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atzsslut · 4 years ago

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requested by @let-this-be-a-lesson from this, and this list.

chosen prompt(s) :

#1 - “Is that my sweater?”

#11 - “If you were my boyfriend/girlfriend/partner, I’d probably never stop staring at you.”

pairing : bang chan x fem ! reader

genre : fluff

warnings : long time best friends, very obvious crushing, kind of more than friends (unidentified relationship) to lovers, implied slow burn

word count : 2.4k words

You promised to meet Chan almost an hour ago.

The adrenaline coursed through your body as you ran out of the bathroom after a shower, which was relatively dangerous but you didn’t care, sprinting back to your room to get into some decent clothing.

As you looked at yourself in the mirror, you almost punched it from the frustration. But you didn’t, of course, as if you didn’t have enough bad luck already.

Are you that stupid to have fallen asleep on the couch? You thought to yourself. You were much too thankful that you already washed your hair in the morning, so it looked good enough now.

As you dropped your towel, you swore that you’ve never grabbed such a mismatched set of underwear and bra before, but it didn’t matter. You’d opt yourself to become quicksilver if it was for Chan.

Your hands let themselves skim through until your phone lit up on top of your cupboard and showed three notifications from the man himself. You froze in your spot reading the following messages.

chan: okay :( if u insist [5:02 PM]

chan: but since u seem tired [5:03 PM]

chan: i’ll pick u up since i’m only 10 mins away [5:03 PM]

Your mind went back to when you had woken up to three missed calls from Chan, various texts asking if you were alright since you never missed a ‘hangout’. At least, that’s what you two always called your frequent meets.

Your first instinct was to call him back, your voice rather nasally from the blocked nose you always got after sleeping. His kind voice kept replaying in your head;

“Chan, I’m so so sorry-”

“Oh, did you just wake up?”

“I.. yes. Yes I did. I’m so sorry, I fell asleep because I ran a million errands up until 3pm.”

“Hey, no. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Do you want to move our hangout to some other day? I think I’m quite free this week.”

“No, no. I need to see you, honestly. My stress has piled up and it’ll be great to see you. You always cheer me up.”

“I try my best, Y/N. I’ll wait for you as long as you’d like. Go get ready!”

“Will do, Mr. Bang. Thank you so so much!”

The last thing you heard after the call ended was his farewell that was mixed in with his infectious laugh, and that was when you ran towards the shower to get the thin layer of sweat that always came after a nap in the living room.

Your fingers quickly typed away a ‘did god send u down to me as my angel or smthn THANK U BANG CHAN’ before going back to rushing to pick out a nicer outfit.

Because of him willing to pick you up, you had an extra ten minutes to get ready but your mind was still blank from the adrenaline rush. You had picked yourself out a cream-coloured pleated skirt, but you had no idea what to pair it with until you saw a familiar black sweater pushed to the back of the drawer.

You weren’t too sure why it was familiar to you, but it was nice enough for you to use with the skirt. For a reason you couldn’t pinpoint, it hugged your body well enough, but the area where you could see the stitch of the shoulders were clearly too broad for you, falling around the middle of your upper arms.

Strange, you thought, I don’t remember buying this but it’s so comfortable.

And just like he said, Chan was there in ten minutes, voice heard through your apartment intercom, asking you to come downstairs. Although you tried to ignore it, you were excited just from hearing his voice through that old system speaker.

Taking the elevator down to the lobby, you smiled seeing the boy standing around, clearly waiting for you to come down, as he kept shifting his feet.

It was music to his ears as well when he heard you call out his name. Although he would never admit it, or so he thinks, he swore that he heard a hymn whenever ‘Chan’ spilled from your lips. But he shook that away when he reached in for a side hug.

“Hey you.” he said, “You look awfully fresh for someone who just woke up.”

“I work my magic.” you boasted, not wanting to admit the fuss you made for him. Since Chan was a bit taller than you, not by too much (which you teased him about, but he only let it be because it was you), you held onto him as well by slinging your arm around his waist.

And as you both walked to the parking lot at the front, stuck together like two pieces of paper with a hefty amount of glue in the middle, that was when Chan stopped right in front of his car.

You looked at him with concern, thinking that he’d probably left something inside, “Did you forget something?”

He paused, looking at you with the face he’d make whenever Felix did something strange. That wasn’t new, but you felt flustered when he let you go and stood in front of you, arms crossed, eyes checking out your whole body.

You looked at him strange, not understanding what he was doing. Your hand only clutched your bag strap harder, not understanding the situation. But before you could say anything, he cut you off.

“Is that my sweater?”

And the realization hit you.

A few months ago, Chan had gone to your place to spend some time with you after not getting to meet you for three weeks. But of course, the two of you did not look at the weather forecast when a rainstorm dawned over the whole of Seoul.

You insisted that Chan should not be driving in this weather in fear of a accident, but he did have to get his car to the indoor parking lot incase it began to hail. However, once he had gotten back, the umbrella you had given him was soaked and so was he, the two of you getting into a hysterical laughing fit at the state he was in.

In all seriousness, you did quickly get him out of the clothes he was wearing and washed them, shyly looking away when he directly began to take his shirt off in the living room until you yelled “Chan! I have a bathroom!”

However, as the night passed, after he slept in the same bed as you, finding his arm around your waist in the morning to which he quickly pulled away in surprise— he left with only his jeans and socks that had been dry cleaned.

“Oh shit, this is your sweater!” you swore, the event having replayed itself in your forgetful mind, “I’ll clean it after this and give it back to you.”

“Oh, no. You look better in it than I do.” he complimented.

In between your reminiscing, he had clicked the car key, making the vehicle make the familiar unlocking sound and flashing lights. Running over to your side, he opened the door for you.

“M’lady.” he offered,

“M’Chan.” you joked, only to laugh for a bit then go in with a murmured, “Sorry that was cheesy.”

“It was!” he admitted, yelling so you could hear him through the car glass since you closed the door already. He did his little jog over to the drivers seat and went it rather smoothly, not that you were impressed by that.

“So, arcade?” he asked, smiling when you nodded and tapped excitedly on his dashboard.

Once again, in ten minutes, the two of you had reached the destination, quickly running out as if the both of you were six, and not in your early 20s.

As you ran into building, fluorescent hitting your eyes with a familiar nostalgia coming alongside them, much too familiar from the high school days of you and Chan going to another arcade that was already closed down now.

“So, what do you want to do first?” you asked, as if you didn’t guess the answer already.

Chan looked forward, scanning the place more and finally seeing a row of big, bulky, metal boxes that couldn’t be missed. He pointed at them, rather cutely to add, smiling down at you.

You gave him an excited grin back, happy that you guessed right in your head. You walked ahead, pleased to hear him tread behind you at a faster pace to catch up with you.

Drawing back the curtain, the two of you went inside and swiped the arcade card that you had because of several trips that were forced by your auntie with your little cousins. Luckily, there was still money inside.

The recognizable ‘twinkling’ sound of the photo booth rang in both your ears, opting you to choose the frame decor, etc.

And as the screen showed both your faces, a robotic voice was heard through the same speakers at the sides of the booth, stating ‘please move more towards the centre, thank you’

But if anyone were to look inside, you and Chan were already considerably close, especially since the bench space wasn’t wide at all. But you side-eyed the boy, scooting closer to him as he did the same to you.

You felt his arm squish against yours, feeling flustered at the sudden contact.

“Can..uh..” he trailed, “Can I put my arm around you? I.. I think it’ll make the pictures look less awkward, don’t you think?”

“Y-yeah!” you responded a bit too enthusiastically. Clearing your throat, you gave him the gentle smile that he could never hate, “Yeah. Go ahead, Chan.”

He did as he asked. Unlike the playful hug that you two had shared in your apartment lobby, this one felt more intimate, especially when you saw the screen reflecting the two of you.

You could feel his rings dig against his cotton sweater on your body, assuming now that it was yours, comfortable enough for you to feel secure— at home. Nevertheless, you always felt that Chan was your home.

Your eyes fixated on the screen as you moved forward to press the red button that would soon make you both take simultaneous pictures together.

We look good together, you thought to yourself, Wait what? Shut up.

But why did this feel different? You two had taken hundreds of photos together, varied with ridiculous, attractive, and unnecessary ones. But you swallowed that wondering lump in your throat, quickly dismissing it as you posed with Chan for each one, your vision rather blurry for a reason you couldn’t pinpoint.

And as the twelve clicks ended, Chan stood up first. You were quite upset about the absence of his embrace, but didn’t mind it when he smiled at you like he always did,

“Let’s see the pictures.” he held his hand out for you to take, which you graciously did, feeling the pit of your stomach drop as you, as per usual, questioned what your relationship with him was at this point.

The two pairs of feet, albeit the both of you were wearing matching shoes on accident, met their way towards the printing area. Looking at the screen which read 99% complete, Chan heard the sound of the photo paper hit the stopper that avoided the prints from falling on the ground.

He bent down and took it, showing it to you. Naturally, your arms went around his left bicep, hugging it to look closer. Chan sucked in his breath, knowing that if he was in a cartoon right now, his brown head of hair would be sticking up in all places as a silhouette of his heart pumped dramatically out of his chest.

It was ironic, as most of your friends would say; it was ironic how you two hugged often but got shy whenever your hands would simpy graze, it was ironic how you two were so affectionate yet were so resistant, and it was very ironic that your ‘hangouts’ weren’t dates at this point.

He watched as you pointed at his face from top to bottom, questioning,

“You’re not even facing the camera in most of these! Stop looking at me and look at the lens next time. Do you want to retake these?”

Your question wasn’t too hard, but you didn’t understand why Chan looked at you with such solemn eyes, his eyebrows knitted together as if he was frustrated. But the look was soon replaced with one that held adoration, but that only increased your confusion.

“I mean.. we don’t have to retake these, Chan. What do you want to do?”

“If you were my girlfriend, I’d probably never stop staring at you.”

He didn’t know why he said that. Not a bone in his body was willing to let that out but his mind decided to play a little game of “thinking out loud”. The impulsivity of the statement made the two of your freeze in front of the photo booth.

But there was something that the both of you knew, something that neither of you wanted to admit. You had been friends for too long, had been too close for too long, but what was different now?

Why, after more than ten years of being best friends, was now the best time for you two to be together?

But something resided within you, and in Chan as well. This was to atone for all the pain you two had experienced without one another. You and Chan always wondered why you’ve always loved, but never been in love truly. All this time, the person that was it from the start was right in front of your faces, but pent up denial never allowed it to happen.

Until now.

Somewhere, somehow, this was the universe’s way of telling you that today was that day. You woke up late, wore his sweater, and Chan had slipped up with his thoughts aloud. It made sense.

So, you took a small step forward.

It felt as if the gravity between your feet and floor was much heavier than before, especially watching Chan’s jaw clench out of nervousness, but you knew it was just you mustering up a ton of courage to finally ask,

“Who’s stopping you from asking?”

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mdawritings · 4 years ago

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Wanna Be Yours: Ch. 12

II.I

Masterlist

Warnings: References to violence, canon-typical descriptions of violence, crime scenes, and death.

Song(s): "Bruises" by Lewis Capaldi and "I Almost Do" by Taylor Swift

It’s almost eight years until you hear the name Aaron Hotchner again.

You’re anxiously awaiting the call about your reassignment within the FBI. You had completed your year of mandated leave, gone through the required psych evaluations, gone through the training protocols. You’re ready to get back into the action, or, at least, you’re ready enough to get back to work. That’s when you receive the final message.

Your reinstatement was to be within the Quantico headquarters. This way, the brass could keep a close eye on you, while still utilizing your skills in the best possible way. So you flew into Quantico late Saturday night, moving into the cheapest apartment you could find. It was in a terrible area but being out of work for a year leaves you without much spare cash to live lavishly. Without your government-issued weapon, you check the deadlock every time you turn your back to the door for too long.

You have hardly any furniture in the apartment, most of the decor being the piles and piles of boxes in the center of your living room. You’re exhausted, in every possible way, so you settle for a fast shower, during which you’re entirely paranoid someone is going to break into your apartment. You collapse onto your bed, barely having the energy to even put the sheets on the bed to make it. The call comes through your phone shortly after you fall asleep, which means you don’t check your messages until early Sunday.

“This is Erin Strauss of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. I’m calling to inform you that the council has processed your psych evaluation and administered a new gun registration and badge for you. You will now be working under me as a profiler within the BAU. It is my understanding that you’ve taken quite a few profiling classes in your training as a negotiator and you’re well equipped for this job. There will be a slight adjustment period but nothing that I do not believe you are capable of handling. You will start in your new position on Monday. Meet me at my office and I can brief you about the basics and then Agent Aaron Hotchner, BAU Unit Chief, will take it from there.”

You practically drop the phone. Your hands shake slightly, as you click off the phone and place it back onto your bedside table. You write Strauss an email in response, apologizing for missing her call, accepting the position, thanking her for the opportunity, and expressing your immense gratitude for such an esteemed position with such a great team. But that’s a lie. For a split second, you believe it's possible that this Aaron Hotchner is a completely different one than your Aaron Hotchner. You’ve never been a believer in fate or destiny. But for this to be a coincidence is simply unbelievable. Isn’t he supposed to be tormenting more students, torturing more girls, breaking more hearts? How did he end up as the BAU Unit Chief within the FBI?

You’re in shock, Strauss only leaving you about 24 hours to process it all and prepare for a new job. There’s no way you could request reassignment to a different unit. You’ve already been given your second chance. It’s now or never to get back into the FBI.

You’ve been out of work for a year. For a year, you’ve been struggling to cope with the loss of coworkers and innocent people. A loss that’s completely on your shoulders. Blood that’s on your hands. It was enough of an adjustment to get back to normal. Well as close to normal as can be. Your government-issued therapist, as you like to call her, attempted to dismantle this idea. She tried her best to remove the guilt from your mind, but after the government aid for the sessions ran out, you abandoned all hope of restoring yourself to the mental state you were in before. Everything in your life now is the after. You can’t live in the before. It’s too painful.

But now? Now it feels like all the work you’ve done to heal, to move on, to continue your life is rapidly unraveling in front of you. How would you adjust to seeing Aaron Hotchner once again? You hope that by now, he won’t have as much of an impact on you. You’ve experienced so much life, so much living, so much loss since then.

You’ve had other relationships, loved other people, slept with other people, but the impact that Hotch had on your life is permanent. When you think about it too long it feels ridiculous, the fact that a silly little fling in your early 20s has managed to change you so much. So much so, that now, at 29, you can still sense remnants of his impact on your life. They’re small moments, in which you realize that your behavior has changed so drastically over the years because of him. Your tongue is sharper. You stand up for yourself more often, and you never ever let anyone walk all over you the way he did.

You spend the day worrying yourself sick about the new position. You can’t turn it down. This job is your last chance.

Monday morning, your alarm rings wildly next to you in bed, but your eyes are already open. You’ve been staring at the ceiling for the past hour unable to sleep. You’ve been tossing and turning restlessly, unable to focus on anything else but the last few memories you have of Aaron Hotchner. Your mind first goes to that last day of classes, thinking about the way he smiled at you from across his desk. The way that damn leather-bound book felt in your hands. The way that he kissed you. He made you feel so special. Your mind then travels to the rest of that weekend, one in which he managed to rip your heart out of your chest and tear it into a million little pieces.

You think of the last thing you heard from him. Those same words he had spoken to you once before, but spoken to someone else. At that moment, you realized that you were nothing special. You were just another girl Professor Hotchner used for sex.

You’re hopeful that you will be able to move forward with professionalism. There’s a second where you consider the possibility of becoming friends with Aaron Hotchner, but you know that’s impossible. You can’t look at him and ignore all the hurt he caused you. You can, however, be professional. You know you can work with him. It might just tear you up inside, but you can do it. You have to.

However, you wonder what kind of person he’s become in the past eight years. You know you’ve changed dramatically, but what has happened to him? How has his life gone? How did he end up in the FBI?

You wonder if he’s learned to love. The man that you knew was one who was seemingly incapable of ever loving anyone. It’s clear to you that back then he was too selfish, too wrapped up in his own head to dedicate anything real to anyone else. And if he ever did feel anything real for you, he was too emotionally damaged to handle it, work through it, or to tell you about it.

Your alarm rings again. You snooze it again. What will you say to him? What do you want your first words to be to him? Will you tell him off? Should you even acknowledge the past? Or should you just put on your best air of professionalism and approach this as you would any new job? It seems impossible to push aside the past and treat him as a new person. Because he’s not a new person. He’s a man who has shaped every decision you’ve made in your life since knowing him.

You eventually convince yourself to get out of bed, reminding yourself that it’s pointless to fight inevitables. You dig through the moving boxes, pulling out your coffee maker and a thermos, filling it up to the top, already expecting the Quantico office coffee to be bad. You haven’t worked in a year, but you do remember always having to make your own coffee before work.

While the coffee brews, you pack a go-bag, an item that Strauss heavily emphasized the importance of for this job. You would be traveling a lot for each case, and you have to be ready to leave at any moment. You’re not sure why your reassignment is with the BAU. Your therapist emphasized a lifestyle of structure and predictability. If there’s one thing you’ve heard about the life of these profilers, it’s that the hours are irregular.

You get dressed, slipping on a clean pressed, black pair of slacks and a white button-down blouse. You slide on a comfortable pair of boots, ones that look nice and professional but don’t hinder your movement in the event that you get called away on a case.

One benefit of the irregular hours is that your personal time is limited. If you can occupy your mind with work, you can avoid getting sucked up into your own head. Like right now. You grip your bag as it jostles against your side on the bus. You drink your coffee a little too fast, which doesn’t ease the unnatural level of fear coursing through you.

This shouldn’t scare you so much. But the old wounds that you fought so hard to turn to scar tissue are reopening and they hurt just as much as the day Hotch inflicted them upon you.

You get to the Quantico headquarters a few minutes early, giving you enough time to get your new ID from the front desk. You get into the elevator, rocking back and forth on your toes anxiously. He’s here. He could be anywhere. Every time the elevator doors open to a different floor, you fear that you’ll come face to face with him. You’re sure that he’s probably on the sixth floor. The BAU floor. He’s probably in his office waiting to welcome the new agent. Does he know that you’re the new agent? Does he know who you are? Does he know what’s happened to you this past year?

You were assured that most of the details of your ‘leave’ were kept confidential. All that was publicized was a tragic bombing. The bomber sacrificed himself for the cause. Only a few people were able to escape, but all with severe injuries. The FBI didn’t want to admit their involvement. Their failure to save those people. Your failure to save those people.

You get to Strauss’s office, struggling to pay attention as she walks you through the basics, hands you your new badge, and a new gun. You holster the weapon, pulling your go-bag onto your shoulder, fiddling with the straps nervously.

Strauss finishes her introductory speech and takes a moment to look you over, “Agent, are you sure you’re ready to get back to work?” It doesn’t take a profiler to notice your nerves. Ever since the start of your leave, nerves and anxiety aren’t an uncommon occurrence, but this is more than usual. Your body is practically vibrating.

Despite the sick feeling in your stomach, you manage a nod, “I’m sorry.” You apologize for appearing distracted, “Yes ma’am. I’m ready.”

You can tell she’s unconvinced. Strauss leads you through the relatively crowded bullpen. You spot an empty desk across from a woman with long black hair, who is too busy laughing with the blonde sitting on top of her desk to notice that the tall skinny one across from them has just spilled coffee all over himself and his paperwork. You assume that the empty one is to be your desk. Your heart pounds wildly in your chest as you glance up at the two offices on the catwalk. One of them has the blinds tightly drawn and through the other, you can just barely see an older gentleman working on his laptop. David Rossi. You know him. You read just about every single one of his books on Sunday in preparation for this new job.

Your profiling skills are mediocre at best. Strauss argues that out of all possible candidates you had the most office experience and field experience. You’re really not sure how that helps. How could a traumatized and failed crisis negotiator who hasn’t been in the field in nearly a year provide anything helpful for the BAU?

Old habits resurfaced and you buried yourself in published literature and textbooks and research. You weren’t about to walk into a new job feeling unprepared, especially not one in which Aaron Hotchner would be your new boss. Now, at this moment, trailing behind Straus, as your body seems detached from your mind, dreading the moment that she opens that door to Aaron’s office, no amount of studying or preparation seems sufficient.

Rossi steps out of his office just as you and Strauss reach the top of the stairs. You lock eyes with him and despite not even knowing who you are, he gives you a reassuring nod. Damn profilers. Your body language is probably a dead giveaway. Strauss knocks on the door.

“Come in.” That voice. You could never forget it. Strauss reaches for the handle and you’re tempted to run away. Turn around and walk away. At least then you could leave with your sanity semi-intact. However, your curiosity has been piqued at this point. You have to know. You have to see him. You step through the doorway into the office and finally get a good look at the man.

He's hunched over, body turned slightly away from the desk. He has a phone pressed to his ear and he’s speaking in a gentle, hushed tone, "Yeah I know buddy." He glances over at you and Strauss. As if out of a movie, he does a double-take. It’s almost as if it takes a second for his eyes to really process what he’s really seeing. And what he’s really seeing is you. The look on his face tells you that he barely recognizes you, now eight years older, in professional clothes, and a face that’s just a little more weathered from all that you’ve been through.

Your memories of him are not faint as your eyes stay locked with his. They’re not just faded remnants of your moments together. Staring at him, eyes drinking in every inch of him, it all comes back more vivid than ever. You can practically feel his fluffy hair tangled in your fingers. From your position, you can just faintly smell his cologne. That’s a scent that hasn’t changed. The sensory memories are overwhelming. The passion, the secrecy, the pleasure. But that quickly changes, making the sick feeling in the pit of your stomach grow at an all-consuming rate. That night. That night he grabbed you by the front of your shirt, the way he snapped at you, the completely ice-cold manner in which you spoke those last few words to him, I’m done.

That Aaron Hotchner is not the man sitting in front of you. You barely recognize him. His hair is shorter, more strictly gelled in place. His white shirt is buttoned all the way up. He has a suit jacket on. His tie is done up perfectly. You can’t help but take note of the bags under his eyes, the increase of lines on his face. Obviously, he’s aged, but the way his face has changed, it’s not just age. You can see his eyes are dull, glossed over. For as neatly put together he is from the neck down, his face looks tired.

Hotch seems to forget he was just on the phone, entirely taken aback by the fact that you’re actually there, standing in front of him. "I’m sorry I can’t be with you right now but get a lot of rest and I’ll be home before you know it. I have to go. I love you too." He hangs up and you try to hide the shock on your face as those words come out of his mouth. Words you dreamt of him saying. Words that haunted you for months nearly a decade ago.

"Agent Hotchner, this is the crisis negotiation transfer I was discussing with you," Strauss nods at you, and Hotch stands up, smoothing out his tie, placing his hands flat on the desk. "This is Agent—"

"Y/N." His voice is firm. Hearing his name fall from your lips is enough to send you running in the opposite direction. Fear and anxiety overcome you, your legs going weak as he sticks out a hand to shake yours, but you can’t seem to get yourself to move forward to touch his hand, "I’m sorry, Agent Y/L/N." He corrects his mistake.

His hand hovers in the air for a moment, waiting for you to reach forward to shake it. Your shoes drag across the carpet, as you reach forward to shake his hand. His warm, rough hand envelops yours. At one point in your life, just the touch of his skin against yours would send sparks up and down your arm. Just that handshake would’ve been enough to ignite your skin and make you feel alive.

You feel nothing. Just a simple handshake. Your heart is attempting to jump out of your throat, beating rapidly and pounding against your ribcage so hard you think your chest visibly moves. However, his touch no longer thrills you. Maybe you are finally over Aaron Hotchner.

"You two know each other?” Strauss gestures between the two of you.

"No," You reply without missing a beat. You shake your head, finally able to get words out. You have to force your eyes off of Hotch and look at Strauss, "Well, yes. Agent Hotchner lectured at my law school a few times. When he was a federal prosecutor.”

Strauss gives a small nod of acknowledgment, “Agent Hotchner can show you the ropes from here. I expect updates from the field,” Her eyes shoot over to you. Updates about you, she means. In case you manage to fuck up again.

You watch as Strauss leaves the office not turning your eyes to Hotch at the desk in front of you. You look out the window, gesturing to the agents in the bullpen you passed, “I’m assuming the extra desk in the bullpen is mine?”

Hotch tilts his head down, letting out a small breath, “Yes. Agent Y/L/N—”

“And everyone in the bullpen, is that the whole team? I know Agent Rossi’s office is next to yours and I only saw three agents in the bullpen but I assume there are more?”

“Yes. We have a technical analyst and another member of the team. You’ll be introduced to them shortly, however–” that’s not what he really wants to talk to you about. Its clear that there’s so much he wants to say, but you don’t give him a chance to speak. You keep your mind focused on the important questions on there about the job. You know that a conversation with him about anything else just might break you.

“And in terms of training, you can see I passed my gun qualifications again. Are there any other evaluations or training protocols? Or will my time from the academy be sufficient preparation for this position?” You rattle off your questions. His face is a mixture of shock and frustration. He has his arms crossed against his chest. He tucks his bottom lip in, biting at it lightly.

“Y/N,” He places his hands firmly down on the desk. This time he doesn’t answer your questions. He’s tired of your avoidance, “What are you doing here?”

You take a pause at the sound of your first name, swallowing slowly, “I’m here on reassignment from crisis negotiation. I’m supposed to be working as a profiler on your team in the BAU.”

“You know what I mean,” Hotch presses the issue a little further.

“With all due respect, I’m not sure what you are searching for from me but if the implication is that I am here for anything other than the job then you are sorely mistaken,” You huff out and cross your arms against your chest, mirroring his closed-off body language. “Sir.”

“That’s not what I was implying,” Hotch places a hand on his forehead, rubbing roughly, trying to ease his frustration. You’re not quite sure where he gets off being so short and snippy with you. “I’m just… The last time I saw you, you were on track to be a lawyer and now you’re standing in front of me, in my office, joining my team. It just all seems very—”

“Sir?” You turn and see a different blonde standing in the doorway. She has a bright pink floral dress on, two large flowers in her hair, a file in her hands, and a pink fuzzy pen tucked behind her ear. “Sorry to interrupt,” She steps forward, stumbling a little in her high heels, sticking her hand out to shake yours, “Penelope Garcia, technical analyst, computer geek, and all-around wizard of the keyboard.”

You smile at her and stick your hand out to introduce yourself, “It’s great to meet you.”

“Sir, you remember that the Indiana PD contacted us about a possible serial?” She lets out a shaky breath, squinting her eyes and looking away as she opens the file, holding it out to Hotch, “Another body.”

Hotch has to reach past you to take the file and you audibly suck in your breath as his arm glides past your torso. “Same signature?” He looks over the photos.

Garcia lets out a small shudder, “Yeah the victim’s hands… the unsub he… don’t make me say it, sir.” She squeaks out.

“Gather the team,” He gives a nod before finally looking back at you, “You think you’re ready to get back to work?”

“Yes Sir,” You sigh, pull your go-bag further up your shoulder. You start to follow him out the door but he stops short in front of you.

“We’ll talk later,” He stumbles over his words a little. You’re making him nervous. You see his hand at his side. His fingers rubbing against one another. There’s one thing that hasn’t changed in years. He still has the same nervous behaviors.

“I don’t think there’s much to talk about,” You mumble under your breath as you follow him to the conference room. You speak quietly but from the way he tilts his head, stretches his neck, and takes a deep breath, you know your comment was loud enough for him to hear.

You take a seat at the roundtable, watching as the three agents from earlier are now joined by a tall, muscular black man who ruffles the top of the skinny kid’s head, messing up his hair, “I’m just teasing kid, I like the haircut. Makes you look young.”

“Yeah like I need anything to make me look younger. Everyone already thinks I’m a teenager,” The skinny one tries to smooth his hair back into place, but it doesn’t really help, leaving small strands sticking up in the air.

“Everyone this is Agent Y/L/N, she’s joining us from Crisis Negotiation,” Hotch pulls out his chair, right next to yours. You feel your whole body tense up, as the close proximity really allows you to smell his familiar cologne. Eight years and he still hasn’t bought a new one. Great.

“Joining us?” The muscular one stands just a bit behind you, making himself a cup of coffee but turns and walks to take a seat, giving you a slow once over. It’s not a flirtatious one, but a wary scan of your body. You’re becoming acutely aware of how exposed you feel in a room full of professional profilers.

“Strauss thinks we need the extra help, especially with the recent increase in requests for BAU help, and I don’t disagree with her,” Hotch looks around the table at his coworkers before looking to you, “Agents Prentiss, Morgan, Jareau, Rossi, and Dr. Reid.” Hotch points out each member, who all give you small nods and waves of acknowledgment as he introduces them.

“Crisis negotiation, huh?” Morgan continues to push the subject. You can tell he’s not really happy about a new addition to the team. You’re guessing it’s coming from a place of protectiveness of his team. You understand his hesitance. The team probably works well together, a new person is a whole new dynamic. If you could pick any other position you would, you have no specific interest in the BAU, but it’s a second chance and you’re not going to screw it up, no matter how much you wish that anyone else in the world besides Hotch was unit chief.

“I think the job took a small amount of profiling,” You shrug and give Agent Morgan a smile, hoping to get in his good graces soon, “Obviously not as much as this but it did take a level of interpretation of the behavior of criminals who take hostages in addition to a complex understanding of intergroup dynamics and how that might impact a situation.”

“There’ll be time to play nice and get to know each other later,” Hotch cuts the introductions short. “Garcia, the case?”

“Right,” She clicks on the monitor at the front while Hotch slides a tablet over to you. You take it from him, your fingertips just brushing against his. Everything about the interaction feels like eight years ago. He manages to keep his best poker face, all the while you feel the small sparks shoot across your skin. Those damn sparks. Except you’re very quickly realizing that the Hotch in front of you is nothing like eight years ago.

There’s something deeply broken about his eyes. You could never forget those eyes. When you first met him you thought they were deep brown. Then you spent enough time watching him, studying every detail of his face and learned that they were a beautiful light brown. Small golden flecks in his eyes become more pronounced in the sun. His eyes are different now. First of all, the deep undereye bags that frame them make him look years older than his actual age. His brow seems permanently set in that furrowed position. It’s a familiar expression of his. You had the joy of seeing that brow lift when the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile. Smiling seems to be the last thing this current Aaron Hotchner wants to do.

You realize you’re staring a little bit too long and tune back into Garcia’s case briefing, “All three victims were undergraduate students. Indiana’s campus hosts both undergrad and grad students from the law school and med school.”

“Which means a huge suspect pool.” Hotch points out.

“How are we sure that the unsub is from inside the community?” You look around the table. You can see the way that Morgan’s brows raise at the question. How else are you going to learn without asking questions?

Rossi, however, swoops in to save you from embarrassment, “The first victim had mace in her backpack, however, she never used it. The second victim had no defensive wounds on her body. The third victim—”

“Was killed in an office meeting room. To gain access to that building you need a school ID,” You nod, filling in the gaps. “I forget that technology and security have dramatically improved since I was in school.”

“Come on, kid, at least you had cell phones in college,” Rossi gives a small smile, nudging your arm.

“And how do we know these are all connected?” Morgan gestures to his tablet in front of him.

You scoff slightly and look up at Morgan, “I’m sorry, I know it’s important to find common victimology, MO, or signature before connecting the crimes but how many violent crimes occur on college campuses in this short of a time? They have to be connected.”

“Statistically, some of the most dangerous and violent college campuses report that nearly 10 students for every 1000 will be a victim of violent crime. However, that statistic seems to include any form of violent crime meaning murder, negligent manslaughter, aggravated assault, robbery, but most prevalent on most college campuses is rape as a form of violent crime. In terms of how frequent—” The tall skinny one, Reid, rattles off a series of facts at you and you can’t help but smile. He’s cute. He looks about your age, “That was more of a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?”

You fight a smile at Reid’s confused face and nod. “All the victims had the same cuts on their hands,” Prentiss points up at the monitor.

“Weird,” You mumble under your breath.

“What?” JJ turns to you.

“Oh. Nothing it’s just… hands are a weird thing to mutilate. Damage to the face shows high levels of rage and a deep hatred for the victim, removal of eyes or ears or damage to the mouth could symbolize the removal of a sense in order to punish the victims for some misuse of those senses. But hands… hands are different.” You tip your pen back to your mouth, placing the end on your bottom lip, pulling it down slightly as you think. You can feel Hotch’s focus on you. If you turn, you’re sure you’ll just catch him as he looks away.

He’s profiling you. You don’t need to look at him to know that. He was always good at reading you, not that you did much to hide your feelings back then. You felt everything so openly. You were so full of passion, so determined to be the best at everything you set your mind to. Hotch made you realize that feeling everything so deeply, so freely, opens you up to a world of hurt. You put on your best poker face, keeping your body language neutral while you still feel his eyes on you.

“Hands are not inherently symbolic of one thing.” Reid agrees with you.

“So we have to try and decipher why this mutilation is a compulsion for the unsub,” Hotch nods, “Wheels up in 30.” Everyone tucks all their belongings away. Hotch is quick to stand up from his seat at the table, storm down the catwalk back to his office, closing the door loudly. You try to ignore the weird looks from the team as you introduce yourself to all of them.

You watch as Morgan is one of the first to leave the conference room, walking after him, “Hey, Agent Morgan!” You run to catch him at the top of the stairs, “Look I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off so rude in there.” You shake your head.

“No problem,” He states simply, intending to walk down the stairs.

“I get it, I’m new, I’m throwing off the team dynamic and you don’t seem like the type to trust me immediately.” You stick out a hand to shake his, “But I’m committed to this team and I want to earn your respect in time.”

He nods, giving you one of those judgmental once overs again, “From what I can tell, Hotch doesn’t seem too pleased about you being here. Now just because he’s my boss, doesn’t mean I have to always agree with him, but if he’s wary, then I’m wary.” He avoids shaking your hand. Your suspicions about Morgan seem to be proven before your eyes. He doesn’t trust easily. He’s been burned by someone he trusted in the past. You can relate to that. You’re not a very open or trustworthy person anymore either.

“Agent Hotchner and I knew each other a really long time ago. A lifetime ago. Way before his time at the BAU. I’m sure he’s just not thrilled about his past colliding with his present,” You nod taking a few steps back to let Morgan continue down the stairs, “I just hope… I hope you can learn to trust me, and I, you.” You smile softly. Morgan seems stuck in his place. You can’t tell whether or not he’s surprised by your manners, or if you’ve just driven further the wedge between you two.

“See you on the jet,” He speaks up as he walks down the stairs, scooping his go-bag from under his desk and disappearing around a corner down the hallway.

When you turn to walk back to the conference room, you catch Agent Hotchner’s eyeline through the blinds of his office. He’s watching you, studying you, trying to read you. However, he definitely does not get access to you anymore.

You’re determined to keep your animosity towards Hotch private. No reason for the team to detect that anything is wrong. But throughout the case, there are moments it slips. First, it was on the jet...

You step onto the jet, looking around, taking the entire environment in. You were never blessed with a private jet in your time in crisis negotiation, just stuck with driving from place to place. Morgan reaches across you, taking your bag and stowing it away in the back for you. It’s a simple gesture, but from the look in his eye as he does it, you can tell Morgan is already reevaluating his judgment of you.

You’re one of the last on the jet and you see everyone settled around the table and surrounding seats. The only available seat is the one next to Hotch by the window. You’d have to ask him to get up… or squeeze past him. You try to cover it up but nearly everyone notices the way that you eye the seat before deciding against it. You end up leaning against the arm of the sofa that JJ is sitting on. Once again, Hotch’s gaze lingers on you as you do. He’s taking note of the way you’re actively avoiding him, and he’s right. You’re actively avoiding any alone time with him. Minimize the alone time, minimize the pain.

You run through the facts of the case again, Reid rambling on about the significance of hands throughout different cultures, the importance of sensory neurons on the skin of your hands, and how hand size is an indicator for a lot of things. You share a small smirk with Morgan, who is clearly warming up to you because you both know the one thing that hand size is rumored to correlate with.

Morgan shoots you a small smirk before saying what you were both thinking, “That’s interesting and all kid, but any knowledge in that big brain of yours about whether hand size is related to—”

Hotch cuts off Morgan, “Focus, please.” He gestures with his hand to stop the conversation and you have to hide your smile. It’s nice to smile. You weren’t expecting to feel anything but pain today. Hotch puts a fast end to that feeling of happiness.

“When we land, JJ and Rossi head to the local police and talk to the families of the victims. Prentiss and Morgan, you’ll head to the ME, get a better evaluation of the state of the body,” Hotch pauses for a second. He takes in a slow breath as if preparing himself for what he’s about to say. Once he says what’s coming next, it’s all official. You start your first case. He’s your boss, you’re his subordinate. You’re in each other's lives again whether you like it or not. “Y/L/N, Reid, and I will go to the most recent crime scene,” Hotch nods and you feel the blood drain from your face, that sick and twisty knot growing in the pit of your stomach. You knew you’d have to work with him, that’s part of the job, but he’s already keeping you close to him. Maybe he doesn’t trust you.

From the way he spoke to you in his office, it’s clear he thinks you’re here as some sort of revenge. Some convoluted vindictive scheme to ruin his life.

“You look terrified,” Prentiss tries to tease you.

You look around at the team and shake your head, “College campuses,” You scrunch up your face in disgust and shake your head, “Undergrad sucked because I was younger than everyone, so I missed out on all the fun.”

“Damn, we got another kid genius on our hands, don’t we?” Morgan reaches out a hand to high-five you. “Like our own female Einstein.” Your eyes immediately flick to Hotch. That nickname. No one’s called you any form of that nickname since him. “Watch out Reid, you’ve got competition.”

“I was 14 when I was in college,” Reid states in an attempt to one-up you, but it’s clear that he’s just joking. He knows he’s smart but he doesn’t seem like the cocky type, at least what you can tell so far.

“Don’t worry, brainiac,” You laugh at him, “You are the only genius on this team.”

“And grad school?” JJ pipes up, catching onto the way you dropped the sentence.

“I dropped out of law school after my first year,” You clear your throat uncomfortably, “Wasn’t for me I guess.” The air seems suffocating. Your face is burning hot. You feign extreme interest in the crime scene photos on your tablet, knowing that if you look up, your face will give you away to Hotch. The last thing you want is for him to know how much he affected you.

He said it himself: So in 10 years from now, when you're at the top of your career, know that it's all because of me. He wasn’t entirely wrong. Everything that has happened for the past eight years happened because of his impact on your life.

You remind yourself yet again to try and keep the conversations focused on the case. The team wants to get to know you, but every personal conversation seems to lead back to Hotch.

The second slip-up comes when you arrive at the crime scene...

“She told her roommate she was coming here to study, that she had booked the meeting room just for herself.” Reid lifts up the crime scene tape, holding it up for you to slip under. You give a small smile at the gesture.

“But she told her friends she was meeting with her professor here for extra help.” Hotch shakes his head, pulling on a pair of gloves. You glance over at Reid as he does the same.

He looks at you for a second before he raises his brows in realization, letting out a small ‘oh.’ He digs into his pocket and hands you a pair of gloves. “I usually grab them from the crime scene team,” He nods.

You take them from him, “Thank you.” You like Reid. He’s kind and smart and polite. He’s your age, but you can see that he’s worlds ahead of you in terms of knowledge. You wonder just how much is going on inside that brain of his. When you look at him you can see the gears constantly turning, he’s always working over something in his brain, forming theories, or running through facts.

“She was stabbed in the back and the back of the head, correct?” You glance over at Hotch for confirmation.

“Yes.” He plays with the fingertips of his gloves, paying more attention to you rather than the scene. Without the body, there’s not much to go on, it’s your average office space. You see a log on the wall with the names of who has scheduled the room. They haven’t wiped away the victim’s work from the whiteboard. It looks like some form of math.

“Linear algebra,” Reid speaks up as he sorts through some of the papers left on the table in the center of the room.

You nod and smile, “Math never was my strong suit in school. I was definitely more entranced by a book rather than formulas and numbers.”

Reid’s face lights up with joy, “If you ever want any book recommendations, please do ask. I just finished an absolutely amazing biography about Albert Einstein. It’s not that long of a read. It’s only about 1200 pages. You know I’m sure that I have a copy…” He catches sight of Hotch’s stern expression, stopping himself mid-sentence.

You both go silent as you skim through the pages of work scattered on the floor. You then analyze the writing on the whiteboard, leaning in close. Hotch speaks up again tilting his head to the side, narrowing his eyes in confusion at your behavior, “What are you thinking?”

“It wasn’t random. This was planned out. The unsub specifically sought out her.”

“How do you figure that?” Hotch questions you, but not in the hostile accusatory way you’re expecting.

You hesitate, losing your train of thought the longer you look at Hotch, so you look back to the whiteboard, “When you’re waiting to meet someone, you expect someone to come in, right? So if she had her back turned, writing up equations on this whiteboard, she wouldn’t think twice of the door opening. If you’re not expecting someone and you hear the door open.” You point at the whiteboard.

“You would turn around to see who it is,” Hotch finishes your sentence.

“That’s why all her wounds were to the back,” You fall into a rhythm with Hotch. He’s following your train of thought.

“So the unsub had to know she would be here ahead of time,” Hotch sighs and digs in his pocket for his phone, “Garcia, I need your help.” He clicks his phone onto the speaker and places it down on the table.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Her chipper voice comes through the phone. You can picture her office probably matches her appearance. Probably bright, full of color. For a technical analyst, she probably still has a hefty collection of colorful and funky pens. You remember the octopus mug she was holding when she walked into Hotch’s office this morning.

“This building has a key card access system. Can you access the log of everyone who swiped into this building on the day and around the time of the third murder?”

“Sir, it’s not a matter of can or can’t. You know I can,” Her voice is laced with a smile.

“Check that list for the professor that she claimed she was meeting with,” Hotch adds.

“He…” She trails and you hear the ambient sounds of her rapid typing and clicking. There’s a pause. Her voice grows small, “He accessed the building around the time of her death.”

“He’s our prime suspect. We need to bring him in,” Hotch concludes, “Garcia, you’re the best.”

“Aw I know,” She giggles softly, “PG out!”

“Imagine that,” You chuckle bitterly, “She comes in here to meet her professor, someone she trusts, and she gets stabbed in the back.” You shake your head, the words slipping out before you even realize the weight of what you’ve implied.

Reid doesn’t catch on to the look that you and Hotch exchange. Hotch looks as if he’s seen a ghost. He’s not shocked by what you’ve said, but by the fact that you even said anything. It’s the first sign of hostility towards him. The first crumb or clue into how you feel about him after all these years. The answer is betrayed. You still feel betrayed.

“We should deliver the profile.” Hotch leaves the crime scene at a brisk pace, leaving Reid clueless, and you and that damned twisting knot of anxiety in your stomach.

The rest of your interactions with Hotch are limited for most of the case, restricted to only group discussions that are entirely professional. No more slip-ups, no more sideways glances. What all your interactions were rife in, was that intrusive look of his eyes. Every few minutes you can feel his eyes on you, scanning your posture, your facial expressions, searching for any idea of what you might be thinking or feeling.

You try your best to avoid it, opting to go check out every lead, just for the opportunity to get some space from him. You feel smothered and suffocated. You’re so on edge, you’ve torn your nail beds to shreds. He is seemingly unfazed by your presence. That is if you don’t consider how often you catch him rubbing his fingers at his side or up by his face or biting his bottom lip. Every time you catch him, however, he stops.

You’re having a difficult time reading how he feels about you being here. You just want to know how he feels about you after all these years. Does he still harbor feelings for you? Does he still care about you? The sleep deprivation from working so hard and the excess caffeine you’ve consumed don’t help to slow down your thoughts which seem to be moving at a million miles a minute. At least while you’re working you can put all your energy into solving the case, helping the team, and parsing through evidence.

It gets worse at night when you’re alone in the hotel room. You try to bring the case file back into the room, working on it in bed until you can barely keep your eyes open, but you find that you don’t get any work done, your brain a continuous stream of questions.

You’ve been able to profile every member of the team pretty efficiently. You have a good understanding of how Reid’s brain works. The comfort that he has with numbers and facts. He uses his intelligence to cover up for his social insecurities. Morgan puts on a tough exterior, but really he’s hesitant to let people in and trust them. Prentiss, similar to Morgan, seems to keep everyone at arm's length, preferring to be the confidant rather than the one doing the confiding in someone else. JJ struggles to separate her emotions from the work, a quality that is not in and of itself a flaw, but you can tell it weighs on her heavily. Rossi has the most experience and constantly feels inclined to be a figure, a leader while trying to balance cooperation rather than individualism. He’s used to being a lone wolf, doing the job on his own.

This new Aaron Hotchner is a mystery. He’s closed off. He is entirely business. Even when Garcia cracks a joke or embarrasses herself. You all laugh and smirk at her, but his face never changes. When you all get off track, he sternly reminds you of the importance of the case at hand. That’s his job, but there’s something more to it that you can’t quite figure out. There’s a sense of urgency, as there usually is with these cases, but almost this feeling that he’s constantly running out of time.

Even his office provided you with very little to profile. You remember a few photos from Hotch’s office. One of him and a small boy. A son, possibly? There was another of him and a blonde woman hugging the little boy. Your first guess is wife, but you don’t remember him wearing a ring.

You can’t profile him. He’s closed himself off to that. Yet you find yourself coming back to the same question over and over again, does he still care about you? You get a glimpse at the answer as you and the team track down the location of your unsub, three days into the case.

You lean forward from the backseat of the SUV, looking between Morgan and Hotch in the front, “What does the profile say about this kind of unsub’s behavior once faced with police and authority like us?”

The two men exchange knowing looks. You have your suspicions but you really just want them to vocalize what you’re thinking, “He won’t let us take him in without a fight.”

“Suicide by cop,” You mutter frustratedly, “Great.”

“It’s likely, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try to talk him out of it.” Hotch clarifies, gesturing with an outstretched palm that he takes off the wheel temporarily. He pulls up to the small house, sirens off. “A big show will just scare him into making sudden moves to get us to shoot to kill. Morgan, you head around the back. Y/L/N and I will take the front.”

You nod, knowing the rest of the team isn’t far behind you all, but they’ve all been instructed to try and appear as discreetly as possible. You get out of the SUV, watching as Morgan runs around back. Both you and Hotch approach the door. Hotch kicks the door down. The unsub sits casually in an armchair, holding a gun that he twirls in his fingers. He knew you were coming.

Then Hotch does something that complicates your questions about him. It’s subtle but you notice it immediately. He instinctively moves a little in front of you. He doesn’t block your line of fire, but he blocks the unsubs. He’s shielding you with his body.

Your profile is right, the unsub doesn’t want to be taken in peacefully, resulting in Morgan putting two bullets in him from behind when he raises his gun to you and Hotch. AT first, you think Hotch put his body in front of yours by accident.

It wasn’t an accident. He gave a small look over his shoulder at your location before taking a few steps right, to block you. Then you assume it was purely because of his status as team leader. He doesn’t want the members of his team to get hurt. That also doesn’t seem to make sense to you. No matter how much he wants the team to be protected he wouldn’t do that. He would trust Morgan to get the shot if you two couldn’t.

So why would he shield you?

Almost everyone but you, Rossi, and Hotch are sleeping on the jet home. You have a book out in front of you, but you’re barely reading, just attempting to look deeply enchanted by the novel to avoid any awkward eye contact or conversation with Hotch. The only sounds in the plane are the whirring of the engines, the wind outside, and Hotch’s typing on his computer as he finishes up the report for the case.

Rossi sits down across from you on the jet, placing down a small glass of some amber liquid, which you assume is whiskey, in front of you.

“Trying to get me drunk, Agent Rossi?” You tease him, tearing your eyes away from the book you weren’t reading.

He laughs heartily, taking a sip from his own glass, “I thought I’d welcome you with something from my own personal stash.”

“Where do you keep it hidden in here? You know… just in case I’m curious,” You smirk and reach for the glass. It’s nice of Rossi to sit with you and talk to you.

Rossi just smiles, shaking his head a little, “You did well out there, kid,” He puts the glass down, to roll his ring around his finger. You’ve noticed he does it a lot when he’s thinking. “You can read all the books in the world, but profiling in the field, thinking on your feet, analyzing a crime scene, it’s all much different than the words on a page.”

“I’m realizing that,” You trail your finger around the rim of the glass, “My previous position incorporated a lot of what you guys do here.”

“I’m sure that makes this job a lot harder. You probably want to put the past behind you.” Your head snaps up to look at him. No one told the team where you came from. Even Hotch doesn’t know. “I remember hearing about the incident.”

“The FBI tried to bury their involvement,” You sigh and finish off the glass, noting how smooth the alcohol goes down. You’ve learned how to handle alcohol really well this past year. “They keep all the details top secret. However, that didn’t stop them from throwing me under the bus.”

“What happened in New York was not your fault.” Rossi’s voice drops in volume as he leans closer, keeping your conversation more private, “The brass has a habit of blaming agents instead of criminals. You couldn’t have stopped it. You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

You exhale loudly, air rushing over your teeth as you give a little shake of your head in disagreement, “Agent Rossi, I’m sure you’re experienced enough to know this, but as reassuring and comforting it is to hear you say those words it doesn’t necessarily—”

“It doesn’t change how you feel. I know. I understand,” He pauses, “Don’t let it consume you. All of us have been where you are right now. Some of us are currently where you are right now, constantly consumed by guilt over something that wasn’t even our fault.” You get the sense that he isn’t talking about himself. You don't need to reply. The both of you sit in silence for a while.

You start up a conversation again, this time about Virginia and DC, where you’re living, when you moved, what you studied in school, where you grew up. Rossi loves to tease you and every few sentences he’ll simply reply, ‘I already knew that’ acting as if he could profile every fact about you.

You like him a lot. You like everyone a lot. Just as the jet lands and you’re all packing up your desks back at Quantico, Rossi offers to drive you home.

“Let me just check in with Agent Hotchner before I leave,” You glance up at the office. You know you have to check in with him, it’s your first case finished, you’re new, he’s your new boss, but so far, you’ve managed to avoid being alone with him and you’d like to keep it that way as long as possible.

You knock lightly on the open door, to which Hotch responds, “Come in.”

“I just wanted to check-in, you know, with it being my first case and everything,” You nod, taking just a few steps into the office, leaving as much distance between you and Hotch. He stands at his desk, focusing intently on your face. You know he’s trying to read your intentions. He’s searching for the hidden meaning behind your words. And for once, in the past few days, you don’t have any meaning behind your words. You have had enough small slip-ups and double meanings. This time, you truly just mean to check-in.

“You did really good work out there, Agent. You’re a fast learner, you pay attention to details, you work well with the team,” He rattles off a series of compliments, “Strauss is going to request a formal evaluation with me and I’ll be sure to report how quickly you’ve adapted.”

“Thank you, sir,” You try your best to function with the utmost composure.

“Hotch,” He corrects you.

You ignore the correction, “Is that all, sir?”

“If you need anything… I mean I’ve read through your psych evaluations and I know the details are classified but–“ Hotch is struggling with his words. You know what he’s trying to say. He wants to tell you he’s here for you. Funny. Really, it is. Funny that he doesn’t realize the one thing that might send you spiraling is being around him. “I just mean if it all gets to be too much, it’s okay to take a step back. I… I understand.”

“You do?” Your words come out more bitter than intended. You promised yourself you wouldn’t do this. You had gone this whole case without snapping. It’s childish and immature. You can be professional. But right now, you can only see one thing: boiling hot rage at Hotch. How could he possibly understand how you feel? You pause to take a breath, “Thank you, but I’m okay. Goodnight, sir.” You walk to the door, wanting to get away from him as fast as possible.

“Y/N—” Hotch calls out, his voice softer, less firm, less professional. “Please,” You beg, finally breaking. Your voice is raw with emotion. You’ve been holding all the pain in for the past three days and your plea comes out sounding more broken than you intend to. You don’t turn around but place a hand on the doorframe. “Please… don’t make this harder than it already is.” You wait for a moment, hoping, praying, that he doesn’t try to talk to you anymore. A moment of silence serves as confirmation that he isn’t going to keep pushing you to talk.

You get down the stairs, meeting Rossi at the elevators. “Thank you… for driving me home.” You try and hide your face from him, hoping he doesn't see the sheen in your eyes as you fight away the tears that have been fighting their way out for the past three days.

“Anytime,” He nods, holding an arm over the elevator doors for you as they open. You think he can sense something is wrong. He’s probably been able to sense something is wrong between you and Hotch since the minute you made eye contact with him your first morning. If he does, however, he also knows not to ask or press the issue.

You flick the lights on in your apartment. You look over the boxes, still left unpacked. Not much of a home yet. You have no place of safety, of comfort yet. You feel like a guest in your own place. However, the thought of unpacking all the boxes right now is way too intimidating.

Deep steady breath in. Shaky breath out. You bite at your lip harshly. You haven’t cried over Aaron Hotchner in years. You drop your bag by the door, kicking your shoes off. You turn to close the door and everything starts to bubble up inside you. The anger, frustration, sadness, heartbreak. It’s all too much. You’ve been through so much these past eight years. This shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. But fuck. It hurts.

You let out a frustrated yell. It’s a scream that feels good to let out but ends up scratching your throat. You slam your fist against the door, ignoring the way it sears your knuckles. You pace your apartment, trying to steady your breathing.

You’ve been suffocating the past three days. Three long days of close quarters with Aaron Hotchner. Even after all these years, he manages to suck all the oxygen out of the room, leaving you breathless. In another life, you remember thinking how much you loved suffocating around him, but now, it tears you up inside. Your chest burns and aches, your head is fuzzy, and his presence is dizzying. It’s not exhilarating. It’s not exciting. It’s not all-consuming in the way you remember. You’re just trying to keep your head above water, but the current is strong and the rapids are relentless. You’re sinking under the surface quickly and you don’t know how to pull yourself up out of it.

You walk over to the stack of boxes, pushing them aside until you find the exact one you’re looking for. You rip open the top, tearing the tape off. The box is full of books, one of many that you brought with you. It’s organized perfectly so that when you unpack it you can set up your personal library just the way you had it back home in New York. So it doesn’t take you long to find that book. That damned book. The cover is faded. The dark brown leather is weathered and much lighter. The spine has lost all structure and the pages have changed color.

You sit down exactly where you stand, cross-legged on the floor, you open to that first page. You look at the all-too-familiar note. You were tempted, over the years, to burn the book, tear that first page out, cross out every one of his notes. But you never could do it. Deep down, no matter how bad he had hurt you, the book seemed to remain separate from that.

Maybe it’s because it’s a constant reminder that you weren’t some naive, foolish, young child. You hadn’t deluded yourself into thinking Hotch cared for you. He did. There was some sense of care and attention to detail. The book is evidence of that. However, it forces you to hold on to an image of Hotch that clearly is not the prevailing personality. Looking at the book reminds you of the bashful, almost embarrassed, man who handed it to you in his office so long ago. The careful way he traced your jawline, the way he tangled his fingers in your hair, pushing it out of the way to really get a good look at your face. That image of him sometimes wins out when you think of Aaron Hotchner. You want to remember him that way, but that only seems to prolong your pain. It makes you want him back.

You lay down on the floor pressing the book close to your heart. You could simply pick up the phone. You could just call him, tell him you want to start all over. But you can’t start all over. Being with Aaron Hotchner was a lifetime ago. That doesn’t change how vividly you can remember being with him. For the first few years, you hated him with every fiber of your being. You thought about what would happen if you ever saw him again. You would scream at him. Tell him off, curse him out. But as the years passed, you stopped hating him. There’s a fine line between love and hate. And as you know, Aaron Hotchner has always been good at keeping lines blurry.

Everything in you is screaming at you to pick up the phone. You’ve dreamed of hearing his voice tell you, “Let’s try again... please.” But you fight the urge. You close your eyes, the cold floor of your apartment sending a chill through you, enough to keep your wits about you.

——

Hotch runs a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes forcing himself to stay awake, forcing his attention back to the case report. His attempts to work fail, his mind always traveling back to you. He knew you would be a different person. It’s been eight years. He’s a different person. What he didn’t expect was how much of you is still the same.

That bright look in your eyes while discussing the case was one he had seen so many times while you poured over a novel in his office. You still talk with your hands, punctuating every sentence with a little shake or gesture of your fingers. You crack your knuckles when you’re thinking.

The differences are clear to him too. You don’t hold your tongue. You’re blunt. Brutally honest, almost to a fault. You seem to have pushed aside any attempt at politeness, or social niceties. You no longer feel so openly. He finds it much harder to read your face and body language. Your thoughts are not as clear to him as they used to be. He used to know exactly what you were thinking. He can tell you’ve practiced your poker face. He tried his best the past three days to get a read on how you feel about him. He doesn’t want to dwell on the past. All of that was before Haley. And indulging in thoughts of before is just simply too painful for him.

He walks to the window, looking out at the city. He wonders where you are tonight. Are you thinking about him? Are you hurting? Or has it been so long that he’s unimportant to you? Is someone holding you close to them, pressing soft kisses to your lips, whispering comforting words?

He could just pick up the phone and call you. He could profusely apologize. Not that his apology would mean anything, but it’s a speech he’s been rehearsing for years. He loved Haley with his whole heart. She was his whole world, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t regret how he treated you. Haley showed him a world of love, yet he managed to ruin that as well. He prioritized the job over her. Look where that got him.

Hotch knows you will never forgive him. He has never forgiven himself, but he can’t help but think about what would happen if he showed up on your doorstep. Would you immediately turn him away? Or would you let him in? Would you hear him out?

He shakes his head, tearing his eyes away from the lights of DC. He walks to the kitchen, pouring a fresh mug of coffee. He can’t call you. Too much has happened. He thinks about the sleeping little boy upstairs. Every night he’s tormented by memories. He can still remember what it felt like to hold Haley’s lifeless body in his arms. When he does get sleep, visions of Haley’s dead eyes, his bloodied clothes, Foyet’s knife, invade his dreams. He frequently wakes up coated in sweat, the scars on his chest and stomach stinging with the same intensity as the day Foyet inflicted the stab wounds.

Which is why he feels immense guilt over the fact that three days ago, he shook your hand to welcome you to the team, and it ignited every nerve in his body. Everything has changed, but your hand in his made him feel alive.

Chapter 13: II.II →

#aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #wanna be yours fanfic #hotch #hotchner #hotch x reader

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fvrxdrm · 4 years ago

Text

City of the Living Dead

Chapter 6

"September 28, 2:30 am... It's down to just me and 3 others. No weapons...no ammo...and too many skirmishes have drained us mentally and physically. We're not gonna make it... Officer Phillips once suggested we escape through the sewers. Apparently, there's a secret tunnel under this place left over from its museum days. I brushed her idea off before, but now, it's not sounding all that bad. Yeah, there's no proof there's even a tunnel or that the sewers aren't infested with zombies, but I don't wanna sit here and wait to die, either. It's a long shot, but I'm gonna try to find out what I can about that tunnel... Elliot Edward," you read, "Shit. Rest in peace, buddy." You placed the transcript back to where you found it and proceeded in scanning the room you and Leon were in.

It was an office of some sort with mahogany desks occupying the center, swivel chairs pointing towards every direction, some paperworks piled in a stack and some (or rather most) cluttered all over the tables and floor. It looked like a hurricane together with an earthquake and a tsunami clashed and crashed in the area.

"Leon, w-" your head twisted and turned as you looked for best friend and even called out to him when you found him just staring at something on the ceiling, his trembling lips pinned in between pearly-white teeth, eyebrows furrowed upwards, and eyes looking like a dam was about to breakdown because of too much pressure. You went towards where he was standing and followed his gaze. You gasped. He was looking at stringed triangle banners with letters printed out on each of them

WEL COME LEON

Your face began to mirror Leon's but a pained smile differentiated yours from his as a sudden rush of memory enlightened your brain. "Hey, look, the design's the same as the banner I surprised you with when we were 15," you said, raising an arm to point at the triangular flags.

Leon chuckled softly at what you said and nodded while a sneaky tear flowed down his cheek in a tiny stream. "Yeah."

"Come on, Leon! I worked hard for this." You hauled on your friend's wrist and led him towards his room with a strain as Leon's languor held him back.

"This better be good, Y/N. You fucking woke me up and I'm really close to fucking strangling you." His voice was a little hoarse from having just woken up right before you pulled him off of the couch and he was still lowkey tired because of the three-hour rest he had last night, but as much as he wanted to throw you out of his house and fall into a well-deserved slumber again, he was into surprises and was curious as to what you had in store. So, he went along with it even though he was pretty much a sloth still.

"I promise you'll love it." You chortled.

Leon sighed in defeat before loosening up and letting you pull him towards where you wanted to take him for this so-called surprise with a rub of his crusty eyes.

When a familiar door came into view in front of you, you covered Leon's eyes with one of your hands and twisted the door knob, revealing a bedroom with a banner hovering over Leon's messy bed, before lightly pushing him inside.

"All right, here we are," you spoke as you removed your hand from your face, moving right beside him to watch Leon's face as it shifted from being enraptured to crestfallen real quick. You guffawed in a boisterous way at his reaction and plummeted down to the ground whilst clutching your stomach in a joyful pain.

YOU SUCK LEON

"Really, Y/N? This-this is what you wanted to show me?"

"It's true though, you actually suck!"

"Come on, you know you only won in Street Fighter because I let you," he whined. You stood up from being laid on the floor before clutching onto Leon's shoulder for dear life.

"For 20 times? Really?" You laughed again, "nah, you just suck, bro."

Leon narrowed his eyes at you with lips pressing tightly in a thin line and turned towards you, his feet moving slowly in tandem as he approach you with a spurious anger, his hands closing into fists.

"What?" You asked with a nervous chuckle and feet backing up in rhythm with his laggard advances.

"You think I suck?" His voice imitated a dark tone. Had you not been slightly scared - which you hated to admit - you would've busted a gut at how ridiculous it sounded.

"I mean, yeah, it's already said in the banner, dimwitt."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Well, let's see who sucks now!"

Welp, that's my cue!

You dodged Leon's attack by the skin of your teeth, stumbling on a stupid pencil for a bit, before proceeding to run around the house to avoid Leon's "spider fingers" as you call it and making a tiny bit of a mess. However, your luck has gone away and he eventually caught you when you accidentally tripped over the leg of a chair, throwing you into his bed and tickling each spot that would make you squirm and and laugh.

"I still suck, huh?"

"N-no, fine...y-you don't...s-suck," you cried in between heavy breaths and hysterics. Satisfied with your remark, Leon stopped his fingers from moving and plopped down beside you, taking a moment to catch his breath before he pulled you closer to his body and spooned you. "You still couldn't win yesterday though."

"Yeah, well, I know a million ways to win your heart though."

"Fuck off, Le-le." Leon tsked at the nickname.

"Y/N, that sounds awful as fuck."

"Whatever." You felt his lashes kiss the nape of your neck as he closed his eyes to give them another four hours of rest, your own following afterwards when you heard Leon's muffled voice vibrate against your shirt.

"Hey, you wanna be my date for homecoming?"

"I thought you already asked Lexee to be your date."

"Dante already asked her out, so..."

"Okay, fine, I'll be your date." You squeezed his hand before intertwining your fingers with his and smiling when you felt him kiss your hair.

"Thanks, Y/N. Good night."

"It's 10 in the morning, dumba-"

"Shh... Rock-a-bye baby..."

"You do suck though." You light-heartedly nudged Leon's side and wrinkled your eyes in a grin, chuckling when he returned the gesture with a titter.

"I really don't," he retorted back.

"Sure." You took his hand in yours and gently squeezed it in a comforting way to ease the two of you before placing a feather's kiss on the back of it. "Come on, we still have a job to do."

*****

Leon S. Kennedy, we're putting you on a very special case for your first assignment. Your mission is...to unlock your desk! The key to your success is in the initials of our first names. Input the letters in order of our desks. There are 2 locks- 1 on each side of your desk. Make sure you get them both. Basically, your first task is to remember your fellow officers' names, but you figured that much out, right? Good luck, Leon. By the way, it might take a little work to get Scott to give you a straight answer.

Lieutenant Branagh

Scrawled in a corner between drops of blood on the paper was an additional note the lieutenant had written while he and his fellow officers were isolated and trapped, and it read:

Be glad you're not here, rookie.

"Remember your fellow officers' names..."

"I think that means the initials of my supposedly co-workers' names should be the password to open these locks on my desk." Leon stood up from where he was knelt down on the floor and casted around from desk to desk, unlocking the padlocks on his table and claiming the prize after accomplishing his "first assignment" - a magazine for his beloved Matilda.

You smiled when Leon pulled out the gun he's had since the beginning of his adult years, another retention reminding you of the peaceful days you once had before you started walking right into confusion.

Matilda was a gift Leon's father had given him on his 18th birthday, a few months before he died of cancer. He was happy about it, and knowing how his family had supported his decision on him becoming a cop, his heart fluttered inside and he couldn't be more grateful about it. Leon held onto it everyday, even becoming a bit hesitant about leaving it behind whenever he went to school. And when his father passed away because of said illness, he grasped onto the weapon the same way he did when his dad was still alive, if not more.

"Happy birthday, Leon. Happy birthday, Leon. Happy birthday, happy birthday... Happy birthday, Leon... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LEON!"

Leon's cheeks stretched in an almost painful way as everyone erupted into cheers and confetti fell from the ceiling. Each person was wearing cone-shaped hats and the living room was decorated with different ornaments colored in his favorite hues. His family was there and so were his friends, and oh, how could he almost forget...

It was his 18th birthday!

"So, what do you think?" You spoke from behind him. He turned around to see you smiling like an idiot and tugging on the string of a party you picked up from the floor.

"This," he began. "This is amazing! Wh-"

"Well, son, the candle's almost melting. Wanna make a wish?" Leon's dad emerged from behind the small crowd with a three-layered cake balanced on top of his palms. The icing of the pastry was blue, edible police-related finishing touches garnished it with such perfection he almost didn't want to eat it for the sake of admiring and staring at the cake, and a single candle formed into the number 18 as an emphasis to his recent age was placed on top with a tiny flame dancing around in the air. Leon closed his eyes and wished for the best before blowing the candle, watching as the fire disappeared into a swirling smoke. Everyone rejoiced once again.

When voices had began dying down one by one, Leon's father called his name and picked up a box from underneath the table after placing the cake down where it wouldn't fall down.

"Leon, you're going to be attending the police academy soon and in the next few years you'll be the cop you always wanted. So, as a gift, I give you this gun." He opened the rectangular cardboard box where a gun laid and presented it to his child, Leon's eyes sparkling in delight at his very own weapon. "I know you'll be taking good care of Matilda."

"Matilda?" Leon asked in confusion.

"You know, like, Mathilda from Leon: The Professional," his dad replied. Leon chuckled in response before he carefully took the gun out of its container, still a bit iffy about touching it.

"I'll be taking good care of this, dad."

"I know you will."

"You still have that gun?" You spoke as you gestured towards his firearm.

"Yep, she still looks good as new. I didn't want to break my promise," Leon responded. He turned his gun around to show you just how much he kept it safe like a mother would to a child. Your E/C orbs twinkled in admiration, a feeling in your heart you had kept for a very long time flittering in a joyous manner for the first time since you last saw him.

"Nothing's really changed, huh?"

"I don't want to change anything for now...especially now that you're back here with me."

*****

So, I found this image on google and an idea suddenly popped into my head lmao.

Anyway, WE'RE BACK! I was busy in school blah blah blah. I think yall know that already.

#leonkennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy imagines #leon s kennedy x reader #leonxreader #leon kennedy x you #resident evil #residentevil2 #resident evil fanfic #leon kennedy #leon kennedy fanfic

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kokujin-josei-simmer · 4 years ago

Photo

THIS IS A LONG POST NOT RELATED TO THE SIMS, SORRY BUT I JUST NEED AN OUTLET. THIS POST IS ABOUT JAPAN.

1st picture is of Norihisa Tamura, Japan’s Minister of Health, Labor & Welfare on tv with no mask and what’s supposed to be a face shield. That man went on national TV looking that ridiculous.

The other photo is in Kabukicho, Tokyo after 8PM...when all the bars/restaurants are supposed to close but 40% of them are ignoring the request (yes, the government keeps asking them to close because the law limits them) mainly because they can’t afford to close.

More about that here:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210817/p2a/00m/0na/023000c

And the last picture is rush hour in Tokyo, ALL of those people are getting on/off the train and all during Tokyo’s 4th (yes FOUR) State of Emergency. The pictures highlight the incompetence of Japan’s leaders & the slow/ineffective measures they’ve taken to fight the spread of the virus. Allowing The Olympics to go forward was pretty much the point of no return *the 2 photos of the crowds were taken last month, Aug 2021*

I’m talking about Japan because my bf is leaving soon (Saturday) to visit Japan.

Don’t mistake this post for any sort of travel advice: don’t try to book a trip there if you have no business going there, besides...you’ll be banned from entering the country. Even folks who have business in Japan (foreign students/employees who already have their visas) are still banned from entering the country.

He’s going back because he has a relative in the hospital whose condition was worsening (it seems their condition has slightly improved) and it’s unrelated to COVID-19. He wouldn’t jump on a plane to Japan, during a pandemic, if he had any other choice. He’s fully vaccinated and always wears a mask (double mask) when out in public.

I know a lot of weebs on here who probably think Japan is “doing well” because the numbers are much lower than the US (always the constant comparison to the US but never mind the fact that the US pop is 360M compared to Japan’s 126M) but the reality is: Japan still, to this day, doesn’t have mass testing sites meaning lower number of people are being tested daily. No lockdowns, extremely slow vaccine rollout, and they just threw out over a million doses of Moderna due to contamination.

The hospitals cannot handle the number of infections and many people have been turned away from the hospital which has lead to deadly consequences for some, like the pregnant woman who was forced to give birth at home which resulted in her newborn baby dying. A woman in her 70′s who had diabetes was denied a hospital room, she too died as a result. Now I’m just reading about the actress, Haruka Ayase, who has pneumonia due to COVID-19 yet the hospital made room for her. I’m not saying she deserved to die but Japan is clearly picking & choosing who is more important.

I think the only upside to this is the fact that my bf will have to quarantine at his parents home for 2 weeks in Osaka (not Tokyo, which is good since the biggest outbreak is of course in the largest city, Tokyo) so (hopefully) he won’t be exposed to the virus if he stays at home. Plus he has to quarantine, the government requires anyone returning to Japan to install an app that allows them to call you at home (video-calls) to verify that you are your quarantine location. I read one woman’s account, she’s a permanent resident, about how they video-called her twice in the same day: within 30 minutes actually. They most likely won’t do that to my bf because he isn’t a “scary foreigner” since quite a few Japanese folks (including racist, ultra right-wing politicians) are still lying & blaming foreigners for all the cases in Japan.

Oh and a FYI: from the folks I follow on Twitter (foreigners living in Japan), they’ve stated that lots of folks in Japan, especially Tokyo, are ignoring the State of Emergency. They continue to go out to bars, restaurants which increases the spread and the risk of infecting their loved ones at home/coworkers/classmates/etc.

It’s irritating knowing all this and reading posts from people who have no ties to Japan, don’t know anyone from Japan and can’t even be bothered to read posts from people who actually live there claiming “they defeated the virus” or still denying that it’s actually a hell of a lot worse than they’re letting on.

We can compare cities, we can compare Tokyo to NYC and see how the response to the virus has been. NYC had a lockdown, rent relief for its residents ($2.7B available but the payout has been disastrous, the new Governor is trying to speed it up), workers & students were allowed to work/attend classes from home meaning no crowded mass transit. We had mask mandates & even now NYC requires proof of vaccination to go to most places like restaurants, gyms, etc.

Tokyo is not allowing workers/students to work/attend class from home so their mass transit (a city of 13 MILLION, 37 MILLION in the metro area, quite a few more than here in NYC) is PACKED. There was no real lockdown because the government is limited in its power, they’re just now *over a year later* trying to vote to change that. I haven’t heard anything about any rent relief just the ¥100000 paid out once, that’s about $930 USD, to adults and a one-time stimulus payment to businesses that was less than $20K USD. There’s no mass testing site meaning testing throughout the country is still limited.

Tokyo set up a “lottery” the other day in Shibuya which required people to go the location to try and earn a spot for a vaccine. They could’ve had this lottery online but Japan is so behind the times they clearly didn’t think this was a problem...to have a large number of people moving around during a pandemic. Of course it was a mess and the governor of Tokyo (Koike) had the nerve to try to blame the staff for the large crowds.

My bf has to get a PCR test document (in Japanese) & it has to be SIGNED by someone at the clinic. Fortunately he’s able to get it in one day (day before his flight) but it’s just the fact that Japan is the only country in the world pulling this nonsense. If we didn’t find out about the handwritten/signed document he would’ve flew all the way there and been denied entry into the country.

He’ll be there for 3 weeks, the other positive side of this trip (other than being able to see his family/relative in the hospital & not having to be in Tokyo) is that he is, of course, picking up some stuff for me. But only if it’s safe to do so though, I don’t want him going to jam-packed stores, since he has a week to look around it should be less crowded at the stores during business hours when most people are at work/school.

My list:

Famima socks & imabari towel *I think it’s actually a handkerchief ( ファミリーマート (Family Mart) convenience store has a clothing line)

Some donuts from Mister Donut (I’m not joking, as long as there’s no cream they’ll last outside of the fridge for 2-3 days before getting stale)

Muji cotton headbands (they no longer sell them at the NYC locations)

Baton d’or (fancier alternative to Pocky, they cost almost $10 a box)

Amanatto (look up natto, it’s a candied version of that)

Some little knicknacks from Osaka like fridge magnets, he thinks a hoodie/sweater with Osaka on it might be too cheesy/touristy

Maybe Melano CC, it’s cheaper than ordering online ($11 vs $20+)

Probably some other food/snacks

Etc. - still thinking if I need/want anything else

He’s also giving me a video tour of Osaka (大阪) so I can see places like his parents town Izumi ( 和泉市) & places he used to hang out in like Amemura ( アメリカ村 - full name is Amerikamura Village) so I’m just trying to get into the positive side of this and enjoy seeing Osaka beyond G.Map.

So to wrap this up, it’s already too long but I just wanted folks to know that things aren’t so peachy in Nippon, and it won’t be for a while. Hopefully, with more people getting sick of Suga’s (Prime Minister) inaction over the pandemic they’ll be more motivated to vote out the useless, racist LDP (Liberal Democratic Party: don’t be fooled by the Democratic part, they’re quite right wing and conservative) party. He’s already suffered several embarrassing setbacks from recent elections such as an LDP candidate losing the Yokohama mayoral race to an opponent, very embarrassing since Yokohama is Suga’s hometown.

So I’m hoping for a better future for Japan (for everyone, but I’m actually hoping for the imperialist, oligarchy of the US to collapse) and for safe travels for my bf and anyone else who has to travel during this pandemic.

#non-sims #japan #japan state emergency #osaka #大阪 #日本 #japan pandemic #COVID-19 vaccine #stfu weebs #ファミリーマート #family mart #famima #アメリカ村 #和泉市

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toonpunk-game · 4 years ago

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Fluff Updates 4: Some Core Concepts

Well, it’s time for another one of these. We’re going to do a little housekeeping, first and foremost: we’re going to show you the currency of the world--the rainbow-colored Chromatic Dollar; the inkbloods, whose condition of is spoken of seldomly and somberly; and, rather belatedly, Toonpunks themselves! What is a ‘toonpunk’, how is it different from a ‘cyberpunk’ or a ‘steampunk’, and why would anyone want to be one? Read on and find out!

The Chromatic Dollar

If you’ve been in the open population for any length of time, you’ve probably seen or heard about the Chromatic Dollar—usually called “CDs” or “Hands”. This is the currency of the world today—not the only one, of course, but definitely the most important one. Almost everywhere you’ll ever go, hands are the preferred legal tender: you’re going to get paid in them, and odds are you are going to steal quite a few. So, for those of you who don’t already know, time to get yourselves learnt!

The CD is an asset-backed currency—which means that in theory, each bill represents a fixed quantity of ink. However, it’s not quite so simple as that (get used to that phrase, newcomers). Rather than being directly traded at a depository for ink, most CDs contains ink in themselves: each dollar is woven out of fabric, and tinted by being immersed a watered-down mixture of colored ink. When submerged in cold water, this ink can be drawn out of the bill, leaving it blank. As you may recall, inkish life needs a regular infusion of ink to survive. What this means is that chromatic dollars are, in fact, literal meal tickets: normal civilians can immerse them in cold water to bleed the ink out of them, creating a mixture that is substantial enough to maintain an inkish life form, but is not strong enough to be classified as a hazardous material.

Of course, even that is not quite so simple. Of the 7 CD denominations of CD—White, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Red, and Black—only 5 actually contain ink within them. The white and black CDs do not actually contain any ink at all, due to respectively being worth very little and being worth a really great big bunch. White bills are the “single unit” denomination—they represent precisely one “CD”. They are not actually dyed, and are simply desaturated colored bills. Their value comes from the fact that they can be traded in bulk to the Morbux cartel reclamation facilities in exchange for bills of greater worth. They are often used as a baseline currency for small transactions—specifically as tips in retail or service industries.

Yellow bills are the smallest denomination which actually contain ink. They each contain approximately 1/1000 of a milliliter of ink, and are worth 500 CDs. Other denominations are Green (1000 CDs, or 1/200 of a milliliter); blue (5000 CDs, 1/100); purple (10000 CDs, or .2 milliliters); and red (50000 CDs, or .5 milliliters). Black bills, like white bills, do not contain any ink in themselves; but unlike white bills, are worth such a ridiculously high amount that it is actually impossible to store that much ink in a single bill. Specifically, a black bill is worth an entire liter of ink, or 200,000 green bills—a whopping50 million CDs. Black bills are basically never put into circulation—they were only invented so that governments and mega-corporations would have an easier time arranging bulk ink transfers between each other. Instead of physically procuring and delivering ink en masse, they could simply transfer bills (or credit for a bill, more accurately) and redeem them with their bank of choice.

History of the Chromatic Dollar

The Chromatic dollar was introduced into circulation by Black Sea Banking in 2090, 2 months after the Frontier Development Bill permitted the production and exchange of company-owned currencies. While frontier companies were the primary beneficiaries of this provision (since it allowed them to reestablish the “company store” of bygone eras) BSB was the first major company to introduce private bills for widespread circulation. A limited run of black, red, and (now-defunct) orange bills were distributed to several of BSB’s partners in lieu of liquid ink; and then, after this initial success, BSB allowed its inkish employees to receive a portion of their salary in CDs instead of their normal currencies. The option proved enormously popular, since it allowed inkish persons to sustain themselves without making trips to dedicated ink depositories. Demand steadily grew, until an inordinately successful write-in campaign garnered 16.5 million signatures imploring BSB to introduce the CD into public circulation. After drafting the exchange rates, BSB began printing chromatic dollars for public use in 2092—and it was all uphill from there.

Now, just over 200 years later, the CD is the most common currency in local space. It’s traded on all civilized worlds, and a number of the uncivil ones as well. Wherever electronic infrastructure exists, the CD will soon follow—even to places as remote as Pluto. The only place it has not found purchase is on the frontier worlds, where efforts at civilization are often bowled over by six-pack wars, or other even more unpleasant things…

Inkbloods

In most materials, elemental ink is sparse—less than 0.002% of the total composition. In the Saskatoon municipal area, this number can go as high as 0.006. In human beings, this number skyrockets to 0.65%—the highest concentration outside of ink-based life forms. While this might not sound like much at a glance, it must be understood that even a small amount of ink carries enormous potential: differences of as little as .05% blood-ink-concentration have been shown to increase life span, muscle growth, and cognitive capacity by tremendous amounts—upwards of 20%, in many cases. Naturally, there is a tremendous temptation to use it as a performance enhancer—and it is here that inkbloods enter the equation.

An “inkblood” is any meatman who has a BIC of 2% or higher; and has maintained such for longer than 24 hours. The human liver can filter out small quantities of ink, much as it can filter out alcohol or other substances; but there are some people who deliberately maintain a high BIC for an extended period of time, for several reasons: at a glance, inkbloods are more physically able than most humans—the ink within their bodies swells their muscle mass to considerable proportions, and they often enjoy sharpened senses and longer lives. Furthermore, they often display an enhanced aptitude for illustration and inktek. However, there is a damning dark side to this: all inkbloods will, with time, invariably descend into utter raving insanity.

First among the inkblood degenerations, both in severity and in order of onset, is an immutable compulsion towards self-flagellation. Over the course of their derangement this will increase from such relatively benign things as discomfort with their hairstyle, to the wholesale removal of fingers, limbs, and eyes. While these compulsions never drive the inkblood to suicide, they will leave them hideously disfigured: while the ink will regenerate small portions of their bodies over time, any limbs or large internal organs removed will usually have to be replaced.

As of writing, no medical consensus explaining this phenomenon has yet been reached. Potential explanations range from acute derangement resulting from over-acuity of the senses, to a form of cognitive decline no more remarkable than mercury poisoning; but there are others on the fringe of the medical community, who whisper of a spiritual dimension to the ink--one which reacts poorly to prolonged observation...

Toonpunks

What is a “Toonpunk”? Most of you reading this will already know—but those of you from very isolated areas, or those of you who have just incarnated, may be unfamiliar. The word shows up often enough to return billions of search engine results; and it’s such a common talking point that a whole 3.5% of all current news articles feature it as their primary subject (according to Billiun analytics from 2302). It is a recognized word in over 500 languages as disparate as Russian, Urdu, Japanese, Quenya, and English.

Vernon Vernacular’s Living Dictionary defines Toonpunk thusly: 1. Noun. A person, most commonly young and/or of inky description, who commits criminal actions including theft, assault, vandalism, arson, murder, and jaywalking, as a form of protest or self-expression. 2.Adj. Slang. Of or referring to anger or disdain towards large corporations, incumbent governments, The Inkquisition, capitalism, or functioning society as a whole.

“Toonpunk” is a stylistic movement that began in the year 2045, though its roots trace back to a year earlier. During The Rabbit’s I-day gag spree, billions of people were astonished to learn just how much devastation had been wrought by one animal in the name of slapstick. Among them were numerous working-class meatmen, many of whom were disillusioned with the dehumanizing day-to-day existence of a late-stage capitalist world. Knowing that the single greatest act of vandalism and destruction in history was committed “because I wanted to” captured the imaginations of people who had very little power of their own.

As Bloody March carried on, the tension very rapidly became unmanageable. Nearly every country on Earth was struggling under the weight of an unprecedented refugee crisis, and a slew of freak environmental disasters. Many governments employed violent and reactionary measures which often only compounded the issues—most famously during the P-K massacre in Russia. By the end of the month, wide-scale riots were commonplace throughout most of the civilized world, and would not simmer down again for almost 3 years.

It was during this period that the first Toonpunks began appearing. Shortly after The Rabbit disappeared, a number of disparate gangs began emulating his unique brand of terrorism: prioritizing vandalism, property destruction, and public visibility over material gain. This form of high-risk-low-reward crime was described by many of its practitioners as a form of rebellion or self-expression against an increasingly bizarre and stifling world. This was most notably espoused by High Noon and the Longcoat Gang on April 1, when they defaced the side of the Thunder Tower Office Plaza and publicly lynched Thomas Thunder’s 2 youngest sons.

Toonpunk didn’t become a popular movement for almost 3 decades. After the Thunder Tower incident, it was generally regarded as a form of neo-terrorism; and it did not receive its Robin-Hood-Style grassroots support until 2084, when the new meatman generation spawned a vocal anti-Inkquisition counterculture. Nostalgic for their forefathers’ liberty of expression, the Confederacy of Classic Culture lead a brief but eventful series of public demonstrations. When the Ministry forcibly disbanded them three months later, its supporters were forced to adopt a more unconventional and direct form of protest—and so the modern Toonpunk mythos was born.

Today, Toonpunks are often regarded in the same way that hacktivists were in the 21st century, and beekeepers were in the 22nd—as a small minority working outside the law for the good of the people; and they are often romanticized in movies, television, and music. In the common parlance, “Toonpunk” is often mistakenly used to refer to any inkman criminal or gang, regardless of their ideology—much to the chagrin of its devoted supporters.

That’s enough about the philosophy side of things, though—how does this affect you? If you’re reading this, you are most likely a Toonpunk—or one of your friends is, or you stole this from one. Judging by the company you keep, we here at Electric Eye can tell a few things about you:

-You’re probably broke. According to our own research from 2300, 65% of self-identified Toonpunks and Toonpunk sympathizers exist within or just above the poverty band—with the remainder primarily coming from middle-class arcology families. 25% of those polled reportedly spent between 1500 and 2700 hands a month on food, with most of the rest going towards rent; and 70% reportedly have no form of personal motorized transportation. A small but notable minority of toonpunks exist within the upper strata of society—most having identified their lifestyle as a “gilded cage”.

-Your job is probably terrible. Most lower or middle class toonpunks in our poll were working temporary or menial jobs—usually as factory hands, miners, construction workers, data entry clerks, personal assistants, or retail employees. 60% were working part-time, while another 34% were working as day laborers; and 43% were additionally pursuing higher education on top of their job and illegal enterprises. Many from the upper salary bands described themselves as “not in employment, education, or training”—which has by itself lead to the stereotyping of upper-class toonpunks as either spoiled, bored sociopaths; or misguided activists.

-You could be doing this for basically any reason. When we asked our subjects what originally drew them to the toonpunk lifestyle, we received numerous different answers. Most of these fell into one of a few categories. 24% of those polled stated that they had been laid off or fired from their legitimate employment during a time of financial stress—commonly cited reasons were mortgage, children, or medical care. 22% did it for themselves, stating they liked it, they were good at it, and they truly felt alive. 16% stated that it was simply the way of life they had always known; and a further 16% maintained that they had no additional attraction to the toonpunk life, and were merely lashing out at a corrupt and unjust world.

8% were pursuing some form of revenge against an estranged friend, family member, or co-worker; and 7% took it on as a “one-time-thing” needed to pay a debt of gratitude, blood, or actual debt. 6% cited an intense criminal compulsion due to mental illness, or that they were simply drawn that way. 3.7% maintained that they were victims of one or more shadowy and malevolent conspiracies with city/world/solar-system-changing implications; and finally, 1.3% stated the belief that they were the pawns of extra-dimensional beings, for whom the whole of our universe is a work of simulated misery they created for their own twisted entertainment.

#cyberpunk writing #Cartoons #cyberpunk #worldbuilding #scifi writing

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watchonlinewds · 4 years ago

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sciencespies · 4 years ago

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What Neuroscientists Are Discovering About Stuttering

https://sciencespies.com/nature/what-neuroscientists-are-discovering-about-stuttering/

What Neuroscientists Are Discovering About Stuttering

Gerald Maguire has stuttered since childhood, but you might not guess it from talking to him. For the past 25 years, Maguire — a psychiatrist at the University of California, Riverside — has been treating his disorder with antipsychotic medications not officially approved for the condition. Only with careful attention might you discern his occasional stumble on multisyllabic words like “statistically” and “pharmaceutical.”

Maguire has plenty of company: More than 70 million people worldwide, including about 3 million Americans, stutter — that is, they have difficulty with the starting and timing of speech, resulting in halting and repetition. That number includes approximately 5 percent of children, many of whom outgrow the condition, and 1 percent of adults. Their numbers include presidential candidate Joe Biden, deep-voiced actor James Earl Jones and actress Emily Blunt. Though those people and many others, including Maguire, have achieved career success, stuttering can contribute to social anxiety and draw ridicule or discrimination by others.

Maguire has been treating people who stutter, and researching potential treatments, for decades. He receives daily emails from people who want to try medications, join his trials, or even donate their brains to his university when they die. He’s now embarking on a clinical trial of a new medication, called ecopipam, that streamlined speech and improved quality of life in a small pilot study in 2019.

Many famous people have a stutter or did so as a child, including (left to right) presidential candidate Joe Biden, actor James Earl Jones and actor Emily Blunt.

(Left to Right: Michael Stokes; U.S. Embassy photo by S.J. Mayhew; Gage Skidmore)

Others, meanwhile, are delving into the root causes of stuttering, which also may point to novel treatments. In past decades, therapists mistakenly attributed stuttering to defects of the tongue and voice box, to anxiety, trauma or even poor parenting — and some still do. Yet others have long suspected that neurological problems might underlie stuttering, says J. Scott Yaruss, a speech-language pathologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. The first data to back up that hunch came in 1991, Yaruss says, when researchers reported altered blood flow in the brains of people who stuttered. Over the past two decades, continuing research has made it more apparent that stuttering is all in the brain.

“We are in the middle of an absolute explosion of knowledge being developed about stuttering,” Yaruss says.

There’s still a lot to figure out, though. Neuroscientists have observed subtle differences in the brains of people who stutter, but they can’t be certain if those differences are the cause or a result of the stutter. Geneticists are identifying variations in certain genes that predispose a person to stutter, but the genes themselves are puzzling: Only recently have their links to brain anatomy become apparent.

Maguire, meanwhile, is pursuing treatments based on dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain that helps to regulate emotions and movement (precise muscle movements, of course, are needed for intelligible speech). Scientists are just beginning to braid these disparate threads together, even as they forge ahead with early testing for treatments based on their discoveries.

Slowed circuitry

Looking at a standard brain scan of someone who stutters, a radiologist won’t notice anything amiss. It’s only when experts look closely, with specialized technology that shows the brain’s in-depth structure and activity during speech, that subtle differences between groups who do and don’t stutter become apparent.

The problem isn’t confined to one part of the brain. Rather, it’s all about connections between different parts, says speech-language pathologist and neuroscientist Soo-Eun Chang of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For example, in the brain’s left hemisphere, people who stutter often appear to have slightly weaker connections between the areas responsible for hearing and for the movements that generate speech. Chang has also observed structural differences in the corpus callosum, the big bundle of nerve fibers that links the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

These findings hint that stuttering might result from slight delays in communication between parts of the brain. Speech, Chang suggests, would be particularly susceptible to such delays because it must be coordinated at lightning speed.

Chang has been trying to understand why about 80 percent of kids who stutter grow up to have normal speech patterns, while the other 20 percent continue to stutter into adulthood. Stuttering typically begins when children first start stringing words together into simple sentences, around age 2. Chang studies children for up to four years, starting as early as possible, looking for changing patterns in brain scans.

It’s no easy feat to convince such young children to hold still in a giant, thumping, brain-imaging machine. The team has embellished the scanner with decorations that hide all the scary parts. (“It looks like an ocean adventure,” Chang says.) In kids who lose their stutter, Chang’s team has observed that the connections between areas involved in hearing and ones involved in speech movements get stronger over time. But that doesn’t happen in children who continue to stutter.

In another study, Chang’s group looked at how the different parts of the brain work simultaneously, or don’t, using blood flow as a proxy for activity. They found a link between stuttering and a brain circuit called the default mode network, which has roles in ruminating over one’s past or future activities, as well as daydreaming. In children who stutter, the default mode network seems to insert itself — like a third person butting in on a romantic date — into the conversation between networks responsible for focusing attention and creating movements. That could also slow speech production, she says.

These changes to brain development or structure might be rooted in a person’s genes, but an understanding of this part of the problem has also taken time to mature.

All in the family

In early 2001, geneticist Dennis Drayna received a surprising email: “I am from Cameroon, West Africa. My father was a chief. He had three wives and I have 21 full and half siblings. Almost all of us stutter,” Drayna recalls it saying. “Do you suppose there could be something genetic in my family?”

Drayna, who worked at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, already had a longstanding interest in the inheritance of stuttering. His uncle and elder brother stuttered, and his twin sons did so as children. But he was reluctant to make a transatlantic journey based on an email, and wary that his clinical skills weren’t up to analyzing the family’s symptoms. He mentioned the email to current National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins (director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at that time), who encouraged him to check it out, so he booked a ticket to Africa. He has also traveled to Pakistan, where intermarriage of cousins can reveal gene variants linked to genetic disorders in their children.

Even with those families, finding the genes was slow going: Stuttering isn’t inherited in simple patterns like blood types or freckles are. But eventually, Drayna’s team identified mutations in four genes — GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA from the Pakistan studies, and AP4E1 from the clan in Cameroon — that he estimates may underlie as many as one in five cases of stuttering.

Oddly, none of the genes that Drayna identified have an obvious connection to speech. Rather, they all are involved in sending cellular materials to the waste-recycling compartment called the lysosome. It took more work before Drayna’s team linked the genes to brain activity.

They started by engineering mice to have one of the mutations they’d observed in people, in the mouse version of GNPTAB, to see if it affected the mice’s vocalizations . Mice can be quite chatty, but much of their conversation takes place in an ultrasonic range that people can’t hear. Recording the ultrasonic calls of pups, the team observed patterns similar to human stuttering. “They have all these gaps and pauses in their train of vocalizations,” says Drayna, who cowrote an overview of genetics research on speech and language disorders for the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics.

Still, the team struggled to spot any clear defect in the animals’ brains — until one determined researcher found that there were fewer of the cells called astrocytes in the corpus callosum. Astrocytes do big jobs that are essential for nerve activity: providing the nerves with fuel, for example, and collecting wastes. Perhaps, Drayna muses, the limited astrocyte population slows down communication between the brain hemispheres by a tiny bit, only noticeable in speech.

Researchers created mice with a mutation in a gene that, in people, is linked to stuttering. The mutant mice vocalized haltingly, with longer pauses between syllables, similar to what’s seen in human stuttering.

(Adapted from T.D. Barnes et al./Current Biology 2016; T.Han et al./PNAS 2019; Knowable Magazine)

Drayna’s research has received mixed reviews. “It’s really been the pioneering work in the field,” says Angela Morgan, a speech-language pathologist at the University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia. On the other hand, Maguire has long doubted that mutations in such important genes, used in nearly all cells, could cause defects only in the corpus callosum, and only in speech. He also finds it difficult to compare mouse squeaks to human speech. “That’s a bit of a stretch,” he says.

Scientists are sure there are more stuttering genes to find. Drayna has retired, but Morgan and collaborators are initiating a large-scale study in the hopes of identifying additional genetic contributors in more than 10,000 people.

The dopamine connection

Maguire has been tackling stuttering from a very different angle: investigating the role of dopamine, a key signaling molecule in the brain. Dopamine can ramp up or down the activity of neurons, depending on the brain location and the nerve receptors it sticks to. There are five different dopamine receptors (named D1, D2, and so on) that pick up the signal and respond.

During the 1990s, Maguire and colleagues were among the first to use a certain kind of brain scan, positron emission tomography, on people who stutter. They found too much dopamine activity in these people’s brains. That extra dopamine seems to stifle the activity of some of the brain regions that Chang and others have linked to stuttering.

Backing up the dopamine connection, other researchers reported in 2009 that people with a certain version of the D2 receptor gene, one that indirectly enhances dopamine activity, are more likely to stutter.

So Maguire wondered: Could blocking dopamine be the answer? Conveniently, antipsychotic drugs do just that. Over the years, Maguire has conducted small, successful clinical studies with these medications including risperidone, olanzapine and lurasidone. (Personally, he prefers the last because it doesn’t cause as much weight gain as the others.) The result: “Your stuttering won’t completely go away, but we can treat it,” he says.

None of those medications are approved for stuttering by the US Food and Drug Administration, and they can cause unpleasant side effects, not just weight gain but also muscle stiffness and impaired movement. In part, that’s because they act on the D2 version of the dopamine receptor. Maguire’s new medication, ecopipam, works on the D1 version, which he expects will diminish some side effects — though he’ll have to watch for others, such as weight loss and depression.

In a small study of 10 volunteers, Maguire, Yaruss and colleagues found that people who took ecopipam stuttered less than they did pre-treatment. Quality-of-life scores, related to feelings such as helplessness or acceptance of their stutter, also improved for some participants.

Ten adult volunteers who stuttered were given ecopipam, a drug that blocks one version of the dopamine receptor, for 8 weeks. They stuttered significantly less when they were on the drug than they had before the treatment.

(G.A. Maguire et al./Annals of Clinical Psychiatry 2019/Knowable Magazine)

Ecopipam isn’t the only treatment under consideration. Back in Michigan, Chang hopes that stimulation of specific parts of the brain during speech could improve fluency. The team uses electrodes on the scalp to gently stimulate a segment of the hearing area, aiming to strengthen connections between that spot and the one that manages speech movements. (This causes a brief tickle sensation before fading, Chang says.) The researchers stimulate the brain while the person undergoes traditional speech therapy, hoping to enhance the therapy’s effects. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the team had to stop the study with 24 subjects out of a planned 50. They’re analyzing the data now.

Connecting the dots

Dopamine, cellular waste disposal, neural connectivity — how do they fit together? Chang notes that one of the brain’s circuits involved in stuttering includes two areas that make and use dopamine, which might help explain why dopamine is important in the disorder.

She hopes that neuroimaging can unite the different ideas. As a first stab, she and collaborators compared the problem areas identified by her brain scans to maps of where various genes are active in the brain. Two of Drayna’s genes, GNPTG and NAGPA, were active at high levels in the speech and hearing network in the brains of non-stutterers, she saw. That suggests those genes are really needed in those areas, bolstering Drayna’s hypothesis that defects in the genes would interfere with speech.

The team also observed something novel: Genes involved in energy processing were active in the speech and hearing areas. There’s a big rise in brain activity during the preschool years, when stuttering tends to start, Chang says. Perhaps, she theorizes, those speech-processing regions don’t get all the energy they need at a time when they really need to be cranking at maximum power. With that in mind, she plans to look for mutations in those energy-control genes in children who stutter. “There are obviously a lot of dots that need to be connected,” she says.

Maguire is also connecting dots: He says he’s working on a theory to unite his work with Drayna’s genetic findings. Meanwhile, after struggling through med school interviews and choosing a career in talk therapy despite his difficulties with speech, he’s hopeful about ecopipam: With colleagues, he’s starting a new study that will compare 34 people on ecopipam with 34 on placebo. If that treatment ever becomes part of the standard stuttering tool kit, he will have realized a lifelong dream.

Knowable Magazine is an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews.

#Nature

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aquarianwisp · 6 years ago

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Everyday things you can do to build your witchy supplies and cheap ways to do it

Burning to get your witchy supplies started but have no idea where to start? My suggestion- start anywhere and with everyday things! Herbs To get a herb collection started, you do not have to have homegrown herbs or herbs from metaphysical stores which can be pricey. You can start a simple herb collection with just herbs available from your grocery store. If you are not a green thumb or you live in an apartment with no space for a garden, this is a really good option for getting a collection started. Just because something came from the grocery store doesn’t make it any less magical, and many people are under the impression that due to the mundane nature of how the herbs were obtained they are therefore less effective. This is not true at all! If you like doing the whole drying process yourself, you can go to the fresh food sections and pick up bunches of basil, parsley, mint, peppermint, rosemary, sage, dill, lemongrass, coriander, tarragon, oregano etc very cheap and usually already in a perfect bundle ready to be dried! You just need to take them home and hang them up somewhere dry for a few days to a week or so before they will be all dried and ready to use. If you are lazy and can’t be bothered or don’t have time to do the drying process, you can go to the spice section and find many of these same herbs already chopped up and dried out. If the packaging on the product makes you feel a bit “meh”, just take them home and place them in a jar or other similar container where they can remain dry, and the look of the container makes you feel inspired.

Gathering herbs and flowers is another really great option. Of course, if you are not experienced in recognizing wild herbs and flowers, I recommend you practice gathering a bit differently. Try gathering with the help of your community. Some of your neighbours might be green thumbs and be willing to share some of their plants with you. I used to live near someone who hedged their garden with basil, and every time their basil hedges grew out of control they would trim them. They were happy to give me the trimmings of their basil plants. They also gave me the rosehips that they had on their rose bushes, and if they had roses or lavender growing I would always ask for some trimmings if they were willing to share. People are actually more generous with their gardens than you think! A lot of avid gardeners are always willing to share cuttings as well, so if you know how to grow from a cutting this is a really good way to also build a herb collection. Any dandelions I see around my home I like to gather for drying, and any other flowers I can easily recognize such as hibiscus, daisies, frangipani, marigolds, chrysanthemum, cherry blossom, magnolia etc I will always try to gather a bit here and there. Another really cool option is to go to community gardens and gather the plants there that you can use, where they are labelled and everyone is free to take what they need! Save your orange or citrus peels for drying as well, as you can use these to emit the smell of their essential oils when placed over a heat source! Herbal teas are another really great option to safely consume herbs. Of course, check with your medical practitioner as some herbs contained in teas may cause issues with medications etc, (You can never be too safe when it comes to things you choose to eat/drink) however, herbal teas are a really great way to enjoy the benefits of the herbs in a safer manner than say, walking onto the street, picking up what you think is a certain type of herb and then making a tea out of it. Jars Jars are simple to obtain, and you do not have to start buying a million jars from your local dollar store just to have that witchy aesthetic that everyone seems to want. Recycle the jars from your food to store herbs or to use in spells. Pasta sauces, mayonnaise, anchovies, preserved foods, peanut butter, etc etc, anything that comes in a jar. Not only is this a great way to reduce waste, but glass is a safer option for storing things as you will not have the nasty toxins from plastic leaching into your herbs, oils, moon water, floral waters etc, and they look so much more attractive than plastic. And having all sorts of types of jars in different sizes and shapes makes for a very rustic witchy aesthetic look anyway. Collect natural objects Homeware stores have started selling bits of driftwood, false flowers, shells, pinecones, pebbles etc for ridiculous prices so that rich people can look fashionable and “rustic”. There is no point in buying these things when you can go to the beach and pick up a piece of driftwood or some shells for free. Objects picked up in their natural environment also seem to retain their energies more so than those objects that have been commercialised. Scour your local nature strips or parks for pretty looking dried leaves, pine cones, nice shaped rocks and anything else that inspires your witchiness. Make sure that you respect the spirits of these areas. Do not take more than what you need, and ensure that you ask permission from the spirits before taking. It is always good to leave an offering in its place- usually something organic such as fruit, seeds or nuts which can feed the local ants or birds.

Collect ribbons and coloured paper Every time it’s Christmas or you are given a gift, save the ribbons or wrapping. String has so many uses in witchcraft, and different colours have different meanings that can be used in all sorts of rituals. You can reuse them as well if you don’t end up burning them. Coloured paper can also take on meanings if you will it so. Tell people you want candles for Christmas Tell everyone who asks what you want for Christmas or your birthday that you really want to decorate your space and you love candles and you are dying to get some. Then watch as all your friends and family give you tons of different types of candles. Trust me, you can never go wrong with this. Candles are often so cheap that people will buy heaps of them for you in different colours and fragrances. The other good thing about this is that if people know you are a witch and they want to buy you a witchy type present they will often have no idea what to get you and will default to a candle. Buy candles from the lighting/electrical/barbeque section of a grocery store. Buying candles from a speciality metaphysical store, a homewares store, or even a dollar store can be expensive. But many grocery stores sell candles to be used in emergency blackouts or power outages, and some have started selling these types of candles in different colours as well. They often come in bulk packs and work just as well for half the price. You can also buy birthday candles and use those for your spells, especially if you need to do a quick spell. If you are after some really beautiful white candles, buy candles listed as “church candles”. These are sold cheaper than other white candles, probably because churches get all sorts of discounts. But they often are moulded in a really classical shape so they can look sometimes more beautiful than just your plain ol’ white candle. You do not have to burn your entire candle down for a spell to be effective. If you don’t write your own spells you will often see spell instructions telling you to allow the candle to completely finish burning. This is a waste of time and a waste of the precious candles that you conned every one of your family members into buying you last Christmas. It is also ridiculous- some candles burn for 18 hours or more, and it is totally unsafe to leave candles unattended. Do you have 18 hours to monitor a candle? Nope. You can cheaply make your own specialised spell candles, you do not have to waste 20 dollars on one from a metaphysical store. Yes, that’s right, with a microwave and a cheap candle you can carefully melt the wax down, add a wick in one of those jars you saved and then add all the herbs and fragrant oils, flowers, or whatever you want to the melted wax before allowing it to dry. There is a lot of tutorials for this on the internet, but please make sure you go for candles that do not have a foil or aluminium wick holder on the bottom as these will catch fire in your microwave. Candlesticks with nothing but wax and a wick at the top are best for this. Please take precautions with hot wax. Otherwise, there is no reason why you need that fancy candle for triple the price. You do not need a fancy obsidian scrying bowl, a kitchen bowl with water works fine! That’s right! Those metaphysical stores who try and make you buy an expensive obsidian plate for scrying seem to have forgotten that water scrying is an art that has existed for centuries! Any reflective surface can be used for scrying, it doesn’t have to be a fancy looking crystal object. Learn to read playing cards for divination You do not need to spend on tarot if you cannot afford it. Pick up some playing cards and use the power of the internet to learn how to read them for divination! If you are a closet witch as well, no one will suspect a deck of playing cards either. Print pictures of deities at a photo store. Never before has it been cheaper to print pictures now that digital has taken over. My local department store has a photo printing station where you can buy photo prints for 5 cents. I take a USB of pictures I like of my deities that I found online and print them off as photos. Then I frame them in dollar store frames. BAM! You have an altar set up for a few dollars.

Buy festive decorations after the season has passed If it’s yule time and you are dying to decorate your house with holly, red and green, pine etc, wait until the next year to decorate (I know, it sucks, but if you’re frugal you can dig this). Go to a dollar store and buy up big after the Christmas period has ended in preparation for the next year. Holidays such as Christmas, Easter and Halloween have become so commercialised that there is a serious overproduction of decorations each year and after the season has passed the stores just want to get rid of stuff as fast as possible. This is when you can jump in and get some witchy looking objects for a really cheap price. What’s great is that a lot of dollar stores sell some very witchy looking decorations during these typically Christian festivals- Bunnies, eggs, chickens, skeletons, pine branches, holly, cauldrons, etc without realising. Splurge on expensive incense when you can. 20 dollar packet on incense? Get it. My advice here is- quality really shows when it comes to incense. I am a massive incense fan, but whenever I can afford it (which is not always, sometimes I too have to go for the two dollar packets) and I find a really nice packet of pricey incense I go for it. Why? The cheaper the incense, the faster the burn time and the less resin it contains. One of the reasons that incense gets that burnt smell is because it contains sawdust to help it burn. Cheaper incenses smell less fragrant and burn faster because most of the resins coating the sticks are substituted with more sawdust. That way, the manufacturer keeps the costs of production down. More expensive incense sticks often have a ton more resin in their coating, smell more potent, and burn slower with a more beautiful smoke colour. They are well worth their price, and when you experience it you will want to always try and get the pricier sticks. The more expensive sticks also tend to have more of the real resins in them. Sandalwood, for example, is actually an endangered species and has become very expensive to buy. So manufacturers who create cheap incenses often substitute with sandalwood smelling substances but never really use the real thing. If you can afford it, go for incense sticks manufactured with real Australian sandalwood. Australian sandalwood smells extremely similar to Indian sandalwood and is specifically farmed for incense production. Thus you are getting the real thing but you are not contributing to the endangerment of Indian sandalwood which is a culturally sacred species that needs to be protected. That being said, my point here is quality and a long lasting product will save money over time when it comes to incense.

Anyway, that’s all for my witchy money saving tips for now! I hope this helped you!

#witchcraft #witch #spells #spellcraft

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notlucy · 6 years ago

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Hi! I hope you're enjoying a slow week after recent busy times . I'm curious about your process. You seem to have many discrete steps, including, I think, writing, rewriting, line edits, and uploading. I've also seen you mention an out-loud reread and grammer edits as a separate thing. What exactly do each of these steps include? Do you do it all for everything you write (including nonfan stuff)? How long do they each take, relatively? big fan of your work! TY for all the effort and time :)

Hi! Thank you so much for this question, and also for the compliments about my work. I’m happy to talk about my process, but I want to preface it with the fact that I firmly believe that every single writer and creator is different, and that just because something works for/has helped me, does not mean it will work for or help everyone. In fact, some of the things I do might hinder other people, and that’s okay! A big part of doing this has been figuring out my own weird little idiosyncratic crap, which can be a fun part of everyone’s journey.

Another thing is: this is supposed to be fun! Yes, I’m attempting to pursue writing professionally, which is why I have developed this convoluted, nonsense process. However, I wouldn’t do any of it if I didn’t get some joy or enjoyment out of the crazy hoops I jump through for a final product - I really, really love doing all these ridiculous things, and it’s part of what makes writing fun for me. So if the thought of doing this is exhausting and you think I am a glutton for punishment, please don’t do it. Be smarter than me. Love your hobby and let it bring you joy however it brings you joy!

So, my process (my own, my precious)

Writing - This is the stage where I just spew everything out into Scrivener or Google docs. My outlines are sparse to none, and while I might have a single document with a numbered list meant to loosely correlate to eventual chapters, it’s more of a guideline than any definite thing. (For example, my outline for merBucky chapter 1 was the line “Steve leaves home”.) My first drafts are usually messy and incomplete, with ideas that aren’t quite fully formed, and the gist of a lot of things, without the meat of them.

The “don’t poke the bear” stage - where I try not to touch the story for 3 weeks to a month. Longer if possible. This allows me to forget what I’ve written entirely.

Rewrite - This is something I’ve been doing since Family Placement, to a certain extent, but didn’t really formalize until I was doing Small Star. Basically, I take that first draft, put it side-by-side with a blank document, and retype the entire thing from scratch. This allows me to take what I already had, read it fresh, and try to figure out what I actually wanted to say. During this phase, I tend to find a lot of those half-formed ideas, or areas where I was over-explaining, or places where I hadn’t quite gotten the characterization right. (I keep picking on merBucky, but a lot of the rewrites involved going, “who is this guy? I know it says Steve Rogers on the page, but uh…this is not Steve Rogers!”) The story usually grows between 15-20% during this phase, too, as I’m expanding a lot on basic ideas.

Line-edits - I have no idea if this is the official term for what I do, and I only started doing this when I got my new printer (the first story I did it on was Go Fish, I think), but I print the entire story out and go over it with a red pen. This is, I think, the biggest change to my writing process since I started, and I honestly have found it the most helpful. Seeing the work in a different medium helps me catch so much more. I tighten prose, I spot odd sentences, I see where I’m reusing phrases and words, etc. etc. Please don’t get me wrong, it’s a pain in the ASS to do it this way, but (for me) the results are worth it. This is also where the story shrinks back down another 10-15% as I’m cutting out a lot of extraneous shit.

Regretting everything - This is the part where I’m faced with a million red pen slashes to put back into the Scrivener document and I start crying. But it’s fine, it’s fine!

Beta - Self-explanatory. Story goes to between 1-3 betas at this point. (Note: this is not the first time other people have seen the story, usually, as I have some alphas I brainstorm ideas with, but this is usually the first time I’m asking for crit and not just cheerleading or brainstorming). Once the beta edits come back, I make the necessary changes.

Out-loud - Also self-explanatory. I read every single word of everything I post out-loud to myself. This is the final step to catch weird sentences, odd word choices, or things that just don’t sound naturalistic in dialogue. Or if, say, your one-armed assassin suddenly has two arms. Just lil’ things that the final once-over helps to catch.

Grammarly - I have a premium membership to Grammarly, and if you’re a SPAG nerd, I can’t recommend it enough. It catches a LOT of shit. Real pedantic shit that I never would have caught otherwise, and SPAG has never been my problem. It’s also good for catching where you’ve accidentally inserted two commas, or forgotten to throw in a period, or little tiny things your brain might jump over when you’re doing it yourself. Granted, it also points out a lot of things where I’m like “no Grammarly, you don’t understand my prose,” because at the end of the day it’s just a tool, and it’s what you make of it.

AO3 (if it’s fanfic) - I post, then I spend the next hour fretting, and then like months later I catch additional mistakes. So, you know. It’s a living.

To answer your question as to whether or not I do this for everything, the short answer is yes, the long answer is: yes if I give a shit about it. I will always do it for fic, or for fiction writing. When I’m writing for work or for school…eh, depending on the class/paper, I’ll do a lot of this, but not the whole process. And as far as how long each step takes me, it depends on the length of the story, but I reliably write around 1,500 words a day, same with rewrites. If I’m editing, I can get about 20 pages of line edits and/or inputs done in an hour-ish?

I hope that was what you were wanting when you asked! I feel like this entire thing is a cautionary tale. Mwah!

#notlucy's stupid process #notlucy writes #great question #nerding out about shit #notlucy answers

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taenys · 5 years ago

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🌙 tiffany’s magnetic moon tour fanaccount🌙

So, we got to the venue at around 1pm but only did a little drive-by to see if there was anyone already in line. There was no one, and my sister and I didn’t really want to be the ones to “start” the line, for fear of being kicked out by the venue staff. We instead just walked to a nearby café to have lunch and wait to see if more people showed up.

After a couple of hours, we walked to the venue again and there was still no one there, so we walked around the block again, and when we got back to the venue there were 3 people “in line”/waiting around by the entryway, so we decided to just wait with them. This made me 4th in line for the entire event. This guaranteed that I was going to be not only at the front row, but also in the center. At this point it was 3pm, and the VIP meet and greet thing was supposed to start at around 5:45 so it felt like a good time to be in line.

We stood in line, cold and nervous, but mostly just excited. I had replayed in my head over and over what I was going to say to her when I met her, but nothing sounded quite right. I’d seen from other people on twitter that they’d gotten hugs from her, and had time to say quite a few things, so I prepared myself for a similar experience. At around 6:20 (much later than the scheduled time for the VIP entry) staff finally called the VIPs and we all went through security. It was finally time to meet Tiffany herself

I gave the letter I wrote to her to her staff to give later. We were told meetings had to be done in groups of 5 or 6, so my sister, mom and I were in a group with the 3 people in line in front of us. When we walked in, Tiffany was seated on a bench by herself and her staff directed us to take a seat on the bench, 3 people on each side, and that they would take 2 photos and that was it.

I wasn’t really listening to anything anyone was saying though because the sight of Tiffany left me in shock. She was so tiny, and so PERFECT. How a human could have skin THAT clear and smooth, and a smile that shining…it was unbelievable. The 3 people in front of me obviously got the seats next to Tiffany, so I didn’t get to see her as closely nor did I get to directly interact with her during this VERY quick little “meet and greet.” She directed us (in her typical Manager Hwang way) on how to do the poses; first we did the “magnetic moon” pose which was just making a crescent moon by making your hand a “C” and placing it over your eye. The second pose we did finger hearts. My hands were shaking and my heart was racing the entire time.

Afterwards staff promptly directed us to leave and head for the main stage area now, but the two fangirls in our group stopped to ask Tiffany for a hug. They both got a hug and Ruby and I just awkwardly watched and walked very slowly in the direction staff was trying to get everyone to go. It was clear staff didn’t want anyone getting hugs or any special one on one time with Tiffany, it was just supposed to be a sit, get your picture taken and go sort of thing. I didn’t want to leave without telling Tiffany SOMETHING so I said “You look so beautiful Tiffany” on my way out and she looked at me and gave me that cute puppy dog look of hers where she furrows her brows (y’all know the one) and blew me a kiss with her hands in the sweetest way. My night was made with that alone. I didn’t get a hug but I was the first fan to tell her that she looked beautiful that night.

After that we all scurried to the barricade to get our spot for the show and, of course, I was front row right in the center. We considered going to buy merch before the crowd inside got bigger, but decided against it for fear of losing our spot in the pit. From then on out it was just time to wait for the show itself to begin. That moment when the lights go off and you know that means she’s about to step on stage, and the music starts up and the stage lights start swirling? Nothing will ever beat that feeling. It’s the best high there is. The curtain opened up and Tiffany stepped out. My heart literally stopped. Tiffany…was wearing…the tiniest tightest little red dress of all time. Ruby and I had discussed what she might wear for our show, since she’d been wearing something different each time so far. Never in my life did I imagine she’d decide to wear the ACTUAL SEXIEST OUTFIT OF ALL TIME for US. That TEENY TINY DRESS, hugging her curves in all the right places, paired with the black fishnet stockings and black boots, holy FUCK she came out to kill each and every one of us. My lesbian ass was DYING. No offense to anyone else who sees her at any of her other stops but, that outfit will never be topped. With her long black hair in those sultry loose waves, too? Iconic.

RFYL was her opening song, and what an opening THAT was. I remember screaming to Ruby next to me, “her SKIN????!!!!” because it was absolutely mind-blowing how smooth and flawless her skin looked? Like literal actual porcelain. And then how tiny she is in real life?????? I know her profile says she’s like 5’4 or something but she’s 5’1 MAX. She’s TINY. And sooooo thin, but so RIDICULOUSLY beautiful. I couldn’t even focus on the music initially, I was still too mesmerized by her physical presence, and how absolute IN LOVE with her I am. After RFYL she did Over My Skin which…singing that song, with those lyrics, with the sexiest choreography in THAT dress…just fuck me up Tiffany Hwang. What a win for the lesbians tonight, I swear :’) I recorded fancams of every song, and took a few little breaks to take pictures so I’ll post those after I post this.

Heartbreak Hotel was next, and I was so glad she did perform some of her older Korean songs too. God, her voice though. She’s SO good live. The notes she was hitting, those runs she was belting? Legendary. I was scream singing along with her the whole show (my voice is gone now). She kept telling us to dance and seemed to give more fanservice to fans who were singing along and dancing too, so I made sure to…well, be myself I guess. I’ve never been the kind of fan who stays seated during a concert or just goes to “listen.”

One of my favorite things to do is blast kpop and dance around the house when I’m home alone, and one of the things she said during one of her talks in the show was that she wanted to see THAT kind of energy. A judgement free zone, so even though I didn’t hear anyone behind me scream singing or feel anyone near me dancing (the dude next to me was quiet and stiff as a board the entire time), that didn’t stop me and when Tiffany looked over at me (which she did A LOT), she’d get that BIG smile on her face, with her signature eye smile, and I’d MELT. It made her so happy to see us having fun along with her. Seeing Tiffany have fun playing around with us, nothing feels better. We made her smile, I made her smile, and you really can’t beat that feeling.

So during the next song which was Talk, one of my all-time favorites of hers, she saw me signing my heart out at her and knelt down to sing to me and we just had this sweet perfect little moment where we were singing to each other and I just????? I have no words. Love. All I felt was love. Pure and simple. That’s my love up there, signing her heart out and I’m so proud of her. I’ll gif that moment but I swear, it was the most intimate and significant moment of my life. And it had to happen during my favorite song of course :’) I’m going to cry every time I listen to Talk now :’( She looked at me an absurd amount of times during the show; I can’t even count them all. But she came and sang to me again during Runaway, and it was again…INCREDIBLY intimate and sweet and magical and felt so special. I’ll probably notice even more little eye contact moments from here when I go through all my fancams, but for now those were the two most significant moments.

My overall feeling now after replaying it all is…Tiffany is unquestionably one of the greatest artists of our generation. More than just her being one of the best vocalists (that husky soulful voice of hers remains unmatched), she’s pushed herself in so many ways and it’s been so amazing to witness? She was teased about being an “awkward” dancer, so she came out with “I Just Wanna Dance” and proved everyone that she could be a fucking great dancer. She’s a perfectionist, she’s her own worst critic, but she’s never given up. God, I fucking admire the fuck out of her for that. She’s never stopped; she’s never given up, she’s kept her head up, kept smiling through all the bullshit she’s gone through because at the end of the day singing and performing is her entire life.

I’ve never seen anyone as passionate about singing and performing as she is. When she’s on stage you KNOW that this is the whole reason she was put on this earth. There was never any other option for her, and that’s why she left home at 15 and moved to Korea, without the support of her family, not knowing anyone and not speaking fluent Korean. She went with the fiercest determination, the biggest dream, and an unstoppable spirit. She was going to sing, that was all that mattered to her. Training day and night, being under the nightmare of the Korean music industry, she was willing to tough it all out just for a chance to be on that stage, to share her voice, and eventually to share her own original music for people.

And now she’s 30, doing her first NA tour. Baby Hwang Miyoung’s dream of inspiring the lives of millions has long since come true. The collective feeling of warmth and comfort we all felt when she sang The Flower was so serene and so breathtaking. Some of her songs make you feel like you’re being held in a comforting embrace. Others make you feel like you can conquer the world, some make you feel stronger than you are, and some make you feel the butterflies of a first love. I can’t wait to see what else she comes up with in the years to come, and I can’t wait for the next fucking tour!!!!!!

And, to quote something I wrote about her over 5 years ago that holds truer now than ever, “Tiffany is an actual angel that came down from above to spread love and warmth and happiness and inspire us all to be the best that we can be and to never stop dreaming and fighting for what we want. basically, Tiffany is the epitome of all that is good in this world. Tiffany is a blessing to this earth. she encompasses everything good, everything positive, every good feeling, she just…she lives it. in everything that she does, she works hard, she never stops smiling, she never stops being who she is and finding a reason to keep going. she’s the most determined and the most driven and the most optimistic, and that inspires the fuck out of me. i just…i can’t believe someone as amazing as her exists in this mess of a world. she’s a reminder that there is good in this world, there is still beauty and love and laughter and light.”

That’s what Tiffany is to me.

#personal #I’m listening to Magnetic Moon and sobbing. That song is The Best Song of All Time probably.#tiffany feels

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meetnategreen · 5 years ago

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Glenn Kessler

Oct. 22, 2019 at 12:00 a.m. PDT

We originally had planned to offer a deconstruction of one of President Trump’s Four-Pinocchio tweets over the weekend, as an example of how many things the president can get wrong in fewer than 280 characters.

But then the president had his wild Cabinet session with reporters, and we shifted course.

So please watch the video above for the deconstruction of the tweet. Below is a quick roundup of some of the more notable claims the president made to reporters.

#1) “I don’t want to leave troops there. It’s very dangerous for — you know, we had 28 troops, as it turned out. People said 50. It was 28. And you had an army on both sides of those troops. Those troops could have been wiped out.”

It was Trump that had said 50 troops. But these tiny numbers belie the fact that Trump ordered the withdrawal of about 1,000 U.S. troops from northeastern Syria from about a dozen bases and outposts scattered across the region, where they worked alongside Syrian Kurdish partners. The hasty withdrawal, prompted by Trump’s decision to let Turkey invade, meant many of these bases had to be quickly abandoned.

#2) “I always thought if you’re going in, keep the oil. Same thing here. Keep the oil. … We’ve secured the oil.”

Trump appears to be talking about a plan to leave a few hundred troops along the Iraqi border area, to prevent the Islamic State from reestablishing its self-described caliphate in the area. That would also help the Kurds keep control of oil fields in the region. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper hinted at such a move when he told reporters over the weekend that all forces would be removed from Syria in the coming weeks “except for — the president has approved the — keeping some forces at Tanf garrison in the south.”

But the plan still has to be put into action. Trump’s language suggests the United States is taking control of the oil. But the U.S. military does not seize foreign oil because it’s against international law “to destroy or seize the enemy’s property.”

#3) “We have a good relationship with the Kurds. But we never agreed to, you know, protect the Kurds. We fought with them for 3½ to four years. We never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives.”

Trump misleadingly frames the agreement as the “rest of their lives.” But the United States had certainly made a deal with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is said to have lost about 11,000 soldiers in defeating the Islamic State, after being trained and equipped by the United States. (Turkey considers elements of this force to be a terrorist threat.) To prevent a Turkish invasion, the United States persuaded the SDF to pull back up to nine miles from the Turkish border. In August, the SDF destroyed its own military posts after assurances the United States would not let thousands of Turkish troops invade. But then Trump tossed that aside.

For context, here’s how Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke of the Kurds in 2018.

Secretary of State Pompeo: "…Syrian Kurds have been great partners. We are now driving to make sure that they have a seat at the table.." @jinsadc

229 people are talking about this

#4) “They’ve been fighting for 300 years that we know of, 300 years.”

Trump frequently and misleadingly frames this as a “hundreds of years” conflict between the Turks and the Kurds. There has been a hundred-year effort to create a Kurdish state in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, with the Kurds frequently manipulated by great powers seeking to flex their muscles against a particular nation, such as Iraq. The United States, for instance, spent $16 million promoting a rebellion in Iraqi Kurdistan in the early 1970s, only to step aside when the Shah of Iran (then a U.S. ally) decided to cut a border deal in 1975 with Iraq. “There is confusion and dismay among our people and force,” the Kurdish leadership cabled the CIA. “Our people’s fate in unprecedented danger. Complete destruction hanging over our head. No explanation for all of this.”

#5) “The whistleblower gave a false account. Now we have to say, well, do we have to protect somebody that gave a false account?”

Trump says this repeatedly — he’s already earned a Bottomless Pinocchio — but it’s simply not true. Our line-by-line look at the whistleblower complaint, compared to the rough transcript of the July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other information, shows that it was fairly accurate.

#6) “So was there actually an informant? Maybe the informant was Schiff. It could be Shifty Schiff. In my opinion, it’s possibly Schiff. He and his staff, or his staff or a whole group.”

This is ridiculous speculation. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) is not the informant. The whistleblower complaint was investigated by the inspector general for the intelligence community, found to be credible and then submitted to Congress.

#7) “I gave away my salary. It’s, I guess, close to $450,000. I give it away. Nobody ever said, ‘He gives away his salary.’ Now it comes up because of this. But I give away my presidential salary. They say that no other president has done it. … They actually say that George Washington may — may have been the only other president to do — but see whether or not Obama gave up his salary.”

The president’s annual salary is currently $400,000 — and Trump is the third president to give away his salary. Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy, both very wealthy at the time, gave their salaries to charity. Barack Obama gave about $1.1 million to charity during the eight years he was president, according to a Forbes analysis. His presidential salary during that period was $3.1 million, though he made millions more from book sales.

#8) “Best location, right next to the airport, Miami International, one of the biggest airports in the world. Some people say it’s the biggest, but one of the biggest airports in the world.”

Trump defended his now-abandoned decision to hold the Group of Seven summit at the Trump National Doral resort, but he needs to get his airport rankings straight. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is No. 1 in the world by passenger volume, with more than 100 million passengers, but Miami does not even rank in the top 20. In 2017, it ranked 40th, according to the Airports Council International.

#9) “Doral was setting records when I bought it, because I owned it for a period of time. Setting records. It was going to — there was nothing like it. It was making a fortune. And then what happened? I announce I’m going to run for office, right? And all of a — and I say we got to build a wall, we got to have borders, we’ve got to have this, we’ve got to have that. All of a sudden, people — some people didn’t like it. They thought the rhetoric was too tough. And it went from doing great to doing fine. It does very nicely now. It’s actually coming back, I understand, very strongly. But Doral was setting records.”

Trump’s Doral resort has been in sharp decline in recent years, according to the Trump Organization’s own records. Its net operating income fell 69 percent from 2015 to 2017; a Trump Organization representative testified last year that the reason was Trump’s damaged brand since he became president. Trump bought it in 2012 and spent several years renovating it, so it’s possible 2015 was the resort’s best year. There is no evidence as yet that it is coming back “very strongly.”

#10) “I don’t know if you know George Washington, he ran his business simultaneously while he was president. … George Washington, they say, had two desks. He had a presidential desk and a business desk.”

We will leave it to readers to decide if the practices at the nation’s founding are relevant today. Washington was one of the nation’s largest landowners when he became president, though they were of dubious value, and he was a shareholder in the Patowmack Co., which aimed to build canals that would have given his land more value. Some historians have been critical — one wrote that Washington “betrayed private trusts in pursuit of private gain” — but our colleague Joel Achenbach, in his 2005 book, “The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West,” concluded: “There is remarkably little tarnish to be mined in the Washington archive. We can be confident that his reputation as an honest man is not the product of a historical whitewash.”

Achenbach told The Fact Checker: “My thinking is that he did remotely run Mount Vernon as a going concern during his presidency, via letters to his farm manager, but it was a completely different era. Back then he had to borrow cash just to make the trip to get inaugurated.”

#11) “Hey, Obama made a deal for a book. Is that running a business? I’m sure he didn’t even discuss it while he was president, yeah. He has a deal with Netflix. When did they start talking about that? That’s only, you know, a couple of examples.”

In defending the Doral deal, Trump mentions deals that Obama arranged after he left office, speculating without evidence that Obama started negotiating them when he was president.

#12) “I don’t think you people, with this phony emoluments clause — and by the way, I would say that it’s cost me anywhere from $2 billion to $5 billion to be president — and that’s okay — between what I lose and what I could have made.”

The emoluments clause is not phony; it’s right in the Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8): “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Trump’s net worth is valued at $3 billion, so it’s difficult to see how being president could cost him even more than his net worth. Bloomberg News recently estimated that his net worth grew 5 percent in 2018, following two years of declines, bringing it back to the level calculated in 2016. Forbes calculated that as of September, his net worth is $3.1 billion.

#13) “You could end up in a war. President Obama told me that. He said, ‘The biggest problem, I don’t know how to solve it.’ He told me he doesn’t know how to solve it. I said, ‘Did you ever call him?’ ‘No.’ Actually, he tried 11 times, but the man on the other side, the gentleman on the other side, did not take his calls, okay? Lack of respect. But he takes my call.”

We gave this claim Four Pinocchios in July. There is absolutely no evidence that Obama tried to call North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, let alone meet him.

#14) “I see this guy, Congressman Al Green, say, ‘We have to impeach him, otherwise he’s going to win the election.’ What’s that all about? But that’s exactly what they’re saying. ‘We have to impeach him, because otherwise he’s going to win.’ I’m going to win the election.”

One problem with this complaint: Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) says he never said that. The Texas congressman noted that on Twitter, writing, “It’s no surprise that @realDonaldTrump, who promoted birther conspiracies about President Obama, who claimed there were nice people among the bigots and racists in Charlottesville, and who consistently engages in perfidy, would tweet another untruth. I never said that.”

#15) “They’re interviewing ambassadors who I’d never heard of. I don’t know who these people are. I’ve never heard of them.”

This is false. Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union and a big donor to Trump’s inauguration, testified to Congress on Oct. 17 that Trump in an Oval Office meeting on May 23 directed him, special envoy Kurt Volker and Energy Secretary Rick Perry to talk to his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani about Ukraine issues.

“We asked the White House to arrange a working phone call from President Trump and a working Oval Office visit,” Sondland said. “However, President Trump was skeptical that Ukraine was serious about reforms and anti-corruption, and he directed those of us present at the meeting to talk to Mr. Giuliani, his personal attorney, about his concerns. It was apparent to all of us that the key to changing the President’s mind on Ukraine was Mr. Giuliani.”

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allthecanadianpolitics · 6 years ago

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Okay but "some" core industries going under and "certain" areas being affected and some regions migrating to others because of heat... hate to tell you but that's not "the end of civilization." Its awful and it sucks and will suck for a ton of people and we need to act now to prevent it, yes! But humanity will still survive, the large majority of us! I truly feel like being over-exaggerative is just lying. Don't, please. What do we have if not our honesty? Let's work on climate change truthfully

Well that assumes that no runaway climate effects happen, which is far from certain, and if they happen, humanity is FUCKED:

Our ability to keep Earth habitable may be more limited than we realize.

Human activity could push the planet over a number of tipping points that would cause global temperatures to rise even higher than we’ve driven them already, according to a new paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research suggests that certain natural systems on the planet could be activated by warming and consequently trigger further warming. In that situation, Earth’s average temperature might reach 4 or 5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. (For context, the goal of the Paris agreement was to prevent temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C.)

The paper’s authors refer to this scenario as “Hothouse Earth.”

“These tipping elements can potentially act like a row of dominoes,” Johan Rockström, a co-author of the paper and the executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre,said in a news release. “Once one is pushed over, it pushes Earth towards another. It may be very difficult or impossible to stop the whole row of dominoes from tumbling over. Places on Earth will become uninhabitable if ‘Hothouse Earth’ becomes the reality.”

If this were to happen, the world would become far warmer than it’s been for at least the past 1.2 million years. Sea levels around the globe would likely rise between 33 and 200 feet higher than they are now.

Read this too:

His warning is supported by James Hansen, who declared that “a target of two degrees (Celsius) is actually a prescription for long-term disaster.”

The burning of coal, oil, and natural gas has made the planet warmer than it had been since the rise of civilization 10,000 years ago. Civilization was made possible by the emergence about 12,000 years ago of the “Holocene” epoch, which turned out to be the Goldilocks zone - not too hot, not too cold. But now, says physicist Stefan Rahmstorf, "We are catapulting ourselves way out of the Holocene.“

This catapult is dangerous, because we have no evidence civilization can long survive with significantly higher temperatures. And yet, the world is on a trajectory that would lead to an increase of 4C (7F) in this century. In the opinion of many scientists and the World Bank, this could happen as early as the 2060s.

What would "a 4C world” be like? According to Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (at the University of East Anglia), “during New York’s summer heat waves the warmest days would be around 10-12C (18-21.6F) hotter [than today’s].” Moreover, he has said, above an increase of 4C only about 10% of the human population will survive.

Believe it or not, some scientists consider Anderson overly optimistic.

The main reason for pessimism is the fear that the planet’s temperature may be close to a tipping point that would initiate a “low-end runaway greenhouse,” involving “out-of-control amplifying feedbacks.” This condition would result, says Hansen, if all fossil fuels are burned (which is the intention of all fossil-fuel corporations and many governments). This result “would make most of the planet uninhabitable by humans.”

Moreover, many scientists believe that runaway global warming could occur much more quickly, because the rising temperature caused by CO2 could release massive amounts of methane (CH4), which is, during its first 20 years, 86 times more powerful than CO2. Warmer weather induces this release from carbon that has been stored in methane hydrates, in which enormous amounts of carbon – four times as much as that emitted from fossil fuels since 1850 – has been frozen in the Arctic’s permafrost. And yet now the Arctic’s temperature is warmer than it had been for 120,000 years – in other words, more than 10 times longer than civilization has existed.

According to Joe Romm, a physicist who created the Climate Progress website, methane release from thawing permafrost in the Arctic “is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle.” The amplifying feedback works like this: The warmer temperature releases millions of tons of methane, which then further raise the temperature, which in turn releases more methane.

The resulting threat of runaway global warming may not be merely theoretical. Scientists have long been convinced that methane was central to the fastest period of global warming in geological history, which occurred 55 million years ago. Now a group of scientists have accumulated evidence that methane was also central to the greatest extinction of life thus far:the end-Permian extinction about 252 million years ago.

Worse yet, whereas it was previously thought that significant amounts of permafrost would not melt, releasing its methane, until the planet’s temperature has risen several degrees Celsius, recent studies indicate that a rise of 1.5 degrees would be enough to start the melting.

And you have a pretty fucking ridiculous concept of ‘oh humanity will survive so everything is ok’. At the bare minimum, millions to billions of people are going to die. Millions of animal species will go extinct. There is going to be mass starvation from failing crop yields and new zones of poor rainfall. There is going to be a mass refugee crisis from entire countries going underwater. There are going to be wars and conflicts triggered over water. There are going to be vast areas of the earth that will be uninhabitable due to deadly heatwaves.

None of this is ok, and nobody is fear mongering by pointing it out.

#Anonymous

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berniesrevolution · 6 years ago

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How democratic is the United States? According to a poll released by the bipartisan Democracy Project in June, a clear majority (55 per cent) of Americans consider US democracy to be “weak”, with two-thirds (68 per cent) saying it’s “getting weaker.” Half of Americans believe the nation is in “real danger of becoming a non-democratic, authoritarian country”.

In February, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) classed the United States as a “flawed democracy” for the second year in a row. The US ranked 21st in the EIU’s Democracy Index, behind 20 “full” democracies including Germany, Canada and the UK.

“Popular trust in government, elected representatives, and political parties has fallen to extremely low levels in the US,” the EUI analysts wrote. “This has been a long-term trend and one that preceded the election of Mr Trump as the US president in November 2016.”

Indeed it did. The sad truth is that Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause, of the United States’ democratic dysfunction.

Consider his own election victory: Trump secured the presidency in November 2016 despite winning three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. Turnout stood at a miserable 55.7 per cent; more Americans stayed at home than voted for Trump and Clinton combined.

Consider the president’s latest appointment to the Supreme Court: the scandal-plagued Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate, in a 50-48 vote, earlier this month – the narrowest confirmation vote since 1881. Not only did a majority of Americans oppose his appointment, but the 50 senators who put him there represent states covering just 44 per cent of the US population.

Consider the Senate itself: each state is guaranteed two senators, regardless of their size. Yet, given current demographic trends, by 2040, according to calculations by Baruch College political scientist David Birdsell, “70 per cent of Americans are expected to live in the 15 largest states … That means that the 70 per cent of Americans get all of 30 Senators and 30 per cent of Americans get 70 Senators”.

Consider also the upcoming midterm elections, on 6 November, described by former White House strategist Steve Bannon, no less, as “a referendum on the Trump presidency.” Thanks to Republican gerrymandering, reports the Washington Post, “some independent analysts think Democrats will need to win the popular vote by seven to 11 percentage points just to get a bare majority” in the House of Representatives. In 2016, Republicans managed to secure 55 per cent of the seats in the House with less than 50 per cent of the vote.

Minority rule, therefore, is the order of the day. Despite winning fewer and fewer votes, Republicans have amassed more and more political power across the various branches of the US government.

For how long should Democrats tolerate this fundamentally undemocratic, and anti-democratic, state of affairs? In November, they could win back control of the House, and maybe even the Senate too, in an anti-Trump “blue wave”. Would that provide a long-overdue opportunity – perhaps bolstered by a Democrat in the White House come 2021 – to address this broken democratic system in the United States? To slowly restore faith in the nation’s elections and institutions?

If a backswing brings us a Democratic government with a mandate for reform, here are eight simple steps they could take to try and fix, reform and improve our “flawed” democracy.

1) Abolish the electoral college

“The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” So said Donald Trump on election night in 2012, when it looked for a brief moment as if Mitt Romney might win the popular vote against Barack Obama. Today, of course, Trump sits in the Oval Office as a result of that very same electoral college – which, unbeknownst to many Americans, was created to boost the political power of slave-owning southern states.

Since the start of this century, the United States has elected two Republican presidents – Trump and George W Bush – who lost the national popular vote but won the majority of electoral college votes. How so? The electoral college elevates smaller, rural Republican states at the expense of bigger, more urban Democratic states. Compare California to Wyoming: the former has one electoral vote per 712,000 people, while the latter has one per 195,000 people. That means a vote in Wyoming has 3.6 times the impact in the electoral college as a vote in California.

The core of democracy is supposed to be the principle of one person, one vote, but the electoral college makes a mockery of that principle. And guess what? Most Americans agree. In June, a PRRI poll found that two-thirds (68 per cent) of Americans would prefer electing their presidents on the basis of the national popular vote, as opposed to the electoral college.

Abolishing the electoral college won’t be easy. It would need a constitutional amendment, which itself requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and the ratification of three-quarters (38) of the 50 states.

There is, however, an alternative to outright abolition. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement between a growing number of US states to pool their electoral college votes for the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote. The agreement is supposed to take effect once the participating states represent at least 270 electoral votes, the minimum number required to elect a president. As of October 2018, the NPVIC had been adopted by 11 states which, between them, have 172 electoral votes or 32 per cent of the total Electoral College.

2) Pass a new Voting Rights Act

Turnout in the United States is abysmally low by international standards – according to a Pew study in May 2018, the US came 26th out of 32 OECD countries. But Republicans are bent on reducing it even further. Voter suppression has become an integral part of the GOP’s election strategy at the federal and state levels. Take Georgia, where Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp – who, as secretary of state, also doubles as Georgia’s top election official – is trying to block 53,000 people from registering to vote, nearly 70 per cent of whom are black. His Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, is black.

In 2013, conservatives on the Supreme Court gutted a key section of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act which had required state and local governments in areas with a history of racial discrimination to obtain federal “preclearance” before making any changes to their voting laws. The Democrats, if they retake the House and the Senate, should immediately pass a new, beefed-up Voting Rights Act, which would:

– Prohibit racist voter ID laws at the state level. Over the past decade, more than a dozen Republican-led states have introduced restrictive voter ID laws. Their justification? To combat (mythical) voter fraud. The reality? A 2017 academic study found “a significant drop in minority participation when and where these laws are implemented”.

– Mandate that every state automatically register every voter. Thirteen states plus the District of Columbia have already approved automatic voter registration (AVR). In 2016, after Oregon introduced AVR, the state’s turnout increased by 4 per cent compared to the 2012 elections.

- Restore the right to vote to ex-felons. In the swing state of Florida, more than one in ten people of voting age – and a whopping one in five black adults! – are barred from voting due to a felony conviction. In total, and nationwide, around six million Americans with a felony conviction are currently disenfranchised – some of them for life. As the Sentencing Project points out: “We know of no other democracy besides the United States in which convicted offenders who have served their sentences are nonetheless disenfranchised for life.”

– Make election day a federal holiday. Countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Brazil and India either vote at the weekend or recognize election day as a public holiday. One recent study found that “creating a national holiday for election day would increase voter turnout by about 16 percentage points” and cause “voter turnout in the US to be consistent with other developed democracies.”

3) Ban gerrymandering

Is there anything more brazenly anti-democratic than redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts to secure a partisan advantage? That’s gerrymandering.

Take Pennsylvania. In November 2012, according to the Washington Post, “Democratic candidates for the state’s 18 US House seats won 51 percent of their state’s popular House vote. But that translated to just 5 out of 18, or a little more than one-quarter, of the state’s House seats.” How come? Because Republicans had drawn ridiculously-skewed district maps the year before.

Republicans in control of statehouses and governors’ mansions across the United States have gerrymandered their way to the “the most audacious political heist of modern times,” in the words of investigative journalist David Daley. Remember, as political scientist Lee Drutman, of the New America think tank, observed in January, “Gerrymandering is largely a US phenomenon … We’re the only country that uses single-member districts but doesn’t use independent districting commissions to draw them.”

Americans from across the political spectrum have expressed their dislike of gerrymandering. A bipartisan poll conducted by the Campaign Legal Center in September 2017 found that 71 per cent of respondents, including 65 per cent of Republicans, want the Supreme Court to define “clear, new rules” that end blatant partisan gerrymandering.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #electoral reform #progressive #progressive movement

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shadowluver1242 · 6 years ago

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I finished “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”

I read the full 12 chapters, plus the “Companion” section that had bonus stories in between the chapters, and “The Last Sled to Dawson”, “The Dream of a Lifetime”, and “A Letter From Home.”

This has to be my favorite comic series I’ve read so far. Not just because it’s Scrooge, but there’s so much heart and emotion put into it and you’re able to follow the story so easily (which for me is hard as I get easily distracted and forget where I’m at). But this story kept my attention and made me want to keep going to the next chapter, every night I thought “just one more, just one more!” I absolutely loved the story. If you want a more in depth review chapter by chapter, read below. (SPOILERS)

Again, thank you so much for who ever first made me find this (I actually can’t remember but it was probably a mix of everyone) as well as the album that made the story SO MUCH BETTER. Listening to the music while reading the chapter associated, really made you feel like you were in the story with the characters. I highly recommend reading this comic while listening to the music if any of you have not already. If anyone needs links or more info, feel free to ask!

This part will be a chapter by chapter review/my thoughts (some chapters might be merged together if they have similar topics).

“Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies”: I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this, but apparently this chapter was the intro, though it’s more like a AU of sorts. I thought it was cute though seeing Magica out of her element. My favorite part of it had to be her not recognizing young 10 yr old Scrooge while confusing Fergus for the rich old duck. But in her defense, they do look a lot alike.

“The Last of The Clan McDuck”: Now the story really begins! I wanted to get more history on Scrooge so that was one of the main reasons I wanted to read this series. It was actually a bit of a surprise to see the pampered, penny-pincher a humbled, poor and very sweet boy. Seeing how he turned into almost a completely different person is a bit sad really, but at least we know in his later years some of that sweet, caring side is still present. I admire Scrooge’s bravery in how willingly he left his family and the only life he knew for uncertainty and possibly danger at only 13 years old. He certainly matured very fast and unfortunately that forced his childhood to end at an early age.

“The Master of the Mississippi”: This was probably one of my least favorite chapters if I’m being honest. It was fun seeing a teenage Scrooge adapting in his new life in America and Uncle Pothole was certainly an interesting character! Plus seeing the Beagle Boys’ origins was interesting as well.

“The Buckaroo of the Badlands,” “The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark”, “The Raider of the Copper Hill,” Also “The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff”: So all of these chapters are in the “Wild West” portion of Scrooge’s life; his teenage years and early twenties. Seeing Scrooge already fighting for his fortune and failing at every turn was almost surprising in that he always seems to succeed in life. I was so convinced he’d strike it rich on the Copper Hill, but fate seemed to have other plans for him. However at this point in his life he’s still staying true to his roots and vowing to earn his fortune honestly. (But to be fair he does get $10,000. And back then that’s got to have been like a million dollars now a days.) I’d also wondered how he’d get along with animals, and it turns out he’s a real Disney princess. He gives love and respect to animals and they love him in return.

“The New Laird of Castle McDuck”: NERVE RACKING. Not only do the McDuck’s risk losing the ancestral home to their arch nemesis, but Scrooge DIES. (or just gets knocked out?) Anyway he goes to McDuck heaven where he almost stays before finally getting another chance (for becoming the stingiest person to ever live). He ends up using all the money he got from the Copper Hill to pay for the McDuck Castle. Plus we also see Scrooge use his specs for the very first time, though it’s only for reading.

“The Terror of the Transvaal”: Ah Flintheart, you were a scumbag before Scrooge came into the picture. Scrooge is a lion whisperer apparently, and he makes fun of Flintheart in front of the entire town before throwing him in jail, making a lifelong enemy.

“The Dreamtime Duck of the Never Never”: I was excited for this one. Love that Australian Outback theme! Scrooge rides on a camel head, which is perfect. I still love seeing how much animals love and trust Scrooge. He’s started to become less trusting of people due to being tricked at every turn, and therefore is a bit skeptical of the shaman in the desert. However seeing the dream, or prophesy of sorts, come true (which was super cool btw), it starts his admiration of history and architecture. Scrooge almost took that giant Opal that could easily have made him rich, but that would have been dishonest, and Scrooge decides against it (a bit begrudgingly). I’m so happy he got his dime back, it was worrying seeing him lose hope that his fortune would never come. He’s worked so hard and to give up now would be devastating. Thankfully he was inspired and his story finally started to look up.

“The King of the Klondike”, “The Prisoner of White Agony Creek”, “Hearts of the Yukon”, “The Last Sled to Dawson”: ...no words. I knew these would be my favorite sections. Yukon Scrooge, upper 20′s - early 30′s - in his prime, Scrooge. The beginning of his fortune. The beginning of Goldie. GOLDIE. Where do I even start?! Whew, this is going to be long. First of all, the whole ordeal Scrooge had to go through just to get to White Agony Creek was ridiculous. Finally he finds where the gold should be, but it’s not quite that easy. Everyone in Dawson mocks him endlessly for not spending any money on fun, which is completely unfair. The absolute worst part is when that mean old pig kidnaps him and chains him to the smokestacks of the boat. (Seriously this boy gets knocked out so much I’m surprised he doesn’t have a brain injury) The men mock him and then read the two only letters he’s ever gotten from his family out loud, one of which is from his mother who says they’re falling behind on payments for the castle, and the next...his father informing him that his mother has passed away. The men even mock him in his mother’s death. And Scrooge...freaking pulls a Sampson and pulls the smokestacks until they collapse onto the boat, throws a grand piano through a stained glass window, beats up any and all the men who dare fight him, and then drags the pig’s listless body through the main road in town for all to see until he can throw him to the mercy of the ‘law’ in the area. Then comes Goldie, he kidnaps her, and brings her back to his home for stealing his goose egg nugget (the biggest gold nugget ever) to show her how hard a miner has to work. They stay together alone in the wilderness for a whole month. My gosh was this chapter full of sexual tension. I’m such a die-hard Scroldie shipper now I can’t even deny it. Eventually the two part their ways, but end up meeting again in the near future when Goldie saves Scrooge from losing his claim (in a roundabout way). Then we get to see Scrooge’s last trip to Dawson before leaving the Yukon and moving on with his fortune. He loses his sled and has to return 50 years later to get it with Donald and the boys. The only thing of importance in the sled was old memories, but it was worth the fight for old Scroogey. This section was definitely the best, but molds Scrooge’s rough and tough attitude.

“The Billionaire of Dismal Downs”: After more than 20 years, Scrooge is finally coming home to Dismal Downs successful, he’s a billionaire. The whole town has come to greet him and as soon as he shows up, they give him a big round of...tomatoes and insults hurling at him. After all he’s done this is how he’s treated??! His wild temper quickly flares and Fergus is surprised at how his son has changed, as well as the town who thought he was such a nice boy. The town people believe he no longer belongs in Scotland. After a quick visit to his mother’s grave insert sobbing here Scrooge decides to participate in the games to show how much he belongs, he even wears a kilt! Now Scrooge should have dominated this, however he’s completely forgotten the rules, and therefore disqualifies himself almost every time. A young boy named Scottie tries to show him the ropes, however fails miserably. Eventually they return to the castle where his sisters make fun of Scrooge’s lock of golden hair hurr hurr and they all decide to move to Duckburg, America, that is, except Fergus who says he’s too old to move again. The chapter ends with ghost Fergus (who’s passed away in the night) and ghost Downy waving goodbye to their children before joining McDuck heaven. I literally cried in this chapter.

“The Invader of Fort Duckburg”, and “The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut”: Some more important chapters, but not extremely interesting in my opinion. We see the founding of Duckburg and the Junior Woodchucks, as well as the Panama Canal and more of Scrooge suffering from his sisters, who make him wear his specs full time after he repeatedly makes mistakes due to his failing eyesight.

“The Empire-Builder from Calisota”: Sigh. We see the deep fall of Scrooge’s morals. He visits his sisters, whom he hasn’t seen in quite a while, and takes them to Africa where he’s working on his current dealings with the natives. Instead of making fair trades like in the past, he uses cunning tricks to minimize his costs in buying the diamond mines he seeks. His sisters criticize him, but he brushes them off. He moves on to a voo-doo native tribe (his first mistake) who doesn’t want to sell. After being humiliated in front of his kin, he goes into town and recruits several people to help him burn down the village and destroy everything in sight while his sisters return to camp, ashamed of their brother. Scrooge then puts on a disguise and ‘rescues’ the clan leader who previously embarrassed him, and tricks him into signing over his land. This is far from the kind, humble, honest boy we knew in the beginning. He returns back to camp, triumphant, to gloat to his sisters only to find they’ve left him. There’s a lone note remaining saying he’s not the man they used to know and to come back once he changes his ways. Scrooge is initially enraged, feeling betrayed. However as he argues with himself, his father’s voice comes into his head, reminding him how he wanted to make his fortune honestly, and has now just committed his first (and only) dishonest trade. Scrooge realizes what he’s done, and as he tries to run after his sisters, the witch doctor returns and casts a curse on him to have a zombie attack him. However Scrooge is still in disguise, and quickly makes himself look normal, which tricks the zombie. However for the next several years the zombie would haunt him and occasionally show up. In Scrooge’s quest to apologize to his sisters, he makes many sidetracks in making his fortune. The zombie even causes the crash of the Titanic that Scrooge was riding on. (seriously everything is his fault) Finally, after 27 years, he returns to Duckburg to stay. His family has heard he was coming and decided to put aside their differences and be a family once again, even bringing the young Donald and Della. However Scrooge has completely changed, for the worse, and completely ignores his family, eventually chasing them out of his life, for good, but not before the young and feisty Donald can give him a kick in the rear.

“The Richest Duck in the World”: Feels. All feels. We finally see Scrooge as the miserable old man we know him as. Alone and bitter and cut off from everyone. But he becomes too lonely one Christmas and invites Donald and the boys up to the mansion, if only to show them the wealth and future inheritance when he’s gone. It’s as if Scrooge is expecting to die fairly soon, and he’s completely given up on everything. The bin is shut down, he’s not making any money or traveling anymore, he doesn’t leave his house, and he hasn’t even swam in his money in years. He really has just given up. But the boys manage to inspire him, in a way that they literally make him so angry he just can’t take it anymore and eventually returns the swift kick to Donald. Afterwards we see rejuvenated Scrooge - though still elderly, he feels full of life once again. Start DuckTales story...

“The Dream of a Lifetime”: I just had to read this because of the jumps in Scrooge’s dreams through his lifetime. It was adorable seeing young Scrooge, especially 10yr old Scrooge cussing out his nephew Donald for interrupting his dreams. Then on top of all that it ends with Scrooge finally reaching Goldie on the burning stage (which never happened), and the blushinggg hnnghhh and then freaking Donald sitting there watching the whole thing, just yes.

“A Letter From Home”: I had to read this one simply because I had read that Scrooge and Matilda make up. Boy howdy was this an emotional roller coaster, starting with Scrooge visiting his parents’ grave. Tears. Literal tears. Then Matilda wants nothing to do with him, that surprised me a bit considering how sweet and soft-spoken she was when she was younger. Plus she breaks the news about how Fergus never wanted Scrooge to find the treasure and calls him a bad son. My gosh my heart is aching for Scrooge at this point. The antagonist suddenly pulls a gun on Matilda, and Scrooge jumps in front of her without hesitation. Thank goodness the gun ‘misfires’. That definitely changed things between the two. Finally we get to see the interaction we’ve been waiting for. Scrooge and Matilda finally yell talk things out, and somewhat uncharacteristically, Scrooge cries and pleads for forgiveness. However, Matilda finally gets to hear Scrooge’s side and realizes just what he’s been through as well. They find a letter to Scrooge from Fergus, who actually did want Scrooge to find the treasure, and told him he and his mother were proud of him. It was one of the only letters Scrooge ever received from his parents, and he never, since the day they died, knew they were proud of him. sobs

That was a lot longer than necessary but even if you guys only read the sections you want that works. Thank you again!

#shad talks #The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck #Long Post #Scrooge McDuck #DuckTales

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