#SC debacle finale

[ladyknightskye]

Ok, so I was reading an article about the great D vs D Debacle going on in Florida, and I started fucking cackling because Nikki Haley, former SC governor and all in all not total shit stain of a human being told Disney to move to SC because “SC’s not woke but we’re not sanctimonious about it either.”

And she’s not wrong?

Like, yeah the government is solidly red and the voting districts are gerrymandered to hell and back but our Supreme Court struck down a six week abortion ban because of a privacy clause in our Constitution and our Republican lady senators struck down a total ban where one of them even called the men on their bullshit by outright comparing it to the Handmaids Tale.

So yeah, she’s not wrong.

PS Nikki Haley is also the first POC (though she is hella white-passing) female Governor of the state, and finally managed to get the Confederate off of the state house grounds, so like, I don’t like her but again - not total shitstain.

#ladyknightrambles #politics

[lord-rosenth0rne]

There are plenty of good conservatives. WHO who you donate money to DOES directly support shitty people who want certain groups pushed down (minorities, lgbtqia+, etc). The fucking audacity if you to get so heated and then say you don’t support chik fila. Im dead laugh. Do you not see how ridiculous you are??? Id hate to be your friend because you are literally being a bitter bitch actively harming any friend you might have you are minorities and lgbtq+. fuck off. (2/2)

(Sorry about this, guys. I just couldn't resist. I'll make this quick and politics will be off the blog asap. I'll get some funny stuff rolling when I'm done. Maybe some of Roomie's artwork as well.)

If you are so sure of yourself, come off of anon. There shouldn't be any reason for you not to if this is what you really believe. Unfortunately, resorting to name-calling disqualifies you in my book for meaningful debates but you really should be more proud about your stances instead of being anon.

And, I must stay it's bold of you to assume you'd even make the cut to be a friend of mine. So far, you've kinda shot yourself in the foot on that option. My friends and I don't talk to one another this way and we know where one another is coming from, even if it comes out wrong. We don't cancel each other and know when to agree to disagree. We barely even hold grudges. I'd rather not be your friend if that's the way you'd talk to yours in a disagreement. It's disgusting and abusive. My friends are well above all of that, thank you.

I'm not afraid to say my stance is the fact politics aren't black and white and no one should be treating it as such. A donation for a politician does not mean you support every little thing about them. Voting for a politician does not mean you support every little thing about them. It's naive to believe that. That's reality. You are choosing who you think is the best to run the country on their policies on various subjects. It's the same with Congress. What are their policies for protecting the country, what do they plan to do for the deficit, where do they stand on this, where do they stand on that? And you gather all of it up and figure out which is the best candidate for our country. It's very unwise to choose someone for a single policy alone and ignore the rest when it is a weighted decision. You are going to have to suck some things up when making a decision, especially when both politicians are the scum of the earth.

"Good Republicans (originally it was conservatives, the anon messaged to change it)"? According to what, exactly? Because they market themselves as LGBTQ+ friendly or minority friendly? What are their other policies like? Women's issues (including anatomy since some like to pretend a woman can't get pregnant during rape)? Abortion stance? Planned Parenting stance? Country issues? Security issues? Border issues? The deficit? The economy? Foreign affairs? Unemployment? Disaster response? What exactly ARE their stances on the LGBTQ+ and minorities and are they really allies or just trying to buy your vote only to not do anything once they get in? How do they feel about Trans people and transitioning? What do they think are basic human rights? Do they want troops overseas or to bring them home? How would they take care of our military and veterans? Police reform? What do they think of illegal immigrants? How would they help low-income families and neighborhoods? School funding? Medicaid? Social Security? Health insurance in general? How trustworthy are they? Are they sincere or is it empty promises to get where they want to be? What is their history like? Do you see why this isn't a black and white issue? There is no way you would ever have a candidate check all the boxes right. You could screw yourself over very easily if you do not pay attention. The same goes for Democrats. You thought they were off the hook? Nah, fam. Same damn thing. Rules for all, not for some.

If you're talking "Good Republicans" as in civilians, then you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot here as my original post pretty much defended the person in question. Scott IS a good person, as per his actions, but everyone wants to condemn him for doing what he thought was right.

Where do you draw the line? What is the most important out of all these issues and what issues would you allow to fall to the wayside, maybe hoping the candidate might not be so bad about it and have a change of mind? That's the issue you're facing every time you go up to the ballot box. At least, it is when you're well informed. When you're not, you're basically going the shallow route and picking a winner on what they've been most vocal about like a well-groomed dog at the annual dog show.

I don't support Chick-Fil-A for donating MILLIONS, not thousands, to anti-LGBTQ+ and discriminatory organizations, you know, places that SPECIALIZE IN THOSE ACTIVITIES. Same with the Salvation Army. Burger King knows what they did. Politicians don't specialize in that. They have much more going on than to be doing that. They have countries and states to run and nowadays, that's a career death sentence. I mean, you do support cancel culture. That's why you've messaged me, to confirm your stance on what happened to Scott, who also, mind you, sent donations to pro-LGBTQ+ charities, further proving my own point.

And yes, according to a lot of people as per your first message that I laughed at and deleted before realizing I wanted to respond, I'm supposed to be LGBTQ+ but there are a lot out there, including in the LGBTQ+, who don't believe ace/aro people belong there or exist in general. Oh, and I'm nonbinary. But that's okay. That doesn't mean I don't support them either way.

#politics #black and white #again #anon ask #Will be shutting that down again to keep the dash clear #I said what need to be said #Pretty tedious #Long post #SC debacle finale #tw:rape

[shasta-reese]

THEY BETTER NOT!!

I swear if Brainy actually goes back to the future and ceases to exist cuz he "has to merge with the mother brain" or whatever shit. I will be more pissed about that than SC not being canon. SC has always been a hope that could happen but Brainia being canon was always (in my mind) something solid, the thing that made me think "well at least we'll have this". As well as Dansen but with Dansen we knew they weren't gonna fuck with that cuz of what Chyler said at Clexacon at her solo panel that when they decided to give Alex a LI after Maggie that it would stick so nobody had any worries over Dansen not working out. But they've been fucking with Brainy and Nia since the beginning, they kept making them a sort of "will they, won't they" in a way with the amount of times that they broke up but got back together and we thought that they'd be safe after the whole Leviathan debacle. But now suddenly at the very last second before the finale Brainy is called to the future and not only that but will have to merge with the mother brain and cease to exist? No, no, no, NO! Literally have these two not gone through enough, their relationship is so wholesome and adorable (in the very few scenes we see them together). CAN THESE TWO JUST HAVE SOME HAPPINESS WITHOUT THE WORLD OR EITHER OF THEM DYING!?!

It was always a question at the back of my mind that if Brainy being from the future would affect their relationship but they never ever brought it up as a concern, and if Mon-el and Winn could just live in the future while being from the present didn't affect anything the same could be said with Brainy. BUT APPARENTLY these motherfuckers decided now was the time that Brainy "had to know he had to return to his time eventually", literally when he's finally happy with Nia and has formed a family in present day. It's fucking ludicrous!

#they better not go through with this #i stg #I HATE IT HERE #brainy #querl dox #nia nal #brainia #supercorp #i know this isn't supercorp related sorry #i just know more ppl will see this #and i wanna hear thoughts

[holdmyhopeinyourhands]

ngl the overhaul on shortened race points makes complete sense to me...? idk

no points awarded if 2 laps without a vsc/sc can't be completed by the leader avoids the whole spa debacle, where mv got 12.5 pts and lewis got 7.5, and arguably more stupidly, george with 9 pts. awarding more points for managing to stay on track for 2 sc laps than an entire sprint was stupid.

scaling points according to race distance completed seems reasonable to me? plus we're finally getting rid of half points which was always annoying.

and it's not as if shortened races happen every other week; something massive has to happen for a race not to be resumed, and only awarding full points after 75% race distance seems fair. it's like, a once every few years event; the last one was japan 2014, where we tragically lost jules bianchi.

but yeah. imola for a sprint? dumbfuckery. that track is so slender that the only difference it'll make is increasing the likelihood for incidents and adding a guaranteed standing start on the grid.

but i think i prefer the new points system for sprints? there's more in it for the midfield than just grid position now, which is good, i think?

wish they'd hurry up and expose their asses on abu dhabi though. shit needs changes. fast.

I'm more worried about how the fia will avoid teams fighting for an extra lap to end up in the 25, 50 or 75%. Like 1 lap could technically determine whether you get more point or not. And knowing the fia.... I don't trust them one bit to handle this appropriately. Also 50-75% point system is just at random like what is the reason for those choices?

#f1 ask #ask #anon #i like them cutting half points too anon #but this is the fia we're talking about #they'll screw this up spectacularly

[criston-cole]

I was in the sherlock fandom during the whole final season debacle, and seeing people get their hopes up for a canon SC ending makes my heart sink. Been on this merry-go-round too many times.

at this point they’ve basically told us outright so many times that it is not happening. i wish people would understand that and stop being so wild on social media but that’s not gonna happen. 

#ask #Anonymous

[an-gaol-seo-ol]

(ss lifted from bat-cat-reader)

Welp. This is my stop. I’ll be disembarking the SS SamCait here. At least, for now. I will still be here for OL content.

I wrote that 👆 feverishly at 4:45am, yesterday morning, before starting my work day. It was impulsive. I was shocked, tired, and frustrated. I let it sit in my drafts, all morning, while I ignored the elephant in the room. After work, I summoned the courage to re-read SH’s letter. Then, I slowly started taking in the wise words of my fellow blogger friends. They helped talk me off the ledge. I was able to see things in a different light. Last night, I was finally able to cross out what I wrote, above, in my sleepy morning haze. THIS 👆 is what SM should be - friendship, camaraderie, and respect, even when we don’t agree. Sadly, this is NOT what SC have been enduring for the last 6+ years.

I feel sad that it has come to this for Sam and, I’m assuming, Cait. Aside from this latest runaway dumpster fire debacle, Sam has always seemed like a well-rounded, smart, funny, down-to-earth guy. A sentiment echoed by anyone who has had the pleasure of working with him. And, the plethora of tw responses in support of him are proof of that. It sounds as though it’s been a rough road for the last six years or so. I can understand why he felt the need to finally write his manifesto. I hope that his finally taking a stand gives Sam the peace he deserves. Everyone deserves peace.

All of that said, mistakes were made by everyone. Sam. Cait. Their teams. TPTB. The fandom. Everyone is to blame here, not just the fans. And, definitely not just the shippers. As they say, “It takes two to tango.” Regardless, no one deserves to be bullied. No one.

As a shipper, I hope and pray for better days ahead. For everyone. Whatever that looks like.

[side-effect-of-the-meds]

What if Nicky and Erik brought Erin & Aaron to Germany to live with them instead of Nicky going back to SC? How would that go down? (would Erik and Erin get along?)

AAAAAAAAAA This took so long and turned out super shitty but I’m sad and tired. Please accept this meager offering of soft Twinyards!!! 

The twins attend a very posh Christian school but only because Luther is the pastor there. They’ve got high-quality uniforms and Erin hates them because in winter she has to walk around in a foot and a half of snow in a knee-length skirt. Aaron really likes the uniforms because they’re the most expensive clothes he’s ever owned. Bless my baby's pure, sweet, heart.   

It’s also very strict, keeping boys and girls separate for the most part. Because of this, the twins don’t see each other very often. However, since Aaron’s been going to school here since before Erin moved to Columbia, he’s got a fair amount of friends. He’s notorious for getting all the girls because he’s the best linebacker on their exy team. Senior year, he gets named one of the Head Boys. His new position + being an absolute teacher’s pet = Aaron abusing his privileges to sneak around the girls’ half of the school. He has Erin’s schedule memorized and knows that she’s probably bored in class so he’ll walk by the windows of her classes and make faces at her as he passes by. Erin won’t admit it but seeing Aaron stick his tongue out at her from the window is the best part of her day. 

The courtyard is the only place where girls and boys are allowed to be together. Ronnie has managed to attach herself to Erin’s side *cough*by Aaron’s request so that his sister won’t be a friendless fuck*cough* so she’ll drag Erin over to hang out with Aaron and his friends. Erin is intimidating so most of Aaron’s friends end up abandoning him in the courtyard. For the most part, it’s usually just the twins eating in silence while Ronnie yammers on and on about something or the other. 

So the twins have some semblance of a relationship before Tilda’s death. But after? Yikes. For the most part, the twins don’t talk to each other unless they have to. All those twin antics? They’re done. Aaron stops showing up in Erin’s classes to try to make her laugh. They no longer sit together at lunch. Both of them part ways, spending as little time together as possible. And it hurts. It hurts them both so much. Aaron kind of retreats into himself directly after his mother’s death. This lasts about a week before he gets over the shock of it all. After that, he can’t really bring himself to look his sister in the eye. He knows what she’s done and why but he doesn’t understand how she could do it. Maybe it’s because she’s too empty to feel anything for Tilda. Before Erin’s arrival, Aaron promised himself that he wouldn’t let her devolve into the empty, emotionless monster that their mother was. If Erin killed Tilda without remorse then it meant she was too empty to feel anything for her mother. That meant that Aaron had failed. Aaron can’t look his sister in the eyes, not because she killed their mother, but because every time he does, he’s forced to face the fact that he’d failed Erin. That isn’t how he sees it though. He starts to think that Erin is unfixable. He blames her for all his problems and starts to hate her. 

Erin is heartbroken. Everything she’s done, she’s done for her brother. With Tilda gone, Erin hoped to help her brother heal but it seems that she’s just made him worse. She lets him hate her. At least he’s not in danger anymore. 

However, the twins manage to pull together a united front in front of Luther. No matter what Erin’s done, Aaron isn’t going to abandon her to face Luther on her own. 

“Blue for boys, pink for girls,” Luther said as he extended matching duffle bags towards the twins. Erin and Aaron stood with their arms folded across their chests. Aaron cast a glance to his sister, whose only response was a shrug. “Just get packed,” Luther snapped. Dropping the bags on the floor, he left them to pack on their own. 

Once he’s left, the twins began packing. There wasn’t much for Erin to do. She just upended the drawers on the floor. Snatching the blue bag off the floor, she starts stuffing her clothes into it.

“But that’s mine!” Aaron whines. Erin makes direct eye contact with him as she crammed her bras into the bag. Aaron snarled at her before picking up the other bag. It’s hot pink. Muttering curses to himself, Aaron sets about packing his clothes. It doesn’t take Erin very long so she tosses her bag onto her bunk before curling up in bed. “Aren’t you going to help me?” Prying an eye open, Erin stared at her brother until he gave up and returned to his task. She lay there, watching as he cleared the remainder of his belongings from the room. 

Nicky arrived an hour later to pick them up. He shoulders past the door, his father’s tool kit in hand so that he can dismantle their bunk bed. Look, Nicky Hemmick is a himbo with absolutely no idea how to use tools of any kind. You can barely trust him with manual tools but God forbid you give him power tools. It doesn’t take Erin long to realize this. Seeing him holding the drill the wrong way finally forces her to crawl out of bed. Extending a hand out, she waited for him to hand it over. From his seat on the floor beside the kit, Aaron sees his sister take the drill. 

“Give me that,” Aaron demanded. “You probably don’t even know how to use it.” 

“And you probably don’t know how it feels to have a drill bit lodged into your eye. Want to find out?” Aaron’s face goes white as a sheet. Nicky shepherds him out of the room to avoid any kind of physical altercation between the twins with the excuse of cleaning out the fridge. It takes Erin only fifteen minutes to dismantle the bed. Once they’ve moved all their stuff to the Hemmicks’ house, she puts it back together on her own in under half an hour. It took Aaron almost double that. 

Living with the Hemmicks is nothing like living with Tilda. Every morning, Luther wakes the household to say a prayer at sunrise and to thank the Lord for this blessed day. As soon as they’ve told their prayers, Luther begins delegating the day’s tasks. Erin is sent to begin preparing breakfast with Maria. Aaron and Nicky make the beds. On Saturdays, Aaron has to wash all three of Luther’s cars. Every other Saturday, he has to help Nicky mow the lawn. Erin is assigned a lot of housework because ‘No man will marry you if you can’t keep house.’ One day, she’s going to kill Luther for being such a sexist prick.

Now that the twins are fighting, there’s only two places where the twins see each other. One, around the house. Two, the court. Letting Erin play Exy is a whole debacle. There’s never been a female exy player on the team in the history of the school. After much debate and Aaron threatening to leave the team entirely if Erin can’t play, they agree to let her on if she can pass a test. She’s got to block every shot taken on the goal by the school’s main rival in the next game. If she can do that, she’ll have won a permanent place on the team.

What a load of bull.

Normally, Erin wouldn’t care but she finds out that Aaron staked his position on her winning. If she loses, he has to leave. But if she wins? Not only will she be part of the team but Aaron will be promoted to captain. Aaron actually really wants to be captain. So she does it. From the first buzzer til the very last second, Erin locks the goal down. At the end of the game, she falls to her knees, too tired to stand a moment longer. As she looks out across the court, she sees her brother standing there staring at her like she hung the moon. Maybe exy isn’t all that bad, she thinks to herself. 

It’s after this game that The Incident occurs. To celebrate the school’s first win against their rival since their establishment, Nicky takes Ronnie and the twins to Eden’s. While they’re there Nicky drinks a little too much and hits on a man who doesn’t appreciate it. He and his friends drag Nicky off and start beating him up. Erin is the first to notice that Nicky’s missing and goes in search of him. When she finds him, her stomach plummets. She beats the men within an inch of their lives before the cops arrive and drag her off of them.

A wave of deja vu hits the twins as they sit down across from one another, separated once more by four inches of plexiglass. Aaron’s usual look of utter disdain has returned and the weight of his gaze makes Erin uncomfortable. Whatever progress they've made in their relationship with the game is gone. Once more, Erin is back to being nothing more than her brother’s burden. 

Aaron wants to scream. After hearing Nicky’s side of the story, he knows that the real reason they threw Erin back in holding was because of her past. The anger in his gaze is not for his sister. It is for the men that stand on either side of her, each of them carries a baton in one hand while resting the other on the tasers holstered to their waists. 

Once they manage to broker their deal with the judge, Erin gets sent home with her meds. Luther is livid. He raises a hand at her but before he can bring it down, Aaron swings a punch right at his nose. No one raises a hand at his sister.

Nicky is so scared. He sends the twins to their room and they’re so taken aback by the fact that he’s raised his voice that they don’t argue. Instead, they scurry upstairs. Erin is high but even she understands the severity of what’s just occurred. Her babbling about how screwed they are isn’t helping Aaron who is growing more and more anxious by the minute as the voices downstairs swell and fall like the ocean’s tide. 

The door to their room opens a few hours later. Nicky tries to smile at them but he winces. A bruise is blooming across his face, one that wasn’t there before. He very quietly tells the twins to get packed. Erin refuses but Nicky doesn’t stick around to hear it. He leaves Aaron to pack and deal with his sister. Erin just turns her back to him and starts fake snoring. Aaron is ready to pull his hair out. He clears all of his clothes from his drawers and, after some debate, stuffs them into the pink duffel. There’s no point in picking a fight with Erin. He shoves her things into the blue bag and grabs whatever else he thinks he really needs. Nicky calls them and Erin rolls out of bed to follow Aaron down. There’s a taxi cab waiting outside. Maria is sobbing. One of Luther’s cars is gone. Nicky kisses his mother goodbye while she begs him not to leave. Her pleas fall on deaf ears. Instead, Nicky waves the twins into the cab.  

On the way to the airport, Nicky tells the twins that they’re going for a little vacation to Germany. It’s not a vacation and the twins know it but neither of them says it. Erin asks how Nicky intends to pay for the tickets and the color drains from his face. She laughs in his face. After a great deal of bargaining, Erin agrees to use the twins’ inheritance to book their tickets to Germany. She only agrees because Luther forbade Nicky from seeing Erik again. In moving to Germany, Erin is not only using up all her mother’s money but she’s now disobeying Luther, helping Nicky, and taking her brother far away from the memories of his sorry excuse for a mother.

Aaron is not pleased. He hates this. Whether or not they could pay for the flight wasn’t the question. What Luther was going to do to them was. Would he follow them out there? Would he report them as missing? What if Nicky got in trouble? FuckFuckFuckFuckFuck

Erik is waiting for them at the airport. Erin may be gay but she knows a hot guy when she sees one. As much as she wants her cousin to be happy, she’s also wary of this sunny-funny, happy-go-lucky man. 

Erik has never met either of the twins but he’s heard a lot about both of them. He’s aware of Erin’s violent tendencies and overprotectiveness towards her brother so, rather than scooping them up in his arms for a giant bear hug, he extends a hand out to them. Both twins surge forward to take it but Erin beats her brother.

“You must be-” Erik’s words are cut off just like the circulation in his hand as Erin squeezes it. A poisonous smile spreads across her features. Mirth glitters in her dark brown eyes as they watch him squirm. 

“Erin, please,” Nicky begs as his hands clasped over her wrists. 

Yanking her hand out of his grasp, Erin grabs Nicky by the shirt and draws him close. “What have I said about that word?” she asks. All the playfulness is gone from her voice. Now, her words are laced with an unspoken warning. 

 “I won’t say it again,” Nicky promises hastily. “But you have to promise not to hurt Erik and his family.” 

“Oh, Nicholas, I don’t have to do anything,” she replied. Her drug-induced smile is back but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Turning her gaze back to Erik she lets go of Nicky’s shirt. “This is your one warning, pretty boy,” she said. “Don’t ever try to touch my brother or me again. Come on, Aaron,” she over her shoulder. Aaron for his part seemed unfazed by his sister’s outburst. Instead, he hefted a ridiculous pink duffle bag over his shoulder. In his other hand, he carried a second bag, a twin to the first in every way except for the color.

Erik’s father, Stefan Klose, is a pastor and you can pry that from my cold dead hands. His mother, Clara, is a baker and plays the organ at church. It’s just the three of them there in Stuttgart but their extended family lives throughout Germany

Nicky and the twins are silent for the entire car ride. Walking in, they’re greeted by the smell of spiced pumpkin bread. Upon meeting Stefan and Clara, she immediately understands why Erik is the way he is. 

If you think she was wary of Erik, you won’t believe her apprehension to his mother. Clara is so sweet, so loving, so kind. So much like Cassidy. When Erin first arrived, both Cass and Drake were so kind to her that Erin had dropped her guard. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. As such, Erin never goes within arms reach of Erik or Clara. 

After his first failed attempt at making friends with Erin, Erik doesn’t even go near her. He laments his woes to his mother. She suggests that he respect her boundaries. Clara never goes near Erin either but, once she finds out about Erin’s sweet tooth, she starts baking a lot of tooth-rottenly sweet things. She bakes them about an hour before the twins get home from practice and leave them out on the counter. Every time she returns from whatever work she’s been doing, she finds the plate empty. A few months after this has begun, she comes home to find a recipe scrawled hastily in what she’s come to know as Erin’s handwriting. It makes her smile. She bakes it and comes home to find something else tucked beneath the plate. It’s a photo of her dancing with her husband at an event they’d held at the church last month. She pins it to her corkboard in the kitchen. 

The twins are, once again attending a Christian school but Stefan is the pastor here. The school isn’t separated by gender nor does it have a gendered dress code. They still have classy uniforms, skirts are just optional. They’re also super supportive of the LGBT community! They have a few trans teachers, two of the guidance counselors are gay and the senior chemistry teacher is a super sweet amab lesbian who’s married to the exy coach. They’re adorable. 

The twins have lunch after 5th, 6th-period chem, 7th office aide/off-campus, and then practice. Essentially, they spend their entire afternoon together. Their chem teacher is the lovely amab lesbian I mentioned earlier. Aaron is skeptical of them at first. The last school he was at was incredibly….. Conservative *cough*homoandtransphobic*cough* Note: not every conservative is either of those things but a significant portion of the ones that I know are. Being shoved into this new environment is a lot for him but he’s assigned a position as the chem teacher’s aide. Erin has 7th off but she adores the chem teacher so she usually hangs around there too. After seeing how well they get along with Erin, Aaron finds himself a bit more drawn to them. Anyone who can bring Erin’s walls down like that is a massive asset to him. 

Being with the chem teacher and then immediately after seeing their wife at practice every day slowly helps him unlearn his trans/homophobia. He ends up asking Clara for help baking them a cake for their 5th wedding anniversary. She’s so proud of him. 

All of that being said, the chem teacher takes teaching seriously. After a lot of unruly behavior from the class last semester, she reseats the kids in alphabetical order for the remainder of the year. Erin and Aaron are lab partners and let me tell you it’s wild. After school labs are for a grade so they have to miss practice for it and the two of them usually have to stay much longer than the other groups because Erin is high as hell and keeps messing with things. In one of the experiments, she dumped too much of something into the mixture Aaron was mixing. It combusted and singed his eyebrows off. Aaron cried all night because of it. Erin felt bad and shaved hers off too in a show of solidarity. 

Before Erin moved to Columbia, she used to wear a lot of makeup to cover up all her imperfections. She doesn’t wear makeup anymore but she’s still really good at it. Every morning she draws Aaron’s brows back in until they grow back so that he doesn’t feel too bad. He very much appreciates it. 

With the twins having to spend their afternoons together, they’re once again building some semblance of a relationship. It’s really shaky, though, because they’ve already failed twice. Aaron ends up being very close to the chem teacher and Erin to their coach. The two of them have a very generalized idea of what the twins have been through so they start trying to help them too. A lot of times, the chem teacher will casually drop little tidbits of information about Erin for Aaron to pick up: her favorite songs, her favorite class, things that make her smile, etc. Coach is a lot more direct in her approach. Sometimes Erin’s high makes it hard for her to play so she’ll sit on the bench with her while the others play. During those times, Coach will talk to Erin about her own relationship with her older brother and offer advice on the aspects that she sees them struggling with. It’s slow going, but the two of them know that their hard work is starting to pay off when Coach catches sight of the twins sitting in the last row of the bus. Erin’s fallen asleep with her head on her brother’s shoulder, Aaron’s atop hers. Coach totally doesn’t take a photo and send it to Stefan and Erik. 

Speaking of Stefan, he’s been secretly masterminding all of this. Who do you think made Aaron the chem teacher’s aide? Who do you think created their schedules? Stefan taught chemistry before he retired to run the church. He taught both the current chem teacher and the coach. He was there to help the chem teacher come to terms with their gender and the coach with her sexuality. He watched them fall in love AND HE OFFICIATED THEIR MARRIAGE!!!! The two of them are also Erik’s best friends so :)))

It’s not until the second-semester open house that the twins find out about any of this. 

“You know, I used to go here for a while,” Nicky said, looking back over his shoulder at the twins. It had been nearly three months since their flight from Columbia but Nicky already looked so much better. Despite the lack of sun, his skin glowed with health. These days, when Nicky smiled, he smiled with his whole heart. Aaron couldn’t help but smile back. His cousin looked ridiculous clutching Erik’s hand, as he hopped from one colored tile to the next. Aaron watched as Erik patiently walked beside Nicky despite his childish antics. There was a warmth in Erik’s eyes as he gazed upon Nicky that Aaron had only ever seen on t.v. That wasn’t true. He saw it when Stefan looked at Clara and when Coach looked at Dr. Stein. 

For the longest time, Aaron had not believed in love. None of his mother’s boyfriends had loved her. There wasn’t much Aaron knew about love but he knew that any man that could beat his mother the way her countless boyfriends had, could not have loved her. Even Luther didn’t seem to love Maria. No, he hadn’t raised a hand at her, not that Aaron was aware of, but there was something far too cold about the way he treated his wife for it to have been love. Aaron finally understood why the Klose’s meant so much to Nicky. Neither Aaron nor his cousin had known what it was like to be loved, truly loved, before the Klose’s. To love a person, you can not simply pick and choose the parts of them that you want. Aaron knew that know. You had to love them wholly and unconditionally.

Aaron slid his gaze to his sister. A myriad of emotions played across her face, ranging from her usual sense of drugged amusement to genuine excitement. The school had closed early that day in order to give everyone a chance to attend the annual school festival before open house. Aaron had spent the entire day wandering around the fair with Erin and a few of his teammates. They’d stepped into the school to warm themselves up long ago but his hands were still frozen solid. Sure, he could have tugged his gloves on or stuck his hands in his pockets but that would mean letting go of Erin’s hand. Aaron would sooner walk into oncoming traffic than risk jeopardizing his chance to fix his relationship with his sister.  

“Aawen,” she cried, dragging his back from his thoughts. Her tongue was out a piece of cotton candy on it. He watched the spun sugar dissolved on her tongue. 

“Gross,” he replied, but there was no heat in his words. She smiled wide before repeating her actions. Erin Minyard was eighteen years old but she acted like she was eight. Loving people is hard, Aaron thought to himself. Dr. Stein had told Aaron that it was okay to love certain parts of a person less than others so long as you didn’t try to change those parts of them. There were many times when Aaron didn’t like the childish person that Erin became beneath the influence of her drugs. The doctors said that the meds didn’t make her a different person. They just drew out a different part of her. If that was true then this was just another part of Erin. Aaron might not like this part of Erin but he still loved her. Watching her giggle and lick the spun sugar off the tips of her fingers, he decided that there wasn’t a single part of his sister that he’d change. 

“Nicholas?” Dr. Stein called from down the hall. 

It takes Nicky a few tries to find his voice before he finally croaks out, “Sofie?” 

“It’s Felix now,” Coach said as she stepped out of the classroom. The twins exchanged a glance at the strangled cry Nicky let out when he saw the two of them. They watched in amazement as he ran up to them, arms wide. The three of them fell in a heap as Nicky barreled into them. “ Good to see you too, Niks,” Coach said with a laugh. 

“What are you doing here?” Nicky asked. 

“They work here,” Stefan said. Both twins whirled around to see him heading towards them. “Erik thought it best to ask the two of them to keep an eye on the twins for you.” 

“I told you they were in good hands,” Erik beamed at Nicky. 

“They’ve made great progress,” Dr. Stein interjected. She motioned towards the twins’ clasped hands. Nicky’s eyes grew wide. Nicky’s mouth moved but no sound came out. Tears welled in his eyes. 

“Thank…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. He was too busy bawling his eyes out. Coach and Dr. Stein laughed before wrapping their arms around him. Erik knelt to join their group hug while Nicky blubbered on. 

“You know,” Stefan said softly, “It would mean a lot to him if you joined too.” 

“Erin doesn’t like to be-”

“Group hug!” Erin cheered, cutting her brother off. Dragging him with her, she threw both of them onto the pile. Arms wrapped around them and laughter surrounded them. Aaron searched frantically for his sister amid the crush of bodies only to find her smiling at him. She was still clutching his hand in hers. She gave it a tight squeeze and then Aaron saw it. Her eyes were bright and clear. She wasn’t high at all. In fact, this was as sober as he’d seen her in months. 

Erin had chosen this. She’d chosen to spend the day with him. She’d chosen to take his hand. She’d chosen to hug Nicky. Three months ago, Aaron wouldn’t have believed that she’d do something like that. Hell, he could barely believe it now. Barely. Aaron let himself relax as Erin turned her gaze up to Erik. Had he not been paying attention, he would have missed hearing his sister thank Erik for all he’d done. 

Maybe moving to Germany wasn’t a bad idea, Aaron thought with a smile.

In short, if the twins had gone to Germany, Erin would be fine by now. 

#just a pipe dream #fem!andreil asks #erin minyard #wholesome twinyards #twinyards #erik klose #nicky hemmick #aaron minyard hc #aaron micheal minyard #aaron minyard #reveal to me your deepest desires

[facepalming-since-chernobyl]

I'm pretty sure David's been on the psycho's shit list since he tweeted never trust a Luthor with their Queen's picture because OMG how dare he insult their precious deity, right? 🙄🙄🙄 Because that's how they treat her. That plus the watch this space debacle really pushed them over the edge. They're so delusional and deranged, they thought they'd get their ship if they terrorized every actor playing a love interest off, and now they're finally realizing it won't happen they're throwing fits.

Sigh. One thing makes me wonder. Seriosuly, whole cast and producers repeat Kara and the bitch are FRIENDS. Hell, SCs threw a MAJOR tantrum after SDCC17 when the cast sang the song about them being just friends and now they scream they are queerbaited?

And seriously, only ONE person keeps baiting them, talking how she (oops) plays a character “this way”, because maybe in the future writers will change their minds. And this is not BAITING for the idiots, but SUPPORTING their rights and being an ally. 

Make a conclusion by yourself.

#anons #anti sc fandom

[reid-fiction]

The 4 Times Spencer Gives You His Jacket

In which three times mean “nothing” but the fourth time means everything.

(Gif credit to @pequish8) 

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

The first time it happens, you think nothing of it. 

In the dead of winter, you are eternally grateful that the BAU has a strong heating system or else your office would be an ice cube. But the morning you walk into the briefing room and swear you can almost see your breath in front of your face, you know it’s going to be a long day. You wrap your arms around yourself and shiver uncontrollably.

“Why is it so cold in here?” you ask, glancing over at Garcia who is bundled up in a heavy sweater and mittens.

“Something’s wrong with the heater,” she answers, grimacing. “Someone’s supposed to be in to fix it later today.”

“I wish I’d brought something warmer to wear,” you mumble, silently cursing the thin blouse you had chosen to put on that morning and the fact that you had left your jacket in the car.

You were hoping that you would warm up as the morning went on but you managed to only get more and more chilled as the hours dragged. That was one of the things about your body; once you caught a chill, it was extremely hard for you to warm yourself back up.

Being constantly cold also made it hard for you to focus on your work. You sat at your desk, attempting to fill out a report, but couldn’t stop sniffling and rubbing your hands together as you tried to get the blood pumping again.

“You okay?” Spencer asked from his own desk.

“Are you not freezing?” you retort, raising an eyebrow. “It’s so cold in here.”

“I don’t really notice changes in temperature,” he shrugs. “My body is usually pretty good at adjusting itself.”

“Lucky you. Teach me your secrets.”

Your reply was dry, but Spencer only chuckles. He had known you long enough to tell the difference between banter and actual annoyance. He also knew that you became more sarcastic if you were too cold, too hungry or...for lack of a better term...PMSing. Instead of replying, Spencer simply shrugs off his suit jacket and tosses it over to you.

“What’s this for?” you frown.

“I don’t need it. You can wear it for the rest of the day to warm you up.”

You don’t even hesitate before pulling your arms through the sleeves, sighing instantly at the warmth left over from Spencer’s body heat, and finally relaxing back into your chair.

“Thanks,” you say, shooting him a smile. “I’ll try not to spill ketchup on it at lunch time.”

The second time it happens, you’re too shaken up to notice.

You were normally incredibly cautious on cases, especially if you were on the front lines of a potentially dangerous situation. But, you were also only human and couldn’t prepare yourself fully for every single possible scenario.

That was how you found yourself bleeding and bruised in the back of an ambulance while a paramedic tended to your wounds. It had been the fault of your own carelessness but Morgan - who had been your point man while capturing the unsub - had assured you not to blame yourself. The unsub had zigged when you assumed he was going to zag and you got caught in the crossfire. Thankfully, your external injuries seem to be nothing more than a broken rib and some lacerations, but the image that is fixed in your mind is one of the unsub on top of you, pointing a gun at your head, and telling you to close your eyes. 

There had been about three seconds where you were convinced you were about to die. You had heard his gun click which was followed by a loud blast. But, instead of seeing a white light, you felt the unsub slump all of his weight on top of you. It wasn’t until you heard Morgan shouting your name and felt him roll the now-dead unsub off of you that you dared to open your eyes. You were still alive, but you couldn’t stop shaking.

Upon their arrival, Morgan insisted that the paramedics take you to the hospital but you were adamant that you were fine. The rest of the team arrived on the scene shortly after and you can see Spencer and JJ come running in the direction of the ambulance. 

“(Y/N), are you okay?” JJ asks, sounding worried. “We heard that things went south.”

You open your mouth to try and answer, but you can’t seem to form any words. The image of the unsub’s gun at your temple etched into your memories. Instead, you just nod and quickly turn your head away so neither of them see the glistening of tears that are forming in your eyes.

“I’m going to debrief with Morgan,” JJ says, reaching over to give your arm a squeeze. “Reid, keep an eye on her?”

Spencer nods as JJ leaves the scene, and he sits down beside you in the ambulance. He knows better than to ask questions. You’re always quiet after a tough case, and this is not the first time he has seen you injured. It is, however, the first time that he’s been truly afraid for you. He and the rest of the team had been back at the police station when the whole debacle went down, and he only had the broken sounding voice of Derek calling for backup and the yelling of your name over the phone to try and piece together what was happening.

He notices that you’re shaking as well. Likely from left over adrenaline, as it was quite humid outside. You still haven’t turned back to look at him, and he knows it’s because you don’t want him to see you cry. Not that he would have cared at all or thought any less of you for it. But he knew how you were about showing what you thought was a weakness. Maybe someday you would sit down and tell him exactly what had gone down during this case, but he wasn’t about to try and pry it out of you right now.

Instead, he slips off the FBI jacket he had been wearing and carefully places it around your shoulders. You don’t say anything, but Spencer can briefly see your hands come up and tug the collar of it just a little bit tighter around yourself and that’s enough for him to know that you appreciate it. 

The third time it happens, you’re not even awake to see it. On a long flight back from a case in California, you find that you can no longer keep your eyes open any longer. The words you are trying to read in the case file are starting to swim in front of you and you can’t help but yawn every two minutes. JJ finally looks up at you from across the aisle and smiles.

“(Y/N), go lay down and rest for a bit. We still have another 3 hours until we get back. That stuff can wait.”

Normally, you would have argued with her, but your body was screaming at you to take a nap. The case you had been on the last few days had been draining and you hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep. You knew the case files would still be there once you landed.

Nodding at her in agreement, you stand from your seat and shuffle over to the couch which is half occupied by Spencer. He glances up from his own case file when you plop down on the other end and start to stretch out.

“Mind if I snooze for a bit?” you ask, not wanting to disturb him as your feet get dangerously close to his thigh.

Spencer shakes his head, watching you as you curl your arms around the small pillow that lays near the arm of the couch and let out a contended sigh. He’s not fully aware of just how long he’s watching you, but he can’t seem to look away. He can’t help but feel as though you’re missing something; his sudden overwhelming urge to take care of you taking even him by surprise. You had mentioned to him once that you slept with multiple blankets at home because you liked to feel as though you were a caterpillar in a cocoon. Without thinking about it, he slowly eases his arms out of his sweater and very carefully places it around you, glancing up at your face to make sure his movements aren’t disturbing you. Though it isn’t large enough to cover all of your body, it’s enough to keep you warm. He knows it will help you sleep better. 

When he finally sits back into his own seat, his eyes catch JJ’s only a few rows away. She is looking at him, knowingly. 

“What?” Spencer asks, keeping his voice low to not wake you.

“Why don’t you just tell her and get it over with?” JJ says, shaking her head as she motions to your sleeping form.

“Tell her what? What are you talking about?”

His eyes shoot from JJ over to Morgan, who is giving him a similar look, and Spencer can feel himself growing more anxious and uncomfortable.

Neither of them say anything else and return to what they were doing, but Spencer can see that they’re both still smirking. He looks back over at you and notices that, in your sleep, you have pulled his sweater up under your chin and are cuddling into it with a dreamy smile on your face.

Something about that image makes his heart catch in his throat. The sudden thought of you cuddling up to him instead of just his sweater enters his mind out nowhere, and it’s such a strong feeling that it actually causes him to frown in confusion. 

You had worked together for almost three years. Spencer found it very easy to be comfortable and friendly around you and, although he did feel a strong sense of protectiveness and wanting to take care of you, he felt that way about all the other team members as well. But Spencer could safely say that he had never once had the urge to cuddle with Morgan.

He’s suddenly thinking about your laugh and the way your nose scrunches up when Morgan makes a bad joke, and how you like to eat your lunch and read a book at the same time, sometimes concentrating so much that you miss your mouth completely when you try to take a bit. He’s thinking about how much you love animals and how you’ll go out of your way to pet any dog you come in contact with and talk to them like they’re a human being. Or how you absolutely adore Henry and beg JJ to bring him in for a visit as often as she can, and how you once went out and bought Garcia a new pack of rainbow-colored pens because you knew they were favorite and her last one had just run out of ink. 

He’s thinking about all the times you’ve taken care of him over the years; how worried you looked when he was in the hospital after his Anthrax scare and how you listened so intently for hours when he told you about his mother, just sitting there and letting him vent and confess all of his fears without saying a word.

Looking at you now, all he wants to do is bundle you up in his arms and have you nap on his lap instead but he knows he can’t do that. You’re a colleague but, more than that, you’re his friend - one of the best he has - and he’s not about to screw that up because he thinks you look cute when you’re asleep. Instead, he takes a breath and wills himself to look away and go back to his reading, trying desperately to repress all of his unexpected new feelings for the rest of the plane ride home.

The fourth time it happens, it all starts to make sense.

The weather forecast had not predicted rain that day, and yet, you and Spencer suddenly found yourselves caught in an absolute downpour while you were walking home. Normally, you would take the bus or get a ride with someone else in the office, but it had been such a lovely May morning that you decided to get outside for some fresh air. Since Spencer only lived a couple blocks away, he offered to walk with you and you weren’t about to turn down his company. 

Now though, you are highly regretting your decision. You hadn’t brought an umbrella with you, or even a jacket, and everything you are wearing from head to toe is completely soaked. The rain is still pelting down on both of you and Spencer has absolutely no idea what to do. All he can think of is to take off his own jacket - one he’s suddenly very thankful he thought to bring that morning - and hover it over both of your heads as best as he can, trying to shield you from the rain.

It’s not a perfect fix, but it keeps the worst of it off of you while you continue to walk - much more quickly now - in the direction of home.

Despite the situation and unexpected annoyance of having to now dry out once you got home, you can’t help but be suddenly very aware of just how close Spencer is to you. Granted, he’s trying to cover both of you with a fairly small piece of fabric, but it’s still something you notice. His clothes are soaked as well but you swear his body heat is still radiating and it causes tingles everywhere you can feel it on your skin.

Spencer is colleague but, more than that, he’s your friend - one of the best you have - and this sudden onslaught of being hyper aware of his proximity and the fact that you’re reacting with nervousness is new to you. 

He’s always gone out of his way to make you comfortable - you’re weren’t blind to that - but you figured that was just his way of being a friend and showing that he cared. But then there were also the moments that you had caught him looking at you, only to turn away quickly when he was aware you had seen him. He also wasn’t much for physical contact with anyone, but you had noticed him reach out and grab your arm to steady you when you were off-balance, or offer a hand to help you get up or out of a car. He had literally shielded you with his own body on several occasions and been the first one to wish you a Happy Birthday every single year and follow that up with a very genuine hug. 

As he now continues to hold the jacket over your head, you notice that his arm has come down to rest lightly on your shoulder. You imagine it may just be because he’s tired of holding his arm up, but you also know that you don’t want him to move it. 

The rain slowly starts to calm down and you peer out from under the cave of his jacket to test the skies. When you’re both convinced that the worst is over, Spencer lifts his arm to take the jacket away and you surprise yourself with how disappointed you are. 

Trying to shrug it off, you turn to him and laugh a bit at the state of things. His hair is clinging to his face and hanging over his eyes so much that he can barely see.

“You look like a drowned sheepdog,” you giggle.

Spencer laughs, shaking his hair out of his eyes and looking down at you.

“You’re not much better off,” he says. 

He absentmindedly reaches over and gently swipes a stray piece of wet hair away from your face and you can’t help but feel your breath catch and your heart stop when his fingers brush over your skin. Spencer seems to notice the sudden switch in atmosphere as well and quickly pulls his hand back.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Why?”

He frowns a bit. “Why, what?”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Well, I...uh, I just didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he stammers.

You pause a moment, focusing your gaze directly at him.

“You never make me uncomfortable,” you finally state. “In fact, I feel more comfortable with you than I do with anyone else.”

“You do?”

You nod. “You’re really good at reading me. You never force me to talk when I’m upset, you keep me out of harm’s way, you’re always checking up on me. I guess...you make me feel safe.”

It’s Spencer’s gaze on you now that starts to make you think you’ve said too much. But when you seem him slowly start to inch his face closer to yours, you finish he movement for him. Balancing on your tip-toes, you press your lips to his, holding them there for a few seconds before retreating. 

There is a brief moment of awkward silence as both of you try and figure out what the next proper thing to say is but, to your surprise, Spencer speaks first.

“So, uh...I guess we should probably sit down and figure this out?”

You nod, smiling sheepishly and turning in the direction of your house.

“We should. I have hot tea, warm blankets and a dryer you can put your clothes in. Why don’t we start there?”

“That sounds good.”

You both start walking again with Spencer’s wet jacket now slung over his arm. It takes a few seconds but you eventually feel a hand at your side gently grazing over your own until you take the plunge and lace your fingers in between his. 

You have a feeling the outcome of your conversation is going to have a happy ending. 

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Tag List:

@cynbx @gabriellewritermua  @wheresthewater @toomanyfandomsshreya @thatisthemagic @helayes @marvelouspotterhead @randomfangirl1415 @criminally-me

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #fluff #spencer reid fanfic #reid x reader

[rauthschild]

Trump Cheers After Hillary Clinton Rigs Vote In Iowa—Democrats Aren’t So Amused

By: Sorcha Faal

An amusing new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today noting that it’s too early to talk about the timeframe and form of the anticipated nationwide vote on constitutional amendments, says it’s fortunate in these modern times that Russia has an election system where “all candidates have equal rights and equal responsibilities”, as opposed to the one in America where votes can be rigged seemingly at will—best exampled in the United States over the past few hours during the kickoff to its 2020 Presidential Election—a biennial electoral event for members of the Democratic and Republican Parties called the Iowa Caucuses—where, at 21:38 GMT+6 (9:38 P.M. local time) on 3 February, the Iowa Republican Party announced that an historic and record setting turnout resulted in President Donald Trump winning all of the party’s 37 delegates by his receiving 99% of caucus goers’ support—after which all eyes turned to the Iowa Democratic Party to see who won their caucus vote—seeing eyes, however, that were immediately blinded by the smoke coming from the “train wreck” of this Democrat caucus vote after Hillary Clinton “rose from her political grave to derail it”—a train wreck derailing caused by the mysterious software company named Shadow that created the application used to tabulate Democrat votes—whose company website provides scarce information on the people involved, other than to note that they formerly worked with the campaign of Hillary Clinton—and is owned by a company called Groundbase that was founded by Gerard Niemira, who worked for Hillary’s campaign during her 2016 failed election against Trump—with this mysterious company Shadow being further aided by Hillary’s campaign director in the 2016 election Robby Mook, as well Matt Rhodes, who was the campaign director in 2012 for the failed presidential bid of Mitt Romney—all of which shows that when you combine Hillary with any company having the word “shadow” in its name, sees this company being led by die-hard Hillary supporters, who joined themselves with a Trump-hating Romney whose secret Twitter name he uses is “Pierre Delecto”, and then allow them all to count the Democrat votes in Iowa—you’re guaranteed to get such headlines as “Dems Have a Cluster-Rama Up Here: Iowa Caucus Results Delayed Due to App Problems”, “You Only Have One Job, Iowa: Delay With US Democratic Party’s First Caucus Results Sparks Anger And Jokes Online” and “The Iowa Caucus Just Crashed And Burned And Democrats Will Never Hear The End Of It”—not to mention this debacle making the Trump camp gleeful as Democrats grapple with their Iowa mess—so gleeful, in fact, Trump's campaign chief Brad Parscale comically pointed out the obvious with his Tweet saying “They can’t even run a caucus and they want to run the government”—who was followed by Donald Trump Jr. mockingly Tweeting the more than obvious question needing to asked about the Iowa vote: “Clinton the Winner?”.  

According to this report, while the Democrat Party presidential train was racing down the tracks to its 3 February stop at the Iowa Caucuses, the final bridge it had to cross was smothered in political dynamite by Hillary Clinton on 22 January—and was when this risen from the grave failed political zombie declared about top Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders: “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it”.

Predictably, this report notes, the political dynamite planted by Hillary Clinton to destroy Bernie Sanders began exploding on 2 February when the Democrat Party presidential train was pulling into Iowa—where for the first time in 76-years, what is called the “gold standard” poll for the Iowa Caucuses was blacklisted “due to data error” by the Des Moines Register newspaper that conducts and publishes it—the true “error” of which, however, was revealed when this poll leaked out showing that Sanders was in the lead and Joe Biden was in fourth place—a “shocking poll result” that saw Trump’s former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders humorously wondering if Biden “might be calling his son Hunter and borrowing money from him to fund his campaign”—and to keep hidden, today sees confusion seizing the Iowa Democrat Party as its officials struggle to report results in a train wreck atmosphere they call “a total meltdown”—but in spite of, now sees the Bernie Sanders campaign having released their internal caucus numbers showing they won the Iowa vote—and as the Des Moines Register predicted in their blacklisted “gold standard” poll—are numbers showing Joe Biden came in a distant fourth.

While Hillary Clinton was preparing to blow up the Democrat Party presidential train pulling into the Iowa Caucuses, this report concludes, top Democratic socialist US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shouted a warning to the Democratic National Committee saying: “The moment you start playing games trying to deny whoever is the nominee, we really start to get into dangerous territory in terms of defeating Trump”—a warning to be heeded as it comes from an Ocasio-Cortez who’s “woke” enough to support the legions of white leftist women who are paying $2,500 to confront their own racism at “Privilege Dinner Parties”—and is the same Ocasio-Cortez who just had to watch in shame yesterday when House impeachment leader US Congressman Adam Schiff went insane and screamed to the US Senate: “If Trump isn't removed he could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election or decide to move to Mar-a-Lago permanently and leave Jared Kushner to run the country, delegating to him the decision whether they go to war”—words so insane it proved too much for even the fake news network CNN, who met lunatic Schiff’s words with an article about the “unexpected joy” they discovered at a Trump rally—that was astonishingly followed by top CNN news host Jake Tapper calling out top 2020 Democratic presidential candidates for refusing interviews—a refusal to be interviewed one supposes will continue—most particularly because all of these Democrats know how zombie movies end.

[stonefreeak]

So! I have spent the last 24 hours reading every scrap of SC!Obi you have and let me tell you it's perfect (and exactly what I needed with this crazy f'ed up month). I know you're in the middle of assassination attempt three and FINALLY having Anakin and OBI-Wan talking, but THE CLONES!! What's happening with the chips, are they being removed, deactivated, investigated??? Will they be ok?? Also love you and this format to bits!!!! Thanks once again!

Anonymous said:For the SC!verse is Palpatine aware of how much Obi Wan has discovered already? I mean Anakin clearly tried his best to lie to him but given Palpatine’s long term manipulation is he able to tell that something more is going on? 

So we have quite a bit of stuff going on in this ficlet! It is, in fact, about 4.3k words long so… Yeah. I wanted to post this like a week ago because it was supposed to be short, but then I kept adding thing after thing after thing because apparently that’s a thing, occasionally.

So here we go, updates about the Inhibitor Chips, more about what Palpatine does and does not know, Obi-Wan being Tired™ and needing a damn nap, and Anakin and Ahsoka having a good time and discussing the Order as it is and once were. Enjoy!

Palpatine absently swirls the deep red wine in his glass with a calm expression on his face. He’s gone through his datapads, his messages, his flimsi, and every report he still has; every bit of information he’s managed to keep away from the nosy corruption investigators.

There is something missing. He knows there was one report from Kamino that references the inhibitor chips inside the clones. No details, of course not, but the mere reference… He grits his teeth and just barely refrains from snarling. It must have been at his office, which means Kenobi has most likely found it.

Is that why he went looking in the systems?

Unfortunately, Palpatine cannot see what file triggered the virus fail-safe, nor who neutralised it. So perhaps it was the mention of the chips that sent Kenobi into sensitive data looking for more clues.

If so, it’s a potential disaster in the making. There is nothing overt in the Senate systems and reports—it would have been the height of sloppiness to allow such a thing—but there is just enough information to send Kenobi to Kamino to find out more. If he gets a spy to the Kaminoans who goes through their systems… Well, he’d find out that there is more to the chips than “regulating clone personalities”.

Palpatine takes a deep breath and calms the burning rage by imagining many new ways for Kenobi to suffer—imagines him living just long enough to see the fall of the entire Order. How lovely the anguish on his face would be. Palpatine allows himself to idly ponder how the assassin will set up Kenobi’s death… He hopes it will be painful. He hopes Kenobi suffers in his last moments. Ah, what a sight it would make.

Calmer, he turns his attention back to his dilemma. Has Kenobi found information about the clone chips? Or… He glances at the pile of information idly. He had been going over mission reports, just before the whole debacle went down. There were reports he did not finish altering.

Has Kenobi found those? Did he go looking in the system to try and find other reports that have been changed?

Palpatine takes a sip from his glass. Not good, but preferable. Even if Kenobi and his fellow Jedi find out that missions across the decades have… changed, just slightly, between the Senate setting them up and them being sent over to the Jedi… well. There’s not much they can do about it, is there?

Systems have been unsettled as planned, the most important missions have failed as needed, and key Jedi players have already been taken out—though Kenobi has proven frustratingly incapable of dying as he is supposed to.  There’s nothing specific linking Palpatine to the edits, so he has little to fear in that area. He didn’t do it on his own terminals, he didn’t do it with his own log-in for the Senate systems, and even if he did attach notes to those particular files which were still unchanged in his office… well, that’s no real proof.

It’s an easy spin.

“Oh, I just thought Master Kenobi would be a good fit for the mission, I was merely planning to take it up with the Council when discussing the mission with them.”

Plausible deniability.

He cannot move too hastily, or he risks setting all his plans aflame himself. No, he must stay calm. Kenobi will be dealt with, the investigation will not find enough to send Palpatine to prison or anything even close to that. At most it will be a fine. After all, Palpatine smirks, he ensured that most of the truly illegal things were dealt with by Mas Amedda.

So easily led, weaklings who hunger for power are. Those who seek it without truly understanding was real power is… so easily swayed, so easily moved across the Corellian chess board that is this galaxy.

Kenobi has proven himself to be a far better player than Palpatine had anticipated, holding a keener mind than Palpatine would have assumed, all things considered. No wonder Dooku, the Dagobah slime worm, always spoke highly of him.

Soon enough, however, Kenobi’s skills and sharp mind will not matter. Palpatine has made his move and Kenobi will not see the knife before it meets its target. And then…

Game over.

~~~~

Obi-Wan rubs his eyes, staring blankly at the datapad before him without really seeing it. Exhaustion is creeping up on him and he knows he needs to stop for now. Stop, go back to the Temple, catch up on some sleep, and start over tomorrow. He won’t make any progress if he’s too tired to think straight anyway.

He puts the pad down on his desk and leans back in his chair, sighing deeply.

He’s used every free moment he’s had to go through Palpatine’s papers, documents, notes… anything he can gain access too, to find more information about those “inhibitor chips” mentioned in a correspondence with Kamino. Despite weeks of looking, he has come up empty.

There is nothing in the files at all. Or, if there is, it’s well hidden and beyond his skill to find them.

He pushes away from the desk and stands up. He needs sleep. He’s not at his best right now; perhaps he’s missing something, perhaps there is some sort of clue that he’s just not seeing right now.

Shaking his head he moves away from the desk, heading toward the security room. He’ll let the troops know he’s going back to the Temple for the night. It’s possible one of them will demand to see him back to the Temple, likely citing Commander’s orders or something.

He opens the door and steps inside, mind made up. The troopers look up at him, and as soon as Obi-Wan is sure he has all of their attention he says, “I’ll be going to the Temple for the night. I won’t be back in the office until tomorrow morning.”

“Understood, General. I will accompany you to the Temple then,” Blast—head of the night shift—says with a nod. He glances to the rest of the troopers, who all nod in understanding, before he gets up and leaves his station, running one hand over his mohawk as he moves to Obi-Wan’s side.

“Very good, Captain.” The prospect of sleep is too tantalising, and Obi-Wan’s simply too wrung out to even consider arguing. He might as well take Blast up on the offer, he won’t have to fly the speeder if he does. Of course, Obi-Wan giving in so easily makes Blast and the other troops on the night shift look suspiciously at him.

He pays it no heed and simply makes his way out of the office, Blast just half a step behind him.

The fresh air, as fresh as it ever gets on Coruscant, is soothing. The coolness of the night washes over Obi-Wan as he steps outside and heads to the speeders.

Still… There’s a feeling of disquiet that refuses to leave. A constant small humming, like an electric charge in the air, disturbing his thoughts and any chance of a lasting sense of peace.

Something is coming. Something very important. Something that, depending on its outcome and the actions taken, will determine the fate of the galaxy. Obi-Wan can feel it in his very bones, his prescience all but screaming it at him.

Any time he reaches for the feeling in the Force, however, it slips away like a dartha eel. The Force is still too muddled, too… darkened for him to truly be able to See clearly.

The feeling of hurtling ever closer to a crash without being able to see what he will crash into is disconcerting; it disturbs his sleep and throws him off balance. Oh, what a tempting thing sleep is right now, but Obi-Wan knows it will continue to elude him. At the very least until this feeling abates.

He gets into the passenger seat and relaxes as Blast starts the motor and flies off, heading towards the Temple immediately. Obi-Wan allows himself a few minutes of closed eyes without thought, before he opens his eyes and takes his commlink out of his pocket.

He stares idly at it and ponders. Should he?

“We should reach the Temple in three minutes, General,” Blast says, never taking his eyes off the flight lanes despite the late hour and the mild traffic. Well, mild for Coruscant, anyway. The core city never truly sleeps after all.

“Thank you, Blast.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, before punching in a number sequence he’s known by heart for years. It’s late, he knows as much, but perhaps—

“Yoda, this is.” Of course Master Yoda isn’t asleep yet, Obi-Wan had expected—hoped?—as much.

“Master Yoda, it’s Obi-Wan. I’m heading back to the Temple for the night.” He pauses, biting his lip, and considers once more if he should really… Yes. “I was wondering if perhaps you’d join me for a cup of tea once I arrive.”

Yoda lets out a dismissive snorting noise, almost grating with its loudness.

“Tea, you do not need. Sleep, you do,” Master Yoda grumbles, his words punctuated with the sound of his gimer stick rapping against the floor.

“I… Yes, Master, but—” Obi-Wan starts. He knows he needs sleep, but it’s frustratingly out of his reach. He hoped that perhaps a cup of tea with Yoda could have soothed his nerves, but if Master Yoda isn’t willing, then…

Before he can finish his sentence, however, Master Yoda interrupts him, “Meet in your chambers, we will. Tea, I will bring. Share it, we will. And then sleep, you will.”

Obi-Wan only barely chokes down the relieved laugh bubbling in his chest.

“Yes, Master. Thank you.”

They say their goodbyes—Obi-Wan is certain he hears Master Yoda mutter something about unruly crèchelings—and close the connection. Obi-Wan opens his eyes and stares ahead. In the corner of his eyes Obi-Wan can see Blast glance at him, and the Force around him seems almost pleased.

Obi-Wan allows himself a small smile, and relaxes into his seat.

The rest of the trip back to the Temple passes swiftly. Blast is a far better flier than Anakin—far less speeding and acrobatics that make Obi-Wan’s stomach turn.

Obi-Wan says his goodbyes to Blast at the Temple entrance, but he’s very aware that the speeder doesn’t take off again until he’s inside the Temple itself. He huffs and smiles slightly, shaking his head. If nothing else, it’s good to know that there are people who will have his back.

He stops once he’s inside, just for the briefest of moments. There’s a special feeling inside the Temple, perhaps owing to generation upon generation of Force sensitives walking its halls, living within them. It is home in a way no other place in the galaxy could possibly be.

It’s late, so there are few Jedi still awake. The younglings will be asleep in the crèche, draped on top of each other in piles, the knights and masters in their rooms, either in bed or preparing for it. Still, he passes a few Jedi still awake—the Temple, much like Coruscant, never truly sleeps.

He smiles as he passes by the gates to the gardens; there is something in the very essence of them that speaks of joy. Many happy childhood memories are made there, Obi-Wan knows that for a fact, and that joy lives on in the leaves of every plant and in every single blade of grass.

It’s amazing what can be retained in the Force, even without an active attempt to do so.

Were he to be forced to leave this place behind, Obi-Wan knows he would miss it dearly. He would accept its loss, for embracing change is the way of the Jedi, but he would miss it for the rest of his life nevertheless.

It’s a silly thought, one most likely brought on by exhaustion and stress coupled with his current situation—what reason could there possibly be that would force him to leave the Temple behind?

Obi-Wan shakes his head at his own line of thinking. He may be Supreme Chancellor, but it’s only temporary. He will not become a full time politician. Beyond Obi-Wan deciding to leave the Order on his own, there really is little chance he would be forced from its halls.

He continues through familiar hallways and turbolifts until he finally reaches his rooms. Once he places his hand on the scanner panel, the door slides open, and the scent of wallian tea washes over him like a fragrant wave. He smiles at the nostalgia of it all, and steps inside to greet Master Yoda.

~~~~

Sleep well, Yoda’s great-grandpadawan still does not. See it, Yoda can. Something on Obi-Wan’s mind there must be, if help he asks for.

Sit down he does with a smile.

“I haven’t had wallian tea since I left the crèche, Master Yoda,” says Obi-Wan. Takes the cup, he still does. Grew up too soon, this little one did. Carried the galaxy on his shoulders he has always.

“Help sleep, this tea does. Help prescient younglings does it. Need it, I think you do,” says Yoda and own tea sips on.

Nothing Obi-Wan says and his tea sips he. Speak first Yoda will not, let Obi-Wan gather his thoughts he must. Uncomfortable, silence is not; lived long enough to not be bothered by it Yoda has.

“Something is coming, Master. The outcome of which will determine the fate of the Galaxy. I feel it in every atom, and yet I cannot glean anything more detailed.” A long drink, he takes. “I don’t know how, I don’t know what, I don’t know when. I just know it’s coming. It’s a constant buzzing in the back of my head, and it disturbs my sleep and ability to concentrate.” A pause. “I’m worried.”

If worried he admits to, afraid he likely is, Yoda concludes. A burden, prescience can be—without or with visions.

“Feel it, I do,” murmurs Yoda. “Meditated on it much have I, but found answers, I have not.” Similar, their situations are.

Spread, silence does again. Gather their thoughts, they do.

“Remain vigilant, we must. But fear it, we must not. Sleep and rest, we must. Your sleep I will guard tonight. Like when a crècheling you were.”

“Thank you, Master.”

Later it is, sitting next to his finally sleeping great-grandpadawan, that Yoda allows the worries to come to the forefront of his mind.

Right, young Obi-Wan is. Coming, something is. If two who have noticed they are, then warn others they must. Speak with the Council tomorrow, Yoda will.

Clouded, the Force is. See clearly, he cannot. The Sith, it likely involves. How, Yoda cannot say. Vigilant they must be, but fear it they must not—or lost they already have.

A meditative trance, Yoda enters. In the shroud of the Force, the night passes.

~~~~

The buzzing sound of lightsabers moving through the air and clashing together, coupled with panting breaths and two sets of footsteps, are the only things that can be heard in the emptied mess hall. The troops were more than willing to help move the tables out of the way to create a large enough empty space for Anakin and Ahsoka to duel. Now they watch in fascination as the two Jedi move around each other, parrying blows and avoiding strikes.

Anakin grins widely as they spar, pride like a burning flame in his chest. Ahsoka is getting good. Where two blades sets Anakin slightly off balance, leaving one arm awkwardly swinging without proper aim or real intent, two blades give Ahsoka extra balance and a sharpness to her technique she lacked before.

Her twirls are tighter with fewer openings and both blades become extensions of her arms. She’s not quite there yet with her technique and her moveset is still too limited to use in real battle, but he can see the skill she’ll one day have.

One day… one day she might even overtake him and Obi-Wan both.

But not yet.

With one swift moment he breaks her guard and stops his blade at her chest, arm still bent and able to thrust forward. Had he been an enemy, her chest would be pierced now.

“Solah,” she says through panting breaths and retracts her blades; Anakin follows suit and settles into a relaxed stance. There is some scattered applause from the gathered troopers, but Anakin deliberately puts it out of his mind.

“You’re getting good, Snips.”

“Thank you, Master!” Her grin is wide and infectious, and together they head to one of the tables to sit down for a bit.

The water is blessedly cool as it slides down his parched throat.

“Ugh, I want a nap,” Ahsoka grumbles into her glass of water, prompting a snort from Rex.

“Aren’t you a little old for that, Commander?” Rex looks like bantha butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but Anakin can see the spark of mischief in his eyes. Considering Ahsoka’s put out look, she can too.

“I haven’t taken naps since I was in the crèche, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost the appreciation for a good nap, Captain.” And theeere’s the snippiness in Ahsoka that had Anakin dub her Snips in the first place.

Rex, of course, only rolls his eyes with a smile.

Naps in the crèche, huh…

“Obi-Wan mentioned that when he was in the crèche, they used to sleep in piles. Did you do that too?” Anakin asks, thinking back to when he and Obi-Wan, uh, cleared the air between them, while looking at Ahsoka. She blinks in surprise.

“Oh, yeah, we did. I kinda miss it. Sleeping in one big cuddle pile was pretty great, actually,” she says with a nod. She looks a bit far away and nostalgic, perhaps remembering some nice naps.

“You and your agemates didn’t sleep in piles, General?” Fives asks, picking up on some of what Anakin isn’t saying.

Feeling everyone’s eyes on him Anakin scratches the back of his head a bit, self conscious.

“Well, actually, I was never in the crèche at all.” He was prepared for the surprised looks, but it still makes him feel slightly awkward.

“You weren’t in the crèche, Master?” Ahsoka says, her eyes huge. Consider the occasional rumours going through the Temple, Anakin would actually have assumed that she knew that, but apparently not.

“No, I came to the Temple late under… uh… unusual circumstances. So I actually became Obi-Wan’s in-Temple Padawan immediately, rather than go to the crèche first.” Anakin pauses and thinks back to those early days. Sometimes he missed them, though he had never liked that Obi-Wan was gone so much. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he continues, “So I either stayed with Master in our rooms or in the Initiate dorms.”

“Wait, so what’s the difference between the crèche and the Initiate dorms?” Jesse asks, scratching his bald head. Anakin glances at Ahsoka and gives her a small nod, she’d know way better than he would.

“Oh, uh, well,” she begins, “The crèche is where all the younglings live; they’re the youngest of the Jedi order. There are several small ‘clans’ as we call them—groupings of younglings who take classes together and such. They usually sleep on these big soft mats with lots of pillows and blankets… and usually really close together, so almost in piles, like I said.” She pauses. “You don’t have to sleep in the piles, of course, the mats are really big so some tend to gravitate to the edges because they like sleeping more solitarily. Also, there are younglings whose species require slightly different room humidity or temperature to be fully healthy—like Mon Calamari or Nautolans—usually they all sleep together, regardless of what clans they belong to.”

Huh, yeah, that makes sense. Master used to say that Bant was his crèchemate, but her rooms were always much… uh… wetter? Than the ones he shared with Obi-Wan at the time.

“The Initiate dorm though, that’s more like… Well, several rooms with bunk beds, really,” Anakin says, recalling his time in the dorms. “They’re large enough that a few people can share them if they want to though, but it’s not quite conducive to pile sleeping.”

“I assume they don’t want you to go straight from constant closeness to being completely shut off from physical contact?” Kix remarks, just now looking up from the datapad he was writing something on.

“Yeah, I think so! Some species need physical contact to thrive, so… At least that’s what Créche Master An-harang used to say,” Ahsoka says between gulps of water.

Scattered mumbles of ‘yeah, makes sense’ and ‘sounds about right’ fill the room for a moment, and Anakin relaxes. They’ll probably leave the topic behind now.

Just as Anakin thinks this, however, Ahsoka speaks up again, “Master… what’s an in-Temple Padawan? I mean, how does it differ from a regular Padawan?”

Oh. Right. Anakin leans his head on his fist, elbow on the table, and considers it. Ahsoka is probably too young to remember. After all, there never were many, and ever since the war, the Order has been forced to change things around to be able to spread as thinly as they’ve had to.

He sees the troopers’ confusion. Considering that it’s a Jedi thing, they probably expected her to know too.

“Right, I… I guess you’re too young to know, huh. They’re… not really a thing anymore because of the war and they were never especially common even before it.”

Ugh, Obi-Wan would probably explain this so much better. Theoretical explanations aren’t really Anakin’s forte—unless it’s about mechanics and electronics—since he’s more of a hands on type of guy.

“So what is it, General?”

“Well, uh… The age-limit to become a padawan used to be fifteen before the war. That’s why I questioned you if you were really old enough back on Christophsis, Ahsoka.” Anakin scratches the back of his head. “Sometimes though there could be circumstances that made someone younger than fifteen become a Padawan, but since they’d be too young, they wouldn’t really leave the Temple. So when their Masters were in the Temple—and they would usually stay for long stretches of time because of their Temple-bound Padawan—the in-Temple Padawan would live with their Master but go to classes with the Initiates. When their Master was on missions they couldn’t go on, they’d stay in the Initiate dorms. It’s not really a complicated concept; it was to keep the young members of the Order safe, you know?”

Anakin squirms in the silence that started spreading the more he talked. And yeah, he knows it sucks that kids are on the front lines now. It sucks a lot but he doesn’t really know what they can do about it, short of just… stop being commanders and Generals. And they can’t do that, can they?

Ugh, he’ll have to ask Obi-Wan about that, or someone else on the Council. Though Obi-Wan is probably a safer bet if he wants a straightforward answer.

“So uh… they didn’t go on missions?” Ahsoka looks like she can’t quite wrap her head around the thought. Considering how her own Padawanship has gone, that probably isn’t weird.

“I mean, I started being allowed to go on missions with no expected danger when I was twelve. And yeah, sometimes unforseen circumstances would mean we’d end up in some danger anyway, but that was usually not the point. I mean, my first mission was to… uhh… I don’t remember the name, but it was some planet that holds a fertility festival every five years.”

“What?” someone hisses through coughs, as if their drink went down wrong.

Anakin looks around to see huge eyes and slack jaws. Wait, what are they—?

“No—! Not like sexual fertility! Plant fertility! They had a festival with a ritual to have good crops! They wouldn’t have let me go near it if it was a sex thing!” The words start tumbling out of Anakin’s mouth as fast as he can make them because by the Force, the mental images. Going to a sexual fertility festival with his Master when he was twelve would’ve been a straight up nightmare of awkward.

“Oh. Uhm. Right.” Ahsoka squirms a bit in her seat, looking at bit like she’s choking down giggles; Anakin probably looks about as awkward as he feels. “So what was the mission?”

“Oh, uh. The ritual was like really old, and contains having someone use the Force to lift a cup from a pedestal, hold it in the air for a few minutes while some shaman chants, and then set it down again. So the Jedi have been doing that for centuries. Like I said, it wasn’t a dangerous mission. That was mostly the kind of mission any in-Temple Padawan was allowed to go on.”

“Oh… That’s… different,” Ahsoka says with a wince.

“It was boring,” Anakin says and laughs when Ahsoka gives him a sheepish smile. Yeah, there was no hiding how boring that mission was. The planet itself was pretty and all, and the locals were really nice, but the mission? Ugh.

“So you don’t do in-Temple Padawans anymore?” There’s a sharp look in Rex’s eyes.

Anakin shakes his head. “No. With how spread thin we are, we need all the hands on deck we can get. You used to become Padawan at fifteen and have a Padawanship for about eight to ten years, but with how everything is now, we get put out in the field earlier and subsequently get more experience quicker and Knighted earlier.”

Anakin takes a long drink of water.

“If you asked Obi-Wan he could probably tell you even more traditions and way of doing things that we’ve lost since the war. He knows better than I do.”

No one says it, but Anakin is pretty sure they’re all thinking the same thing: Obi-Wan isn’t really around to be asked these days.

Another thing they’ve lost to the war.

—

(Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi masterpost)

#Supreme Chancellor Obi Wan Kenobi #my writing #star wars #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #obi wan kenobi #tcw #Palpatine is a creep #no one likes him #finally an update #I got an ask! #Anonymous

[cryptswahili]

XLM Price Spurt Demotes Litecoin to #7 in Market Cap Rankings

Not too much exciting price action is taking place across the cryptocurrency markets as of right now. Bitcoin is firmly in the green yet most other markets note smaller gains over the past few hours. One interesting development comes in the form of the XLM price, as Stellar Lumens has overtaken Litecoin in market cap once again.

XLM Price Surge Seems Legit

Every time the Bitcoin price tends to gain some decent value, one has to wonder how all alternative markets will respond. More often than not, the markets will go green in terms of USD gains, yet lose BTC value in the process. As a result, there is a near status quo which doesn’t allow for many different trading options. In the case of XLM, there are solid gains in both departments, which is rather promising.

Over the past 24 hours, the XLM price has risen by over 6.5% in USD value. As such, one XLM is currently valued at $0.1219, with a push to $0.125 seeming rather plausible at this stage. There is also the 2% improvement in the XLM/BTC ratio, which pushes the value per Stellar Lumen to over 3,000 Satoshi once again. Solid gains across the board seem to confirm this uptrend is legitimate, rather than a flash in the pan.

According to the Huobi Research team, this XLM price uptrend shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. Even though Stellar Lumens isn’t in the top five of most discussed cryptocurrencies on Telegram, its sentiment index is off the charts right now. Based on that statistic alone, this price surge may very well be in just the early stages.

Today top 5 cryptocurrency discussed most on Telegram are 1.#BTC 2.#ETH 3.#LTC 4.#TRX 5.#NEO Coins with highest sentiment index (higher score = more positive) are 1.#XLM 2.#POA 3.#CND 4.#APIS 5.#SC See more data: https://t.co/Cu7brG8RoH

— Huobi Research (@Huobi_Research) January 7, 2019

It is also important for Stellar Lumens users to be somewhat cautious regarding the newly announced StellarPay project. There is a genuine concern on Reddit regarding this “fork” of XLM, especially when considering how the StellarActivity debacle went down in the end. There is always a chance this new offering is legitimate, although it is advised users always conduct their own research first and foremost.

Beware of StellarPay, it is another Stellar scam the same as StellarActivity, Shade, Dolphin, this time they have evolved, better web with better graphics (shitty logo, bad English), now they have a "team", no private keys this time … #stellar #XLM #StellarLumens https://t.co/CJBme2XUMJ

— Andrej Bennár – Kaijleor (@AndrejBennar) January 7, 2019

Last but not least, it would appear a thorough technical analysis of the XLM price chart could have shown a lot of people this most recent uptrend was just a matter of time. It has been a very interesting chart for XLM these past few days, although there is no indication where the momentum will head over the coming days. Sustaining any extensive uptrend has been very difficult over the past 10 months.

Many alts are struggling at the moment. However: very nice to see that at least XLM took off as expected. The 100eyes scanner spotted this support zone a few days ago and kept pointing it out. Finally the profits are locked in

#XLM #BTC #Bitcoin #crypto #cryptotrading pic.twitter.com/aJN5uBzTaX

— 100eyes Crypto Scanner (@100eyesCrypto) January 7, 2019

All signs are pointing toward a rather healthy XLM price surge in the hours to come. Extending that momentum into days or even weeks will pose a challenge of a completely different caliber. Even so, all markets benefit from this latest Bitcoin price surge, thus there is no reason to expect any real pressure unless the world’s leading cryptocurrency falters once again.

Disclaimer: This is not trading or investment advice. The above article is for entertainment and education purposes only. Please do your own research before purchasing or investing into any cryptocurrency.

Image(s): Shutterstock.com

The post XLM Price Spurt Demotes Litecoin to #7 in Market Cap Rankings appeared first on NullTX.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

#cryptocurrency

[paranaturist]

These kids have history! Drama! This is all very intense. Also, did Violet not see what Jeff was acting like? I cannot remember at what point she went back in the room, was it only after the battle? I think her not having that context is why she's so confused by everyone else's position on Jeff's behaviour. What're your thoughts on all this

Below the read more I go over Violet’s perspective of the Hitball game. What the reasons could be behind Cody not wanting to face Jeff at the current time. And how all of that came together in today’s update. It’s probably a mess. I apologize in advance.

[pg.27]

[pg. 29]

First things first, she really didn’t care at all about the hitball game from the beginning. To her it was (probably) just a dumb thing that she was being forced to do for a grade. Out of all the named characters, she was the least into the competitiveness of it all. Other than maybe Suzy (Suzy didn’t really care about playing so much as she cared about getting juicy gossip for her newspaper).

[pg. 34]

So, it’s “important” to note that between the game starting and this panel here she was just kind of hanging out in the back watching everyone throw balls at each other. Then she decides that she’s bored of standing around, and wants to sit. Where she ends up sitting is also kind of “important” to note as well and you’ll see why.

Between this panel and the next I’ll show you is the whole Ed embarrassing himself by taking a ball for Isabel debacle. Suzy interrogating Max. And then Max getting hit by the Switch Ball. So all of this Violet is either watching happen from the bleachers, or she’s zoning out. Who actually knows how much she was watching during this other than Zack, lol. But for sure, she watched the Ed and Max stuff go down.

[pg 42]

Actually, she had a pretty nice view of it all from where she was sitting. So chances are she probably could have noticed all of it. Now, it’s the page after this that things start to take a surprising turn with Jeff.

[pg 43]

Check out who’s literally about a foot away from where that ball smashed into the bleachers. One can only imagine if she’d decided to sit just a little further down how bad that could have ended for her (and her poor dangling legs!). 

[pg. 44]

She is the only person to take action that isn’t literally just “keep playing hitball to defeat evil Jeff”. The only one who decides that maybe someone should get an adult. No one else even appears to volunteer to go with her. 

After she leaves, a lot happens. I mean. A LOT! Happens. Isabel wants to end the game as fast as she can. Dimitri forming a plan, and involving Johnny. Cody making it his duty to protect Jeff from the other team. The Student Council trying to get Max and Co. to help them take down Jeff. Isabel trying to prevent Jeff from throwing more balls. VP taking action and holding Jeff down. Hijeff calling upon Cody to help him escape her clutches. Dimitri deciding that the Student Council’s plan wasn’t going to work, and coming up with his own plan. Isabel preventing Cody from helping Jeff. The S.C. being overly dramatic for like, no reason. Jeff escaping VP’s clutches just in time for the SC’s ball to smack her in the nose happens at the same time this is going down.

[pg. 54]

After this, a lot MORE goes down. HiJeff throws another fastball, Dimitri sacrifices himself to take the hit. SC gets out. Johnny+Crew, and Max work together to take out Cody, while Isabel has a talk with HiJeff. Cody gets switchball’d to the face. HiJeff kicks a ball into the ceiling and then catches it. Just as Cody is about to switch teams, HiJeff uses that ball he caught to boop it on Cody’s head and get him out immediately.

[pg.65]

It’s an important thing to note, that there’s a high chance that Violet didn’t see this particular exchange go down. And I also think it’s important to quick talk about why this exchange is really important. 

Cody has spent the better part of the game doing what he could to protect his friend from getting out. He purposely made Max, Johnny+Crew, and Dimitri focus their attentions on him. He went out of his way multiple times to try to keep Jeff in the game. Did he really need to? Couldn’t he tell that Jeff was kind of acting dangerously? Well, here’s how I see it.

[pg. 47]

Cody was really into the game. Like. How dramatic and competitive everyone was being? He was really into playing along with it all. And that’s what he was doing. He was just playing, and having fun. I bet like ten whole dollars that he thought it was just everyone getting way too serious about Hitball. And he was all. about. that. Everyone was going after Jeff? Well. It was his sworn duty as his friend to make sure Jeff stayed safe.

[pg. 52]

[pg. 53]

Cody isn’t stupid. Or oblivious. Obviously, he knows that something is up. But he wants to believe that it’s all still everyone just playing around and being dramatic. Everyone still taking Hitball too seriously. Maybe there’s a little bit of doubt forming in his mind, but he knows Jeff and he’s still willing to protect him if he can. This is all just fun gym class dramatics anyway, right?

[pg. 57]

[pg. 64]

Look. Even right before Jeff betrays him, he’s still having fun and playing around like it’s all a game. Because, I think, to him that’s what all of this is. Everyone to him is just taking gym class too seriously, and he’s decided to play along as the protector of the weak and most sought after: Jeff. That’s why when Jeff hits him out, without even giving him a chance to cross over and go back to playing. When Jeff gives that speech about how he hates people like Johnny+Crew. It all falls into place for Cody.

It’s at that moment when he realizes that Jeff is not himself. That no one has been playing or taking gym class too seriously. That he’s been acting kind of foolish.

[pg.69]

Jeff wouldn’t have hit Cody out. And even though Cody knows this much, the betrayl of his friend (who had been protecting the whole game) and the fact that he didn’t realize it wasn’t all just fun and games.. well… It hurt his feelings, and he’s feeling a little salty about it all. I think it’s important to note that, I don’t think Cody is 100% mad at Jeff if he’s mad at Jeff at all. I think it’s more of an anger at himself (For not being able to protect Jeff from whatever has mad him all angry and mad at the world). Anyway…

Back to Violet.

After Cody gets hit out, HiJeff throws a ball that breaks Max’s arm. The kids all throw balls at HiJeff, which pushes Hijack out of him for a short period of time. Isabel almost catches Hijack, but then:

[pg. 82] 

Violet comes back with Coach Oop. Check her out in the second panel there. She’s just as surprised as Coach Oop to see the state of what has become of this game. But look at this.

[pg. 82]

When everyone is pointing their fingers at Jeff, she is the only one blaming Coach for all of this happening. In her mind, if he had been actually paying attention to the game all of this could have been stopped and prevented. And, honestly, she has a point. If he had just woken up sooner, he could have probably ended it before the game went too far. 

Now. It’s safe to say that judging from her reaction upon entering the gym with the Coach that she wasn’t aware of anything that went down between HiJeff throwing that first crazy ball, and coming back to finding Max laying on the ground with a broken arm. If she doesn’t know all the dramatics that went down, then from her POV it would probably seem like this is what happened.

1. Everyone was playing Hitball and having Fun.2. She decided she wanted to sit down.3. Ed, you’re being embarrassing.4. Suzy, what are you doing?5. Oh, nice hit Johnny.6. Oh snap. That was a little crazy. Someone should get Coach. This needs to be stopped, like yesterday.7. -muffled children yelling in the background-8. WHY WON’T HE WAKE UP!!!!9. -more muffled yelling in the background-10. Finally, he’s awake. Look we gotta go stop that!11. Jeff threw another ball really hard, and actually hit Max this time.12. Why is everyone pointing at Jeff? Coach is the one to blame!13. Oh gosh, Jeff looks really upset. There’s no way he was in control of himself. Something must be going on.14. I will be your lawyer!!??? PLEASE DON’T CRY!! I WISH I COULD HAVE DONE MORE SOONER!!15. :( i hope Jeff is okay.16. Why isn’t Cody doing more to help his BFF?

okay, before I like… keep going with that. uhh.. chances are that’s how it all went from her perspective. But, Rosie, you say to me. Rosie. Couldn’t she have seen everything from Coach’s window?

[pg. 30]

Hey, you’re right. She could have, to be honest. But how much she actually saw isn’t known. How much she could have understood just from seeing? Probably isn’t a lot. Even if she saw it all go down, which isn’t entirely likely since she was really focused on getting Coach to step in, there’s no way she would have understood it from Cody or other’s POV. Because to her, all she saw was a kid who got picked on a lot, a kid even she admitted to picking on occasionally, take out his anger by throwing balls really hard. 

[pg. 169]

Because she didn’t witness “Jeff” betray Cody. Because she didn’t witness Cody mess up by not taking it more seriously. Because she didn’t see all of this, she can’t understand why Cody is upset. She can’t understand that Cody isn’t even really mad at Jeff. That he’s embarrassed and upset at himself for not being there to protect his friend when he needed to be. So when she says this to Cody,

[pg. 169]

She isn’t saying it to make him feel guilty. Violet just honestly doesn’t understand why Cody doesn’t seem to want to be there for his friend. She doesn’t know that Cody is probably secretly afraid that he let Jeff down.

[pg. 168]

[pg. 168]

And that’s all I’m good for. 

Cody thinks all he’s good for is keeping Jeff from being bullied too much, in this scenario. Give him an assailant, and he’ll defeat it to keep his friend safe. As he was attempting to do throughout hitball. But, Cody failed in keeping Jeff safe from Johnny+Crew. So now, Cody is mad at himself for not even being able to do “all he’s good for”. Cody also probably thinks Jeff is mad at him for not being there when he needed him to be, so now he’s not being there when Jeff needs him to be. Because he’s embarrassed, angry at himself, and ashamed. 

TLDR; Violet doesn’t know that she’s making Cody feel guilty for not going to see if Jeff is okay, because she did not witness 90% of the Hitball drama. Even if she could see any of it out of the window, she did not and could not understand what was actually happening. Violet may be under the impression that Jeff was using Hitball as an outlet for his anger towards his aggressors. Cody may be under the impression that Jeff was using Hitball as an outlet for his anger towards his aggressors, and Cody himself for not being there to protect him that morning. Either way, they’re both aware to some degree that Jeff was not himself during the game. Cody wants to be able to do something about it. Violet just wants to know that Jeff is okay, and doesn’t understand why Cody doesn’t seem to want to do that too.

Anyway, I probably stopped making sense about 20 minutes ago. This is all mostly just me guessing using context clues. I hope this made some sense, and I have no idea if I even answered your question. But I think about these kids a lot…This is all very important to me.

#paranatural #pnat #hopefully putting it under a read more helps? #in this i literally just go on for about 6 years about the dramatics of the latest updates #anon #asks

[india-today-news-yahoopartn-blog]

India Today-Axis My India opinion poll: Punjab poll big takeaways

Captain Amrinder Singh seems set to assume the mantle of the Chief Minister of Punjab once again. The latest Opinion Poll done by Axis My India for the India Today Group suggests that the Grand Old Party could end up very close to the majority mark in the state.

Axis projects that Congress could bag between 56-62 seats in the 117 seat state assembly. If this opinion poll result is to hold on counting day then it would come as great relief for Rahul Gandhi and the beleaguered Congress party which has faced one electoral debacle after another since 2014.

Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party is projected to finish second with a tally in the range of 36-41. The opinion poll done by Axis suggests that the tally of the ruling Alkali Dal-BJP combine could crash to between 18-22.

The previous opinion poll for Punjab had been put out by Axis My India in October 2016. When the results of the two opinion polls are compared, it emerges that the Congress' campaign in the state has been gaining momentum. Congress' tally has gone up by 7 seats over the last three months. On the other hand the Aam Aadmi Party's campaign, which had peaked at the beginning of 2016, has been on a decline over the past three months.

Also read: India Today-Axis Opinion Poll on Punjab: Congress to make stunning comeback, AAP second largest party

AAP LIKELY TO HAVE SIX SEATS

AAP is projected to have lost six seats in the last three months. AAP was hit by a series of local level controversies and high profile exits in the last few months and the party does not seem to have recovered fully from those blows. The Akalis were down and out in October. Over the last three months the Akali campaign seems to have recovered to some extent. The Akali-BJP vote share in December (24 per cent) is 2 per cent more than the alliance's projected vote share in October.

Congress' Amrinder Singh is by far the top choice to be the state's next Chief Minister with 34 per cent of the respondents indicating that he's their preferred choice. The incumbent Prakash Singh Badal comes in second with 22 per cent support. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who has not indicated whether he is willing to move to Chandigarh, comes in third in the popularity sweepstakes, with 16 per cent support.

DRUGS A MAJOR CONCERN IN PUNJAB

Despite the loud protestations of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal and others in the Akali leadership, 70 per cent of the respondents in the India Today poll felt that drugs was a major problem in Punjab. Roughly the same number of respondents (69 per cent) blame politicians of the ruling Akali-BJP government for the drug problem in the state. However, when asked which issue would determine their voting preference, the majority of respondents put employment (41 per cent), and development (33 per cent) well ahead of drug control (8 per cent).

Respondents in Punjab seemed more inconvenienced by demonetisation than voters in Uttar Pradesh. In UP, 58 per cent of the respondents said they were facing problems because of the PM's move on demonetisation. In comparison, a whopping 82 per cent of the respondents in Punjab said that they were facing problems because of demonetisation. Despite the problems that are being faced, 72 per cent of the respondents said they supported demonetisation.

Also read: India Today-Axis Opinion Poll on Uttarakhand: BJP ahead in direct fight with Congress

The India Today-Axis My India Opinion Poll was done using the face to face interview method between Dec 12-22 2016. A team of 26 dedicated surveyors did the poll with a sample size of 3081 respondents.

AAP MOST POPULAR AMONG YOUTH

The data for age wise vote share in the opinion poll makes for interesting reading. Among all age categories, Aam Aadmi Party's popularity is highest amongst the youth with 32 per cent of the youth saying they back AAP. This is 3 per cent more than the party's overall vote share of 29 per cent. Despite not having a prominent Sikh face, AAP seems to have penetrated the Upper Caste Sikh vote bank as well.

About 30 per cent of the upper caste Sikhs said they would vote for Kejriwal's party. This is the same as the number of Upper Caste Sikhs who said they would vote for Congress. The Congress' popularity seems highest amongst upper caste Hindus and Hindu OBCs. Despite its image as a saviour of the Sikh faith, the Akalis have lost favour with Upper Caste, OBC and SC Sikhs.

Also read: India Today-Axis Opinion Poll on Goa: AAP eyed, BJP takes the cake in key state

While the general impression around AAP is that Kejriwal's party is an urban phenomenon with limited appeal in the villages, the Axis My India poll suggests that AAP's popularity is actually higher in rural areas than it is in urban pockets. The Congress' popularity peaks in urban areas while the Akalis are fairly poorly both in the cities and in the villages.

Axis My India will be putting out its final opinion poll for Punjab in the last week of January, just ahead of the crucial elections scheduled for February 4.

WATCH: India Today Axis-Opinion Poll: Congress to make comeback in Punjab, BJP set to conquer Uttarakhand and Goa

#_lmsid:a0Vd0000002uQfeEAE #_revsp:india_today_57 #_uuid:bdcb7c51-5e2a-3d5d-ab2d-c7a9af242f85 #_draft:true

[phgq]

SC bucks criticism over Iloilo power row

#PHnews: SC bucks criticism over Iloilo power row

MANILA – The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday said it will remain objective and independent in ruling on cases pending before it following a party-list lawmaker's statement that the high court was biased in favor of a party in the ongoing legal debacle between two firms over the Iloilo power distribution contract, where four judges opted to inhibit from the case.

"The Supreme Court is composed of 15 Justices, and its actions are based on the majority vote of the members en banc or of a division. As I said before in previous interviews, decisions of the Supreme Court are always founded on facts, applicable laws, and current jurisprudence." court spokesperson Brian Keith Hosaka said in a statement.

"That is how the Supreme Court acts as mandated by our Constitution, and that is why it will always be objective and independent. In the meantime, let us wait for the final resolution of the pending cases," Hosaka said.

In a statement Sunday, Abang Lingkod Party-list Rep. Joseph Stephen Paduano earlier urged President Rodrigo Duterte to intervene in the row between More Electric and Power Corporation (MORE) and the Panay Electric Company (PECO).

Four judges had inhibited themselves from the case namely Yvette Go (RTC Branch 37), Ma. Theresa Gaspar (RTC Branch 33), Daniel Antonio Gerardo Amular (RTC Branch 35) and Gloria Madero (RTC Branch 29).

The SC earlier turned down PECO's petition to transfer the expropriation case filed by MORE to any court outside Iloilo City.

The High Court said PECO failed to present “adequate proof that the accompanying publicity may cause prejudice to it”.

It added that PECO "failed to prove that a miscarriage of justice would arise in the event that the subject case continues to be heard in the RTC of Iloilo City.”

The two firms are embroiled in expropriation proceedings initiated by MORE to expropriate the distribution assets of PECO in exchange for about PHP500 million.

MORE is the new distribution utility in Iloilo City after both chambers of Congress ignored PECO’s application to renew its franchise which expired January last year. (PNA)

  ***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "SC bucks criticism over Iloilo power row." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1095297 (accessed March 03, 2020 at 09:25PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "SC bucks criticism over Iloilo power row." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1095297 (archived).

#Philippines #News #Filipino #Pinoy #Tourism #Politics #Culture #Editorial #Environment #Society #History

[sengov06]

Egyptian Club Reach Out to Sofapaka Over Avire Debacle

Egyptian Club Reach Out to Sofapaka Over Avire Debacle

John Avire. [Photo: Courtesy]

The stalemate around ex-Sofapaka forward John Avire’s transfer to Egyptian side Tanta Sporting Club could soon end following a letter penned by Tanta SC over the same.

Avire had sneaked into Egypt just after Harambee Stars’ exit from AFCON 2019 finals with former Football Kenya Federation (FKF) CEO Robert Muthomi being involved in the ‘illegal’ deal. Muthomi would…

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