#and they seem to totally buy into sully’s system

[chaos-with-wings]

Ngl I expected the Pens to lose today because it’s the second half of a back to back, it’s an afternoon game, those cursed jerseys, and they struggle against the Bruins but I was pleasantly surprised that Jarry got a shutout?? And apparently it was one of the best defensive efforts the team has done this year. Somehow this always happens whenever I don’t watch/follow the game 😑.

#pittsburgh penguins #god I am so happy about this team #they seem to rly enjoy playing with each other #and they seem to totally buy into sully’s system #if you listen to how they talk in their presser they say very similar things that seem to echo sully

[cycwrites]

Switching Gears Part 3 - Karaoke Innuendos

Words: 4250

Rating: M (Eventually. I think.)

Also on AO3 and FFN

Tumblr Master Post

As always, thanks to @tiny-maus-boots for all the Beta’ing and support. I literally could do none of this without you.

Special thanks to @zentamaus & @isthemusictoblame for putting up with my random bouts of insecurity in the middle of the night.

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

~A~

Aubrey pushed her bike through the door to Beca’s shop, grumbling to herself.

“Chain or bell?”

The amusement in Beca’s voice was clear and Aubrey rolled her eyes. “I could just be coming to say hello.”

“True.” Beca nodded from where she was leaning against the counter in the back. “But you look pissed and it’s been over two weeks since you needed a chain – so my guess is bell.” She made a show of peering at Aubrey’s handlebars as she got close and nodded. “Looks like I’d be right.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Aubrey parked the bike beside the counter and huffed out a breath as she took off her helmet and hung it from a handle. “Fine. Bell.”

“I’m going to start ordering them in bulk at this rate.” Beca pushed herself up on the counter and pulled up her legs to swing around and land behind it. She rummaged on a shelf for a second before pulling out a new bell and setting it between them. “Or you could just… stop replacing it?”

“And let her win?” Aubrey snorted. “I don’t think so.”

“And what… exactly… would she be winning?” Beca leaned her elbow on the counter and propped her chin on her hand. “Is there a prize?”

“The war, Beca.” Aubrey shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh I understand,” Beca said as she straightened up again. “I understand you’re both insane and I haven’t even met the other woman.” Beca frowned and Aubrey returned it reflexively. “Have you even laid eyes on her since that first day?”

“No.” Aubrey dug her thin card holder from its place in her bra. “But I don’t need to. She keeps parking in my spot.”

“You’re hopeless.” Beca pushed away the debit card Aubrey tried to hand her. “And while the businesswoman in me says to take your money, your friend can’t do it anymore.” She grabbed the bell and walked around it to Aubrey’s bike. “Except the chain and lock. If you insist on throwing the nice ones away, I’m going to charge you for it.” She stripped the bell of its packaging as she walked. “I should order you some cheap pieces of crap I wouldn’t normally sully my shelves with so you can stop losing your main.”

Aubrey watched as Beca quickly affixed the bell in just the right spot. “Thanks, Beca.” She knew it was silly and probably (definitely) childish – and let’s not forget petty – but the fact that the woman kept parking in her spot triggered Aubrey in a way she couldn’t explain.

“You’ll just have to buy me an extra drink at karaoke.” Beca gave the bell a ring and winced. “I still have no idea why you like this thing.”

“My dad got me one as a kid.” Aubrey shrugged. “When I finally rode it without the training wheels, he put it on so I could warn people.” She smiled at the memory. “I may have almost run over the neighbor’s yappy dog once because I was a speed demon.”

“Alright, I can get behind nostalgia and that explains spin class.” Beca frowned as she looked around the shop. “Is Lilly even in today?” Before Aubrey could answer Beca shrugged. “Eh, I’m the owner; I can close a little early if I want to.” She looked at Aubrey. “Can you turn off the open sign and lock the door while I count down the register and lock away the moolah?”

“No one but mobsters say moolah, Beca.” Aubrey laughed as she walked toward the front of the room.

“Oh yeah? Know a lot of mobsters, do you?” Beca said as she popped open the cash drawer. “Is there a secret life of yours I don’t know about?”

“Maybe.” Aubrey turned off the sign and double checked that no one was walking up before she locked the door. Beca snorted behind her. “You don’t know. Besides, I would rock a three piece suit.” She walked back toward Beca who had paused, eyeing her.

“I was going to make a sarcastic comment but sheer honesty forces me to admit you would in fact rock a three piece suit.” Beca’s head tilted to the side. “Would that make me your driver?”

“Thank you.” Aubrey said crisply then grinned. “Probably my right hand gal.” Aubrey leaned on the counter. “Jack of all trades type.”

“I dig it.” Beca grabbed a calculator and a notepad. “You need a moll.”

“I do?” Aubrey considered. “I suppose every good mobster should a pretty woman with brains on their arm.” One brow arched. “Are you volunteering?”

“Please. I’m much better as your jack of all trades.” Beca shook her head. “I was more thinking Chloe.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes. “I should’ve seen that coming. I’ve told you, that ship has sailed.”

“Then the only other woman I’ve seen you get remotely flustered over is the enemy.” Beca began to count the money in her till. “Now shut up and don’t start saying numbers like you did last time.”

“Me?” Aubrey blinked innocently. “I would never. Also, there’s no way the bell thief could be my girl.”

“Mmhmm. Seems to me a thief would be a perfect girl for a mobster.” Beca said, writing down totals. “But whatever you say, Aubrey. I might even believe you if you didn’t get red cheeked whenever you talk about her.”

Aubrey gasped. “I do not!” She rubbed at her cheeks before she realized what she was doing. “That’s anger, Beca. Not… whatever you’re implying.”

Beca looked at Aubrey out of the corner of her eye. “You do realize that every denial you give me only makes me think I’m right and you’ve got a serious crush on your nemesis despite only seeing her the one time.”

“Then you’re clearly deluded.” Aubrey pushed off the counter and walked down one of the aisles.

“Clearly,” Beca muttered behind her. “Now stop distracting me.”

“Then stop baiting me.” Aubrey shot back.

They spent the next ten minutes in companionable silence as Beca checked her numbers twice before finally putting the money in a lockable pouch which then went in her safe.  Aubrey wheeled her bike to the front of the store and waited.

“Alright.” Beca turned off the lights. “Time to go.” She waved Aubrey out the door before setting her security system. “No peeking.”

“Like I couldn’t figure out your code if I really wanted to.” Aubrey pulled on her helmet.

Beca locked the door behind her. “Alright, let’s go channel some of that anger elsewhere and go get you hopped up on your Ladies of the 80’s.”

“I’ll have you know I also enjoy songs from the 90’s.” Aubrey swung her leg over her bike.

“That’s still nothing from this century.” Beca said, pulling on her own helmet.

“Shut up and get on the package carrier, hobbit. Or do you need me to lift you up?” Aubrey said dryly.

“You’re going to pay for that, Posen.” Beca climbed onto the back of Aubrey’s bike and gripped her waist. “Just you wait.”

“My father is military, Beca. I’ll always see you comin’.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” Beca patted her hip. “Now mush!”

“Did you just call me a bitch?” Aubrey said as she began to pedal down the sidewalk with Beca’s laughter filling the early evening air behind them.

The ride to the L&L was relatively short, only a mile and a half away from Beca’s shop. Lyrics & Libations was a karaoke bar owned by two of Beca’s friends who had, eventually, adopted Aubrey as one of their own. Beca had dragged her in the second she found out Aubrey could sing and the two of them had a standing table reservation every Friday night.

Once Aubrey had stopped her bike, Beca hopped off the back and took off her helmet. She ran her hand through her hair. “I hate these things.”

“Helmet hair is a small price to pay for keeping your brains inside your skull, Beca.” Aubrey walked over to an afterthought bike rack that had been added to the sidewalk and secured her bike to it. Though it was big enough for three bikes, Aubrey had never seen anyone else use it.

“It’s not just that. It makes my head sweaty.” Beca preceded her to the door and opened it. “Especially on warm days like today.”

“Thank you,” Aubrey said, taking off her own helmet as she walked into the L&L. Beca had a point, the cool air conditioning felt good after all the pedaling. “Hello Cynthia Rose.” She hugged the beautiful black woman lounging on the stool by the door. “Had to throw anyone out today?”

The deceptively short bouncer laughed. “Not today but the night’s still young, Aubrey!” She looked past her to Beca. “Shorty.” She held out her hand.

“CR.” Beca eyed it. “You’re not seriously trying to card us, are you?”

“Please. I know better. Even if you still look fifteen.” Cynthia Rose rolled her eyes. “Gimme five.”

“Dollars?” Beca grinned at her. “Since when did you start charging covers on non-band nights?”

“Oh.” Cynthia Rose dropped her hand. “I see. We only charge those that are trying to be a smart ass.”  She clicked her tongue. “So you’re probably going to be poor before too long.”

“Don’t push her, Beca.” Aubrey moved to stand next to Cynthia Rose. “She’ll chuck you out like she did that college guy last month.” He hadn’t believed someone as short as Cynthia Rose could subdue him physically much less toss him out on his ass. Until said ass had hit the pavement and the door had closed behind him.

“Alright alright.” Beca held up her hand. “I’m sorry.” She held up her fist. “Hit me.”

“I oughta hit you.” Cynthia Rose muttered but gave Beca a fist bump. “You guys are early tonight.”

“I didn’t feel like working till closing.” Beca shrugged. “Don’t think Lilly was in to close, so I just locked up.”

“’You don’t think’?” Cynthia Rose snorted. “What if you locked her in there?”

“She’s got a key and the code.” Beca shrugged. “Come find us on your break, we’ll buy you a shot or two.”

“Deal.” Cynthia Rose looked toward the door as it creaked behind them. “Now get your ass out of my doorway so I can greet these nice folks behind you.” She winked at Aubrey. “See you in a bit, Posen.”

“Look forward to it.” Aubrey smiled at her and pushed Beca ahead of her into the main room. “You want me to get the first round?”

Beca shook her head. “Nah, I’m going to take advantage of the round you owe me when you’re too drunk to realize I’m ordering the good stuff.” Holding out her hand, she continued. “Gimme your helmet and I’ll have the girls stow them for us.”

“Thanks, Beca.” Aubrey handed it over with a smile. Making her way to the table at the right corner of the stage, Aubrey took the seat that put her back to the wall. Shrugging off her small backpack she dug around in it until she found her brush. Taking out the hair tie holding her long hair into a loose ponytail she ran the brush through it.

“Grooming?”

Aubrey ignored Beca and continued getting out the tangles that her helmet had caused. “You know you want to use it.”

“Maybe.” Beca set down a small tray that held two glasses of water and two bottles of beer. “I’ll be back, Jess made me promise to bring the tray right back.”

Setting the brush on the table, Aubrey picked up one of the bottles. “Okay.” She took a drink. “I’ll be here.” She waited until Beca had turned around and started back toward the bar. “Drinking your beer.”

“Woman…” Beca threatened. “Don’t you dare.”

“Better hurry.” Aubrey settled back in her seat with a grin, already trying to decide what they were going to sing tonight. She eyed the room, nodding at some regulars.

“Your turn.” Beca said, dropping into the seat to her left. “I’ve already got your first song down.”

“That was quick.” Aubrey eyed the two new bottles of beer that had appeared on the table. “You really thought I’d drink yours?”

“Yes.” Beca said, carefully pulling two of the bottles in front of her. “Like you haven’t before.” She picked up Aubrey’s brush and ran it through her hair.

“True.” Aubrey shrugged and stood. “I’ll be back.”

Taking the first bottle with her, Aubrey made her way to the end of the bar, patiently waiting as other people put down song choices.

“Hey Aubrey!” The brunette in charge of the song list smiled at her. “Beca giving you any of those beers?”

“Hello Ashley.” Aubrey held up her bottle. “At least one of them.” She stepped up to the bar and opened the giant binder of songs. “Am I going to like what she picked for me?”

“Maybe?” Ashley shrugged and grinned at her. “You know I can’t tell you.” In fact the top half of the paper had been hastily covered with a napkin so that Aubrey couldn’t see what had been written down.

“True.” Aubrey took a drink of her beer and pursed her lips. “Guess I’ll have to get her from the start.”

“That’s my girl.” Ashley held out the pen. “Can’t give that one an inch.”

“Bree!”

Taking the pen, Aubrey looked up as a blonde head appeared over Ashley’s shoulder. “Hi Jessica. Looks like they’re keeping you busy over there.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” Jessica rested her chin on Ashley’s shoulder. “Denise will be here soon.”

Aubrey wrote Beca’s name on the sheet sitting on the bar, followed by her song. “You guys still on for the group song later?”

“Are you kidding?” Ashley laughed. “Jess has been practicing all week.” She kissed the side of her girlfriend’s head. “Now go pour those nice people some drinks and make mama some money.”

“Yes dear,” Jessica waved at Aubrey. “I’ll come say hi in a bit.” She went back to the other end of the bar, already greeting the people waiting for her.

“See you.” Aubrey called after her. “Thanks, Ash.” She pushed the paper back across the bar.

Ashley looked at the song and laughed. “No no, thank you.”

“You know she secretly loves it.” Aubrey said as she turned.

“You look too pleased with yourself.” Beca said as Aubrey sat back down.

“Just said hi to the girls.” Aubrey went to take another drink and found the bottle empty. “Oops. Guess I should’ve left that up there.” She set it down and picked up the other. “Thanks for thinking ahead.”

“You’ve been looking… thirsty lately.” Beca said.

“Oh for the love of…” Aubrey shook her head. “I am not thirsty Beca.”

“Mmm. Sure.” Beca laughed and ducked the napkin Aubrey threw at her.

“You are the worst,” she groaned.

“You mean the best.” Beca said airily. “Now hush, things are starting.”

Laughing, Aubrey settled down and watched the first person take the stage.

As former college championship winning a capella singers, Jessica and Ashley seemed to attract a higher level of karaoke aficionados to the L&L. Rarely did you get someone who was off-key – at least not intentionally. Aubrey herself wasn’t above singing something badly for effect. But tonight everyone was on point and she was enjoying herself so much she’d almost forgotten that she’d be going up soon.

“Aubrey, you’re up.”

She looked up, startled as Ashley called her name. “Oh, right.”

“Have fun,” Beca said as Aubrey stood up.

“Should I be afraid?” Aubrey stepped up on the stage and took the microphone off the stand.

“Always, Bree.” Beca nodded. “Always.”

Aubrey narrowed her eyes then looked at the monitor as the opening notes of ‘Call Me Maybe’ started. She allowed herself one moment of annoyance, because while she did like the song she knew why Beca was making her sing it. But she was Aubrey Posen and she never backed away from anything in her life. She would sell the shit out of this. By the end of it the room was singing along with her and Aubrey waved after she put the mic back on the stand. She went back to her table and took her seat.

“Nicely done, Posen.” Beca held out a fresh beer.

“Thank you.” Aubrey took it and took a long drink. “I think I sense a theme for the night.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Beca took a drink of her own.

Instead of answering, Aubrey merely turned back to the stage as the next person stepped up. Even as she clapped and sang with the next songs, she was busily trying to figure out how to get even.

When Beca saw the song Aubrey had picked, she groaned. “Not this song, Bree. It’s so overplayed.”

“Shut up and sing, Mitchell.” Aubrey grinned.

Beca put on her Resting Bitch Face and her whiniest voice for the start of ‘TiK ToK’ but by the chorus she’d given in and was bouncing around the stage to the cheers of the crowd. When she’d finally taken her chair again Aubrey pushed her shoulder.

“You’re no longer allowed to tell me you hate Kesha. I know it’s a lie and so does everyone else who saw you just now.”

“Yeah yeah.” Beca took a drink of her beer as she tried to catch her breath.

The rest of the night continued in much the same pattern.

Beca made Aubrey sing Avril Lavigne’s ‘Girlfriend’ and Sophie B. Hawkins’ ‘Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover’ while Aubrey had made her sing Meredith Brook’s ‘Bitch’ and ‘When I Grow Up’ by Garbage. Not that either of those songs were ones that Beca wouldn’t enjoy but at this point Aubrey was just trying to use the titles to make a point – no matter how obscure. There was a brief truce as they sang ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ with Jessica and Ashley, almost causing a riot when they bowed out of doing an encore.

Aubrey debated on the last song, but there just weren’t enough casual-insults-between-friends songs that she felt were appropriate. She’d been looking through P!nk’s song list, discarding ‘Trouble’, though appropriate, and ‘Blow Me (One Last Kiss)’ before deciding to just pick a fun song to end the night on: ‘Raise Your Glass.’

Beca, however, had other ideas.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Aubrey laughed as ‘I Touch Myself’ by the Divinyls started.

“Hey, it’s from the ‘90’s!” Beca called from the table.

I love myself, I want you to love me When I feel down, I want you above me I search myself, I want you to find me I forget myself, I want you to remind me

A plan was slowly forming in her mind and she worked the stage but kept her eyes directly on Beca as she sang. Then she left the stage and slunk toward Beca, whose eyes were getting wider the closer Aubrey got. And the quieter, more intimate her singing became.

I close my eyes and see you before me Think I would die if you were to ignore me A fool could see just how much I adore you I'd get down on my knees, I'd do anything for you

Aubrey stepped behind Beca, her fingertips running from one shoulder to the other across her back. She resisted the impulse to laugh when she felt Beca shiver.

I don't want anybody else When I think about you, I touch myself Ooh, I don't want anybody else Oh no, oh no, oh no

She continued moving around until she could drape herself across Beca’s lap, noticing how Beca flushed instantly, a nice, deep red going all the way down under her collar.

I want you I don't want anybody else When I think about you, I touch myself Ooh ooh ooh ooh ah ah ah ah oh ah

She crooned into Beca’s ear, much softer than the song called for and traced the spike that ran through the lobe. Beca’s sudden indrawn breath was audible through the microphone and now Aubrey let the smile free as she slid from Beca’s lap and strutted back to the stage to finish it. As the song drew to a close she took a bow as whistles filled the room. Ashley came up and took the microphone from her, smirking.

“And that’s the last song for the night. Thank you all for a great night of music and we hope to see you again soon!” Turning off the mic she placed it back in the stand and turned to Aubrey. “I think you killed her.”

Aubrey shrugged. “She started it.”

“Agreed.” Ashley pushed her toward the table. “Go sit while we clear everyone out. I need a drink with my friends.”

“Like I’d say no to that.” Aubrey laughed and went back to the table where Beca was steadily draining the last of her beer.

“Nice song choice, Mitchell.” Aubrey leaned back in her chair.

“I’ll never make that mistake again,” she vowed. “You win.”

“A Posen always wins.” Aubrey laughed. “You really did bring it on yourself.”

“Yup. I see that now.” Beca drummed her fingers on the table. “You’re a very wicked woman, Aubrey.”

“When the situation calls for it.” Aubrey shrugged. “Ashley told us to hang out while everyone leaves.”

“’Kay.” Beca’s face was deliberately neutral and Aubrey wondered what was going on behind eyes that were not-so-casually avoiding looking at her.

The two of them sat in silence, not uncomfortable but Aubrey could almost hear Beca thinking as the seconds ticked by. Even Aubrey could admit that what she’d done had some effect on her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten that close to someone; Beca’s riding behind her on the bike didn’t count. But this was her best friend and Aubrey didn’t think of her that way.

At least… not until now. Maybe Beca was right and Aubrey really just needed to get laid.

“So, is there something going on between you two that we don’t know about?” Jessica interrupted her thoughts as she, Ashley, Denise and Cynthia Rose approached the table.

“Nope.” Aubrey smiled innocently. “Just singing songs.”

“No.” Beca confirmed. “Aubrey likes her brunettes taller, apparently.”

Cynthia Rose set down the bottle of vodka she’d brought over. “Are we still talking about the chick that Aubrey’s having some bike war with?”

“That’s the one.” Beca waited as the four of them pulled over chairs and Ashley set down the stack of shot glasses she was carrying.

“Beca.” Aubrey sighed. “For the last time. I don’t even know if she likes women.”

Jessica carefully poured shots for all of them. “You know, the way you said that, it makes me think you’re interested in finding out.”

“Thank you!” Beca picked up her glass. “I knew I wasn’t the only one.”

Aubrey scowled and picked up her own shot and downed it. “That is not what I meant. At all.”

Except maybe it was, because her memory of that day had changed. She no longer thought of it with anger and even now she was only triggered by seeing That Bike in her spot. But… she sort of wished she remembered more of what the other woman looked like because in memory her voice was nice and the annoyingly vague impression she had was someone who was pretty. Plus, despite it all… she had called Aubrey cute. Sort of.

“I mean, it sounds like that’s what you meant.” Denise threw back her shot. “Like, you’re personally interested in finding out if she likes women or not.”

“You didn’t even know if Chloe liked women when you told me you were thinking of asking her out,” Beca pointed out. “So why is this one different?”

“She’s an insufferable woman who keeps stealing the bell off my bike. I couldn’t care less if she likes women.” Aubrey set her glass down and picked up the bottle to pour another. “And you can all fuck off.”

“Now look who’s getting uppity.” Cynthia Rose shook her head. “You know what they say ‘bout protesting too much.”

“Can we please talk about anything else?” Aubrey closed her eyes. “Did you guys give Beca this much crap over that DSM woman?”

“Aub...” Beca held up her hand.

“Wait – what about the blonde German goddess… exactly?” Ashley leaned forward. “Have you been holding out on us, Beca?”

“Thanks, Aubrey.” Beca picked up the vodka and ignored the shot glass, taking a drink directly from the bottle.

Aubrey smiled sweetly at her. “You’re welcome.”

Jessica held up two fingers. “First, I can’t believe either of you didn’t tell us whatever you’re about to reveal sooner.” She folded her middle finger and pointed at Beca who snorted. “Second, that’s gross and now you have to buy the whole bottle.”

“There’s no story here.” Beca muttered and handled the bottle to Denise who took a swig. “You know I hate that woman.”

“See my previous statement about protesting too much…” Cynthia Rose turned to Aubrey. “Spill.”

Aubrey leaned back in her chair. “Well... Beca thinks her sweat smells like cinnamon…” Beca just groaned and let her forehead rest on the table.  Aubrey smiled as the rest of the girls begged for more details.  Maybe now Beca would let the whole ‘you’re into the aggravating gym woman’ thing drop.

Because Aubrey had a sneaking suspicion she might be right. And that was definitely not allowed.

#staubrey #aubrey posen #beca mitchell #stacie conrad #cynthia rose #jessica smith #ashley jones #pitch perfect fanfic #cyc writes #switching gears

[vanquisher2099]

Part Nine: A Waitress Walks into a Party

Jennifer felt nervous. It wasn’t her usual sort of nervousness, of course – the low-level hum of anxiety that pervaded her life as, technically, someone on the run – this was something different. This was a nervousness which she hadn’t experienced in a very long time, brought on by the thought of meeting new people and having to make conversation. It added a new layer of anxiety on top of her already existing nerves about having to keep her cover story straight, as she’d done for years now. If she weren’t so busy being nervous, she might have appreciated the variety.

She sat in her car, as she had been since pulling on to Clarissa’s street around fifteen minutes previously, trying to bring herself to shut the engine off and complete the five-minute walk to the door. Eventually, she opened the door and headed down the street, doing her best to ignore the way her breathing quickened and her throat tightened.

The Vanquisher, able to jump off a building but unable to go to a fucking party, she thought to herself. One more deep breath, and she knocked on the door.

“Jenn! You made it! I was beginning to worry you weren’t coming.” Clarissa beamed as she waved Jennifer in.

“Oh, you know me,” Jennifer said, projecting a confidence and casualness she did not feel, “I thought I’d keep you in suspense for a bit.”

This earned her a laugh, at least, and Clarissa led her into the sitting room. There was a small crowd of about ten people, Jennifer figured, all of whom turned to look at her as she followed Clarissa in. It was, briefly, terrifying.

“Everyone, this is Jennifer from work. Nobody be shitty to her!”

Jennifer gave a wave and pasted what she hoped was a totally normal-looking smile on her face and not a grimace. From the way the other partygoers reacted, she’d been mostly successful, she thought. One of the partygoers, a younger man who seemed to have come from some kind of office job, if his loosened tie and dress shirt were any indication, handed her a bottle of beer, which Jennifer accepted gratefully.

“I’m Pete,” he said, by way of introduction, “nice to meet you.”

Jennifer popped the cap off the bottle using her prosthetic’s palm – briefly causing her to miss having an arm with actual tools in it. “Jennifer. But I guess you already knew that.”

“Yes, Clarissa is a fan of making introductions. Plus, she’s talked about you before.”

A wave of panic rushed over Jennifer, but she clamped down on it quickly. Not quickly enough, apparently, because Pete hastened to add, “Only good things, I promise.”

“I can’t decide if that’s comforting or not.” Jennifer said, immediately wishing she hadn’t. “Gives me a lot to live up to.”

Pete laughed. “Ah, the weight of others’ expectations. I know it all too well.”

“Pete here’s got famous family,” Clarissa helpfully supplied, having swept back into Jennifer’s orbit, “for a given definition of famous.”

Pete rolled his eyes. “You know, I was hoping not to go into it for once.”

“Nonsense, it’s all you ever talk about. It’s like your whole conversational shtick.”

“Well now I’m curious.” Jennifer said, raising her eyebrows. “Am I in the presence of royalty?”

“Hardly.” Pete snorted, shooting Clarissa a dirty look. “My mother was one of the senators who led the investigation into that whole scandal a few years back. You remember?”

“Something to do with corn, wasn’t it?” Jennifer said, a little uncertainly.

“I’ll be honest, I never really understood the finer points of it all myself. But my mom got a lot of people to resign in disgrace, and it’s made her something of a hero – you know, with the people who follow that sort of thing.”

“Which means that our boy Pete is under constant scrutiny lest he sully his mother’s reputation.” Clarissa supplied helpfully. “He’s got to be on his best behavior at all times, or at least pretend that he knows what good behavior is.”

Pete sighed dramatically, placing a hand theatrically to his brow. “Alas! We all have our crosses to bear, and mine is to not get arrested for anything that would be too difficult to cover up.”

“Truly a heavy burden. Senators’ sons being historically able to get away with only paltry crimes like murder and sexual misbehavior.” A brief hint of anger colored Jennifer’s words for a moment before she caught herself. She laughed, to indicate that she’d been joking, but Clarissa seemed to have caught a hint of it.

“Jennifer, I know you’re off the clock, but could you help me with something real quick? My coffee machine’s been on the fritz and I find that it’s useful to have coffee available for the drunks.”

Jennifer allowed herself to be led away to the kitchen, where Clarissa looked around to make sure they were both alone before asking, “What was that about?”

“What was what about?” Jennifer asked, innocently.

“Jenn, you looked like you were about to murder Pete for a second there.”

Shit, Jennifer thought, was I that obvious? “Nothing, it’s just…” for a moment, Jennifer considered her options. “It’s nothing.”

“Is it something he did? Because I’ll kill him for you.”

A laugh escaped Jennifer. “I didn’t know we were at the ‘willing to commit murder’ part of the friendship.”

Clarissa shrugged. “We’ve known each other long enough. I think you’ve earned it.”

Jennifer smiled. “Well, as much as I appreciate the gesture, I don’t think you need to kill Pete. He’s perfectly fine. You might even call him a gentleman, if you were so inclined.”

“Don’t say that too loud, if he knew you were that impressed by his good manners he’d never let you hear the end of it.”

“I didn’t say I was impressed. He’s just managed to make the baseline level of acceptability.”

“Especially don’t let him hear you say that. I don’t need him getting an ego.” Clarissa seemed to have given up, at least for the moment, on getting an answer to her question. “The coffee machine’s over here. You wanna take a look at it?”

“Wait, you really brought me in here to fix your coffee machine? I thought you were just looking to interrogate me.”

“I mean yes, I did, but also my coffee machine is fucking broke. So, fix it! You always fix the ones at the diner, so I know you know how to do it.”

“I feel so used.” Jennifer groused, but moved to investigate the offending machine. “And here I thought you invited me here because we were friends.”

“No free lunches, Jenn. Or parties.”

Jennifer snorted and began prodding at the coffee machine’s touchscreen. She quickly brought up the maintenance menu and began running a series of system checks. After the third error, she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “What have you been doing to this thing? Brewing rocks? You got a multitool around here so I can see the extent of the damage?”

Clarissa rummaged around in a drawer and tossed something over to Jennifer, who caught it deftly and immediately set about opening the machine up. It didn’t take too long for her to find the source of the problem – a corrosion on one of the circuit boards that had, she assumed, been caused by a spilled drink. Clarissa’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Gross. I don’t suppose cleaning it off will solve the problem?”

Jennifer shrugged. “Sometimes it does, but usually once it’s gotten that bad there’s no real going back from it. Worth a shot, though – you got any steel wool?”

“I… don’t think so? I’m not even sure what that is.”

“You use it to scour things? I guess you kids probably don’t have to use that stuff much here, what with your fancy dishwasher and all. It’s kind of become obsolete.”

Clarissa snorted. “You aren’t that much older than me.”

“Yes, but I grew up doing maintenance on old crap. It’s like being old.”

At this offhand comment, Clarissa raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said your parents were lawyers. What were you doing maintenance for?”

Jennifer recovered quickly. “Oh, you know, every kid needs a hobby. I liked figuring out how things worked.”

 “So you were just as weird as a kid as you are now, then.”

Jennifer shrugged. “Once I got my new arm it turned out to be useful knowledge.”

“And uh…” Clarissa started to say, and then stopped.

“You can ask.” Jennifer said, with a wry smile, “Everyone does, sooner or later.”

Clarissa seemed embarrassed. “What happened to your other arm?”

“Long story short? There was an accident. Or at least, that’s what they tell me.” Jennifer shrugged. “I don’t remember much of it. I was out with a friend, and there was some kind of car crash. I got pinned under some debris and, apparently, the resulting damage ruined the arm. Arm reattachment would’ve been too expensive, so our insurance said they’d only cover replacement and, well, here we are.”

“Too expensive? Wouldn’t whomever caused the accident be liable?”

Jennifer shrugged again. “Sure, if the person responsible didn’t have the right connections to make sure they got away with it. Which they did.”

The pieces clicked into place in Clarissa’s mind. “Like the child of a senator, for example.”

“Just for example.” Jennifer said, with a laugh on the edge of bitter.

“Jesus,” Clarissa said, “I’m so sorry.”

Jennifer sighed and shrugged, flexing her prosthetic hand unconsciously. “It was a long time ago. I’ve mostly gotten over it. Except for when I run into the children of senators, apparently.”

“Apparently.” Clarissa agreed, and then, casting about for something to say, added, “I’m sorry for bringing up old memories. Not really what a good hostess is supposed to do.”

“Like I said, it’s been a long time. Don’t worry about it. What you should worry about is how you’re going to afford a new coffee maker – or find some steel wool, as the case may be.”

“Where do people buy steel wool these days? That seems less expensive.”

“I’m sure I’ve got some hanging around the house. I’ll bring some with me next time, see if that solves your coffee problem. Until then, uh… I guess just drink coffee at work.”

This answer seemed to depress Clarissa. “Ugh, the coffee at work is terrible.”

“I think you can survive for a day, kid.”

Clarissa threw a hand dramatically over her forehead, pretending to faint. “I don’t know if I’ll have the strength!”

Jennifer rolled her eyes, and then, almost without thinking, “If it’s that big of a deal, you can stay at my place tonight – the coffee machine works, anyway.” As soon as the words were out, she winced and looked away.

The expression on Clarissa’s face shifted from surprise to deep amusement. “Oh ho, Miss Stock, I see your game now. I’ll bet you say this to all the ladies. Functional coffee machines and all, eh?”

“Don’t mind me,” Jennifer said, turning to exit the kitchen, “just going to go find a nice open grave to jump into, nothing serious.”

“I mean, if you’re offering,” Clarissa said, sotto voce. “I suppose I couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity to see the mysterious Jennifer Stock’s place of residence.”

Jennifer paused in her retreat. “Mysterious? I wasn’t aware I had such a reputation.”

“Just what someone mysterious would say! You even had that old man talk to you the other day!”

“A confused old man is hardly what I’d call a mystery.”

“It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened here all year! A total stranger claims he knows you? You’ve got some doppelgänger running around, leading a double life! Totally mysterious!”

“I think you read too many conspiracy theories.” Jennifer called back over her shoulder as she left the kitchen and rejoined the party to find another drink.

The next morning, Jennifer woke up and was only mildly surprised to find that Clarissa had already made coffee.

Part Eight

Part Ten

#serialized fiction #cyberpunk #science fiction #jesus christ i am out of it today

[psvrsales-com]

PlayStation VR Reaches 3 Million Sales, is it a Failure?

it is Friday August 17th let's talk PlayStation all right so kind of a quiet news week for PlayStation not really a whole lot going on but we do have four news stories that I want to talk about the guys from this past week going into our first one a very cool advertisement that Sony did in Manhattan New York for spider-man because it's coming out September 7th very very soon but it is a fully decked out train in bright red with spider-man right on the front you can see the ps4 logo on the bottom there and then even the interior of this train was also decked at once again in complete red even on the walls the seats also again that pearlescent beautiful little red and you get that beautiful white spider-man logo on the seat I mean that just looks awesome definitely one of my favorite advertisements for sure another one that I can think of off the top of my head was if you remember a long time ago at least for a PlayStation advertisement this was for resistance 2 and if you remember it's that famous Los Angeles hotel always a spot for an advertisement there's usually something on there at all times and the resistance 2 had the the big Leviathan chimera and that was like a life-sized version of the Leviathan back then and that was always one of my favorite ones that I can at least think of from recent memory now moving on to the Uncharted movie we actually have an update and surprisingly it's a promising update the current director of the movie Sean lovey and I say currently because this movie has exchanged hands so many times but current director Shawn Levy had recently said that in regards to the star man remake and the Uncharted movie Uncharted is actually the one that seems to be closer to actually going into production given that more people get attached to the project but basically who was quoted as saying I mean as of right now the closest to the starting line is uncharted and that it's a massive title we now have a very good script and we have our star and Tom Holland that is now subject to schedule an additional casting but I would say as of right now that seems to be the most near the horizon and it's a movie I'm very excited about so that's kind of slightly uplifting news I know a lot of people are still a little upset because of that recent uncharted fan film with Nathan Fillion and he did play that really well to the point where you know oh man he's got to have it's got to be in the Uncharted movie but we know a long time ago that this movie was going to be an origin story of Drake which is why you'd have a young Tom Holland playing a young Drake and you'd have a young Sully and the story would be a little bit of a jumping-off point from and initially I didn't like that but the more I sat on it and then when I saw spider-man homecoming I thought all right this movie might have some ground to stand on and it might actually turn out well and that's like the most optimistic thing I can really say about it because let's face it most video game movies usually suck so I mean with the right people or Adam I've said this a few times with the right people the right money the right resources passion to make it work we can finally get a good video game movie I would hope that it's this but I'm still not really a I'm not gonna really gonna hold my breath for it now moving on to a cross-play news story we haven't talked about cross playing a few weeks mostly because there's really nothing going on and Sony still won't do anything but this past week Bethesda's Pete Hines was talking about how it's an absolute necessity to have cross play and nuts not fallout 76 but actually the Elder Scrolls legends the strategy card game so basically Bethesda P Hines has said he's quoted saying is our intention in order for the game to come out it has to be those things on any system we cannot have a game that works one way across everywhere else except for the fur on this one thing the way the game works right now on Apple Google steam and Bethesda net it doesn't matter where you buy your stuff if you play it on another platform that stuff is there it doesn't matter what platform you play on you play against everyone else who's playing at that moment there's no oh it's easier to control or it has a better frame rate on this system it's a strategy card game it doesn't matter I find this a little polarizing because he even went out of his way to say that you know if fallout 76 was cross play with everything that'd be great but if it's a no oh well but this one it's absolutely absolute necessity that this card game has to have cross play um and he made a point to say that he's talked to everybody about this he's not trying to single out Sony he said he has to talk to Apple and intend oh Microsoft everybody to make sure it works but we all know presumably they're playing just fine and we know that Sony's the odd man out because Sony always says no I guess he's sort of making his case of like that's what he's saying that quote like it's a card game like why why can this not be cross play that's basically oh he's trying to get at but I guess it's really important to the team at this game and every way is able to be like he's basically saying it's it's it's all or nothing like the game won't come out on ps4 if Sony won't allow this they're also saying that they're pretty much going along with development assuming that Sony will allow it he also said that they're talking to Sony every single day about this and he made a particular point which is that with this with this conversation with Sony there are certain situations where Sony will say yes to something and they'll say no to other things so that is kind of like a that's kind of like a gray area where they can kind of work their way into possibly trying to make this work it just sucks that Sony has to make this such like that Sony has to make this so difficult I'm seeing more and more people now sympathize with Sony which is a little odd to me because a lot of people are like yeah well whatever like oh you know Joey doesn't want to do it like let's be over with it like oh I don't need cross-play anyway you shouldn't really have that attitude we should we would want Sony to do this because it's a pro-consumer thing and we want Sony to be that way we don't want them to sort of slip into the same attitude of 2006 Sony with the PlayStation 3 we saw how that all worked out and we really don't want them to be in that scenario again I mean is that really what we want where they have this this tight consumer leverage over us where they're the market leader and they can do whatever they want because with this cross-play such a ways that's that's why this is a big issue because that's exactly what they're doing they're leveraging control over consumers to sell more PlayStation for us of course it's understandable from their perspective is there a business and they want to sell ps4s but I think people should be putting their foot down on this and demand that Sony starts to change their mind on this for our final news stories about PlayStation VR Sony recently announced that PlayStation VR has hit three million units sold worldwide and in relation to games they actually said games and experiences but games and experiences total has 21 million units sold and you know they say sold which makes me think Ari does that content that they paid for because if they're lumping experiences into that there's a lot of free stuff on the PlayStation Store for four PS VR and that's what I'm so like there's a lot of experiences on there like the call duty jackal mission or there's just like a lot of apps on there that are like really small five minute things but they're virtual reality like are they including that are they including paid content be more impressive to those paid content but if it's free stuff and that number is probably heavily diminished because let's face it a lot of people will download free stuff and that's what you do when you get PlayStation VR or VIPRE oculus you download all the free stuff because you just dropped a whole bunch of money on places we are but anyway let's kind of put this into perspective and that's where this conversation is gonna get tough because there's no way to put that into perspective because three million may seem loaded a lot of people and it actually is low if you look at some of these internal projections and what a lot of analysts were thinking it does seem low but at the same time PlayStation VR is still technically the market leader for premium VR and if we're talking about premium VR that does include oculus and vive those two headsets still have a higher barrier of entry if we are including the fact that you need a higher on PC for them I mean yeah oculus the actual headset itself is still is pretty much leveled out in terms of price of the via psvr but you still need a higher-end PC and you can't really be going out to a store and buying a ps4 for around $250 at most stores and it always comes with an extra game or controller it's like there's tons of retail or bundles going around usually ps4 I'm a smart piece for 300 but still you there's usually a sale three so that's and that's the thing three million seems you know low because a like a long time bag before psvr came out PSP came out October 2016 so a few months prior to that there was a lot of analysts saying that it was gonna sell anywhere from five to six million within the first year and it wasn't even close to that sony admitted not that long ago maybe a year ago now that their internal projections were missed and that VR adoption was at a much lower rate than they anticipated which I'm sure is troubling news to the company but at the same time sony has also vocally admitted on numerous occasions that this is a version one of the device and they are committing to this long term they know that this is version one of PlayStation VR and that there's possibly going to be a version 2 version 3 they've are we don't we we already have rumors suggesting that PlayStation 5 is going to have VR technology back right into the box which would imply that possibly the current PlayStation VR processing box which is used to help put the image back on the television that might be built right into the PlayStation 5 so that's the interesting point is that long term where is this going to where's this going to be because Sony does don't want to commit to VR I'm just I'm sure and they know that the adoptions slow is it as right now but that's why it's hard to put it in perspective because what you call PlayStation VR failure right now I think most people but I'm not sure if that's really a fair assessment given the fact that it's so early in the start of it right yes this is its own hardware and it's out it's at retailers with games but that's the constant conversation about VR is that it has so much potential and it really does when you start to consider all the extra input methods omnidirectional flooring I mean there's a lot of ways where it can go when you have more powerful hardware in the future five ten plus years from now it'll be a far cry from where we're at right now and it might be a more desirable piece of technology for people to go out and buy the same time it's still a high barrier of entry that's why it's hard to put that three million in perspective because we've never really had a prince not really a peripheral but for lack of a better word we've never really had a peripheral that was this astronomically high you know PlayStation VR came out at $400 that's a lot of money for a device that doesn't even work unless you have another device you know so three million units I mean at $400 retail I mean that's still pretty I mean granted that's it's cheaper now $200 PlayStation VR has been as low as 250 which you would hope that sold a lot more units but the last time we got a sales figure was you know what I can't even say it off the top my head because I don't remember it seems like it was maybe a year ago that they were at like 2 million something but I don't remember for sure what's so yeah I mean it's it's low sony sony has said that it's low it's way off the mark from analysts but it's when you know that they're gonna be doing this long term maybe you consider it a failure now but it might not be in the future given that Sony is putting so much R&D; and effort into it they probably are really hoping that this will be a very big thing in 10 years and presumably it will be if everything goes according to plan and that's where you're talking about if we if locomotion gets figured out better if that motion sickness gets figured out you know if we get big peripherals like that how many directional tracking for feet you know start getting those like you know there's been like Kickstarter's and and concept like gloves that make you feel weight in your and things like you know what I mean things like that that's super long long-term and that's far out but that kind of stuffs gonna be really engaging and you know Sony's been making a lot of decisions or decisions recently that show that they're thinking about the long term something like PlayStation now they know that's a long term thing the very x86 PC architecture of ps4 they knew that was a long term thing because ps4 Pro is proof of that ps5 will likely be more proof of that when it was when it will likely be announced with backwards compatibility because it's still using x86 they make decisions that are going to last them 10 plus years they really don't want to you know slip up any more with their breadwinner and their breadwinner is playstation so they want to make PlayStation VR something big in the future it's not right now but maybe it will be those are some of the new stories that I want to talk about you guys from this past week so I didn't have a new video for you earlier this week but this come Monday or Tuesday will be a new video for sure I say Monday Tuesday because I don't know specifically which day cuz just how my work schedule pans out but expect a new video coming up and I'm getting very close to wrapping up our next documentary if you didn't see it yet check out the first one it was the PlayStation Vita documentary hook your boy up share that around because you know it took me so long to make that video so I'm sorry I'm gonna keep pimping it out but otherwise the next one's coming up very soon so that's pretty much it that concludes this week's episode let's talk Playstation I'm ready thank you all so much for talking with me and I will see you guys next Friday

https://youtu.be/vLwOZxs5jCQ

#PSVR sales

[ericmwatson-blog]

The World Deserves a Genesis Classic and I Will Not Rest Until We Get One

I tried writing this intro several times by discussing the recently released Sega Genesis Flashback but things quickly got dark and I’m not sure I’m prepared to do that much swearing on here. Suffice it to say, the word is that AtGames has yet again sullied the good name of the Sega Genesis with cheap hardware, shoddy emulation, laggy wireless controllers, and a selection of games bloated with shovelware (only 45 of the included 85 games are Genesis games, with another 12 from the Master System and Game Gear.) 

So what would it take for a Genesis miniconsole to rival the SNES Classic? And why is it even a worthwhile endeavor? I’m going to address the second question with this post. I mean who needs a tiny console anyway? You could always just buy a Raspberry Pi (make sure you get the right model!), install a multisystem emulator on an SD card, load up with roms from shady websites, run your antivirus software, boot up the Raspberry Pi, configure your USB controller (you did buy one, right?), and you’re good to go! I hope you like bare circuit boards and bad UI! I’m being a bit facetious, but the argument in favor of the Raspberry Pi reads a lot like arguments for gaming PCs; yes, they have a number of advantages, but they also have some significant disadvantages in terms of setup and user experience. Besides all that, an official product like the SNES Classic is well, official. There is something to be said for actually buying the games you want to play and it would be great to have a (good) official way to play Genesis games. 

Despite the Genesis about matching (or exceeding, depending on the source) the SNES in total sales in the US and Europe, there seems to be a persistent narrative that the SNES is the clearly superior console with a far better library. This persists for several reasons. For one, the SNES has a much stronger RPG library with more recognizable franchises. As such, a surprisingly large number of Genesis JRPGs have languished without English translations while the number of SNES JRPGs still without them has become vanishingly small. It still surprises me that a game like Surging Aura doesn’t even have a partial translation. Genesis has significantly more action games and shooters, but these seem to have less pull today than the allure of the 16 bit JRPG. 

Even more significantly, the makeup of the two libraries in terms of publishers makes a big difference. Nintendo could have published the SNES Classic with only games they published themselves and still have a really solid library. There would be gaps, of course, mostly in RPG territory, but Nintendo alone could compile an incredibly solid library on their own. Sega, on the other hand, published far more games on their 16 bit console and with a little less discernment. Even as a developer, Sega wouldn’t quite hit their stride until the Saturn and Dreamcast days. As a result, most re-releases of Genesis games have several all-time classics sitting next to some pretty mediocre fair. The utter ubiquity of Kid Chameleon is a great example. It’s not a bad game, but it’s fairly middling even as far as Super Mario Bros clones go, and yet it’s seen several modern releases. 

Really what all of this boils down to is this: the Genesis is an absolutely stellar console with a less-examined and more obscure library than the SNES. While the SNES Classic is absolutely worthwhile, it may be even more worthwhile to do something similar with the Genesis, if only to reintroduce the console’s library. Exactly what games should be included though is a bit more complicated, which I will cover in the next part.

#games writing snesclassic sega segagenesis GEN

[artificialqueens]

Pride and Prejudice, Queens and Zombies Ch. II - Emma

AN- Hey guys! Thank you so much for your kind words on the first chapter, it really does mean a lot. I’ve been hesitant to post fics on here because you guys are all super talented, which sort of intimidates me since English is not my first language (I tend to get annoyed by my own works at times because they seem a bit… Mechanical? I feel like there’s some issues with general ‘flow’ in my texts). Also, this fic will deviate from the main plot of PPZ quite a bit, this is simply because I don’t want it to basically be like a copy-paste of the novel/movie. I would be very glad to hear your input on this, where you would like to see it go etc. Until next time, happy readings my doves!

” Ready?” Katya asked her sisters as they were to enter their battleground. Her machete glistened as she took one last glance at its clean surface before it was to be sullied by war. Because it was a war that they were fighting however noble the cause might sound from an outsider’s perspective, in the end it came down to basic survival. There weren’t many of them left, the undead had sullied their town and lives for as long as anyone could remember. The only option available at this point was to either fight or plummet to an immediate and gruesome death. Katya had no intentions of ever choosing the latter.

“Ready when you are.” Fame muttered, twisting her needle-like sword in her delicate hand. Katya nodded to Violet and Max before opening the doors. A stench met them like a brick wall, one that could only belong to the dead. Katya had seen many a’ battlefields, but the sight of people being torn apart was something that she hoped to never get used to. They were everywhere. As far as Katya could see, some of the servants had been turned as well, so they must have been infiltrated from inside.

She inhaled sharply and raised her machete. “Let’s get this over with.” She muttered before heading inside, no fear left within her. The hall where everyone had been dancing and laughing just moments ago had been turned into a morbid place of death in a matter of minutes. Blood was everywhere, as well as body parts. Katya stepped over three young, dead men as she strode inside, noticing that someone had torn their hearts out. For all the young bachelors that had been hoping to find a lady they could give their hearts to, it seemed highly ironic that this turned out to be the way they would lose them in the end. ‘It’s damn near poetic’ Katya thought to herself, and then grabbed a woman by the shoulder. The zombie turned around, she had begun to decay at a rapid speed due to the amount of human flesh she consumed. A shriek emitted from her, Katya scrunched up her nose at the sight of hair and blood sipping down her mouth and onto her decaying chin.

With a swing of her blade, the woman fell. The deterioration of the dead was something that worked out in their favour, for the flesh and bones were much softer and easier to penetrate with a blade. Blood splattered onto her chest but Katya wore it as a coat of armour as she tore them down, limb by rotten limb. Her sisters made quick work of doing so themselves, Katya hadn’t even noticed that Max was standing beside her until a rotten corpse attacked her younger sister. Ready to interfere, Katya smirked as she saw Max decapitate the particularly rotten foe with a few chops of her sword.

Every time she swung her blade, someone fell to their permanent demise. Katya would never admit it to herself, but deep down, she enjoyed the feeling of cutting through flesh, the spurts of blood served as a confirmation that she was victorious. She killed them ruthlessly, and refused to treat them as human beings because in the end, she wasn’t looking at a person – she was looking at the thing that killed them.

—

Trixie stood a few feet away from the sisters after having just cut down the foes that came in her direction, she stared in awe at Katya. They were better than Trixie would have ever imagined. After years of hardship, the once soft-spoken girl that Trixie had been was turned into the hard shell of a woman she was today. When she had first met Katya, there was something about her that made Trixie’s heart pound. Naturally, to her at least, her immediate reaction had been to be nasty and cold. Like she always was. Finding an interest in people would just make it complicated when they were gone. After watching Katya fight, ignoring her seemed to be getting harder and harder.

Having stared at the slightly older blonde fight left Trixie in a reckless state. So reckless in fact that she barely even noticed when a stricken dragged himself towards her, a bony hand reaching for her ankle. She didn’t even look down until a shot was heard and the hand slumped against her foot. Trixie looked up, bewildered and saw Manila standing there, her gun still poised at the now permanently dead corpse. Not knowing what else to say, Trixie stared at her saviour and then muttered: “Nice shot.”

“You’re welcome.” Manila replied, lowering her weapon.

—-

Katya let out a bellowing shout as she pushed her machete through her final victim of the night. The stricken slumped to the ground in a jumble of disorientated bones, leaving Katya to roughly push the corpse away from her step. She grabbed the skirt of her dress and used it to wipe down her blade, the sullied surface of it having already begun to bother her. She turned around and patted her sisters on the shoulder, offering them some well-deserved congratulations on a successful cleanse. Out of the corner of her blue eyes, she saw Trixie standing in a corner with Manila and Raja. She smirked to herself before giving the staring woman a curt nod. ‘You don’t think of me as a damsel in distress anymore, do you Ms. Mattel?’ Katya mused to herself before nodding her head towards the exit, prompting her sisters to follow her outside. After this ordeal, she desperately wanted to get home. Mr. Donigan appeared from another door, obviously hoping to pay some form of gratitude to them, but they were already heading for the door when the frightened survivors began to reappear.

——

Two weeks passed, and Katya saw no more of Trixie Mattel and her cold stares. She held great victory knowing that she could prove the spiteful woman wrong, but there was still the gnawing feeling inside of her head telling her that there was more to Trixie than meets the eye. Fame and Mr. Donigan were constantly writing letters to one another, which bothered Katya more than she cared to admit. She would never deny her sisters of true happiness, but the thought of Trixie entered Katya’s mind whenever she saw Fame excitedly ripping open yet another letter from her suitor.

Her mind wandered to a point where she could no longer take it. Katya propositioned her sister Max and Fame to join her on a trip into town, hoping that would take her mind off things. As they rode in their carriage on their way into their small town’s square, Katya fidgeted with her light blue dress, uncomfortable with how innocent she looked. “Okay, can you just please tell me what’s bothering you? You’ve been so moody lately.” Fame exclaimed in the seat opposite from Katya, making the Russian jump in her seat.

“What are you talking about? I’m always like this.” Katya protested, whilst knowing perfectly well what her sister was talking about. Max raised her gaze from the book she was currently delving into and offered Katya a kind smile. “I have to agree with her Kat, it does seem like something’s on your mind.”

Katya could never be mad at Max. The grey-haired girl was too kind for that. “I’m just exploring my senses; delving deep into the bottomless pit that is my mind, searching for answers that will explain what the warrior within me truly wants.” Her long explanation made her sisters roll their eyes, knowing that Katya usually leaned towards overly dramatic accounts that would confuse even the brightest of men.

“Lately, all she’s been craving is a cucumber sandwich, which if you ask me is a total waste of provisions. So, you’ll understand my disappointment.” She continued, smirking to herself as Fame and Max couldn’t resist giggling at her joke.

Once they arrived into town, they wandered around searching for a book that Max had been raving about for months. Katya regularly told her sister that she needed to get out into the real world instead of hankering down with her fictional novels, but the girl had told her once that ‘I know enough of the horrors that go on in the outside world, if I don’t explore the beauty of the fictional ones I would go insane’. There was no arguing that sentiment.

A loud horn rang through the town square, muffling the sound of hooves clacking on the pale cobblestone. Katya turned around and noticed several men riding through on horseback. They were redcoats, their pompous faces had always given her a reason to discretely roll her eyes. The militia usually kept to themselves, whenever they were around town it was usually to cleanse. By the looks of the heavy armoury they carried with them, this visit would probably be for that same exact reason. “I wonder if they’re here because of what happened at the dance?” Max whispered, pushing her round glasses up her nose.

“If they are, they’re a little bit too late. That’s why all capitalist systems fail, you know.” Katya informed her sisters, her cocked head and unapologetic facial expression made her sisters huff at her.

“Quit being such a wiseacre Katya.” Fame seethed. The red-haired woman had, along with the rest of Katya’s family, grown sick of Katya’s governmental commentary. It was Max’s fault really, since she had been the one to buy her a book on Henri de Saint Simon’s collected political ideas. Katya placed one of her thin hands on her chest and gasped, the feign in her insulted posture shining through by the twinkle in her blue eyes. “Blasphemy sister.” She replied, a smirk appearing on her face.

“Just because you spend all of your evenings writing love notes to Mr. Donigan doesn’t mean that the rest of us should simply forgo our education.” She continued, enjoying the fact that she made her sister’s face flush.

“I do not.”

“Ah, remember what Raja always used to say; little girls who lie get sent to the in-between.” Katya was enjoying teasing her sister so much that she didn’t notice when someone walked up to her. “Oh, shut up!” Fame snarled, sending a harsh shove in Katya’s direction. The Russian slipped away from her attack, chuckling as she turned around. The smile on her face faded when she faced the person that had been eavesdropping on them.

“The Gemini sisters! What brings you out here on this chilly afternoon?” Dan Donigan cheerfully greeted them, although both Katya and Max noticed that it was only Fame’s eyes he was searching for. Usually, Katya would have been offended whenever someone disregarded her for her beautiful adoptive sister, but seeing Mr. Donigan only reminded her of his cousin. A cousin that was hopefully somewhere far away.

Katya stared off into the crowd as Dan and Fame shyly flirted with each other, hoping to herself that she could keep from barfing out of contempt. If Violet had been there, they could have at least been in it together, however, the slim girl was hankering at home after Manila had promised that she would take her to see Pearl. Katya wondered if there was any mutual attraction there, but then again, what would she know about that? The only women Katya had ever been involved had been in and out of her life as quick as they came. Came being the operative word.

“So, Katya, I think you made quite the impression on my cousin – she was very impressed with how you handled yourself.” Dan directed his flaunting towards her, making Katya huff in disdain. It didn’t matter whether Trixie had taken a shine to her, it still did not change the fact that she was mean and spiteful much of the evening. “Oh really? What exactly did your cousin say?” Katya inquired, she wasn’t buying the concept of Trixie Mattel lowering herself and her high standards to the likes of her.

Dan peered around uncomfortably, making it abundantly clear to Katya that he was trying to salvage the good relations between the Geminis’ and himself after Trixie’s untasteful utterings at the dance. “Well, maybe not in so many words, but my cousin is tricky – she’s…” he started, but was interrupted by Katya waving her hand in front of her face.

“You are a very lovely man, Mr. Donigan – I only wish I could say the same for your cousin. There’s no need to make up for what she said, I’m sure there’s people who appreciate my scratched-up dresses and messy hair.” She further explained, hoping that he would put his attempts of reconciliation to rest. After all, it wasn’t Katya he was trying to court, it was her sister. Fame stared at Katya with bulging eyes, letting her know that she would be on the receiving end of a mouthful when Mr. Donigan was gone. “I personally consider it to be quite Avant Garde, if you’re not trying to differentiate yourself from everyone else – then you’re not doing fashion justice.” She added, deciding that she had proven her point.

Mr. Donigan simply nodded, baffled at her quick wit. “I- I must say that I wish she had been here for this. Now, as an apology, I would love to have you all over for dinner some time. Say in a fortnight? That will give me some much-needed time to loosen Trixie up a bit. Lord knows she needs it.” He rambled, a nervous chuckle erupting from his sweaty neck. Max offered him a comforting smile, she often turned out to be the strong shoulder everyone could lean on. Especially if they had just been on the receiving end of one of her sisters’ tantrums.

Katya looked over at Fame, and gave her a pleading look. She really didn’t want to go. In all honesty, there was little else that she wouldn’t do to get out of a dinner party with Trixie Mattel. Despite her best efforts of looking fragile and puppy-like, Fame graciously accepted Mr. Donigan’s invitation and then sent him on his way with some kind final words of gratitude for his persistence in making her obstinate sister feel more comfortable.

—

Having decided to sulk for the remainder of the day, Katya stomped through their estate when they returned home and went straight to bed without dinner. The Russian girl was very proud; some would claim that she was even hard-headed. In fact, most people would call her that. It wasn’t just the fact that Trixie had insulted her appearance, she knew her own worth well enough to not let that bother her – but for some reason it hit home. She had felt a sense of belonging when she met the stylish blonde, like there was some sort of consensus between them; so, hearing Trixie insult her so easily forced Katya to realize that she might have been wrong. She typically had issues with people that considered themselves to be so high and mighty, even though her own family certainly did not miss anything in their comfortable lives. Raja and Manila had taught them to be grateful of the opportunities that they had, Raja’s persistence in their training was a huge part in why they had turned out the way that they had.

Katya and her sisters had all been trained in China, as opposed to Japan where the wealthy typically trained their broods in the art of war against the stricken. Raja and Manila probably could have afforded the steep price of a Japanese education, but Raja was adamant that they would train where the wisest people were. Katya had thoroughly enjoyed her training; it was the first time she had felt at home. She had met another girl whilst they were away whom also originated from Russia. They had become immensely close, to a point where Katya had fallen in love with her. The girl, Eva, was both shy and weak. Those traits were not typically something that Katya looked for nor appreciated, but the other girl’s tenacity was what had sealed the deal for her. She remembered her flowing red locks that were laced with muddy streaks from the multiple falls she took during training. Despite of all this, Eva still got up and continued despite of the ridicule she had to face.

Unfortunately, Eva never returned her affections. Katya was glad that she still had a friend in her, until that fateful day where they had to train against actual undead. Eva had fallen, but there hadn’t been enough time to get her out. The masters had insisted that Eva’s death was an unforgiveable mistake of theirs, that things should have been more properly controlled – but Katya knew the truth. She had tried to help Eva, to let her know during battle that she needed to find a safe spot to rest on. The other girl had ignored her, and kept going despite of the fact that she had a deep wound on her right leg. It had ultimately turned out to be her demise. Katya had written a letter to her parents, but had never heard back from them. Why should they? She had been unable to help their daughter, and the undead had gotten her where she was supposed to have been safe.

She had spent a long period of time trying to forget about Eva and her sweet, soft face. Every woman she had met after that had in most aspects been the same as the bashful girl Katya had once loved, but she knew that had to stop. She needed to stop punishing herself when nothing good was ever going to come out of it. Eva was dead, Katya had made sure of that after they had gotten to whatever was left of her mangled corpse.

A light knock on her door echoed through the small room. Katya sighed and then grumpily called out; “I’m busy.”

“Darling, we just received an invitation from Mr. Donigan’s estate. He wants you and your sisters to join him and his cousin for dinner tomorrow.” Manila called from the other side of the door. Katya heard the exuberant excitement that Manila tried to repress for her sake, but the news she brought only made Katya groan in disdain nonetheless.

“Tomorrow? He said that he would invite us over in a fortnight so he would have some time to lodge the stick out of his cousin’s arse.” She grumbled, already planning the perfect excuse as to why she couldn’t attend.

“Yekaterina! Stop being so selfish, you will go for your sister’s sake.” Manila demanded, her tone indicating that Katya had no choice in the matter. “It will be alright, my love. Ms. Mattel does have a reputation for being a tad difficult, but I’m sure your charm can win her over in no time. If anything, loyalty from more than one person in their family is always a good thing.” Katya wanted no part in Mr. Donigan’s affair with her sister. Of course, she was happy for Fame but the family she was courting her way into seemed like it would be incredibly tiresome for the rest of them. She knew that she was being selfish, and she needed to make more of an effort. Even if that meant spending time with that dreadful blonde.

“Fine mother, I’ll go. Are you happy now?” Katya sighed, hoping that would prompt her guardian to go away.

“I will be if you behave yourself.” Manila retorted, now she was just pushing her luck. Katya said that she would go, promising to stay cordial was an entirely different matter.

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

#trixya #katya zamolodchikova #trixie mattel #cisgirl au #zombie au #miss fame #max malanaphy #emma #rpdr fanfiction #pride and prejudice queens and zombies #lesbian au

[oselatra]

Hope, help and a whole lot of water in flooded Northeast Arkansas

Dispatches from the deluge.

You can love a river. Love the birds that glide just above the water in the morning. Love the commerce and beauty and grandeur of it, the hidden bounty, the river simultaneously a kind of clock that counts the years and a brown thread that binds those who live along it to the past and future.

But loving a river is and always has been tempered with the knowledge — as old as mankind's tendency to found civilization on any bit of higher ground — that, sooner or later, the rain is going to come and not stop for hours or days. When it does, that tranquil, lazy flow that you love will be transformed into a beast with an unending appetite for sullying the best laid schemes of mice and men.

The rains came to Arkansas in early May. By the time the sun returned, according to preliminary estimates by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, 937,000 acres of farmland had been inundated across the state, at a time when almost 90 percent of the state's crops were already in the ground. Rice will reportedly be the hardest hit, with an estimated 156,000 acres — and $29.9 million in revenue — feared lost. According to the UA, total financial losses to farmers in the state due to impacts from the floods will top $64 million.

The town of Pocahontas in Northeast Arkansas's Randolph County was hard hit by the flooding, boxed in as it is by five rivers that are, in normal years, celebrated as tourist attractions for fishermen and canoers: the Black, the Current, the Elevenpoint, the Spring and the Fourche, along with dozens of creeks and streams and sloughs, unnamed and named, in the woods and fields around. The old-timers founded the town proper on high ground that sits above the Black, the city shelving down from the old courthouse to a sharp bend in the river that snakes past the bounds of Pocahontas and out of sight. Subsequent generations built on lower-lying land in east Pocahontas, on the other side of the river. Flooding wasn't really a problem until recently, people in town will tell you, but this is the third time the waters have risen and smote the low-lying areas of Pocahontas since 2008. Something is wrong with the weather, people say.

When the rains came, the Black River rose and drowned the Walmart store and whole neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city to a depth of 3 feet or more in some places. A mandatory evacuation order was issued for east Pocahontas on May 2. The river was scheduled to crest at over 31 feet, which would have been an even bigger disaster, but only managed 29 before the levees broke.

Media reports said it was the levee breach that flooded portions of the town, but it was actually the opposite, according to the mayor. With the levees protecting the city to only 27 feet in some places, there was already widespread flooding by the time the levee broke. The breach siphoned water out of flooded stores and neighborhoods at the rate of two inches an hour once the levee failed and set water pouring into the fields to the south. Talking to people in Pocahontas about the levee breach, you find a strange mix of relief and sadness, the city mouse knowing that he or she had been spared some unknowably worse measure of calamity at the expense of country cousins downstream. Everybody knows everybody in Pocahontas, which means that everybody seems to know somebody who lost everything.

Days after the Black began to recede, Stan Vinson was working at stripping sodden carpets out of the home of his sister, Cleva Dean, near the corner of Old Country Road and Knott Street, more than half a mile east of the river. His clothes were covered in mud from his waist down to the soles of his shoes. Across the way, a commercial building sat surrounded by a hastily constructed dirt berm. After a final, desperate attempt to sandbag the house and move the appliances and furniture to higher ground as the rain came down, Vinson and Dean had been forced to evacuate to Vinson's home in Corning. They hadn't been able to get back to the house until days later, and found a mess. A friend had scared up some help to get the carpet and carpet padding out. It lay in soggy heaps on the lawn.

"We knew that if [the Black River] went to 31 and a half, there wasn't any hope," Vinson said. "Then the levee broke. The water went down, but we still got the carpets wet. We could have done a better job at sandbagging, and we will if we have to do it again."

Inside, Cleva Dean stood in her dark and empty kitchen. The house smelled of dank river water, the air conditioner and gas heaters running full blast to try to dry things out. With the carpet stripped away, the bare plywood sheathing was spongy underfoot.

Dean has lived in the house since 1972, and said flooding had never been a problem until recently. She'd evacuated to her brother's house during a flood in 2011. Water didn't get into the house that time. This time, she was not so lucky. She seemed always on the knife-edge of tears, speaking like a woman who was expecting to wake up in her dry house at any moment. She doesn't have flood insurance, she said.

"I've lived here for years without it doing anything," she said. "I didn't think it was worth it, but I guess it was. Flood insurance is pretty high and then it doesn't pay off nearly anything. ... You just have to roll with the punches. You don't have any idea when FEMA is going to be around, do you?" Her brother has told her they should be able to get things righted and have her moved back in in about six weeks, but who knows?

A little further into east Pocahontas on Redbud Street, Cody Grice was standing in front of the peeling white frame house he shares with his father. Nearby, just on the other side of a crooked line of traffic cones, Redbud Street disappeared into murky brown water like a boat ramp. What looked to be a small brick church stood flooded just up the block.

As the Black River rose, Grice's house was saved by a neat, 3-foot wall of white sandbags surrounding the house; the product of a 13-hour, all-day thrash by Grice and his friends. They brought in at least 10 truckloads of sand donated by the Highway Department, he said, and then worked in the pouring rain with shovels to get the job done. Though the water got high enough to overtop the sandbag wall near the back porch, Grice said no water got into the house.

"If it wasn't for all my friends coming out and helping us, man, we would have been under water. It got up to almost the floorboards in the back," Grice said. "Friends are great. If it wasn't for them, we'd probably be sitting somewhere else right now. Might not be talking to y'all."

After the mandatory evacuation order came down, Grice and his father had fled with their dogs to his mother's home on the other side of the river, then spent several nail-biting days not knowing whether their efforts to keep the house dry had paid off. "My mom's house was the only place we had to go. We were lucky we had that. Our neighbors didn't have that. They were asking us for help and we couldn't do nothing for them. We were worried about our house," Grice said. Some of his friends lost everything in the flood, he said. He's given others money for food. It hurts, but he's happy that his home was spared, and for the friends who helped.

"Everybody came together when we needed it," he said. "It's hard to get people together when they're getting paid, let alone just to help. Maybe America will take a note from small- town Arkansas."

The Sea of Arkansas

South of town, the day after the Black River crested at Pocahontas, state troopers and National Guardsmen manned a roadblock, the Guardsmen in the cab of a brontosaurus-sized high-water truck with a tall air-intake snorkel that could, theoretically, allow the truck to drive underwater. Beyond them, the great Sea of Arkansas stretched to the horizon over what had been fields in the midst of planting season a week before. In the distance, the water was dotted with flooded grain silos, churches and houses. Near Shannon, U.S. Highway 67 was submerged for at least five miles toward Walnut Ridge, the water reportedly 7 feet deep in places. Just up from the roadblock, the water caught the light as it gurgled over the shoulder of the highway, as if over a spillway. Nearby was a soaked house and a car sunk to the axles in the saturated ground. Even where the water had receded, yards and houses and barns had been buried in corn stalks and shucks, washed up from the fields in brown drifts. Closer to Walnut Ridge, it was even worse, the land flatter and lower and more populated, multiplying miseries.

One of those helping lead the Arkansas National Guard's operations in town in the days after the flood was First Lt. Ryan Jones, with the 875th Engineer Battalion. By the time we talked to him, Jones had been on the ground in Pocahontas for almost a week. From a base at the Pocahontas Community Center, his soldiers had worked pretty much around the clock helping the Randolph County Sheriff's Office with evacuations and cleanup while spending their nights on the hard gym floor. A native of Jonesboro, Jones looked young enough that he probably couldn't buy a beer without getting carded. But there he was, marshaling forces with crisp efficiency.

"We're here to help our community," Jones said. "At the end of the day, the Arkansas National Guard is made up of people from this community. We have people in our National Guard unit right now who just live a couple miles down the road. It's neighbors helping neighbors the best they can." The mission in Pocahontas, Jones said, is exactly what the National Guard is all about. While there's not a lot you can say to people who have lost everything, Jones said, he tries to stress that it will get better.

"We try to reassure people that they will make it, and they will be OK," he said. "I know it's really hard. It is. They've lost a lot. But we're trying to the best of our ability to get them comfortable and give them some hope that it will be OK. Maybe not at this time. But it will be OK eventually."

Pocahontas Mayor Kary Story, reached by phone the week after the Black receded, said the city is trying to get back to normal operations. The flood heavily damaged an estimated 50 homes and had soaked countless others to the point of requiring extensive tear-out. There was no good estimate, he said, of the number of businesses that took water, but it was substantial.

Story said that at the time the levee system along the Black was constructed in 1938, east Pocahontas was a low-lying wetland that wasn't really inhabited. Over the years, however, the area has slowly filled in with homes and businesses, development receiving a boost after Walmart built a store there in the 1990s. In the intervening 79 years since the levee along the Black was built, Story said, the landscape has been changed drastically by precision land leveling, further levee construction and dredging of drainage ditches. This year's deluge could have been much worse for the city, Story said, if the levee hadn't breached. "When it did, we watched the water go down two inches per hour. It just sucked it out of here. I was wanting it to be breached, but I don't have any control or authority over that levee system so I can't do anything to it. But, yeah, it was definitely a relief."

Though the city secured and spent $250,000 in grant money to raise certain portions of the levee after the 2011 floods, Story said that he doesn't want to propose a "kneejerk reaction" solution now. A town hall meeting is in the works, with representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers scheduled to be in attendance. "I want to wait until emotions cool down and we can start talking about solutions to this problem," Story said. "I don't want finger pointing and whose levee is high and whose levee costs what. Nobody won in this thing. The people that the levee protected, it didn't protect them well. The farmers to the north suffered losses because of it, farmers to the south suffered losses, and east Pocahontas suffered."

Story said that he's been proud of the reaction by the city and how the townspeople have come together for the good of their neighbors. Like Lt. Jones, he said that the best thing to tell people is, it will get better.

"It's hard for me to say much to them," he said. "I haven't been in their shoes of losing everything, so I don't know how they feel. I know that they've got to keep their heads up. ... We've just got to hold our heads high and fix our lives the best we can."

Happy camper

Up the hill from Black River Overlook Park, where the water still stood high enough to almost touch the nets of basketball goals two days after the worst of the flooding, the former Randolph County Nursing Home was a hive of activity. Closed in 2016, the nursing home had been reopened as a shelter as the storm bore down on the city and the river rose.

The day we visited, the parking lot was full, National Guard Humvees sharing space with tractor-trailers rigs, compact cars and good ol' boy lifted trucks. Legions of volunteers streamed in and out, hauling bleach and Bibles, shovels and rakes, pallets of bottled water and cardboard boxes of wrapped ice cream cones to hand out to evacuees and the all-volunteer staff. There were still over 50 people seeking refuge at the shelter the day Arkansas Times visited, some arriving with not much more than the clothes on their backs.

Outside, at the end of the long covered walkway leading to the door, Arthur Scroggins and Michelle Erickson were sitting in lawn chairs in the sun. Residents of Hardy, they'd been stuck in Poplar Bluff, Mo., for days after the flood, only coming south after the water receded enough to open the roads. They were going to wait another day at the shelter in Pocahontas to let the water go down a bit more, then make a try for their cabin on the Spring River. "We know the cabin hasn't been touched or anything, Scroggins said. "It's just getting there. Hopefully this rain is going to lay off for a while." It was good to be back in Arkansas, they both agreed.

Nearby was Kenny Garrett, a Pocahontas resident who stayed at the shelter for five days after the mandatory evacuation, until the streets to his house were passable. "I checked out this morning, and came right back with some supplies I'd bought out of my own pocket," he said. "Donated them. I know they're shorthanded here."

Garrett, who works as a landscaper, said he'd had a total of 12 hours sleep during the previous week. Anytime you see him, he said, you can be sure there's a coffee cup somewhere nearby. "I'm here until it's over," he said. "I've got a regular job I've got to go back to, but I'll come up here at night. My pockets ain't that deep, but I'll do what I can do."

As we were chatting, Paula Ricker walked up in her scrubs and asked if we knew when the government was coming to help. A home health nurse who lives in Pocahontas, she was there to check on a patient, a man in his 70s whose home had been totally flooded. "He's lost his house," she said. "He's going to have to replace floors and walls and everything, and he's on oxygen 24/7. His daughter is supposed to figure out what to do so he can go back home." As she spoke, two workers in heavy gloves wrestled a gleaming panel of sheet metal from the back of a nearby truck, the metal booming like vaudevillian thunder. "I feel so bad for him," she said. "I'm really close to him because he reminds me of my dad. I'm hoping he can get everything fixed."

Just inside the doors of the shelter at a desk, Marti Little, the volunteer coordinator for the operation, rarely put down her phone. She's a schoolteacher by day, but necessity had turned her into the Decider of this place, part general and part traffic cop, her attention ping-ponging from phone to volunteer and back to phone as she directed resources and guided worried people through the maze of flooded roads that stood between desperation and shelter. She was wearing a T-shirt that said "Happy Camper." She'd been there almost a week by then, working 16-hour-plus days. Asked how much sleep she'd managed to get during her time volunteering there, she could only smile and shake her head.

"We have volunteers working around-the-clock," she said. "Twenty-four hours a day, we have people working here, people working elsewhere, people helping. We're taking donations at any hour." Even after she starts back to school, she said, every waking hour she can spare will be spent at the shelter, until the need there is gone. As she spoke, someone in the lobby's phone rang, and the ringtone was Alanis Morissette singing: "It's like raaaaaiinnnn, on your wedding day ... ." If she noticed it, Little didn't smile.

"In this community, we do all we can," Little said. "A small town is different from Little Rock. Here, most of us know each other. People will open their homes. We've had people come in and say, "If you have anyone who needs a place to stay ... ." We have people staying in churches, in peoples' homes, trying not to take up a bed here."

Then somebody came in requesting phone chargers and Little told them there were none to be had. Then somebody came in with a handful of religious tracts and she pointed him to a table where they could be placed. Then a bin full of fresh laundry rumbled through and she pointed the way. Then somebody came in with a cardboard box full of stuffed toy mooses donated by the local Moose Lodge, and she directed him to people sitting nearby. Then her phone rang and she spoke into it, saying: soap, cleaning supplies, storage tubs, 50-gallon trash bags, nonperishables, socks for the National Guard, crackers are good. Then her phone rang again and she started giving, for the thousandth time, the long and involved directions to come overland from Imboden while dodging the frustrating labyrinth of flooded roads between points A and B, speaking soothingly, a beacon of hope to someone far away.

She turned back to my recorder, but then her phone rang again. Little listened, muttered a hasty apology, then literally ran out the door, phone pressed to her ear, to catch a truck bound on some mission of mercy before it could pull out of the parking lot. And down the hill, out of sight, the swollen Black River poured on toward the sea.

Hope, help and a whole lot of water in flooded Northeast Arkansas

#Hope #help and a whole lot of water in flooded Northeast Arkansas

[callrobin3-blog]

Reverse Shot

The 15:17 to Paris Dir. Clint Eastwood, U.S., Warner Bros.

Like Sully, Clint Eastwood?s The 15:17 to Parisis about a moment of decisiveness in which an average American man became a hero. And like American Sniper, it is about the making of that hero by the part of America that both Fox News viewers and New York Timeseditors think of when they think of ?the real America.? Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler, who in 2015 charged down a gunman preparing to massacre the passengers of the Eurostar train they were on as the last leg of a backpacking trip, and who play themselves onscreen (quite stiffly), are shown as products of American mythmaking. They soak up their grandfathers? war stories, recruitment ads, and other Clint Eastwood movies: Stone at one point wears a Man with No Name t-shirt, and has a Letters from Iwo Jimaposter in his childhood bedroom alongside one for Full Metal Jacket. Clint has been derided in some quarters for these small vanities, but they?re perfectly apt for a movie in which real life and movie life interact in ways that are frequently awkward, frequently touching, and always singular.

In making a feature film out of an event that unfolded in slightly more time than Sully?s United Flight 1549 was airborne, Eastwood now focuses primarily on the lead-up, rather than the aftermath. Drawing from the trio? Shadows on the Wall , screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal?a production assistant on Sullygetting her feature screenplay credit?places their friendship on a collision course with destiny. At the time, Stone was an active-duty Air Force airman, Skarlatos a National Guardsman who had returned from a deployment in Afghanistan, and Sadler a student at Cal State. The film begins in Sacramento, where Stone and Skarlatos, two academic strugglers raised by single moms, meet Sadler, a mischievous fellow misfit at their Christian academy.

These early scenes are excruciating, marked by placeholder dialogue no children would ever say?expository for young Spencer and Alek and silver-tongued, with lots of conditional clauses, for Anthony. These scenes are enlivened only by stripped-down turns from comic actors doing their shtick without the jokes: Thomas Lennon as a smug, prissy fundamentalist principal, and Toby Hale as a toxically ineffectual gym teacher who is ?in a moodtoday, whoo!? Hale, especially, with the pathos behind his pettiness, would fit right into another recent on-screen Bush-era Sacramento Christian school, Lady Bird?s Immaculate Heart. Here, as in that film (and in America at large), class is somewhat difficult to parse, given that the visible trappings of middle-class life go hand-in-glove with anxiety bordering on the existential. Stone?s mother (Judy Greer) appears to own her detached home, and given the lengths to which the film goes to manufacture ?stakes,? 17 to Paris Movie Review can bet that if she was underwater on her mortgage we?d hear about it. But Greer effectively puts across the precarious mental state of a single mother of a tearaway kid?no one to take over when you?re tired, so you?re always skating along the very edge of rage to keep from shutting down completely.

Such deftness is atypical of a movie that will entertain the kind of viewer who updates the ?Goofs? section of movies? IMDb pages. (Remember the rubber baby in American Sniper?) Greer and Jenna Fischer, as Mama Skarlatos, fare worse once the child actors are replaced by the real Stone and Skarlatos: Eastwood makes no real attempt to correspondingly age their mothers up by ten years, and the actresses appear more tentative when thrust into scenes opposite their suddenly Large Adult Sons. And the dialogue feels at times almost purposefully cringeworthy: when Stone tells Sadler about the college basketball player who ?dunked on this fool? (the characters often watch, and desultorily narrate, televised sports) or when Greer shuts down a teacher trying to force ADD medication down her kid?s throat, saying, ?My God is bigger than your statistics,? it?s like the movie is daring you to feel superior to it.

The filmmaking, as square as the characters, courts its viewers with obvious avowals of shared values. Stone prays, as a child and again at the film?s denouement, ?Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.? The boys pester cool teacher Jaleel White for old WWII battle plans, dress in camo, and play war games?though the arsenal of Airsoft guns the pubescent Stone lays out on his bed may not signal innocent enthusiasm to every viewer. These two strands, the devout and the martial, eventually come together in a purpose-driven life: after Stone, pudgy and aimless, meets a military recruiter, he identifies his higher calling as serving and saving lives in the Air Force?s totally rad Pararescue unit. This American hero?s origin myth is located not within the already rugged American milieu of rodeo, as in American Sniper, but at a Jamba Juice, where Stone?s Hot Topic goth coworker reminds him that the smoothie he comped his recruiter is coming out of his own tip money. It?s as unpromising a location as the Times Square Irish bar, playing the late local news, where Sully has his epiphany. The filmmaking in Eastwood?s latter-day ripped-from-the-headlines stories feels radically unprocessed, the stuff of modern life transcribed simply and faithfully: the Eurozone train travel scenes here, with their wheel bags and fast-fashion slip-on shoes crisscrossing station platforms, recall Sully?s version of flight, always grounded in Hudson News and the heft of carry-on luggage.

It?s frankly astonishing that Eastwood, disciple of ?Don and Sergio,? would film a scene in which a couple of beefy bros in shorts buy and eat gelato at a tourist-trap stand in Venice. Stone and Sadler, spending this leg of their long-planned European trip with a solo-flying American chick they?ve been trying to flirt with, pick out their flavors (hazelnut!), pay the man, and make growly approving nom-nom sounds. But the ice cream ismore exciting for being eaten in Venice; somewhere amidst the dudes? performative gelato ecstasy is a glimmer of awareness that this is a special time in their lives. You may be reminded at this juncture that military service is one of the few engines of upward social mobility left in this country, or of what a privilege it is to be a member of the minority of Americans who hold valid passports, or to have access, as Sadler does, to the kind of credit that could fund a latter-day Grand Tour.

Like anyone else, these Americans abroad relate to the greatness of Rome and the Renaissance through the means with which their life experience has provided them. They are notably more animated at the Coliseum than the Spanish Steps, having seen Gladiator. Their marveling at all the ?old shit? there is in Europe isn?t ignorance, it?s gratitude?an awareness that they should mark the moment by saying something, however much their dutiful sightseeing is compromised by hangovers from last night?s city-center rave excursion with a bunch of Erasmus students. (Though even there, what constitutes ?epic? is a fully clothed Stone getting up on a stripper pole and sliding down it very slowly.)

The rosy view of ugly Americans abroad?the camera?s eye follows the characters? up the legs of Euro hotties in discos and hostels?precedes a rosy view of Americans intervening in an attempted Islamic-fundamentalist terrorist attack. During this time of extraordinary political bad faith, it?s healthy to remember that traits like bravery and self-sufficiency and the desire to be useful are virtues that can be motivated by any number of belief systems. For all the presumption, exclusion and machismo of Stone?s dreams of Eastwoodian cowboy/solider gallantry there is something very moving in his reaction when he?s told that a poor vision test will keep him out of Pararescue. That he won?t get to be one of the gallant elect who makes a difference, and will have to find his life?s meaning all over again.

Essentially, Stone wants to be a character in a Clint Eastwood movie?and for much of The 15:17 to Paris, this unfulfilled ambition animates the film's form as much as it does its content. Stone, Skarlatos, and Sadler's simulation of their own genuine lifelong friendship is notably unconvincing, full of camera-shy gravelly-voiced diffidence and hilariously basic half-speed evocations of everyday interactions. Even the self-aware Sadler, who talks through his selfie-stick framings in faintly visible quotations marks, is so far from being a natural camera presence that the distance between the banality of life and the sublime of cinema seems practically unbridgeable. This sense that transcendence is elusive to us mere mortals is the explicit subject of the film. Stone, looking out over rooftops in Venice, proclaims that he feels as if the world is ?catapulting? him toward some great event, some reckoning?a part in a story that will itself be told and retold. But for nearly its entirety, The 15:17 to Parisinhabits the gap between lived and imagined experience?something more frequently the purview of microindie cinema. I?m thinking of Aaron Katz?s Cold Weather, whose mumblecore characters find themselves caught up in a neo-noir mystery, or Wild Canaries, Lawrence Michael Levine and Sophia Takal?s role-play remake of Manhattan Murder Mystery. In fact, Wild Canaries, with its occasional precise slapstick bits and tart dialogue, is a more polished piece of cinema than the new Eastwood movie?until the very classical action set piece climax, when Clint?s filmmaking chops snap back into place like William Munny?s killer instinct, and Stone finds the culmination and validation of his desire to serve God and country, after the frustrating day-to-day of school and basic training.

After planting glimpses of the train attack between act breaks throughout the film, Eastwood mounts an uninterrupted restaging, beginning with the scuffle outside the bathroom, the single pistol shot, and the assault rifle drawn before Stone?who has been crouched in wait behind his seat, watching in intense close-up, his blank, uncinematic face suddenly evocative in its focus?makes his move. The close-quarters scuffle is largely constrained to the aisle of a single train car, which becomes a channel for the will of the participants. Stone tackled the assailant after his rifle jammed; Eastwood gives us the moment in a clean shot-reverse shot, with Stone charging, seatbacks vaguely visible in widescreen telephoto, and then his target, the full length of the rifle running across the center of the frame, the shot already lined up. Eastwood makes it entirely clear that Stone is running toward the moment of his death, and that in this sacrifice he has, finally and decisively, found his life?s purpose. An instinct born and nurtured in a gun-crazy Christian nation is elevated to a state of grace.

And yet. The triumphant story of The 15:17 to Parisimplicitly thumbs its nose at attitudes like that of the ectomorphic German bike-tour guide who, earlier in the film, snidely tells Stone that the Russians, not the Americans, were closing in on Berlin at the close of WWII: here, Team America really is the world?s police. Blyskal and Eastwood cherry-pick incidents to justify not just the feature length but also Stone?s sense of ?catapulting? toward his moment: Stone unarmed and impotent during a false-alarm lockdown at his military base, and then finally finding the Air Force fulfilling as he develops the jiujitsu skills that will serve him so well on the train. Thus it seems as if the characters of The 15:17 to Parisseek out a grand narrative as much as they rise to it.

[omginstantpaperbouquetblr]

By Sean Sweeney / Socialist Project.

Puerto Rico is now at the center of the global debate about climate resiliency, the potential of renewable energy technologies, and the best way to transition away from fossil fuels. To some extent, it has compressed the struggle for the world’s energy future both geographically and temporally. The whole system was shut down by an “extreme weather event” in the form of hurricane Maria that hit the island on September 16, 2017. This scale of disruption has never happened before – not in Puerto Rico, not in the United States, and not anywhere in the modern world. What was once a discussion about the future of energy has now been transplanted firmly into the precarious present.

“Electricity for Caguas” — protest in San Juan, Puerto Rico, January 15, 2018.

Hurricane Maria completely knocked out Puerto Rico’s electricity grid, leaving the island without any power. As of this writing, four months have passed and still 45 per cent of the island’s population is without electricity. This is the longest power outage in U.S. history. By mid-January 2018, only 20 per cent of the island’s traffic lights were functioning. Of nearly 31,000 new utility poles ordered from the U.S., almost 19,000 had still not arrived. Hundreds of schools, while holding classes, were operating without electricity.

Puerto Rico’s Public Electric Power Authority (known as PREPA), which since the mid-1970s has provided virtually all of the island’s electrical power quickly became the target of an avalanche of criticism regarding how it responded to the disaster. These criticisms inflicted fresh damage on PREPA’s already sullied reputation for poor management, neglect of infrastructure, and deep indebtedness. PREPA was also criticized for dragging its feet on the development of wind and solar power. Puerto Rico has significant wind and considerable solar potential, but only 3.3 per cent of its pre-Maria power was generated by renewables. 1 Oil generates 47.4 per cent of Puerto Rico’s power; about 33 per cent was generated by gas, and roughly 16 per cent from coal-all of it imported. In 2010, the island’s legislature introduced a renewable energy target that essentially instructed PREPA to source 12 per cent of energy from renewables by 2015-a target that it failed to meet.2

  Assets for Sale

On January 22nd, Puerto Rico’s governor Ricardo Rosselló announced his intention to sell “PREPA assets.” The utility, he stated, “has become a heavy burden on our people, who are now hostage to its poor service and high cost.” Selling PREPA’s assets to private companies will, said the governor, “transform the generation system into a modern, efficient, and less expensive one for the people.” It would pave the way for one “based on renewable and environmentally friendly sources… We have the opportunity not only to make a new energy system, but to be a global model.” Business representatives applauded the announcement, with one of them stating, “For many years the private sector has requested the total transformation of the energy system in Puerto Rico, which, due to its inefficiency, prevents our economic development.”

The Sun Gods Speak

The decision to privatize PREPA was surely influenced by the actions of renewable energy interests outside of Puerto Rico, for whom Maria was a cloud with a solar lining. Indeed, a buzz of excitement swept across the green lists and blogs when, in late October, with most of the island in darkness, Tesla’s Elon Musk delivered hundreds of solar panels and energy storage batteries to Hospital del Nino in downtown San Juan near the Condado Beach area. Forever the entrepreneur, Musk chose to help a hospital in a wealthy commercial area-a politically strategic choice and a first-rate photo-op. According to one writer, “The island presented [Musk] with the perfect opportunity to test his theory that you could use solar panels and batteries to create microgrids to power people’s homes and even their cars, Teslas of course.”

Meanwhile, Virgin Group leader Richard Branson quickly enlisted the help of his friend Amory Lovins, arguably the founding father of the theory of “green capitalism.” In the 1970s, Lovins argued that the future scarcity of fossil fuels meant businesses should invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency in order to position themselves for the coming green bonanza. Unfortunately, the fossil fuels did not run out; instead more were found – under forests, in shale rock formations, and in deep ocean areas like the arctic. Those who invested in renewables only made money by convincing governments to directly subsidize them, to force utilities to pay above-market prices for solar and wind power-or preferably to do both.

In mid December 2017 Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) released a report called The Role of Renewable and Distributed Energy in a Resilient and Cost-Effective Energy Future for Puerto Rico. After consulting “stakeholders” – the majority of those listed were corporations, including Tesla – the paper made a strong case for the introduction of new energy technologies such as microgrids and energy storage systems.3

The findings of the paper had an immediate impact on the politics of the island. This is because many of its proposals regarding microgrids and storage technologies (proposals that are hardly original) make perfect sense. But the Institute was not entertaining the idea that the island’s next system should remain publicly owned. Quite the contrary: “What is needed is a coordinated effort by the Puerto Rico government, regulatory commission, and utility to catalogue, prioritize, and competitively procure potential renewable and distributed energy projects…while supporting the least cost and highest value in the long run.” The terms “competitively procure” and “highest value” make it clear what RMI thought should happen: Hedge-fund financed private power producers, project developers, and technology companies should have more control over the island’s power generation, transmission, and distribution systems.

Green Colonialism?

But Governor Rosselló’s claim that the privatization of PREPA will mean that Puerto Rico will be “a global model” for a new cleaner and greener energy system will surely come back to haunt him. First of all, it is very likely there will be no full-on privatization of PREPA. No private interest is going to buy PREPA as it is – absent some backdoor deal to make the offer too good to refuse. The demand for electricity has been falling steadily as a result of recession, migration, and poverty. Furthermore, the island’s energy infrastructure is about 44 years old, compared with an average 18 years on the U.S. mainland. And the worrying prospect of more extreme weather events is not exactly an enticement for potential buyers.

So what will privatization look like? In a revealing but seemingly innocuous phrase, Rosselló’s announcement referred to “a model of privatization of power generation and a concession, term-defined, of energy distribution and transmission.” What does “concession, term-defined” mean? Concession agreements between governments and private corporations normally include rights to use (and profit from) certain pieces of an infrastructure or service for an agreed duration. From the dawn of the colonial period, concessionary companies were used by colonial administrations all over the global South to transfer wealth from the colonized “periphery” to the colonial “core.” Puerto Rico now faces the prospect of being a source of revenue and profit for wind and solar multinationals and technology companies. These companies are not interested in providing a universal service with equal access to all. They have their eyes on providing power to those who have the capacity to pay.

It seems very likely that, if Rosselló and private renewables’ companies get their way, PREPA will be broken up (or, in privatization speak, “unbundled”) and private transmission and distribution companies will be lured to the island or be established by PREPA’s top management who, as was the case in other parts of the world where power was privatized, would see themselves transformed from public servants to corporate CEOs.

In terms of generating electrical power, the global experience has shown that wind and solar projects can only make profits by way of favorable “out of market” arrangements, such as power purchase agreements (or PPAs) between developers and the utility or another public entity, normally over a 15- or 20-year period. PPAs offer “certainties” to investors and developers, but this invariably results in higher prices for users (to cover the additional costs of private financing, profit, etc.)4

Because Puerto Rico’s power system presently depends on imported fossil fuels, electricity costs have been higher than on the mainland. But this does not mean that private renewable energy will lead, as the governor claims, to a reduction in prices. The price will be determined by the terms of the PPAs, and if history is any guide prices will rise, not fall. And with the demand for electricity falling in Puerto Rico, this will mean every user will be required to pay more in order to cover investors’ costs and profits. This is not a reason to hold back on renewables; rather, it merely makes it imperative to reduce costs by eliminating profit and reducing the cost of borrowing capital based on commercial rates of return.

Keeping it Public, and the Role of Unions

The fight against the privatization of PREPA will be difficult. The utility does not have a reputation for providing efficient, reliable, cost-effective service. But Rosselló’s plan will take up to three years to implement, so there is time to build a broad-based campaign. The power system is not the only service threatened with privatization in Puerto Rico. The island’s political and social elite – to say nothing of the U.S. hedge funds operating on the island and members of the Fiscal Control Board – had already been looking to privatize potentially profitable public services, including health care and education along with parts of the power system. And fighting the privatization of public services is already a priority for the island’s progressive forces.

Progressive labor has an important role to play. In late October 2017, before the announced privatization, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) organized a global labor conference call on the future of Puerto Rico’s power sector. On the call was Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, the president of Puerto Rico’s principal power sector union, the Electrical Industry and Irrigation Workers Union (Unión de Trabajadores de la Industria Eléctrica y Riego – UTIER). UTIER represents workers at PREPA. Jaramillo called for a “just transition” for the sector, which must move from being based almost entirely on fossil fuels to a distributed renewables-based system. Jaramillo added, “PREPA is a public good that belongs to the people and not to the politicians.”

The recent attacks on PREPA were, says UTIER, part of a broad-based campaign against anything public. The predatory interventions of hedge-fund interests caused a large portion of PREPA’s already declining revenues from power generation to be used to repay debts, meaning less funds were available to maintain and improve the utility’s aging infrastructure. UTIER maintains that the island’s government, the Board of Fiscal Control, and PREPA’s upper management collectively impeded the post-Maria recovery effort in order to make privatization seem like a positive step.

Following the announcement that PREPA would be privatized, UTIER denounced the plan, stating “For decades we have warned how various administrations have undermined workers and intentionally damaged the infrastructure of PREPA. This was intended to provoke the people’s discontent with the service in order to privatize, to strip us-the people-of what is ours.” For UTIER, PREPA’s actions before and after Maria reflect the corruption of the public service ethic that has corroded PREPA from within. Top management often looks to privatization as a means of escaping publicly regulated salary structures. For example, the privatization of Con Edison in New York in 1998 saw the pay levels of its top management climb astronomically. Just prior to the lock-out of the Utility Workers Local 1-2 in July 2012, CEO Kevin Burke was pulling down an $11-million annual salary.

PREPA, said Jaramillo, needs to be reclaimed politically to serve the public good. It’s estimated $9-billion debt should be cancelled or renegotiated. A reformed, transparent, and democratically controlled PREPA can then work with communities to develop distributed solar power under public and local-level control. These sources would need to be connected to a reliable grid – one that can serve all the people equally. Such a restructuring will take a number of years. Microgrid systems under community control have real potential, but they should not become a means for wealthier communities to generate power for themselves and then expect to come back on to the grid when the sun stops shining or the batteries run out, and storage technologies are expensive and still relatively untested.

Simple Economics

With the old public systems, the cost of electricity was tied to the costs of installing, maintaining, and upgrading the system. Such systems worked fine – and they would work for large-scale renewables too. Everyone was connected. Most of the territorial U.S. was electrified as a result of the New Deal and the development of publicly owned and operated rural cooperatives, almost 900 of which still exist today. Since World War II, most of the global South has been electrified by way of public electrification programs that were set up as national and human development projects, and not as a way of making money for energy companies and hedge funds.

But what about the costs? Here several factors need to be considered. First, a report prepared for Rosselló and FEMA from Navigant Consulting estimated that rebuilding and upgrading Puerto Rico’s grid will cost as much as $18-billon.5 If funds are committed to this effort, they will surely come from public sources and therefore should not be used to simply clear the path to privatization and profiteering. Rosselló’s plan to privatize key parts of PREPA will be a three-year process, thus presenting a scenario where private companies will have a rebuilt and upgraded grid handed to them on a platter.

Second, the cost of public renewable power is lower than would be the case under a system of PPAs, where borrowing and transaction costs are much higher, and profits are then added on top. As much as they make the headlines, figures like Musk and Branson are not the pioneers of renewable energy (Branson has made his money from airlines and buying up once-public railway systems). Globally, publicly owned development banks have been driving renewables. Ironically, private companies have made their money significantly due to low-interest loans – because the lenders are not motivated by profit, but are pursuing policy commitments such as emissions reductions and clean-energy targets.

Third, in many parts of the world the public is already paying for renewable power, but the benefits typically go to private companies. In the U.S., wind and solar power received 54 per cent of federal energy subsidies in 2013, but produced only 4.5 per cent of total U.S. electricity. The subsidies come in the form of tax credits, which means that incentives to encourage renewables are paid for by the public when states impose taxes in order to make up for the tax revenue lost through subsidies. If renewables were deployed as a public service there would be no need for incentives – solar and wind would simply be public infrastructure, and job numbers would actually grow as a result of scaled-up deployment.

Public renewable power may or may not be cheaper than power generated from coal or gas, but it will certainly be cheaper than renewable power generated for private gain. The public utility, PREPA, can be reclaimed and restructured in order to ensure, first, that the energy transition can be planned and implemented over a period of years and that renewable sources of energy serve everyone – and not just those who can afford solar panels, microgrids, and battery systems. Space can be created so that communities have a real voice in the installation, operation, maintenance, and management of local energy systems with a strong emphasis on conservation and efficiency. But public-worker control of the overall service is also important, because this is where decisions about the direction of the island’s energy future will need to be made. The goal here is not to sell electrical power to the grid for profit, but to make sure systems are operating well and are responsive to public needs and concerns.

The people of Puerto Rico may come up with another way of doing the energy transition. But they must be given a choice-and that includes the choice to keep the power system fully in public hands. •

New Labor Forum, Spring 2018, forthcoming.

Endnotes

Prior to Maria Puerto Rico has installed just 120MW of solar and only 22MW of wind.

The targets mandated were 15% renewables by 2020 and 20% by 2035.

Microgrids are small-scale power grids that can function independently of the larger transmission system. So if there is a problem with the centralized generation and main transmission lines, users can still-under certain circumstances-continue to access electricity.

See TUED Bulletin #68.

Puerto Rico Energy Resiliency Working Group (Navigant Consulting) Build Back Better: Reimagining and Strengthening the Power Grid of Puerto Rico.

Sean Sweeney is Director of the Murphy Institute's International Program on Labor, Climate, and the Environment. And he writes for New Labor Forum and Trade Unions for Energy Democracy.

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[bitcoin24on]

Major Exchanges Don’t Want Forked Coins but Smaller Platforms Can’t Get Enough of Them

With less bitcoin holders bothering to claim forked coins, the public’s appetite for chain splits is clearly diminishing. Developers, though, seem determined to keep pushing out fresh forks to a diminishing band of recipients. One of the toughest challenges that forkers face is finding wallets and exchanges willing to distribute the newly birthed coins. Large platforms have deemed the spate of fledgling forks more hassle than their worth, leaving it to smaller operators such as Coinomi and Bither to pick up the pieces.

Also read: After Segwit2x Failed Jeff Garzik Reveals “United Bitcoin”

Free Coins Come With a Price

Ever since bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold were born, there’s been a race to issue bitcoin clones, each claiming to offer some sort of improvement over bitcoin core. Forking a coin isn’t the only means of distributing a new coin; airdrops have also proven popular, particularly for ethereum-based tokens. Developers are especially fond of bitcoin forks, as they bring a ready-made audience of bitcoin users and cash in on the brand name. Any bitcoin holder is eligible to receive any bitcoin fork, but these ‘free’ coins come at a price.

Problems with claiming chain split coins first surfaced during the issuance of bitcoin gold: fake wallets stole users’ coins, with the total taken running into millions of dollars. The next major bitcoin fork, bitcoin diamond, received substantially less support, with Binance one of the few major exchanges to issue BCD to bitcoin holders. Like its older sibling, BTG, bitcoin diamond has been plagued by tales of stolen coins. To claim forked coins, bitcoin holders who possess their private keys are required to upload these to a coin split website. Should the site prove to be a scam, the victim risks losing the contents of their bitcoin wallet.

A Safer Way to Claim

A safer means of claiming forked coins is letting an exchange or wallet do the hard work. The downside to this is that it requires using an account which you don’t possess the keys for, an arrangement which comes with its own risk. The process of claiming forked coins from an exchange is fool proof at least: provided you have a bitcoin balance at the time of the split, you will automatically be issued forked coins, usually at a ratio of 1:1. However, many exchanges and wallet providers have tired of the additional work these forks demand.

Aside from the technicalities of claiming and distributing forked coins, there are deposits and withdrawals to process, and newly developed coins often have basic wallets that are still in beta. Given that many of the teams behind these forks are unknown and unproven, it is also hard to vouch for the project’s integrity. Forked coins that have been excessively premined (bitcoin gold) or whose developers elect to claim coins from inactive bitcoin wallets (united bitcoin) are controversial, and risk sullying the reputation of exchanges and wallet providers that agree to distribute them.

Binance issued everything up until super bitcoin before calling a halt, while Bittrex stopped at bitcoin gold, as did Bitfinex. Developers of subsequent forks have been forced to look to smaller platforms for support, and they’ve found it in Coinomi. The open source wallet, available on the Play and App stores, supports a host of altcoins and tokens, and has been only too willing to take on chain splits. Bitcoin atom (BCA) is the latest fork it will take on, a coin which comes with Segwit and Lightning Network support.

The wallet provider’s CEO, George Kimionis, tweeted: “Coinomi has helped millions of users already to claim their free forked coins with great success and continues to do so, becoming the ultimate choice for forks and airdrops.”

Fork All The Things

Bither, a little-known bitcoin wallet available for mobile and desktop, is now supporting bitcoin diamond on its Bitpie wallets. Smaller exchanges that are supporting BCD include Gate.io, Allcoin, Coolcoin, and Bibox. These platforms gain additional users who are seeking to claim forked coins, boosting revenue from trading fees in the process. Unlike most forked coins, bitcoin diamond was issued at a rate of 10 BCD for every 1 BTC. Given that each BCD currently trades at around $50, however, it is not surprising that many bitcoin holders have ignored the dwindling returns on offer.

Cryptocurrency exchange Gate.io has even supported bitcoin file (BIFI), a P2P file system that was distributed at a rate of 1:1000 after splitting from bitcoin at block 501,225. Each BIFI coin is currently trading for around 45 cents. For so long as developers can find platforms willing to accept coins and users are prepared to claim them, forking fever will continue in a race to the bottom.

Will you be bothering to claim new bitcoin forks? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Keep track of the bitcoin exchange rate in real-time.

The post Major Exchanges Don’t Want Forked Coins but Smaller Platforms Can’t Get Enough of Them appeared first on Bitcoin News.

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[karoltowner4-blog]

The Not Thus Scientific Overview of Global Warming Uncertainty.

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FEATURE: Truth, Morality and Horror in the World of "Chain Chronicle"

Truth, Morality and Horror in the World of "Chain Chronicle" 

Guest Author: Chuck Hodgin from the Wave Motion Cannon blog

  What if The Truth existed as an object here on Earth and could be fundamentally altered if touched?  Or, what if a zombie epidemic existed such that you didn’t lose your agency by being bitten but as a consequence of your own moral choices?  A lot of anime have unusual worlds with complicated mechanics, but none bury these under a forgettable exterior quite like the first Chain Chronicle: The Light of Haecceitas film.  Based on a mobile game that most people can’t buy, the movie comports itself as rather straightforward fantasy-action fare.  Yet, if you scratch beneath the surface just a bit and tease out some of the relationships between significant objects and events in the film, then you’ll find some fairly unique and deliciously intriguing stuff to think about.

Here’s the core premise:  there is a magical book called the (you guessed it) Chain Chronicle which has the entire history of the world written within it.  I’m unclear whether “the entire history” means that new text is constantly being written as events unfold or that the totality of world history has already been written.  This philosophical detail matters less than the phenomenon of the book’s pages becoming stained black, which causes people to become what the movie terms “infected” by darkness.  Infection essentially means zombification here, only instead of being completely mindless you serve a particularly ominous fellow known as The Black King.  And, the stain-to-zombie relationship also works in reverse: people can become infected by darkness through other means (e.g. contact with The Black King, or being consumed by evil emotions) and this infection will stain pages of the Chain Chronicle.  There’s also a bit of a wild card.  If The Black King simply touches the book, its pages will be stained, creating all the havoc that entails.  These are the bare facts, but I want to tease out some of their implications.

There’s a pretty tight connection here between physical matter and the human soul/spirit/heart/mind/energy/chakra/whatever you want to call that part of human beings that is not totally reducible to the physical.  It’s interesting that a physical act like touching a book results in direct action-at-a-distance upon people’s minds (spiritual gravity?), but the reverse might be even more interesting.  If someone on the other side of the world from the Chain Chronicle becomes infected by darkness, part of that book will blacken.  The pages of a history book, and the souls of the people in that history have a unique kind of causal relationship.  For genre veterans, I suppose this kind of relationship between spirit and matter is not all that surprising.  However, there’s something about the way the whole mechanism is presented that makes it feel as mathematical as it does mystical.

The effects of staining the Chain Chronicle also signify a close link between truth and individual members of reality.  So, every event that has transpired in that world is written in that book.  You might say that the Chain Chronicle contains all possible true statements for its world; if someone there writes a sentence that happens to be true, it was also written in the Chain Chronicle first.  Suppose we take a semantic view of truth; in other words, suppose we say that truth or falsehood are properties of sentences rather than of states of affairs (the way stuff is).  We can still adhere to the notion that the truth conditions for these sentences lie in their relationship with states of affairs, but, according to the theory we’re going with, the things correctly referred to as true or false are sentences.  Ergo, the Chain Chronicle is nothing less than a complete record of The Truth, Veracity’s family tree.  Now the Chronicle itself is just a physical collection of truths, which themselves reside...well the ontology is not important right now.  Let me get back to the relationship between the truth and persons.

What could have happened when a person became infected is that the sentence “X became infected” could have appeared in the Chronicle.  But infection triggers an event that doesn’t happen to the Chan Chronicle under any other circumstances.  Conversely, when black ink washes over the words written in the Chronicle, over a token of The Truth, people are affected.  If we were to adopt a Wittgensteinian account of what is contained in the Chronicle, we could say that the book is the representation of The World.  Given that, the universe of Chain Chronicle is one in which The World as a unified concept is tightly linked to its individual occupants.  The holistic worldview on display here is one of the film’s selling points.

But why?  Why would becoming infected by darkness cause a change in the Chain Chronicle that nothing else does (and vice versa)?  I found myself asking this question after watching the movie, and the most satisfying theory I could conjure was that these films have a very specific moral point of view.  The goodness or evil of a person’s soul is such an important thing that it isn’t even among the collection of all true sentences written in the book.  It isn’t a piece of the representation of The World.  Perhaps moral goodness is assumed to be a natural feature so deeply rooted in the representation that its undoing can only be depicted by staining the entire representation.  When people go bad, The Truth is sullied.Think about this for a moment:  Chain Chronicle features a zombie epidemic that spreads not through bite or contact with blood but via moral choices.  That’s f*!+ing weird.  But also kind of fascinating, and the show leverages its idiosyncrasies into some interesting situations.  One of the character’s arm is infected, and he spends his evenings fighting off little devils whispering temptations over his shoulder.  Ghibli fans will likely see shades of Prince Ashitaka here, and for good reason. Another character gives in to one of those aforementioned devils and becomes infected, thereby conscripting himself into the service of The Black King.  When the protagonist has to inform the other heroes of his infection, they gasp in disbelief because this character was such a seemingly righteous person.  Considerations such as “he is too just to become infected” simply aren’t in the calculus of characters in fiction that features zombies,  Yet, in the universe of Chain Chronicle, your moral choices can have a direct effect on your infection and subsequent loss of agency.  Spending even a little bit of time dwelling on this concept frightens me.

All of the above may seem like a lot of disconnected thoughts and certainly a collection of thoughts that is far removed from what most people enjoy in their anime viewing e.g. enjoying characters or being taken for a ride by the plot.  It’s true that most of the features of the Chain Chronicle universe that I highlight aren’t mentioned in character dialogue or by a narrator.  Several points I make require assumptions and are speculative to some degree.  Yet, the world of Chain Chronicle is underpinned by a system of rules, and the story is quite explicit about the existence of this system.  What the film doesn’t spend much time on is how the various rules in the system connect and what these rules and their connections indicate about the film’s worldview.  I am curious to see if my ideas of the metaphysics and structure of this universe will bear thematic fruit in the upcoming films.

Watch Chain Chronicle - The Light of Haecceitas - here on Crunchyroll!

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