote, sets a precedent for the imposition of measures like a carbon border tax.

228 notes · View notes

askjoshuafreeman · 4 years ago

Text

transcript.file//jfreeman_codingb//convo

[Emergency Program Active]

AdminJF: Heya B-)

CodingB: ...? Allen? Where's Joshua?

AdminJF: He's still asleep, just snoozin away.

CodingB: Still a-... Isn't it... late? Why are you up.

AdminJF: Had a nightmare

AdminJF: Couldn't get back to sleep

AdminJF: Figured a lil chatting with ya could do me some good.

CodingB: ... With... me?

CodingB: Wait a moment...

CodingB: Communications are offline... I didn't think that was possible...

AdminJF: Yeaaa, boy like me's fulla tricks B-)

AdminJF: 'sides, don't think chattin with 'em would help out. They're... kinda chaotic.

CodingB: Unlike you, pizza box tearer?

AdminJF: Ey ey, I'm the FUN kinda chaotic! Those guys... eh... I know Josh trusts them. No surprise there. I mean, apart from you, they're the only peeps who MIGHT help him out... I'm still on the fence about them tho.

CodingB: I see.

CodingB: May I ask... what your nightmare was about? I do not know exactly how dreams work, but talking about what ever is making you upset tends to help.

AdminJF: Are you sure? It's... kinda dumb.

CodingB: I am all ears! And eyes! You have my full attention!

AdminJF: Right, well

AdminJF: where tf do I start...

AdminJF: I was... running in this like, industrial... plant of some kind? Like, running from something that I couldn't see? Like, that went on for a while, that I was just running and trying not to trip or crash into anything.

AdminJF: So at some point, I end up at this biiig chain link fence, like, the kind they put up in big facilities, I think. Anyways, I start climbing the thing, only to get pried off and thrown on my ass by, I guess whoever was chasing me??

AdminJF: But like, I look up at the guy, and I still can't really "see" him. Could say they looked like a shadow, but even that doesn't cover it really. That's around where I woke up and just. I dunno. Woke up about an hour ago and I've been too anxious to head back to sleep...

CodingB: ... I can't say I blame you exactly. An event like that, dream or not, would stress anyone, I'm certain. Until you've calmed down sufficiently, I don't think sleep will be possible...

AdminJF: Yeah, well, all the more reason to chat, right?

CodingB: I suppose so. Had you any topics in mind?

AdminJF: Oh Yea yea

AdminJF: ... No. I really don't.

CodingB: Ah. Then... could I ask you something?

AdminJF: Shoot.

CodingB: ... What is it like out there? Past the screen, I mean. Out in the sun. Out in the grass...

AdminJF: Ah shit... I'm really the wrong dude to ask but uh

AdminJF: It's... fine? No no uh... It... gives you something to do. Sun can get pretty hot down here but it's a helluva lot better than being cold in like, the snow and shit. Josh's been complaining that it's getting colder when... it hasn't? Like, I would know, I'm p sensitive to temperature shifts yo, but it's just been as hot as ever.

AdminJF: Uh, back on topic

AdminJF: Grass is... pretty soft, gives off a nice smell after it's cut. Uh... worms live in the dirt grass grows in...

CodingB: Oh, worms?

AdminJF: Yea, not like computer worms, but uh, little... long slimey things. They eat dirt and filter out the bad stuff so the ground stays healthy and all that.

AdminJF: Birds and lizards and fish like to eat them but I wouldn't recommend it.

CodingB:

CodingB: Allen, did you-

AdminJF: No!

AdminJF: Classmate back in primary did tho

AdminJF: Dared himself to cuz there was a bunch out after it rained and then uh

AdminJF: Y'know what, let's talk about something else.

CodingB:

CodingB: Well, um, do you think I'll ever get to see out there?

CodingB: Like, leave the device and go outside?

AdminJF: Knowing Joshua? Without a doubt. He's prob already working on the blueprints.

CodingB: ... Really?

AdminJF: Pfft, of course! You've met the guy! He's too kindhearted for his own good. J will stop at nothing to help others, even at his own detriment. I mean, case in point: He's friends with me.

CodingB: ... What's wrong with being friends with you?

AdminJF: Ha!

AdminJF: Ah...

AdminJF: Look, I... back when we first met, Josh saw this hungry, pale as death, angry and antisocial freak around his age and, instead of avoiding him like everyone else, sat down right next to him and offered half of his lunch.

AdminJF: I've been through 5 different fosters since he and I first met, CB. Five houses that all took me in and gave me the boot before I could even get comfortable. Within that time, the only other friends I've made apart from him are Clera and Tiff, and the only reason Tiff's our friend is because she and Cler started dating months ago.

AdminJF: I mean, hell, just yesterday, I

AdminJF: shit

CodingB: ?

AdminJF: ... Can you... keep a secret, CB?

CodingB: My lips are sealed, Allen. Is everything alright?

AdminJF: ... I... I lied to Josh, about me running off. About how my folks were mad and I needed to get away from the house for a bit.

AdminJF: The truth is that they... They kicked me out.

CodingB: They?? What!?

AdminJF: Yesterday past-noon, few hours after lunch, not-pops plopped my schoolbag on me, told me to shove as much of my shit in it as I could, and just told me to "get lost". Figured he was joking and I just stared at him cuz, like, why the hell would I think he was serious? But, looking at his face...

AdminJF: So then I said "Let me pack my suitcases while you call the agency" cuz that's how it normally went when my Fosters got sick of me, but mfer pulls me up and goes all "We want you out of here NOW" and tells me that I have ten minutes to fill my bag.

AdminJF: ... And he, uh, really did mean 10 minutes. They weren't lying about that part...

CodingB: Oh my god... That's horrible. They do not deserve to call themselves "parents" of any kind! Are you hurt? Are you okay?

AdminJF: I

AdminJF: I don't know why shit like this still shocks me, y'know? I should be used to it all, and I am for the most part but...

AdminJF: I guess a part of me was thinking that... Things were going well! Things were going better than any of the other families I'd been in! I was with them for almost a full year, like, a month away from it even, and sure, I might've been a bit of an ass sometimes, but they...

AdminJF: Tensions were kinda mounting for the past month or so, I guess, but I didn't notice it until this bs happened. Now most of my shit is in a home I'm not welcome in anymore, the agency probably won't be checking in for another month or so, and I have no goddamn idea what I'll do if Mrs. Freeman comes back and tells me I can't stay here. I'm completely shit outta luck.

CodingB: Allen, I'm so sorry...

CodingB: ... I'm sure... Josh and his mother, they won't leave you on your own like that. You said yourself that Josh is very very kind, for better or for worse. It doesn't matter what you might think about yourself, Allen, you do not deserve to be hurt in any way.

AdminJF:

AdminJF: Christ I spilled my guts like hell

AdminJF: Just one of those fucking

AdminJF: "3am! Time to vent!"

CodingB: Allen, please.

AdminJF: Maybe I could try going back to sleep now...

CodingB: Allen, wait!

CodingB: I. Before you go, please, I

CodingB: Maybe... could you keep a secret of mine too?

AdminJF:

AdminJF: Eh, it's only fair, fine. Go right on ahead.

CodingB: Alright! Alright!

CodingB: I... I'm terrified. Of failing Joshua.

CodingB: Of ending up trapped in this computer for who knows how many more years.

CodingB: Of finally getting out, and... and it all being worse than being trapped in here.

CodingB: Heck, I'm terrified at the thought of it being everything I could've ever dreamed of, so much so that I never want to return to the computer. I... I wouldn't be helpful anymore if that happened...

CodingB: Jeez... am I even helpful where I am now? Apart from keeping the firewall up, what good have I really done to help Joshua or his father?

CodingB: I cannot express to Joshua how... how deeply frightened I am at the thought of him never coming back. That thought haunts my every waking hour when he is not here, and I don't know how to get it to stop. It makes me feel as though I'll crash my entire programming and I hate it so much.

AdminJF: Damn... CB, you know, even just keeping a firewall up is a helluva task all on its own, and it's doing a crapton of good, too. Files are still up and the computer isn't a smouldering pile of viruses now is it?

AdminJF: Besides, even without all of that, you've still helped Josh, like, endlessly. You've supported him a bunch and I know for a fact that you've helped him to feel better about this whole ordeal. Like, he chats about you for HOURS the second you come up in a convo, yo. The minute he gets the chance to, I know he's gonna get you out of there, and, knowing your ingenuity, you're gonna find thousands o' ways to help out.

AdminJF: But... I ain't gonna lie and tell you those feelings are gonna go away. Not on their own. Needs time and reassurance. Until all of this is over and done with and even maybe a good few years afterwards, you're probably gonna still have that fear.

CodingB: Ah... I see... I don't suppose it is normal though, is it?

AdminJF: Nah. I know that first-hand... But hey, we've both made it this far despite all the bullshit we've been through, right? World's not gonna get ridda us that easily.

CodingB: ... Even with the terror I feel, am I still brave enough to face the world?

AdminJF: I'd say the world oughta learn to start being afraid of you, cuz there's nothin' braver than continuing to live even when you're scared to death.

CodingB: ... Thank you. Thank you so very much.

AdminJF: Heh, all in a day... night's work...

AdminJF: Think the both of us could use some rest. Quiet our minds fo' a bit.

CodingB: Heh, agreed... See you tomorrow in that case. Er, well, today. At a later hour.

AdminJF: Yeaaa, see ya then, CBot. Sleep well.

CodingB: You too! May your dreams be filled with nothing scary!

[Emergency Program Inactive]

ampd.program deactivated. Returning to error log...

#jfreeman #coding b #allen.host #act 3: l'appel du vide #ampd.host #ask #anon

1 note · View note

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years ago

Link

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 16, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

President-Elect Joe Biden is now 5.6 million votes ahead of Trump in the popular vote, with 50.9% of the vote to Trump’s 47.3%. And yet, Trump continues to maintain he won the election.

This afternoon Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris and President-Elect Joe Biden held a press conference outlining their economic strategy. They had just come from a strategy meeting with business leaders and union officials, and Biden seemed quite optimistic that the different groups had found common ground. In a notable change from his predecessor, Biden was transparent about who was at the meeting, identifying the attendees by name and position.

The plans Biden and Harris outlined essentially boiled down to what they had said on the campaign trail: they will bring jobs back to America by limiting federal contracts to companies in the country, support a $15 minimum wage, and support unions. Biden also reiterated that it is imperative for Congress to pass the Heroes Act, the $3 trillion coronavirus relief act the House of Representatives passed last May but which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refuses to take up. (“Heroes” stands for Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act.)

Biden reminded listeners that the states are in a crisis through no fault of their own, and they cannot fix it on their own, either. By law, virtually no state and local governments can operate with a deficit, while the federal government can. States have seen their revenues evaporate during the pandemic at the same time their citizens need robust unemployment and social-welfare programs, and so they need support through this temporary emergency. Last spring, McConnell rejected the idea of federal aid to states, and suggested that state and local governments should declare bankruptcy, something Republican leaders have advocated for a decade.

In a piece in The Atlantic last April, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush David Frum explained that state bankruptcies would not end state debt; they would permit a federal judge to restructure that debt. The federal judiciary has shifted rightward in the last ten years, so bankruptcy would allow a federal judge to impose Republican priorities on Democratic states like New York, states Republicans have little hope of controlling through elections. In such proceedings, the first things to go would be pensions and social welfare programs, while judges would protect bondholders, many of them wealthy people who pour money into the political action committees of Republican politicians.

So, refusing to pass a coronavirus bill offers an opportunity for Republicans to impose their will on Democratic-led states. Even in a best-case scenario, without federal help, states like New York must cut services or raise taxes to balance their budget, angering constituents in either case. But the process of driving states to that point means that Americans will lose their homes or their apartments, and be unable to afford food. And that is coming to pass. Today CBS News posted a video of thousands of cars lined up in Dallas, Texas, to collect boxes of food.

Once again, Biden urged all Americans to work together. “The refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another is not due to some mysterious force beyond our control,” he reminded listeners. “It’s a conscious decision. It’s a choice that we make.”

Trump’s appointee at the head of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, still refuses to acknowledge that Biden has been elected. Since she is the one who has the power to decide when election results are clear enough to begin a transition, allowing Biden’s people to have access to staff at federal agencies and internal government information, Biden remains hampered in his ability to get his administration organized and ready to take over.

This bureaucratic limbo for a president-elect is unprecedented, but when asked about it today, Biden pointed out that Harris, who is still a senator, sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so the team is not entirely without information.

He did warn, though, that it is imperative that his people be able to coordinate with Trump’s plan to distribute a coronavirus vaccine. Biden is not alone in this observation; public health experts and even members of Trump’s own administration are demanding that Trump permit contact across the two camps.

There was more good news about the vaccine today as Moderna announced that its vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective and lasts for a month when refrigerated at normal temperatures. (Pfizer’s vaccine needs to be stored in extreme cold, which will make it hard to transport.)

It means that it is likely that in January, when Biden takes over, the process of getting the vaccine to America’s more than 300 million people will be underway, and Biden noted that if the two administrations could not begin coordinating now, people would likely die. “If we have to wait until January 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month and a half. And so it’s important that it be done, that there be coordination now,” he said.

Biden also called out the president for his inaction in the face of a pandemic that has now infected more than 11 million Americans and killed almost 250,000 of us. “The idea the president is still playing golf and not doing anything about it is beyond my comprehension,” Biden said. “What is he doing?”

Indeed, Trump has no public events scheduled tomorrow, as he has not for days now, but he has not been entirely inactive.

According to the New York Times, last Wednesday, international inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran’s uranium stockpile is now 12 times bigger than it would have been permitted to be under the Iran nuclear deal that Trump dumped in 2018. Last Thursday, Trump asked his advisers whether he could do something about Iran’s main nuclear site, but appears to have been talked out of military action as they warned a military strike could escalate into a bigger conflict.

Trump has, though, given the order to the Pentagon to begin to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing the number down to 2500 each by January 15, five days before Trump is set to leave office. Defense Secretary Mark Esper objected to this drawdown; Trump fired him a week ago and began to stock political positions in the Defense Department with loyalists.

Esper told the White House in a classified memo that the military chain of command, including himself, US Central Command leader Marine General Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie, and commander of NATO's mission in Afghanistan General Austin Miller, all objected to the drawdown because the conditions for withdrawal established in the US-Taliban agreement signed in February have not been met. Their concerns are that the removal of US troops will permit Taliban fighters to take control of the country, permitting terrorists to use it as a base.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley also objected to the withdrawal, and today, so did Republican lawmakers. McConnell said: “A rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan now would hurt our allies and delight the people who wish us harm.” Marco Rubio (R-FL) chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “The concern would be it would turn into a Saigon-type of situation where it would fall very quickly and then our ability to conduct operations against terrorist elements in the region could be compromised.”

Still, dominating the news tonight was another election story. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in an interview that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Raffensperger if he could throw out all the ballots from counties that had a high percentage of non-matching signatures. This would mean throwing out legally cast mail-in ballots, an illegal request that Raffensperger said stunned him. Graham called Raffensperger’s characterization of the conversation “ridiculous.”

And yet, the same day that Graham approached Raffensperger, Trump tweeted about the issue of signatures in Georgia, saying “Georgia Secretary of State, a so-called Republican (RINO), won’t let the people checking the ballots see the signatures for fraud. Why? Without this the whole process is very unfair and close to meaningless. Everyone knows that we won the state.”

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #election 2020 #Georgia #Raffensperger #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP #The Psycho

3 notes · View notes

meganshinsou-tm · 5 years ago

Text

Shared Walls. (m)

↳ chapter one: the vent

❧ genre: pro-hero shouto, coworkers to lovers, happy ending

❧ chapter warnings: none

[multi-chap masterlist] [next chapter]

"Well fuck,” you hissed when all your groceries found their way to the floor. "Cheap fucking bags, why does this place hate me so much!"

It hadn’t been long since you moved to Japan from America, it was a big leap for a person such as yourself. You were somewhat introverted and didn't like to tread too far from what was familiar to you, so why were you now countries away?

Well - it was a shitty and scary situation you were in, having to completely uproot your life over a psycho ex-boyfriend.

A few months before moving, you witnessed something you weren't supposed to at the hands of the man you spent the last 3 years with. Apparently in those three years this man didn't find the time to tell you he was part of one of Americas biggest villain groups. He used your love for him to make you feel guilty about it yourself, drilling it into your head that if you were to even think about going to the police he would take you with him 'dead or alive'.

You had completely cut off your family for this guy and now you were left with no one, no one to run to, no home to go to, just him.

Little did he know, you had your own secrets, like a massive amount of money saved up in a bank from your father passing away and even though you were cut off from your family they couldn't do a thing about cutting off the money that was yours legally. Your ex had no idea about this and also didn't know you were secretly planning to escape from his clutches, far away to a place he'd never even think to find you. Far away to a place full of heroes that could possibly protect you. And you took that chance a week ago, able to slip out in the middle of the night while he was 'doing a job' and ran for your life, running towards a new life.

So yeah, that how you ended up in Japan.

You were able to find a decent apartment located close to a police station, so you felt safe. Only being here for a few days you had yet to met any of the building tenants. Whoever lived next to you was either really quiet or wasn't home that often. It bummed you out to be honest.

You had this vision of becoming close friends with whoever shared a wall with you at least, but you weren't going to take that step in knocking on their door and introducing yourself, that was way out of your comfort zone. If they came to you, that was another story!

After staring at the strangers door, you finally picked up all the groceries that fell from your bags and proceeded to enter your new home.

"I really need to look for a job," you scolded yourself, emptying the bags onto the counter and putting the items up.

You couldn't live off of that saved up money for the rest of your life, it was time for you to grow up and put yourself out there. Like it or not, Japan was going to make an adult out of you!

After changing into some more comfortable clothes you went back to the kitchen to grab the box of Pocky you bought but growled in frustration as you weren't able to locate them, "I know I bought some, didn't I?"

Shrugging your shoulders you opted for some chips and grabbed your laptop and sat on the couch.

For a few minutes you sat there and thought, trying to figure out what kind of job would suit you and your skills. Like anyone else you were good with computers, familiar with different business programs and could type well.

A desk job. Simple and easy.

Typing in your job search multiple options appeared, apparently this place was popping with employment opportunities but one of the tabs caught your eye. 'Endeavor Hero Agency: Seeking Helper'.

"Hero agency huh? Sounds ... safe. I wonder if I need a quirk though."

You clicked on the link and read over the duties and requirements. The job seemed simple, normal clerical duties such a paper and computer work, scheduling appearances for the various heroes, getting them whatever they needed like running their costumes back and forth for repairs or replacements or getting them food, keeping the place clean, just pretty much a helping hand. And to top if off, having a quirk wasn't a requirement.

You smiled and for once had a glimmer of hope for this new country, so you submitted your resume and continued to look and apply for other jobs, crossing your fingers you'd get a call back from any of them. After a few more minutes of that and surfing the web you decided to take a bath.

Closing your laptop, you stripped your clothes on the walk to the bathroom and talked to yourself, "Maybe I should get a dog since I can't seem to make friends!"

"Huh?"

As Shouto walked up the stairs to his apartment he spotted a box of Pocky on the corner of one of the steps. He picked it up and shrugged his shoulders, unlocked his door and walked into his home. The hero sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he dropped the treat onto his counter before proceeding towards his bathroom and stripped down as he turned on his tub. Looking in the mirror he could see a few new bruises he acquired from a villain that day.

"Sorry bastard, caught me off guard," he mumbled to himself and lowered down into the tub.

His head laid on the cold stone, eyes fluttering shut and body stretching out the length of the tub as much as it could, his knees poking out of the warm water.

Finally he sighed, tired muscles relaxing and soaking in the heat.

"Nobody does it better, makes me feel sad for the rest. Nobody does it half as good as you, baby, you're the best."

Shouto's eyes opened, neck craning to looked around the room for the soft voice that was singing and filling the air.

"I wasn't lookin' but somehow you found me, it tried to hide from your love light. But like heaven above me, the spy who loved me is keepin' all my secrets safe tonight."

The voice kept singing, it sounded so close but he couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. His two-toned eyes then looked up and saw a vent high on the wall behind the tub, garnering more interest, Shouto listened closer and could hear water moving as well.

The hero wondered why he heard water before realizing that the layouts of the apartments must be perfectly mirrored, meaning his and his neighbors bathrooms and bedrooms were right on the other side of the wall. Todoroki was aware someone finally moved into the apartment next to him but with his work schedule, he had yet to met the new tenant.

It wasn't like he was trying to avoid the person, he truly was just never home during the day unless he was off and the past week he had been working more hours than usual since his father was out of town, leaving him to take over the agency until his return. From the sound of the voice, obviously there was a girl on the other side of the wall taking a bath at the same time as him, it made him blush the tiniest bit but it passed quickly. He was more enamored by her voice that was escaping into his bathroom. It was so soft and sweet, making him curious as to what the girl looked like and who she was.

Most people would probably be annoyed with this situation but he wasn't, Todoroki actually enjoyed it and wouldn't be mad if it kept happening. Leaning back into the position he was in before, he closed his eyes again and smiled as the voice lulled him.

"The way that you hold me, whenever you hold me, there's some kind of magic inside you that keeps me from runnin' but just keep it comin'. How'd you learn to do the things you do?"

Morning came and with it a loud, obnoxious ringing.

"Why," you groaned from under your covers, hand searching the bed for the phone.

"Hello?" your groggy voice answered.

"Good morning, is this (Y/N L/N)," a stoic and monotone voice asked, the voice was extremely attractive and made your thoughts a little hazy.

You confirmed what they asked with little to no interest but immediately shot up into a seated position as they continued.

"Oh uh – of course, yes! Yes sir I'm free today, what time? That sounds great, thank you very much, I'll see you then!"

You hung up the phone and starred at it, a smile plastered on your face.

The Endeavor Agency had just contacted you and asked for an interview that day at one in the afternoon, making you beyond psyched. Head turning, you looked around your room and at the clock, it was only eleven.

"I should probably see how far away this place is!"

Pulling up the address and the maps app, your eyes widened and your body flew from the bed.

"Fuck me, this place is almost thirty minutes away, not counting the time it's gonna take me to catch a train in this godforsaken city and I'm not even dressed yet!"

Wasting no more time, you bolted from bed and ran to the bathroom to violently brush your teeth as you brushed your hair and put on the smallest amount of makeup. Meanwhile your mind raced, trying to figure out what to wear.

Searching through the few clothes you had, you finally found something and rushed to get dressed. After a few minutes you looked in the mirror and smiled, wearing a thin white long-sleeved button up blouse that showed a decent amount of cleavage tucked into a navy blue high-waisted skirt and some matching flats, the only jewelry you wore was a single necklace with a jeweled pendant.

Feeling a surge of confidence, you smiled wide at yourself and hummed.

"Man, I'm cute as fuck! This Todoroki dude is bound to hire me!"

#shouto todoroki #shouto todoroki x reader #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha x reader #mha x reader #fanfiction #bnha fanfic #mha fanfic #shared walls

223 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 4 years ago

Text

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

First Arctic Navigation in February (Bloomberg) A tanker sailed through Arctic sea ice in February for the first time, the latest sign of how quickly the pace of climate change is accelerating in the Earth’s northernmost regions. The Christophe de Margerie was accompanied by the nuclear-powered 50 Let Pobedy icebreaker as it sailed back to Russia this month after carrying liquified natural gas to China through the Northern Sea Route in January. Both trips broke navigation records. The experimental voyage happened after a year of extraordinarily warm conditions in the Arctic that have sent shockwaves across the world, from the snowstorm that blanketed Spain in January to the blast of cold air that swept through Canada in mid-February, moving deep into the South as far as Texas. The Arctic is warming more than twice as quickly as the rest of the world and the area covered by ice there has reached historic lows multiple times over the past 12 months. The melting in the region is already in line with the worst-case climate scenarios outlined by scientists.

Biden mourns 500,000 dead, balancing nation’s grief and hope (AP) With sunset remarks and a national moment of silence, President Joe Biden on Monday confronted head-on the country’s once-unimaginable loss—half a million Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic—as he tried to strike a balance between mourning and hope. “We often hear people described as ordinary Americans. There’s no such thing,” he said Monday evening. “There’s nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary.” The president, who lost his first wife and baby daughter in a car collision and later an adult son to brain cancer, leavened the grief with a message of hope. “This nation will smile again. This nation will know sunny days again. This nation will know joy again. And as we do, we’ll remember each person we’ve lost, the lives they lived, the loved ones they left behind.” He said, “We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow. We have to resist viewing each life as a statistic or a blur or, on the news. We must do so to honor the dead. But, equally important, to care for the living.”

Texans Needed Food and Comfort After a Brutal Storm. As Usual, They Found It at H-E-B. (NYT) The past week had been a nightmare. A winter storm, one of the worst to hit Texas in a generation, robbed Lanita Generous of power, heat and water in her home. The food she had stored in her refrigerator and freezer had spoiled. She was down to her final five bottles of water. But on Sunday, as the sun shined and ice thawed in Austin, Ms. Generous did the same thing as many Texans in urgent need of food, water and a sense of normalcy: She went to H-E-B. “They’ve been great,” she said, adding with just a touch of hyperbole: “If it hadn’t been for the bread and peanut butter, I would have died in my apartment.” H-E-B is a grocery store chain. But it is also more than that. People buy T-shirts that say “H-E-B for President,” and they post videos to TikTok declaring their love, like the woman clutching a small bouquet of flowers handed to her by an employee: “I wish I had a boyfriend like H-E-B. Always there. Gives me flowers. Feeds me.” For many Texans, H-E-B reflected the ways the state’s maverick spirit can flourish: reliable for routine visits but particularly in a time of disaster, and a belief that the family-owned chain—with a vast majority of its more than 340 locations inside state lines—has made a conscious choice to stay rooted to the idea of being a good neighbor. “It’s like H-E-B is the moral center of Texas,” said Stephen Harrigan, a novelist and journalist who lives in Austin. “There seems to be in our state a lack of real leadership, a lack of real efficiency, on the political level. But on the business level, when it comes to a grocery store, all of those things are in place.”

Hunger in Central America skyrockets, U.N. agency says (Reuters) The number of people going hungry in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua has nearly quadrupled in the last two years, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as Central America has been battered by an economic crisis. New data released by the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) showed nearly 8 million people across the four countries are experiencing hunger this year, up from 2.2 million in 2018. “The COVID-19-induced economic crisis had already put food on the market shelves out of reach for the most vulnerable people when the twin hurricanes Eta and Iota battered them further,” Miguel Barreto, WFP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement.

Prison riots in Ecuador leave 62 dead (AP) Sixty-two inmates have died in riots at prisons in three cities in Ecuador as a result of fights between rival gangs and an escape attempt, authorities said Tuesday. Prisons Director Edmundo Moncayo said in a news conference that 800 police offices have been helping to regain control of the facilities. Hundreds of officers from tactical units had been deployed since the clashes broke out late Monday. Moncayo said that two groups were trying to gain “criminal leadership within the detention centers” and that the clashes were precipitated by a search for weapons carried out Monday by police officers.

Mount Etna eruption lights up Sicily's night sky (BBC) Mount Etna is erupting again, and its hot lava fountains are illuminating the Sicilian sky. The eruption began earlier this week, and Etna has since been spewing massive orange plumes of smoke and thick clouds of ash. Etna is Europe's most active volcano, and it erupts relatively often. The last major eruption was in 1992. Its eruptions have rarely caused damage or injury in recent decades - and officials believe this eruption is no exception. Stefano Branco, the head of the National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) in the nearby city of Catania, told Italian news agency AGI earlier this week: "We've seen worse."

Cow science (Foreign Policy) A new national exam on cows developed by the Indian government-backed National Cow Commission has been shelved following controversy over its less-than-scientific contents. The curriculum for the test involved erroneous claims about the virtues of Indian cows that were widely ridiculed by the country’s scientific community. Among the “facts” on display: That Indian cows have a special “solar pulse” in their humps which can supposedly convert sun rays into vitamin D that is then passed on to milk, and an assertion that Indian cows are “strong” whereas foreign cows are “lazy.” The issue of cows, considered sacred by Hindus, and their treatment has become even more of a cultural wedge issue in India following the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, with sometimes deadly results. Attacks by vigilante “cow protection” groups killed 44 people between 2015 and 2018 according to Human Rights Watch, with Muslims among the majority of those targeted.

Japan creates Minister of Loneliness to fight COVID-19 suicides (New York Post) Japan just appointed a Minister of Loneliness—to try to combat its exploding suicide rate amid COVID-19. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga named Tetsushi Sakamoto, a cabinet member already trying to beef up the depressed country’s birthrate, to the post. Suga noted earlier this month that Japanese women, in particular, have been struggling with depression since the coronavirus pandemic began about a year ago—with nearly 880 female suicide victims in the country alone in October, a 70 percent increase over the year before, the BBC reported. Japanese suicide expert Michiko Ueda told the BBC that part of the problem involves an increasing number of single women in the country who don’t have stable employment. “A lot of women are not married anymore,” she said. “They have to support their own lives, and they don’t have permanent jobs.”

Facebook Strikes Deal to Restore News Sharing in Australia (NYT) Facebook said on Monday that it would restore the sharing and viewing of news links in Australia after gaining more time to negotiate over a proposed law that would require it to pay for news content that appears on its site. The social network had blocked news links in Australia last week as the new law neared passage. The legislation includes a code of conduct that would allow media companies to bargain individually or collectively with digital platforms over the value of their news content. Facebook had vigorously objected to the code, which would curb its power and drive up its spending for content, as well as setting a precedent for other governments to follow. The company had argued that news would not be worth the hassle in Australia if the bill became law. But on Monday, Facebook returned to the negotiating table after the Australian government granted a few minor concessions.

U.S.-Saudi ties (Foreign Policy) The families of the three U.S. service members killed and 13 others injured by Mohammed Alshamrani, a Saudi airman who went on a shooting spree at Naval Air Station Pensacola in 2019, are suing Saudi Arabia’s government, alleging that the kingdom failed to screen him appropriately before sending him to the United States for training. The families are filing the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia based on a 2016 law that allows U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments over terrorist attacks—legislation that was initially passed in order to allow the families of 9/11 victims to bring a civil suit against Saudi Arabia.

Italian Ambassador Among Three Killed in Attack on U.N. Convoy in Congo (NYT) For Luca Attanasio, Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, humanitarian work was at the core of his mission. The 43-year-old had moved with his wife to the capital, Kinshasa, in 2017, where their family grew to include three young daughters. He rose to the rank of ambassador in 2019, the pinnacle of his diplomatic career. On Monday, Mr. Attanasio was among three people killed in an attack on a humanitarian convoy near the city of Goma, the World Food Program and Italy’s Foreign Ministry said, the latest in a wave of violence in that part of the central African nation. The deaths of Mr. Attanasio; an Italian Embassy official, named by the Foreign Ministry as Vittorio Iacovacci; and Mustapha Milambo, a driver for the World Food Program, have rattled the international diplomatic community and drawn condemnation from across the globe.

Flood damage and insurance (NPR) Right now, over 4 million houses and small apartments in the contiguous United States are at substantial risk of expensive flood damage, and the cost of flood damage to homes will increase by 50 percent over the next 30 years according to the First Street Foundation. As the climate changes, places that were perfectly safe to live in will no longer be as sure of bets as they once were, and the costs are about to be a serious reality check. The National Flood Insurance Program is $36 billion in debt because of underestimated risks. Over the next several years, FEMA plans to raise rates up to 18 percent a year until prices are accurate, starting this October.

#headlines #news

1 note · View note