#That is a VERY different person from. say. a secretary or prison guard

[bonefall]

Oooh, can you talk about the meta reason you rewrote the blizzard holly relationship and blackstar's backstory?

HOKAY

But I'm gonna preface this one; I hate Blackfoot's Reckoning. I think it's one of the most "solid" written books in the series and I still fucking hate it. I talk about authoritarianism on this blog a lot, and I think BFR was the one time that the series actually tried to textually address what they'd put on the page.

So TW for fascism, including discussion of an incredibly unfortunate quote from the book that is either an accidental or purposeful invocation of the Nuremberg Defense.

Blackfoot's Reckoning is a book that's supposed to delve into Blackfoot's backstory, what made him the cat he was during TPB. Throughout the book they're questioning, "what made him act the way he did?" And trying to drive home that Blackfoot needs to learn from his mistakes so that he doesn't repeat them

But, at the same time, they cling to their slimy Good and Evil dichotomy. So the book decides that Blackstar wasn't an Evil cat, no, he was just a Good Mislead Boy Who Loved His Clan. He's constantly lied to, mislead, people are murdered and he's duped into believing whoever gets framed, suppressing critical thought about his actions. They're trying to both write a "reckoning," but also make his motivations more sympathetic.

So in between questions of, "Is Blackstar really a Bad Boy?" and happy rewards for Blackstar when he goes through a memory, they've decided to shove in replays of Blackstar's most gruesome moments but this time he frowns :( and feels Guilty when he does them. In the eyes of the writers, if you feel sad doing hate crimes, that means there's a goodness inside of you actually.

And just like Clear Sky, all Blackstar "needed" was divine intervention. You can simply retcon in a "reckoning," even if it was never in the main series for the 10+ years the character was alive and active.

But it's not enough that Blackstar himself was getting a stupid retcondemption. No, see, they have to remind you that he was following evil people. The dichotomy inherently crunches away the nuance-- Good and Evil are inherent qualities. Tigerstar and Brokenstar are Evil People. Blackstar asks, "If I was following Evil People, what does that make me?"

The narrative concludes, "A Good Person, but mislead."

And because they can't have nuance with their Good and Evil dichotomy (or couldn't at the time), they failed to address the authoritarianism spectacularly. Think I'm reaching?

They literally wrote the Nuremberg Defense into their book. I'm not doing hyperbole, Blackstar word-for-word thinks the Nuremberg Defense, "I Was Just Following Orders," but then they bury it in a barrage of scenes showing he's Actually A Nice Guy who is Sad to do Bad Things. Either they attempted and failed to do something more meaningful with this book, OR they are so fucking stupid they accidentally included the famous Nazi officer legal defense for a character who DOES A HATE CRIME for a racist dictator.

What was IN TPB was a Blackstar who supported a massacre and expulsion against another group, was complicit in the use of child soldiers, and rehearsed a public execution for a mixed-race character. Like it or not, this is a really heavy subject... and what they decided to do was downplay every one of his actions, because he was good deep down.

And I just find that disgusting. This was ABSOLUTELY the wrong conclusion. They can't show Blackstar ACTUALLY being bigoted. They can't delve into REAL hate, or the idea that maybe he LIKED the power he had over people. Those are Evil People Things. He has to "know," deep down, that what he's doing is wrong.

He cannot have a real change, in spite of the title of the shitty book being Blackfoot's "RECKONING," because he is not bad to begin with.

So, Hollyflower and Blizzardwing.

To recap for everyone who didn't read BFR; Hollyflower is raising her three kits alone because Blizzardwing cheated on Featherstorm with her. Black only learns that he is an accident because he stayed up late one night and overheard an argument. By day, he gets bullied by Clawpaw specifically that he might be mixed-Clan and has to seethe over the truth he knows.

it's dumb. I'm sorry. This is dumb and boring, which is even worse

The war criminal was bullied as a child and that's why he did bad things :( He was good all along he was just sad :( shut up shut up shut up

The "bad environment" he was raised into was... having a single mom and being suspected of maybe being half-clan, but then learning that he isn't half-clan, and being indignant that he can't just share the information he knows about because it would make things complicated or something idk

None of this particularly contributes to his mindset as an adult because he does not HAVE a unique mindset as an adult.

He was just nebulously Sad and followed whatever strongman leader came along, constantly being tricked and bamboozled by outright lies.

"Omg WindClan killed Raggedstar >:0 ??? Oughhhhh that butters my biscuits... was it wrong that Brokenstar sent my baby nephew to battle? No, nevermind that thought that makes me uncomfortable :("

He never has any particular bigotries that were exploited, he was just tricked and mislead the entire time, while also being sad, because God Forbid Blackstar ever have been an 'evil cat'

He gets THANKED by his dead parents for keeping the secret??????????????????? girl ok.....

as usual the bully itself never really gets addressed

It was cheap and easy to just make Blackfoot's backstory the same shitty 'bullying' they write for most villains. This bullying is how he ends up bonding with Brokenkit, a villainous 5-year-old who says, "other cats don't matter" because he's eeeeeevil.

They're supposed to have a commonality connection, Blackstar who is Good Deep Down and Brokenstar who is Evil Deep Down, and that is supposed to serve as the reason why Blackstar willingly blinds himself to the incredibly obviously evil things that his superiors do.

His flaw isn't that he had bad intentions, it's that he didn't think.

FUCK that. FUCK this book. FUCK the Erins for trying to say that there are fundamentally good and bad people. That with the death of Tigerstar, of Brokenstar, of whoever, the society gets to return to 'peace' because now there's no Evil Tyrant to lead everyone astray.

The Erin's depictions of hard childhoods are sauceless. Dry, unbuttered, burnt bread. You want to see a BAD home environment? I'll SHOW you a bad home environment, not just a single teenager being rude. You wanna see the sorts of conditions that prime young people to joining radical causes for a sense of belonging? I'll GIVE you those conditions. Let's TALK about what bounces around in the head of people who aid and abet tyrants.

It's not this dumb ass sadboy shit I'll tell you that much

#warrior cats analysis #tw authoritarianism #tw fascism #bone babble #They were probably trying to address the sorts of people who do actually 'just follow orders' #but you can't DO that with a character who is in a POSITION OF POWER #That is a VERY different person from. say. a secretary or prison guard #Black is equivalent to some kind of General or Vice President position #And NO those people were NOT 'just following orders' that's why they hanged. That's why the defense didn't WORK #It's a MITIGATING FACTOR and it doesn't apply to ILLEGAL ORDERS #People as high up as this character were executed because they had power in this position YOU FOOLS #You can't be THIS high up and have no thoughts or underlying ideology

[elia-de-silentio]

Recap on The Decay of Angels

Above, our introduction to the villains that have dominated the Bungou Stray Dogs manga for a few years as of now. It tells us two main things: that they are terrorist, and that they are five. Of them, two are known: Dostoevsky, already introduced in the previous arc, and Gogol, who debuts in this chapter.

As of chapter 88, all of the five members are known, and a few of these identities have been puzzling for the public at large. So, I want to try and recap what we know of them, and maybe make a little sense of it (spoiler, I didn't, but I found a few interesting facts).

We already met Fyodor in the Cannibalism arc, and gained an idea of who he is, how he operates, and what he wants. He's the leader of his own organization, but fights his battles mostly indirectly, by manipulating others into fighting for him.

He aims at destroying Yokohama to find the famed Book, the one to rewrite reality, for the purported reason if creating a better world, one without the 'sin' of ability users. Why he does think like that, or exactly what kind of different world he does envision, is unknown to this day.

Later, in chapter 56, we are shown the Decay of Angel's deeds, four in one week, which our resident nerd Kunikida explains are related to four of the five signs of the imminent death of an angel (or 'deva' in the Buddhist conception):

They skinned a legislator's torso, made a shirt with the result, and put it back on him, all in five minutes = the angel's robes are soiled.

They melted off the face of a deputy commander in the coast guard with a corrosive poison = the angel's garland melts away.

They stuck an air compressor in the mouth of the secretary of a general in the ministry of defense, causing his blood vessels to pop out = the angel's radiance fades.

Lastly, an official for the military police was injected a drug that caused him to kill himself = the angel's armpits start to sweat.

Moreover, they're suspected to have ties in the government; turns out, Gogol was cosplaying as a secretary in there.

He takes hostage a bunch of government officials, and threatens to saw them in two ("losing delight in their heavenly thrones")

The next chapters are dedicated to introducing Nikolai Gogol: an eccentric individual with a powerful ability and the most likely perpetrator of all the aforementioned crimes (since Fyodor was in jail at the time and, as we'll see shortly, the other members aren't particularly suited to these kinds of jobs).

However, he admits that he does feel guilt for what he does, and it's the reason he keeps doing it: he wants to free himself from the concept of morality, from his own conscience.

While this is a rather interesting philosophy, it doesn't expand much on why and how he joined the Decay of Angels. Was he a 'normal' person with particular ideas on morality that were brought to the extreme by the other members in order to make him useful, or was he already a murderer, and joined the Decay to have a wider choice of targets?

Boh. We'll only know quando Asagiri si decide a recuperare il suo arco porca pupazza with time. Still, the important part is that he doesn't seem to share Fyodor's objectives, nor does he say anything about the greater plan and his ideas on it. This is the first indicator that the Decay is a rather fragmented group, everyone is in for his own goals.

However, the last interesting thing is that the plan involved his own death: those in the Decay have no problems sacrificing their own members (even if I have a little theory that Fyodor might have planned for his survival, but I'll talk about it in another post).

Next, a wounded Taneda adds an information about the Decay of Angels: of the three members still in the dark, one has the ability to exchange knowledge he wants for information the person he touches wants. Namely, they're looking for a book, one that makes so that what is written on it becomes the truth - something already hinted by Fyodor. They managed to locate one page of it, and used it to frame the Armed Detective Agency to create a chaos and instigate a sort of Ability Civil War to destroy the city.

Their 'knowledge broker' is revealed to be Sigma; a reveal that is quite a surprise for the reader, since the manager of the Sky Casino has been introduced rigging a game to allow a person desperately in need of money to win; a very positive introduction, for a member of a 'murder association'. Later, it's revealed that he didn't even want to stab Taneda, only scare him off.

In fact, he hasn't even joined them because of some ideal: Fyodor found him when he had no past nor family nor anywhere to go, and offered him a place to belong in exchange for his services. When it turns out that his colleagues in the Decay have planned his demise (and two!) and Atsushi shows him kindness, he promptly cooperates with the Agency; or tries to, before one of Fyodor's lackeys shoots him.

It's also revealed that the group has created some explosive coins, released to the population at large to make some other acts of terrorism.

After some other shenanigans, we are introduced to their boss: Ouchi Fukuchi, officially the war hero who wants to save the world from the 'terrorists' known as the Armed Detective Agency by instituting an international police force.

Unofficially, a former torturer sanctioned by the government, traumatized by what he found himself doing. He wants to take down every nation, throwing the world into anarchy, because he believes countries and governments responsible for wars; and he also wants to stick it to his childhood friend who wasn't with him on the battlefield and got a found family he didn't have, and so framed him as the leader of the terrorists.

His actual plan was to terrorize the population and the government enough that they would gladly let him create an international armed force at his commands, which he would actually have used to break down the concept of 'State'.

Lastly, the fifth member: Bram Stoker. Another interesting case: like Sigma, he doesn't have any particular ideal that brought him to the group; on the contrary, he dislikes them. He used to be known as a calamity for his ability to turn others into vampires, and swore to never do such a thing again. He breaks this promise because Fukuchi threatened to kill him otherwise, and already keeps him in a state of prisony; personally, he has no interest in destroying the world, and thinks Fukuchi should do it himself. Considering that he interacts only with him, and doesn't keep track of the time well, I wonder if he even knows the other people in the organization.

Another interesting thing, is that he is the first British author to get introduced, except for Agatha Christie, who is hinted to be the leader of an organization of European Ability Users, but hasn't made an appearence since chapter 12/Dead Apple, and insofar hasn't had any impact on the plot. Maybe Stoker will be the element that brings the 'Order of the Clocktower' in?

Anyways, here they are: a group of people with vastly different goals and mindsets, ready to send each other to death and put dents into the others' plan (Sigma being ready to tell everything to Atsushi, Fyodor likely putting intentional mistakes in the Page he redacted to undermine Fukuchi).

Honestly ... it's amazing such a branco di disagiati group of people that want so wildly different things managed to last so long, let alone do this much damage. I mean ... how and why these people came together? What do they have in common?

To try and find answers, I did a little research.

First of all, the name 'Decay of Angels' comes, surprise surprise, from a book.

'The Decay of the Angel' by Yukio Mishima is the last novel in a tetralogy that follows the story of Shigekuni Honda, law student in the first novel and retired judge in the last, as he spends his whole life looking for the reincarnation of his deceased schoolfriend, finding them in people that seem to inevitably meet an early death, and ultimately destroys himself.

In the last installment, Honda decides that the reincarnation is an orphan, Toru, that behind a nice and normal facade hides antisocial tendencies. The interesting thing is that Honda notices them, but dismisses them as 'guile': what makes him decide that Toru isn't the reincarnation of his friend is the fact that he doesn't die on a certain date. And after all he had decided that he could be his friend after noticing a similar mole pattern; both very superficial things to originate and conclude such a fixation.

So what? I don't know.

Is a reference on how Fukuchi envied his childhood friend Fukuzawa for never dirtying his hands the way he had to do, and for having a found family, or a 'path in life', and decided to do a distorted version of such, with a few criminals and a plan to destroy the current order? Not sure.

Let's move to the artist, then!

Yukio Mishima was something of a conservative, and he strongly opposed the westernization of Japan, arguing that it left its people rootless. By this, I mean that he founded a private militia, the Tatenokai, composed of a bunch of students recruited with the newspaper, who until the 1970 did not much more than physical exercise and worship of the Emperor.

On the 25th of November 1970, however, Mishima plus four (!) of them briefly seized control of the Self Defense Force headquarters and tried to encourage the soldiers in a coup d'etat. They failed; Mishima and Masakatsu Morita, one of said four followers, committed suicide by seppuku, the latter despite his commander's wishes. The other three ended up in prison.

So, we have a strong believer in the traditional values of the State; quite the opposite of the 'anarchist' Fukuchi.

However, Mishima does not appear as a character, even if, since he was a writer, he could very well have. Instead, a bunch of appearently unrelated figures compose the terrorist group.

Fukuchi Genichirou was a translator, journalist, and playwriter. He, too, was a conservative: in his youth, he wrote an article criticizing the government and was subsequently arrested; he was released for the intercession of an influent friend, but this is remembered as the first episode of suppression of free speech in the Meiji Restauration.

He later founded a very short-lived political party that pursued the sovereignity of the Emperor, enforcement of a Constitution established by the Emperor and election among limited people. This party disbanded after one year.

Fyodor Dostoevsky is best known as a novelist, short story writer and journalist. He was also involved in politics: initially, he was interested in socialism, fluctuating among several groups due to an interest in social reforms in favor of destitute people.

The last group he joined (despite having been described by Bakunin as essentially a bunch of posers) got him convicted for reading papers that criticized the Russian government and religion, and nearly sentenced to death; the letter by the Tsar that commuted the sentence in prison and hard labour arrived just as the convicts were right in front of the firing squad, leaving them all free to enjoy this deeply traumatizing experience. He was considered one of the most dangerous prisoners (he read some books). Later in life, he moved towards more conservative beliefs (conservative for Russian standards: he criticized both socialism and capitalism, idealized the monarchy, and asserted that every social problem could be solved with Orthodox Christianity); but he didn't try to take an active role in politics.

Nikolai Gogol was a novelist, short story writer, and playwriter of Ukrainian origins. Despite costantly satirizing the government in his works, he was a strong supporter of the tsarist monarchy and criticized those who wanted a costitutional monarchy.

Fittingly for 'a character with no past', researching Sigma was a real pain. Shoutout to @gravitycantstop for pointing me in what is probably the right direction.

Sigma was a pseudonym of Russian journalist and writer Sergey Nikolaevich Syromyatnikov. Appearently, decent information about him is available only in Russian. Now, one day I'll speak every language in the world, but insofar my knowledge of Russian is limited to 'vodka' and 'syrniki', so I can't say much about him. If anyone who reads this speaks Russian and can provide information, please do so!

[Edit: thanks to @heydeliah , now we know about RL Sigma's political inclinations: he was a conservative who supported an authocratic monarchy, just like the above two]

Lastly, Bram Stoker: he had a keen interest in Irish Affairs, was a strong supporter of the Liberal Party, which favoured social reforms, personal liberty, and reducing the powers of both the Crown and the Church of England. He supported Home Rule brought about by pacifist means, was an ardent monarchist, and believed Ireland should stay in the British Empire, which he saw as a force for good.

So? I'm not sure what to make of all of this. The only thing I can say is that a bunch of real-life right-wingers has been turned into essentially a bunch of far left extremists? Sure, Stoker has been around for too little to express any ideology besides 'fanculo 'sta merda I want to sleep', and the lack of information on Sigma means that I can't make theories on him. But still, it's the closest thing I could find that binded them all together.

I admit I'm still unsure about what this could mean. Surely they weren't the only boomers ante litteram strongly conservative authors Asagiri could find, so ... I guess we have to wait and see? I literally made this post as I went, trying to find a common denominator, and this was all I could manage.

Anyways, I hope this can be somehow interesting.

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd meta #bsd theories #bsd spoilers #bsd fyodor #bsd gogol #bsd sigma #bsd fukuchi #bsd stoker #bsd decay of angels #bsd doa #elia's recaps

[alj4890]

In the TRR book 3 we know Olivia gets stab by Anton during a fight, but what if Riley was the one to get stab while fighting with Anton? After all he was her press secretary and the betrayal ran deep with him!

A/N Here we go Nonny. I will admit that in book 2, I really liked Justin. His catchphrase was annoying, but so is Penelope’s incessant talk of Poodles, LOL. I enjoyed the twist in book 3 of him being the bad guy, but I did wonder why PB had Riley brushing off his betrayal so easily. Maxwell seemed more tore up than anyone that he was the terrorist. When you think about it, she spent months of the most difficult time in her and Liam’s relationship depending on this man to help her find a way to clear her name and find a way to have her happy ending. I think facing him would be harder than book 3 made it out to be. So...starting from the moment Olivia and Riley escape the dungeon and have let Gladys out of her prison, we will begin with them in the recreated Nevarkis weapons room.

Masterlist

@gkittylove99 @darley1101 @krsnlove @kingliam2019 @texaskitten30 @yourmajesty09 @mom2000aggie @ofpixelsandscribbles @twinkleallnight

Hesitation

Mysterious Nevarkis Stronghold...

"He will come for his wife," Anton boasted. "And when he does, he will meet his end."

Riley tried to focus but Anton's words kept replaying over and over in her head.

"Which weapon do you want?" Olivia asked as she picked through the different daggers.

When no response was given she looked up to see what was wrong.

Riley was staring blankly at the wall adorned with various battle axes, swords, and war hammers. Her fingers moved over the angry red marks where the rope she had been bound with had rubbed her wrists raw. Her lips parted to answer Olivia, yet no words came out.

Liam. Her heart ached at the thought of losing him. After everything she had done to finally have the chance to be with him...Anton was determined to destroy it all. How could she possibly save anyone? She had little to no training in defense, yet she foolishly believed she could save the man she loved along with herself and her friend.

"Riley?" Olivia snapped in a harsh manner.

It was just what she needed to snap out of the defeated mindset she was falling into.

Riley reached up and removed a sword from the wall. Giving a few practiced swings, she ordered Gladys to draw as many of Anton's minions away as she could.

"Thank you, your majesty." Gladys reached out to squeeze her hand.

Olivia blocked her from touching by sliding in front of Riley. Her emerald eyes burned with hatred as she spoke.

"She might be giving you another chance," Olivia set her blade against the backstabbing servant's cheek, "but if I see one lock of your hair anywhere near Justin or the fight, then I will kill you myself."

Gladys stumbled back and bobbed her head while promising that she wouldn't go anywhere near them. She tripped over her own feet to get as far away from Olivia and her knives as she could.

Riley snorted on a laugh. She couldn't believe that at a time like this, her mind could see any kind of humor. "You need to teach me how to do that."

Olivia smirked at her as she led the way out.

The hallways were silent as the two crept along, sticking to the shadows as much as they could. After seeing that the rooms they came to were empty, Olivia begrudgingly complimented Gladys's ability to clear the way for them.

"Wait a sec." Riley whispered.

She handed Olivia her sword and then bent over to rip a slit in her dress. Testing it out, she ripped it higher until her legs felt free to move. What she wouldn't give to be wearing any other kind of shoe over the open toed high heels she had on.

"You good?" Olivia whispered.

With a nod, Riley took her sword back and continued down the hallway.

Murmurs of differing voices were heard when they approached a corner.

Olivia raised her dagger while Riley positioned beside her with her sword hedged over her shoulder like a baseball bat.

"They must be some--" Drake stopped just a hairsbreadth from being cleaved in two.

"Riley!" Hana pushed past him and Maxwell to hug her and Olivia. "Thank goodness you're both okay!"

"Where's Liam?" Riley stood on tiptoes to see over Drake's shoulders. "Isn't he with you?"

Maxwell rubbed the back of his neck. "He insisted on meeting Justin alone."

"Liam wanted us to find you and Olivia." Drake added.

"What about Bastien and the other guards?" Olivia asked.

The three shared a look.

"They didn't come?!" Riley hissed. "Liam has no one watching his back?"

"Yet." Olivia tilted her head. "He'll have us soon enough.

****************

Riley didn't know where this burst of courage came from, but she had already vaulted over a stairwell and slashed numerous soldiers that tried to help Anton fight Liam. Her heart was racing in time to her husband's every flinch and movement. She knew she should double check on her other friends to make certain they were holding their own, but the moment she heard Liam say, where is my wife, in that deep, dangerous tone...she only knew she had to do whatever was necessary to protect him.

They had not had a chance to speak or even to touch to make certain the other was truly okay before being thrust into the battle that she prayed was truly the final altercation.

She paused off to the side after wrestling with another minion. She brushed the hair out of her flushed face that had escaped her pearl hair clip. Her mind tried to comprehend the utter chaos going on around her.

And then she saw Anton make his move.

There was no time to shout a warning to Liam who was fighting three at once. The dagger’s blade in Anton's hand gleamed in the faint moonlight filtering in the windows as he raised it to stab Cordonia's young king in the back.

Riley kicked her shoes off and rushed to get between them. The muscles in her arms burned from lifting the heavy sword high above her head. Using what energy she had left, she blocked the blade about to pierce her beloved's heart.

Anton's lips twisted in a frustrated snarl as he leveled his cold gaze upon her.

Liam turned around in time to see what Riley had done. Just as he was about to help her, Claude barreled into him, knocking him into a far wall. Drake rushed over to help Liam when two other soldiers answered Anton's second in command's call for assistance.

Anton gritted his teeth at seeing his men defeated by people who spent all their time at fancy dinners and balls. Taking a step back to reassess whether or not this was the time to claim the crown, he decided retreat for the moment was the best option.

"It's over Justin." Riley told him. "Surrender now."

His expression eased into that of his easy going alter ego. "The battle might be, but this will not end until you and Liam are dead."

He sprinted over to the stairwell.

Riley dashed after him, determined to not live the rest of her life in fear.

"Justin!" She shouted.

He turned just in time to barely miss her sword's blade plunging into his back.

Smirking, he faced her. "I see you learned more from me than how to work the press."

She blinked at how calm he was as he lifted his dagger. Memories of time spent with him flittered through her mind. His effort in supporting her, laughing late at night with her and Maxwell over some of the ridiculous events they took part in, comforting her whenever she lost hope that she could one day truly be with Liam.

He had been a friend when she desperately needed one.

Her hands trembled as they tightened on the hilt of her sword.

It wasn't Justin who faced her now. It was the man who had worked with traitors to take the crown. The man who had tried numerous times to kill her and anyone else who got in his way. It was the man who threatened her the very future she had fought so hard to obtain..

It was Anton who stood before her.

Her friend Justin was no more. His death had come swiftly the moment she discovered his photograph in Olivia's vault.

And soon Anton's would follow.

"Riley, let us end this." He cajoled when he noticed her hesitate. "You don't have it in you to kill anyone." His familiar Justin smile flittered about his lips. "I know you. You are the kind of person who deserves to live a happy life. Not one caught up in political intrigue."

He edged a step closer as his . "It shouldn't have been you that was kidnapped. If you had only given up on Liam and allowed Madeleine to have him." He shook his head in pity while his Svengali like voice washed over her. "I wish you had stayed in New York. You will be the only person I regret ever having to eliminate."

Before Riley could react, he plunged his dagger into her side.

A hot wave of pain hit her when he jerked the knife out. She staggered back in shock. Her sword fell from her numb fingers, clattering as it fell down the stairs.

She could hear a roar thrumming through her ears and realized it was Liam.

He had just witnessed his wife being stabbed.

Justin glanced over his shoulder to taunt the current king.

Unable to focus on anything going on around her except the agony she felt, Riley pressed her hand to her side and felt the warmth of her own blood seeping through her fingers. Her side felt like it was on fire as she sank slowly to the floor. She glanced down the stairs and saw Olivia struggling against a solider to reach her.

With a violent flick of her wrist, her dagger went into the man's throat that had tried to pin her to the wall.

Olivia staggered as she walked, blood trickling down from her nose and bottom lip.

"If you can breathe, you can stand." She mouthed to Riley.

"And if you can stand, you can fight." Riley mouthed back.

Unable to get to her feet easily, Riley crawled over to where Justin stood. His back was to her as he threatened Liam and her friends. He continued to torture her husband by going into vivid detail all the ways he could finish her off.

Looking for anything she could possibly wield as a weapon, she noticed the loose railing and decided to use part of the training Mara had given her. Summoning all her strength into her legs she braced herself against a banister and swept Justin's out from under him.

He teetered, trying to find some balance by grasping onto the railing. The moment he did, Riley rose to her knees and shoved against him, causing his body weight to crack the rotted wood and plummet down to the main floor.

Gasping in pain from the exertion, she fell back once more on the worn carpet and closed her eyes.

"Riley!" Liam rushed the stairs, leaving Drake and Maxwell to deal with Justin.

He fell to his knees. His voice cracked as he whispered denials that he had been too late to save her.

Her eyes fluttered open only to close again as he kissed her. She could feel the exhausted desperation in his touch.

"Where are you hurt?" He asked. "Did he stab you anywhere else?"

"No." She whimpered when he eased her hand away from her wound. "Just there."

He tried to be gentle as he ripped his coat off to press against her side.

Bastien and the rest of the King's Guards burst through the doors.

"Your majesty!" He didn't bother to mask his anger. "You shouldn't have--"

"The queen has been wounded!" Liam interrupted harshly. "She requires immediate medical attention!"

Bastien hurried up to examine her while radioing for an ambulance.

"Hold on, my love." Liam pleaded. "Please. Stay with me."

She weakly grasped his hand. "Is it over? Justin didn't--"

"He's being taken care of." Liam told her. "He won't ever have a chance to harm you again."

"You're safe." Riley gasped when EMT's began to check her. Her voice became faint as blackness ebbed around her vision "I didn't lose you, Liam."

The last thing she remembered before blacking out completely was Liam's concerned face hovering over her.

***************

The Royal Palace...

A few hours later, Riley stirred. She blinked a few times to make the room she was in come into focus. A lamp turned down low glowed on a nightstand. Familiar paintings of past kings and queens hung on the walls. The beyond soft bed she was in brought back memories of a particular ball when Liam had shown her the Royal chambers.

A smile formed at that romantic thought as she sank further under the blankets.

"Riley?"

She opened her eyes again and noticed the outline of a man sitting in a chair by the bed.

"Liam?" She turned about, wincing when she felt the tug of stitches along her right side. "What happened?"

He leaned forward and took her hand in his. Pressing a kiss to it, he went through the series of events.

Images flashed through her mind, as the memories of her fight came rushing back.

"No more Sons of the Earth?" She asked.

"The ones who survived have been captured."

Her eyes widened. "Survived? Who died?"

Liam kept her hand clasped between his. "A few that Olivia and I fought...and some that you did."

Riley tried to comprehend that she had killed people. "How...how many?"

"My love, there is no need to dwell--"

"Liam." She gripped his hand. "Did I kill Justin?"

She knew by his hesitation that she had.

"The way he fell," Liam swallowed, "he broke his neck."

Riley pulled her hand away to cover her mouth.

"I beg for your forgiveness." Liam choked out. "If I had been there sooner or had--"

She shook her head while reaching for him. Urging him to lay on the bed with her, she tried to comfort him.

"You don't owe me an apology." She said through her tears. "You came to rescue me." She tried to smile. "Just like every prince does in fairy tales."

He wiped her tears. "I don't want you burdened with what happened." His eyes searched hers. "All I have ever wanted is to give you every good thing in life, not have one overshadowed with fear and guilt."

She swallowed audibly. "I'll be fine. I just...I can't believe I had to kill someone I spent time with. I actually enjoyed his company during your engagement tour." Her nose wrinkled. "The pain in my side though keeps reminding me he deserved being pushed over the banister."

"My only regret is that I didn't get a chance to be the one to end his existence on this earth." Liam's face darkened with his anger. "He dared multiple times to take you from me. He killed my father. Made our people doubt their safety and the crown's ability to defend it. If I couldn't fight him to the death myself, then I should have been the one to sentence him to such."

She cupped his cheek. Knowing he needed to vent after all they had been put through, she listened without interruption. When she felt his tense muscles relax, her mind turned to what they should do now.

"We both need to focus on it finally being over." She pressed a kiss to his lips. "All our plans to be together, to start a family, can be from this moment on. We fought for Cordonia, our friends," her smile peeked out when he kissed her, "we fought for us and for every moment we are lucky enough to share."

"You're right." Liam turned to kiss her palm. "We have a future before us, one of our choosing."

She snuggled closer in his arms, sighing as she felt sleep luring her back into its soothing confines. Just as she began to drift off, an image of Justin came to mind. It wasn't the man she had faced tonight, it was the one who helped protect her from cameras being shoved in her face during that very first meeting. She could see him pushing reporters out of her way, while holding tight to her waist.

It seems appropriate, Riley thought, to have a scar along the very spot Justin had once touched in such a deceptive, gentle manner. Having a personality that tried to only see the good in others, she would need a daily reminder to be more cautious in the future.

Her trust would never be so easily given again.

[wallwriterstuff]

My Evil Twin ||Alec vs Jane||

Warnings: mentions of abuse, torture and trauma. 

A request for @ferb13​   “Can I request you a headcanon about the things that make Alec more evil than Jane?” 

You absolutely can because I love this idea!! Also, please keep an eye out for an updated Upcoming Fic List tomorrow. I have two more requests I admittedly forgot about I’d like to get out now uni is done for the semester. 

I firmly believe the trauma they faced caused both twins to turn out to be incredibly sadistic and ruthless vampires, but there is definitely a case to be made that Alec is the more dangerous of the twins.

·         Alec is not quick to anger, therefore his revenge is not as instant as his sister’s. Displease Alec and you will be left wondering when exactly he will strike back – or if he even plans to – and he will let you stew in your own anxiety for the fun of it. Why torture you if your already torturing yourself?

 ·         Whereas Jane’s anger is explosive, Alec’s simmers. He has the capacity therefore to really think about just how much you’re annoying him and respond in kind. His revenge is never as swift as the agony of Jane’s gift, he will draw it out. For every second you have made him suffer he will return the favour

 ·         His gift is incredibly potent, he can strip a person’s senses and numb them, but do you think that hasn’t come with any sort of consequence for him? The truth is he simply can’t feel emotion sometimes. It takes strong emotion to really entice him to open up and feel anything, such as finding his mate for instance, but most of the time he is just…numb, and it makes him incredibly difficult to read. As such, it’s easy to find yourself trying to please him or accidentally annoying him, but you’ll never know until he reacts – which he rarely ever does. Though he doesn’t always mean to, it can often seem like he’s stringing people along because of this, but he has been known to deliberately use people’s struggles to read him to his advantage

 ·         Both twins are sadistic but in different ways. While Jane thrives off of the pain of others, Alec feeds off of their fear. He strips the senses, but they are still very much conscious. Alec enjoys their terror as their minds turn against them, imagining horrific scenarios occurring to their physical bodies while they cannot see, feel or hear their attackers coming. In this sense, he is far more sadistic than Jane, as his version of torture leaves longer lasting scars that he has absolutely no remorse about inflicting on anyone who crosses his path

 ·         Alec and Jane were raised in this life by Aro in two very different ways. Jane has, quite frankly, been groomed by Aro and is therefore much more eager to please and maintain her position as the favourite. Alec is not. Oh for sure he is loyal to Aro and will remain so out of sheer gratitude that he was saved by him, but he is very self-assured in a way Jane is not, knowing his offensive capability will either A) keep him in favour with the Masters or B) ensure he has a way out when the Masters stop giving him the opportunity to exercise that power                + Since he has no need to play the favourite, Alec will happily act his physical age and play pranks on the secretaries. He is the main reason they go through so many of them, and his pranks are by no means childish. He is a sadist remember. Physical injuries are part and parcel of otherwise highly psychologically traumatic pranks very similar to the ones he had to endure as a child. Poor Gianna never quite got rid of the scars on her knuckles after he locked her in a room full of tarantula’s – he spent four hours listening to her beg to be released while pounding on the door

 ·         In many ways Alec is seen as the calmer and more rational twin, subduing his sister when she gets violent. Some might even go so far as to say he saved them from Jane’s wrath. They are wrong. Alec is saving you from nothing, because he is extremely protective of Jane and if you anger her, you anger him. You are simply opening yourself up to his specific brand of psychological torture, and believe me when I tell you he is ten times more ruthless when it comes to defending his sister, to the point he will gladly kill for her, even if it goes against orders

 ·         Since it takes so much to get him riled up, it takes a lot more to calm him down. Alec is far more dangerous than Jane in this regard. He is very reluctant to stop using his gift once he starts, the feeling he gets watching people suffer the effects is akin to a high or an adrenaline rush maybe. He pushes his luck a lot when Aro orders him to stop whereas his sister will stop immediately. Ultimately, not even the Masters can stop him if Alec decides to make you suffer

 ·         He wears socks when relaxing in bed, enough said

 ·         Whereas Jane is cruel for a purpose (usually Aro’s), Alec is sometimes cruel just because he’s bored. Has a trial bored him? Felix suddenly can’t see. A long day of guard duty in the throne room? The secretary is distracted packing up to go home for the night, the perfect target. Alec can and will use his gift purely for entertainment purposes for the thrill he gets watching others suffer

 ·         Alec didn’t want to rely solely on his gift after a brush with a newborn once. Felix and Demetri taught him to fight at his request, but it was Caius who taught him to torture others. If Alec is a sadist then Caius taught him everything he knows, and its him that will accompany the blonde Master to the dungeon when he needs to blow off some steam on the prisoners they keep below. He doesn’t ask nor care about the crimes they committed, but when his dark side itches to be free there’s nothing better to him than slowly cracking off a finger or two. Not even Jane knows about this side of him

 ·         Ultimately, Alec is a lethal weapon in the form of a child and the way he enjoys his gift and uses it so indiscriminately shows it. He is far more evil than Jane for the sheer enjoyment he gets from torturing others in a far more traumatic way than his sister can and unlike her, he is far more difficult to reign in

#twilight #twilight headcanon #alec volturi #jane volturi #volturi #this idea is honestly one I stand by #I fully believe Alec is the most powerful vampire in twilight canon tbh

[blankdblank]

Ash Pt 10

Barks in the middle of a deep dream stirred you to another guest inside your bedroom. One peek however brought the small burrowing Prince to your focus who curled up with hold of one of your dog dolls then was burrowing more in his nest of a hiding spot to the roll of thunder that had you close your eyes and settle back into sleep again. The pair of guards however from the nursery now outside your apartment doors were the only sign for any who would come looking as to where the Prince was now hidden. By the time your breakfast wake up call came the boy was gone with just a folded paper crown that was left on the head of the dog doll he wasn’t clutching the night before.

Softly to yourself you chuckled and imagined next you’d be finding the boy trying to sneak into your library in a means to help himself to some new fairy tales as he had taken a fondness to your stuffed animals. Perhaps you might ask when his birthday was then try to find a pattern to stitch him up a set of his own stuffed animals to keep him safe at night since through the days he seemed to render so many of the Elf Lords helpless when he would go missing. Forest green pants were tucked inside your tall grey boots and socks to prep for anything possible, a grey sweater that hung past your hips with ties in cinched sections to separate the front and back longer sections to help digs into pockets when necessary. Loose down your back your freshly combed curls that held the freshly re-snapped gem beads were returned to their former locations.

 *

“Today Ada?” Thranduil turned to find his son in his closet doorway with two robes in hand locked in choosing between them at the replay of the goodnight you had shared. “Left one, wear the mint for your offer intent of courtship.” Thranduil sighed and Legolas said, “Twice, I saw, twice the both of you kissed again.”

“Little Leaf,” he tried to plea in a shrug into the mint robe over his white tunic and crème pants and boots.

“No other reason for your head to bend that low otherwise.”

“I will offer.”

That had Legolas smile and extend his list, “Now, our ideas for a surprise courtship presentation. I will start with my favorites and one from Glorfindel then name the rest.”

Thranduil sighed feeling a tad bit lost as for how to impress you with this offer, or at least convey that this is a necessary step between the actual start of the public courtship in a system he was more than certain was vastly different to the one you had grown up with. He wanted to be your choice, not to be another obligation by means of wine laced intimacies, of which clearly he now had little control of displaying publicly. And now he merely had to convince you to let him clip in the feather accented chain decorations adorned with traditional small round bells and pendants of protection that also bore your sigils upon them. White, orange and dark grey were the colors chosen for his feathers, each significant and to mark his intentions for a future union paired with polka dotted grey feathers to pay homage in a playful way to your statement of weakness for freckled creatures.

So very badly he wanted this to work. He merely had to ask. Eat, rather, then wait and ask when you would arrive. For now he listened to the jumble of ideas on how to make the begin stage of a courtship with you a memorable one that you might be appreciative and find as memorable for its adoring nature. He just wanted to prove that he would love and cherish you as you ought to be or ought to have been by both family and former spouse. Surely you trusted him, he was your personal secretary and confidant and best friend here. Deeper trust would be gained upon consideration of courtship as far as physical contact would be concerned, but you had to know even in talks of children in the future that would never be rushed, merely near to the end of the courtship steps that followed the marriage ceremony itself. Consummation was never timed out, and the very last thing he would ever consider was to harm you by impatience or enabling a step too far should he imagine you uncertain at all.

He did love you, you are his One yet even before that just brief glimpses of who you truly were had him smitten beyond belief to himself. Intimacies had been made, and now to sustain his honor in your eyes an offer must be made. There would be no time limit, however long you wished to consider him he would proudly wait and then wait some more. He missed you, even just in a break for sleep should you agree to allow him to be yours perhaps at least an agreed upon joint breakfast or daily lunch cold be arranged in alternating schedules surrounding any possible meetings for him or shifts for yourself.

.

Anxious fidgets to the glasses settled on the table for the clock ended to the sound of the bell above the door that gave a chime to the obvious announcement of the very same woman the Prince had ceased speaking about to say through a wide grin. “I will let our Queen in. Just relax. She will not refuse the offer.”

To the door he went and left his father to listen the greeting at the door which ended to his stating of, “No, I am needed at the archery grounds. Prince Estel requires extra supervision for his lessons.”

“Oh, okay,” was his response and the timid ease of his front door shut left the King in a downward glance mid adoring chuckle to the careful approach of his One. Rather impatiently his feet however carried him from the spot he swore to himself he would wait, “Oh,” you murmured. And against a chance to memorize the adorably wide eyed moment when you saw him in front of you his body drooped to snap right back to how he hoped to say good morning to you.

Promptly to a hand in a short glide along your cheek his lips met yours. No chance to take hold of anything on his chest the brief kiss ended and left you in a silent moment of panic as to how to claim another moment like it. Your fingers however did tangle in his hair and lowly in a chuckle of relief to the tug that halted his retraction again inwards he melted to meet you halfway on a toe top rise and lingered there. And even when your lips did part still blind and tenderly he claimed the chance to hold his forehead to yours for a deliciously close step to the day he could brazenly take you up in his arms without reason of fear or by rules of a dance. He meant to pull back, well his head did and managed enough space to open his eyes with the beginnings of a smirk to the hand from his hair now in a slide up his wrist to melt his hand back to your cheek. What he hoped for as a sign of another plea for a kiss was enough to have him on the cusp of gasping.

To the pool of tears in your eyes and quiver of your lips his eyes took in every inch of the losing battle that just swept on top of you at once, “I like this,” you managed to squeak out in the fall of the first tear. Instantly your eyes clenched and in a momentary lean into his palm and open mouthed it hit him what you must have been repressing all this time. Surely you must have lived amongst creatures like the mortals here who are much more physically expressive of affections and to the sudden drop of three more tears and shake of your head his eyes met yours in their open. Forcefully you breathed out a half hearted chuckle and whispered, “I don’t know why I’m crying…”

One single sniffle broke the dam and from your cheek into your hair his hand moved in his step forward to hold you firmly while the sobs began to flood out. Timid at first in his hold soon enough your arms had laced around his middle and hands fisted in the cloth on his back as if he would dare to let go. He wouldn’t. Not until you had calmed. You didn’t know why you were crying. But in his embrace and the press of his cheek to the top of your head with his eyes clamped shut he felt that same ever present pain, though lessened, still there and breathing gasps that flooded you entirely in its try to overtake you again and spoil your future. The curse was gone but those scars still bled and he knew that battle all too well, the loneliness, the fear, the numbness when the climax of the pain threshold had been topped and doubts. He wouldn’t let go of you, not in this. This was why he wanted to wait, and now this was exactly why he couldn’t for just an offer of intent. For what felt like forever in his arms you wept and wept until the pain subsided and still in tears of embarrassment he held you still cursing each and every person who might have or had harmed you along with each and every year that had been spent inside that prison.

Behind your back your hand moved in his eventual ease back, in full sight of his inquisitive stare that watched a handkerchief be pulled from your back pocket that dabbed across your cheeks. “No apologies,” he said to cut you off. Words that had your eyes on him and he shook his head, “We all have pain. And sudden traps from such. No apologies.”

“I got your shirt wet.” You said and he shook his head. “You can’t say I didn’t. I saw you perfectly dry when I came in.”

“That is a matter of perspective.” Simply to a sniffle you shook your head and folded your handkerchief again in a glance around the hall then up to him again and his offered hand, “I have a question for you, might we sit?”

You nodded in the ease of your hand onto his palm for the stroll into his sitting room, right to your usual chair that he eased out and faced towards his after pocketing the handkerchief again. Curiously you took the seat offered and watched his motion to ease and turn his own chair that he brought in closer to yours to smile and settle into then scoop up your hands off of your lap to cradle and caress to calm his nerves in this. “Our cultures differ, of that we are certain.” You nodded lost for words. “Today however prior to our clock session and the unearthing of the mystery gift from Lord Girion of Dale I wished to express something to you.” You nodded again to the sense he was waiting for a reaction of some sort to keep going in his courage building pause. “I wished to request your consideration to an offer of intent for courtship between yourself and I.”

“So, you, you want to court me?”

“Yes. There are certain steps for our kin, and pray do take to consideration you have all the time in the world to consider my offer. This is how it is done, day to day everything will be to your comfort and upon notice from you of acceptance or refusal matters of custom amongst our courtship can discussed in further detail. Merely,” hastily he wet his lips, “I wish for you to feel safe, and confident in this choice, and this choice is yours. I will always be your One, no matter the choice and I shall always be devoted to your comfort and safety. As long as you need you have it for this weighty period of internal pondering for my placement in your heart and domestic days.” His eyes quickly darted over your face to take in your reaction when your brows scrunched up.

“You think I would turn you down?”

“You have every right to refuse my offer and any other presented to you. All I have is my offer, the power of choice belongs to you and no other. With my offer does come a second request, there is a token of pondering our kin adorn themselves with I might ask if you would accept the chance to display that you are in pondering of an offer of intent?”

“What, sort of token?” you asked and with a grin he brought out a box from beside his drink glass and revealed the feather accented hair decoration. “Oh that’s incredible,”

“Thank you, we craft them ourselves. Normally it is added to the hair. Would you accept it?” You nodded and again he smiled in a lean forward to gently find the right fold of curls to clip and weave the addition into. Eventually on the right side of your head it was secured and to your thanks he said, “No, thank you, I am eternally honored that you would display my token. For now, our clock is waiting.” Again you nodded and he rose to help you turn your chair to face the table then sit in his own rotated chair eager to get back to this test of your pairing that together was being bested and showed to be near completion.

.

Together all of the loose pieces had worked into small clumps now that at the clear sign from the clock to stop would have to be worked together possibly the following day. “Do you have more meetings?” you asked to break the silence of the topic of what to do next.

“No, oh, your gifts from Dale.” He said in a pop up to his feet for a stroll across the room to a trunk along the wall you didn’t notice earlier. Beside you he settled the trunk and undid the locks to ease the lip open revealing a duo of bound portraits and some more gifts underneath a sealed letter. To your approving nod he broke the seal of the letter and read the eloquent apology dripping with hopes to have a friendship in the future while you choose to humor that forgiveness you rightly had the choice to refuse him.

All the same from the first wrapped portrait your eyes fell on what would be revealed to be the black outline of a tree in the center of a sea of multicolored leaves in hues of red, orange, yellow and few pops of green. “Oh that’s pretty,” you said making the King grin in his own relief that the first of the gifts seemed to please you.

The second portrait of the upper half of an upright bear in a forest with some glowing butterflies, “That’s pretty too.” You said in looking the portrait over he set aside to reach into the trunk and bring out a wrapped bundle that upon unwrapping was a supply of various silks with odd color patterns that had you glance at the King, “Silk?”

“This is Gondorian silk. Quite a gift. Our Seamstresses could layer this for some rather elegant wraps if you wished. Are you pleased with the gifts?”

“They are all rather beautiful. An interesting mix, but I suppose what would you give to a stranger?” Lowly he chuckled and folded the silks back into their wrapping and settled them with the paintings back into the trunk.

“True, I shall gather some parchment and ink to pen your response.” Onto his feet he rose and while he moved you followed for a smirk once he saw that you were at his side upon reach of his desk in his study now stunningly devoid of any papers on the floor. Seated at his desk with quill ready he word for word copied in the bits that you chose and added more to fill in the blanks and fluff up what would be the first draft of the letter.

Amusingly enough for him in this joint venture of aid in a proper answer for such fine gifts on top of the task the simple place you had chosen to sit had him smiling ear to ear. With leg bent on top of the arm of the chair draped against his back to rest with arms settled on his shoulders and one down his chest to point out possible changes then tap anxiously on the pin at his neck. Absently you had found this position and without a word on a request to find this perch he relaxed to the feel of your chin on his shoulder and hair that fell down your side and over the end of his elbow now propped on top of your bent thigh that supported your weight. It wasn’t until the reach for his seal that inside the wooden box that in his lean the position became noticeable when you had to sit up to let his body give the slight lean necessary to reach said wax seal kit. His free hand however halted an entire flight from the spot in its place on your forearm that had slid back to his shoulder and guided in his lean back upright again you back against his back. “Stay comfortable. I shall copy this draft and you may inspect your new seal.”

“I have a seal?” He grinned and from the box removed the silver seal that reminded you in shape of a chess piece for the body that on the bottom you inspected the swan and pear accents tucked into the design. It wasn’t until his fingers had come into your view that you realized he had copied the draft already and required the stamp you brought into their reach. Quite deliberately each fingertip brushed along yours in the trade and once he was certain the ink was dried the presentation of the quill to you had you glance between the letter and his eyes before it clicked and you murmured, “Right, sign.” To himself he smiled and in an easy swivel in his seat the arm that blocked you was now around your hips to help keep you stable in the lean you took forward to sign the bottom of the letter underneath his copy of the runes for your title in their tongue.

Timidly post blow on the signature to dry it back in its stand you left the quill and with ease his hand once you were upright again moved to help its twin fold the letter which using the wax block from the open seal kit was marked from you by the simple press of the seal. Once pulled from the wax however he showed its path back to the box stating, “As your personal secretary for ease I shall keep your seal beside mine in case you might ever have need of it then it shall be found with ease.” You nodded and in the sink of your eyes to the pin on the neck of his robe you had been tapping he asked, “Is something troubling you?”

Promptly you shook your head and said, “That’s quite a, well I don’t know what to call that stone. The pale green one,” you said in a tap of his pin that had his grin ease out again.

“Green quartz, rather rare for this region. A gift from Celebrimbor upon my name day when he first awoke.”

You nodded and asked, “Have you ever seen an opal? Or a pearl? A good bit of my novels mention them, but I’ve never seen one in person.”

“How would you like a trip to our treasury? There we have a full array of gemstones for you to inspect.”

“Well, I can go there? Wouldn’t it be guarded?”

“There is no thievery here. Any gemstones within the treasury are itemized and up for request to any citizen who wishes use of them by inquiry to the Crown Treasurers. The gemstones from your effect on that Dragon however would be requested only to you should any dream to have use of your unique fortune.” You nodded and carefully he rose and helped you up to your feet to join him on the stroll to the distant Treasury in one of the lowest levels of the Palace. Past several respectfully nodding Elves who all once behind you smiled to one another at notice of the accessory in your hair that from a side view had their excited Prince hug Lord Glorfindel tightly to keep him from interfering on whatever activity the King was taking you on.

.

The shimmer was first what locked you in place and to the feel of fingertips that eased across your back from the torch and crystal lantern lit treasury that could make a dragon weep for joy your eyes flinched to Thranduil who simply gave you a kind grin after himself having come from meager roots to now being the Regal Charge of this vast hoard of all his peoples. “The glimmer free stones are kept closer to the doors, as they are used more commonly in pieces.” From section to section each divided nook of the hoard situated around the supporting pillars and archways gave off a different hue as they housed all of the stones of that kind within the area from which he brought a few choice pieces nearer for your inspection.

Though a section specifically for pearls was divided into the variations of styles and shades they were found in. “Wait,” you said in lifting a silver pearl, “This looks like the beads on my grey velvet dress.”

“It was adorned with silver pearls.”

“I wore pearls? I would have been more careful in it had I known.” You said eyeing the gem to the deepening of his sentimental grin in notice of the approach of Celebrimbor who had heard in the forges that you had come down here. His own grin spreading to curiosity for what reason could be behind the visit. “Don’t you have to kill the animals that make these?”

Thranduil shook his head in a hope to dispel the image surely that played in your head to how they might have been gathered. “No, not at all. Quite gently these can be removed from the clams that grow them. Even on occasion these misshapen ones can be found to be spat out by the younger ones. These come from Lothlorien and the Hobbits there are quite adept at farming these gems for our kin. Celebrimbor can attest to their care, can you not?”

His lifted gaze turned your head to the Lord who nodded his head to you and grinned wider than he thought possible to the sight of the hair ornament you were wearing. “Why yes, quite skilled and caring farmers Hobbits. Even though they have little use of Pearls beyond spoon displays or pen knives we craft here for them still the craft and care of their prized clams are passed from generation to generation.”

“That’s good, they live in a shell, doesn’t seem fair to split them open for what they can grow, or even to eat them. Even lobsters and crabs I could barely tolerate the sight of those fishermen returning with their wagons parading through town like heroes.”

Celebrimbor, “A sentiment shared by many Elves here in Middle Earth. Fish are a different story when caught on rod and reel or very mild nets in overpopulated seasons.” His eyes looked you over and he asked, “You have need of pearls, Your Highness?”

“I, um, sort of.” That had Thranduil’s brow twitch up a moment. “Yesterday on our ride Legolas shared that there’s a Necromancer in your old territory, and I’ve consulted one of my books and I think I might have just the trick to clear them and the spiders and such out.”

Thranduil, “Involving pearls?”

“Yes, I need a pearl in rouge, and a fire opal for the potion.”

Celebrimbor, “Is this a complicated potion?”

“It takes four days to brew, so, yes. Fairly complicated in a degree of time. Most prefer quick potions and effects but to my research those are almost always faulty and require a backup plan to the backup plan when they fail.”

Thranduil said, “Well, as long as you will face no harm we will continue the lesson on gemstones along the way once you have chosen your proper pearl.”

“Well the closer to a gourd shape the better. All my notes confirm gourd over lumps would be best.” You said in a lean forward to the red section of pearls that between shift of your fingers the divided crystal boxes eased closer to you and way for each shape variation until you found what must have been the oddest shaped one in the bunch by the duo’s reckoning. “This should give it a reasonable kick.”

Gestured along the tour continued until in a wide loop of the room to end at the opal section where you chose a half raw uncut fire opal that Thranduil nodded in approval of the choice. “Choose what you require. Might we aid in any other ingredients?”

In a glance up to Celebrimbor you asked, “Is there a metal with tree rings?”

“Yes,” he said in a turn to guide you to the other end of the treasury. There he led you into another hall on the way to another maze of metal hoards where he came to a stop in front of a stack of metal blocks, each with rings and wave patterns on each beside tiered trays of coins and unshaped clumps. “Damascus steel. Is this what you require?”

You nodded and said, “I think, one of these coins, not the bigger ones,” you muttered in a shift of your fingers in the toe top stance through the box of various sized coins until you found one that matched up with the size of the end of your thumb. “This one?”

Thranduil again nodded when your eyes met his, “Anything you require.”

You nodded and eyed the coin and Celebrimbor asked, “Does it require shaping?”

“Needs a hole,” his palm within an instant was offered and once the coin was settled there the both of you followed him into the forges. Just the noise alone would have been enough to make you flinch by the Smiths forging new swords and shields and yet after being tucked into Thranduil’s side the first slam of the heavy mallets and tools to shape the sweltering metal the new noises were tolerated.

To his usual forge the Master Smith moved and eased out of his outer robe to be in just his tunic that once the sleeves were rolled up tools were gathered and once the coin was clamped in place a super heated metal press that to his skill with the task melted right through it like butter. Up from the coin he asked, “Big enough?”

With a nod you flinched out a quick grin, “Yes, thank you.”

Thranduil, “Do you require aid the forming of this potion?”

“I have the rest of the ingredients, though I will have to start it tomorrow morning after breakfast. It will need some air, would it be okay if I use one of the empty wing walkways for it?”

“Yes, whatever you need. Is it harmful for others?” Celebrimbor asked.

“To touch, it just needs some ventilation or it can be overpowering.”

Pt 11

All –

@sherala007​, @mariannetora​​, @jesgisborne​, @knitastically​, @catthefearless​​, @theincaprincess​, ggbbhehe4455, @lilith15000​, 

Not nsfw(smut) - @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore​ 

Ash - @devilishminx328, @fandomsstolemylife00​, @lilith15000

#Thranduil x OC #Tears #Touch Starved #Token #Personal Secretary #Gifts from Lord Girion #Trip to the Treasury #Celebrimbor #Glorfindel #Legolas #Prep for the Potion

[notbigondoors]

Conflict and Consequence || closed with murder-popsicle

@murder-popsicle

Vision suddenly flinched, and the mind stone’s energy and glow flared sharply. Moving to sit more forward, he winced in pain and lifted his hand to touch his fingertips to the stone. He didn’t know how he knew, but it flooded his mind as clearly as he knew the headache he was feeling was not entirely his alone. Wherever Wanda is, she is in pain.

To say that he remained composed would have been a lie. Vision’s fists clenched and his lips formed a snarl. Rising from the chair, he sought out the man who had been reassuring him for days and days now that no harm would come to Wanda or any of the others arrested in that airport in Germany the day the Avengers turned on each other. The synthezoid found him predictably at the bar, still visibly bruised from his fight with Steve and Bucky, but that would garner no sympathy from Vision. Not anymore.

"Stark," Vision said loudly, approaching him.

"Hey, Junior!" Tony said condescendingly, pouring himself a drink.

"Where is she?" Vision asked, getting right to the point. "Where is Wanda? Where are the others?"

"Don't worry about it," Tony said dismissively, taking a sip.

"My worry festered into sharp and pointed concern and discontent ages ago. Answer the question,” Vision said with careful focus.

"I don't know," he said, shrugging and laying his hands on the bar.

"Do not test my patience,” Vision insisted.

"Are you... Did you just threaten me?" Tony asked, recoiling a bit in disbelief.

"I am indicating to you how serious I am, so that there will be no misunderstanding. No more lies,” Vision clarified.

"I'm sorry, when... did I ever lie to you?" Tony asked.

"You said she would not be harmed,” Vision replied.

"Look," Tony said with a sigh, "I didn't know any of this was going to happen, okay? And frankly, I don't like it any more than you do. But it’s out of our hands now."

"I have been inquiring for days, and you have been lying to me," Vision pressed, his even tone sounding rather ominous.

"Again, when... exactly... did I lie to you?"

"I felt her pain. Just now. Whether it is the mind stone's connection to her or her own magic reaching out to me, I do not know, but.. she is suffering. Now... what has been done to her? No lies."

"She's dangerous, Vision. Okay? They needed to ensure she wouldn't be able to hurt herself or anyone else,” Tony admitted.

"Tell me!" Vision said, raising his voice in a rare display of both concern and annoyance. His usually serene eyes showed a brief but explosive burst of golden-electric energy emanating out from their center pupils.

Tony heard the anger in Vision’s tone and it gave him pause. This had been enough to cause even the mild-mannered synthezoid to become emotionally effected. There was no way around this. He wasn’t going to let up and Tony knew he was stuck. "They had to make sure she couldn't use her abilities, so... they restrained her with... a straightjacket-like... brace... and a high-frequency-emitting collar... and... tranqs." He mumbled the last word, hoping to slip it by unnoticed.

"Tranqs," Vision repeated, focusing the most on that.

"Yes," Tony confirmed with a nod.

"Tranquilizers," Vision said, just for absolute clarification purposes.

"Yes," Tony repeated with the exact same nod.

"Where is she? Where are the others?" he asked angrily.

"I don't know. I don’t. That wasn't a lie. Steve busted everyone out days ago and they’re gone. They went off the grid. If they don't wanna be found, they won't be. Best to just leave it alone," Tony said, wishing the synthezoid would just drop it.

"Busted... everyone out... from where?" Vision asked carefully, his eyes narrowing.

Tony sighed again and slumped against the bar a little as he answered, knowing Vision wouldn't let it go. "The Raft. It's a maximum security prison off the New York coast meant for those... in need of... special accommodations." That was the nicest way he could have put that. Not that his careful wording did anything to keep the synthezoid from reacting negatively to it.

"After all that Wanda has been through at the hands of Hydra and the distrust it has sown in her, you authorized her to be drugged and forcibly restrained without legal counsel or fair trial in a maximum security facility?" Vision said bluntly.

"Come on, no I didn't,” Tony said, his guilt starting to get to him. “You think I was consulted on this? You think I did this?"

"Yes. I do," Vision said almost sadly. “I do now.”

"Well, I wasn't. I didn’t. You think I wanted them to send that poor traumatized kid to a heartless, sterile place guarded by specially-trained tactical military meant for psychopaths and serial killers?!" He stared for a moment, an oops expression coming over his face instantly. "Probably should’na said all that..."

Vision turned and walked away. He had heard enough.

"Where’re you goin'?" Tony called after him.

"To locate Wanda," he said with solid determination, stopping and turning so he could be sure to make eye contact. "And when I locate her, I will not be informing you of her location." With that he turned again and left.

Tony waited until he was out of earshot, taking a big gulp of his drink. "That's what trackers are for, Junior," he muttered under his breath. He was so confident in that, that he didn’t even jump up right away to try to track Vision the moment he left the compound. That would prove to be a mistake...

Once outside the facility, Vision disabled his internal trackers, already one step ahead of Tony. He needed time and privacy to form his own opinions, and he was not going to get that being tailed by the tech giant. He had trusted Tony to give him truthful and up-to-date information and he had been deceived. That stung Vision, if he was being honest with himself, especially since Wanda’s well-being had obviously been affected by decisions made without the rest of the team being consulted. This was not what had been outlined in the Accords, not what was right or just or even legal, not what Secretary Ross or Tony Stark had promised him would happen. Vision was angry, sad, worried, confused, and betrayed enough to want to be on his own right now. He would seek out the truth on his own and see it with his own eyes instead of trust an obviously unreliable filter of other human minds to do so for him.

For some time now, Vision had been working idly on changing his appearance for the purpose of camouflaging himself when out on missions. Realizing that this was now something of the utmost urgency and importance that he would need if he was going to go after Wanda, he worked even harder at it. If she and the others had gone off the grid as Tony stated, then they would not appreciate Vision’s conspicuous and highly recognizable self showing up at their doorstep, wherever they might be. Thus he took some time to perfect this shift in appearance as best he could, much in the same way he changed his density to either phase through walls or harden himself against attack. To accomplish that, he changed the arrangement of the atoms in his organic cells and their vibranium sheathes to achieve a more dense or more diffuse effect. The concept for his human disguise was similar and yet even more elaborate than that...

Vision not only altered the density of the atoms in the outer layers of his body, he also increased the ratio of organic tissue to vibranium, giving the outer layers the look and feel of either cloth or flesh. By altering the instance of other trace elements in his tissue he was able to alter color. So the flesh would look and feel like flesh, the sweater like a sweater, etc. Well, he had already mastered clothing in that regard. He didn’t wear real clothing, it was all part of his body, made in the image and feel of real human clothing. He now made human skin and hair in the same manner. The atoms that presented themselves first to the human eye or held up to the scrutiny of touch were a smokescreen for the rest of his body, hiding his true appearance. That combined with an imaging overlay of his entire body, a neuroelectronic grid of chameleon-like cells activated by power drawn from the mind stone, he was able to achieve a very realistic illusory and sensory effect.

Now... what he chose to look like had a lot to do with personal preference. His natural skin was dark colored, so for something different he chose a pale skin tone. For eye color, he chose the rarest among humans, blue. Perhaps that would help him keep some of his uniqueness, he reasoned. He didn’t have any hair naturally, so he chose to give himself some, and he liked the way blonde hair looked with blue eyes and pale skin. The result was something that looked decidedly human, but very far from his own natural appearance.

Once he was satisfied that he could move about in public and pass well enough for a human being, Vision searched for Wanda. It took him almost a day’s worth of flying, but he let the mind stone draw him to where Wanda’s energy was lingering. It was the same sort of gentle pull towards her that he felt that day in Sokovia, when she’d made the decision to die with her brother and Vision intervened. He didn’t know what emotional state he would find Wanda in this time, but as he honed in on an apartment building in Scotland, he was sure that she was there. Rather than just phase through the wall and look for himself, causing a stir and potentially alarming those inside who might at first misunderstand why he was here, Vision pressed the call button near the door. The voice that came through was a familiar one, saying that they were uninterested in anything anyone was selling and did not want visitors...

“Captain Rogers,” Vision said simply, calmly. Respectfully, too, since he imagined Steve was no longer captain of anything at this point, and yet Vision still honored his former title. “May I please have a word?” Only that, and then he backed up a few paces from the door and patiently waited. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he knew Steve would recognize his voice, since he had been the first to comment on it immediately following Vision’s birth. He hoped for a peaceful encounter, and truly he was not there to hurt anyone, but he imagined that tensions and fears might cause some of those who might be inside the building to resent that he was there. Nevertheless, Vision assumed the best until the worst presented itself...

#murder-popsicle #vision rp #guest muse: tony stark #{feel free to bypass Steve or do whatever you want} #{i just figured he'd be the one to answer first heh}

[maggyme13]

The last Mission (11/11)

AN: HERE WE ARE AGAIN for the last time of this story.

First I own you a reason for the long wait: just after the last chapter, both my sister and best friend became pregnant. Call me crazy, but I feared to jinx it if I continued this story. So I waited until both babies were born and a few months old.

So here we are and I hope you like it.

Wordcount: around 1800

Warnings: mention of misscarriage, asshole general, cursing

Masterlist

TLM-Masterlist

Part 10

Plumbs.

It all started with plumbs and a trip to the market. It ended with them sitting in some prison-cell- interrogation-room- thing.

Obviously it was quickly prepared to keep him and if they would get enough energy they would be able to get out easily.

That much they knew.

What they did not know was what had happened to you. With the last time they had seen you was when Bucky had returned from the market and found Captain America in their hideout.

It was then that the soldier had taken over who tried to lead him away from you to later return to in safety.

Unfortunately it would not come to that: after an hours long chase they were caught and locked away.

Then, two days ago they had been moved and were now locked away in Berlin, Germany. If he was able to trust his knowledge and memories.

At one point well armed men had entered the room that held his glass-cell to give him food and water using a tube for him to drink the soup out.

They were treated better than the soldier had ever been by Hydra when he had been locked away. Apart from the occasional food they were left alone with no word ever spoken to them.

It was irritating and antagonizing.

Just like the rest of the time, they were musing about what might have happened to the two of you, when five well armed men entered. He recognized the patches to belong to the German police special force GSG9. They were followed by a General of the United States and some spec ops guarding him.

“Mr Barnes. This Gentleman wants to ask you a few questions.”, one of the police officers spoke and they nodded in understanding.

Doesn´t look like they like the General much.

“Well, you probably wonder why you are here. Well, we arrested you for the attack on the UN that resulted in a few important people deaths; but unfortunately you have an Alibi. Even though I am not trusting the words of your little whore much. But the Germans do-”

Anger started to burn in their veins. His opponent was speaking about you, that meant he must have met you; spoken to you. And they did not like it one bit.

“- Because of that they are thinking about releasing you. I say it is because they feel guilty. Who wouldn´t after not being able to save a baby.”

A Baby? Their eyebrows rose- First in shock, then confusion.

“Well, I would not in this case. The child of a monster can only turn out as one as well. And it is not like anyone would be loving it, right? You are unable to feel positive things and she will only treat it out of fear.”

Until that moment, Bucky and the Soldier had been coexisting inside the body and mind ; now Bucky stepped back on his own and handed his half of the reigns over to the soldier.

With their combined anger the soldier was able to break out of his restrains within seconds. Much to the surprise of the General and his guards.

Just as quick as the soldier had freed himself, his fist connected with the Generals nose breaking it and the surrounding bones upon impact. His security detail regained their bearings to late and were knocked out quicker than they were able to reach for their guns.

With his new goal in the back of his mind, the soldier made his way over the bodies of the detail (stealing their guns on the way) and dragging the generals body behind him. Now he had to find you and become sure about your condition.

Using one of the stolen guns, he shot the lock to his cell open and stepped outside with the general as his shield.

Outside, he was greeted by the German police officers with their guns drawn and pointing at them.

“Drop him and your weapon!”, the leader ordered once. Twice. Three times in total until he did as he was told. With a loud crack the head of the hostage connected with the floor, cutting the tension for a second.

He knew, unlike their American counterparts, German police officers were taught to shoot as a last resort and as long as he wouldn´t shoot at them, they would not do so as well. So he kept his weapon aimed at them.

“Why don´t we calm down and lower our weapons? If you do that we can arrange for you to speak to Ms (y/n). That is what you want, right? But first you need to lower your weapon and let us take you into custody-”

“SHUT UP!”, the soldier growled, “What did he mean you were not able to save a baby?”

He underlined his question with a kick to the knock out general´s gut.

“Sir, we can talk about-”

“Answer my question.”, he demanded again adjusting his weapon. The soldier knew he was skilled enough to kill or injure at least two of the officers before they would be able to kill him. And he hoped they knew so as well and would disregard their training and answer his demands.

“Due to an incredible unfortunate accident Ms (y/n) had a miscarriage. I am deeply sorry.”

Acting on pure instinct and anger, he was about to take the shot, when the sound of naked feet on tiles caught his attention. And there you were. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw you running towards him. Your hair dripping wet and only a towel around your body.

“I was just taking a shower.”, you told him and a short gush of relieve float down his spine. Taking your appearance as a distraction, the police changed their positions, catching the soldiers attention.

Not wanting to lose you as well, he skillfully moved you behind his body to shield you from any bullet that might come their way.

“Sir, please lower you weapon.”, the leader called out again, “Sir, we have proof that you are innocent of the crime they say you committed. Lower your weapon and we can talk about it. No harm will come to you or Ms (y/n).”

“Soldier.”, you hummed, “They treated me well. Made sure I had food and medical care. Can we take their offer? I am getting cold with only the towel and my wet hair… please?”

Slowly he lowered his weapon and swirled it around so he was griping the muzzle before placing it on the floor and kicking it towards the police.

“If you lie. I will kill every single one of you.”, he promised.

“We know. We will lower our weapons now as well. Ms, do you know the way back to the room you were in first?”

You nodded a yes.

“Then please lead the way, we will be following you. Helmholz has already organized a change of clean clothing for you.”

“Come.”, you whispered and did as told, the soldier hesitantly doing so as well.

Back in ´your´ room, you quickly got changed in the offered clothing and took a seat on the bench again while the soldier was pacing the room like a caged lion.

“I am sorry,”, you finally hummed, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“No. We should be sorry. We failed in protecting you. We caused this. We-”

“To be honest, the General you knocked out caused this whole dilemma.”, Tony Stark piped up from the door, “Easy Iron fist, I am here to offer a peace-treaty. You see. We have evidences that you are in fact innocent of placing that bomb. And that you were controlled by Hydra. We believe you know a lot about them and their plans and so on, and on and on. Because of that I want to offer you a deal: the two of you return with me to the USA and stay at the Avengers-compound where you will get treated for any injuries , be it mentally or physically, and be rehabilitated as much as possible. And with the two of you, I don´t mean Mr Split Personality here, but the two people staring at me right now.”

“Thank you but no thank you. I would rather end up in Jail than to live in the same house as the two people who got me into this situation in the first place.”, you growled, having no desire to have to see Captain spangled latex and the black bitch more than needed.

“Understandable. I am sure we can find a solution to that problem. But can I say that at Steven felt horrible and was trying to find you ever since?”

“Doesn´t change the fact that they made me go to that heli-carrier and didn´t allow me to get my ass out of there once they had what they wanted.”

The billionaire had nothing to answer to that.

“She decides.”, the soldier rumbled and you sighted.

“The compound is huge, I am sure I can find an area suiting your demands. FRIDAY, can you check for me?”

“There three apartments that are at the far east and north of the compound that have their own entrances and can be locked off the rest of the compound.”

“Thank you. FRIDAY.”

“My pleasure Boss.”

“Your call Ms. I will personally make sure that neither of the two will bother you. I will even make sure you have a job. You were a secretary before right? I know someone who could need a new one.”

“Fine.”- Back into lock- down I guess. Not that I am already used to it by now. And it really would be best for Bucky, and the soldier as well. Why did I had to take that damn job in the first place. Screw you benefits!

“Awesome. I will get everything ready and we will depart as soon as possible. Why don´t you order food on my tab.” And with that he was gone.

______

Three month had gone by since then and you had started to feel comfortable in the apartment you were living in now. There had been a small , very small funeral for your dead boy, where only the Soldier/ Bucky had been present and Wanda, who turned out to become a wonderful friend of yours.

Once you crossed path with the Black widow and to the surprise of the two of you, you broke her nose with a punch to the face. Both of you were shocked, but you could not see her reaction, because as soon as your fist had connected with her nose, the soldier had taken over control, thrown you over his shoulder and walked away into a different direction than you first had been on. Captain America was different, Wanda had shown you proof that he had really been trying, with an endless number  of sleepless nights to find you, and so you had had decided to at least give him a chance.

Now only time would tell your future and what it brought for you. One thing you new though. I would not be boring.

AN 2.0: 

Thank you all for reading :)

~MaggY

Taglists:

Permanent:

@jadepc@pacifyhxlsey

@thankyoukarenclifford

@thankyouforanonymity  @punkrockhufflefluff

@scarletraine

@ambrosialyn

 @markusstraya

@graveyard-groupie

@buckycaptspideypool

 @markusstrayya @randomgirlkensy @the-soulofdevil

MCU:

@yknott81    @banner-and-bucky-are-life @forext20 @dyanlzbb  @so-finster-die-nacht @emmii4 @caplansteverogers @bitchwhytho @ladyofmyst   @jilldsumner @momc95 @appreciating-fanfics

Last Mission:

@eyesfixedonthesun22 @sherrybaby14 @lazilysuperbbucky  @lizblinder @queen-aerie @demonlover87 @simplyhemmings-blog  @darkficsyouneveraskedfor @lulasdaughter @lilly-evans-and-the-kpop ​ @past-perfect-future-tense

#The last mission #dark wintersoldier x reader #dark bucky #wintersoldier x reader #bucky x reader #misscarriage #mcu

[lastsonlost]

With the coronavirus pandemic surging and initial vaccine supplies limited, the United States faces a hard choice: Should the country’s immunization program focus in the early months on the elderly and people with serious medical conditions, who are dying of the virus at the highest rates, or on essential workers, an expansive category encompassing Americans who have borne the greatest risk of infection?

Health care workers and the frailest of the elderly — residents of long-term-care facilities — will almost certainly get the first shots, under guidelines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued on Thursday. But with vaccination expected to start this month, the debate among federal and state health officials about who goes next, and lobbying from outside groups to be included, is growing more urgent.

It’s a question increasingly guided by concerns over the inequities laid bare by the pandemic, from disproportionately high rates of infection and death among poor people and people of color to disparate access to testing, child care and technology for online schooling.

“It’s damnable that we are even being placed in this position that we have to make these choices,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, a co-chairman of the Poor People’s Campaign, a national coalition that calls attention to the challenges of the working poor. “But if we have to make the choice, we cannot once again leave poor and low-wealth essential workers to be last.”

Ultimately, the choice comes down to whether preventing death or curbing the spread of the virus and returning to some semblance of normalcy is the highest priority. “If your goal is to maximize the preservation of human life, then you would bias the vaccine toward older Americans,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said recently. “If your goal is to reduce the rate of infection, then you would prioritize essential workers. So it depends what impact you’re trying to achieve.”

The trade-off between the two is muddied by the fact that the definition of “essential workers” used by the C.D.C. comprises nearly 70 percent of the American work force, sweeping in not just grocery store clerks and emergency responders, but tugboat operators, exterminators and nuclear energy workers. Some labor economists and public health officials consider the category overbroad and say it should be narrowed to only those who interact in person with the public.

An independent committee of medical experts that advises the C.D.C. on immunization practices will soon vote on whom to recommend for the second phase of vaccination — “Phase 1b.” In a meeting last month, all voting members of the committee indicated support for putting essential workers ahead of people 65 and older and those with high-risk health conditions.

Historically, the committee relied on scientific evidence to inform its decisions. But now the members are weighing social justice concerns as well, noted Lisa A. Prosser, a professor of health policy and decision sciences at the University of Michigan.

“To me the issue of ethics is very significant, very important for this country,” Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a committee member and a pediatrics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said at the time, “and clearly favors the essential worker group because of the high proportion of minority, low-income and low-education workers among essential workers.”

That position runs counter to frameworks proposed by the World Health Organization, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and many countries, which say that reducing deaths should be the unequivocal priority and that older and sicker people should thus go before the workers, a view shared by many in public health and medicine.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the C.D.C. director and the nation’s top public health official, reminded the advisory committee of the importance of older people, saying in a statement on Thursday that he looked forward to “future recommendations that, based on vaccine availability, demonstrate that we as a nation also prioritize the elderly.”

Once the committee votes, Dr. Redfield will decide whether to accept its recommendations as the official guidance of the agency. Only rarely does a C.D.C. director reject a recommendation from the committee, whose 14 members are selected by the Health and Human Services secretary, serve four-and-a-half-year terms and have never confronted a task as high in profile as this one.

But ultimately, the decision will be up to governors and state and local health officials. They are not required to follow C.D.C. guidelines, though historically they have done so.

There are about 90 million essential workers nationwide, as defined by a division of the Department of Homeland Security that compiled a roster of jobs that help maintain critical infrastructure during a pandemic. That list is long, and because there won’t be enough doses to reach everyone at first, states are preparing to make tough decisions: Louisiana’s preliminary plan, for example, puts prison guards and food processing workers ahead of teachers and grocery employees. Nevada’s prioritizes education and public transit workers over those in retail and food processing.

At this early point, many state plans put at least some people who are older and live independently, or people who have medical conditions, ahead of most essential workers, though that could change after the C.D.C. committee makes a formal recommendation on the next phase.

One occupation whose priority is being hotly debated is teaching. The C.D.C. includes educators as essential workers. But not everyone agrees with that designation.

Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, argued that teachers should not be included as essential workers, if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities.

“Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” he said. “Of course they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, disagreed. Teachers not only ensure that children don’t fall further behind in their education, she said, but are also critical to the work force at large.

“When you talk about disproportionate impact and you’re concerned about people getting back into the labor force, many are mothers, and they will have a harder time if their children don’t have a reliable place to go,” she said. “And if you think generally about people who have jobs where they can’t telework, they are disproportionately Black and brown. They’ll have more of a challenge when child care is an issue.”

In September, academic researchers analyzed the Department of Homeland Security’s list of essential workers and found that it broadly mirrored the demographics of the American labor force. The researchers proposed a narrower, more vulnerable category — “frontline workers,” such as food deliverers, cashiers and emergency medical technicians, who must work face to face with others and are thus at greater risk of contracting the virus.

By this definition, said Francine D. Blau, a labor economist at Cornell University and an author of the study, teachers belong in the larger category of essential workers. However, when they work in classrooms rather than remotely, she said, they would fit into the “frontline” group. Individual states categorize teachers differently.

Dr. Blau said that if supplies are short, frontline workers should be emphasized. “These are a subset of essential workers who, given the nature of their jobs, must provide their labor in person. Prioritizing them makes sense given the heightened risk that they face.”

The analysis, a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, is in line with other critics, who say that the list of essential workers is too wide-ranging.

“If groups are too large, then you’re not really focusing on priorities,” said Saad B. Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, who worked on the vaccination frameworks for the W.H.O. and the National Academies.

The essential workers on the federal list make up nearly 70 percent of the American labor force, the researchers said, compared with 42 percent for the frontline workers. Women made up 39 percent of frontline workers and, in certain occupations, far more. Frontline workers’ education levels are lower, as are their wages — on average, just under $22 an hour. The proportion of Black and Hispanic workers is higher than in the broader category of essential workers.

Some health policy experts said that to prioritize preventing deaths rather than reducing virus transmission was simply a pragmatic choice, because there won’t be enough vaccine initially available to make a meaningful dent in contagion. A more effective use of limited quantities, they say, is to save the lives of the most frail.

Moreover, vaccine trial results so far show only that the shots can protect the individuals who receive them. The trials have not yet demonstrated that a vaccinated person would not infect others. Though scientists believe that is likely to be the case, it has yet to be proved.

Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities. “Older populations are whiter, ” Dr. Schmidt said. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

But to protect older people more at risk, he called on the C.D.C. committee to also integrate the agency’s own “social vulnerability index.”

The index includes 15 measures derived from the census, such as overcrowded housing, lack of vehicle access and poverty, to determine how urgently a community needs health support, with the goal of reducing inequities.

In a new analysis of the states’ preliminary vaccine plans, Dr. Schmidt found that at least 18 states intended to apply the index. Tennessee, for one, has indicated that it will reserve some of its early allotments for disadvantaged communities.

Still, some people believe it is wrong to give racial and socioeconomic equity more weight than who is most likely to die.

“They need to have bombproof, fact-based, public-health-based reasons for why one group goes ahead of another,” said Chuck Ludlam, a former Senate aide and biotech industry lobbyist who protested putting essential workers ahead of older people in comments to the committee. “They have provided no explanation here that will withstand public scrutiny.”

Further complicating matters, the different priority groups discussed by the C.D.C. committee are overlapping — many essential workers have high-risk conditions, and some are older than 65. Some states have suggested that they will prioritize only essential workers who come face to face with the public, while others have not prioritized them at all.

Even some people whose allegiance lies with one group have made the case that others should have an earlier claim on the vaccine. Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents 1.3 million grocery and food processing workers, said that despite the high rate of infection among his members, he thought that older adults should go first.

“Here’s the thing: Everybody’s got a grandmother or grandfather,” Mr. Perrone said. “And I do believe almost everybody in this country would want to protect them, or their aging parents.”

[taekookficrecs]

Hi! Could you recommend me the top/your favourite Taekook fanfics? I’m finding the BTS fandom so much bigger than other fandoms I’ve been in I don’t know how to find myself 😫 Thank you !!

hello friends :) i have answered some of my faves before but i’ll do it again cus it’s fun haha hope you like these !! there are a ton of different aus so enjoy

Kiss With a Fist - byeolguk (( 30/? | M | 187,718 ))

“Need a little help, love?” Jungkook asks, teasing him.

“Nah I had it all under control, sweetheart,” Taehyung answers with a smile, blood oozing from his split lip. Goddamn even smiling hurt now. Fuckity fuck fuck. Jungkook only rolls his eyes, his cocky smirk never slipping and Taehyung almost forgets how much pain he’s in.

(taekook prison au!! i started reading it forever ago but it remains in my top 3!! the plot and pet names make it so fun to read. be patient with updates though!

maybe we’re all just fools - airplanewishes (( 1/1 | G | 52,675 ))

Jeongguk likes to run. He’s never wanted anyone to run with him before.

(college fake dating au!! a definite classic, their relationship is just the cutest ;-;)

Where The Wind Blows - Kavbj (( 1/1 | T | 12,932 ))

Sunlight licks at the side of his face, warm and comforting and so fucking happy - just like the boy beneath him, who grins into the kiss and continues to hold Jungkook’s hand tightly to his chest.

(college friends to lovers! honestly the softest, their relationship before even dating makes this a 10/10 alone)

summer; blue - batman (( 1/1 | M | 66,024 ))

More than you can manage, more than you can hide: a study in light.

(modern w magic, enemies to lovers!! this is THE fic!! my number one of all time, there are so many layers to this one. the plot, the writing, all of it is heavenly)

what do you fight for? - flywithtaetae (kimtaehyungs) (( 1/1 | M | 10,001 ))

Taehyung has only ever known to keep his guard up. But that was before he knew Jungkook.

(high school bad boys au :) so so cute, i’ve read it so many times)

All’s Fair in Coffee and War - expplipo (( 1/1 | T | 6,898 ))

“Goddammit, Kim Taehyung,” Jeongguk moaned, “I thought I’d get you with the soy.”

(established relationship au!! fluffy, domestic, and pure for the heart <3)

King of the Library, Knight of His Trade - madigraye (( 1/1 | T | 47,430 ))

Moral of the story? Don't fuck with Jeon Jungkook or else you'll end up ruining your perfect attendance to chase his coattails.

(college au!! a total classic that is just so fun to read)

Speed Demon - lethallergic (( 1/1 | E | 50,082 ))

Pick up the pace like danger and ride.

(this one!!! criminals/thiefs au! masterpiece if i do say so myself, it’s definitely in my top 3. this author writes amazingly and the slow burn is just !!! perfection)

Ghost Story - mindheist (( 1/1 | E | 19,729 ))

It was an untold story with no ending, until now.

(ghost au!! super cute and made me cry lol but i love it all the same)

take an inch (i’ll give you a mile) - thestarsabove (( 1/1 | E | 44,705 ))

In which Taehyung has to put his post-graduate identity crisis on hold because he keeps getting distracted by the hot, sweaty guy installing a pool in his parents’ backyard.

Or: a fluffy, horny summer starring Taehyung and Jeongguk.

(will never get over how fun this one is!! so entertaining and immersing)

ELLIPSISM - haruday (( 11/11 | N/R | 72,456 ))

If you slap a jester's hat on the monster in the closet it ceases to be scary but to itself, it will still be a monster. If Jeongguk opens his palms he closes them instantly because he doesn't like the ugliness he sees. The neon light leaks through his pores and he ceases to be bright.

Pain changes people. It certaintly changes Jeon Jeongguk.

(very well known college au! it deals with heavy stuff like depression and suicide so proceed with caution but it’s a beautiful story!!)

i forget to breathe (when i’m with you) - locks (( 14/14 | E | 111,780 ))

"Do we have a deal, angel," Taehyung repeats, and Jeongguk can hear that he's losing his patience, hands resting on his hips.

Jeongguk lifts his head, snapping the lid closed. "Pleasure doing business with you, daddy," he nods, sending a grin up to Taehyung who just narrows his eyes at him.

"You're lucky I like you," Taehyung mutters, sounding mildly threatening as he steps over to him and tilts Jeongguk's chin up, leaning down to press a kiss against his lips.

Lucky doesn't even come close.

Or, Jeongguk's trying to figure out how he ended up with a sugar daddy when all he wanted was a couple packets of instant noodles.

(sugar daddy au!! this one is beyond iconic, i could go on for days about how sweet their relationship and this story is!!)

real worlds can be manic too - drawingspaces (( 18/? | E | 234,531 ))

Sex and love are not one and the same but they tend to feed the same animal.

Taehyung doesn’t want much. The Universe, for one. The rest he can take or leave.

(this one is beyond beautiful!! deals with themes of addiction and healthy relationships and it is so so real and raw and i love it!!)

sonámbulo - batman (( 5/5 | E | 57,314 ))

One painting, one mission, one hundred days.

(based on the movie inception!! super intriguing plot and the writing style is just amazing!! definitely deserves more credit)

to always follow the sun - thruspring (( 1/1 | E | 36,019 ))

In which Jeongguk upgrades from being his boss' frazzled and overworked assistant to prospective future step-parent practically overnight.

(ceo + secretary au & single parent!! honestly so cute it makes my heart hurt)

sunflowers still grow at night - merelypretty (( 2/2 | M | 17,684 ))

On the side of the shop by the floral coolers, the boy is peering in as he pushes his hands into the pockets of his letterman. Taehyung takes a deep breath before approaching him, unsure what to do except walk up to the football player. He coughs, alerting Jeongguk of his presence, only to startle when Jeongguk whips around with a wide eyed glance.

“Oh my god, sorry-”

“No, no. I was just shocked-” Jeongguk starts, breath hitching in his throat. “Oh. You’re the guy who got knocked out by a football.”

“Your friend threw it at me,” Taehyung corrects, lifting a brow as Jeongguk blushes and tries to get a sentence out only to shut his mouth with a snap.

(Or: No one has ever given Kim Taehyung flowers. He doesn’t expect that Jeon Jeongguk, with his cold reputation, will be the first person to do so.)

(college + florist au !! the fluffiest, most adorable thing ever ;-;)

They Can See Us - mindheist (( 1/1 | E | 31,554 ))

There are two things that you should hope always follow you. Number one: your shadow. Number two: your reflection.

(horror au!! writing style and plot was so captivating!! definitely had me on the edge of my sweet w the horror but was so so fun to read)

admin nj - i have read all of these multiple times and they never cease to entertain me!! i usually don’t add commentary to my recs but i just had to let you know how i much i love these lol pls enjoy!!

#taekook #taekook fanfics #taekook fic recs #jeon jeongguk #kim taehyung #vkook #kookv #admin nj

[mamabearcatfanfics]

More Than Words - One

“Please, please, please, please, please Kagome!”

She looked up from her laptop to roll her eyes at the dark haired man leaning over her desk, his violet eyes beseeching, hands together as if in prayer.

“You would think by now Miroku, that you of all people would know that when a lady says no, she means no”, she said dryly, dropping her attention back to the computer screen in front of her. It was boring work, but if everything wasn’t just so, the tender documents could be rejected, and she really didn’t want to open that can of worms with her project manager.

“But Kagome”, he continued pleading. “She’s amazing, gorgeous, an angel!” His eyes misted over as he gazed off into the middle distance. “I think it’s her. I think I’ve finally found the love of my life.” Kagome snorted, and his eyes flicked back to hers. “You don’t believe me?” he said with a wounded expression.

“Miroku”, Kagome sighed, “you probably spoke to her for a maximum of what, two minutes, tops? And that was to order coffee. How is this girl any different from the temp secretary you took out on a date after the office Christmas party three weeks ago? Or that girl you abandoned me for last Friday night when we went out to karaoke? I’m not going to hound some poor woman minding her own business into giving you her number just because you have the unfortunate habit of falling for every pretty face you see!”

Miroku shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. This was different. When my fingers touched hers, it was, like, I don’t know, a spiritual connection.” He sighed, leaning against Kagome’s desk, his hand over his heart. “She owns me, body and soul.”

“Oh my god Miroku,” Kagome chortled, pushing his hip off her desk. “If you were any cheesier I’d need to run out and buy wine and crackers! You do realise that you sound like someone out of one of those trashy romance movies on daytime TV? Next you’ll be writing sonnets and saying you were struck by Cupid’s arrow.” She got up from her desk to move over to the filing cabinet, rifling through the files. “I still don’t see why I need to be involved anyway - just ask her for her number herself if you’re so desperate!”

Miroku sighed, hanging his head despondently. “I’ve been banned. By her guard dog.” Kagome looked at him questioningly. “The barista.”

“You got banned from a café by the barista? What on earth did you do!?” She held up her hands, the file in them covering her view of Miroku as he opened his mouth to explain. “No, don’t tell me, on second thoughts, I don’t want to know!”

“Kagome, I’m begging you! Just talk to her. If she doesn’t want to give her number to me, I’ll admit defeat. I just need to know! What if I did all your filing for the next week?”

Kagome shook her head. “No way! I’ve only just got all my files back in order from when you meddled with my stuff when I was on leave.”

“I’ll walk your dog.”

“I have a cat.”

“I’ll do your tax return for you.”

“I’d like to stay out of prison, thanks very much.”

“I’ll, I’ll… “ Miroku looked around the office, as if searching for inspiration, his eyes alighting on Kagome’s much loved pink coffee cup, sitting empty and forlorn on her desk. “I’ll buy you coffee for the next month!”

Kagome stared him. “You’re offering to buy me coffee for a whole month?” He nodded. “And this is whether she gives me her number or not?” Miroku nodded again. Kagome bumped the filing cabinet drawer shut with her hip, then placed the folders on her desk, turning back to him with a gleeful expression on her face.

Miroku’s face fell when he realised exactly how much that this might cost him in monetary terms. Kagome loved her coffee; she was rarely seen without her favourite coffee mug in her hand. And she did a lot of overtime, often working back late at the office, weekends too when a tender was due.

Kagome grinned even wider and slapped him on the shoulder. “Miroku, my lovestruck friend, you’ve got yourself a deal!”

 ☕💘☕

 Kagome walked towards the tiny hole in the wall coffee shop a few blocks away from the office. It was literally only a door and a window wide, the exterior painted in matte black, with a white awning shading the customers waiting outside in the hot Australian summer sun. The business name adorned the glass window, a simple red circle with black text in a strong block font - Black Dog Coffee.

There was a line of people heading out the door waiting patiently, some chatting quietly, but most looking down at their phones. As she got further forward in the line, she was amused to notice that everyone followed the same pattern – a step towards the woman taking orders, stating their name and order and paying, then two steps to the left while they waited for their coffee. The woman at the cash register didn’t take another order until the first one had been filled, yet no one complained. That was kind of odd, but the line was moving fairly swiftly, so she guessed it worked, even though it wasn’t how cafés usually took their coffee orders. It was hard to see what was going on from her position in the line, stuck behind a tall guy in a business suit. She decided to look up reviews for the coffee shop online while she was waiting.

‘This coffee is the absolute bomb, but don’t piss off the barista!’

‘Was recommended to me by a friend. Coffee is amazing.’

‘Kinda weird. They only sell coffee, roast their own beans I think. The barista is something else!’

‘Would wait in line all day for this coffee!!’

‘Worst experience ever. Got BANNED because I tried to order more than five things. And they have no food, just coffee. WTF! Pretty sure the barista was in the yakuza – that guy has tatts for days! 0/10 would recommend.’

‘Follow the ordering protocol and you’ll be sweet – best coffee in the downtown financial district.’

‘OMG – best coffee EVER! I’m now a daily customer.’

Hmmm. She tried to peer around the tall guy in front of her, but she couldn’t see anything; the afternoon sun was reflecting off the glass covered office building nearby, getting in her eyes and making her squint. She fanned her face with her hand. Man it was hot. You could fry an egg out here on the cement. She hoped the coffee was worth the freckles she was probably getting on her nose right now. The tall guy stepped forward to make his order, and she caught a glimpse of the woman behind the cash register.  

Long glossy brown hair with thick bangs, and a bright smile. Her brown eyes, highlighted by bright pink eyeshadow, sparkled with warmth; she was giving her total attention to the current person she was engaging with. She wasn’t much taller than Kagome herself and the tight black t-shirt she was wearing with the name Sango embroidered on the pocket accentuated her generous curves.

Kagome sighed. Miroku was nothing if not predictable – he loved curvy ladies. But how was she going to ask for this woman’s number without causing a disruption – everyone seemed to be on board with the ordering system, and if the coffee was as good as the reviews promised there was no way she was going to get herself banned from coming back.

She glanced down to the time on her phone, and then to the opening hours printed on the tiny shop window. It was almost closing time. Maybe if she hung back for a little while and caught the woman after they’d shut up shop? She groaned internally, trying not to think of the work still waiting for her on her desk. She should have held out for two months of coffee.

The tall man stepped to the side. Crap, she needed to order.

“Good afternoon ma’am. What would you like?” The woman’s smile was wide and welcoming.

“Uh, a large latte please, no sugar”, Kagome said, holding up her credit card ready to tap payment.

“Name please?”

“Kagome. That’s K – A…”

“That’s okay, I know how to spell it.” Kagome watched with interest as the woman wrote her name on the coffee lid in curving characters. Was that hirigana? She vaguely recognised it was her name being written from the two terms of Japanese she did in high school. A grunt came from her left, and she realised with a little start that she was meant to move to one side.

She stood in front of the gleaming commercial espresso machine, eyes closing as she savoured the rich coffee aroma. It smelt amazing, rich and full. Not burnt. It was a little hard to see the barista; her view was blocked by towers of takeaway coffee cups in various sizes. But those reviews that mentioned him had made her curious now. She stepped to the side a little more. Ah, there he was.

He was taller than her - she guessed she’d come up to just above his shoulder, but then she wasn’t exactly tall herself at 5’2”. He had long dark hair, looped back in a low ponytail, with a choppy fringe and slightly longer forelocks  on either side of his face, tanned skin that was complemented by the white collarless t-shirt he wore under a denim apron. His expression as he looked downward to make the coffee was stern, but she didn’t see what he had to be so grumpy about. Maybe he was just hot? Maybe he just took his job very seriously? He moved out from behind the coffee machine and her eyes widened at the sight of his forearms, revealed by the shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows. They were covered in tattoos from the wrist; dark sleeves of swirling black water flowing up his arms, broken only by pink and red cherry blossoms, with a hint of green and yellow. Then he looked up.

His eyes. They were hazel, for want of a better description, but such a light hazel that they almost looked golden. With the late afternoon sun behind her, lighting his face, they almost sparkled like citrine quartz. He placed the lid on her coffee, then set it down in front of her.

“Kagome.”

He’d pronounced her name right. Ka-goh-meh. She was so used to the way most Australians butchered her Japanese name, a way for her parents to honour her Japanese grandfather, that she was immune to its mispronunciation, but he’d said it just right. Just. Right. His voice was deep and a little husky. He made that small grunting noise in the back of his throat again, his strong dark brows lowering a little, and she realised in embarrassment that she was staring at him.

“Uh, yes, I’m sorry, yeah that’s me! I’m Kagome.” Idiot. Of course he knew that, it’s not like there was anyone else standing right in front of him waiting! She reached out for her coffee where he’d placed it on the edge of the counter, and then backed away, pink cheeked, as another person stepped to the side to wait for their coffee.

She moved to stand in front of the shop next door, taking out her phone for something to do while she waited for closing time, slowly sipping her coffee, which was glorious by the way. But she couldn’t give herself over fully to her enjoyment of the taste, unable to control her wandering eyes.

‘Oh my god, he’s gorgeous! I’ve never seen anyone with eyes that colour before. And that’s so much ink on his arms - that must have hurt like a bitch! I never would have picked that a guy would get cherry blossom sleeves, but they don’t look girly on him at all - the exact opposite really. I wonder if they go all the way up his arms? God, now I’m imagining him with his shirt off - bad girl, Kagome! Maybe the cherry blossoms are a cultural thing? I think he’s Japanese, and I’m pretty sure that’s my name in hirigana on the coffee lid, but I don’t want to make an assumption just based on that and his looks. I wonder what he’s thinking about? He doesn’t look unhappy or angry exactly, just… determined? Maybe he just has resting bitch face.’ She snorted a little at that thought, then sighed. ‘His movements are so graceful and fluid, it’s like watching someone do tai chi or something. Oh, he has such nice hands - strong fingers. I could watch him make coffee aaaaall day.’

She gazed dreamily, sipping at her coffee slowly, the phone in her hand forgotten. Golden eyes suddenly met hers, one eyebrow raised in a puzzled expression. ‘Oh shit, he’s looking this way. He’s noticed that I’m looking at him. Abort! Abort! Oh fuck… This is all your fault Miroku!’

She turned tail and fled, almost running back to the office. The reviews had been right. The hot coffee was amazing, but the hot barista? Yeah, he was definitely something else. She knew she would be back first thing in the morning to get another coffee. And it wasn’t just because the coffee was amazing and that he was beautiful to look at. There was something about him. She wanted to get to know him better.

Miroku was waiting for her out the front of their office building. “So, did you get it?” he asked eagerly.

“What?”

“Did you get her number. Sango’s number?”

“Uh…” Shit. She’d been so flustered when he had suddenly looked up and met her gaze that she’d turned tail and fled without remembering why she was waiting there in the first place. Damn. Heat washed across her cheeks, and she flicked her gaze away from Miroku’s.

“Our calm and collected Kagome blushing? Oh, there must be a good story behind this – do tell!”

“No story. You’ve ordered coffee from there before – I didn’t want to do anything to upset the system and get banned like you did! There just wasn’t an opportunity today – I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Miroku poked her in the ribs. “But surely that wouldn’t make you blush Kags! C’mon, spill.”

“There’s nothing to tell!” she spluttered.

Suddenly Miroku burst out laughing. “Oh ho ho, I get it. You were so busy perving at the guard dog making the coffee that you forgot what you were there for.”

“Shut. Up.”

Miroku grinned at her. “Aw, little Kagome finally got a crush on someone. Were you struck by Cupid’s arrow?” he teased, throwing the phrase she’d used before back at her with a note of triumph in his voice. Kagome squirmed under his knowing gaze, and he chuckled. “Looks like Cupid’s been pretty busy with his arrows around that coffee shop, huh?”

Kagome made a growling noise in the back of her throat, then the corners of her lips curled up in a knowing smile. She blinked at him innocently, raising her takeaway cup.

“You may be right Miroku. You may be right. And I’m thinking the best way to get to know him will be to buy coffee. Lots of coffee. I hope you’re ready to pay up, buddy!” She sipped her coffee and patted him on his suddenly slumping shoulders as she walked past him into the foyer of the building and back to her desk full of filing, savouring every last drop.

  ☕💘☕

 Inuyasha pondered as he polished the already gleaming coffee maker. Sango had just left for the day, after balancing the till, and he was doing a final clean up, ensuring everything would be ready for 7am opening.

That girl. Kagome. She’d been staring at him. Usually that made him feel intensely uncomfortable. Growing up in an orphanage had internalised that being stared at was a bad thing, because pain caused by kids much larger and stronger than him usually followed close behind. That was until he’d been there so long that he was the large and strong one, handing out punches to anyone picking on the tiny ones. But he hadn’t got that uncomfortable feeling from her when she’d stared.

He knew he was considered attractive by some people. But her looking at him hadn’t given him that slimy creepy feeling that being ogled purely for looks gave him either. She had looked at him like he was a puzzle she wanted to work out.

He tried to picture her in his mind’s eye, but all he really remembered was dark shining hair like a corvid’s wing, and very blue eyes. She’d been small too, very petite. He rolled her name around in his head, as it tugged on a memory, and he suddenly thought of the rhyming game from his childhood about a bird caught in a cage. It was fitting – her mannerisms reminded him of a little bird - a wren, with bright inquisitive eyes. And when he’d looked up at her and caught her staring, she’d flapped her wings in fright and flown away. He chuckled. He hoped she wasn’t caught in a cage of some sort. No one deserved that.

He shut off the lights to the tiny shop, and walked into the studio behind it, flopping down on his bed with his laptop, ready to spend another evening struggling through his online English class. A little orange fluffball of a kitten jumped on to his lap, trying to sit on the keys, and he pushed it off.

“Shippou! Dame!”

The kitten settled down next to his thigh, snuggling against him and purring, and he turned his attention back to the screen. It was hard, learning a language this way, but he was determined. He had escaped his own cage, and he was never going back.

☕💘☕

PART TWO

#Bearpluscat fanfics #inukag fanfic #inukag modern au #inukag coffee shop au #I'll be posting every couple of days in the lead up to White Day!

[youngwriter2003]

Shawshank Redemption (1994)

RATING: 9/10

(SPOILER REVIEW) 

From the blood-drenched prom queens to ax-wielding husbands, it's wouldn't be an overstatement to say Stephen King is the King of horror books that have been adapted. Yet one of his most popular movies would shock some. Pulling back from clowns in the swears to an inmate in a swear, Shawshank Redemption shows a different side of King’s mind. 

The 1994 film that would become a widely known prison reference, showed the viewers the life of a banker Andy Dufresne played by Tim Robbins, who was convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at the Shawshank State Penitentiary. Where he meets a group of “innocent” felons and the only guilty man there, Red played by Morgan Freeman. 

The prison is your every mill prison, the guards that will beat you for nothing, the inmates that make bets for smokes, and the groups of queer inmates dubbed the Sister that everyone is very aware of. Andy on the other hand kept to himself, annoyed others in a way that the narrator Red described as if he wasn't even in prison. Though very unconventional years, Andy makes his mark in the prison, from the library he sent letters to get made, to the 10 feet tunnel used in his escape. Andy was aware that his fate was set in stone, but he was also aware that with the time that stone could break. Giving him the attitude that annoyed many as stated, but also gave others the sense of normalcy that they have long forgotten. On the other hand, we have Red, he believed at one point in the past that he could get out, but let the stone form him and was set in his ways, only to be changed by his new and then lifetime friend, Andy. 

Andy didn't have much affliction with the other inmates other than with the Sisters. He even went as far as making arrangements with a guard that awarded his friend’s beers, and later the near-death of his main attacker. Though his intelligence Andy finds himself working at the library, which isn't much of one, more a place where Andy would end up doing taxes for those that worked at the prison. A job like that let him used outgoing mail to get him a proper library, then works as a secretary for the warden. Most of which isn't on the legal side. After that succeeding there, he takes on a prodigy Tommy and helps him to pass the GED. During this, he figures out that Tommy knows the real murder that killed his wife and her lover. With attempting to get Andy cleared, Tommy loses his life, and Andy is on his last straw. From then on, Andy makes his final moves to freedom. 

The movie emphasizes hardships and injustice. It takes a chronological approach to show this man’s life. The movie is well-executed, it took a simple premise and showed you a cinematic master perspective of prison life. Yes, some credit is due to King, but the acting and settings took the words and made even the ungratified view realize that it was one of the best movies of the time. It doesn't take much for you to realize that the friendship of two inmates to the realism of the prison system, and the embezzlement ironically from law enforcement, took viewers on a needed journey to show perspective. 

There were many clever shots that showed the mind states of characters though out the film. But the acting and the dialogue really cared about the film. If it wasn't for Morgan Freeman narrating we wouldn't have been able to understand the movie as much. It was clever to show the movie as Andy as the main character and yet everything was from Red’s perspective. 

What I found intriguing about this movie’s morphing abilities. It starts off as a crim and punishment film. Then a striving in the fire. Next, the effect of the prison system on inmates once realized. After the hardship of a lack of power. And ends, somewhat on a buddy film. It's interesting how if you just watch it objectively your likely to the way that it's a prison movie. When really the main character isn't imprisoned. 

I think you have to take into account that this was a book first, all the overtone attributes that the film brought you to have to understand you find out later, that Andy almost never felt trapped. He had the little tunnel that made him feel sain.  

The deeper meaning of all this, on the surface, is criminal injustice, when really we see how for Andy salvation for him is escaping Shawshank, redemption is the price of salvation. 

Films that are fictional auto/biographies of a characters life: 

Forrest Gump (1994)  - Forest

Stand By Me (1986) - Chris

Rounders (1998) - Mike

Non-fictional honorable mention: 

Goodfellas (1990) - Henry

Look, if you are looking for your everyday mill scary King movie this isn't for you. Andy isn't going to go on some murder spree or meet a clown on his escape route. You watch as an innocent man endures the hardship of prison while Andy is escaping from Shawshank as his personal Redemption.

[theculturedmarxist]

With the coronavirus pandemic surging and initial vaccine supplies limited, the United States faces a hard choice: Should the country’s immunization program focus in the early months on the elderly and people with serious medical conditions, who are dying of the virus at the highest rates, or on essential workers, an expansive category encompassing Americans who have borne the greatest risk of infection?

Health care workers and the frailest of the elderly — residents of long-term-care facilities — will almost certainly get the first shots, under guidelines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued on Thursday. But with vaccination expected to start this month, the debate among federal and state health officials about who goes next, and lobbying from outside groups to be included, is growing more urgent.

It’s a question increasingly guided by concerns over the inequities laid bare by the pandemic, from disproportionately high rates of infection and death among poor people and people of color to disparate access to testing, child care and technology for online schooling.

“It’s damnable that we are even being placed in this position that we have to make these choices,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, a co-chairman of the Poor People’s Campaign, a national coalition that calls attention to the challenges of the working poor. “But if we have to make the choice, we cannot once again leave poor and low-wealth essential workers to be last.”

Ultimately, the choice comes down to whether preventing death or curbing the spread of the virus and returning to some semblance of normalcy is the highest priority. “If your goal is to maximize the preservation of human life, then you would bias the vaccine toward older Americans,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said recently. “If your goal is to reduce the rate of infection, then you would prioritize essential workers. So it depends what impact you’re trying to achieve.”

The trade-off between the two is muddied by the fact that the definition of “essential workers” used by the C.D.C. comprises nearly 70 percent of the American work force, sweeping in not just grocery store clerks and emergency responders, but tugboat operators, exterminators and nuclear energy workers. Some labor economists and public health officials consider the category overbroad and say it should be narrowed to only those who interact in person with the public.

An independent committee of medical experts that advises the C.D.C. on immunization practices will soon vote on whom to recommend for the second phase of vaccination — “Phase 1b.” In a meeting last month, all voting members of the committee indicated support for putting essential workers ahead of people 65 and older and those with high-risk health conditions.

Historically, the committee relied  on scientific evidence to inform its decisions. But now the members are weighing social justice concerns as well, noted Lisa A. Prosser, a professor of health policy and decision sciences at the University of Michigan.

“To me the issue of ethics is very significant, very important for this country,” Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a committee member and a pediatrics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said at the time, “and clearly favors the essential worker group because of the high proportion of minority, low-income and low-education workers among essential workers.”

That position runs counter to frameworks proposed by the World Health Organization, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and many countries, which say that reducing deaths should be the unequivocal priority and that older and sicker people should thus go before the workers, a view shared by many in public health and medicine.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the C.D.C. director and the nation’s top public health official, reminded the advisory committee of the importance of older people, saying in a statement on Thursday that he looked forward to “future recommendations that, based on vaccine availability, demonstrate that we as a nation also prioritize the elderly.”

Once the committee votes, Dr. Redfield will decide whether to accept its recommendations as the official guidance of the agency. Only rarely does a C.D.C. director reject a recommendation from the committee, whose 14 members are selected by the Health and Human Services secretary, serve four-and-a-half-year terms and have never confronted a task as high in profile as this one.

But ultimately, the decision will be up to governors and state and local health officials. They are not required to follow C.D.C. guidelines, though historically they have done so.

Defining ‘essential'

There are about 90 million essential workers nationwide, as defined by a division of the Department of Homeland Security that compiled a roster of jobs that help maintain critical infrastructure during a pandemic. That list is long, and because there won’t be enough doses to reach everyone at first, states are preparing to make tough decisions: Louisiana’s preliminary plan, for example, puts prison guards and food processing workers ahead of teachers and grocery employees. Nevada’s prioritizes education and public transit workers over those in retail and food processing.

At this early point, many state plans put at least some people who are older and live independently, or people who have medical conditions, ahead of most essential workers, though that could change after the C.D.C. committee makes a formal recommendation on the next phase.

One occupation whose priority is being hotly debated is teaching. The C.D.C. includes educators as essential workers. But not everyone agrees with that designation.

Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, argued that teachers should not be included as essential workers, if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities.

“Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” he said. “Of course they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, disagreed. Teachers not only ensure that children don’t fall further behind in their education, she said, but are also critical to the work force at large.

“When you talk about disproportionate impact and you’re concerned about people getting back into the labor force, many are mothers, and they will have a harder time if their children don’t have a reliable place to go,” she said. “And if you think generally about people who have jobs where they can’t telework, they are disproportionately Black and brown. They’ll have more of a challenge when child care is an issue.”

In September, academic researchers analyzed the Department of Homeland Security’s list of essential workers and found that it broadly mirrored the demographics of the American labor force. The researchers proposed a narrower, more vulnerable category — “frontline workers,” such as food deliverers, cashiers and emergency medical technicians, who must work face to face with others and are thus at greater risk of contracting the virus.

By this definition, said Francine D. Blau, a labor economist at Cornell University and an author of the study, teachers belong in the larger category of essential workers. However, when they work in classrooms rather than remotely, she said, they would  fit into the “frontline” group. Individual states categorize teachers differently.

Dr. Blau said that if supplies are short, frontline workers should be emphasized. “These are a subset of essential workers who, given the nature of their jobs, must provide their labor in person. Prioritizing them makes sense given the heightened risk that they face.”

The analysis, a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, is in line with other critics, who say that the list of essential workers is too wide-ranging.

“If groups are too large, then you’re not really focusing on priorities,” said Saad B. Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, who worked on the vaccination frameworks for the W.H.O. and the National Academies.

The essential workers on the federal list make up nearly 70 percent of the American labor force, the researchers said, compared with 42 percent for the frontline workers. Women made up 39 percent of frontline workers and, in certain occupations, far more. Frontline workers’ education levels are lower, as are their wages — on average, just under $22 an hour. The proportion of Black and Hispanic workers is higher than in the broader category of essential workers.

Death vs. transmission

Some health policy experts said that to prioritize preventing deaths rather than reducing virus transmission was simply a pragmatic choice, because there won’t be enough vaccine initially available to make a meaningful dent in contagion. A more effective use of limited quantities, they say, is to save the lives of the most frail.

Moreover, vaccine trial results so far show only that the shots can protect the individuals who receive them. The trials have not yet demonstrated that a vaccinated person would not infect others. Though scientists believe that is likely to be the case, it has yet to be proved.

Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities. “Older populations are whiter, ” Dr. Schmidt said. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

But to protect older people more at risk, he called on the C.D.C. committee to also integrate the agency’s own “social vulnerability index.”

The index includes 15 measures derived from the census, such as overcrowded housing, lack of vehicle access and poverty, to determine how urgently a community needs health support, with the goal of reducing inequities.

In a new analysis of the states’ preliminary vaccine plans, Dr. Schmidt found that at least 18 states intended to apply the index. Tennessee, for one, has indicated that it will reserve some of its early allotments for disadvantaged communities.

Still, some people believe it is wrong to give racial and socioeconomic equity more weight than who is most likely to die.

“They need to have bombproof, fact-based, public-health-based reasons for why one group goes ahead of another,” said Chuck Ludlam, a former Senate aide and biotech industry lobbyist who protested putting essential workers ahead of older people in comments to the committee. “They have provided no explanation here that will withstand public scrutiny.”

Blurred lines, many unknowns

Further complicating matters, the different priority groups discussed by the C.D.C. committee are overlapping — many essential workers have high-risk conditions, and some are older than 65. Some states have suggested that they will prioritize only essential workers who come face to face with the public, while others have not prioritized them at all.

Even some people whose allegiance lies with one group have made the case that others should have an earlier claim on the vaccine. Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents 1.3 million grocery and food processing workers, said that despite the high rate of infection among his members, he thought that older adults should go first.

“Here’s the thing: Everybody’s got a grandmother or grandfather,” Mr. Perrone said. “And I do believe almost everybody in this country would want to protect them, or their aging parents.”

But Dr. Nirav Shah, Maine’s top public health official, said he respectfully disagreed, repeating the explanation he had given his in-laws — who are older but in good health and able to socially distance.

He said: “I’ve told them: ‘You know what? I’m sorry, but there are others that I need to get this vaccine to first, so that when you guys get vaccinated, the world you come back into is ready to receive you.’”

All these plans are, of course, unfurling with essential information still unknown.Many state officials said that as on-the-ground realities emerge, they fully expect their plans to evolve.

One uncertainty: given the high rates of apprehension swirling around this vaccine, how many people in the early groups will actually line up for it?

“If a high proportion of essential workers decline to get the vaccine, states will have to quickly move onto the next group anyway,” said Dr. Prosser, the University of Michigan health analyst. “Because once the vaccines arrive, they will have to be used in a certain amount of time before they degrade."

Additional work by Jugal K. Patel.

Abby Goodnough is a national health care correspondent. She has also served as bureau chief in Miami and Boston, and covered education and politics in New York City. She joined The Times in 1993.  @abbygoodnough

Jan Hoffman writes about behavioral health and health law. Her wide-ranging subjects include opioids, vaping, tribes and adolescents.  @JanHoffmanNYT

#healthcare #covid vaccine #racism #ethics

[queencatherynerhys]

The Fighter - Chapter 6

A/N: I’ve had this published in Wattpad for a while now. I just have been too lazy to publish it here. Sorry. I just got back into being active this week when editing my Masterlist.

Summary: The more time America spent in the palace, the more she can’t control the memories that she’s buried deep within years ago.

Tags: @devineinterventions2 @madaraism @theroyalweisme @drakewalkerwhipped @drakesfiance @hhiggs @hellospunkiebrewster @alicars @mrswalkerreynolds @mfackenthal @simplyaiden-blog @hopefulmoonobject @blackcatkita @cocomaxley @boneandfur @lizeboredom @crayziimaginations @umccall71 @zarina-x-zig @writtenbycandy @ranishajay @heatherfilliez @drakelover78 @indiacater @pens-girl-87 @katurrade @speedyoperarascalparty @greyeyedsmile14 @barbaravalentino @zilch3 @mynameiskaylabella @darley1101 @blznbaby @trashbagfullofflannels @bella-ca @highlyselectiveextrovert *I just used my usual tag list. Let me know if you want to be taken off if you don’t want to receive notifications about this story. Also let me know if you want to be added.*

Marlee hugs me for quite some time until it gets a little uncomfortable. I debate whether cutting it short, but I understand the reason why she was hugging me for so long. I missed her, too, but I haven't had this kind of personal interaction in six years and it's my impulse to push away. One cannot afford to be vulnerable in this line of work.

"Um, Marlee, you're crushing me," I lie to get her off me.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, America. I just missed you so much. I don't get why you left or why you lied to everyone saying that you were dead," tears begin to form on the corners of her blue eyes.

"I missed you, too, Marlee, believe me. But please you must promise me you will never call me America again. No one can know who I am. It's safer for you, for everyone and for me. Promise me, Marlee." I ignore her curiosity for now. I simply have too many worries in mind to answer her inquiries about why I left.

"I promise, Amer-, Scarlet. Sorry," she corrects herself and I nod my approval.

"Now, I'm sure the royal family is waiting impatiently for my arrival to breakfast, so I must go. If you wish to know more, you can come by later tonight and I will disclose what I can about what happened in the last six years," I sound so distant and I hate myself for not being able to talk to Marlee like I used to, but this is the way it has to be. I can't allow myself to get close to her, to anyone. I have to remind myself that I've made my choice. I chose this life of solitary, of loneliness, for the happiness of everyone I love and that includes her.

I look at Marlee and she nods before leaving the room. I grab and put on my black leather bomber jacket and tuck my gun in its permanent home in the back waistband of my pants before heading down to the Great Hall. I decide to search for James on my way to inform him of the breach in our security. I find my loyal secretary doing a perimeter check with one of the palace guards and I whistle to catch his attention.

He walks towards me and I drag him to a remote part of the hall without guards or staff to hear our conversation.

"We have a breach in security. Marlee Tames knows my identity. Now before you scold me, I didn't tell her, she just figured it out. She was always the smart, observant one. Find her, instruct her of the proper protocol and measures that must be put in place since she has top secret information. When you're done, report back to me. Can I trust you with this, James?" I ask him.

"Of course, Scar. Why even bother asking? You can trust me with anything, you know that."

"I know. I just needed to hear you say it. Thank you, by the way, for not scolding me about someone recognizing me."

"You're welcome. I figured you're already doing that for me. But I am still strongly suggesting that we leave and let our Fennley team handle this mess. What if more people start recognizing you? What if he recognizes you? What then?" He asks. It's a fair question. I can't have him knowing or figuring out who I am, but I also can't leave without knowing he'll be safe. I can't leave without keeping my personal promise.

"A valid question, but you already know my answer. I am not leaving. Not without ensuring his safety. Especially with our prisoner lurking two stories beneath my feet." I confirm yet again.

He huffs in defeat, "Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you."

"If something happens to go awry, you can be the first to tell me 'I told you so'. But right now, we should really head to the dining room." With that, I start my path to the eating space with James beside me.

As we reach the door, I take a deep, calming breath to center and ready myself to face my past. To face the person who has haunted my days and nights. There's no turning back, Scarlet, I thought to myself. I release the breath I was holding and begin to reach for the door handle when the guard posted by the grand entrance interferes, "Allow me, miss."

I nod. After six years of opening my own doors, I was taken aback by the formality, but I have to get used to that for this short period of time. He opens the door and the familiarity of the room rushes back to the forefront. Many memories of eating with the royal family and the elite in this very room. Oh, how naïve I was to think that my life was complicated, then. How I'd give anything to be back in those simple times. Times when I could be America again and sing my days away. Sadly, those days are long gone. They must stay gone. For the sake of the one person that sits in this room.

The lavishness and grandeur of the dining room amazes me to this day. It's nothing compared to the massive U-shaped dining table we sat on the very first day of the selection. This dining room is smaller, more informal, intended solely for private dinners between the members of the royal family. When the Selection was narrowed down to the Elite, this was the place we ate. I hear the faint whispers and laughter from distant, buried memories. I feel James' light nudge pulling me out of my recollection.

"Well, well, we were beginning to think you weren't coming to join us. If it were left to me, we would've eaten a few minutes ago, but my lovely wife insisted we wait," the king states in a rude tone.

I learned a long time ago how to not react to childish remarks even if they came from a person with such a high rank in Illéa's hierarchy. America, the old me, would've scowled at that, I'm sure. Instead, I curtsy to the direction of the queen, "Thank you, Queen Amberly." The king notices my ignorance and I am almost positive I will receive the back end of that decision later.

I take my place on one of the chairs on the side of the table facing Princess Kriss. King Clarkson and Queen Amberly sits on opposing sides facing each other on the head of the table with Kriss to the right of the queen and the prince to the king's left.

As the servers begin their task of bringing food, Queen Amberly acknowledges me, "Miss Ryan, please kindly invite your..."

I realize the queen doesn't know my relation to James and I quickly reply, "James."

"Your...James to come and eat with us." I obey and whistle for James, who was just beginning to make his way to the door after making sure I was safe.

He turns around and we do our silent conversation.

Come and sit down, I say.

Is that appropriate? He silently asks.

The queen asks for it.

Are you sure?

Would you just sit the hell down!

Alright, alright!

It's not like the bastard king will bite. At least he won't in front of his wife.

He laughs with his eyes.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," James bows before taking his place beside me on the dining table across from the beloved prince. I glance at Maxon for the briefest of moments before concentrating on the meal set in front of me. Eggs, bacon, toast with a fresh cup of orange juice. It's been more than 3 years since I sat down to have a proper breakfast. Usually my morning routine included me taking my meal to work and getting a head start toward my long day of running a clandestine organization. Also, my work allows me to forget my horrible nights.

I slowly dig into my plate, savoring the quality of food in the palace. Since becoming director, I am blessed to have a decent life. Still, there's still a distinct difference in palace living and the rest of Illéa.

The quiet buzzes of hushed voices fill my ear, but I don't really try to comprehend what they are saying, too focused on my worries. I tear myself away from my internal concerns to see a maid set a plate of strawberry tarts placed before me. Distant memories immediately bombard me. Instinctively, I reach for James' hand underneath the table. He knows every detail of my past, the selection.                  

                  He looks into my eyes and know the predicament I am in as he sees the pastries in front of me. He squeezes my hand as I recall one of the earliest memories I have of the Selection.

Our first meal with the handsome, celebrated Prince Maxon. I was contently minding my own business eating delicious strawberry tarts when the precious royal thought it would be funny to single me out.

"Lady America?" I looked at him, shock clearly written all over my face and a mischievous smirk in his as if it was his plan all along to address me just when my mouth was filled with food.

I hurriedly chew and reply, "Yes, Your Majesty?" No doubt my face was as red as my hair from the embarrassment he was so clearly amused by.

"How are you enjoying the food?" His facial expression clearly said that he was enjoying the sight of making me look and act like a fool.

I explained how the food was excellent and my sister, May, would cry if she had these strawberry tarts. And as if he found that information amusing, he beamed with a smile as he continued to make a bet with me. If my sister cried, I made a barter that I would be allowed to wear jeans instead of the stuffy dresses we are mandated to wear. If he won, I would have to go on a date with him.

I was confident I knew my sister well enough to win, so I agreed. As if fate had other plans, I lost.

Looking back on how my life had completely gone off the rails, I wish I could back to the girl who had the audacity to knee the prince in the groin. I wish that my nightmares would cease. I wish I would stop seeing the face of all those I've lost when I closed my eyes. I wish the screams I hear in my head would silence themselves. I wish to not have the scars I carry on my body from the torture I've had to endure from the last six year. Most of all, I wish to be in the place of the woman that sat in front of me. The one who held Maxon's heart in their hands. The one he called his wife, his love, his world.

#the selection #the selection series #the elite #the one #maxon #maxon schreave #america #america singer #america schreave #kiera cass #maxerica #maxon x america #romance #hurt #angst

[lustfulholland]

Trust Me (8/13)

Bucky Barnes x avenger!rogers!Reader

warnings: language

summary: in which she helps him out

A/N: i might get a pet turtle n i’m really excited

-

“Is that a hickey?” Steve asks. Y/N turns to the side to face her brother.

“Why do you three get separated by metal bars but I have to sit next to you?” Y/N asks.

“I’m still your brother,” he says.

“And I’m still mad at you,” she replies, facing forward again.

“You’re avoiding the question,” Steve says.

“It’s definitely a hickey,” Sam says.

“Did Bucky give that to you?” Steve asks.

“No, the other super soldier I’m hiding gave it to me, Bucky’s just a coverup,” Y/N says sarcastically, “Use your brain, dumbass.”

“You better not be pregnant,” Steve says.

“I’m not,” Y/N says.

“But you two are dating again?” Steve asks.

“Something like that,” Y/N replies. She looks down at the ring and Steve follows her gaze. He raises his eyebrows and looks ahead again.

“He proposed again?” Steve asks.

“Do you ever ask questions that don’t have obvious answers?” Y/N counters.

“Sorry,” Steve mumbles. A few minutes of silence pass then Steve says, “Congratulations.”

“My fiancé is in a box,” Y/N says, “What is there to congratulate?”

“Look, I’m trying to be nice,” Steve says.

“And I’m trying not to choke you out,” Y/N says.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“I know you are. Just be quiet please,” Y/N says, “I need time.”

Silence falls over the truck again. Y/N closes her eyes and leans her head back, Steve watches her. He looks at the purple mark on her neck and then looks back to the front.

“So you like cats?” Sam asks after a few minutes. Y/N laughs and bites her lip to quiet herself.

“Sam,” Steve scolds.

“What? Dude shows up dressed like a cat, you don’t wanna know more?” Sam wonders.

“Your suit, it’s vibranium?” Steve asks.

“The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle passed from warrior to warrior. Now because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king. So I ask you, as both warrior and king, how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?” T’Challa goes on. When silence falls upon them T’Challa calls again, “Captain?”

“As l—”

T’Challa interrupts Steve, “That time I was talking to the girl.”

“Just because you kiss my ass doesn’t mean I won’t hesitate to kill you,” Y/N says, quickly adding a sour-sounding, “Your highness.”

“What makes you think I’ll give you the chance?” he replies.

“What makes you think you can stop me?” Y/N shoots back. Silence blankets them for a fourth time. The rumble of the truck fills the air — a screech of the brakes following. The door opens and Y/N steps out first. She looks all over till she sees Bucky — trapped in a box with restraints holding his body. Steve steps behind her and she turns — looking up at him. A tear rolls down her cheek and she falls into Steve’s chest.

“I know,” Steve whispers into her hair, his hand rubbing circles on his back. Steve didn’t want Bucky to be captured, but now he had his sister in his arms and he was happy — not really caring that Bucky was in restraints in that moment.

“I’m losing him again,” Y/N sobs. Steve holds her to his chest comfortingly, whispering reassurances for her. She slowly calms down and looks up at him with fearful eyes.

“It’ll be alright,” Steve whispers, pressing a light kiss on her forehead. She nods and he gestures behind her with his head. She turns to see Sharon — Steve’s neighbor — and some man with three officers behind him. Steve keeps an arm on Y/N’s back as they walk toward the group five. Before anyone else could speak Steve asks, “What’s gonna happen to him?”

“Same thing that outta happen to you. Psychological evaluation and extradition.”

“This is Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander,” Sharon says. She gives Y/N a sympathetic look but Y/N just rolls her eyes and looks away.

“What about our lawyer?” Steve asks.

“Lawyer. That's funny,” Ross says, “See their weapons are placed in lockup. Oh, we'll write you a receipt.”

“I better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that,” Sam says as they follow Ross through the large building.

Y/N turns back to look at Bucky and his eyes shift to her. The girl has another tear slipping down her cheek and Bucky looks up — unable to look at her in the broken state. Y/N was confused on how he looked so calm, but then again he spent most of his life captured — this was probably normal to him.

Steve urges her on and they follow the man through a tunnel. Y/N wants nothing more than to grab the nearest item and hit him in the back of the head, but she knew she would be shot down before she could even grab a makeshift weapon.

“You'll be provided with an office instead of a cell. Now, do me a favour, stay in it?” Ross says.

“I'm not intending on going anywhere,” T’Challa says. Y/N rolls her eyes again. The only thought in her mind was Bucky. Her eyes travel to Natasha who steps in line with them.

“For the record, this is what making things worse looks like,” Nat says to Steve.

“He’s alive,” Steve replies.

“Hey Y/N,” Nat says. Y/N gives the redhead a sarcastic smile then looks straight ahead. As they enter another room Tony’s voice travels and he’s obviously on the phone.

“Try not to break anything while we fix this,” Nat says, walking ahead of the group.

“...Consequences? You bet there’ll be consequences. Obviously you can quote me on that ‘cause I just said it. Anything else? Thank you sir,” Tony says. He puts away the device and looks at the group.

“Consequences?” Steve wonders.

“Secretary Ross wants you both prosecuted. Had to give him something,” Tony says, “As for her he has no clue what to do.”

“Because I’m innocent,” Y/N says.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just lie to me,” Tony comments. He turns back to Steve to speak to him.

“I’m not getting that shield back, am I?” Steve asks.

“Technically it’s the government's property,” Nat replies, “Wings too!”

“That’s cold,” Sam says.

“Warmer than jail!” Tony calls.

Y/N turns to Steve and punches his arm, “I had my life back asshole.”

“I was saving you!” Steve exclaims.

“Look how that turned out,” Y/N replies.

“Isn’t this the same girl that was just crying in the lobby?” Sam teases. Y/N lunges towards him but Steve grabs her.

“Knock it off,” Steve says, “I get you’re angry, we all are, but stop being an idiot.”

Y/N sighs and walks over to the small office area that was designated for them. A guard watched her closely and she stomped a foot causing him to flinch. She laughs and continues through the door.

“That never gets old,” Y/N says. Immediately a certain screen catches her attention and the smile on her face drops. She goes over to the glass wall and stares at the monitor that showed Bucky.

“Hey, you wanna see something cool?” Tony’s voice split through the silence. Y/N and Steve both turn to look at the man. Tony holds up a box of some sort to show it off, “I pulled something from dad's archives. Timely. FDR signed the Lend-Lease bill with these in 1941. Provided support to the allies when they needed most.”

As Tony spoke Steve made his way to the table. Y/N watches from her standing position, glancing at Bucky’s monitor every once in a while.

“Some would say it brought our country closer to war,” Steve counters.

“Steve, if not for these, you wouldn't be here,” Tony says, “I'm trying to, what do you call it, a— an olive branch. Is that what you call it?”

“Is Pepper here? I didn't see her,” Steve says, changing the subject.

“We are kinda... well not kinda—”

“Pregnant?” Y/N asks.

“No,” Tony lets out a single laugh, “Definitely not. We're taking a break. It's nobody's fault.”

Y/N looks at Steve and he gives her an awkward look. She covers her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh at her brother and Steve looks over at Tony.

“I'm so sorry, Tony. I didn't know,” Steve says.

“A few years ago I almost lost her so I trashed all my suits. Then we had to mop up Hydra. Then Ultron, my fault. And then, and then, and then. I never stopped. 'Cause the truth is I don't wanna stop. I don't wanna lose her. I thought maybe the Accords can split the difference,” Tony explains, “In her defense, I'm a handful. Yeah dad was a pain in the ass, but he and mom always made it work.”

“You know, I'm glad Howard got married. I only knew him when he was young and single,” Steve says.

“Nobody cares,” Y/N mutters, more to herself than anything.

“Oh really? You two knew each other? He never mentioned that. Maybe only a thousand times,” Tony says sarcastically. He starts to put on his suit-jacket, “God, I hated you.”

“I don't mean to make things difficult,” Steve says.

“I do,” Y/N smiles, turning to look straight at Tony.

“I know,” Tony says, “Because you're a very polite person, she’s not.”

“If we see a situation pointed south,” Steve says in defense for him and his sister, “We can't ignore it. Sometimes I wish we could.”

“No, you don't,” Tony argues.

Steve looks down with a smile, “No, I don't. Sometimes—”

“Sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth. But I don't wanna see you gone. We need you, Cap. So far nothing's happen that can't be undone. Please, sign. Y/N, you too. We can make the last 24 hours legit. Barnes gets transferred to an American psych center instead of a Wakandan prison,” Tony says.

“He doesn’t need a psych center,” Y/N says.

“It looks like he tried to strangle you,” Tony says, motioning to his own neck.

“It’s not—” Y/N closes her eyes takes a deep breath. She opens them again and turns back to the screen.

“I'm not saying it's impossible. But there would have to be safeguards,” Steve says to switch the attention from his sister.

Tony sits, “Sure! Once we put out the PR — they're documents. They can be amended. I file a motion, have you, Y/N, and Wanda reinstated—”

“Wanda? What about Wanda?” Steve questions.

“She's fine. She's confined in the compound currently. Vision's keeping her company,” Tony says.

“Oh God, Tony! Everytime. Everytime I think you're seeing things the right way—” Steve says with disgust dripping from his words. Y/N lets out a short laugh, equally angry, but keeping her cool.

Tony interrupts, “It's a 100 acres with a lap pool. It's got a screening room. There's worse ways to protect people.”

“Protection? Is that how you see this? This isn't protection, it's internment,” Steve argues.

“She's not a US Citizen and they don't grant visas to Weapons of Mass Destruction!” Tony counters.

“Tony, come on, she's a kid!” Steve exclaims.

“Gimme a break!” Tony yells. He calmly continues, “I'm doing what has to be done, to save us from something worse.”

There’s a long pause before Steve nods, “You keep telling yourself that.” Steve lifts the pen he was holding and puts it back down, “Hate to break up the set.”

Steve leaves the glass room and Y/N turns to Tony. The girl looks at the pens then at Tony.

“What are these documents you’re trying to get Steve to sign?” Y/N asks.

“I know you and you would never sign them. Especially not after the way he reacted,” Tony says, “I’m not even going to waste my breath.”

Tony stands and leaves the area, Y/N now alone. She groans and runs in the direction Steve went — finding him being taken back by guards. He walks ahead of them and back to the office. Y/N moves in step with him.

“Everyone seems to hate me today,” Y/N laughs.

“Because you seem to hate them first,” Steve replies. Y/N nods in agreement — she couldn’t argue that.

They step back into the glass room and Y/N sits on top of the table, Steve stands at the glass. Their eyes scan the screen that showed Bucky in the container.

“The receipt for your gear,” Sharon says, passing a paper to Sam who had entered the room at some point during the silence.

“Bird costume? Come on,” Sam says.

“I didn’t write it,” Sharon replies. She notices the twins staring at the screen. She looks around before hitting a button — a screen in their small room lighting up with Bucky’s face and the conversation being played aloud.

Y/N doesn’t bother to look at Sharon but Steve gives her a thankful look. He turns back to watch his friend.

“I just want to ask you a few questions,” the man who sat in the room with Bucky asks, “Do you know where you are, James? I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, James.”

“My name is Bucky,” Bucky replies.

Y/N bites down on her lip and stands. She plants herself next to Steve to watch and he wraps an arm around her. She would never say it but she was glad to see Steve again — the physical affection filled her with joy and minor relief.

The conversation went on uselessly but Y/N listened attentively. She whispered to herself about his answers, the rest ignoring her. The group’s attention was averted and Steve was looking at the pictures of the bomber.

“Why would the Task Force release this photo to begin with?” Steve asks finally.

“Because they’re dumbasses,” Y/N says.

“Get the word out,” Sharon explains, “Involve as many eyes as we can.”

“Right,” Steve says, “It’s a good way to flush a guy out of hiding. Set off a bomb, get your picture taken. It got seven billion people looking for the Winter Soldier.”

“You’re saying someone framed him to find him?” Sharon asked.

“No shit,” Y/N says — her eyes still glued to the screen.

“Steve, we looked for the guy for two years and found nothin’,” Sam says.

“We didn’t bomb the UN,” Steve shoots back, “That turns a lot of heads.”

“Yeah but that doesn’t guarantee that whoever framed him would get him,” Sharon says, “That guarantees that we would.”

Sharon squints suspiciously at the monitor and Steve turns to look at the man doing Bucky’s evaluation.

“Yeah,” Steve replies finally, “Y/N, what’s the creepy dude been saying?”

“Bullshit,” Y/N replies. Steve rolls his eyes at the response and continues to listen.

“Tell me, Bucky. You’ve seen a great deal, haven’t you?” the man with the accent asks. Y/N felt odd listening to his voice — she felt there was something she was missing.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Bucky replies.

“You feel that if you open your mouth the horrors might never stop. Don’t worry. We only have to talk about one,” he says.

“Why would he need to?” Y/N mutters. She turns, “Is forcing Bucky to answer illegal? It should be, right?”

Sharon shrugs and Y/N turns back to the screen. The anticipation could’ve killed Y/N — she had to know what was going on.

As if to make Y/N suffer more — the lights went out. Y/N’s eyes jump from one place to the next. She grips Steve and he holds her close to his body protectively. Steve turns to Sharon and she immediately gives him an answer.

“Sublevel five, east wing.”

Y/N, Steve, and Sam immediately jump into action. They sprint out of the room and through the building.

“Dibs on killing the creepy dude!” Y/N calls out.

“Don’t know if I can control myself!” Steve replies.

“Don’t make me hurt you to get my kill!” Y/N jokes despite being filled with pure rage.

taglist: @marcelaverzani @petersunderoos96 @finnsadie @multi-fandom-trash-uwu @just-a-littlebit-of-everything @gabealien12 @icedwolf-01 @moonstarsandsongs @mapreza1 @for-the-love-of-the-fandom

[bountyofbeads]

New Leak Reveals Orders for China’s Internment Camps https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/world/asia/leak-chinas-internment-camps.html

New Leak Reveals Orders for China’s Internment Camps

A secret document reflects leaders’ struggle to manage sites swelling with Muslim detainees.

By Austin Ramzy��and Chris Buckley |

Published Nov. 24, 2019, 1:00 PM ET | New York Times | Posted Nov. 24, 2019

HONG KONG — As the government accelerated mass detentions of Muslim minorities in northwest China, a senior official issued a secret directive giving detailed orders for how the rapidly expanding indoctrination camps holding them should be managed.

Guards should impose pervasive, round-the-clock video surveillance to prevent escapes. Inmates were to be kept isolated from the outside world and held to a strict scoring system that could determine when they might be released. And the facilities were to be shrouded in secrecy, with even employees banned from bringing in mobile phones.

“It is necessary,” the directive from two years ago said, “to strengthen the staff’s awareness of staying secret, serious political discipline and secrecy discipline.”

Now that secrecy has been shattered with the publication of the directive itself. It is one of six internal documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that shed new light on China’s crackdown in the Xinjiang region, where a million or more ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others have been detained in the past three years.

The disclosure of the 24 pages of documents amounts to a second significant leak from inside China’s ruling Communist Party related to the crackdown. A member of the Chinese political establishment shared a different, 403-page set of internal papers with The New York Times earlier this year, expressing hope that it would make it more difficult for party leaders, including President Xi Jinping, to escape culpability for the mass detentions.

While the source of the new documents is unknown — they were provided by Uighur overseas networks — their disclosure may amount to another sign of dissent in the party over the crackdown.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, an independent nonprofit based in Washington, led the inquiry into the documents, bringing together more than 75 journalists from the consortium and 17 partner organizations, including The Times, in 14 countries. Outside experts also reviewed the papers and concluded they were authentic.

“In terms of documentary evidence, we have reached a next level of disclosure,” said Adrian Zenz, a researcher who has studied the camps and a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a human rights group in Washington. “The evidence we have now is very comprehensive, very complete. It’s kind of game over for Beijing in terms of the cover-up, the denials and the half-truths.”

The most significant of the new documents is the secret directive on how to manage the camps, which is the only document in both sets of leaked papers to describe the inner workings of these facilities. The nine-page order was issued in November 2017 by the Communist Party committee in Xinjiang that oversees legal affairs.

The papers also include four “daily bulletins” from another regional party committee that provide information about those that have been targeted for investigation and detention in camps and a court judgment sentencing a Uighur resident to 10 years in prison on charges of inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination, a vaguely defined crime.

‘PREVENT ESCAPES ’

Beijing has rejected criticism of the camps and described them as job-training centers that use humane methods to fight the spread of Islamic extremism. Internally, the government often uses language consistent with that position. The leaked directive, for example, refers to the camps as “vocational skills education and training centers” and the detainees as “students.”

But it also lays bare the punitive underpinnings of these facilities, and some of its language on guarding against escapes and other incidents is identical to that used in guidelines for prisons and other detention sites.

The orders called on guards to strictly control and monitor the activities of students. “Prevent escapes while they are at class, dining, using the toilet, washing, receiving medical care or meeting with family.”

Other instructions call for erecting guardhouses and internal partitions inside the camps to prevent inmates from moving around freely; rigorously checking any people, vehicles or goods entering, and recruiting informants to spy on other detainees.

“Evaluate and resolve students’ ideological problems and abnormal emotions at all times,” the directive said.

The document included orders for “full video surveillance coverage of dormitories and classrooms free of blind spots,” and prohibited detainees from having contact with the outside world, except in strictly monitored interactions.

The government says these sites help prevent Uighurs and other Muslims from being drawn to religious extremism by teaching them the Chinese language, job skills and how to be law-abiding citizens. In response to the earlier leak of documents, the government argued that its methods have effectively stifled extremist violence in Xinjiang.

Former detainees, though, have described the classes as numbing, harsh and ultimately futile attempts at brainwashing. And residents have been sent to internment camps for behavior that would be commonplace elsewhere: traveling abroad, showing signs of religious devotion praying regularly or growing a long beard, or installing certain cellphone apps, such as encrypted messaging tools.

One of the leaked daily bulletins orders an investigation of people from Xinjiang who have obtained foreign citizenship or applied for visas or other documents at Chinese embassies abroad.

Another describes how 15,683 “suspicious persons” were sent to centers in southern Xinjiang on the week of June 19, 2017. The government has repeatedly refused to say how many people are being held in these camps.

Other bulletins reveal how the authorities settled on targets for detention by using databases that collect and collate information on Xinjiang residents, especially Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.

The daily bulletins and the document on camp operations were signed by Zhu Hailun, who was then the top security official in Xinjiang. He was assigned to another position in the regional legislature early this year.

Mr. Zhu, 61, appears to have been a key enforcer of the internment campaign, turning the orders of the regional party secretary, Chen Quanguo, into detailed plans. A party official who spent his career in Xinjiang, Mr. Zhu had previously served as the head of Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, succeeding an official who was fired in 2009 after bloody ethnic riots killed nearly 200 people, most of them Han Chinese.

Like many in his generation, Mr. Zhu was no stranger to the idea that minds can be reprogrammed through intense indoctrination and propaganda: He grew up in Mao’s era, when such techniques were widespread. In an official biography, Mr. Zhu described the two years he spent as a teenager working in a rural commune as a period of “re-education.”

Over 40 years later, Mr. Zhu was uncompromising as Mr. Chen’s right-hand man for security. An internal document from 2017 signed by Mr. Zhu that was among the papers leaked to The Times attributed attacks in London and Manchester in part to putting “human rights above security.”

‘PROMOTE REPENTANCE’

The directive on camp operations instructed officials to keep extensive records on detainees, and described a scoring system that measured how they behaved to determine their fate.

Inmates should be assigned to one of three zones based on how dangerous they are judged to be — general management, strict, and very strict, the document said. But detainees could be moved between the grades of control depending on their scores.

“Break down scores and manage and individually assess the students’ ideological transformation, study and training, and compliance with discipline,” the document said.

Officials were told to assign inmates to fixed positions in dormitories, classes, lineups and workshops, and to control every detail of life inside the camps, at every moment of the day, including wake-up, meals, studies and showers.

Detainees must meet “disciplinary demands” or face punishment, the directive added.

“Strengthen the management of the students’ hygiene,” it said. “Ensure that they get timely haircuts and shave, change and wash their clothes. Arrange for them to have baths once or twice a week, so that they develop good habits.”

The demands listed in the directive echoed the accounts of former detainees like Orynbek Koksebek, an ethnic Kazakh man who spent four months in an indoctrination camp in Xinjiang after being detained by the Chinese authorities in December 2017.

“There was military discipline in everything we did, how you walk, stand up straight. If you didn’t, they would slap you,” he said in an interview in the Kazakh city of Almaty earlier this year.

A key disclosure in the leaked directive is an official description of the conditions that detainees must meet to be released from the camps. Aside from achieving a good score in the point system, the document said, inmates must be categorized at the lowest threat level and have served a minimum term of one year — though interviews with former detainees indicate that camps sometimes release people sooner.

The directive also emphasized the importance of showing remorse. Discussions with detainees should “promote the repentance and confession of the students for them to understand deeply the illegal, criminal and dangerous nature of their past behavior,” it said.

A different document, among the set shared with The Times earlier this year, described how family members outside the camps are told that their behavior can also affect when a detainee is released — a implied threat aimed at silencing complaints.

Former detainees said the criteria for release seemed arbitrary, and there was little clarity on when or why people could leave.

“You enter the camp with 1,000 points. You can’t gain points. You can only lose them if you yawn or smile,” recalled Rahima Senbai, who was held in a camp in October 2017 and only allowed to return to her home in Kazakhstan a year later. “If you ever went under 500 points, you’d have to stay for another year.”

Zharqynbek Otan, who was held in a camp for seven months after his arrest in January 2017 and has since fled China, said the goal of the detention was to impose loyalty to the Chinese state.

“The main purpose is to brainwash you,” he said, “so you forget your roots and everything about Islam and ethnic identity.”

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Secret documents reveal how China mass detention camps work

Published November 24, 2019 3:10 PM ET | AP | Posted November 24, 2019 |

The watch towers, double-locked doors and video surveillance in the Chinese camps are there “to prevent escapes.” Uighurs and other minorities held inside are scored on how well they speak the dominant Mandarin language and follow strict rules on everything down to bathing and using the toilet, scores that determine if they can leave.

“Manner education” is mandatory, but “vocational skills improvement” is offered only after a year in the camps.

Voluntary job training is the reason the Chinese government has given for detaining more than a million ethnic minorities, most of them Muslims. But a classified blueprint leaked to a consortium of news organizations shows the camps are instead precisely what former detainees have described: Forced ideological and behavioral re-education centers run in secret.

The classified documents lay out the Chinese government’s deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities even before they commit a crime, to rewire their thoughts and the language they speak.

The papers also show how Beijing is pioneering a new form of social control using data and artificial intelligence. Drawing on data collected by mass surveillance technology, computers issued the names of tens of thousands of people for interrogation or detention in just one week.

Taken as a whole, the documents give the most significant description yet of high-tech mass detention in the 21st century in the words of the Chinese government itself. Experts say they spell out a vast system that targets, surveils and grades entire ethnicities to forcibly assimilate and subdue them -- especially Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim Turkic minority of more than 10 million people with their own language and culture.

“They confirm that this is a form of cultural genocide,” said Adrian Zenz, a leading security expert on the far western region of Xinjiang, the Uighur homeland. “It really shows that from the onset, the Chinese government had a plan.”

Zenz said the documents echo the aim of the camps as outlined in a 2017 report from a local branch of the Xinjiang Ministry of Justice: To “wash brains, cleanse hearts, support the right, remove the wrong.”

China has struggled for decades to control Xinjiang, where the Uighurs have long resented Beijing’s heavy-handed rule. After the 9/11 attacks in the United States, Chinese officials began justifying harsh security measures and religious restrictions as necessary to fend off terrorism, arguing that young Uighurs were susceptible to the influence of Islamic extremism . Hundreds have died since in terror attacks, reprisals and race riots , both Uighurs and Han Chinese.

In 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched what he called a “People’s War on Terror” when bombs set off by Uighur militants through a train station in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, just hours after he concluded his first state visit there.

“Build steel walls and iron fortresses. Set up nets above and snares below,” state media cited Xi as saying. “Cracking down severely on violent terrorist activities must be the focus of our current struggle.”

In 2016, the crackdown intensified dramatically after Xi named Chen Quanguo, a hardline official transferred from Tibet, as Xinjiang’s new head. Most of the documents were issued in 2017, as Xinjiang’s “War on Terror” morphed into an extraordinary mass detention campaign using military-style technology.

The practices largely continue today. The Chinese government says they work.

“Since the measures have been taken, there’s no single terrorist incident in the past three years,” said a written response from the Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom. “Xinjiang is much safer....The so-called leaked documents are fabrication and fake news.”

The statement said that religious freedom and the personal freedom of detainees was “fully respected” in Xinjiang.

The documents were given to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists by an anonymous source. The ICIJ verified them by examining state media reports and public notices from the time, consulting experts, cross-checking signatures and confirming the contents with former camp employees and detainees.

They consist of a notice with guidelines for the camps, four bulletins on how to use technology to target people, and a court case sentencing a Uighur Communist Party member to 10 years in prison for telling colleagues not to say dirty words, watch porn or eat without praying.

The documents were issued to rank-and-file officials by the powerful Xinjiang Communist Party Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the region’s top authority overseeing police, courts and state security. They were put out under the head official at the time, Zhu Hailun, who annotated and signed some personally.

The documents confirm from the government itself what is known about the camps from the testimony of dozens of Uighurs and Kazakhs , satellite imagery and tightly monitored visits by journalists to the region.

Erzhan Qurban, an ethnic Kazakh who moved back to Kazakhstan, was grabbed by police on a trip back to China to see his mother and accused of committing crimes abroad. He protested that he was a simple herder who had done nothing wrong. But for the authorities, his time in Kazakhstan was reason enough for detention.

Qurban told the AP he was locked in a cell with 10 others last year and told not to engage in “religious activities” like praying. They were forced to sit on plastic stools in rigid postures for hours at a time. Talk was forbidden, and two guards kept watch 24 hours a day. Inspectors checked that nails were short and faces trimmed of mustaches and beards, traditionally worn by pious Muslims.

Those who disobeyed were forced to squat or spend 24 hours in solitary confinement in a frigid room.

“It wasn’t education, it was just punishment,” said Qurban, who was held for nine months. “I was treated like an animal.”

WHO GETS ROUNDED UP AND HOW

On February 18, 2017, Zhu, the Han Chinese official who signed the documents, stood in chilly winter weather atop the front steps of the capital’s city hall, overlooking thousands of police in black brandishing rifles.

“With the powerful fist of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, all separatist activities and all terrorists shall be smashed to pieces,” Zhu announced into a microphone.

With that began a new chapter in the state’s crackdown. Police called Uighurs and knocked on their doors at night to take them in for questioning. Others were stopped at borders or arrested at airports.

In the years since, as Uighurs and Kazakhs were sent to the camps in droves, the government built hundreds of schools and orphanages to house and re-educate their children . Many of those who fled into exile don’t even know where their children or loved ones are.

The documents make clear that many of those detained have not actually done anything. One document explicitly states that the purpose of the pervasive digital surveillance is “to prevent problems before they happen” -- in other words, to calculate who might rebel and detain them before they have a chance.

This is done through a system called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform or IJOP, designed to screen entire populations. Built by a state-owned military contractor, the IJOP began as an intelligence-sharing tool developed after Chinese military theorists studied the U.S. army’s use of information technology in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There’s no other place in the world where a computer can send you to an internment camp,” said Rian Thum, a Xinjiang expert at the University of Nottingham. “This is absolutely unprecedented.”

The IJOP spat out the names of people considered suspicious, such as thousands of “unauthorized” imams not registered with the Chinese government, along with their associates. Suspicious or extremist behavior was so broadly defined that it included going abroad, asking others to pray or using cell phone apps that cannot be monitored by the government.

The IJOP zoomed in on users of “Kuai Ya,” a mobile application similar to the iPhone’s Airdrop, which had become popular in Xinjiang because it allows people to exchange videos and messages privately. One bulletin showed that officials identified more than 40,000 “Kuai Ya” users for investigation and potential detention; of those, 32 were listed as belonging to “terrorist organizations.”

“They’re scared people will spread religion through ‘Kuai Ya,’” said a man detained after police accused him of using the app. He spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to protect himself and his family. “They can’t regulate it....So they want to arrest everyone who’s used ‘Kuai Ya’ before.”

The system also targeted people who obtained foreign passports or visas, reflecting the government’s fear of Islamic extremist influences from abroad and deep discomfort with any connection between the Uighurs and the outside world. Officials were asked to verify the identities even of people outside the country, showing how China is casting its dragnet for Uighurs far beyond Xinjiang.

In recent years, Beijing has put pressure on countries to which Uighurs have fled, such as Thailand and Afghanistan, to send them back to China. In other countries, state security has also contacted Uighurs and pushed them to spy on each other. For example, a restaurateur now in Turkey, Qurbanjan Nurmemet, said police contacted him with videos of his son strapped to a chair and asked him for information on other Uighurs in Turkey.

Despite the Chinese government’s insistence that the camps are vocational training centers for the poor and uneducated, the documents show that those rounded up included party officials and university students.

After the names were collected, lists of targeted people were passed to prefecture governments, who forwarded them to district heads, then local police stations, neighbor watchmen, and Communist Party cadres living with Uighur families .

Some former detainees recalled being summoned by officers and told their names were listed for detention. From there, people were funneled into different parts of the system, from house arrest to detention centers with three levels of monitoring to, at its most extreme, prison.

Experts say the detentions are a clear violation of China’s own laws and constitution. Maggie Lewis, a professor of Chinese law at Seton Hall University, said the Communist Party is circumventing the Chinese legal system in Xinjiang.

“Once you’re stamped as an enemy, the gloves go off,” she said. “They’re not even trying to justify this legally....This is arbitrary.”

The detention campaign is sweeping. A bulletin notes that in a single week in June 2017, the IJOP identified 24,612 “suspicious persons” in southern Xinjiang, with 15,683 sent to “education and training,” 706 to prison and 2,096 to house arrest. It is unknown how typical this week might be. Local officials claim far less than a million are in “training,” but researchers estimate up to 1.8 million have been detained at one point or another.

The bulletins stress that relationships must be scrutinized closely, with those interrogated pushed to report the names of friends and relatives. Mamattursun Omar, a Uighur chef arrested after working in Egypt, was interrogated in four detention facilities over nine months in 2017. Omar told the AP that police asked him to verify the identities of other Uighurs in Egypt.

Eventually, Omar says, they began torturing him to make him confess that Uighur students had gone to Egypt to take part in jihad. They strapped him to a contraption called a “tiger chair,” shocked him with electric batons, beat him with pipes and whipped him with computer cords.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” Omar said. “I just told them what they wanted me to say.”

Omar gave the names of six others who worked at a restaurant with him in Egypt. All were sent to prison.

WHAT HAPPENS INSIDE THE CAMPS

The documents also detail what happens after someone is sent to an “education and training center.”

Publicly, in a recent white paper, China’s State Council said “the personal freedom of trainees at the education and training centers is protected in accordance with the law.” But internally, the documents describe facilities with police stations at the front gates, high guard towers, one-button alarms and video surveillance with no blind spots.

Detainees are only allowed to leave if absolutely necessary, for example because of illness, and even so must have somebody “specially accompany, monitor and control” them. Bath time and toilet breaks are strictly managed and controlled “to prevent escapes.” And cell phones are strictly forbidden to stop “collusion between inside and outside.”

“Escape was impossible,” said Kazakh kingergarten administrator Sayragul Sauytbay, a Communist Party member who was abducted by police in October 2017 and forced to become a Mandarin camp instructor. “In every corner in every place there were armed police.”

Sauytbay called the detention center a “concentration camp...much more horrifying than prison,” with rape, brainwashing and torture in a “black room” were people screamed. She and another former prisoner, Zaomure Duwati, also told the ICIJ detainees were given medication that made them listless and obedient, and every move was surveilled.

AP journalists who visited Xinjiang in December 2018 saw patrol towers and high walls lined with green barbed wire fencing around camps. One camp in Artux, just north of Kashgar, sat in the middle of a vast, empty, rocky field, and appeared to include a police station at the entrance, workshops, a hospital and dormitories, one with a sign reading “House of Workers” in Chinese.

Recent satellite imagery shows that guard towers and fencing have been removed from some facilities, suggesting the region may have been softening restrictions in response to global criticism. Shohrat Zakir, the governor of Xinjiang, said in March that those detained can now request time and go home on weekends, a claim the AP could not independently verify.

The first item listed as part of the curriculum is ideological education, a bold attempt to change how detainees think and act. It is partly rooted in the ancient Chinese belief in transformation through education -- taken before to terrifying extremes during the mass thought reform campaigns of Mao Zedong.

“It’s the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, except now it’s powered by high-tech,” said Zenz, the researcher.

By showing students the error of their former ways, the centers are supposed to promote “repentance and confession,” the directive said. For example, Qurban, the Kazakh herder, was handcuffed, brought to an interview with a Han Chinese leader and forced to acknowledge that he regretted visiting abroad.

The indoctrination goes along with what is called “manner education,” where behavior is dictated down to ensuring “timely haircuts and shaves,” “regular change of clothes” and “bathing once or twice a week.” The tone, experts say, echoes a general perception by the Han Chinese government that Uighurs are prone to violence and need to be civilized -- in much the same way white colonialists treated indigenous people in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

“It’s a similar kind of savior mentality -- that these poor Uighurs didn’t understand that they were being led astray by extremists,” said Darren Byler, a scholar of Uighur culture at the University of Washington. “The way they think about Uighurs in general is that they are backward, that they’re not educated....these people are unhygienic and need to be taught how to clean themselves.”

Students are to be allowed a phone conversation with relatives at least once a week, and can meet them via video at least once a month, the documents say. Trainers are told to pay attention to “the ideological problems and emotional changes that arise after family communications.”

Mandarin is mandated. Beijing has said “the customs of all ethnic groups and the right to use their spoken and written languages are fully protected at the centers.” But the documents show that in practice, lessons are taught in Mandarin, and it is the language to be used in daily communication.

A former staffer at Xinjiang TV now in Europe was also selected to become a Mandarin teacher during his month-long detention in 2017. Twice a day, detainees were lined up and inspected by police, and a few were questioned in Mandarin at random, he told the AP. Those who couldn’t respond in Mandarin were beaten or deprived of food for days. Otherwise, speaking was forbidden.

One day, the former teacher recalled, an officer asked an old farmer in Mandarin whether he liked the detention center. The man apologized in broken Mandarin and Uighur, saying it was hard for him to understand because of his age. The officer strode over and struck the old man’s head with a baton. He crumpled to the ground, bleeding.

“They didn’t see us as humans,” said the former teacher, who declined to provide his name out of fear of retribution against his family. “They treated us like animals -- like pigs, cows, sheep.”

Detainees are tested on Mandarin, ideology and discipline, with “one small test per week, one medium test per month, and one big test per season,” the documents state. These test scores feed into an elaborate point system.

Detainees who do well are to be rewarded with perks like family visits, and may be allowed to “graduate” and leave. Detainees who do poorly are to be sent to a stricter “management area” with longer detention times. Former detainees told the AP that punishments included food deprivation, handcuffing, solitary confinement, beatings and torture.

Detainees’ scores are entered in the IJOP. Students are sent to separate facilities for “intensive skills training” only after at least one year of learning ideology, law and Mandarin.

After they leave, the documents stipulate, every effort should be made to get them jobs. Some detainees describe being forced to sign job contracts , working long hours for low pay and barred from leaving factory grounds during weekdays.

Qurban, the Kazakh herder, said after nine months in the camp, a supervisor came to tell him he was “forgiven” but must never tell what he had seen. After he returned to his village, officials told him he had to work in a factory.

“If you don’t go, we’ll send you back to the center,” an official said.

Qurban went to a garment factory, which he wasn’t allowed to leave. After 53 days stitching clothes, he was released. After another month under house arrest, he finally was allowed to return to Kazakhstan and see his children. He received his salary in cash: 300 Chinese yuan, or just under $42.

Long an ordinary herder who thought little of politics, Qurban used to count many Han Chinese among his friends. Now, he said, he’s begun to hate them.

“I’ve never committed a crime, I’ve never done anything wrong,” he said. “It was beyond comprehension why they put me there.”

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#internment camps #international news #china #no china extradition #china news #hong kong #hong kong protests #uighurs #uighur #kashmir #world news #worldpolitics #islamophobia #crimes against humanity #human rights #humanrights #humanity #news #breaking news #trending topics #top stories google news #top news #nyt > top stories

[soprana-snap]

Technically Legal

Summary: Classic marriage for convenience...but maybe more.

Rating: T for language

A/N: Stressed about wedding planning so of course I gotta write about good ol’ eloping. I’ve considered it more than once already. I haven’t written in months. uhghhh

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“Aw, why do you hafta wear a dress? Why do I have to wear a collared shirt and tie?”

Lucy flashed him a warning glance over her bare shoulder, raising a brow as if to dare him to ask that same question for the fifth time in a row.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t answered him the last four times he asked.

At her stare, he pursed his lips and crossed his arms with a huff, scowling at his shined shoes like they personally did him a great wrong.

The tie was uncomfortable, the shirt scratchy, the pants a bit too short, and the shoes too pinchy. He wouldn’t want to be caught dead in this outfit ever again. In fact, he wouldn’t even want to be dressed like this if he was dead and had no say.

But Lucy had to have her way, which gave him his way, which in a roundabout way gave her, well her way. Ugh, his head hurt.

This was the best course of action, according to Lucy. One that would solve their problems and possibly put them in federal prison if they got caught.

It was one of those casual, ‘Hey let's take a risk that is totally illegal if you do it wrong’ kind of deals. While he was very, very good at doing illegal things and not getting caught, goody two-shoes over there was less so.

Her hands filtered through her hair, little plastic star barrets holding her bangs in place. She stressed how important it was to not get caught. But, she didn't just say ‘important’. She used the word ‘imperative?’ or something like that, which he was pretty sure without a dictionary on hand was a synonym for ‘important’.

He didn’t know. Lucy was full of words he didn’t know.

At last, she turned on her heels and inspected her dress carefully, silver flats making the dress look pearlescent.

She was a vision and he was annoyed.

“You look great. They won’t care what you dress in!” he said, grimacing as he felt his gelled hair  drag on his scalp.

Lucy cast him another withering glare. “It’s my big day so I’m going to own it! You should be thanking me, Natsu Dragneel!”

“You should be thanking me too!” he argued back.

“I will once we pull this off!”

“Well if you take too much longer, we’ll miss the appointment!”

“Relax, we have time!”

“If you say so.” he conceded, knowing it was the wise choice. He wasn’t going to start an argument today, of all the days.

She nodded resolutely, turning and grabbing her purse, the Vera Bradley clashing horribly with her attire. “Good. Now, let’s go.”

He kept to himself in the car, fidgeting and counting backwards from one hundred to prevent him from barfing. He could use his motion sickness as a crutch, but once they got out of the car, he had to confess it was because of nerves.

Lucy looked no better, locking the car and shakily taking two steps towards the looming building.

For better or worse, he thought before sidling over and linking her right arm with his left. “Together.” he assured softly, meeting her eyes with a small grin.

She nodded, a smile gracing her face as well. “Together.” she echoed.

Step by step, they walked up to the brick and mortar building, up the stairs and into the rotating glass doors. There was no going back, not once they stepped up to the security guard.

“Hey Natsu, do you have the-?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. In my pocket.” he answered before letting the guard hover the scanner over the mentioned pocket. Uncomfortably close to some other equipment, if he had to admit, but the guard thankfully didn’t feel the need to frisk him.

“This is it.” Lucy whispered as they wandered down the hall, looking at glossed wood and overbearing displays of lawful power. “We are doing this.”

“Yeah” Natsu whispered back, rubbing his rough thumb over her soft wrist, playing with the bangles of her bracelet. She relaxed a little, giving him a halfhearted pout as she tried to pull the bracelet from his hands. His fidgeting with her accessories was a pet peeve after all.

“Okay, you remember all the answers?” she checked when they paused before the office, staring at the gold nameplate that loomed over them. “We can’t afford to butcher this.”

Natsu grinned with all the confidence he left back at the apartment. “Relax. We’ve got this in the bag if we made it this far.”

Lucy huffed, her nervousness still there. It was displayed in her manner, her face a screaming warning of it. They’ve both been tense and snippy this past week ever since they got the letter in the mail.

It was showtime.

“Ready to go get hitched?” she asked, watching his hand reaching for the knob.

“Yeah, time to get you wife-d.” It sounded better in his head, he cringed as he opened the door.

It was going well, Lucy in her white dress that every bride-to-be deserved and he being all groomed up, figuratively and literally. Lucy taught him the difference between them. It was going well until the judge got to the questioning part.

What’s her favorite flower? How does she spend a typical Saturday night? What is her full legal name? He knew all that stuff.

What was his full legal name? What was his favorite past time? Who adopted him and at what age? Lucy knew all that stuff too.

But when it got to answering questions together, about the future, they kinda mucked it up in his opinion. Lucy took it all with grace and he looked like a moron.

“Well, our apartment is cozy enough and we have lived together there for three years already. I don't see us planning to move into a larger place anytime soon.” Lucy said evenly, flashing a demure smile as she did.

“What if Natsu lost his job? My records indicate that he does make a significant amount more than you do.”

Lucy shifted like she had been struck and Natsu opened his stupid mouth. “I ain’t gonna lose my job! Plus Lucy is my partner. She’s not lesser than me or dependent!” he said it too loud, too quick, and dammit Lucy was looking at him with wide eyes and he fucked it up.

The judge cleared his throat, clicking his pen and scribbling something down on a notepad. “So, you won’t be worried about her when your VISA expires and if it is declined upon renewal?”

Lucy cast the judge a wide eyed look and Natsu felt his gut bottom out. “Wha-? Of course I’d be worried, but she’s equal. Just because she doesn’t make as much doesn’t mean she’s helpless if I happen to lose my job...which I won’t.”

“Of course, once married her student loans would be forgiven. So, her annual income would even out.” This judge was officially his least favorite person and that was something. Gray being usurped as the #1 dickbag?

Plus this dickbag was being just so on the day Natsu was to be married?

This bag-of-dicks hit the nail on the head. He nailed them. Natsu’s VISA was going to expire and due to some...unfortunate events in his past, he would have a slim chance of renewal. He would be deported back to nothing. His friends were here. Lucy’s student loans were steep with interest and the payments ensured she would live off of ramen alone for the next ten years.

With a name change and a few signatures, both problems disappeared like a bad dream.

They were gonna go to prison for fraud. Oh, he was going to go to the slammer and Lucy going to the lady slammer. He would have to bite a rock and chew on it in front of a bunch of criminals to prove he was insane and not worth bothering.

“We came here today to be married in the eyes of the law.” Lucy said suddenly, fingers clenching her dress as she fixed a level stare at the judge behind the desk. To his credit, he didn’t smirk. He looked intrigued at what she had to say, his pen hovering over his notepad.

“Natsu is my best friend. He’s been there for me through the best and worst. It doesn’t matter to me if my loans ruin my credit or what but I love him and I want him by my side through it.”

He was having a heart attack. That’s what this feeling had to be. His heart was racing and his face felt hot and his fingers and toes were buzzing and-

Her hand reached for his, her eyes meeting his as a light flush reached her cheeks. Yeah, he was dying of a heart attack. It felt so good, too. Better than going to prison.

The judge rose a brow, looking to him suddenly. “And you feel the same, Mr. Dragneel?”

It felt like he stuck his face in the fire. His face had to be on fire. “Guh?” was the only thing he could articulate at the current moment.

But, Lucy snorted and laughed, covering her mouth and shaking her head. “Why do you always get embarrassed when I say things like that?” she said, trying to hard to keep her voice from wheezing as she leaned over to gasp. “It’s like you’re a school boy.”

Okay, not a heart attack. It was just embarrassment. “Oi! It’s not my fault you just say things like that! A guy needs warnings sometimes!”

“What kind of warning should I give you before I drop the ILY bomb, then?”

“I dunno, but don’t just s-say it!”

Lucy flashed him a saucy grin, her eyes lidding. “Should I just show you then?” she breathed.

“I’ve seen enough.” The judge interrupted before Natsu could self combust into ashes. “I see that, although my accusations may have some grounding, it is clear that this is not some shotgun solution. Please contain yourselves while I get the papers.”

Lucy finally had the capacity to look mortified as the man produced the necessary papers for both of them to sign and called in the secretary to witness.

“Sign ‘Lucy Dragneel’ on the dotted lines-”

“What about ‘Natsu Heartfilia?” Natsu blurted suddenly, obviously not done fucking things up for today.

The judge leveled him with a stone cold glower, but Lucy laughed, the pen dancing away in her hands. “Natsu we talked about this. Heartfilia is just a name. It always was.”

It really was, because she signed it away with elegant flicks of her wrist that he watched with fascination. One, two, three, and like that, she was no longer Lucy Heartfilia.

She was Lucy Dragneel, his wife.

She was his wife and he her husband and holy damn it was really that simple.

The rest blurred by but the motion sickness never came to take over the warm bubble in his chest. They did it. They actually did it.

“Well, husband? We got married. Now what do you want to do?” Lucy asked brightly once they left the office and marched down the halls, arm in arm.

Well, what were a husband and wife supposed to do after getting hitched? Natsu didn’t know. He never got married before.

The word ‘pizza’ came to his mind like a beacon.

“Pizza?” he asked, blinking down at her curiously and marveling at how relaxed she was now. At her beam, he knew he got it right.

“Pizza sounds great. I’m so hungry.” she moaned, actually picking up the pace and dragging him for once. “Extra cheese. It’s our wedding day!”

“With olives and bacon!”

“Ew, no. Not that.”

“It’s my wedding day too! I get olives and bacon!”

“Never!”

“I’ll drop you over the threshold. Don’t try me!”

Still, he carried her over the threshold, her carrying the pizza box, and the pizza box carrying the freshest double cheese with half olives and bacon pizza the world would ever have. Plus, the olives spelled out ‘Just Married!’ They already had plans to eat it and binge watch on Netflix.

They had this wedding thing down.

#nalu #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #fairy tail #my writing