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jovialyouthmusic · 3 years

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Double Trouble

Following Bastien and Sophia Lykel, the proud new parents of twins. Sophia’s parents come to visit.

Word Count 2293

A/N Nothing to report, just fluff. The chapter got a bit long so I’m splitting it.

6a Granny and Grandpa

‘There they are!’ Sophia threw her arm up in the air and waved as she caught sight of her parents, Bob and Edith, coming out of Customs into the arrival lounge at Cordonia’s main airport. Costa and Althea had not stayed long when they visited, but the Turners would be there for a week.

‘What are we going to do with them?’ Sophia had asked Bastien ‘I love them, but it takes all my energy looking after the twins. We can’t really ask Hana to help while they’re here. She deserves a break’

‘Don’t worry, Regina has invited Edith and you for afternoon tea for one thing. You can take your mother shopping in the Capitol and Bob and I can look after the twins. I’ll find lots of things for us all to do, and if you’re tired, you can just rest. I’m sure your parents are capable of taking the twins for a walk in the grounds.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps we could invite Costa and Althea back, after all they haven’t met yet.’ Bastien’s foster parents were often busy visiting others that that they had fostered over the years, and were ‘foster’ grandparents to many children, so had missed both their wedding and the reception back in the palace after their honeymoon.

‘Oh my goodness, I can’t imagine how that would go – but it’s a good opportunity’ Sophia said ‘I suppose there’s no harm in asking if they’re free’

At the airport, Bastien smiled to see the joy on her face.

‘Go on, I’ve got the pushchair’ he said, putting his hand on the handle of the double stroller. The twins were mesmerised by the noise and bustle of the airport terminal, Theodore looking all around wide eyed and Beatrice frowning in disapproval, fidgeting and wriggling in her seat. Sophia rushed forward to greet her parents. Edith hugged her, but she was scanning the lounge for sight of the twins and broke away from her quickly.

‘Where are they? Is that Bastien over there?’ she asked impatiently, while Bob gave his daughter a warm embrace.

‘You’re looking well, Sophia’ he said fondly ‘How are you coping with being a parent?’ Edith was surging determinedly ahead toward her quarry, her luggage forgotten. The trolley was laden with bags and Bob looked tired.

‘It’s hard work, Dad’ she replied ‘But we have a lot of help – we’re lucky really, the Palace is a great place to stay right now.’ Edith was out of earshot but Sophia could hear her delighted cries at meeting her grandchildren.

‘We’d better catch up’ Bob said, and Sophia kissed his cheek as he went back to pushing the luggage trolley.

‘How on earth did you get all these bags on the plane?’ she asked incredulously.

‘Your mother’ Bob said, as if that was all the explanation that was needed, but went on to elaborate. ‘She harassed the check in girl thoroughly. I think she overlooked the baggage limit just to save her eardrums’

‘You must have had to pay extra, surely’ Sophia replied, and her father shrugged, smiling warmly.

‘It was worth it for the sake of my only daughter’ She squeezed his arm as they caught up with Edith, bending down and cooing at the babies. As usual with any new stimulus, Theo regarded her with fascination, fingers stuffed in his mouth, and Beatrice continued to wriggle, but she was engaged at the new person paying her and her brother such close attention,

‘They haven’t got your lovely fair hair’ Edith said, looking back at her daughter. ‘You were such a pretty baby, strangers didn’t believe Bob was your father because you were blonde’

‘It’s genetics, Mum’ Sophia sighed ‘You must both have recessive genes’ Edith sniffed, unconvinced.

‘Well, they’re very bonny.’ she conceded ‘How did you get here? Did Bastien drive? How are we all going to fit into the car?’

‘We’ve got a minivan’ Sophia explained ‘We’ll all fit in fine – and your bags’ she looked back at the trolley ‘At least I think so’

‘We’ll manage’ Bastien asserted. Bob had been gazing fondly at the babies, but his attention went to his son in law.

‘Lykel’ he said, taking his hand and shaking it firmly ‘You’ve got a hard job looking after twins’

‘They keep us on our toes, Sir’

‘Now then son, it’s Bob’ Bastien smiled wryly.

‘With respect, you used my surname, Bob’

‘Well dammit so I did. Force of habit, s – uh Bastien. No offense’

‘None taken, Bob’ Edith was talking to the babies in a sing song voice, which caused Theo to reach out to try and touch her while Beatrice stopped wriggling to concentrate on her voice, staring at her intently.

‘They’re such little darlings’ Edith gushed ‘When is Granny going to get a cuddle?’

‘You can help when we get out to the car, Edith’ Bastien said ‘It will be easier to keep them in the stroller for now.’ He looked at the baggage trolley. ‘Let me take that, Bob. Sophia can take charge of the twins’ They set off for the car park, Sophia taking the lead and Edith walking beside her, Bastien and Bob taking up the rear. It was warm outside in the Mediterranean autumn air, white clouds billowing up in the sky as the day wore on. They reached the minivan and began the loading process.

‘Would you mind taking Beatrice, Mum?’ Sophia asked. She’d never been able to change her habit of calling her parents Mum and Dad. It just didn’t feel natural calling them by their names. ‘She’s more likely to get cranky. Theo’s pretty laid back’

‘Well who’s a gorgeous girl?’ Edith enthused as Sophia unbuckled the baby and handed her over. ‘Granny’s been waiting to meet you and your brother’ Beatrice sat quietly in her arms, happy at being paid exclusive attention. Bob caught up with them and beamed as Sophia handed Theo over to him so that she could wrestle with getting the stroller folded up and stowed away and putting the nappy changing bags where they could be reached easily. Bastien was taken up with manhandling the bags into the back of the van, scrutinising them first to work out how best to stow them away.

Sophia climbed into the van and reached out to Bob for Theo first, knowing that he would be content to be buckled into his baby seat. Edith was only too happy to spend a few more moments rocking her granddaughter before handing her over.

‘Now Beatrice will probably cry when I buckle her up’ Sophia explained ‘But as soon as we get moving she’ll quieten down. Theo will be fine’

‘I’ll sit next to her’ Edith offered ‘Granny will keep her quiet’ Sophia pursed her lips dubiously but said nothing. Beatrice squirmed and grizzled as she placed her in the car seat and adjusted the straps. Edith swiftly climbed into the next seat and leaned over her as Bastien crammed the last bag into the back.

Bob wheeled the trolley back to the collection point while Bastien got into the driver’s seat. Bob came back and sat beside him whilst Sophia settled next to Theo, who kicked his legs happily. He seemed to like the motion of the minivan, whereas Beatrice just wasn’t happy being strapped into anything. It wasn’t as if she could get anywhere under her own steam, just that she hated any kind of confinement apart from being held and fussed over. Happily, the fact that Edith was paying the little girl attention pleased her, and she quietened down before they started off.

‘Beatrice must really like you, Mum.’ Sophia said ‘Normally she cries until we get moving. Not that we’ve manage to get them out and about much. It’s like organising a campaign getting them ready’

‘Well four pairs of hands are better than two’ her mother said ‘I know you have extra help at the Palace, but whoever it is can have a little holiday while we’re here’ Sophia sighed inwardly, knowing that things were never that simple with her mother, well meaning as she was.

It wasn’t a long journey to the palace, and Edith carried on talking to Beatrice all the way, only looking up when they got to the palace gates.

‘Oh, here already? How’s the King? Didn’t you say that the Queen’s expecting a baby too? Theo and Beatrice will have a real life prince or princess to play with’

‘Mum, I told you we’ll be moving to Edinburgh when the academic year starts’ Sophia said.

‘Oh, still so far away.’ Edith sighed ‘However will you manage the twins on your own? You should move back to the island, then we can babysit for you.’

‘Now Edith, that’s a huge commitment.’ Bob said firmly. ‘Much as I love the idea of being a grandpa, I want to enjoy my retirement. Sophia and Bastien will manage just fine without us.’

‘I’d planned to set up my own security consultancy, but I can delay a lot of it while we settle in’ Bastien explained ‘Most will be done remotely anyway, so I should be at home most of the time once it gets going’ Edith boggled at this.

‘You mean you’ll be a house husband?’ she gasped ‘Sophia, you should be the one staying at home’ Bob coughed loudly, and she looked sheepish. ‘Oh dear, I’m being old fashioned, aren’t I? Things are different nowadays I suppose’ Sophia rubbed her forehead.

‘I was honoured to be offered the job.’ she explained. ‘I didn’t think I’d fall pregnant so fast. They deferred, but I really want to take it up.’

‘I’m sorry dear.’ Edith sighed ‘It was so different in my day. You were expected to be at home to look after your children and wait for your husband to get home’

Any further discussion was halted as the minivan drew up at the security post at the Palace gates and went on to stop in front of the staff wing after being checked over.

‘Let me have Theo this time’ Edith offered as they started to unload, so Sophia handed him over and carried Beatrice herself, leaving the two men to unload the baggage. They climbed the stairs to the apartment.

‘Now Mum, you know you can’t stay with us this time. The twins have the spare room, so the King has very kindly put you in a suite in the guest wing. It’s not far from us, and we can all eat together. Your suite has a very nice view out over the grounds at the back’

‘Oh’ said Edith ‘That sounds lovely. When can we see it?’

‘I just need to check the twins aren’t hungry or need changing, then we can all go over and take your bags’

‘Are you bottle feeding them? I fed you of course, but I stopped when your teeth came through’

‘I’ll feed them for as long as I can’ Sophia explained as they reached the apartment, and she unlocked the door. She went along the corridor to the nursery, and Edith exclaimed at the room.

‘Oh my, aren’t you a lucky boy?’ she cooed to Theo ‘Your mummy didn’t have her own room until she was at school’ She made a face and held Theo away from her body. ‘Oh dear, I think he’s a little damp, darling’

--------

At first Edith had been a little peeved not to be staying with her daughter. Sophia and Bastien had discussed putting the twins back in the main bedroom and reinstating the spare room, but it would have been too disruptive. The suite Bob and Edith had was one that was usually put aside for nobility to stay in the social season when there were balls and other occasions to attend. Edith was most impressed at the grand décor and soon forgot all about the little apartment in the staff wing. The arrangement meant that everyone had their own space and weren’t on top of each other.

After taking all the bags through, Bastien sent for a meal to be served in the Turners’ suite, and Sophia sat feeding Beatrice whilst it was all laid out on the table. She felt a little guilty at always feeding her first, but she was impatient where her brother was not. Edith paraded up and down with Theo, singing and chatting to him.

‘What’s in all the bags, Mum?’ Sophia asked.

‘My painting things’ she replied. ‘After all, I work by Royal appointment, you know’ Sophia suppressed a smile, as she knew that remark to be caused by Regina politely saying she’d like to see Edith paint the palace grounds. Beatrice stopped feeding and Sophia waved her mother over to swap, handing her a napkin for her shoulder.

‘Make sure she’s winded’ she warned ‘If she gets tummy ache neither of them will settle.’ When Theo had been fed and winded, Sophia went to sit at the table. Theo was happy to sit in his bouncy chair, and surprisingly Beatrice was too.

‘My foster parents are passing through tomorrow’ Bastien said casually as he passed the breadbasket to Bob ‘If you like, we could meet up with them.’

‘Oh, Althea paints, doesn’t she?’ Edith piped up ‘Of course we should meet them’

‘Perhaps we should plan an outing’ Sophia suggested ‘I’m getting a bit fed up of the same four walls. A walk along the seafront and lunch at a café would make a change’

‘That’s an excellent idea’ Bastien replied, standing to take some plates back to the kitchen and stopping on the way back to put his hand on her shoulder and lean down to kiss her cheek. ‘I’ll get in touch with them and arrange it’

@sirbeepsalot @katedrakeohd @fluffyfirewhiskey @kingliam2019 @rainbowsinthestorm @camillemontespan @texaskitten30 @bascmve01 @nomadics-stuff

#double trouble #sophia x bastien #bastien lykel #Bastien x OC #bastien x sophia

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iluxia · 4 years

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Unsolicited writing advice???

A ton of you have commented with such kind and complimentary words about my Naruto fic Hiding in the Leaves and its characterization through the shifting POVs. Thank you all! I’m gratified to hear that you’re enjoying it. Some are asking how I shift perspectives and still manage to keep the characters in line. Actually, a fair number of readers have asked for actual advice, so here we go. This is a lot of writing babble, I hope it makes sense but feel free to drop me an ask if anything is unclear!

(1) I read a lot. I read all the time. Easily a book a day, maybe two days. And when I do, I practice critical reading—or as they say, reading like an editor, so I can pick at techniques other writers use. Writing is an art you learn largely by example. A lot of what I read influences what and how I write, so when I need to change my tone or voice to fit a different character, I usually read something that matches what I want my prose to sound like, on top of using techniques like changing tenses and playing with vocabulary choices.

I recently had the chance to flex these writing muscles because I went from writing two very distinct human voices (Tony Stark & Stephen Strange) to writing an alien voice (Loki). It was fucking hard; those in the Marvel fandom might know what I mean. Tony and Stephen are both human, born and raised in America, with specific life experiences that inform their daily decisions and personalities. Loki, on the other hand, is an alien: raised in Asgard, stolen from Jotunheim, well-traveled throughout the Nine Realms, and moreover raised as a prince. Just stop and think about that. When your characters do not have the same experiences that you do, they’re bound to not have the same earthbound concerns that you do. Anthropomorphizing non-human (or even non-living) beings is an age-old practice, but to be faithful to his character, I tried my best to twist my writing voice into a different shape—a shape that more befits the prince of a realm that is somewhat humanoid but very different from what we know on Earth. And in order to do that, I did four things:

I changed my prose from past to present tense; it sounds more immediate and assertive

I read three books, written in present tense, where the prose mimics what I imagine Loki would sound like in his own head

I made a huge spread of everything about Loki (both canon and my own orginal additions) that would inform his motivations, internal concerns, emotional responses, and decision-making processes

I drowned myself in Loki fanwork

Immersion is key! If you saturate your brain in a specific type of rhetoric or style, that’s what’s likeliest to come out of your productive process at the end. So controlling what you read/watch/listen to will help control your writing style too.

(2) This further breaks down what I just said in the third bullet point above. Before I start writing from a specific character’s perspective, I’ll take the time to brainstorm and build that character from the ground up. This might take a day or two and includes a staggering amount of detail—just as much detail as mine or your life might comprise. Silly little things like favorite colors and foods, hobbies, dislikes. Oftentimes, if you’re a fic writer, this is easier because canon gives it to you. Those amazing wiki-pages exist to make your life easier in this regard. (Bless.) What canon doesn’t give you is where you can dig in. Go deeper. Pin your character down. Think about more serious considerations like emotional triggers, conscious motivations, subconscious motivations, coping and defense mechanisms. When hurt or under stress, are they the type to lash out or curl in? Are they the type to hold on to a grudge, or do they prefer to forgive and forget? Do they get hurt easily or do they have a thick skin? I imagine the character’s relationships in life, I rank them and network them in my head. Who do they run to when they need advice? Who do they like hanging out with when they’re happy? Who annoys them, who inspires them, who scares them, who do they want to be like? Even if these questions aren’t necessarily things you might discuss in your fic, it helps inform this person you’re writing about, so it helps you keep a clearer and more consistent mental picture of them as you go.

But most critical of all, I sit and imagine myself in their shoes and think of how they perceive themselves. That is a major factor when writing, because that’s what their head-voice will sound like. And if the story is written from their perspective, then that means you, writer, are writing in that head-voice!

Here’s a more HITL-specific example (I’ll try not to spoil too much lol):

Sasuke

How he sees himself:

Ordinary; not very impressive as a shinobi, but not absolutely terrible either – just ordinary

Average looking

A slow, impatient learner

Awkward with people, but polite and with good intentions

Emotionally stable

A good reader and listener

How he actually is from someone else’s POV:

Incredibly skilled for his age and level as a shinobi

Actually quite handsome

An intuitive learner, very tenacious and will keep at a task forever until he gets it just right; perfectionist much

Quiet, polite, notices a lot about how others act

Absolutely does not handle emotions well

Selective listener; sometimes only hears what he wants to hear

Rationales:

He’s surrounded by a clan of perfectionists and overachievers who constantly laud his aniki for being a genius while paying him no attention. Of course he thinks he’s ordinary.

No one ever compliments him for his looks in the clan compound, and what he sees in the mirror looks just like a younger version of everyone around him. Of course he thinks he’s average, even though he actually has looks.

Because he’s largely self-taught (except for when Obaa-sama teaches him), he thinks he’s slow. (Ever learned a new skill or maybe even a new language by yourself? I have. I can tell you that my perception of how much time I spent learning ‘basics’ was skewed.) He also holds himself to a higher than normal standard because that’s what gets him positive attention (or attention at all) within his family. Add the fact that Itachi was there blazing through everything before him, and it’s suddenly easy to understand why Sasuke thinks the worst of himself as a student. But he (and Naruto) are actually fast learners—we see this even in canon—and both of them boast high levels of natural intuition, or as I (the neuroscientist) likes to call it, pattern recognition. Some people are naturally better at this than others; there have been extensive tests done to show it. But we also know intuition can be trained, so the more Sasuke works at something, the better he gets, and the faster he learns the next skill—as long as the learning is patterned. Which is why Orochimaru, who has picked up on this trait, walks them through learning each jutsu in a stepwise manner every time.

Sasuke doesn’t have a lot of social interaction outside of his family. The Uchiha clan in this fic is very segregated from the rest of the village, so if you’re not active as a shinobi, you probably don’t get out of the compound much. Interacting with people probably intimidates Sasuke a lot so he feels awkward about it and reverts back to habits of politeness and silence that he was taught from childhood. That doesn’t mean that he’s not paying attention, however; Sasuke is naturally observant and remembers a lot about how people act (and not so much what they say). I have a theory about this related to the Sharingan but I won’t go into too much here because it would be a straight-up spoiler, sorry. :D

He thinks he’s emotionally stable because he doesn’t remember many incidents of severe emotional upheaval in his life. That’s because he hasn’t had them; apart from the whole thing with Itachi, he’s been fairly sheltered his whole life. But he actually doesn’t handle emotions well—something he’s about to find out soon enough—and for the same reason! He hasn’t been exposed to an extensive range of it.

Because he’s largely self-taught, he has confidence in his reading skills. He also remembers all of Obaa-sama’s stories so he thinks he’s a good listener. Well, he is—to an extent. If he wants to listen, he will. If he doesn’t, he’s just as proficient as Naruto at pigheadedness. (I think it’s an Uchiha trait too lmao.)

That was a lot, right? But you can see that if I’m writing from Sasuke’s POV, I have to keep a different set of pointers than if I’m writing from Naruto’s POV about Sasuke. The way I think of it is like changing lenses or shades depending on the light outside.

A few more techniques/guidelines I use:

Stay consistent with vocabulary. Orochimaru is far more verbose than the rest of them, Shikamaru right behind him, and Naruto uses shorter, simpler words. You can even assign particular words to a character, a word only they would use when referring to something. This applies to how your character addresses other people too, i.e. Orochimaru calls them ‘little ones’; Shikamaru calls his dad ‘oyaji’ in front of his peers but ‘otou-san’ in front of his sensei; Naruto is quick to give people nicknames and most of the time it sticks.

Watch the adjectives; different people describe things differently. Orochimaru uses more nuanced words that can mean different things depending on the situation and mood; Naruto thinks in terms of emotions, a lot of how does this make me feel; Sasuke is very visual and notices a lot of colors.

Use speech habits wisely; how your character talks should reflect their life. Just like accents, speech habits can tell a lot about a person. Sasuke always speaks politely because it’s how he’s supposed to talk at home, otherwise there’d be trouble. Naruto grew up in a poorer district and had no one to really teach him how to talk politely, so he’s very casual. Shikamaru cusses at age eleven because his parents and family are incredibly laissez-faire and honest around him, so he thinks it’s acceptable and normal (and he was never reprimanded for it).

Play with your tenses. Writing in past tense sounds and feels very different from writing in present tense. Depending on your character, one or the other might sound more appropriate. There are some expressions and figures of speech that sound fine when written in past tense but awkward when written in present tense, so that will end up inadvertently changing your prose a bit, which can be useful.

Read your work out loud. Cardinal rule of prose-writing. What looks good on paper doesn’t always sound good when read out loud. If you read it and it doesn’t sound like how your character talks, time for a vibe check. You might need to change a few words and move sentences around, or you might need a complete overhaul… an editor (and I mean an editor, not just a beta-reader) can usually help you out.

A note about editors vs beta-readers:

There is a cardinal difference! A beta-reader is usually not professionally trained but should be experienced enough to point out things that aren’t right. In fandom, I’ve found that beta-readers mostly focus on a story’s general feel, flow and readability, sometimes character consistency, sometimes they point out typos and mistakes. An editor goes further than that. I’m fortunate to have Tria (aventria) who has edited my work for, gosh, 14 years now, fuck, we’re old! I call her my editor because when she goes through a piece, she will fix everything and make my draft bleed and I love it. (I actually get a little upset when she doesn’t fix anything, even if that means everything was good.) As an editor, she does a vibe check and looks for typos/errors, yes, but she also critiques the prose extensively. She can rearrange phrases or entire paragraphs for better flow. She will cut out entire scenes or make me rewrite them if they’re that bad. Like a copy editor, she looks at stylistic inconsistencies, grammar errors, and iffy word use. She’ll usually suggest or replace the offending word altogether. She has a lot of freedom with the work and can actually kick a piece to the curb if it’s really that shitty. She also questions plot progression, character development, and the relevance of a scene. (She’s made me cut out many, many scenes.) – That all being said, it’s not easy finding an editor, much less a good one. It also has to be someone you trust to have this much power over your work. It’s worth it, however, and my writing has gotten so much better because of the help.

If you’ve read this far, wow, thanks! You’re also probably thinking, “Shit, she takes this too seriously. It’s just a fic.”

I have… gotten into fights in the past before because of this. I feel strongly about the stuff I write. Just because it’s fanfiction doesn’t mean it isn’t a labor of love. I’m a perfectionist by nature, so that’s why I put so much time and effort into what amounts to ‘just a fic.’ And you know what? At the end of the day, writing it gives me satisfaction and happiness, so I will keep pouring into it as much as I can. It’s just a bonus to hear that other people are enjoying it too. (Yes, I’m one of those weirdos who intensely enjoy reading my own work…)

Aaand the final point:

(3) I double-majored in psychology for undergrad and have by now accumulated thousands of hours of clinical hours spent using the theories and techniques I learned from those classes on real people. I’m also specializing in neuroscience, so a portion of my time is spent in psychiatry. Characterization was actually not one of my writing strengths at first, but I definitely noticed leaps in improvement after my clinical rotation started. People skills are just that: skills which are honed with practice. It’s amazing how much you learn about how people think and what make them tick when you interact with a whole spectrum of examples: from your neurotypical everyday well-adjusted person, to high-functioning neurotics and obsessives, to patients who have suffered complex stroke syndromes, to encephalitic brains burning under septic fevers, to druggies stoned so high they’ve breached the atmosphere, to patients whose brains are growing insidious tumors, to schizophrenics and catatonics and the depressed. My job also allows me the rare opportunity to interact with people from all walks of life. All I need to do if I wanted insight about how life is for soldiers who served in an active warzone, for example, is to hit up Bill at the ICU and ask for stories about Korea and the Gulf and Vietnam. Or if I wanted to know about how to survive the Rwandan genocide, I could sit down with Amida, who survived it as a barely-teenager with her brother and sister in tow while only “losing my innocence and an eye.” Or I could talk to Heather, who is building a life with her husband and two rambunctious children, for a perspective on the daily concerns and delights of a ‘perfectly normal and ordinary’ working mother. (Her words, not mine; Heather is amazing even if she eats the doctor’s lounge out of Tita Annabel’s cookies.) Anyway, you get my point. When I write, I almost always write about people, so it makes sense that a lot of my inspiration comes from people too. A lot of my original characters—and even some that are not—often speak with the voices and inflections of people I know in real life. You probably have people with interesting stories to tell in your life; you just have to work up the courage to ask and take the time to listen. You’d be surprised at what you learn!

A few helpful writing resources: (most of these are classics)

The Elements of Style by Strunk & White

The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren

And more books that helped me get into people’s heads:

Hallucinations by Dr. Oliver Sacks

The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon

Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo

Admirable Evasions by Theodore Dalrymple

I hope you got something out of that. Again, feel free to drop me an ask if you have any questions or want to chat!

#fanfic #on writing #fandom: naruto #answers

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johannstutt413 · 4 years

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(requested by anonymous)

“Sir SilverAsh?” Siege, hammer slung on her back, approached the CEO before they departed. “I’ve been assigned as your bodyguard for this assignment. Doctor’s orders.”

“Hmm...I didn’t request a Rhodes Island detail.” His eyes narrowed slightly.

She shrugged. “I saw the tasker and volunteered to fill it; why he sent it out is another matter.”

“Understandable.” He gave her elevator eyes, only to realize she’d given him the same. “Sizing up your ward?”

“More or less. I agree it doesn’t make much sense for the Truesilver Slasher to have a guard, but my hammer’s getting restless, so I am as well. Hopefully there’s enough action for all of us.”

SilverAsh smirked. “This is a business contract, so I don’t expect it’s likely to come to blows in that fashion, but I’ve certainly spilled more blood at less promising venues before.”

“Less promising?” Siege crossed her arms. “As in more peaceful?”

“More docile; none of these companies are truly peaceful, as I’m sure you’ve seen here at RI. Business is ruthless, and those at the top are absolute monsters...Hence my swordsmanship.”

She nodded. “Then let’s hope the monsters put up a decent fight.”

“Certainly.” He thought for a moment before extending his hand. “Enciodes SilverAsh, Chief of the Silverashes.”

“Verna, leader of Glasgow.” She shook his hand with near equal grip strength to his, despite the notable size difference. Encio took note of it, but not too seriously. After all, if the Doctor was going to send someone, it had to be someone Encio himself would have more trouble dealing with than it was worth...The fact that she was rather attractive only helped ensure that.

After taking a moment to decide which of them would enter their transport first (Encio, they determined after a bit of posturing), they set off for their destination: a merger negotiation with a small firm out of Victoria. Upon realizing where this meeting was being held, it clicked with Siege why the Doctor wanted to send her with SilverAsh...and also the reasons he should have sent someone, anyone else from Victoria besides Indra in her stead.

Those guarding the entrance to Victoria were particularly interesting in her presence in the three-vehicle procession. “Ey, wuddja lookee ‘ere! Glasgow’s finest, in the flesh! We’ve been waitin’ for you lot to come back-”

“I think you’ll find you’re mistaken,” Encio asserted. “This is Operator Siege of Rhodes Island, not whoever you’re talking about. Are you done making your false accusations and unnecessarily rifling through our papers?”

“...You don’t wonna mess with us, guv’na.”

His sword began to glow. “Likewise, gutter-lover.”

“Well that’s a new ‘un, itn’t it?” The copper drew his baton. “You wonna take a tumble, you bloody-”

“Sir SilverAsh has business in the city. This man could buy your entire precinct tomorrow; do you want to start a fight with your future boss while he isn’t concerned with your future in his company?”

Verna’s interruption gave both parties pause. Eventually, the border cops shrugged. “Eh, itn’t worth it. Let ‘em thru!”

“Thank you, Verna,” Encio said once they were out of earshot. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to deal with authorities as well as management, but it’s always better to avoid needless bloodshed.”

“Of course, Sir SilverAsh.”

He smiled. “Please, Encio’s more than fine.”

“After our business here, certainly, we shall be on first-name terms,” she replied, “but while we’re here, I’ll be playing a role to keep my identity under wraps.”

“As you wish.”

Siege shook her head. “I would recommend not holding future meetings in Londinium, whenever you can avoid it. Its residents, as a whole, leave something to be desired regarding their conduct.”

“Oh, really?” Encio leaned back in his seat. “Criminals?”

“Idealists.”

He blinked. “Idealists? Is there a rebellion fomenting here?”

“There’s a rebellion happening here.” She slipped a lollipop into her mouth. “Gangs rule the streets, whatever the authorities say. Glasgow used to hold territory here, but since we left for Rhodes Island, I doubt the others haven’t filled in the gap we left.”

“I see. Thank you for being candid with me, Ver- Siege.”

She nodded. “However I can be of service, sir.”

“Yes...” He looked out his window, mostly to keep himself from staring at her. “I’ll be taking you up on that, I’m sure.”

“Please do; I don’t make such offers lightly.”

As they arrived at the compound where they were meeting, it became clear they were not the first ones there...and judging by the bodies outside, they weren’t the only ones prepared for violence. Their team - SilverAsh and Siege, as well as Courier, Matterhorn, and a few others from the Silverash private military and the Karlan Trade Company, Ltd. - entered the premises after Siege busted through the thoroughly-locked door; she led the charge, bashing through the sturdiest of competition (specifically barriers to forward motion, like closed doors and inconvenient walls) while the rest cleaned up behind her...Until, that is, they reached the board room, where a single shot to her flank left her in need of medical attention. Those inside realized they’d shot one of their rescuers, however, as their future business partner entered the room.

As his medic stabilized Verna, Encio turned to the board of directors he was scheduled to meet with. “Which one of you shot her?”

“I did,” the company head admitted. “We didn’t realize she was one of yours-”

“Clearly. Your company’s assets will be subsumed within the week; use that time to prepare for interviews with my staffers.”

There was a commotion among the group, with one speaking towards SilverAsh. “Sir, we’ve been heading this company for some time-”

“And you expect some special privilege for that?” His sword was glowing inside its hilt. “You’re lucky you have this chance at all.”

“This is a hostile takeover! We won’t stand for this!”

Encio smiled as he drew his blade. “You won’t be standing at all, then.” One stroke, and the entire board, save one particularly meek individual, found themselves dead.

“...Thank you for sparing me, Sir.” The survivor kicked the corpse of the chairman out of his seat and sat down. “I’ll have an inventory of our assets ready when I have my interview.”

“See to it that it’s a complete one. I’m giving you another chance because you clearly aren’t from the same cloth as the others; prove me right.”

He stood and bowed. “Of course, sir...Is she going to be alright?”

“Morphine, status?” The Perro medic gave him a thumbs-up. “And with that, our transaction is complete. We’ll take you to a safer location, assuming you have digital access to your records?”

“Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!”

Encio nodded, his eyes focused on Siege. “Come along, then. Is she stable enough to move?”

“Definitely,” Morphine confirmed. “The bolt itself mostly struck her intestines, so the regen work was fairly straightforward. She’ll want a work day of bedrest to make sure it holds and nothing leaks, but knowing her record, she’ll be right as rain not too long from now.”

“Good...Matterhorn, carry her to the car, please.”

He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Set her next to me once we’re in the car.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not leaving anything to chance...”

The trip back to their caravan was straightforward; however, Encio requested they take a different, more elaborate route out of Victoria in order to avoid further skirmishes. Verna was asleep for the next few hours, SilverAsh holding her so that the occasional roughness of the roads didn’t aggravate her injury. Upon reaching their first stop, she began to stir.

“...Sir Silverash...have we left Victoria?” Her voice was quiet, but not necessarily soft.

“We have, Verna.” He helped her sit up next to him. “You don’t feel like your organs are about to spill out, do you?”

She gave him a quizzical look. “Should I?”

“They nearly did. My medic took care of it, but-” Before continuing that sentence, he thought better of it.

“But?” When he replied with silence, Verna sighed. “How did the deal go?”

Encio gestured to the new former CEO. “Our takeover was swift and efficient. He’ll handle their documents, and if he does well enough, we’ll find a place for him in the company.”

“...And what happened to the others?”

“Their chairman shot you, and everyone but him showed no visible reaction.” His face hardened. “That was simply unforgivable.”

She cocked her head. “Not to imply a lapse in judgment, but was that strictly necessary?”

“No, it wasn’t, but I got very little blood on my sword before that point, and their injuring you infuriated me immensely.”

“I see.” Verna mused over this for a moment. “Why?”

He shrugged. “You’re one of my people, and I don’t take that lightly.”

“That didn’t take very long. Any particular reason you decided this so quickly?”

“Well...you might look at it as an investment.” Encio smiled at her. “An investment in the future.”

She nodded. “So you’re thinking of your succession, then?”

“...Not just that-”

“I’m familiar with the concept, Encio.” Verna smiled back at him. “So long as you realize I don’t plan on leaving the battlefield and respect that appropriately, I’d be willing to give you an heir...or several.”

He blinked once, twice, thrice, before replying. “You’ve just made my life so much less complicated.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that. My past comes with some heavy baggage.”

“I’m no stranger to heavy loads, Verna.” He put an arm, and some of his greatcoat, around her shoulders. “And with one of my more pressing concerns dealt with, I’ve got strength to spare.”

She set her head against his side. “You have a very nice coat.”

“If you’d like, I can have one like it made for you.”

“No, that’s fine.” She realized she was purring, but honestly, she’d just secured her own bloodline as well and was basking in the moment, and Encio would be hearing far more than just her purring. “We can share this one.”

#arknights #silverash (arknights)#siege (arknights)#i've claimed siege is noble before #so i wouldn't be surprised if she wanted an heir #i mean even if she's not actually royalty #she might just want a pride of her own #and with silverash's own need for a successor #it kind of works #they're also both powerful warriors #so it makes sense #this is way too many tags #arknights fic

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ohemgeeitscoley · 4 years

Text

Ben Solo is the recently assigned editor for Rey Johnson’s book about star-crossed lovers in space when the world is turned upside down and stay home orders are issued. Ben and Rey begin working together over Zoom and their relationship grows.

Or, an and they were zoomates fic.

Based on this Tumblr post.

The one I have been waiting for (Part One of Two)

Fandom: Star Wars

Pairing: Rey/Ben Solo (Reylo)

Note: This was going to be a really, really short one shot. It turned into a 12k two-shot. Whoops. This is pure fluff.

As always, the biggest thank you to @andyouweremine for being the world’s best beta and friend. Seriously, thank you for all of your cheerleading and input and for convincing me that one more scene never hurt anyone. You’re the absolute best.

Read below or on AO3.

From: Leia Organa-Solo <[email protected]> To: Benjamin Solo <[email protected]> Subject: Quarantine assignments

Ben,

Unfortunately with everything going on right now, I've decided that we are going to close the office and have everyone work from home. I know you were looking forward to the big welcome lunch I had planned. Hopefully we will be able to reschedule in a few weeks once the risk of spreading COVID-19 lessens.

In the meantime, I am going to assign you to Rey Johnson. She is working on a new novel with a goal of having the first draft submitted by May 30. I'm attaching her contact information and what she has sent over so far. Please coordinate with Rey to schedule an introduction meeting.

Warm regards,

Mom

Leia Organa-Solo CEO Rebel Publishing, LLC

From: Benjamin Solo <[email protected]> To: Leia Organa-Solo <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Quarantine assignments

Leia:

I am deeply saddened that the welcome lunch you coordinated over my many, many vocal objections to has been cancelled. I suppose we will have to plan another inner-office get together wherein I can find a way to embarrass and let you down. I'm greatly looking forward to the opportunity.

On that note, was it really necessary to use my full name in my email address? Was Ben already taken? I am fairly certain as my mother you are aware that you are the only person who ever calls me Benjamin. Would it be possible to have IT change this before tomorrow?

I think closing the office is the right decision. Social distancing is quite important now more than ever. I'm assuming this means that Saturday dinners will also be postponed?

I'll look over what you sent and reach out to Ms. Johnson. I'm looking forward to working with her.

Sincerely,

Ben Solo Editor Rebel Publishing, LLC

From: Leia Organa-Solo <[email protected]> To: Benjamin Solo <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Quarantine assignments

Benjamin:

I distinctly remember writing Benjamin down on your birth certificate. I'm unaware of any name change order being in your personnel file. The email stays.

The lunch has not been cancelled, it has been postponed. Despite your assertions, you will not embarrass or let me down in any get together. However, I make no such promises. Seeing as how I'll be trapped at home with your father for the foreseeable future, maybe I'll finally have time to find some of those old pictures of you. I've been meaning to redecorate my office.

It does appear that Saturday dinners will need to be postponed. However, I am working with Chewie and Luke to see if we can perhaps get them set up to attend virtual dinners. I'll keep you updated.

Warm regards,

Mom

Leia Organa-Solo CEO Rebel Publishing, LLC

-----

Ben sighed, pushing his hands under his glasses as he rubbed at the corners of his eyes. It wasn’t that he necessarily thought that agreeing to go work at his mom’s publishing company was going to be the easiest of transitions, but he also hadn’t been prepared for his name to be on the list of things they would argue about.

It only made sense, then, that it was one of the first things.

He considered sending another email, pushing the issue. But he knew better than to think it was an argument he was going to win. And, honestly, he was hopeful that if he didn’t respond maybe she’d never again think about coordinating, or asking him to coordinate, a virtual Saturday dinner.

Instead, Ben opened the contact card his mom had sent for Rey, and got to work.

From: Benjamin Solo <[email protected]> To: Rey Johnson <[email protected]> Subject: Introduction Meeting

Good evening Ms. Johnson:

I’m the assigned editor for your next book. Leia has already provided your initial pitch, character sketches, and outline. However, I usually prefer to talk with an author prior to reading these materials. I have found in the past that going into these conversations without any preconceived ideas based on the initial workups leads to a more organic understanding of the material. As such, I’d love to have the chance to talk with you about your book prior to looking over the material.

Given the increased concerns of spreading the virus, Leia has closed the office and has asked that we conduct all of our work from home. Please let me know what your availability is tomorrow or the next day so that I can coordinate the conference. I am just transitioning to Rebel Publishing, so my calendar is currently fairly open.

Of course, if you’d rather me read through the materials and start the process that way, just let me know.

I look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Ben Solo Editor Rebel Publishing, LLC

From: Rey Johnson <[email protected]> To: Benjamin Solo <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Introduction Meeting

Mr. Solo,

Leia let me know today that we would be working together. I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I’d love the opportunity to talk with you prior to you reviewing the materials that have been previously sent. This is a different approach than my previous editors have taken, but I am intrigued by your theory.

With that said, given the recent orders to stay home, my schedule is very flexible. I usually try to block out specific times to focus on writing so that I can turn off notifications and limit distractions. With the times I had previously blocked out for tomorrow, I could make an 11:00 am work? If that doesn’t work, just let me know what does and I’m sure I’ll be able to make that work.

I look forward to meeting with you.

Sincerely,

Rey Johnson

-----

Rey was the first one in the Zoom meeting the next morning. She fidgeted with her web camera, adjusting the angle until the image on the screen blocked out most of her messy apartment. She spent a few minutes pushing things out of the way before sitting back down and waiting for Ben to appear.

She glanced down at the clock on her computer screen, sighing at the time. The meeting wasn’t supposed to start for another five minutes. Being early had never been one of her defining characteristics, but she also hadn’t had any real human interaction in days.

The day the stay home order had been issued by the Governor, Rey had planned on meeting up with Poe and Finn for drinks. They had been on her for days to avoid slipping into a writer isolation. Poe had a lot of experience in knowing just how easily Rey could spiral when she was writing, hiding away from the world for days at a time. It had always just been easier for Rey to stay in when she was writing. Easier to stay focused on what kept her paid and fed and a roof over her head.

She didn’t have to worry about getting too distracted and forgetting where she left off or what she had planned for another scene if she just stayed home. Poe liked to remind her that she was ridiculous and that going out also was what provided her with actual inspiration to write.

There was a balance, she was sure. She just hadn’t achieved it yet. Then the stay home issue was ordered and Rey found herself wishing that she had listened to Poe sooner.

Not that was going to tell him that.

The computer dinged when Ben joined the meeting room. The image was fuzzy at first, Rey could really only make out that he had dark hair and rather broad shoulders. In fact, he looked rather… large, his body taking up most of the space that she could see. The image cleared and Rey took in the rest of his features, the sharp nose and pouty lips.

He was definitely attractive. Which was not what she needed to be thinking about at the moment.

“Good morning, Mr. Solo,” Rey said, smiling politely as she held her hand up in a tiny, awkward wave.

“I would say Mr. Solo is my father,” he responded, shaking his head slightly. “But he also hates being called that.”

“Right, so, Benjamin then?”

“No, no, no, no,” Ben grimaced, as if the word personally offended him. “Ben. Just Ben.”

“Okay, just Ben,” Rey laughed softly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Ms. John-”

“Rey,” she interrupted him with a grin.

“Well, Rey, tell me about your book.”

Rey took a deep breath before, running her teeth over her bottom lip before she began. She started by attempting to introduce the main characters, Kira and Kylo, and their backstories, but she was easily distracted with certain points of plot that felt so imperative to interrupt and explain.

By the time she finished, she wasn't really sure what information she had shared or left out. But she was fairly positive that she had failed to hit all of the main plot points.

Rey waited for Ben to say something. She knew that he had told her that he found it beneficial to hear about the story in an organic way, but the longer the silence stretched, the more she wished she had spent more time preparing last night to explain to him the story and the characters in at least a logical way.

“So they are connected?” He finally asked. “What was the word you used?”

“A dyad,” Rey answered. “Soulmates, really.”

“Star-crossed lovers fighting on opposite sides of a galactic war," Ben paused, jotting something down on a piece of paper next to his computer. "Doomed from the start?"

"Hardly," Rey snorted. "It won't be easy, but I fully plan on a happily ever after ending for them."

"Really?" Ben seemed surprised. "That's unusual for star-crossed couples."

"Your words," Rey reminded him, "I said they were soulmates."

"That you did," Ben conceded. "I just assumed since they are fighting for different things that one would fall."

"But they aren't."

"What?"

"Fighting for different things," Rey clarified. "It seems that way, at first. But really, they are both fighting for a place in the world. For a family. For a balance that they are being told can't exist."

"It sounds like quite a world," Ben noted. "I'm excited to see you build it."

"Yeah," Rey looked away from the screen, staring at the knick knacks that filled up the shelf across from her. "It's a little scary actually, creating a world this complex."

"That's what I'm here for."

"Right," Rey smiled at him. "Well, I'm glad I have you."

Rey thought that maybe Ben was blushing, even though logically she knew that it was more likely just a shadow or reflection from his computer. Either way, she liked the way it made him look.

"So, same time next week?" Ben asked. "I'll go over everything Leia sent me. Now that I know what I'm getting into, I think my notes will be a lot better."

"Yeah, same time next week," Rey glanced down at the notes on her desk. "Should I send you things throughout the week as I'm working? Or save it for next week?"

"For now I say save it for next week. I have a lot of material to get started with."

"Sounds good."

"It was nice meeting you, Rey." Ben held one hand up in an awkward wave.

"Yeah, you too, Ben."

-----

From: Rey Johnson <[email protected]> To: Benjamin Solo <[email protected]> Subject: Earlier meeting?

Hi Ben:

I know that we have a meeting scheduled in four days, but I was just wondering if you might be available earlier than that? I’m having a bit of difficulty with the corner I think I’ve written myself into, and I am hoping that a fresh pair of eyes might help me find my way out. I understand if you want to keep the meeting as scheduled, I know you haven’t had a lot of time to go through the materials that had already been submitted, but I’d really appreciate any insight.

I hope you are staying inside and staying healthy!

-Rey.

------

Rey groaned, rereading the email she had sent Ben. It wasn’t necessarily a bad email, it was actually lightyears better than the first draft she had written at 2 am. Which went something like ‘Hi Ben, as it turns out despite my years of believing otherwise, I need human interaction and your face is the only face I’ve seen in a week and I’m slowly losing my mind. I sang to my plants. I’ve never written this much in my life, I’ve started reading the dialogue out loud because I’m no longer sure what human conversations sound like. So, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could we move up our meeting? I’m a little worried I’m becoming an insane person. I swear I’m not normally this weird. Quarantine life.’

She, thankfully, pressed the delete button instead of the send button. The other three drafts were slightly more professional, but all with the same undertone of her being slightly desperate for any conversation that didn’t involve her voicing both sides. She had tried facetiming Poe, but he and Finn had been keeping each other plenty busy. Which really, she should have expected.

Logically she knew that she could reach out to either one of them anyways, or Rose, or any of her other friends and just tell them that she was potentially on the verge of a self-isolation mental breakdown and they would be there for her.

But that was a showing of vulnerability that despite years of therapy Rey wasn’t comfortable with demonstrating. And so she emailed Ben instead.

It wasn’t like it was a complete lie. She had written more than usual and she was at a point in the story that she would appreciate some feedback at this point.

Kira and Kylo were at a turning point in the story. Their connection had been steadily growing stronger and more frequent, forcing them to face each other. Now was the time for them to come together and join each other or for them to pull away and keep fighting against each other.

It wasn't a terrible idea for her to get some feedback and opinions before moving forward full speed. Her reaching out to Ben for an earlier meeting had nothing to do with her ever increasing thoughts about how he was rather attractive and his smile was rather enticing and that she wanted to see it again.

At least, she was fairly confident that wasn’t the main reason.

She glanced at the sent email one last time before closing out of her email tab. Only fifteen minutes had passed since she sent the email and she already felt regret settling over her nerves.

It was going to be a long day waiting for him to reply.

-----

In hindsight, Ben probably should have found it strange that he had not received a single company email in over 24 hours. Especially since Leia had a habit of sending him personal messages to his work email. Despite him reminding her numerous times that she had his personal email, and his cell phone, and, really, at least four other ways of contacting him.

A part of him knew that Leia did it because she genuinely enjoyed reminding herself that he came back to her company, that he came home. He also knew her well enough to know that the larger reason was because she also genuinely enjoyed annoying him. And Leia had to know that he would find knowing that her personal assistant had access to all of her emails about whether or not he was interested in attending a virtual dinner, if he had enough food in his apartment or if he would like her to make an instacart order for him, and that Han had been cleaning out the garage to make more room for his ‘quarantine projects’ and found boxes of his old toys and baby blankets and she was just wondering if he perhaps wanted her to bring the belongings home so that he could come get them, you know, for the future.

So, he should have known that something wasn’t working, but he had been distracted going through Rey’s materials, making notes of his questions and of his proposed edits. She was a fantastic writer. The world she had built was fresh and lively, jumping off of the pages in clear images and descriptions. She had provided extremely detailed character sketches for most of the characters, but he hadn’t found that he had to read through them or refer to them to understand any of the characters or to analyze any of the choices the characters had made simply because she wrote them so well.

It was very impressive.

He had finished going through the materials that Leia had sent him in two days. He was working his way through them again, going slower and providing more detailed notes and able to ask more pointed questions given the knowledge of where the story was heading. Still, he found himself wishing that he had told Rey to send over more work.

He noticed his phone light up on the corner of his couch. He picked it up, glancing at the message icon showing that he had four messages from his mother and… 48 unread emails.

Mom: Servers are back up at the office.

Mom: Sorry for the onslaught of emails you are probably going to start getting in five minutes.

Mom: I didn’t realize at first that they weren’t going through.

Mom: It’s possible 75% of them could have been text messages.

Ben: The server was down at the office?

Mom: You didn’t notice that you have received no emails in the last day?

Ben: I guess not.

Mom: That’s an unusual thing for you to not notice.

Mom: What have you been doing?

Ben: Going through the materials you sent over for Rey’s book.

Mom: Ah.

Mom: That makes sense then.

Ben sighed, closing the messaging app to start going through the emails from his mother.

They were exactly what he had expected them to be. A few emails from HR and IT that were sent company wide about how to submit hours when working from home, a reminder to sign up for direct deposit if you hadn’t already, and a few guided walkthroughs on common computer and technology issues. His mother’s emails focused more on whether or not he had all of the ingredients for the Risotto she wanted to make for dinner on Saturday. Followed by an email with the receipt. And another email that went to him, Luke, and Chewie, wondering why it was too much to ask them all to make the same meal as her so that the virtual dinner felt like an actual dinner and not a happenstance of people meeting at the same time.

He almost missed the email from Rey.

-----

From: Benjamin Solo <[email protected]> To: Rey Johnson <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Earlier meeting?

Dear Rey,

I’m truly sorry for my delay in responding to your email. I was just informed that the server at the office went down, which affected our email host and I am just now getting this message.

I would love to go over this with you sooner than we had planned. I have already reviewed the materials you had previously sent, so I believe I will be of much more use in hopefully helping you figure out where you want to go next. I do find it hard to believe that you’ve written yourself into a corner, you seem to have a great grasp on the characters and the story you want to tell.

I’d hate for any future requests to be severely delayed due to technological issues beyond our control. My cell phone number is 917-555-3298.

I am available whenever. I suppose that’s the upside to a quarantine.

I look forward to receiving the materials and discussing them with you.

Ben

Benjamin Solo Editor Rebel Publishing, LLC

-----

Ben: I think it’s abusing your power as owner of a company to go through and change your employee’s email signatures without consent.

Mom: I have no idea what you are talking about.

Mom: Benjamin

------

929-555-4593: Hi Ben. This is Rey. I just got your email and figured I’d send you a message so you have my number. I sent over what I’ve been working on. I’m also free whenever. So, just tell me when and I’ll be there.

Rey Johnson: Thanks again for agreeing to meet up with me earlier than planned. I appreciate it.

-------

Rey threw on a blazer over the red tank top she had been wearing for the last two days when she got the Zoom invite from Ben. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror to the side of her desk, double checking to make sure she didn’t have dried mascara on her cheeks and that her hair looked moderately presentable.

She clicked on the link in the email and---

Ben wore glasses. Ben wore glasses and Rey was not at all prepared for how he looked wearing them. Really, it didn’t seem quite fair that something as innocuous as glasses managed to make him go skyrocketing up from ‘fairly attractive’ to ‘how inappropriate would it be to initiate sexting with her new editor that she had maybe spent a grand total of twenty minutes communicating with’ in her mind.

Rey really, really needed the stay home order lifted. Clearly, she was worse off than she thought.

“Hey,” Ben greeted her. “How are you surviving the stay home order?”

“Oh great. Some might even say I’ve been thriving,” Rey rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she laughed. “At least I’ve been able to get a lot of writing done.”

“I would say,” Ben ran his hand through his hair, and Rey could hear him clicking open something on his computer. “I’m not going to lie, I’ve only skimmed through everything you sent over today. So, depending on what has you stuck, I’m not positive this will be a very productive meeting.”

“The part I think I’m stuck at?” Rey opened the word document on her computer, her eyes narrowing in confusion. “You mean it isn’t obvious?”

“I guess, no?” Ben responded, and Rey can tell from the way he’s focusing on his computer screen that he must be going through the document again. “I just assumed you were stuck on what to do after Kira took Kylo’s hand? But that didn’t make much sense either because you have such a clear plan for the story.”

“Kira doesn’t take Kylo’s hand.”

Ben glanced up to the camera, his mouth slightly open. “What?”

“Kira doesn’t take Kylo’s hand,” Rey repeated, lifting her shoulders in a small shrug. “At least not yet.”

“What do you mean she doesn’t take his hand yet?” Ben asked, and Rey has to bite down on her lip to keep herself from laughing at how insulted he sounded. “You’ve spent the last eight chapters building their relationship for her to take his hand.”

“That doesn’t mean that this is the right moment,” Rey pointed out. “I’m not sure it’s the right moment.”

“Okay,” Ben leaned back in his chair, lifting his hands to rest behind his head. “I guess I’m going to need you to explain to me what you think the right moment will be then.”

“That might take awhile,” Rey admitted. “I don’t know that I even know the answer to that.”

“That’s okay,” Ben said with an encouraging smile. “I have plenty of time.”

-----

They ended up talking for over two hours. By the end of the call, Rey at least had a better idea of the different paths she could take Kira and Kylo down. Even if she still didn't know which one she would choose.

But they also talked about other things besides the book and Rey's struggles with where the characters should go. Rey discovered that Ben was also sheltering in place by himself. She was pretty amused when Ben didn’t immediately end the video call when she started discussing the finer points of being ordered to stay in, like what Netflix show he was binge watching and whether or not he had enough toilet paper to last.

She was oddly unsurprised when he refused to discuss his toilet paper situation with her and when he said that he didn’t watch a lot of TV and wasn’t planning on binge watching anything. Rey gave him a week before he caved on that.

It was nice.

Rey’s mood had significantly improved half way through the conversation. She had forgotten just how wonderful it was to talk to someone else. It also didn’t hurt that Ben Solo wasn’t exactly hard to look at for two hours. It wasn't even the obvious physical features that Rey found herself thinking about hours later, although she was certainly going to be thinking about them for a while. But Ben had a certain way of moving and mannerisms that only added to them.

Getting to know someone over a video call was interesting. Rey kept waiting for the normal wave of must look away to hit her like it would if they had been face to face. Staring at someone the entire time you were together wasn't normal.

If they had been in person, Rey would have felt uncomfortable with the amount of time she had spent just staring at him. Noticing the way his hands dwarfed the size of his coffee cup and the way he talked with his hands when he was particularly passionate about whatever he was saying.

She particularly liked how his face was open when she said something he disagreed with, the way he would narrow his eyes and shake his head, but waited until she was done to raise his counterpoints. There was something about the way that he was just himself that was refreshing.

He listened intently, scribbling down notes when she talked about the story. Even when she started mentioning shows that he should watch, if he were to get really desperate, and he pretended to be uninterested, Rey was fairly positive she saw him write them down as well.

They set up another meeting in two days, and Rey was determined to have at least made a decision on whether or not Kira was going to take Kylo’s hand by then. She had to admit that Ben had made a convincing argument as to why it was the right moment for the characters to move forward together.

Rey sat down at her writing desk, opening up the current version of her project, and began writing.

#reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fanfiction #reylo fic #reylo au #and they were zoommates #my fic

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errantabbot · 3 years

Text

Gold Dust and Orthodoxy: A Teisho for Today

Gold Dust Is Valuable (The Rinzai Roku, Case #53)

“Governor Wang visited Zen Master Rinzai one day. When they happened to pass the monk’s hall, the Governor asked Master Rinzai; “Do the monks in this monastery all study the Sutras?” “No, they do not,” answered Rinzai. The Governor further queried; “Then, do they practice meditation?” The Master replied again; “No, they do not.” The Governor was confused so he asked; “If they neither study the Sutras nor practice meditation, what then do they do?” Master Rinzai said; “All of my students are training to become Buddhas.” The Governor said; “Though gold dust is precious, in the eyes it clouds the vision.” Master Rinzai remarked; “And I almost took you for a common fellow!”

I have been reflecting lately on the reality that I have a really interesting mixture of students. On one hand I have a number of folks who live relatively lay, householder style lives, a place where I find myself increasingly in recent years. And on the other hand, I have a number of folks who live fairly stringent monastic style lives, replete with the robes, haircuts, daily liturgical schedules, and high ceremonial. Because of our varied locales around the country, usually these folks mostly engage one another on social media, and in retreat once a year so. Given the nature of 2020, however, and our ongoing social distancing precautions, with the continued closure of our temples, we initiated, as Roshi Al has, a number of Zoom programs where all have been invited to practice together, usually in the examination of our traditional collections of “Zen Case Studies” (or koans), and this has been an interesting exercise.

I’ve noted that my householder students are often highly educated, with secular jobs that reflect such efforts, and too, they’re often quite concerned with an academic, rational study and practice of Buddhism. On the other hand, I’ve observed that my monastic students tend to be a bit more earthy, deeply connected with matters of the heart, and are far more interested in liturgical and embodied meditative practices. This seeming division is well known to Buddhist history, and at times it has been posited as a division between sutra study and zen study, most often as an irreconcilable divide. That said, I’m not so quick to pass off Zen as mere meditation focused practiced. Indeed, I would contend that when Bodhidharma uttered his sacred verse (you know, “a special transmission outside of the scriptures, not dependent on words and letters, directly pointing at the mind and becoming Buddha”) that he did so not with the intention of forgoing sutra study, or scholarly, rational concerns, and certainly not to facilitate a mere trade off with such interests for the sentimentality, and typically reductionist romanticization that can be associated with the meditative and liturgical practices that often find themselves broadly situated under the banner of Zen.

As most of you know, Zen is something notoriously difficult to pin down and define as something of a “Gestalt,” or phenomenon possessed seemingly of more than its constituent parts. While a simple definition might be, somewhat accurately even, “concentrated attention,” or colloquially “meditation,” that doesn’t quite do this discipline justice. No doubt, shared Buddhist history across traditions is replete with individuals who have wholeheartedly cast themselves into the furnace of meditative fervor, and who have, after considerable number of years, decades even, done little but ruminate on their rather stagnant patterns of suffering and delusion.

On the other hand, Zen orthodoxy is filled with stories and hagiographies of personalities, such as the sixth patriarch Hui Neng who have come to rather complete, and integrated awakening experiences after relatively little practice or cultivation. In fact, Hui Neng is a particularly fascinating, idealized case, as this universal Zen ancestor’s cultivation consisted of little more than cutting wood and selling his wares in a marketplace while accidentally hearing a recitation of a sutra that seemed to attune his mind to the frequency of awakening. (How’s that for a gestalt?)

However, even the most devout proponents of the doctrine of “sudden” (rather than “gradual”) awakening would rarely, if ever, recognize such a phenomenon as actually happening in the real, lived lives of contemporary practitioners whose lives are strewn with rational factuality rather than filtered ideality.

In this, if Zen is simply meditation, how can practitioners devote themselves to the discipline of silent sitting for decades upon decades and reap the harvest of neither sudden nor gradual cultivation? And further, how can luminary personalities such as Hui Neng seemingly devote no time to meditation, and stumble into the spiritual parenthood of not just myriad practitioners, but indeed, myriad schools and lineages?

In this, then, if Zen is not reducible to meditation, and if formal sitting is not required for awakening in Zen orthodoxy, why do we continue to hold the practice thereof so closely to our hearts? Indeed, Hui Neng’s story could be understood to be dismissive not only of run-of-the-mill meditation, but too of liturgy, precepts, and sutra study. Why bother with any of that, as we do?

Case fifty-three of the Rinzai Roku is a fantastic dialogue that exemplifies this dilemma. Governor Wang, holding to the classical dichotomy that posits an unquestionable divide between the sutric and meditative schools queries Master Rinzai on the training of his students, who seem to be possessed of neither this-nor-that, but rather of reality itself in the practice of Buddhahood itself. Responding then, to Master Rinzai’s cuttingly truthful characterization of the school of thought that makes up more than half of our Open Mind Zen School’s inherited dharma lineage, Governor Wang observes “gold dust is precious, but, in the eyes it clouds the vision.”

Friends, there is no doubt to me that sutric, rational, and scholastic rooted inquiry is a valuable, worth its weight in gold spiritual discipline. Too, there is no doubt that the meditative practice of sitting down, shutting up, and paying attention is a precious, worth its weight in gold spiritual discipline. That said, if we get too close, if we hold too tightly, if we allow our eyes to become organs of projection rather than perception in committing to any of this, it’s all poisonous, damaging, and blinding. Such is the potential nature of literally all orthodoxy (and likely heterodoxy, but we’ll leave that for another day).

Orthodoxy is generally defined as “conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted as right or true; established and approved.” While the connotation of such a definition generally implies something ancient, venerable, and unchanging, it’s that unchanging notion that makes the usual implications of orthodoxy utterly incompatible with Buddhist teaching, which universally posits that literally all things are changing, transitory, in process, and ultimately insubstantial, and unreal in their immaterial nature.

Buddhist orthodoxy, therefore, must be alive and open to subtle refinement over time as generations come and go. As nothing is truly stationary, stagnant, or even comprehensive in any would-be stable position, the truest assertions are those which remain conversant with reality, and evolve not only with, but indeed for it.

At its best, rendering something as orthodox is to give it a particular status which reminds us that it (and the processes pertaining to how it came to be) is, or are, worthy of due consideration and particular attention over time. In this, orthodoxy must never become an untouchable status that renders a thing free from criticism or exempt from change. Rather, it should provide something of a shield from the flippant disregard and inconsiderate abandonment that Zen students, and certainly our rather shared post-religious, post-modern ever secularizing culture can itself frequently render.

It’s interesting to note that Buddhism was first founded by Siddhartha Gautama with his observation that existence itself is seemingly wrapped up entirely with pain and disappointment, or Dukkha. The Buddha asserted that this pain and disappointment is birthed from nowhere other than our own consciousness, and particularly, from our tendencies to incorrectly regard nature as anything other than what it is. Nature, then, the Buddha posited, is marked with impermanence (anicca), insubstantiality (anatta), and the ever-looming potential for dissatisfaction (dukkha), because human psyches seem so primed to be particularly averse to impermanence and insubstantiality.

The Buddha’s answer to this quandary, in alignment with the orthodox, sramanic suppositions of his time was to step away from it all. To increasingly renounce material nature so as to become unbounded from it, and to eventually leave it behind. This, of course, is the origin of the Zen school – contemplating the nature of existence, it’s innate problems, and stepping off the wheel in responding to the observations assumed to arise from that contemplation.

As Buddhism gained popularity and requisite adherence, it gained too critically discerning minds, each sincerely engaged with the burgeoning orthodoxy of Buddhism, but also with that of reality itself. Slowly, subtle divergences, caveats, and new directions appeared, and a multitude of schools of Buddhism became (and are becoming) established, each with their own sets of orthodox presuppositions.

As these oft metaphysical suppositions have been added, subtracted, and supplanted within these traditions, practices and eschatological suppositions have evolved accordingly. This is proactively happening too as Buddhism continues to mingle with modernity’s secular materialism, and post-modernity’s emerging trans-secular relativism.

When Siddhartha Gautama was alive and teaching, the religious milieu of the day widely supported the notion of postmortem reincarnation. Accordingly, the Buddha’s response to the perception of the impermanence, insubstantiality, and tendency toward dissatisfaction that seemingly define material reality was to separate oneself so far from it that one could become disentangled with it entirely, forgoing then reanimation on a physical plane after death, and thereby dissolving into the void in a “final enlightenment”.

In pondering the context and milieu of contemporary America, however, where notions of postmortem existence are increasingly anathema to the masses, and where dissolving into the void is to be assumed rather than to be striven for, orthodoxy has to evolve lest it abandon conversation and therefore relevance. While notions of the impermanent and insubstantial nature of reality have become nothing but more acceptable as legitimate assumptions in our day and age, the inextricability of suffering and dissatisfaction from those assumptions has become less so.

In Buddhist orthodoxy enlightenment has long been cast as multifold, as encompassing initial and final iterations. While so-called “final enlightenment” has been synonymous with dissolution into the void, initial enlightenment (or “entering the stream” as it’s sometimes called) has been understood as a related primer state, defined by its secession from suffering and dissatisfaction, while not having yet abandoned the substrate of impermanent and insubstantial material reality.

Various traditions have continuously produced and upheld various personalities said to have achieved initial awakening, and who have thereby become destined for the proposed final awakening of mahaparinirvana or voidous dissolution. Our own traditions of dharma transmission and inka shomei are certainly related to this practice.

That said, if, as modernity might postulate, one need not strive toward the inevitability that is the void, one’s relationship to the material reality that precedes that inevitability (the void and it’s appendant orthodoxy) must change. Without such change, how might we credibly define enlightenment, let alone multistage awakening, as being worth any striving, should a universal grace be afforded to all in the indiscriminate voidant dissolution of all, without regard for virtue or vice, for cultivation or ignorance?

Assuming that the enlightened persons identified within various traditions and histories as having been possessed of an experience of awakening to a reality beyond that defined by the suffering appendant to the impermanent and insubstantial reality of here-and-now are to be valued, enlightenment must be qualified as being entirely wrapped up within material existence, rather than standing in opposition to it.

As such, it is no longer acceptable to abandon life in the present, perceptible world for a potentially void hereafter, which is increasingly taken as a given rather than an uncertain goal, to be entered into through burying oneself alive in the renunciation of the world through planting one’s head in the sutras, or atop a mountain of zafus and zabutons.

Saliently, Master Rinzai said; “All of my students are training to become Buddhas.” Not sutra masters, not meditation adepts, not even disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha and his pre-modern assumptions, rather, Buddhas in and of their own accord. Full stop. This Buddhahood is attained not merely through studying the sutras, and not merely through practicing meditation. What then is this practice?

It’s fascinating to me, that Governor Wang, at once wrapped up in classical duality, suddenly finds clarity in his dialogue with Master Rinzai, seeing the “gold” in these aforementioned practices, and realizing their proper place, but that is to say not in unquestioned orthodoxy, as dust blindingly blown into the eyes.

“I almost took you for a common fellow,” Master Rinzai concludes, in an alive dialogue that has naturally come to be complied as but one case among many in a sutra-like compendium.

Where and how do we train to become Buddhas, rather than Buddhists?

It’s nearing 10:00am, central time anyway. How’s about we have a bit of conversation, of alive dialogue? The central discipline of Zen, after all, has never been sutra study or meditation, but rather dialogue with and in this very moment, not the moments of 2,500 years ago, 1000 years ago, or even 10 seconds ago. Right here, right now. What – is – this? And I don’t mean that hypothetically.

~Sunyananda

#zen #buddhism #buddha #buddhist #dharma #enlightenment #sangha #awakening #nirvana #peace #Rinzai #teisho #dharma talk #koan #kongan

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heechulhamster · 5 years

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The Truth You Can’t Hide VI

KIM JUNMYEON (SUHO) x Fem Reader

Chapter 6 [The Truth You Can’t Hide MASTERLIST]

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 ongoing

You did it so well for six years. You’ve hid your son from the biggest threat of his life. But one mishap led to the biggest secret in your life being face to face with the man you’ve kept him away from all these years - his father.

Mafia!AU, Angst.

“What do you want from her?” Junmyeon spoke with a voice full of held back temper.

Yixing’s door was barely even open, he took time in analyzing who was this man who just loudly knocked on his door at nine in the evening.

“Junmyeon?” Yixing asked, as he put on his glasses that hang on the collar of his tank top. Junmyeon didn’t even bother to answer, still standing firm on his ground in the rising atmosphere left hanging by his question. “No bulky bodyguards now?”

Junmyeon was further irked by the chuckle that came out of Yixing’s lips. “I believe I asked a question, Zhang.”

Yixing peeked his head from the doorway into the halls of his apartment floor. And after noticing that there wasn’t anyone to see the two of them, he spoke again. “You should come inside.”

Junmyeon tried to refuse yet he figured out that Yixing wouldn’t answer his question right and upfront, so he welcomed himself inside when the latter stepped away from the doorway. He was barely even five steps in before he spoke again.

“Zhang, what do you want from Y/N?” His voice stern and low, as if trying to assert dominance and power over the other - despite knowing that Yixing himself isn’t one to be threatened.

“Why should I answer your question, Junmyeon? Why are you here in my house at this hour of the night?” Yixing replied, a smirk displayed on his lips taunting Junmyeon even more. Yixing then walked to the small bar of his spacious bachelor’s pad and grabbed the half consumed whiskey and a shot glass. “Would you want a drink?”

“I’m not here to play games with you, Yixing.” Junmyeon took three large steps toward Yixing, his voice few volumes higher. “What are you doing back in my life, what’s your reason? I swear to God if you’re using her as one of your pawns in your game again-”

“In your life, Junmyeon? I’m not meddling with your life. I didn’t even know she was your ex until I dropped her off your house.” Yixing answered with an amused face, obviously entertained with Junmyeon’s display of cluelessness. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, Junmyeon. I have no business to deal with you anymore. The case has long been closed and your father has rested in his peace for a while now, what made you think that this is about you?”

Junmyeon was almost taken aback by Yixing’s upfront expression, no hint of lying nor games evident in his emotions nor the tone of his voice.

“Honestly, Junmyeon. Are you here as the CEO of your business or as a jealous ex-boyfriend?” Yixing asked before he drank down the contents of his shot glass, the way his hands swiftly put it down the granite counter resulted to a sound heard all over the silence of the room.

The question actually put Junmyeon’s mind out of pace, as he felt too transparent to the one he was supposed to intimidate. It was part of Yixing’s job, after all. But was he that obvious? That he was able to extract a question that Junmyeon was asking to himself and was highly in denial of the blaring answer to.

“I figured.” Yixing responded with a short scornful laugh to Junmyeon’s silence.

“You know, on the long expanse of the hearing and all the background checking I did in your whole family, I don’t remember ever seeing a son of yours.” Yixing introduced another topic that’s been bugging him for a while. “And that’s what like, five years ago? How come do you have a son that’s almost 7 years old?”

“It’s none of your business.” Junmyeon replied quickly.

“But it could be, soon.” Yixing answered. A bitter taste filled Junmyeon’s throat and his mood immediately turning sour on Yixing’s implication.

Could he bear another man acting as a second father to Jaejin? He was jealous yet thankful for Jinki being there, but he knew very well that he could’ve been a better father than anyone given that he knew that he had a child. So could he stomach Jaejin growing up with another man?

Could he see you be happy again with someone that’s not him?

“Junmyeon, I’m not after anything malicious nor do I have untoward intentions about Y/N. I like her, I know you’re well aware of how great of a woman she is. It was unexpected for me to find out that she has a child, who you father. But my intentions with her is pure, and you have nothing to worry about. Whether regarding your business, your name, or her feelings.” Yixing patted Junmyeon’s shoulder, an action that shocked the latter.

“That is unless if you want to get back with her, a judgement and a choice that only she could make.”

And Yixing’s last words reverberated in all of the chambers of Junmyeon’s mind all throughout his ride home. Eventually seeping in his consciousness deep enough to keep him awake at night. It got him wondering if there are still the odds of you choosing to get back with Junmyeon again.

He remembers his utmost devastation when you left him, citing the difference in interests and that you grew apart from each other due to spending too much time apart among other reasons. Junmyeon spent weeks, and even months leading to years of blaming himself for losing you. Not knowing your real reasons, he always thought that he should’ve prioritized the guiding light of his life over the corporate interests that he wasn’t fully agreeing on.

Junmyeon just thought that if your real reason for leaving him was finding out about his corrupted double life, did you still love him when you left? And if so, is there any string of such affection left in your heart until now? Did you just try and disregard the weight of being apart with other things, the same way Junmyeon did? He distracted himself with multitudes of work to try and convince himself that he doesn’t wish for you to have not left at all. Junmyeon trained his mind to shut off all the loneliness, the longing, and eventually lock away all the love left for you in the most secluded part of his heart.

But the truth still stands - that love is still there. No matter how many distractions he tries to flood his days with, how much he try and stop himself from feeling anything, he never really tried to move on. And now that you’re back, with a child of his own blood, the love that he tried so hard not to remember now just demands to be felt, yet again.

Your hand was firm and decisive on the pen as you signed along the dotted lines and on your printer name. You’ve made up your mind, and you know very well that this is the right thing to do.

“The process wouldn’t take that long as Jaejin didn’t have a father stated on his birth certificate. It would be easy for us to defend using both of your statements that you two were only apart during the child’s birth.” Atty. Kim reassured as you put down the shiny metal red fountain pen.

“The court wouldn’t be needing a DNA test anymore?” Sehun curiously asked across you, as he sits beside Junmyeon.

“No, as long as Mr. Kim recognizes Jaejin as his son, which he already did in his affidavit, there wouldn’t be any questions. And besides, I believe it would be easy to prove that the two of them were in a relationship by the time Jaejin was conceived.” Junmyeon’s attorney explained once more.

“Another thing, Mr. Kim. I know there’s no immediate need for this, but I suggest that you make revisions in your will and testaments. Probably put Jaejin as your recipient?” The attorney spoke once more, his left hand realigning his glasses on his old eyes.

“No.” You interrupted quickly, shocking the other three in the room. “I believe that we need to discuss about it first, right Junmyeon?” You smiled back at the familiar face across the oakwood table.

“I think the will can follow soon after, I don’t think there’s a need for it anytime soon.” Junmyeon responded to the attorney and smiled reassuringly back to you, indicating that he understood your underlying concern.

“So it’s official.” Junmyeon remarked, a wide and satisfied grin painted on his face as his hand lingered on the papers atop of the table. “By all means, everyone including the law now recognizes my son as, well, my son.” He gave off a nervous yet obviously joyful laugh. And if you look closer in his eyes, you’re sure that he’s close to shedding a tear or two.

“As if anyone would doubt that, the two of you look like the same person in two different times.” Sehun joked as all of you stood up and accompanied the lawyer outside of the library.

“I’ll inform you and Mr. Kim once the papers are official. Thank you.” You shook hands with the tenured lawyer as he made his way down the halls and eventually out of the Kim mansion.

“You look happy.” You said to Junmyeon as you walked side by side towards the living area, the both of you closely followed by Sehun behind you.

“Of course I am. I’ve waited so long for this. Not that a piece of paper matters, but I’m officially his father.” His cheekbones raised as he smiled, a joy that’s more evident in the shine of his eyes.

“You’ve always been his father, Jun. I don’t have the right to take that away from you.” You said reassuringly as you caressed his left arm with your right hand, an action that made him react as if he’s been electrified. “You okay?”

“No, I’m just. I’m just really happy and I think so much energy is in me right now.” He answered with a laugh as he shrugged off. “But thank you, really. For giving me a chance to be in Jaejin’s life.” Junmyeon spoke again, to which you only answered a smile that he quickly understood.

To say that Junmyeon was over the moon since Jaejin recognized him as his father was an understatement. It was evident in all his actions that Junmyeon had a new driving force in living his everyday life. You noticed that his face lit up differently, and he wore a smile every waking day as he makes his way to Jaejin’s room. It has already been a habit of his to wake up earlier and be the one to wake up his son, saying it’s a good way to get Jaejin used of his presence in the younger’s life. As if they’re not inseparable as of the moment.

“Do you have plans for dinner? I was thinking if we could go out with Jaejin?” Junmyeon introduced the topic as you walked along expanse of the living room.

“I actually have plans with Yixing tonight.” You answered rather silently, knowing that there was an ongoing rift between the two.

“He actually wants to meet Jaejin…” You stopped in the middle of your sentence to sense his mood.

“...that is if you don’t mind, of course. I wouldn’t bring Jaejin if it makes you uncomfortable.” You continued as Junmyeon’s face was void of any reaction.

“No, it’s okay. I’m sure Jaejin would want to meet whoever you’re dating. You know, sons get territorial over their moms - usually.” Junmyeon attempted a laugh but it was obviously empty sounding. And you weren’t sure what to feel about it.

“Okay, if you say so.” You said with a smile, searching his face for any second thoughts. But instead, his face melted into a soft warm smile. “I’ll see you later. I left a small present on your office desk, should go check it out later.” And you didn’t even think twice to put an innocent peck on his cheek.

The contact didn’t even last for more than a split second, yet the resurgence of the memory of how soft his cheeks were flooded your senses. How it started like that, chaste kisses on the cheek after he drops you off at your dorm. The quick pecks each time he does a little favor such as opening a stubborn bottle of soda. It was the very same kiss on the peak of his left cheek. And you could tell that he shared the same sentiment in the gloss that formed in his eyes.

“I’ll go ahead, I need to get dressed and prepare Jaejin too.” You said in haste, not wanting to indulge in further nostalgia that flooded the atmosphere. And you were quick on your heels to turn and walk towards your room in the expanse of Junmyeon’s mansion.

Junmyeon was left standing there, with his younger cousin grinning mischievously behind him as he felt the joyously painful flashbacks that his cousin felt. After all, Sehun knows him well.

Sehun was there when Junmyeon was almost passed out drunk at the bar a two months after you left him. It took more than a month for the fact that you left him to sink in Junmyeon’s senses. He flooded himself with work, aided by the fact that his father’s physique has been continuously weakening so he had to be in charge. Sehun saw how Junmyeon busied himself until the wee hours of the night to have no chance of remembering that you’re gone.

Sehun was Junmyeon’s accomplice and removing all traces of your name in the company records - not in result of bitterness but to keep you safe. The company was already in hot waters few months after you left, and Junmyeon needed to make sure that you wouldn’t be involved in any shit that may happen in case they scavenge all existing legalities that the company has.

Sehun knew how much Junmyeon struggled with his loss, and how much he wanted you back - how much he wanted you still.

“What was that, hyung? Don’t tell me you’re letting yourself lose your mother and son to that Chinese bastard?” Sehun tapped the older’s shoulder as he made sure that you faded away in the background, unable to hear his mocking.

“What, who said I’m losing my family to Yixing?” Junmyeon tried to fake arrogance, but his facade was sheer to all senses.

“Why would you just let him meet Jaejin? First you let him date Y/N and now even build a relationship with your child?” Sehun asked in curiosity, knowing that Junmyeon was never one to just give up without putting up a fight.

“What do you expect me to do, boss her around and keep her from doing what she wants to do? Jaejin already knows that I’m his dad, I have nothing to worry about.” Junmyeon answered. But it almost felt like he was convincing himself instead.

“So what, you’ll just settle on this… being friends, or co-parents, whatever pretentious shit you call it with her and just focus on Jaejin?” Sehun advanced to Junmyeon’s front as they walked towards the gardens. “And don’t ever try to tell me that you’re over her because I bet all my car and limbs that you aren’t.”

“No, of course not.” Junmyeon said with a smile. “It’s my duty as Jaejin’s father to try my best to give him a whole, loving family. I know that there’s an expectation in him for us to be the common setup of a family. And I couldn’t let him down, no.”

“Then what are you doing? Why aren’t you doing anything to try and win her back now?”

“She left me for a reason, a strong and compelling reason that I understand. And as much as I don’t want it to, that reason still exists. I don’t deserve her back just yet. If I’m going to try and win her back, I need to be the man she deserves not the Junmyeon she left.” He said with a smile plastered on his face, a peek of hope and wonder if you’ll actually take him back by then.

Sehun just stood beside him as Junmyeon sat on one of the wooden chairs in the grandiose veranda, still struggling to comprehend what the other just implicated.

“Speaking of that, Sehun, I need to talk to your dad.” Junmyeon spoke changing in a more serious and stern tone.

And somehow, Sehun understood how Junmyeon will fix that reason - how he’ll get rid of the illicit business he’s been cursed with.

Jaejin was in Yixing’s hands as you all went down his car, with you carrying the grocery bags filled with food you’re set to cook in his apartment. The both of you opted for a more laid-back date as your son was coming. Yixing also thought it would be a good idea for them to play console in his pad.

“You need help in the bags?” Yixing asked, as Jaejin sat his head on the man’s shoulders whilst he carried the boy effortlessly with one hand.

“No, no. I could manage, you already have my heavy boy.” You joked with a chuckle, as you both entered the elevator to his floor.

Jaejin was quick to power back up once all of you settled inside, energized by the promise of the vivid game of Mario Kart that awaited him at the living room. You’re not sure if he understands who Uncle Yixing really is or his role to your life. But Jaejin, being the polite and courteous kid you raised him to be, was quick to trust anyone you introduce to him with a smile.

“I’ll just prepare the spaghetti okay, dear? Be a good boy here with Uncle Xing and you’ll get a lot of meatballs.” You said, trying to enthuse and calm the child in the new uncharted territory that is Yixing’s apartment

“Yes, mama.” Jaejin answered with his cheeky smile, the very copy of Junmyeon’s grin. And it stirred up a sense of unease in your stomach.

You shot a smile to Yixing’s direction, and he nodded reassuringly. So you stood up and made your way into the kitchen to prepare dinner.

The root of the unease was easy to pinpoint, Yixing and Jaejin looked unfitting with each other. Yes, they shared smiles and giggles, but someone already looks perfect when carrying your son. You know that there exists an image so faultless that no “good” or “just right” would compare. Junmyeon’s dynamic with Jaejin, how the way they look is already an affirmation that they have the same blood. And how, despite years of being unaware of each other’s existence, they move the same. There was no denying that Jaejin was Junmyeon’s child.

The savory smell of tomato sauce and meat filled the humble spaces of Yixing’s obviously-bachelor apartment. One of your best, and Jaejin’s undisputed favorite. Which you deliberately chose to prepare in case of the small chance that he’ll show toddler tantrums.

“Because you’re a good handsome boy, you get all the spaghetti you want. Is that good?’ You asked the boy in front of you, his small hands quickly letting go of the Nintendo Switch controller at the sight of the red pasta stuffed bowl in your hands.

“Mama’s spaghetti!” He cheered in the most juvenile of tones.

Catching Yixing’s eyes as he adores the display of innocence in front of him, it made you smile. Yixing has a warm heart and he obviously loves kids. He was sincere in expressing how much he wanted to meet Jaejin, and you’re glad that Junmyeon gave the go signal.

All three of you were covered in laughter and fun as you finished the food as you sat on the carpeted floor. Yixing was feeling comfortable enough in the scenario to unnoticeably hold your hand while Jaejin plays solo on the console. But then you quickly remember that you have a smart and observant 6-year old child in the room.

“Uncle Xing, why are you holding my Mama’s hand?” Jaejin even crossed his arms in a display of displease. And you remember sons’ tendencies to get a little bit territorial with their mothers.

“It’s okay, baby.” You try and calm down your protective boy. “Uncle Xing is mama’s friend.”

“No, but you told me only people who love each other only hold hands.” Jaejin answered with a pout, and now you regret explaining teenagers who held hands in a park back in LA that way.

“Jaejin-ah, you see, Uncle Xing likes your Mama. That’s why I’m holding her hand because I like her.” Yixing tried to explain with a wishfully childlike tone. “One day you’ll understand when you like a girl, you’ll hold her hand too.”

“But, does my Mama like you?” Jaejin cracked the tough question himself, and you feel both eyes on you, vying for your answer.

“Yes, baby, Mama likes Uncle Xing. That’s why I’m letting him hold my hand, it’s okay.” You said with a smile to the both of them.

“But what about Dad? Doesn’t Mama like Dad, too? Aren’t you supposed to love Dada? I want you to love Dada because he loves me too.” Jaejin fired a barrage of questions and demands that are natural to a child, but hard to give for you adults.

Jaejin’s pout grew larger, and his eyes started watering - obviously upset with what he heard. Maybe he had this notion, whether it be from a book or a show that he watched that parents are supposed to love each other. Well, that’s usually the case, but sometimes there are exemptions. And your setup just happened to fall on one of them.

“Jaejin-ah, your Mama loves you, and I’m sure your Dada loves you too. That’s what important right?” Yixing ushered the child onto his lap as he tried to console the disheartened child.

“No… I want Mama to be with Dada. So they can love me.” And that was when the water gates broke and Jaejin started crying, and your heart broke too.

He was so young, so young to experience the heartbreak that is of separated parents. And it broke you even further that you’re the reason of such pain. But then again, your morals redound you to your reasons. And it was better to have Jaejin’s heart broken by the truth rather than live a life that’s trailed to wrongdoings. And the what if’s and maybes started playing in your mind, a broken record that etched its way into the chambers of your mind. Echoing like a ghost that haunted your conscience and your reality.

What if there was a way to not break your child’s heart? What if there’s a possibility of you getting back with Junmyeon after all? What if you and Junmyeon tried?

It took half an hour to calm Jaejin down from his woes. You exchanged worried and apologetic looks from Yixing, as he blamed himself from pulling the trigger to Jaejin’s sadness. But he tried to be as realistic as he could, he knew that keeping the truth from Jaejin would hurt him more in the long run. And it’s a mindset that you understood.

“I’m sorry for that, I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.” Yixing rubbed his nape in embarrassment.

“No, I understand why you did it. I’m going to have to break it into him one way or another, maybe it was just unexpected for it to go down like this.” You attempted an empty laughter, an attempt of reassurance to the worried man in front of you.

“I hope Junmyeon wouldn’t go ballistic after I made his child cry.” Yixing attempted a joke.

“I’ll be the one to explain it to him.” You smiled, as you caressed Jaejin’s sleeping form on the couch. Facedown as a result of all the energy he spent crying for the past half hour. The thing is Jaejin has always been a well behaved child, so the fact that he showed this demeanor is already indicative of how big of a deal it is to him.

“Speaking of, can I ask you a favor?” You spoke once more to Yixing’s silent figure sitting unusually slouched beside you. Who answered a simple hum in curiosity of the favor you’re asking for.

“Would you mind if I read… the case files? Or hearing transcripts, whichever you still have, from the Kim Shipping Lines case?” You walked on thin ice, not knowing how he’ll see the request as.

“What for?” His forehead creased in confusion.

“Well, I need answers to my questions. The unbiased and unfiltered one, that is. And I know it’s only there where I can get such.” You explained.

Yixing pursed his lips as he thought about the request, before his lips opened again in response. “Sure, let me get it for a while.”

He stood up and went to his room, as you were left there with a sleeping Jaejin, nervous of what to expect in the case files. It could only lead to either of the two things, a retribution for Junmyeon’s name, or dousing more fuel to the fire that caused this mess ever since.

With your bag filled with case files from a five year old case and Jaejin sleeping in your arms, you walk back to the front door. It was promptly opened by the househelp in Junmyeon’s mansion. And you swear you weren’t even five steps in the marble floored house when you heard a commotion seemingly coming from the gardens.

“Ajumma, can you please take Jaejin upstairs? I need to check on what’s happening over there.” You gently and softly transferred Jaejin into one of the househelp’s arms, trying not to ruin the soundness of his sleep.

Quickly making your way to the backyard gardens, you saw a figure that you wish you wouldn’t have ever seen. It just made things worse, even before you had the chance to turn a page in the case files that should’ve been his chance to mend things.

“Junmyeon!” You called out in anger, and all pairs of eyes were suddenly in trained towards you. As Junmyeon, with fury imbedded in his eyes, still held the gun with shaking hands as he pointed it to his own friend Minseok - his face already bloody and bruised.

Junmyeon was delighted to see a photo album on his office desk, it was the small gift you were pertaining to earlier. It was a mix of emotions to see how the past 6 years unfolded for his dear son. Even seeing your pregnancy photos made his regrets and desire to have been there increase tenfold. How he wishes that he felt Jaejin’s tiny little kicks in your tummy while he was still inside. What a dream would it be to have been there, sharing your moment of labour with you. It guts him to think that you had to shoulder all the pain and hardships alone. He should’ve been there, he should’ve been the one to carry that weight - he could’ve been the best father, the best husband.

“Wow, even as a newborn, you could already tell that Jaejin was going to be a good looking guy like you, ain’t it?” Sehun remarked enthusiastically as they flipped to a page that showed the still bloodied and closed eyed newborn baby.

“How do you even see what a newborn would look like?” Minseok joked in return, as he sat on the other side of Junmyeon who’s silently admiring and treasuring the feeling of seeing these for the first time.

“I mean, you could see the nose. And of course those cheeks, you could already see that Jaejin would look like a bunny.” Sehun replied.

They quickly flipped through a few pages, until those of Jaejin’s first birthday was now shown. There weren’t a lot of people, only few of your workmates attended as you were just starting your life in LA.

But one picture caught Junmyeon’s eyes.

He wasn’t expecting any familiar faces in the album, knowing that he doesn’t know a lot of people in LA. But there was an extremely familiar face, holding is then unknown son as the man held a toy in his other hand. You weren’t in the picture, but the background is still that of Jaejin’s first birthday party. Oddly, the stuffed toy was familiar to Junmyeon too. It was because he bought it, for the orphan child Minseok told him he was a benefactor to.

And it was Minseok who carried his child, with a soft and jubilant expression painted on his face.

“Wait, Minseok-hyung, isn’t that you?” Sehun remarked naively. Junmyeon didn’t move, neither did Minseok.

Minseok knew, all this time. He knew that you and Junmyeon had a child, but he never said a word to his closest friend. The friend that he had since high school, the frat brother that he had in college - Minseok chose to be an accomplice in hiding the truth that Junmyeon deserved to know.

“How did you know?” Junmyeon asked, still not facing the man on his right. His tone stern and threatening.

Minseok wasn’t able to form any word, his silence an enough affirmation to Junmyeon that he is, indeed, aware of Jaejin’s existence - not that the picture isn’t enough proof.

“Since when did you know?” Junmyeon repeated, Sehun’s mouth dropped agape in the heightened tension around him.

“I saw her in LA when she was pregnant. She told me the reason why she left, and she asked me to stay silent.” Minseok exhaled and spoke in a calm yet serious tone, standing firm on his ground and reason on why he hid the truth for so long.

“You never planned to tell me?” It came out of Junmyeon’s mouth more of like a growl rather than a form of speech.

“A promise is a promise, Jun.” Minseok remarked.

“You were never going to fucking tell me!?” Junmyeon suddenly stood up, causing the chair behind him to fall down with a loud thud. “You saw how much I fucked up my life after she left, and all this time you knew that I had a child and you never told me?!” Junmyeon’s voice roared through the silence in the garden. Sehun already stood up to try and hold back Junmyeon’s agitation.

“She had a reason.” Minseok tried to stay calm once more.

“You didn’t even think I deserve to explain?! You made me look like a stupid fool all these years acting pointless and in haywire after my life fell into pieces and you’ll still have the guts to show yourself in my house, all these time?” Junmyeon’s anger was translated on the way his voice boomed.

And just when Minseok tried to stand up, Junmyeon’s fist landed a hard punch on his right eye - producing a cut that quickly bled after contact.

“YOU WERE ALMOST LIKE MY BROTHER!” Minseok was forced down to the floor after Junmyeon went for another strike, now on his lip.

“Hyung!” Sehun appealed behind, trying to hold back Junmyeon’s angered physique that wanted to charge again to his old friend.

Junmyeon stood back, and just as Sehun felt almost relieved - he saw Junmyeon ran three big steps to the bodyguard standing near them, pull the gun that sat on the latter’s holster and point it at Minseok.

It all happened in a whim, a few seconds on standstill except for Junmyeon’s shaking hands unable to pull the trigger.

That’s when your voice suddenly echoed from the mansion’s backdoor. “Junmyeon!”

Junmyeon saw the anger, disgust, and disappointment all painted in your face. Your heavy breathing due to shock at the scenario seen before you got Junmyeon’s heart racing, knowing that all you see was him holding a gun against his friend, bruised and bloodied on the floor. He fucked up, again, harder than he ever did before.

You took two deep breaths, trying to recuperate from the impact of the scandalizing image in front of you. “You just proved to me that I’m right. You’re a fucking monster, Kim Junmyeon.”

And for the second time, he felt as if all of the weight in the world dawned on him as you turned your back and walked away from him - again.

#junmyeon #junmyeon imagine #exo #exo imagine #exo fanfic #exo mafia au #exo fic #junmyeon fic

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rumowrites · 5 years

Text

Defectum, Ch.6

Runaan awoke with a throbbing headache. Puling one arm up to clutch his face, he rolled to his side and was suddenly faced with a rapidly approaching hardwood floor. His somewhat groggy reflexes barley managed to spare him a broken nose when he collided painfully with the ground of his training room. With a groan, he rolled onto his back, staring up to the wide beam he’d apparently been occupying. The events from last night came slowly floating back and he concluded that somehow he must have climbed up there the last night and fallen asleep. Runaan counted himself lucky that he didn’t fall down while still asleep and tried to sit up. He succeeded at the second try. The bright light shining into his eyes told him it was still before midday so the assassin hadn’t slept that long after all. A sudden wave of nausea kicked him into a sprint for the kitchen sink where he lost possession of his dinner and what he remembered to be very decent Whisky.

Runaan took a cup and filled it with water before sliding to the floor, his back against the counter. As he slowly sipped the water, the elf contemplated how he could probably get hold of this mess that was currently his consciousness. The child-king just wouldn’t leave him alone, always lurking in the back of his mind to haunt him whenever he was alone.

The new weapon and training had proven to be good diversions, effectively holding his sole attention until he was exhausted enough to sleep. Aversion was the key after all. In his head, he began to structure the rest of the week. During the time he had courses to give at the academy, the Assassin usually got up extra early to get some training of his own in before meeting the recruits at eight am sharp. He also trained in the evening after his group left since the two hours in the morning and light exercise during the day still left him restless and twitchy on most days.

The five days until his new recruits arrived slowly played out in his mind. Training early and in the afternoon. Between that, he could either get a head start on some of the paperwork or continue with the new weapon. And maybe, he thought, there would be time to visit Tinker. Something about the prospect of seeing the smith again caused his face to heat up.

What if he found the idea stupid? Runaan really wasn’t an artist after all. He quickly banned the thought into the same void his consciousness got locked up in before they could drag him down. No, he would go see Tinker, maybe even today, and ask him whether he found the weapon doable. And doable was really everything he needed right now.

It took him half an hour and a glass of water before he trusted his body enough to leave his place on the kitchen floor. Runaan then did some light exercises as if that would prevent him from throwing up again but still managed to get his blood running. By the time he was finished, the elf was still coated in a thin layer of cold sweat due to the nausea that wouldn’t quite vanish.

Afterwards, he first took a cold shower and then a hot bath, slowly feeling the life flood back into his system. It took him quite a while and a lot of scented oil before his entwined hair was back in a presentable form. He ran a brush through the still wet strands until it was silky and smooth, falling over his bare shoulders like a pearly white waterfall.

He placed all his sketches and notes in a sturdy cardboard binder and grabbed his black leather shoulder bag. Not everybody had to see him carry sketches around. The less anyone knew about him, the better. An Assassins greatest asset was anonymity and secrecy. Here, he couldn’t possibly blend in due to his high status, but he could still keep a mystical aura, make himself unpredictable. The image he’d created for everyone to see was impeccable with a few minor faults in order to make it look believable. Complete perfection was always treated with mistrust. Even the dragons themselves had flaws. No living being could possibly be entirely perfect.

Every once in a while, he lost on purpose during sparring matches or placed his arrow a fraction off centre. Never often enough to seem like he wasn’t their best but often enough to look like he had bad days, too.

That way, his fellow elves simply regarded him with a mix of awe and fear but none of them wouldn’t trust him. Too many enemies of Xadia had fallen to his blades for that.

The walk to the village was quick and undisturbed. Most people were already working or running errands, so the streets were mostly empty. He caught himself walking slower once he reached the alley where Tinkers shop was half-hidden behind a bakery. He was the only customer which didn’t really surprised him since it was still early afternoon and the streets wouldn’t be busy until the evening. Some shop owners even closed middays due to the lack of customers.

The smith was nowhere to be seen but Runaan could hear faint clanging noises that most likely resulted from a hammer meeting steel. He carefully stepped further into the shop before spotting a doorway on the far right where the noise grew louder. “Hello?” he shouted but didn’t really think anyone would answer. The noise would probably drone everything else out. The Assassin waited for a few moments before carefully following the sound through the doorway and down a rather narrow hallway whose walls were lined with a wide assertion of swords and spears. The air grew drier and hotter the further he came until the hallway opened into a fairly large room. The other elf had his back turned to him and was currently shaping a piece of glinting steel into what seemed to be an axe head. “Hello?” he tried again and immediately cursed himself as the smith stopped mid-motion and whipped his head around. “Oh, I’m sorry…” Runaan stammered “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Upon seeing who the intruder was, Tinkers gaze softened into a smile “Don’t worry. I usually don’t hear the bell at the door back here. Let me just get this done and I will be right there.” He gestured for the hallway, turning back to the orange metal on the anvil in front of him. “Could I wait here and watch?” the question was out before his brain managed to stop himself. “It’s quite interesting.” He quickly added to appear unsuspicious. Tinker just shrugged while he continued to hammer onto the slowly reforming metal. “Yeah sure. I don’t mind.” The twenty minutes the smith needed to finish the raw shape were over way too quickly in his opinion. It was almost mesmerizing to watch the steady up and down of the hammer and the confident controlled movements that slowly turned a blob of hot steel into a beautiful weapon.

Once he was done, Tinker placed the Axe on one of the heavy oak tables and took off the thick leather apron that protected him from both heat and flying sparks. Runaan immediately noticed the dark rune tattoos that were entwined with his marks, filling the gap between the two rings on his shoulder. It was rather uncommon for moonshadow elves to be tattooed but it somehow suited the smith. The thin sleeveless linen shirt Tinker was wearing had a few singed spots where the sparks found their way and generally looked like the other ever only used it to work in the forge. It looked rather good on him, Runaan decided after discretely staring while the other placed the last of his tools in their respective places. The strange warm feeling returned an he had to force the blush that crept on his face away as the smith willed a few strands of hair back, showing off his impressive biceps in the process.

“So, what can I do for you?” he asked, wiping hands and face clean of the ash and grime. It took Runaan embarrassingly long to answer, so engrossed was he in those delicate fingers threading through the piece of cloth.

“It’s about the weapon-design actually. You said you would maybe take a look and tell me whether it’s doable.” Immediately Tinker nodded enthusiastically “Yes of course! It’s been too long since I had the opportunity to experiment with something new! Just…” he started before looking down at himself “…just let me change into something less dirty. I’ll be right back.” While he vanished up a set of stairs at the far end of the workshop, the Assassin took out his notes and brought them in a relatively logical order. He passed the time until the other returned by looking at some of the displayed weapons in the shop. One spear in particular caught his interest. It was a little taller than him and had a slightly curved blade on each side. Upon further examination, he discovered that it could be broken down in the middle with a switch hidden in the hilt, thus creating two swords. Suddenly someone took it out of his hands and Runaan had to summon all his willpower to not shriek away.

“Here” Tinker explained, pressing two other buttons in the hilt that retracted the middle part until it was only two hands wide and unfolded it again to an even greater length. “It’s truly magnificent.” He praised, looking at the spear in awe. Tinker smiled at him happily in return. “Thank you. Although it’s mostly for show I guess. I’m not sure if it would be really practical in battle.”

“Are you kidding me? I have a ton of strategies in my head that would profit from a parry weapon that can be broken down to get two short-range weapons!” The smith then laughed at his enthusiasm. “Well not everyone likes their weapons as complicated as this one. The main reason why it’s still here I guess. But you wanted to show me something, right?” He pointed at the stack of paper in his hands. “Yeah, yeah sure. The drawings aren’t very good though.” Tinker just made a dismissive gesture, reaching for the parchment. “They can’t be worse than the very early drafts I do.”

After handing them over, Runaan anxiously waited for a reaction as the other scanned every sheet with seemingly increasing interest. “My idea was to incorporate a set of blades with a bow for both long and short range.” He supplied after a while. The smith nodded absently, studying one of his more recent sketches. “I think it’s doable. But it won’t be cheap, materials and all.” He finally said, an excited grin spreading across his face. “Payment won’t be an issue.” Runaan stated while placing two bags filled with coins on the table. The grin now threatened to split the others face. “That’s great! Have you got any idea of the variety of materials we could use? Xadian steel, moonstones for functionality, maybe even night copper to balance the blades…” the smith continued to list different materials and their use while simultaneously scribbling the things he said on a piece of parchment. Runaan was fascinated by the other’s enthusiasm and patiently waited until Tinker had filled two pages with ideas from the top of his head. “I would have to watch you fight.” He suddenly said, fixing him with a surprisingly piercing gaze. “What?” the Assassin had still been daydreaming and now looked slightly confused. “It would help me decide on the most suitable design for the, ah let’s call it Bowblade, if I could see how you fight.” He explained, gesturing to one of his sketches. “You know, so I have an idea how you would be using it. Things like the length of the blade and handle design are usually more influenced by functionality than decoration.” Runaan nodded slowly in understandment “Sure, you could come to the courses I teach or my own training time. I could also show you some moves here but I guess it’s better for you with an actual opponent right?”

“Yes, preferably when you fight someone equally skilled. So that you really have to fight, you know?” Tinker looked at him expectantly and made a move to hand back the papers before stopping mid-motion. “Actually, would you mind if I keep them until I’m done? You had some interesting notes in between that would certainly help me.” With a smile, Runaan nodded again, glad that the other found his notes useful. “Of course, that’s what I made them for.” He went through his training schedule in his head to determine when there would be suitable sparring sessions for Tinker. “When would you like me to show you how I fight?” he decided it was easier if he just asked when the other was free. “I can open and close the shop as I please, so I could just come to your usual training times if that doesn’t bother you. I am very discreet.” Meanwhile the smith had pulled a thick unused sketchbook from one of the drawers behind his desk and neatly labelled it “Runaan” before placing it in a bag together with a few different pencils. “Could I have a piece of paper?” Runaan asked and began to pen down his usual work week starting with the new recruits. He filled in every training session and remarked below each one whether it was meant to be at his home or the academy and alone or with partners. Tinker looked at the finished week plan for a moment before raising an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of training. You are aware that the time between your last and first training is, like, really short?”

He simply shrugged “I need the movement.” Again, the eyebrow. “Alright, according to your plan you would be training with someone in your party in roughly an hour. Would you mind if I accompany you?” the Assassin was slightly surprised to see Tinker so invested in his new order but agreed nonetheless. “If you don’t have anything to finish today. There will probably be some of the more experienced soldiers present so you will at least get a good show.”

A smirk appeared on the others face. “Oh, I have no doubts about that. Your reputation exceeds you.” He then grabbed his bag and a vest before gesturing for the door. “Let’s go!” Runaan obediently followed and together they passed the now busy streets leading out of town and towards the academy. Once there, he took the smith to his rooms in the right wing of the old stone fort. He motioned for the table in his study before vanishing in the bordering sleeping chamber to change. “Make yourself comfortable. I will be right back.”

He changed into his usual training attire that consisted of wide black pants and a sleeveless thin linen shirt. He contemplated dressing in something more official and nicer but quickly dismissed the thought. He was here to train after all. When Runaan re-entered the study, he could see Tinker sitting on the floor amidst all of his training weapons, furiously taking notes and sketching rough drafts of his blades that still looked better than Runaan’s best drawing. He quietly watched the scene before raising his voice. “You can look at the real ones, too if you like. I have most of them at home.” The smith jumped a little and nodded “Yes that would be helpful. So I can incorporate something familiar in the handles, eases the transfer.” He then stood an placed the weapons in their respective stands along the wall. The Assassin noticed him testing the weight and balance of each and every one while returning them. Something in the way he analysed every little detail fascinated him.

For today’s training, he chose two different sets of twin swords that differed in length and shape since those should be part of the new weapon. Of course, he also took his bow with a few padded arrows. He would most likely not get to use it today but took it anyways in case the others turned up later than expected.

When they stepped out into the yard, three familiar figures were already occupying their usual spot, seemingly discussing their shift plans and the best times to meet up for additional training. Tinker excused himself with the intent of searching a nice spot to sit where he wouldn’t bother anyone and Runaan continued to greet his soldiers.

“Who’s the handsome guy over there hotshot?” was Kira’s greeting to him while she discretely nodded towards the portion of wall the smith had claimed as perch. He couldn’t suppress the eye roll in response. “He is a smith and will craft a new weapon for me. You will probably see him around some more. He says he wants to see my fighting style before getting started.” She only gave him a knowing smile before stepping away to take her fighting stance. As per usual, the four started with some easier moves in changing pairs before it was three against him.

On his spot on the wall Tinker had the large sketchbook placed in his lap and was currently on his fifth motion sketch. He immediately loved drawing Runaan. His movements were so graceful and precise it was mesmerising to watch. He tried to convey as much of it in his drawings as he could. Every once in a while, he would find the other watching him with those piercing turquoise eyes of his. It always sent a shiver down his spine and he caught himself drawing a close-up of the Assassins face for a change. He also took notes on how he used the different shaped swords to figure out the best shape for the Bowblade. It would have to be slightly curved to imitate the shape of a bow but not too much so he was still able to properly use them. He also made notes of how runaan held the blades and for which manoeuvres he changed his grip on the handles.

When the fighters took a break to get something to drink, he already started to sketch out some rough design drafts and contemplated over the best mechanism to attach the blades in the middle. It wouldn’t be easy, but Tinker loved a challenge. Especially when the challenge included a handsome elf, he had now an excuse to come and watch as much as he pleased.

When the three soldiers left for their quarters and Runaan came walking over, he had over eight pages worth of sketches and notes. He felt a blush creeping on his cheeks and ears as the Assassin glimpsed on one of the pages and immediately complimented his drawing skills. They parted after a quick chat where Tinker announced he would come around some more times before starting on the final draft. Once home, he reopened the sketchbook and admired Runaan’s swift moving body until he fell asleep.

#Defectum #rumo writes #Runaan #runaan x necklace elf #tdp runaan #tinker #runaan x tinker

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francisthegreat · 5 years

Note

do i .... do i honestly see a "death note" fic in this wips list ... i gotta know - love, not enamored anon

hello judgemental anon listen ok this is a file of forgotten fics okay let me LIVE

also fandom knows no shame and has no sense of time passing do you not know this? this death note fic will sit in my gdocs until i die. it’s collecting dust. it’s a relic of a bygone era and a beacon. it exists outside of time and space. its behind the cut and its the cryptid of my wips. i want to believe

(*x files theme song plays*)

A note about Yagami Light: he slouches only when he is being watched.

Alone, his back is ramrod straight at all hours of the day, his shoulders pulled cruelly into the sort of line that speaks of militant control. It is only when he becomes aware of being observed that he carefully curls them toward himself, pronounces it more in the evening and smiles tiredly at assertions of, “You look beat, Light.”

Once in a while he slips, when his focus narrows to a single point or he’s especially distracted, and there’s a moment - a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment - when his body is one unbendable, unbreakable line.

A note about L: he never blinks. It follows that he never misses one of these moments; he only files them away for later.

Sleep, too, eludes him. Sometimes he will slip into the dark void of complete unconsciousness for an hour or two and then slam back awake, shuddering with the notion that he’d been just about to put something together.

Then, of course, he puts something together. Light says the chain chafes his wrist but doesn’t offer any further complaints on it.

After two days of the chain, a problem becomes apparent: Light sleeps.

More specifically, Light talks in his sleep.

Most specifically, Light talks about L.

The talking never reveals enough information to form any sort of theory, just small huffs of breath and the occasional half-murmur of L’s name, but it sends L careening toward a question so dangerous it stops the blood in his chest.

If he fell asleep, what would he say? Would he put some deep, vulnerable part of himself straight into the hands of the most prolific serial killer in human history without even knowing it? Would he speak his own name? Would he speak Light’s name?

And further, what is Light dreaming about?

L has never put stock in dream psychology. It is a soft subset of a soft science, and consists mostly of conjecture and wanking, both of which L abandoned years ago.

Which, of course, makes his burning curiosity all the more concerning.

A note about curiosity: L cannot recall the last time he was burningly curious about anything. Mildly so, yes. Detached interest, yes. But true, consuming, burning curiosity? An outlier so far outside L’s observable universe it is almost entirely alien.

Yagami Light, too, is such an outlier. It stands to reason, then, that his alien curiosity would be regarding Yagami Light.

He resolves to let it go for now, but spends a disturbing amount of free time devoting his curiosity to it.

On the 5th night chained together, L still has not slept, and his body is approaching its limit. Light, outlier that he is, notices.

“Ryuzaki,” Light says, and L feels that foreign pang of disappointment exclusive to Light using his alias, “You need to sleep.”

L waves him off. If he sleeps now, he will shut off for approximately 12 hours, which is not at all acceptable until he’s solved the case. If he sleeps now he will lose approximately 12 hours of surveillance, anywhere from 2 to 12 Kira killings depending on who is currently occupying Kira’s frustratingly nebulous power, at least 14 servings of strawberry cake, and no less than three instances of Yagami Light stretching enough for his shirt to ride up.

L dwells uncomfortably on that last thought for a moment and then shakes his head.

He’s not thinking clearly.

Light says, “You’re not thinking clearly. You’re exhausted.”

L resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him and adjusts in his chair.

A note about identities: L has never gone this long in the presence of another human, and so has never had to keep up the exaggerated charade of his own identity for such an extended period of time before. It is unexpectedly exhausting.

His back hurts. He wants to stretch out and sleep.

Light pokes him with a metaphorical stick.

“You’re not going to be any help if your brain doesn’t work, you know.”

It is a testament to L’s exhaustion that he doesn’t argue. He simply shuffles out of the room and drags Light behind him to go make himself a pot of coffee.

“This isn’t coffee, Ryuzaki,” Light laughs, sticking his finger into L’s cup. “This is engine sludge.”

A note about Light: he has been different since the end of his solitary confinement - freer, somehow. More…innocent. He laughs more, jokes more. It is almost as if he is a different person. He even seems to approach flirting, sometimes.

Light takes his finger out of L’s cup and sticks it in his mouth. L stares.

“Sludge and sugar,” Light amends.

L blinks and takes a sip of his coffee. It tastes sweeter than before, and raises all sorts of awful questions about the specific taste of Light’s skin.

A note about L: there is a 75 - no - 78.9 percent chance that he is slightly sexually attracted to Yagami Light. Which is a problem.

Contrary to popular opinion, L is not clueless about sex. In fact, he enjoys it very much when it benefits him, and has found he’s rather good at it.

The problem, of course, is that this is not the time or person, and also that the likelihood that Light feels the same is under 12 percent.

So he drinks his coffee in silence until Light says, “Come here, Ryuzaki.”

L’s stomach does something awful and he pauses with the cup halfway to his lips. Light smiles, and it’s so honest and sincere that it scares the shit out of L.

What are you doing, Light?

“What are you doing, Light?”

Light leans against the counter and tilts his head. He must know what this position does to his body, and his legs are far too long, and L has no control over his own thought processes and suddenly realizes how desperately he needs to sleep -

“I’m just gonna crack your back for you. It’ll help, trust me.” There’s that smile again. Different than before, so different that it almost makes L believe it.

“Why?”

Light huffs and says, “Because you’re going to cripple yourself crouching like that all day.”

Why do you care?

“Hm.”

“Come here and cross your hands over your chest.”

Is this how L dies? He sees four distinct possibilities: Light cutting his throat from behind him, Light smashing his head into the counter, Light slipping something thin and sharp around his throat and pulling, Light sinking a knife into his back -

No. No, if Light wanted to kill him with his hands, he would have done it already.

Yagami Light is Kira. He is 89.8 percent sure of this fact. Kira wants L dead. He is 100% sure of this fact. The only reason he is not dead is because Kira does not have his name. He is 100% sure of this fact.

L wants Kira dead. He is … 89.8 percent sure of this fact.

Only 89.8 percent? Why -

“Ryuzaki, stop thinking. It’s giving me a headache.”

I want to hear you say my name, L thinks, and immediately regrets it.

“I’m not able to do that, Light-kun.”

Light grins and says softly, under his breath, “I bet I could help,” and then raises his voice again to say, “For god’s sake, just come over here.”

“No,” L says stubbornly. “This is a perfect opportunity for you to kill me.”

Light rolls his eyes and sighs deeply, which is … not what L expects.

“You know we’re being surveilled, right?”

“I doubt it matters to Kira-kun. My name is the only one he does not know.” L takes another sip of his coffee. “After I’ve been eliminated it will be easy to deal with the rest.”

“Fine,” Light says, looking genuinely annoyed, and throws up his hands. “Fucking suffer forever, you idiot.”

L has never seen Light curse before. It is horribly, viscerally arresting. He wants him to do it again. He wants to make him do it again.

Light immediately puts his head in his hands and says, “Sorry. I’m really tired.”

L feels a stab of genuine guilt. In his refusal to sleep over the past 5 days, he’s forced Light to sleep in the rolling chair next to his computer, or on the floor, or sometimes slumped over the desk.

In a moment of utter insanity, L walks over to where Light is leaning against the kitchen counter and crosses his arms over his chest.

Light raises his eyebrows and looks like he’s trying not to smile.

“You have to turn around, Ryuzaki.”

L hesitates. It sets off approximately 800 alarm bells in his head to turn his back to Light. It feels … wrong. Dangerous.

Exciting.

L turns his back. It thrills him all the way to his toes, so close to unbearable he can almost feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Light’s voice is far too close when he speaks, and L cannot see him, and three new scenarios flood his mind at once: Light could snap his neck with his hands - but that would require an inhuman amount of speed and strength and is far less common than it is depicted in movies, not to mention it doesn’t seem like Light’s style. Light could choke him to death, fairly easily as the way he’s leaned on the counter gives him the perfect leverage, and the thought makes L’s toes curl in a way that is decidedly unscientific.

The third possibility evacuates his head the second Light touches him, along with an alarming amount of his other thoughts.

Light wraps his arms all the way around L and leans back a little, whispers straight into his ear,

“Relax, Ryuzaki.”

Impossible. L can hardly breathe.

Something snaps like a branch and then three or four little cracks follow in very quick succession, and suddenly L feels his legs turning to liquid. It hurts.

“There we go.”

Light stops touching him and L immediately grips the counter top, spits out, “Kira.”

Light laughs, then stops. He stares at L with wide eyes. Was he always so short?

What is he looking-

“You, uh, you’re standing up straight now.”

So he is. He takes stock of his body: he can feel all his toes and fingers. That’s new.

Light’s cheeks are pink. That’s new as well.

L is possessed by a new burning question: Does this fluster Light because of L’s sudden height advantage? Does he feel angry at the possibility that L could be physically imposing? Or -

L steps very close to Light until Light’s back is pressed against the counter top.

“What are you doing, Ryuzaki?”

“Testing a theory.”

A note about physical arousal: it is nearly indistinguishable from fear in its physiological processes.

“What theory is that?”

L sees no reason to lie. “Whether you are afraid of me -”

“I’m not afraid of you, you absolute idiot -”

“Or whether you want to have sex.”

Light’s eyes get very wide. They are nearly exactly the same color as the honey L sometimes puts on his fruit bowls.

“With you?”

“Yes.”

He puts his hand around Light’s wrist and notes that his heart rate is nearly double his normal baseline. Pupils: dilated. Cheeks: flushed. L finds that he likes this sudden height advantage very much.

“In case you are wondering,” L murmurs, and he must be delirious from exhaustion if he’s doing this, “the likelihood that you find me sexually attractive is just over 56 percent.” A significant jump from 12. He looks at Light’s mouth to see if he mirrors it - he does. “62 percent.”

#anon ask #wip meme #death note #wow i haven't tagged anything as that in...... *takes long drag on pipe*

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gutrage-archive · 5 years

Note

five times platonically kissed w/ jess thanks

send me five times kissed for a drabble about five times our muses kissed. / accepting. / @thymocosm

dani is a sweet light in a dreary world. logan isn’t the outwardly expressive sort – has never told jessica what exactly it means to him to babysit her daughter, has never really felt the need to say so, until this quiet night. her feathery giggles and soft, star shaped waving hands renew a dull and lost emotion in logan, buried under years of saline and metal. (his smiles, more real than any adult could yield of him, cut lines into his cheeks, and he holds her under the arms and above his head, or tucks her slight frame against the soothing heat of his elevated temperature.) he’s never told jessica about the infant he’d never carried in the weapon x program (victor had taken him by the jaw and bit open his neck, stilling and shaking, and in that death wrought life destined to suffer the same, sickened by the inhospitable nature of logan’s body), or how laborious daken had been (a private birth between he and itsu alone to shadow his identity as the carrier, and she had balked at blood), and how he’d been lost by the setting of the swollen sun. at the end of the day, she is not his, and he doesn’t presume to think she is, but the delight it brings him to hear her forming blubber of speech, how she calls him logan with a soft, wet “L”, swallowing the “a”, how ojisan (a taught word in his infant language, logan had thought it might be easier on her than the hard ends of ‘logan’) became a thick, blurry sound on her baby lips.

though logan jumps at the opportunity to nanny the girl when his schedule has open gaps, jessica looks at him somewhat apologetically this time, her pale face worrying into awkward lines. doreen – uh, squirrel girl – is watching her for a while. i didn’t think you’d be available, actually. logan breathes out, somewhat amused; he ducks his head, then meets jess’ eyes. ‘ i know who doreen is .. s’alright, i don’t gotta ‘sit her every time you gotta get somewhere. i, uh .. i got kids. ‘ he sees something briefly shift in jessica’s face, though it is a very muted reaction, which is something he’d expect from someone as hard and calloused as he was. she doesn’t say anything, giving logan the space he needs to talk, if he wants. he appreciates that more than he can say.

‘ i have a son … he hates me. i ain’t ever faulted him fer it, but it used t’ make me so damn mad. he was taken from me after he was born. i never knew where he was, what happened t’ him. but he was told that i knew, an’ that i didn’t want him. ‘ jessica moves to an old, hickory wood cabinet with a glass front, sliding the glass aside to retrieve some aged bourbon from the top shelf. she debates on two decanters, and decides only on the bottle, leaving the door open. she effortlessly twists the bottle open, then offers him the neck end. logan breathes in a slow, painful way, then decidedly reaches to acquiesce the liquor, guzzling at the heady liquid, relishing in the burn that floods through his sinuses and into his chest. wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he offers the bottle back, and jess shakes her head.

you can keep it. i don’t drink anymore, not since dani. if not for the weighty, standing blood in his heart, logan would ask why she had it in the first place, but a drink here or there wasn’t a bad thing, and in truth, he’s proud of her. he remembers. he still struggles, in fact. that was a demon jessica crushed under her heel – that made her stronger than him, he thinks. he blinks away some stinging sensation in the whites of his eyes, nods, picking up the conversation where he’d dropped it. ‘ that weren’t true, i .. there weren’t nothin’ i wanted more’n him. he don’t see it that way, and i guess we won’t ever be good t’ one another. no ground to stand on. there’s laura.. you know laura. but i don’t .. i never got ta raise her, either, an’ that ain’t really .. parenthood. i don’t .. i don’t remember much of bein’ in the weapon x program. but there was .. you met victor creed b’fore. big asshole. blond. ‘ jessica’s mouth (solemn and quiet and attentive) ticks up at the end, indenting a handsome line into her face. thats a little vague, but i think i know who you’re talkin’ about.

‘ he was part of it, we were products of th’ same masters. i hated him, an’ i still do, but it pushed us together. i was .. i had .. my body, ain’t meant fer, makin’ nothin’. i’m radioactive, inside .. she was four months. ‘ jessica’s lips part, realizing eking through her face, though she does not speak, perhaps balling up this information inside her, perhaps thinking of danielle, who sleeps soundly in an adjacent room. a short sound starts in her lungs, and logan lifts his hand, dismissive, but not unkind. ‘ ain’t on you t’ comfort me, jess. we ain’t soft people. it was good t’ say it t’ somebody. ‘ despite, there is a sheen in logans eyes, and he turns his head away, doing his utmost not to shed his tears infront of jessica god damned jones. she lets out a breath she had been holding, then clumsily reaches toward him, touching his shoulder. you didn’t have to tell me all this. but i’m glad you trusted me with it. gentle, she nudges her palm at him, giving him the leeway to initiate an embrace, if he wishes.

logan’s face becomes somewhat impassive, though the way his eyes flick indicates he’s contemplating his options. he sighs, wrapping a broad arm around jess’ lower back and pressing his face into her shoulder. she strokes the area between his shoulder blades (heavy handed and clumsy, but full of love, all the same), and presses an affectionate kiss to the side of his skull.

ii.

shoehorning two of the most violent individuals in new york into a no-contact zone is probably a bad idea, but ask SHIELD and they’d say, we don’t have anyone more qualified than jessica jones cage and james howlett at hand right now, and logan would remind them that he hates that name. there’s still plenty to do at a bar when neither of them want to drink (jessica giving up the bottle, logan unimpressed with a human establishment), so the wolverine whips darts at the board, slamming the bullseye over and over and leaving pock marks in the ring. each sound is a cacophony in howlett’s ears, agitating over sensitive hearing, though he says nothing of all the noise, wheeling his hand back to whip another dart at the pegs when he hears jessica scoff from across the room. logan swivels on the stool (his feet rest on the bar, unable to touch the floor, which always feels incredibly demeaning), observes jessica blatantly refute an aggressive flirt. he sees her jaw muscles contract, and her fingers tighten, and figures she feels the same as him: god damn the imposed and lordly rules of their ‘betters’, no contact or not.

logan slides off the stool and tucks his hands into his leather, approaching silently but for thud of his boots. ‘ hey, ‘ he greets, gaze shifting from jess to her assailant, a comely man in his thirties, if not for the very unfortunate field of blemishes encircling the hollow of his cheeks. logan couldn’t care less what he looks like. he folds his arms, leaning into the wall adjacent, which is connected to large frontal windows. jessica reaches to grab at logan’s sleeve and tug him toward her, straining in her seat to press a delicate and thoughtless kiss, catching his cupids bow. the drunk blinks slow, as if to process, then presses his palms into the little table, scooting his chair back loudly. you coulda just said you were taken, lady, he grumbles, abandoning his quarry. logan takes the seat instead, thick brows raising toward his hairline.

jessica snorts. come on, logan. you know just as well as i do that most guys don’t give a shit if you tell them no. they want to see the boyfriend, because his ownership over you matters more than you not wanting to fuck him. logan’s expression shifts visibly, and he nods somewhat gravely. ‘ i know. you don’t gotta justify ‘f thats what it was fer, i just weren’t sure. ‘m sure if luke were here he’d have beat the shit out of that guy. ‘ jess drums three fingers on the table. i would’a beat the shit out of him myself. but you know how fury and hill are. what a bunch of dumb assholes. the grin logan responds with is all teeth, and otherwise terrifying. ‘ finally, somebody with some sense. ‘

iii.

the bottle jessica whips at logan shatters not against his skull, but into the wall, neatly curved above his head to hit an intangible face. the imagery of the purple man burned into her sockets fades, leaving behind a man who couldn’t be further from different – thats one thing she can take comfort in, at least. logan is short, and strong, and mean, and honest, and all sorts of things zebediah kilgrave will never be. he doesn’t lie to her, doesn’t try to make her believe anything that isn’t true. he’s never asserted his will over her, and the furthest he’s gone with flirting with her was a drunken compliment regarding her appearance, which she’d shut down in a tight-throated clammy panic, and he had never tried again, apologizing in the morning with a drawling, hung over voice mail that rippled through her old speaker. though it had scared her in the moment, that logan had at all found her appealing to the eye, it took only two days for jessica to both forgive and forget. he was not him. they were all fucked up, all bloody killers who’d broken necks and wrung out life, and she isn’t sure she’d like him if he wasn’t as sour and brutal as she was. but he was not him. she makes a plaintive, startled sound, unable to keep the pain inside of her, and when it starts, it has a hard time stopping, snowballing down her teeth and across her lips.

logan lifts his hands and spreads them in submission, keeping them in her line of sight. ‘ hey .. hey. it’s okay. ‘ (logan had shown her an old picture, a few weeks ago. whose that? she had dumbly asked, tongue heavy in her mouth. logan’s face hadn’t changed when he’d said, me, but she had seen a twinge in his upper cheek, and his eyes had taken on some quality that may have scared her if she were younger. the individual in the photograph was hardly the man she knew. their hair was long, sleek, bundled back, their face smooth and soft – despite the square and handsome structure of the face he’d possessed now, though if she looked hard enough, she could see him underneath, young and frustrated and buried in a body he had wanted to cast off like a jacket – adorned in an article of clothing that reminded her of a robe, the photo so old it had no color and was broken at the laminate edges. he had told her that he had not owned land, and marriage was the only way across the border of canada into the states. he had told her that it was the most embarrassing thing of his entire life. she had told him a little more about the purple man, and how she couldn’t drink certain wines anymore for their smell, and how there was purple in everything, and it made her want to rip her eyes out.)

(thank you for being vulnerable with me.)

jessica grips each opposite bar of her strong forearms, breath becoming labored, then righting into slow inhales, stuttering out again. she’s trying. logan is close, now, enough that she can smell his cologne, and distantly a cigar he must have smoked earlier in the day. she flinches when he touches her, but she suppresses the way her muscles spasm, bunched over and resolute in holding herself, terrified that if she moves, she may spill all out like stuffing through an opened seam. logan is shockingly gentle. he tucks his arms around her, palms her upper back, the other hand caressing her hair.

it’s enough. jessica settles down into him like a child, and she may as well be one, in the wake of a man so old and so sad. logan moves hair away from her forehead and kisses the side of her brow near her temple. he is unfathomably soft. ‘ s’gonna be alrigh’. ain’t nobody gonna hurt you again. ‘

iv.

hercules is good to logan. jess can see it, and it makes her happy, though curiously nonplussed by the idea, well aware that the man’s attitude during previous excursions on earth was galvanizing at kindest, and sleazy and presumptuous at least (which, if she had cared to say so, reminded her of matt–something logan would wholeheartedly agree upon, before clarifying that he would never date matt, and laughing with all his sharp dog-teeth stuck out in a sneer.) still, he seems at least matured with logan, or maybe kept in line by him. god knows howlett is a commandeering presence – he’s made grown men break and tremble with the intimidating level of sureness he possessed.

neither set of couples think about these things, though, danielle in her high chair, luke setting the table, jessica red faced for what felt like the first time in her life.

‘ okay, look, i’m sorry, kid, but i don’t think you know how ta cook fer shit. let me do it. ‘ blunt as always. jessica isn’t sure if she hates or loves that. still, she gestures to the whole of their kitchen. logan smooths his hands back through his hair, producing a rubber band from the depth of his leather jacket, which he’d stubbornly refused to let luke hang. he ties his hair neatly back, and jessica’s flustered, terse expression shifts into something notably amused.

‘ what? ‘

she laughs, this time. i didn’t know you could be so delicate. he bashes his elbow into her side, pain thrumming into her lungs, though she doesn’t complain beyond a stiff groan, deciding it was merited. ‘ fuck off. where d’you keep your utensils? ‘ jess gestures with a flapping hand, then, as the tightening sting subsides, removes herself from the premises, electing instead to entertain the god they’ve invited to dinner, her attention divided between dani and herc and luke. it doesn’t take long before she’s glided back into the kitchen, and in earnest, she can say she’s surprised by what she sees. logan is no liar, and he seems to move from spot to spot with intent, presently scrubbing his hands in the sink. the oven emits a pleasant, buttery scent, paired with something she can define as lemon and pepper. jess calmly and politely scoots past him, sidling toward the refrigerator.

pausing, she leans in toward his ear and presses a grateful kiss to the softest part of his cheek, just above the sharp, metal-lined bone. thanks. for this. i mean .. god, i never thought i’d be here, like this. don’t it feel good? logan stills, though only momentarily, letting out a sigh that she takes as pleased. she doesn’t have to see him head on to know there’s a smile on that stiff face. ‘ yeah, it does, ‘ he mumbles, sliding on oversized oven mits that look so comical on his body that jessica almost laughs. the heat from the oven door wets her eyes. ‘ almost done. oh, uh, if herc gives y’all any problems, smack him in th’ head. he c’n be kinda .. overzealous. ‘ jessica’s grin is worthy of sharp teeth. she gives a final pat to logan’s shoulder, carrying a bottle of sparkling wine in one hand (a courtesy for hercules, really), balancing juice for dani and a can of sprite for herself in the other. will do, chief.

jessica’s never been this far out of new york. it makes her just a little anxious, though she isn’t want to admit as much, which in turn inspires her to follow logan like a puppy dog. if he minds, he hasn’t chastised her for it. it’s a pretty place, though, she’ll admit, the buzz of city life met with a gentle compliment of bright and bustling aesthetics. (she likes the countryside better, and it seems logan does, too--jess can see some agitation in his face and shoulders when they have to head into the city, though she feels no need to remark on it.)

logan becomes a different person, here, quiet and calm and carrying himself with such familiarity, no one would assume he was a tourist or that he somehow didn’t belong. he had striven to ensure that he would belong here, if nowhere else.

it’s deeply unsurprising to the either of them that they would encounter Hand, here. jess nudges logan’s arm, wearing a tight expression. i thought they were supposed to be in madripoor, she mumbles, and logan nods just slightly. ‘ yeah, but -- splinter groups. s’why there’re some in america sometimes. they came from japan. s’far as i know, anyway. ‘ she hadn’t considered that they were at all similar to SHIELD, perhaps finding some comfort in the idea they were disorganized and feral, as opposed to a bunch of operative criminals who had at least a semblance of uniformity.

‘ c’mon. lets bring a few trophies back fer matt an’ ‘lektra. ‘ logan’s grin is sick and mischievous, blood loving and hungry. jess laughs.

in the aftermath, jess finds logan sitting on cobblestone ground, gripping a long, thin sword by the hilt, which has been driven into his abdomen. he had acquired it in the heat of battle, taking the blow by throwing himself instinctively before jess. if not for the blade, she would be sorely tempted to swat him in the back of the head, the hell’d you do that for? but for now, she tucks her hands into her pockets and closes the disparity of distance. you need help? she asks, low and apathetic, apology hidden somewhere behind the guise of uncaringness. logan grunts in response, gripping the banded leather. he inhales in a shallow arc, then on an inaudible count, rips the weapon free, blood gushing up around the exit and entry point. frustrated, logan casts the sword aside with such force it pins itself into the ground, wet still with his blood.

wordless, he unsheathes a single claw, shuffling to his feet. jessica silently observes as the wolverine hunches over a member of higher standing -- given the color indication of their uniform -- wrenches their arm back, and severs their middle finger. a ring slips off the extremity, making a sharp sound when it hits the stone. logan discards the digit, reaching instead for the ring. he dries the trinket of blood, and offers it forth. ‘ you see matt more than i do. ‘m sure he’d like this. ‘ jessica’s mouth twists, though not in an unpleasant way, and she sputters a short, quiet laugh. okay. ‘ ‘f i’m bein’ honest, matt drives me kinda nuts. ‘ jess’ smile folds at the ends. i know he does.

the last legs of the trip are a deal quieter. jessica learns how to say fuck, and logan gently corrects her pronunciation until it becomes properly accented. she remembers to take her shoes off and neatly lines them at the door next to logan’s, she remembers at least three important table manners, and only blunders once at a sushi restaurant (where she learns the high end sushi stops in new york are feeble and weak in comparison to the high end sushi stops in japan, sampling a dragon roll out of logan’s yen that’s so good her knees wobble). she has, more or less, a good time.

jessica can’t remember the last time she had a good time, not one that she’d wanted, not one where she had so much freedom. logan’s packing their bags for the morning flight when jessica, seated on the edge of her bed in their shared room, flares her nostrils.

this was nice, logan. thanks.

logan pushes down a piece of clothing that stubbornly pokes at the zipper, then grips the tongue between thumb and finger, the other pinching the track. ‘ uh huh. ‘ he murmurs, sounding somewhat dismissive, though not intentionally. ‘ you wanna see more ‘f the cities here, you gotta come back withou’ me. s’too much fer my senses sometimes. ‘ triumphant over the bag, he slings it around the outmost door handle. jessica is standing now, closer, though logan hadn’t noticed her move. she reaches out to him, slowly takes his hand, and logan stares on, curious and suspicious. jess kisses the area between his thumb and index finger, then lets his hand fall away. i know you lost a lot here. you never .. said anything to me. but i’ve read your files, uh, your SHIELD files. i felt like kinda an asshole for never saying that i did. so, thank you. i’m gonna take a shower.

blinking slowly, logan clears his throat, pulling his hand back. with the other, he gestures at the bathroom. ‘ th’ shower knob with the drain on the floor is where you shower. you only take a bath after you shower. it’s -- baths are fer relaxin’, not cleanin’. last person who went wit’ me to japan didn’t know what ta do. ‘

jess props her thumb in the air, hand tucked near the side of her ribs as she shoulders open the door.

#thymocosm #sits down.#RESPONSE.#PROMPT.#long post //

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delamitrinews · 6 years

Text

From Changing Everything To The Here And Now - an Interview with Del Amitri

Last November Del Amitri surprised fans with the announcement of their long-awaited return to the stage - four years after their first UK dates for more than a decade. A hint about new material has appeared on their blog, but since they put the band on ice in 2002 the music industry has gone through drastic changes that have had huge repercussions for how music is now recorded and consumed.

In this exclusive interview for the Del Amitri Fans Facebook account and Twitter feed - run for the fans by fans - Justin Currie and Iain Harvie tell Rhiannon Law about the past, present and future of the band.

It’s an uncharacteristically balmy afternoon when I sit down with the two founding members of Del Amitri at Justin Currie’s Glasgow home. As both men get themselves settled - facing each other across a coffee table with mugs of coffee and a plate of rather delicious ginger biscuits - the beginning feels like the best place to start. So, what are their earliest memories of meeting each other? “The first two guitar players that I’d gone to school with had buggered off to university” explains Currie, recalling the need to recruit new members to the band, which had already played a dozen or more gigs by that point. That incarnation of Del Amitri had also put out the ‘Happy Birthday/What She Calls It’ flexi-disc (alongside The Bluebells). Following an advert placed in McCormack’s music shop, the interview process began for anyone who could play anything.

“So for two weeks we just met all these really rubbish people,” says Currie of the many “deeply insecure” wannabe lead singers that approached him. “And then Iain came in and it was just a completely different ballgame - a proper person who was interested in music and really into writing as well.”

“I’d only been in school bands and bands that had played covers in social clubs,” recalls Harvie. “So I just had this perception that there was no way I was gonna get into this band because they were just so successful...but it was quite quickly shattered!”

Once the two bandmates have stopped laughing, Currie explains that the Del Amitri rehearsal space at the time was a small janitor’s flat in the basement of a Victorian school. They then moved into an even smaller room next door on the basis that they didn’t have to share it with anyone and could lock their gear up. Despite being the size of a toilet, it proved to be enough space to do the rehearsals for their first album.

“It was always key to us to have our own space because none of us really wrote songs separately,” says Currie. “We all wrote collectively and that was very time inefficient. There was a lot of time spent in rehearsal rooms just staring at each other going ‘do something!’ So, it was really important to have your own space rather than just renting a room once a week.”

Following the release of the first album - and due in some part to some arrested funds - the band took off on a self-funded tour of America. This is a concept that many young bands would be familiar with today, but something that was quite radical for the late 1980s. “The last money we had we spent on the air tickets, so we had no money in our pockets when we got there” recalls Currie.

I’m told that the plan was to become pen pals with fans in America and then enlist their help to put on gigs and to crash on their floors. “It was a kind of pre-internet social networking,” says Harvie. However, despite the best-laid plans of their manager at the time, the tour didn’t go quite to plan. “The first gig was a financial disaster” Currie admits, “we did the whole thing and we got round by basically begging and borrowing.”

Luckily that initial experience of touring didn’t put them off for life and our conversation quickly shifts from the past to the present. Del Amitri will shortly be heading out on their first UK tour since ‘The A-Z of Us’ tour in 2014. “We really enjoyed 2014,” says Currie. “We didn’t know if we would enjoy it or not. We were very apprehensive about it, but we loved doing it. So we thought we’ll probably end up doing this again at some point and it just seemed like the right time. And we got offered the [Edinburgh] Castle again and we thought that’s quite tempting.”

The lack of an album to plug offered the band the chance to go on the road for the first time without the pressure of doing additional promotional work. Although Currie is quick to point out that promotion was always part of the job and something they were happy to do in the most part, he adds that the lack of this in 2014 was refreshing. “We’re getting paid to eat nicely catered food every day and play to really enthusiastic audiences and we don’t have to do anything else, we’re just doing the gigs. So that was a bit of a revelation, that this is great fun.”

When I ask if they still get nervous, or at least apprehensive, before shows, Currie responds almost instantly with an emphatic nod “yeah”, whereas Harvie smiles. “I never really got nervous particularly,” he says. “Even if things were going colossally wrong on stage, I’ve never really suffered from nerves. But maybe at The Hydro I was expecting to be quaking in my boots before we went on stage.”

Both bandmates concede that the size of the Glasgow venue, which has a 13,000 capacity, had potentially caused a few jitters. “I remember clearly going behind the stage at The Hydro and just thinking ‘who are all these people’?” exclaims Harvie. “There’s like hundreds of people. There are ambulance guys at these stadium shows and then there’s all the local crew and there might be like twenty of them all waiting to get the support band’s gear and then there are TV guys. So you come out of the dressing room and there are fifty people you’ve never seen before hanging around - all working. And they all kind of defer to you. They all just get out of your way and don’t make eye contact with you and you think ‘oh god this is weird’.”

But it was the response of the crowd at The Hydro that helped to calm any unease at the situation. “The audience all got up on their feet and they didn’t sit down,” says Currie “and that really helped us because we didn’t feel like we had to get them. They were just all over us from the start.”

Despite audiences clamouring for more after the 2014 tour, the band still express surprise at the reaction to the 2018 dates. “Oh, they’re still there!” Currie gives a little laugh but there is a hint of relief in his voice. The response from the fanbase to the tour announcement was to turn-out en masse, with many Edinburgh Castle tickets being sold on the first day of release.

“The weird thing is that people are so into going to these sorts of concerts now and we’re basically selling more tickets than we ever did really, it’s quite bizarre,” says Harvie. “We’re not going to do so many shows, but the venues that we’re playing at are big, if not bigger, than the venues we’d been to in 2002 when we stopped. It’s quite mad.”

I wonder aloud if this could be put down to the fact that fans are concerned that each tour may be their last opportunity to see Del Amitri live? “We never suggested in 2014 that we wouldn’t do it again because we didn’t really know” asserts Currie. “I mean it’s a possibility that we won’t do this again - it might not be feasible, we might not want to do it. For us, four years seemed like kinda the right amount of time. If it had been two years since The Hydro and all that sort of stuff it would have just felt a bit like we were trying to milk it.” He pauses for a few seconds before adding “Who knows what we’ll be doing in 5 or 10 years? Maybe we’ll all be dead!”

I mention that there has been a bit of criticism on social media regarding the prices for this tour, with some tickets costing £75. “Personally, I think that’s too much,” says Currie. “We don’t put on our own shows, we don’t have that kind of manpower. If we did we could control ticket prices. With the dawn of the music-is-free era, most bands main, or only, income is from live performance. I’ve watched ticket prices creep up, seemingly inexorably. I think that’s really unfair on those fans, like me, who still pay for their recorded music rather than streaming it all on YouTube. The most galling thing for me is the insultingly low fees that opening bands receive on my solo gigs especially. We will often subsidise that on a small scale to ensure we get the acts we want. That needs to change.”

So, will we get to hear any new Del Amitri material on this year's tour? Currie sounds positive in his response. “We’re thinking about doing new songs, like maybe one or two, on the tour.” However, he is more uncertain when it comes to the question of whether an album will follow. “We were sort of thinking about doing a record...we’re just humming and hawing about I guess.”

“We need to get back into the rehearsal room and get things moving again and see where that takes us” Harvie agrees.

There nearly was a new record a while back, as it turns out. Harvie went to Currie with some ideas for an electronic album - something radically different to anything they had released before. “Iain at that time was into programming stuff and writing things on the computer and I thought it was a great idea,” says Currie. “We did a few writing trips and wrote a ton of stuff that we really liked, but there was never any great impetus behind it. Our manager didn’t particularly like it. It didn’t sound like anything Del Amitri had done before, but we thought it was Del Amitri because it was me and Iain writing all the tunes and it was all quite melodic.”

However, they were advised not to release it as a Del Amitri album and it is apparent that this caused them concern. “We just couldn’t see a way for Justin and I to release a record that wasn’t going to be a Del Amitri record” explains Harvie. Hearing them reflect on it now, it seems like the advice from their manager, John Reid, was sound. “I don’t think I was aware until after we stopped touring that Del Amitri had acquired a kind of identity that wasn’t necessarily my identity, or even our identity.” Harvie continues.

The electronic album would not only have potentially been a step too far away from the Del Amitri identity, but it would also have been released at a time when the music industry was in complete turmoil. Both agree that it would have been a crazy time to reinvent the band. However, it’s clear that they loved the material and when they talk about this unreleased music it’s as though they are still coming to terms with the fact it didn’t happen. “We really liked it. We were dead into it, you know.” Currie enthuses.

It’s Harvie that notes the difficulties it would have caused for future tours. “I think it would have been odd to do these shows now if we had gone off in another direction, which is why I think John was maybe quite astute.”

I note that adding an electro section to a Del Amitri set would be a tricky proposition from a practical point of view and Harvie agrees. “That would have been a bit rubbish,” he says, “as if we’re like Spinal Tap on a sort of jazz odyssey.”

So, they’ve avoided the potential pitfalls of releasing something radical at a time when they would have needed a big promotional machine working for them, but what do they think about the current trend of releasing crowdfunded music? “I’ve avoided raising money from a fanbase because to me that makes you, psychologically at least, beholden to their expectations and I think that’s quite dangerous,” explains Currie. “When Del Amitri made ‘Change Everything’ I found it quite odd because for the first time ever we were making a record that had an audience expecting it out there. For me, that was a completely different way of thinking about what we were doing and I found that quite confusing. And I think I would find it quite confusing if a hundred people gave us an amount of money to make an album. I would be pretty sure what those hundred people would be expecting and I think that would limit us in where we felt like we could go.”

Harvie agrees “It seems a bit cheeky from our perspective to crowdfund a record. If you want to make a record, go and make a record and then sell it to me”. That said, both are quick to acknowledge that it can be a useful way for those starting out to get a project off the ground in this way.

Currie and Harvie have both had their own projects in the years between the pause button being pressed on Del Amitri and the 2014 and current tours. Currie has been making solo records for more than ten years, with his fourth album ‘This Is My Kingdom Now’ released last year.

Harvie’s most public-facing work was a project called ‘Aliens’ that he explains was done with a neighbour. However, what many people may be unaware of is that the majority of his time has been - and is being - spent on scored music. He did a masters in composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and is now in the middle of doing a three-year doctoral level composition project at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. “I think it has given me quite a lot of insight into what we did in the past,” he says before Currie interjects with “Yeah, you don’t want that, insight” and laughs.

I’m keen to understand how they know when a song, or a riff, or just the seed of an idea is for Del Amitri or for something else. “Recently I went away on a wee writing trip on my own with a sort of Del Amitri head on, rather than a Justin Currie solo head on and it’s definitely really different,” says Currie “If you put yourself in the headspace of writing for a specific thing you will write different things. It’s quite odd.”

Harvie goes back to the idea of an identity that has been created. “It’s quite a coherent body of work and that’s kind of how people recognise the identity,” he says. “There is something in there that you can tune back into and refocus. We were probably doing it sort of subconsciously at the time.” Currie agrees, saying “We did try and do something different on every record but, as Iain’s saying, there was a sort of cultural expectation or framework around the band that we probably didn’t go outside of.”

With the tour fast approaching, I ask how they choose a set list from the substantial Del Amitri back catalogue. “It was kind of easy last time because the concept was ‘The A-Z of Us’, so we knew we were going to do at least something from the Chrysalis album and try to cover all bases. We don’t really have a concept this time.” Currie confesses.

“You can’t really get away with leaving certain things out,” Harvie acknowledges. ”And from our perspective, you might think ‘well nobody wants to hear that again’, but that’s not really the case. But that’s going back to that identity thing. Would it be Del Amitri if you didn’t do ‘Kiss This Thing Goodbye’ or ‘Always The Last To Know’ or ‘Roll To Me’ or ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ or ‘Be My Downfall’?”

There’s a bit of nervous laughter as they realise just how close the tour is and that the set list will soon have to be confirmed. “We’re feeling our way into how we make it different from 2014, but it is essentially still the same thing because we’re not selling a new record,” confirms Currie.

“There’s a few wacky ideas going around, but we can’t share them with you yet,” says Harvie, despite my best efforts to get some more detail. “Actually it did cross my mind that we could cover the new Abba song that nobody’s heard yet.” From the raucous laughter that follows his comment, I gather that an Abba medley is off the list.

There are many fans who will be hoping to hear some of their less well-known album tracks and b-sides on this tour. However, Currie is quick to note that they have a varied audience - many people may be coming to see them because they’ve got the greatest hits album or because they saw them once years ago and just fancy seeing them again. “You’ve just got to be aware that you don’t want to be being too specialist,” he says. “Commercial success creates expectations and you need to be really smart to subvert them and get away with it.” Both agree that a venue like Edinburgh Castle would not be the place to try to do that, although there is a hint that the Barrowlands dates may provide the opportunity to do something a bit different.

Despite their achievements, Del Amitri have always maintained they were “never hip”. I’m interested to know if that has helped them to return to the stage. “If you’re never relevant, you can’t suddenly become irrelevant! Yeah, I think that’s absolutely true” Currie agrees. “And also, if you’re not selling yourself on some sort of cutting edge hip thing then age is slightly kinder on you as well, to a certain extent.”

“It sounds an odd thing to say but we did want to make timeless rock and roll,” says Harvie. “What a dreadful cliché, but we were very much in that idiom where it was two guitars, bass and drums. It was a totally classic format. We were deliberately trying to be not of the time. We didn’t perceive it necessarily as being retro or being timeless...I wish I hadn’t used that word, but I think it’s probably the right word.”

Staying true to this format has meant that the band has had to stick to their guns over the years, particularly during the making of ‘Waking Hours’ when there was pressure to go against their ethos and use lots of shiny new production techniques. “It was quite a brave thing to do at the time,” Harvie says. “It does put us in a position now where we can do exactly the same thing and it still sounds right, which isn’t the case if you’d got into that whole 80s production thing.”

While the band has been away there has been plenty of Del Amitri related activity - organised, mostly, by the fanbase. The ‘Pasted Beyond Recognition’ Del Amitri covers album and concert raised thousands of pounds for Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Scotland. Harvie notes that he really enjoyed the concert and “found the whole thing quite touching.”

There is also the forthcoming book ‘These Are Such Perfect Days: The Del Amitri Story’ by Charles Rawlings-Way. “We gave him as many contacts as we could and then electronically introduced him to people that would be relevant, to be part of the story,” says Currie. “I’m really chuffed that he’s done it and it feels like all that information is of no great import and the story is of no great import, but at least it’s all in one place and, having read it, it’s all true”.

“It’s interesting in that he started off with a specific thesis about the band that he thought would make a good book but in the process of talking to everybody that thesis sort of reversed” Currie continues. “I like that. I like that we confounded him.”

Currie also notes that, coincidentally, the ‘Rip It Up’ exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh is also opening on the 22nd June and some Del Amitri memorabilia will feature, including a tartan guitar. “We don’t have a record and we’ve never intended on having a record, but there’s other things happening so it makes you feel like there’s a reason to be doing everything this year,” he says.

To conclude our conversation before the coffee runs dry and the biscuits are just crumbs, I ask the question that I know they will be dreading: what does the future hold for Del Amitri? “We’re trying to write new songs and we’ll see where that goes,” Currie confirms. “I don’t think we ever thought we made a killer album. There was always something slightly wrong with every album, in some cases more than others. There were better songs on albums that didn’t sound as good as other albums that had worse songs on them and that kind of thing. So there’s an opportunity there to try and rectify that, but if we didn’t feel like we were getting close to rectifying that I don’t think we would put anything out.”

“We’ve never had to do anything in a world where people don’t actually buy music!” Harvie exclaims. “But that’s quite interesting because it changes things. In 2002 the change [in the music industry] was perceived as being brutal and negative, but I don’t know if it necessarily has been in the long run. In a sense, we’re kind of feeling our way back into that and seeing if we might be able to do something useful.”

The music industry has changed. The way people consume music has changed. The concept of an album has changed - Harvie calls it a “romantic idea” and “slightly ludicrous” in the current climate. So what does the future hold for Del Amitri beyond the tour? “We’re going to reinvent the music business in our own image in an effort to preserve the identity of Del Amitri,” says Harvie with a playful smile.

A lot may have changed since the band took their extended break, but talking with them today the enthusiasm for playing their music obviously remains and the excitement for the forthcoming tour is clear. Whatever the future may hold, for the time being, Del Amitri are a band very much focussed on the here and now.

(Words: Rhiannon Law)

Del Amitri 2018 UK tour dates

July 20 - Newcastle City Hall July 21 - Edinburgh Castle July 22 - Manchester Apollo July 23 - Birmingham Symphony Hall July 25 - Nottingham Royal Concert Hall July 26 - London Hammersmith Apollo July 28 - Glasgow Barrowlands July 29 - Glasgow Barrowlands

#delamitri #justincurrie #iainharvie #interview

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pujameditationadvice · 4 years

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Abraham Hicks Processes Can Help You Beat Post Enlightenment Blues

You're on a way of profound or possibly exclusively self-improvement and everything is going extraordinary. Everything feels perfectly. Truth be told, all the perusing and work that you have done as yet feels like it had a reason. Those awful encounters (connections, work, money related) don't feel so off-base at this moment; they are never again a wellspring of uneasiness or lament. Rather they all appear to have a more profound reason. They were provokes placed in the manner to get you to this very point. All the positive vitality ascends in your body and nearly floods. You are so glad to be here, in your body, in this spot, directly right now. So what has the way coming up for you now? Reality. Which is a test we all need to confront when falling off an edification buzz. You arrive at this astounding point, regardless of whether it is finding a rousing book, a stunning training program, another and energizing master or basically an extremely keen assertion. 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Day by day challenges sneak up and chomp you in the butt and you feel a little sold out by your book/course/master/confirmation. In the event that it worked appropriately in any case, you wouldn't have these issues would you? In the course of recent months I've been understanding increasingly more about the Law of Attraction and a couple of other inspiration centered creators and courses. Unexpectedly, I have had the option to push through my post-illumination blues and keep inspired about my development path...despite every day challenges. A major piece of this has been that I am undeniably increasingly reasonable and tolerating that these easily overlooked details will happen. Something else that has helped is that I am brisk to recognize when day by day challenges are getting to me and remove myself from the circumstance. As opposed to begin falling again into negative standards of conduct, which was my old MO. The purpose of this article isn't to flaunt my new incredible personal conduct standards (despite the fact that I am glad for them).I needed to impart to you a portion of the activities I used to assist me with pushing through my post-illumination blues. These activities originate from two unique creators Dan Millman and Abraham-Hicks. I'm going to give you the activities in full, yet I would prescribe investigating either creator on the off chance that you have time. I've heard extraordinary things about Dan Millman's first book 'Method for the Peaceful Warrior' however I've just perused his second book 'No Ordinary Moments' which is the place a one of these activities is adjusted from. I would suggest anything by Abraham-Hicks, particularly chronicles of their voyaging 'Specialty of Allowing' workshops. I've utilized two or three activities from their book 'Ask and It Is Given'. Issues and Lessons of Daily Life Think about the entirety of your exercises yesterday, regardless of whether it is work/profession, funds, connections, training or wellbeing related. Make a short rundown of anything that you felt tested you. Which of these things tested you the most? In a couple of sentences, either composed or spoken out loud, state what you learned or a quality you picked up from the test. Envision the episode happening once more. Keep in your mind the positive proclamations that you made about the test. Envision now, re-moving toward the episode seeing it as a positive learning experience. Be appreciative for the episode. Consider how you would have managed the episode in an unexpected way. Re-play the episode in your brain with this new approach Wouldn't it be decent procedure This is an extremely basic Abraham-Hicks process yet it is extremely successful. Consider whatever made you feel negative, or caused you uneasiness from yesterday Presently, think about the how you would have loved the circumstance to occur. For instance, in the event that you ended up losing your temper with a friend or family member since you felt surged. Presently, state to yourself 'Wouldn't it be pleasant if..." (utilizing the model) I hadn't had felt quiet and focused yesterday, or that I had incredible relational abilities and I had the option to be straightforward with individuals I cherished when I expected to concentrate on me, or in the event that I got up an hour sooner than expected so I my day would feel less surged. Whatever the distress is, you can apply this extraordinary little exercise to it. Portion Intending Process This is once more, a straightforward exercise from Abraham-Hicks, however it is best to utilize this instrument as a standard piece of your day, which might be troublesome from the outset. I would suggest that you utilize a notebook from the outset to compose your goals for each new fragment Abraham Hicks Morning meditation.The rule is that you set forward your wants, or expectations for each unique segment of your day. This is fundamental since you have altogether different wants in regards to your preparing to get down to business part of your day and a troublesome phone discussion you have arranged with your sister. I will give you a model:At the point when you first wake up, you lie in bed for a couple of seconds and picture how the time you spend preparing to get down to business (or drop the children off, whatever your conditions) would in a perfect world happen. This could be with an attention on quiet tranquility, productivity, correspondence with your family, responsibility to your activity normal, whatever. The fact of the matter is to envision precisely how you need the morning to period to go.The following stage is state so anyone can hear the aims for your morning. For instance, I will discuss viably with my kids, giving them an opportunity to express their needs and wants and displaying persistence. At the point when you are first beginning to do this I would recommend really recording your aim as it gives you a more grounded reckless behind it (you feel it more)Sit for a minute and truly feel your aims. Realize that your correspondence will be fabulous toward the beginning of today. You don't have to attempt to control others in light of the fact that your responses will make the circumstance you need. Take a full breath and let it out. This portion of your day will go incredible!

#Abraham #Hicks #Morning #meditation

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allianceinternational-blog · 5 years

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Food Industry Recruitment Agencies - What You Need To Comprehend About Recruitment Agencies

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pianotiles · 4 years

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Mark Galli describes himself as an evangelical Catholic.

Evangelicalism in America is nearing extinction due to the movement’s devotion to politics at the expense of its original calling to share the gospel, according to Mark Galli, former editor-in-chief of Christianity Today.

“The evangelicalism that transformed the world is, for all practical purposes, dying if not already dead,” Galli said during the “Conversations that Matter” webinar hosted by Baptist News Global Oct. 8. He spoke with BNG Executive Director and Publisher Mark Wingfield in an hour-long webinar that is available for viewing on BNG’s YouTube channel.

Mark Galli describes himself as an evangelical Catholic.

The over-identification with politics isn’t just an issue with white conservative evangelicals, he added. “Evangelicals on the left and the right … find it harder and harder to imagine that an evangelical from another party can be a real Christian.”

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Now semi-retired, Galli served 20 years at Christianity Today and is the author of a new book, When Did We Start Forgetting God: The Root of the Evangelical Crisis and Hope for the Future.

While he has identified at times as Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Anglican and recently becoming Roman Catholic, Galli said he has remained true to his evangelical upbringing that emphasized evangelism and spiritual renewal.

“I am an evangelical Catholic,” he said.

Galli spoke on an array of other topics including the culture war divisions between Americans, the polities that divide churches, and how dialogue may help pastors and others hurdle those barriers.

That editorial

But he hit on a very high-profile topic, too: his December 2019 Christianity Today editorial describing President Donald Trump as morally unfit to hold office and arguing for his removal. It was published during the Congressional impeachment hearings.

“He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud,” Galli wrote. “His Twitter feed alone — with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies and slanders — is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”

The piece generated severe backlash from the right, including from the president himself. The viciousness of responses often was hard to bear, Galli said.

The one possible thing he would redo, he said, is the headline — “Trump Should Be Removed from Office” — that placed the emphasis on politics, when it was faith that motivated his position, Galli explained. “I was making moral arguments to fellow evangelicals. But it sounded like a political comment.”

The editorial was not, as some claimed, an effort to back Trump’s opponent in the 2020 election. It’s just that Trump has “such deeply flawed moral character” that he needs to leave office, Galli said.

Trump has “such deeply flawed moral character” that he needs to leave office.

He has no quarrel with conservative evangelicals who acknowledge Trump’s flaws but still vote for him because he lines up on issues important to them, Galli said.

There were certainly plenty of those in 2016, according to a pre-election Pew survey that Christianity Today published titled, “Most Evangelicals Will Vote Trump, But Not for Trump.”

Rather than citing issues like abortion, religious freedom and support for Israel as rationale for voting Trump, white evangelicals were much more concerned about the economy four years ago, Galli recalled. “I get it. I disagree with their choice, but I respect their wrestling.”

On the other hand, he said he does not understand those evangelicals who refuse to criticize Trump on moral grounds, who believe liberals need some shaking up and describe the president in messianic terms.

He recalled an anecdote about a pro-Trump Christian describing the president as sitting “at the right hand of the Father” and said of this ideology: “That’s idolatry, clearly and simply.”

Demise of evangelicalism

To explain the demise of evangelicalism, Galli cited the legacy of Billy Graham, who even in advanced age preached to invite men and women of all races and cultures to Christ. “He was the glue that held evangelicalism together for many years,” Galli said.

“An unfortunate symbol of what evangelicalism has become is epitomized by his son, Franklin,” he continued. “Franklin stands for evangelicals on both the right and the left who believe that politics is an essential work of evangelical faith.”

“Franklin (Graham) stands for evangelicals on both the right and the left who believe that politics is an essential work of evangelical faith.”

One symbol of that politicization is an organization called Evangelicals for Trump.

“In describing themselves in that way, they have become just another political interest group, taking the great name ‘evangelical,’ with all its theological and doctrinal and gospel history and meaning and putting it in the service of a political candidate,” Galli asserted.

And from his vantage point, the news is no better from the evangelical left.

“What’s really troubling to me is that instead of decrying this coopting of the term ‘evangelical’ for political gain, the evangelical left has only mirrored this tragic move when they recently formed a group called Evangelicals for Joe Biden.”

Evangelical groups that focus almost solely on social justice and cultural change, instead of sharing the gospel, are contributing to the decline, too, he said.

“As a result, we’ve started to let the agenda of the world determine the agenda of the church, and we’ve sidelined evangelism and church renewal as the result.”

Galli said he noticed this trend during the hiring process at Christianity Today beginning in the 1990s. Candidates overwhelmingly were interested in cultural analysis, and perhaps one in 10 story ideas pitched was about evangelistic outreach.

For the most part, he added, the lack of interest in that founding mission of faith sharing exists across the board.

“I am going to go so far as to say that our fascination with social amelioration, and political activism, has watered down the evangelical faith to the point that it looks little different than mainline Christianity,” he said.

“We’ve forgotten that the genius of evangelical faith was its singular focus: spiritual renewal. ‘You must be born again’ was preached to individuals and to whole churches and denominations, from George Whitefield, John Wesley, to Charles Finney, to Dwight Moody to Billy Graham. It was preached in the First and Second Great Awakenings, it was preached by the circuit riders, and at local Baptist revivals every year or many times a year.”

Yet, that message is not being preached much nowadays, and there will be consequences, he said. “Evangelicals today no longer have a laser focus on evangelism and spiritual renewal. As a result, I believe they will fade away as will the very term.”

Who will the Lord raise up?

But Galli predicted the mission of evangelism will continue, possibly under a different name.

“In every generation, the Lord raises up some Christians to whom he gives the charism of evangelism and spiritual renewal. What they will be called in the future, I don’t know.”

Citing the tradition of various orders within Roman Catholicism — Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits and so forth — he suggested one way to reclaim evangelicalism is for those called to evangelism to rise up as a holy order across the church universal.

With some portion of the church focused on evangelism, then Christians can be involved in the public square, love their neighbors and work for social and political justice, he added. “Christians should not run away from culture but dash right into the middle of it and do whatever it takes to show forth the righteousness of God.”

Friendship amid differences

Galli explained that he’s developed these insights partly in becoming Catholic, which has provided a different vantage point from which to view evangelicalism and the wider church.

Regarding Christian unity, he said: “I don’t know if there is a reason for us to be apart, but it’s hard to get together because no one is willing to give up anything. For example, talking to a Methodist and a Presbyterian reveals little difference, “but Methodists don’t want to give up their bishops and Presbyterians don’t want to submit to bishops.”

Divisions within congregations, especially politically driven ones, must be addressed delicately, Galli said, suggesting pastors preach on the Bible from the pulpit and speak with parishioners aside from their sermons about politics.

But he acknowledged that even the Bible has been politicized in the current climate.

“Unfortunately, everything is perceived as political,” he said. “We just have to remind ourselves there are more important things than politics.”

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teeky185 · 4 years

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Author’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series.To answer the question posed in last Tuesday’s column, Yes, Kevin Clinesmith did plead guilty Wednesday. Sort of.Well, maybe it was a smidge better than “sort of.” After all, it did happen in a federal-district-court proceeding (via videoconference) on Wednesday. And Judge James Boasberg did accept the plea after eliciting it in accordance with settled criminal-law rules. Sentencing is scheduled for December 10. So it’s official.But I’m sticking with “sort of.” If Clinesmith’s guilty plea is legally adequate, it is barely so. And neither a judge nor a prosecutor is required to accept an allocution sliced so fine. In “admitting” guilt, Clinesmith ended up taking the position that I hoped the judge, and especially the Justice Department, would not abide, in essence: Okay, maybe I committed the crime of making a false statement, but to be clear, I thought the statement was true when I made it, and I certainly never intended to deceive anyone.Huh?I don’t mean to make you dizzy, but in my view, Clinesmith is lying about lying. His strategy is worth close study because it encapsulates the mendaciousness and malevolence of both “Crossfire Hurricane” (the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation) and the “collusion” never-enders who continue to defend it. A defendant’s lying about lying does not necessarily make a false-statement guilty plea infirm as a matter of law. The bar is not high. Still, his story is ridiculous, in a way that is easy to grasp once it’s placed in context.So let’s place it in context.‘Page Is a Russian Spy’ — the FBI Plants Its Feet on a Fantasy Our point of reference is spring 2017.While indignantly denying news stories portraying him as a clandestine agent of Russian, Carter Page asserts that, actually, he’s been an informant for a U.S. intelligence agency. FBI officials should know that Page is telling the truth. They have already heard the same thing from the CIA and from Page himself.The CIA told the bureau ten months earlier, in a memo dated August 17, 2016 (i.e., two months before the FBI sought the first FISA warrant against Page). Page had been a CIA source who provided information about Russians. Page told the bureau about at least some of this work during voluntary interviews in 2009 and 2013, during the period when the CIA had authorized Page for “operational contact” with Russians. The FBI, meanwhile, actually used information from Page in a prosecution of Russian spies. (See my 2018 column, discussing of United States v. Buryakov.)And it’s not as if the CIA’s acknowledgment of Page’s informant status was the only exculpatory fact the FBI knew. Not by a long shot. Page was pleading with the FBI director to sit down with the bureau and explain himself, as he had done on other occasions over the years. More to the point, in August 2016 (again, two months before the first FISA warrant to permit spying on Page), Page had credibly insisted to a covert FBI informant, Stefan Halper, that key allegations about Page (derived from the bogus Steele dosser) were false: Page did not even know Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, let alone act as Manafort’s intermediary in a Trump–Russia espionage conspiracy; and Page had not recently met in Moscow with Putin-regime heavyweights Igor Sechin and Igor Divyekin.Thus, (a) Page had not done the very things that led the FBI to accuse him of being an active anti-American spy, and (b) Page’s prior contacts with Russians, on which the bureau further rationalized its overwrought suspicions, overlapped with Page’s years as a CIA operative. Weeks before the FBI and the Obama Justice Department first applied for a FISA warrant on the theory that Page was a spy for the Kremlin, the FBI team conducting the investigation had information showing the theory was untenable.Yet the bureau chose to plant its feet on the daft theory anyway. Apologists for the bureau and the Obama administration would now have you believe that this is because a single one of the FBI’s crack counterintelligence agents, Stephen Somma, dropped the ball -- that he alone knew Page was a CIA informant, but held out on his chain-of-command. Really? If they dropped as many balls in Times Square as Somma did -- purportedly without anyone noticing, in one the most significant investigations in the FBI’s history -- we’d have New Year’s once a week.The fact is, top officials were drinking the “Donald Trump must be colluding with Russia” Kool-Aid, so the story was too good to check. And once the farcical Steele dossier grabbed the investigators’ attention in late summer 2016, the bureau was off to the races, framing Page as a key cog in the Trump campaign’s “conspiracy of cooperation” with the Kremlin.But that was autumn 2016. Now, remember, we’re in late spring of 2017. At this point, the FBI has been monitoring Page for over eight months. The Page-is-a-Russian-spy theory is in tatters. The surveillance turns up nothing. Halper has nothing. Steele’s dossier, a shoddy product on its face, is now a hot, steaming mess. Not only is it uncorroborated and unverifiable; Steele himself is dismissing it as “raw” information that needed to be investigated, and his “primary subsource,” Igor Danchenko, has discredited it as fiction and rumormongering.But alas, the FBI is dug in. This was not just office banter. The bureau had taken the claim that Page was a spy to court. It was the linchpin of the hypothesis that the Trump campaign was a Kremlin influence operation. This theory, bereft of supporting evidence and resistant to exculpatory evidence, had the imprimatur of FBI headquarters. By June 2017, in conjunction with the Justice Department, the FBI had made this claim under oath to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), three times: a first application in October 2016, and renewal applications in January and April 2017. Each time, based on the FBI’s representations, the FISC issued a 90-day surveillance warrant against Page.Disclosure Would Mean Epic Humiliation The warrant issued by the FISC on April 7 was due to expire in early July. By mid June, then, the bureau was well into its preparations to submit yet another renewal application.This is the salient time frame for Clinesmith’s case. His defense counsel and apologists would have you look at it as a snapshot. But it wasn’t just a moment in time. It was a moment shaped by the preceding ten months, since the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation (i.e., the Trump-Russia probe) was formally opened on July 31, 2016.By June 2017, it would have occasioned epic humiliation for the FBI to admit that it had on three occasions made false assertions under oath in order to persuade federal judges to issue classified surveillance warrants against an American citizen. Not just humiliation. FBI leadership had publicized the existence of the Trump–Russia probe, consciously promoting the media-Democratic political narrative that the president was beholden to the Kremlin. An admission that court warrants had been sought on false premises would have led to certain administrative discipline and potential criminal inquiries.This was not at the back of the bureau’s mind. It was front and center. Just read the FISA warrants. Read the in-the-interest-of-full-disclosure footnotes massaged into gibberish as the case was collapsing. And bear in mind: These laborious rationalizations did not come close to revealing the mounds of exculpatory information that the FBI was withholding.To hear FBI and Justice Department officials tell it, the FISA process is so well designed and diligently executed that, at all times, they are profoundly aware of their heightened duty of candor, of their obligations to submit only verified warrant applications. Of their duty to alert the FISC promptly if they discover that something they’ve represented to the court is inaccurate. They know, they tell us, about the imperative to be transparent regarding exculpatory information. And even if officials were ever to lose sight of these weighty responsibilities, even for a moment, we’re to take comfort that their recollection would quickly be refreshed by the multiple, high-level FBI and DOJ approvals the FISA statute mandates. These have spawned an infrastructure of lawyers, analysts, and verification procedures to ensure that the bosses don’t embarrass themselves by signing off on FISA warrant applications that are fraudulent, or at least recklessly irresponsible.That’s how it’s supposed to work . . . on the drawing board.Down here on Planet Earth, though, in all of government’s sprawl, there is no institution more self-conscious about its image, more energetic in promoting its pristine reputation, than the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And thus there is none more resistant to damaging disclosures.At the bureau, officials are keenly aware that, when a misrepresentation is discovered, it is often just the visible part of what, on inspection, turns out to be a train of errors, oversights, poor judgments, and, occasionally, misconduct. The disclosure of a single glaring inaccuracy elucidates that investigators, analysts, or lawyers -- or all of them -- were aware of information that should have set off alarm bells, yet they all turned a deaf ear. Alarm bells, after all, signal underlying misfeasance . . . and sometimes malfeasance. If a judge gets spun up by one embarrassing disclosure, it can soon become two . . . then four . . . And then, next thing you know, a case is unraveling as a scandal unfolds.Clinesmith’s Motives Mirror His Superiors’ MotivesIn June 2017, on the thin line between business as usual and epic embarrassment, stood Kevin Clinesmith.He was then a 30-something assistant general counsel in the bureau’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch. It is part of the FBI’s Office of General Counsel (OGC), then led by James Baker.Among the branch’s responsibilities, it reviews FISA warrant applications. The Carter Page applications, however, were handled in an unusual way. Details of the applications were scrutinized at the highest levels of the FBI and the Justice Department, to the point that the National Security branch’s once-over became superfluous.For example, Trisha Anderson, the OGC’s former deputy general counsel, told the House Intelligence Committee in 2018 testimony that, though she normally reviewed FISA warrant applications before they went to the upper ranks for statutorily required sign-offs, she did not do that with the October 2016 Page application. By the time it landed on her desk, it had already been reviewed “line by line” by such superiors as the FBI’s then–deputy director Andrew McCabe, as well as by then–deputy attorney general Sally Yates at Main Justice. It had even been perused by Anderson’s OGC superior, General Counsel Baker. Baker conceded to the committee that it was unusual for him to review a FISA warrant application, particularly at an early stage, as he did with the Page application.In the chain of command, Clinesmith ranked a few notches lower than Anderson: He reported to the National Security branch chief, who reported to Anderson, after which the chain ascended to Baker, McCabe, and ultimately Director James Comey. That is, Clinesmith was a junior officer -- support personnel. The decision to represent to the FISC that Page was a Russian spy had been made way above his pay grade. The bosses were so invested in it, they were relying on it to investigate the sitting president of the United States. And just a few weeks earlier, when the president fired Comey in May 2017, a special counsel had been appointed to take over the investigation. The Mueller team’s mandate from the deputy attorney general was to get to the bottom of links between the Russian regime and former Trump-campaign advisers, such as Page.This was not a train Clinesmith could have started or stopped on his own. Nevertheless, he was all in.We learn from the Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s FISA abuse that, from the very beginning, Clinesmith was in on OGC deliberations about seeking FISA surveillance of Page. Even before September 2016, when he first learned about Steele’s reporting, he told the IG he believed that there was a “50/50” chance of establishing probable cause that Page was a clandestine agent for Russia. For that assessment, he relied on “Page’s historical contacts with Russian intelligence officers.” At that point, he says he did not know that the CIA had told the FBI that Page was a CIA informant when these contacts took place. So, when the first FISA warrant was sought in October 2016 (and the second in January, and the third in April), he agreed that the probable-cause standard was easily satisfied by these contacts, weighed in combination with Steele’s (uncorroborated) claims about Page, as well as Page’s statements to Halper (as bowdlerized by the bureau).Echoing his bosses, then, Clinesmith adopted the “Page is a Russian spy” fantasy from the get-go. If subsequent developments ever called for scrutinizing the kamikaze portrayal of Page as a spy, Clinesmith was sure to be on the hook. And while the higher-ups would take most of the heat if the bureau proved to be embarrassingly wrong, it is always the underlings like Clinesmith who get hung out to dry for misinforming their superiors. That is how Washington works. Clinesmith, a Washington creature, realized this only too well.‘The Predication of Our Entire Investigation’ Is at RiskOf course, Clinesmith was not putting himself personally on the line with the FISC. That was to be the responsibility of the affiant, the FBI agent assigned to swear to the truth of the warrant application. This difference in the duties of that agent and Clinesmith, along with an obvious integrity disparity, explains the very different way they approached the matter.This affiant-agent is identified only as “SSA” in the criminal information filed against Clinesmith. (This affiant-agent is “SSA 2” in the IG report, one of several unidentified “supervisory special agents” who appear therein). Though nominally a supervising agent, the SSA operated at some remove from the rubber-meets-the-road investigating. In the bureau, the agent who signs a FISA warrant is not the supervisor of agents investigating the case; he is a headquarters “program manager.” Furthermore, the SSA was not assigned to Crossfire Hurricane until late December 2016. That is, he was not involved in the initial deliberations over whether Page was a Russian spy and whether to seek FISA surveillance on that theory.Having inherited sign-off responsibility in an ongoing surveillance that his superiors had already green-lighted, the SSA went with the flow, at least at the beginning. The IG report indicates that, in signing the first and second renewal applications (in January and April 2017), the SSA performed only a cursory review of the file. He assumed that other agents had done their work properly.It was only in June 2017, as the third renewal application was being prepared, that he became concerned. It was around that time that the SSA heard about Page’s vehement public denials that he was a Russian spy and claims that he had engaged Russians on behalf of an American intelligence service. It dawned on the SSA that he would be expected to swear, under penalty of perjury, that he believed there was probable cause to conclude that Page was a clandestine agent of Russia, working against the United States. Page’s public protestations gave him pause. They also created a potentially catastrophic problem for the bureau, which the SSA later summarized for the IG (I’d italicize -- but I’d have to italicize every word):> [If Page] was being tasked by another agency, especially if he was being tasked to engage Russians, then it would absolutely be relevant for the Court to know . . . [and] could also seriously impact the predication of our entire investigation, which focused on [Page’s] close and continuous contact with Russian/Russia-linked individuals.If Page had been a CIA operative during meetings with Russians — meetings that the FBI had sworn to the court showed Page was a traitorous spy — then the FBI would have some serious explaining to do. And if it turned out that, before applying under oath for the warrants, the FBI had been informed by the CIA that Page was a CIA operative, then the FBI would be humiliated.Bear in mind: The incumbent Democratic administration had opened an election-year investigation of its Republican opposition, and the FBI had heavily relied on bogus evidence generated by the Democratic campaign to claim that Page was a spy for Russia. With that as background, there would be only two possible explanations for the FBI’s failure to inform the court that Page was working for the CIA when the bureau had claimed he was working for the Kremlin: willful abuse of power or monstrous incompetence.End of Part 1.

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votingrightslawyers-com · 5 years

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Using Data to Protect Voting Rights in 2020 Part 1

good evening everyone thank you for welcoming me here I'm ami Gandhi and I am a voting rights attorney at Chicago lawyers Committee for civil rights I'm really lucky to be joined here tonight by a couple of my colleagues Tina and Erica and please say hello to them as well and we're a group of civil rights attorneys and advocates who have been around for almost 50 years working to advance racial equity and economic opportunity in Chicago and beyond and in our voting rights work were especially interested in helping to protect the rights of all eligible voters we get questions in person and over the phone from a huge diversity of community members and we're really here to be a resource for anyone who may encounter questions or problems in accessing the polls but we definitely recognize that historically and even today there are particularly egregious barriers facing voters of color low-income community members women and other historically disenfranchised communities who have very intentionally been excluded from the polls over time our voting systems were set up to exclude these community members and so we especially are here to be a resource and an advocate for folks who are facing barriers to having their voices heard in our democracy here are a few examples about how our organization uses data now I'd like to brag to you that we're data driven and everything we do but we definitely have our shortcomings which is part of the reason that I felt really inspired to join you all tonight and to learn from you whether it's in today's conversation or beyond that and I want to thank ahac night board member Coulson AM AG for inviting me here and if any of you know her she's an example of a phenomenal advocate who uses data and stories in her own work to empower communities and and that's a lot of the kind of model that were inspired by and that we try to embody as much as possible we work with the race equity lens and we use data to identify inequities in our current system to try to craft solutions together hopefully with experts like you all to try to dismantle the inequities in our system and we're using data all day long on Election Day which is really the exciting time of our work and the time when our voting rights work is more active and I'm not just talking about presidential elections every four years but every single election that matters to community members in Chicago so beyond 2016 and 2020 but everything in between as well we talked to voters who experienced difficulties in all different parts of the voting process from before they even know whether they're eligible to vote until they enter the polling place are working with an election judge or poll worker to understand more about how they can exercise their rights we talked to voters who receive incorrect or or incomplete ballots or who face intimidation at the polls language barriers for new citizens the whole range of different kinds of voting experiences that we hear about a lot of the voting questions and problems that we hear about may sound boring or innocuous or kind of like a bureaucratic hiccup if you hear about it in isolation but when we consider the fact that there are some community members who and and some communities particularly communities of color who experience barriers and all the different parts of the small on their own parts of the voting experience but in aggregate it can be the difference between whether someone wants to bother going to vote or not whether someone wants to bother getting registered or not because there are millions of people in Illinois who are eligible to vote but not yet registered and these kind of barriers that again might sound harmless and isolation can make the difference between whether a community gets a voice or not in our democracy I felt like they didn't want me to vote I saw the number posted on the wall in the polling place the 866 our vote and I called I was able to talk to a lawyer for help [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so if you remember anything about today's presentation please remember that in any election you can call us at 86 6-hour vote 866 oh you are vo te and we have other language lines as well for people who speak languages other than English and also remember that we're a nonprofit nonpartisan organization very invested in answering any questions that people may have every election we hear from thousands of voters and we use the data to inform our work year-round and it linked in the materials for today's event is a website election protection Illinois org that we would love for you to check out pick apart tell us your reactions to and help us think of ways to advance that kind of data visualization going forward you can see a little bit of a glimpse of it here and on this site we have maps and numbers and excerpts of stories that came from voters that detail the kind of problems that voters experienced on Election Day in 2016 in particular and we're really grateful to a pro bono design firm moment design who created this site for us and who helped us mind the data so that hopefully our work between elections could be more driven by real-life experiences of community members looking at data like race and what are the experiences of voters from different racial communities when they're going to vote sometimes for the first time you heard from a community member to wanta and the video who called us when she was experiencing a problem at the polls so Towanda called us from the south suburbs of Chicago and she was improperly asked for ID at the polls even though she knew her she had an idea that she thought she knew her right in Illinois she thought that in Illinois if you're already registered we shouldn't need to show a photo ID in order to vote and the person who was working at the polls kept pushing back on her and saying no I insist that you do show me a voter ID when she tried to push back and assert her rights and even got us on the phone and had had one of our attorney colleagues on speakerphone she experienced even more hostility from the person working at the polls even after she was able to successfully vote the poll worker followed her out of the voting room and really intimidated her unfortunately now she felt like she was able to successfully assert her rights and vote that day and she was really concerned about other people of color color other black voters as well as senior voters who were probably turned away altogether in that polling place because of the poll workers either not knowing the rules or not wanting to respect people's rights appropriately and in many instances in Illinois and Chicago we are able to successfully advocate to election authorities to help people overcome these kind of barriers we're lucky to be in an environment where many of the local election officials here are trying to do the right thing but they're not they don't have eyes and ears everywhere on Election Day and they're looking to civic organizations like ours and poll Watchers like the ones who volunteer with us to report back about an advocate about barriers that are happening and we can best be equipped to try to address those issues that come up in the field not only in Chicago but all over this metropolitan area if we're hopefully effectively using data and stories to drive our work for the next election and this site is beautiful but it's been sitting here with the 2016 data and has not been updated in years and we've had really important elections that have affected people's everyday lives in 2017 and 2018 and 2019 and we really want to be able to do a better job going forward with opening up the vaults of our information and being transparent with our community here about the experiences people have at the polls and hopefully to work together to try to address those problems that occur so one of the ways that we tried to use the information to map out our election day strategy and our voting rights advocacy strategy more broadly is to look at information about community members in the criminal justice system who have been unfairly disenfranchised in Illinois on paper our laws say that we have the right to vote if we're in pretrial detention for example if we're in Cook County Jail and we can't afford to pay bail we haven't had a trial yet we've been accused of a crime but haven't been convicted of anything we technically still have the right to vote can people in Cook County Jail effectively exercise the right to vote oftentimes not we're you know we were trying to change the laws in that regard and and there's some hope on the horizon but right now there are also barriers for people with the past criminal record who have served a sentence who again in Illinois according to our laws we should be able to vote again after that point if we have a past criminal record but the real life situation is that many people either get misinformation about what their voting rights are in that situation or they are not familiar with how to reclaim their voting rights and so these are the kinds of issues that we look at when we're mapping out what kind of work should we do next at a systemic level actually and on this note we are expecting a bill to be signed into law this week itself that we helped write that would that's called the civics in prison bill that would help educate community members in peer-led classes in prison about how to reclaim their voting rights once there once they've returned to their communities and they're eligible to vote again but that doesn't take care of all the hiccups that can happen big and small on Election Day and so we're really interested in working with experts like you all and hearing your ideas about how can we better mine our own data to identify areas where we can anticipate problems at the polls how can we look at race income other factors of the location of community organizations who community members trust to about how we and and other people like us can be more effective in protecting voting rights and we try to use this sort of information to lead us to our year-round work beyond Election Day in filing litigation and advocating to government agencies in trying to get new laws passed and working with community members there have been a couple instances when we have been able to effectively use data and stories to change the laws and to expand protections for voting rights in Illinois election day registration and automatic voter registration are a couple examples of that that I won't talk about at length today but I'm happy to answer any questions that you all might have those are programs that thankfully advocates were able to come together and get those laws passed in Illinois as you can imagine getting laws implemented in a real-life sense can sometimes be another story but we're trying to get there we have also on the event information for today another link was shared about a report and analysis that we did in 2015 called the color of representation and we tried to look beyond just what's happening on Election Day and what are the larger structural issues that prevent communities particularly communities of color from being able to elect the candidates of our choice whether it's district lines that fragment our communities because they're drawn for partisan motive or in some suburbs and we're especially concerned about some of the south suburbs in our area that have a rapidly rising population of people of color but whose leadership structure really hasn't changed a whole lot in the in the last decades and who still have a disproportionately white male lead municipal governments even though the demographics of the people who live in our communities has changed a whole lot and so we map out in this color of representation report some of the places we've identified that have such severe under representation that it's really like ripe for a lawsuit it's really ripe for a legal challenge or for community members rising up and challenging the status quo we actually identified over 30 locations in Illinois 30 locations outside Chicago that again are prime targets for communities who are interested taking the advocacy to the next level holding the local government officials accountable hopefully working with attorneys experts demographers and others to come together to try to challenge the system Illinois law doesn't make it very easy to dismantle these sorts of systems and we're learning that and we've been doing a deep dive into the election code and municipal code and looking at ways to try to challenge these systems we could definitely benefit from a more careful look and a better understanding from experts in data about voter registration voter turnout and voting patterns more generally at a very specific local level so ideally even at the census block level although I understand that that's not something we'll be able to discern all the time but as as specific as data of data as possible can be used to show whether something called racially polarized voting is happening in a way that suppresses people of color from being able to elect the candidates of their choice and because of all the disenfranchisement in our country we're lucky that through litigation and through court cases we have a road map of factors that courts have laid out to say this is what a social scientist or a data expert is going to have to prove to successfully change a voting system so that the district lines have to be redrawn for example so that the ward lines or the state rep lines or the county commissioner lines or the village district lines have to be redrawn in order for the voting rights of communities of color to be appropriately respected just as an example in the 2011 redistricting many advocates from many different communities of color and many civic organizations had a huge public outcry about how the neighborhood of chinatown in Chicago was fragmented unfairly by the district the house Illinois House District binds at that time and through what I would say was a lot of solidarity and important analysis of different advocates coming together to challenge the status quo and I was really grateful to be involved with that fight in Springfield in Chicago we actually were able to successfully convince the powers-that-be the map jars to redraw the lines to keep Chinatown whole so that that community could have some shot at choosing their own fate for who their elected official was in the future and that led to the election of the first Asian American member of the Illinois General Assembly we also are interested in data experts not just confirming our own suspicions but maybe bringing insights to light that we hadn't thought of yet that we we hadn't heard about yet at the community level as far as how voters might be facing challenge or vote dilution and I'd love to hear any questions that you have thank you for your time I have two questions one is you you mentioned earlier about educating incarcerated individuals have y'all ever thought about educating like high school students putting a lot of effort and focus on high school students and get them to learn more about civics before it gets to that point that's the first question and the second question is or y'all work just to 2020 census is coming up and it's a lot of big arguments about the whether lines are gonna be drawn and especially in the southern suburbs and on the south side and I was just wondering if you were working with the maybe the Cook County Commissioner

https://youtu.be/O78jCdLCHsg

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