#i for one still believe they spend their time funding education and pissing off the merchant council by being decent and eccentric

[six-of-cringe]

So the "Jesper is Wylan's sugar baby" jokes don't bother me TOO badly, but they irk me slightly because they're pretty much based on the fact that no one knows what an allowance is beyond the context of "spending money a parent gives to their child". An allowance in business is an amount of money given to someone for a specific business-related expense, so the "allowance" mentioned at the end of CK is just the amount of money they budgeted to put into the stock market, which Jesper is in charge of. Because you know, he's smart and also Wylan's business partner, not his incompetent pet. Ok maybe the jokes bother me some

#like i get the wording is confusing considering the more widely known context of allowance but. #put some respect on his name damn #also not helpful that we know very little of jesper and wylan's business/life setup bc there was other shit to cover in the last chapter ig #sorry folks if u wanted to know what they get up to with that big old business u'll just have to come back when they're the main characters #i for one still believe they spend their time funding education and pissing off the merchant council by being decent and eccentric #at least their house is canonically a disaster of science and crafts and art. NEURODIVERGENT BLAST!!!! #anyway respect jesper's autonomy or die by my blade #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #six of crows #soc #tgt #soc fandom #soc meta #kinda? whatever #that's just my tag for when i'm not just dicking around

[lily-blue]

Paying the price

☆ characters: patriot!jiung & revolutioner!you ☆ genre: dystopian au, the devil judge au, angst ☆ warnings: graphic description of damaged corpses, mention of blood and violence, vomiting, major character’s death, spoilers ☆ summary: jiung believes in the system, that it has the people’s best interest; you believe that the system is rotten to the core and the people of South Korea need to be enlightened about the truth - as it always is, you two learn it the hard way which one of you is right ☆ words: 15,3k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for proofreading this monster (i still can’t believe i accidentally made intak older than jiung 🙃) ☆ also: happy name day to the one and only @restlessmaknae​ 💕 it actually made me feel nostalgic when i started to search up these guys for this story, it reminded me of that one yeonjun fic i wrote for you, the one that made me stan txt. i’m not quite there yet with these boys, but who knows, maybe one day. thank you for coming back to my life and showing me new groups and new things this year, too. i wish you nothing but happiness! 💕 ☆ a/n: this story is written for @restlessmaknae’s (dis)harmony collab; you can check out the masterlist with the other stories » here

Despite the country’s shortcomings: the apparent corruption that was planted in its core from the education system through the media to the judicial and political apparatuses, you loved your home. You loved living in a neighbourhood where the grocery store ahjussi gave you an extra cluster of grapes whenever you looked tired at the end of a rough day and the ahjumma from the corner Chinese restaurant knew your order by heart, hence spared you from the headache of making yet another decision when all you craved was a big bowl of warm lotus root soup. You loved knowing the youngsters in your building by their name and the feeling of having half a dozen sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts despite losing your family at an unfairly young age and spending too many lonely years in a government-funded orphanage.

God, you even loved the opportunities higher education was constantly giving you regardless of a handful of your teachers who openly expressed their political views in class when it went against your university’s policies. So why couldn’t you have sat through your Korean History II. lecture with a neutral face like everyone else did? Why did it make your blood boil when looking at Choi Jiung’s slides you realised that he was about to praise your country’s leaders, too, like the three other students before him had already done during their own presentations? Why couldn’t you have shut up and swallow down your opinion when it was time for the audience’s questions?

Easy. Because despite your love for your country and the people around you, it was corrupt to the core and as law students, all of you should have refrained from turning a blind eye to the exponentially growing amount of power abuse that happened in your home. It didn’t matter that half of your classes brainwashed you to bend under pressure.

‘What about those innocent citizens who lost their homes because of the evacuation? There is no clear data available about the rehousing of those families. Were they ever compensated?’ You threw your provocative questions at the blond boy, voice firm and merciless as your words echoed off the pristine walls in the small classroom.

The moment Choi Jiung’s gaze fell on you, you knew he was pissed, although he did a great job concealing his feelings. It was just… you had known the guy ever since you had moved to your current one-bedroom flat right after you had been kicked out of the orphanage. You could read him like he was an open book.

‘While the rate of unemployment increased during the pandemic, the statistics show that the rate of homelessness stayed stagnant. Is that not clear data?’ The blond boy asked back and you could hear your professor’s pleased humming from the first row as you were sitting in the second one, almost right behind Mr. Kim.

You linked your fingers and let your arms fall on your desk while you leaned forwards with a straight back. You didn’t break eye contact.

‘Reports from that period state that due to the pandemic, there were less ongoing projects in the construction industry, which means there couldn’t have been emergency constructions due to rehousing. Where did those families go?’ You pushed, shutting out the murmurs from your side and behind your back. You were already used to the whispering, the wary look in your classmates’ eyes whenever you expressed your opinion.

Unlike what they said, you weren’t obsessed with the spotlight nor did you have a childish crush on Choi Jiung. You picked fights with him because he was an unpleasant part of your friend group, but a part nonetheless, and you believed that Shota wouldn’t have tolerated his presence in your lives if he had been a lost case.

You challenged Jiung repeatedly to help him see the errors in his own beliefs.

‘Less ongoing projects don’t equal to no ongoing project. It only means there were fewer than before the pandemic,’ Jiung stated, voice cold despite the fire in his eyes. ‘Those few projects could have been, or included, the emergency constructions in the countryside,’ he said, your nails digging into the back of your hands because of your frustration as you were listening.

‘Hundreds of thousands of people—’

‘I think that’s enough. We still have one more presentation to sit through and discuss before this seminar ends,’ your professor rose from his seat, exchanging positions with the blond student. If looks could have killed, neither him nor Mr. Kim would have survived your rage. How dared this old, soggy snob cut you off when you were clearly making a point?

You had to bite into your cheeks from the inside to not curse him out, but your opinion must have been written all over your face because before the next student could have started her presentation, the history professor looked at you and shook his head as though he was deeply disappointed when clearly, he was annoyed.

‘It’s my last warning, miss,’ the man stated and you were genuinely surprised that he hadn’t memorised your name by now. After all, it wasn’t your first class with him and you had never been a silent participant. ‘If you keep disturbing the peaceful learning environment, I will need to send you out of my class and mark this lesson as a missed lesson next to your name in the roster,’ he informed you, although it was more like a threat.

Okay, maybe he did know your name. He just didn’t bother to address you respectfully.

You pressed your lips into a firm line, contemplating whether getting into a useless fight with your professor would have been worth it, but ended up biting into your cheek from the inside once again instead of reciting your rights as a student of this institute. It didn’t matter what rights a piece of paper gave you in your country when your opinion differed from what was accepted and encouraged by those above you - expected and demanded if you didn’t feel like sugarcoating the truth.

Consequently, you fully intended to stay put until the end of the class because it was still too early into the semester to waste one of the three lessons you were allowed to miss in each seminar, but as soon as Kang Yohan’s face was staring back at you from the next presenter’s slides, you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut. Thus, you did both yourself and the class a favour when you shoved your laptop into your backpack and walked out of the classroom without a word.

The sound of your steps echoed off the walls of the semi-abandoned hallways, but the relative silence didn’t bother you, nor did the glances you got from those who saw you walking out of a classroom before the official end of the period. Confident, you headed towards the library on the first floor with your chin high and your facial expression unbothered.

It wasn’t the first time you chose your beliefs (and your pride) instead of letting a professor humiliate you in front of a whole class, after all.

You were doing some research for another class, sipping on your iced coffee despite the late hour, reading through statistics about crime rates and the judicial system, when Shota took a seat by the table you had been occupying since your last class for the day. You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze loiter over his dishevelled figure, but said nothing before you turned back to your laptop. Being neighbours with the guy, you whole-heartedly believed that some things considering him was better left unasked. That way, you weren’t an accomplice.

‘Are you still looking for a way to get inside that institute?’ He asked while he reached out for your drink and took a casual sip of the bitter beverage like it was his.

You tore your gaze from the screen and leaned your back against your chair without making the slightest attempt at getting your drink back from the younger. Instead, you linked your arms in front of your chest and observed his face with caution. The yellowish bruise under his left eye and the cut on his cheek promised nothing good, but you knew Shota meant danger mostly for himself and rarely for the people around him.

‘The Dream House Medical Center?’ You asked just to confirm that you were thinking of the same building and all he gave you was a nod and a lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, I do, actually.’

Even though you still had a whole year before you should have started on your masters thesis, you already had a pretty firm idea of what you would have liked to write about: Kang Yohan, the misjudged judge who had died nearly a decade ago in the explosion of the courtroom where the infamous live court show had been broadcasted. That day, South Korea had lost not only the president and the first lady of the country, but five other powerful and rich people as well, all seven of them corrupt to the core yet labelled as victims of a self-assured psychopath. It boiled your blood whenever you thought of them, how in today’s history books, they were the casualty of an anti-national act conducted in an attempt to overthrow the administration.

Your fists were trembling as your nails sank into the soft flesh of your palms. You swore, you would clear the judge’s name one day in the future and make everyone see those lies that they were constantly fed by the government. Your thesis paper, the detailed research none of your professors would be able to oppose, would be the first step down the road.

But to be able to start marching, you had to get inside the Dream House Medical Center.

‘Any suggestions?’ You asked when the silence got too loud, not breaking eye contact even when you could feel the first tear drops forming in the corner of your eyes. Making a deal with Shota was never easy, the boy did nothing for free, not even for his closest friends, but he wouldn’t have brought up the topic just to tease you. He had something to offer and you knew when to be patient.

‘I got my hands on some interesting intel, so I can get us in and out without any of the guards noticing,’ he informed you, lazily sipping on your drink as though he hadn’t just knocked you off your feet with his statement. You were trying to find a way inside that building for months by then, because while it was supposed to be an abandoned institute - it was a part of a failed charity project after all - it was unreasonably heavily guarded.

Taking a deeper breath to ground yourself, you put your elbows on the table in front of your laptop and leaned forwards.

‘Name your price,’ you demanded quietly, earning a genuine smile from the boy.

‘Help me with the university interview. I need dirt on your professors and those you don’t have classes with,’ Shota negotiated and honestly, the only reason you were able to swallow down the laugh that was scratching your throat was the fact that you needed his help. If you could have afforded him getting sulky, you would have ruffled his messy hair and pinched his cheeks before you told him you would have helped him anyway.

He was clearly doing you a favour for free while pretending that he was a businessman who made no exceptions. It made you wonder whether he had gotten beaten up when he had tried to find information on the Dream House for you or the two things were completely irrelevant. A selfish part of you that didn’t want to deal with the guilt wished it was the latter, but deep down you knew Shota wouldn’t have held back something so huge just to share it with you at the perfect moment.

You had both learned early on in your lives that perfect moments were created; they didn’t just come to those who were patiently waiting.

‘Want it written down or is it enough if I tell you everything I know?’ You asked with a small tilt of your head, playing along and taking on a more serious tone. Meanwhile, you glanced down at your laptop and pulled up a blank document on your screen. The chances that none of your professors would have been present at Shota’s interview was high, so you wanted to make sure you had info on those who might have been possible candidates. For that, you needed to prepare a long list with every professor from the Business Faculty on it and ask around in the KU group chats you weren’t a part of yet.

‘Written down,’ Shota said and you acknowledged his choice with a low hum and a nod as you pulled up your university’s website and copied the names of the listed professors to your document. You also made a second list that contained the names of students you personally knew and would have vouched for, hence could have sought out for help.

‘Consider it being done,’ you preened, scanning through your lists one more time before you closed the tab and saved a couple of important websites regarding your assignment for your class as bookmarks. You made sure your laptop was turned off properly before you shoved it into your bag. ‘About the Dream House…’ you started, trying to sound as nonchalant as you could despite the light buzzing in your veins. ‘When are we going?’

‘Where are you going?’ Choi Jiung’s voice cut off your impromptu discussion before it could have started and you sighed, disappointed that you had let your excitement get the best of you when you should have seen the interruption coming. After all, Jiung was well aware that you preferred studying on campus over writing your papers in your own flat. He also knew that Shota liked tagging along when you had classes after six, because it meant that chances you would stay at the nearby coffee shop until closing time was high and he hated when you walked home on your own so late at night. Thus, when Jiung was looking for his friend, all he needed to do was checking the spots you frequented at.

‘None of your business, Choi,’ you grumbled while you leaned back against your chair and linked your arms in front of your chest.

Frustrated, you rolled your eyes when Jiung put a cup of perfectly untouched iced coffee on the table in front of you, but reached out for the drink when you saw Shota eyeing it like he was seconds away from stealing that, too.

The silence that fell on your table wasn’t new. It was a recurring phenomenon in your friends group whenever Jiung and you were joined by a less talkative person - so basically anyone other than Keeho or Intak. And while at first it had made you anxious, because you had felt as though you should have been able to initiate or at least keep up a pleasant conversation with people you considered close friends, by now you knew silence was absolutely fine as well. In fact! It was rather nice to enjoy the tranquillity around people who accepted you the way you were: stubborn, strong-willed and curt when you had nothing important to say.

‘What got your panties in a twist this time?’ Shota’s snarky question shook you out of your thoughts, his dark eyes fixed on nothing in particular making you wonder whether he was talking to you or the blond boy on his other side.

You opened your mouth for an equally sarcastic answer when Jiung let out a loud huff and cut you off with his own mocking reply.

‘What else? She tried to sabotage my presentation. Again,’ he accused and you rolled your eyes without giving too much thought to the action. All three of you knew damn well that you would have never stooped so low; your morals simply wouldn’t have let you play dirty much to Shota’s disappointment. The younger had tried to make you see numerous times that the world wasn’t fair to those who played by the rules, but you stood your ground each and every time. You wanted to become an exceptional judge just like Kang Yohan and his mentee, Kim Gaon. You were determined to lead by example as well - with the right example!

‘Oh, grow up, Choi Jiung, would you? My questions were spot on,’ you retorted, slim fingers turning white around your drink.

Looking around, you had to remind yourself that just because it was late, the coffee shop still had a fair amount of customers, thus you should have kept your voice low to not disturb their peace. Still, resisting the urge to call the blond boy out on his bullshit, as he wouldn’t have contributed to your daily caffeine intake if he had been indeed pissed, was challenging. He got under your skin way too easily.

‘No. You were once again pressing your false narrative,’ Jiung tried to correct you, talking to you in a condescending way that made you feel like a child. If looks could have killed, he would have been dead even before his gaze landed on you. ‘One day, these types of questions will cost you a lot more than a missed class.’

You gulped down the coffee in your mouth along with the non-existent bile that somehow did scratch your throat.

‘Is that a threat?’ You spat, unaware of the sadness in Jiung’s eyes as you were hyper fixated on the possible implication behind his words. It made you see red, grip tight around your cup and nails digging into the plastic with so much force, Shota had to take the coffee out of your hand and put it on the table before it could have overflowed.

‘Friendly advice,’ Jiung corrected you once again and it was only due to the years of practice the orphanage had given you that you hadn’t screamed it into his face that you didn’t consider him as a friend. Not like you did Keeho and Theo and sure as hell not like you did Shota. The sole reason you let him be a part of your life despite his questionable political beliefs was your respect for the others.

With a resigned sigh, Jiung turned his gaze away and shook his head as though he couldn’t have taken your stubbornness any longer. Well, you didn’t ask him to.

‘I’m done for today,’ you stated, leaving the half-finished drink on the table as you grabbed your bag and slid your gaze to the younger. ‘Shota?’

The boy stood up from his seat immediately and reached out for the abandoned beverage, his smile content as he took a big sip from the iced coffee. He patted Jiung’s shoulder twice in gratitude, then squeezed it lightly for good measure.

You turned away, refusing to feel guilty for putting an abrupt end to the conversation. It was a long day, getting into a heated argument about the government with Jiung for the second time that day was the last thing you needed. Especially at a public place that you loved and where you were a regular.

‘See you tomorrow, hyung,’ Shota bid his goodbye while you sealed your lips and gave Jiung a half-assed bow because it was a habit drilled into your DNA. It was a fundamental part of your culture: you bowed to people at every single encounter, at every goodbye and sometimes in between when the situation required it. You didn’t have to respect someone to follow the most basic rules of etiquette in their company.

If Jiung had said anything to your best friend before the younger boy followed you towards the exit, you hadn’t heard him, but you did sneak a peek at him sitting casually by your table before you closed the door shut.

Not that you would have admitted it to anyone.

Your palms were sweaty while you were waiting with Shota for what you supposed was some sort of sign that you could finally enter the building without getting arrested for trespassing. Admittedly, you had never felt more nervous in your entire life: your current actions going against your moral code while simultaneously aiding your fight against the propaganda that your whole nation was fed with on a daily basis. You needed evidence, desperately so, but the thought of breaking into the Dream House Medical Center freaked you out more and more as the crucial moment came closer and closer to your present.

Only a couple hundreds of metres from the abandoned institute, it felt too real. You weren’t sure you were ready and started to question whether you were made for the job.

It shouldn’t have surprised you that at one point your feet started drumming a clumsy rhythm on their own accord, but your lips still parted slightly when you felt a warm hand on your knee, over your ripped jeans. Staring at Shota’s hand, you lifted your head to look at his face and shot a tight-lipped smile at him as a sign of gratitude for his silent support. You could do this. It had been your idea from the beginning. You were doing the right thing.

So why did the proverb ‘the end justifies the means’ sound like a cheap excuse of a criminal?

‘Nervous, kiddo?’ A familiar voice pulled you out of the self-doubting spiral of thoughts and you turned towards the newcomers with panic in your eyes. Not counting the two of you, no one should have known about your plan. So why were two of your friends staring at you like they were simultaneously doubting your sanity and admiring you for your guts?

You looked around to check your surroundings in search of the others, then let your gaze fall back on Keeho and Jiung when you realised it was only them. 

‘What are you guys doing here?’ You whisper-shouted, unable to decide how you felt about their presence. For 1) since it was your research, you felt like you were responsible for the safety of everyone who got involved in the fieldwork and looking after Shota in itself was already a bit emotionally overwhelming for you under the current circumstances. 2) Because of the very same reason, you were relieved that there would be more pairs of eyes during the investigation that could watch out for the potential danger.

Still, a part of you felt more people meant a bigger risk. It didn’t help that you were already fidgety due to your growing guilt that pressed down on your chest.

‘Supervising,’ Keeho explained, his tone lowkey condescending like he couldn’t believe he needed to spell it out to you. Like it was natural that he was there even though he shouldn’t have known about the trespassing to begin with. ‘Obviously, I won’t just let Shota break into a guarded institute on his own,’ he added, coaxing a displeased scoff out of you with his complete disregard for your presence and capabilities.

You wanted to remind the boy that you were only two weeks younger than him and that you would have made sure Shota didn’t get in trouble even if it had meant endangering your own life, but in the end you swallowed back your remarks. Mostly, because you believed it would have been unwise to start a fight so close to the main gates. Also, because your muscles were non-existent in comparison with the older boy’s. Realistically speaking, he had more potential than you when it came to protecting your friends.

‘What about you?’ You turned towards Jiung, one of your slim brows raised with challenge. For some reason, you doubted he had come with Keeho to help you in any way. If anything, he might have tagged along to give you another unasked, friendly advice.

‘I came to see your face when you realise you’ve been wrong all this time,’ he claimed with a shrug, not putting too much effort into protecting your feelings. Although, had he ever? The thought that he found true joy in your failures left a bitter taste in your mouth.

The retort that he had come in vain had already been on the tip of your tongue when Shota nudged you with his shoulder and pointed at the entrance once he gained your attention.

‘It’s time,’ he said. You gulped before you acknowledged his statement with a nod.

Considering how many walls you had bumped into while you had been trying to find a way inside the building in the legal way, how unhelpful every single one of the government agents had been and how many armed guards you had seen around the building in the last hour, you had assumed that walking inside the medical centre would be challenging despite your best friend’s intel. Blame it on those old school action movies Intak loved so much, but you were convinced that you would be in a race against time, that you would need to run and jump and use your non-existent muscles to get through some hidden back door.

Walking up to the front door with confident strides and opening the huge lock with a key was oddly anticlimactic. You had to pinch your arm to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

‘How the hell did you put your hands on that thing?’ Keeho asked, stealing the words out of your mouth.

Shota closed the double door behind your backs like he had just gotten home, then turned on his flashlight similar to the one in your pocket. You mimicked him and turned on yours, too.

‘I asked for a copy? Don’t you know acting suspicious is what makes people aware you’re up to something?’ He asked, not really expecting an answer based on the way he turned his back on your small group and started to walk down the hallway. ‘It’s all about confidence.’

You put your hand on Keeho’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly as a reminder that you didn’t have time for further interrogation nor was it the most suitable place for a parental scolding, then followed your best friend until you reached the first intersection. There, you waited for the others to catch up with you and you decided to split up. You didn’t have all the time in the world after all, only two hours until the next error in the system of the graveyard shift.

‘I’ll check the basement,’ you volunteered and shook your head dismissively when you saw Jiung open his mouth from the corner of your eyes. ‘Keeho’s babysitting, there are too many floors for just two groups,’ you said, slowly turning towards the blond boy with your entire body.

‘Who said I was about to follow you?’ He retorted with a huff and took the flashlight out of Keeho’s hand as he turned on his heels and marched up the stairs. You kept your eyes on his back until he disappeared, then shot a tight-lipped smile in the others’ direction before you made them promise to take pictures of anything suspicious or interesting-looking.

You hoped Jiung would do the same as well even though he hadn’t waited around for your reminder. You had faith in Shota and his dubious network, you really did, but you genuinely doubted you would have had another chance like this in the near future if you had failed to gather enough evidence due to your slipshod job.

On your way to the basement, you kept your mind occupied with random songs from the last decade they still played on the radio just so it wouldn’t have turned on you and made you see things in the darkness that weren’t there. Your imagination might not have been too wild, but being alone in a building where you assumed poor people had been killed for how much their organs were worth was scary. You didn’t believe in ghosts and other supernatural creatures, but you wouldn’t have blamed their souls for sticking around, angry, if they had existed.

The dust in the air was heavy and it stuck to your skin uncomfortably as you checked each and every door that opened from the hallway underground. Most of the rooms were unlocked, the surgical equipment inside of them outdated and untouched. A part of you - the same part that was convinced of Kang Yohan’s innocence - was eager to see them as evidence of human experiments, but the rational side of you was aware that things like these were normal at a medical facility. If you had shown photos of these to anyone, they would have focused on the fact that you shouldn’t have been in the building.

You gulped, growing frustrated, as you checked the time on your phone and walked up to the next door. You still had some time.

Admittedly, you knew you could have spent an entire day in the building and still felt like you needed more to do a thorough research, but beggars couldn’t have been choosers. Thus, you locked your panicking thoughts in the back of your mind and opened the drawers in the next room that looked more like an abandoned office than a medical room.

‘Come on!’ You groaned when you found the third drawer in a row empty, getting on your knees without much thinking to force the last one open as well. At first glance, it didn’t seem like you should have had a key to open it, so you hoped it was only stuck, preferably due to the weight of the papers inside of it.

Two of your nails broke in the process and your fingertips were burning, but eventually you managed to open the lowest drawer, its content plenty and full of names you weren’t familiar with. However, you did recognise one: Heo Joongse. He had been one of the “victims” of the explosion that had killed Kang Yohan. He had been the former president of South Korea.

Hands shaking nervously, you started to take pictures of the documents, but because of the lack of proper lighting, they turned out to be unreadable. Therefore you shoved them under your sweatshirt on a whim.

‘Noona! Noona, it’s time to go!’ You heard your best friend calling for you and you stilled, contemplating whether you should have pretended that you hadn’t heard him and checked one more room or let him know where you were. He must have calculated with finding you, he knew how you got when you… ‘Noona, we have to get out of here!’

You closed your eyes and let out a displeased sigh. You should have met them upstairs, close to the front door. If Shota was in the basement, it meant you hardly had any minute to waste. Even if the digital numbers in the upper right corner of your phone’s screen said otherwise.

‘I’m coming!’ You shouted on your way to the hallway, giving a resigned look to the rest of the basement, to all those closed doors you hadn’t had a chance to open, then ran towards Shota’s voice. It came from the stairs that led to the ground floor.

The question of what had happened that you needed to leave twenty minutes sooner was on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t have a chance to say it aloud. The moment you opened your mouth, your best friend grabbed your wrist and pulled you in the opposite direction from the main entrance, confusion making you uncharacteristically obedient and unresponsive.

You didn’t question him when he shoved you inside a dirty restroom, nor did you ask a single thing when Keeho emerged from one of the toilet cubicles. You simply let the older boy take the lead and help with your balance when you stepped on top of a half-broken plastic toilet lid that was supposed to support your weight and made you tall enough to reach the edge of the open window on the tiled wall.

‘You really think I can…’ pull myself up; you wanted to ask, but before you could have finished your question, someone grabbed your arms from the outside and got you out of the building with one swift movement.

With a scream stuck in the back of your throat, you looked down at Jiung with slightly parted lips and gulped nervously when your gaze fell on your palm atop of his chest. You swore, you could feel his heart beating like crazy under your palm, your own mimicking the rhythm and pushing enough blood to your neck and cheeks to turn them ruby red.

‘Get up! We’re running out of time.’ It was Shota whose voice pulled you back to the present, but you were sure, even without stealing a glance at the boy on your right, that it was Keeho who pulled you off Jiung and pulled you towards the iron fences.

You stumbled in the dark, unaware of when you had lost your flashlight and whether the guys had turned theirs off on purpose. By the time your friends deemed that you were far enough from the facility, your lungs were screaming for a break and every breath felt like you were inhaling pieces of broken glass.

‘What the hell happened?’ You demanded, even though it seemed you were the only one who thought your frustration and anger were justified.

‘That your stupid obsession almost got us in trouble, that’s what happened,’ Jiung screamed at your face, a few drops of saliva landing on your burning cheek due to your close proximity. You balled up your fists, your knuckles turning white from how hard you clenched them.

‘Shota said it was safe! And I don’t remember asking you to join us,’ you retorted as calmly as you could manage with the growing annoyance you were feeling.

Sure, you knew trespassing had been a gamble, that you had been going against everything you believed in just to prove a point, but you had done nothing inside that damned building that could have put everyone in danger. Whatever had happened it hadn’t been on you, you refused to believe it.

‘It was the USB. We found a bunch of them in one of the offices, but one of them was still plugged into a smashed PC, so I pulled it out,’ Shota confessed at the same time Keeho said:

‘I think I broke a lock I shouldn’t have.’

You closed your eyes, heaving. Honestly, the second option sounded more possible, but you felt like stating the obvious or calling Jiung out on his freaking tendency to put the blame on you would have done more harm than good. The atmosphere was already tense, making it worse while you were still relatively close to the crime scene would have been stupid.

‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter,’ you concluded because crying over spilled milk would have been just as idiotic. You had gotten in and out without encountering any of the guards, no one had known your faces, your identities were safe. You might have felt bitter about leaving so soon, but at the end of the day, you were all unharmed and that was what mattered.

You straightened your back and opened your eyes.

‘Let’s go home,’ you exclaimed and shot a genuine smile in Shota’s direction to soothe the guilt that was written all over his face.

When Jiung bumped into your shoulder on purpose, you gritted your teeth, but followed him towards the main road. You decided not to ask him whether he had found anything useful as you were sure he wouldn’t have told you even if he had done, and pointed at your tummy with a mischievous wink when Shota did the same with his pockets where he hid the old USB sticks.

You might not have been able to check everything you had wanted, but your mission hadn’t been a complete failure, after all. And that… that sure as hell made you feel like you had accomplished something.

A couple of days later, you were in the university library, working on your assignment on the live court show’s effects on the judicial system and the shift of responsibility the DIKE app had contributed to when citizens had been given the power to decide the defendants were guilty or not guilty, when Choi Jiung walked up to your table and shut down your laptop with a fixed combination of keys. To say you were furious would have been an understatement. You were livid.

‘Do you want to die? The hell is wrong with you?’ You spat, pushing yourself into a standing position in an attempt to look more intimidating despite still being significantly shorter than the boy. It didn’t matter. Anger could take people farther than one would have thought.

Instead of answering your question with words, Jiung threw a small pile of papers on your desk. You looked down at it with narrowed eyes before you took it in your hand. There was no need for you to scan through the provocatively phrased paragraphs. Just by looking at the header, you knew it was your thesis abstract.

‘Where did you get this?’ You asked, trying not to wrinkle the document in case it was indeed the original copy that you had put on your professor’s table in the teachers’ office after your last class.

‘Do you want to die?’ He threw the question back at you, his tone just as angry as yours even though the flames in his eyes burned with a different colour. He seemed a lot more serious rather than borderline panicking. His reaction closed up your throat, but you kept your chin high to prove a point. ‘I’m serious! You can’t be this stupid, can you?’

You took a shallow breath, then another one and another one for good measure before you crouched down for your bag and shoved your laptop inside of it.

‘You saw that place. They’re guarding it for a reason. Even if you really didn’t find anything on the first floor…’ You took another breath to calm yourself. You still had time before your next class, so you could put the abstract back on your professor’s desk like Jiung had never put his hands on it.

‘You can’t become a judge with this mindset. It’s anti-nationalist,’ he pressed, stopping you with his fingers hanging around your wrist like a chain. You shook it off, his rough touch, and turned around to look him in the eyes.

‘I’m ashamed of you. People like you should never be allowed to become a judge in the first place,’ you said, quiet enough to not draw anyone’s attention, but loud enough to hurt.

You meant it: every word. Those people who deliberately turned a blind eye on the flaws in the stories the system tried to feed you with, on the government’s wrongdoings just because it was easier, shouldn’t have been given power to decide who deserved a severe punishment for breaking the law and who acted upon self-preservation. 

The two of you kept eye contact for longer than it was necessary, therefore you were about to turn your back on Jiung when you got a text via kakao. With furrowed eyebrows, you fished the device out of your pocket and checked the incoming messages.

shota 😤: “don’t come home!” shota 😤: “i’m serious” shota 😤: “stay with the hyungs”

The urgency in his double texts made you feel alarmed, so you sent a quick message to both Shota and Keeho, then threw your phone into your bag and rushed out of the library.

There was no way you would let your best friend deal with whatever trouble he was in on his own when you had a good guess where he was and it was clearly too big for him to handle it alone.

Jiung tried not to think too much into it when you didn’t show up at class the day after you had stormed out of the library. He really tried not to panic when he couldn’t see you at any of your favourite places around campus, although he was familiar with your schedule and habits: when you preferred the university library over the coffee shop, which classes you would have never skipped for the world and how many papers you had to submit before the upcoming midterms.

It wasn’t unusual that you didn’t pick up the phone to him, so he didn’t even bother after the first futile attempt, aware of the line he had crossed when he had taken your thesis abstract that he shouldn’t have even read, but when even Soul refused to read his messages, he knew something was off. The boy would have never ignored his hyungs just because he might have taken your side. At least, he had never done so before and god, the younger sided with you almost all the time.

Lacking any better idea, Jiung dialled Keeho’s number, letting out a relieved breath when the older picked up the phone after the second ring.

‘Have you heard from Soul? His bestie hasn’t shown up at uni since last week,’ he started without beating around the bush, too frustrated (and worried) to prolong the conversation. He wanted to know that you were both okay and his worst nightmare hadn’t come true despite your stubbornness.

Had you gotten in trouble with the authorities because of your big mouth? Who had you been texting to before you had turned your back on him?

‘Not since last week. He said he would be out of town for a couple of days,’ Keeho answered. ‘Same for the firecracker. She texted that she’s worried about Shota, but then she claimed everything was fine, so I didn’t ask,’ he explained, not going into too much detail about why he hadn’t pushed when he was so overprotective of the babies of their group. Jiung knew the older boy was balancing two jobs to provide for not only himself, but Jongseob, too. Life was tough ever since the youngest had run away from home.

If you had told Keeho things were okay, Jiung understood why he had chosen to believe you and stay at his workplace or steal himself an hour of extra sleep.

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Jiung asked, wondering whether he was overreacting or the nagging voice inside of his head was right about you. Even if he doubted you considered him as a friend, he would have liked to believe that he knew the core of your personality. There was no way you would have deliberately ditched your studies when you had worked so hard to get accepted on scholarship.

‘No,’ came the answer after a momentary break, silence filled with pangs of distress. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure, but I have a bad feeling about this. I’ll go and check their place,’ Jiung said, checking his timetable and deciding against showing up at his last class as it wasn’t a seminar and most importantly, it wasn’t a lecture he was sharing with you.

‘Now?’

‘Now,’ he nodded out of habit as he threw the strap of his messenger bag over his head and put on his cap.

‘I’ll be there in an hour. Wait for me!’ Keeho asked and Jiung let out a loud, affirmative hum before he hung up the phone.

The blond boy didn’t waste any time. He called a cab with his kakao app and asked the driver to drive as fast as he could once he got inside the car. He promised to double the fare if the old man got to your place in under an hour (which would have been an achievement in itself in the afternoon traffic).

‘We have arrived, mister,’ the taxi driver announced and Jiung indeed paid plenty before he jumped out of the car and rushed upstairs. He had only ever been to your place once, when it had been your birthday in freshman year of uni and Soul had organised you a surprise party with your favourite strawberry cake and a second-hand laptop for your studies. Jiung couldn’t remember anymore what he had bought for you. Had he even bought you anything? 

He shook his head. That wasn’t important at that moment. Making sure you were alright and simply avoiding him was.

The first alarming sign was how easy it was to get inside your flat: all Jiung needed to do was push down the handle and the door was open. He didn’t need a key, a keycard or a passcode. His heart sank into his stomach when he crossed the threshold.

Jiung needed to bite into his lips to not make the mistake most people made on tv whenever they found themselves in a similar situation. Because as ridiculous as it sounded, his first instinct was to call for your name and announce his arrival, which would have been stupid. What if someone was here? He really shouldn’t have done that.

So he didn’t. Instead, he took off his shoes and checked every room as silently as possible until he made sure he was alone. Then, he started to go through your stuff systematically: skimming your mails, searching through your drawers and desk, rummaging your bathroom while simultaneously trying to not invade your privacy and finding clues about where you had been and what had happened. He was in the middle of looking for hidden compartments in your walls when Keeho arrived.

‘Is anyone here?’ The older boy asked, coaxing an unamused scoff out of Jiung with his loud question. Of course, he was acting like every idiot in a horror movie who was about to die.

‘Bedroom,’ Jiung grumbled, keeping his focus on the task in hand. He vaguely remembered Soul bragging about the coolest compartments he had installed in both of your flats, so that you could have hid your cash there and never gotten robbed. They had to be big enough to store a handful of stolen USB sticks. If only he could have known for sure there was nothing on them that would want dangerous people to make you disappear.

‘What happened here?’ Keeho asked, clearly taken aback by the state of your room.

Jiung didn’t bother to look around. He knew damn well the disaster he had left behind when he had started to get more and more frustrated, too impatient to put everything back to its place when they hadn’t given him the answers he was looking for.

‘The kimbap in her fridge went wrong days ago. She wouldn’t have left it there if she’d had a choice,’ the blond boy stated and it was ridiculous really, how sure he was in certain things when it came to you. But he just knew. He had caught you eating food you didn’t enjoy just because you had already paid for it or it had been for free. Even if you had been in a hurry, you wouldn’t have left it there to rot.

‘You sound pretty paranoid. And worried,’ Keeho commented, but walked up to your bedside table without much questioning and moved it aside. Then, he knocked on the beige wall a few times, gaining Jiung’s attention when suddenly, the thud gave a different sound.

Jiung crawled towards the bed on his hands and knees, reaching for the content of the hidden compartment once his friend opened it with ease that showed he knew exactly what he was doing. In small stacks, there were a couple of 5000 and 10000 won bills, less in total than the amount of Jiung’s allowance had gotten regularly in middle school.

Jiung’s throat closed up when his eyes fell on the custom-made keychain he had forgotten a long time ago, the one he had given you for your birthday and the one that sat on top of a pile of dirty papers. He took it into his hand and shoved it into his pocket before he skimmed the documents. On each page, they had the Dream House’s stamp on their upper left corners, which meant you might have found these in the facility’s basement.

Damnit! You had never mentioned you had found something that night, let alone something that looked like trouble.

‘What do they say?’ Keeho’s question came from Jiung’s right, your worn bed cracking under the older boy’s weight. 

‘At first glance? That they are lucky if they’re in the countryside,’ the younger answered, his heart rate picking up because of the dreadful pictures his brain was throwing at him about you and Soul behind bars, the two of you in separate interrogation rooms, powerful people trying to break you to turn against each other.

Jiung looked around in search of his backpack, then stood up and lifted it off the floor, so that he could shove the documents between two books he had been supposed to take back to the university library. They didn’t matter anymore. You and Soul did.

‘Where are you going?’ Keeho asked, and while Jiung had a concrete destination in mind, he was contemplating whether he should have told the other the whole truth. Keeho hadn’t seen the late president’s name on the documents yet and while Jiung would have also needed more time to figure out what you had gotten yourself into exactly, he had a vague idea. He didn’t want to put his friend in more danger in case he was right.

On the other hand, he was aware how important Soul was to Keeho. Obviously, the older boy cared about each one of his close friends, even people he deemed honest and kind, but Soul was like a brother to him. If Jiung had been in his shoes, he would have resented whoever kept secrets this serious from him.

‘I’ll ask Jiseong if he heard anything,’ he settled for the truth, albeit giving a curt answer. He would cross that bridge when he got there. For the time being, he didn’t want to complicate things even more. Not to mention that his step-brother would have scolded him and might have outright refused to tell him any details if he had shown up at his office with someone who had nothing to do with their family or their social circle.

After meeting you, Jiung had started to question whether he was able to read other people as well as his family expected him to, but recognizing the fine mixture of doubt, hurt and worry in Keeho’s eyes was too easy.

‘You will call me,’ the words came out pseudo-commanding, like the boy knew no objection, but Jiung noticed the pinch of uncertainty that made Keeho’s voice crack by the end, turning the statement into a semi-question. He didn’t call him out on his lack of faith in his character, mostly because Jiung himself was unsure of numerous things, too, regarding the situation.

Therefore, he settled for a nod instead of a verbal promise and left the building. The papers in his backpack felt heavy, like rocks that were trying to pull him underwater, but nothing could have compared to the weight of the abandoned keychain in his pocket that you, for some reason, had kept at the same place you kept your treasures.

After a failed attempt at the District Court, Jiung decided to wait for his step-brother at his home office, which was basically a separate room on the second floor in their house, between their parents’ offices and across from his own study room. Aware of the importance of respect and good manners even when one wasn’t out in public, he knocked on the mahogany door and counted to three, seven, ten, before he entered.

Since the boy’s plan was to ask a few questions from his hyung about the Dream House Medical Centre and whether there had been any attempts at breaking into the abandoned building in the last couple of years - the more general his curiosity appeared to be, the safer for you and Soul -, he decided to jot down every aspect he needed to touch upon and tried to make the inquiries sound as academic and neutral as possible while he was waiting. A written list could have helped him make it look like he was working on an assignment of some sort.

Taking a seat by the massive desk in the left corner of the room, Jiung pulled out the upper drawer, looking for a piece of paper. He knew it was a little old-fashioned, that he could have taken notes on his phone as well, but there was something about a piece of blank paper that stimulated his brain. Thoughts and ideas came easier when he could feel the material against the mounts of his palm and the weight of the pen in his hand.

Jiung didn’t intend to pry. Why would he have? He had been raised to trust his family above everyone and everything and put his faith in the system blindly as his relatives had important roles in it for generations. However, it was undeniable that it was your thesis abstract staring back at him from the top of a smaller pile of papers in Jiseong’s drawer. Jiung needed to take it into his hands.

He didn’t have to read through the lines to make sure the paragraphs had been written by you. Even though your name was crossed out with a black marker, he knew it was yours. He had read your abstract before. God! He had told you it would have gotten you in trouble. He had just never assumed that his hyung would have also been involved in this mess somehow.

Desperate to not jump to false conclusions, Jiung put the document back into the drawer and closed it carefully. He leaned the back of his head against the chair and closed his eyes, trying to even his breathing. He couldn’t have allowed himself to act suspicious or else his brother would have kicked him out of his office before he could have uttered a single word.

‘What are you doing here?’ Jiseong’s thunderous voice filled the room, pulling the blond boy out of his messy thoughts. Jiung snapped his head in his brother’s direction, resisting the urge to gulp down the nervous knot in his throat or put on a fake smile.

‘Homework,’ he explained with his fidgety fingers clenched into fists and hidden under the desk. He needed to stop thinking about your abstract in the drawer and how it could have gotten there for not only his own sake, but yours and Soul’s as well. He had never been a man of emotions, he couldn’t have allowed to become one in such a delicate situation. ‘I mean, I need some answers I couldn’t find on the internet, nor in any of the books in the uni library,’ he added when his answer met with silence, putting effort into relaxing his tense muscles.

‘I see,’ Jiseong muttered, not taking his hawk eyes off his younger brother while he walked closer to the desk and along with it, to Jiung. The young man’s arms were crossed in front of his chest; his tailored suit devoid of any wrinkles. ‘Ask away then.’

Jiung wished he had had more time to prepare himself for this conversation. Sure, the boy had wanted to get over with the interrogation as soon as possible when he had decided to seek his hyung out right after he had left your flat, but that had been before he had found your thesis abstract. With this new discovery, he felt unprepared.

‘It’s common knowledge that the Dream House has been abandoned since judge Kang Yohan tried to use it to overthrow the government,’ he started with a well-known statement to steal himself a couple of more seconds. He usually used this method during presentations because talking about things he was certain about did wonders to his jittery nerves, but this time, the academic tone had no positive effect. The lingering uncertainty poisoned his confidence. ‘It’s heavily guarded, though. Why?’

‘Use your brain, Jiung-ah. Why do you think it needs to be guarded up to this day?’ The man asked in a chastising tone. It reminded Jiung of school breaks in the countryside that they had spent with their grandparents. It reminded Jiung of summer days when he had falsely thought he could have acted his age without unpleasant consequences.

He frowned, but gave a serious thought to the question and answered with his chin held high.

‘So people wouldn’t break in,’ he chose, because even before breaking into the Dream House and rummaging through the first floor, he had doubted there had been something or someone kept in there that could have escaped. Which could have only meant that the government wanted to keep people from entering.

‘And?’

Jiung furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, wondering whether his brother knew he had been there, inside the medical centre, when you had put your hands on those documents. Was there a specific answer Jiseong was expecting from him? Or should he have played it safe and pretended he didn’t know about the late president’s involvement in something that had gotten you in so much trouble, you and Soul had disappeared off the face of Earth?

‘There are people in our country who believe Kang Yohan was some sort of saint who wanted to protect the powerless from corruption even though he couldn’t have cared less about the poor and unprivileged,’ the young judge stated, destroying the remaining distance between himself and his brother. Jiseong put his palms on his desk and leaned closer to Jiung with a predatory glint in his hazel eyes. Like he was staring at a pitiful prey instead of someone he had to treasure and protect. ‘It’s guarded, so those with anti-nationalist ideas wouldn’t turn it into their own sacred place,’ he said, forcing the younger to hold his breath and listen. ‘They would crowd it. It would give them a place with meaning for gatherings and suddenly, their preaching would gain more credibility.’

At that moment, as he was staring at his step-brother, the blond boy couldn’t help but think of you and your reaction whenever he had said something to defend the system. He wondered whether he had sounded just as biassed and inimical to you as Jiseong did to him while he was talking about faceless people and their hypothetical actions when they hadn’t committed said crime yet.

He wondered whether the fact that he added that harmless “yet” at the end of the sentence in his head meant he was indeed the same.

‘Has anyone ever broken into that building?’ Jiung asked partly to cut the tension that grew with the silence, partly to check the credibility of his hyung’s words.

Jiseong took his hands off the desk and straightened his back. He shot a small smile in Jiung’s way and shook his head.

‘Never. Like you said, it’s heavily guarded. You have nothing to be worried about,’ he said, slowly loosing his necktie, piercing gaze poking holes into the skin between the younger’s eyes. ‘Any other questions?’

There were. Jiung had plenty of questions starting with why was your abstract in his drawer, what had they done to you and Soul, whether you two had been the first ones who had been dealt with this drastically or there were others, people who had no connection to people like Jiung who came from an influential family. However, putting these thoughts in words would have done more harm than good and Jiung wasn’t an idiot. He might have doubted Jiseong would have been able to make him disappear or it was really him who had been behind all of this, but Jiung knew he wasn’t untouchable.

‘No, nothing. Thanks,’ so he said and stood up from the chair as casually as he could manage before he bent down and picked up his backpack from the floor. He bowed to his brother like he always did when he was greeting his family members or saying goodbye to them, then straightened his back and waited to be dismissed, showing respect to his elder as he had been taught.

‘Go, wash up! It’s almost dinner time,’ Jiseong said and patted his brother’s shoulder once, twice, three times, before he turned his back on Jiung.

The younger didn’t hesitate to leave the room afterwards.

The thing was, whether his step-brother knew that Jiung had broken into the Dream House with you and the boys or not, Jiseong had lied to him. He also had your thesis abstract, the very same document Jiung had given back to you the day he had last seen you, which was more than a little concerning. Therefore, despite his own beliefs, Jiung needed to figure out what was going on and how deep his hyung was in the mess you had also gotten yourself and Soul into.

He needed to know you two were okay. The sooner, the better.

If anyone had caught the boy sneaking into his brother’s home office instead of attending his classes, Jiung would have been cursed out, then dragged into his room and locked up for several weeks. He knew because he had been driven to school and back home for a whole month in high school when his father had found out that he had drunk a beer with his friend in public despite being underaged. They had done it at a park where they had thought no one had been paying any mind to them, but they had been dead wrong as his then-friend’s mother had sent one of her secretaries to keep an eye on her son and they had gotten caught before they could have decided whether they had wanted to open the second can. The tension at home after that had been so messed up, Jiung hadn’t dared to break any rules for years.

That was, until he had met you.

Rummaging through Jiseong’s drawers turned out to be fruitless. Other than stationeries and a bunch of files about ongoing cases at the court, there was nothing to put his hands on, which was weird. Why wasn’t your paper in the upper drawer anymore?

Kneeling on the floor, Jiung leaned his forehead against the edge of the desk and closed his eyes. Looking through his hyung’s things was one thing. Should he have really logged into his computer, too? That sounded too extreme, but then again. The boy had already trespassed on government property just to keep an eye on you and make sure you were fine. He could have always claimed he needed Jiseong’s laptop for whatever excuse his mind would have provided at the time of need.

Letting out a troubled sigh, Jiung could hear your last words to him ringing in his ears. If he had decided to turn a blind eye on the weird happenings now, he would have turned into what you had hated the most in people like him. People with the proper background to make a real difference, but no desire to change what was wrong. He might have refused to believe you had been right about everything, nor did he think he was a bad person just because his values and beliefs were different from yours, but he couldn’t have lied to himself. Something about the Dream House project was fishy.

So Jiung sat on the chair and turned on the computer before he could have lost his courage. He checked every folder and every file systematically, then opened Jiseong’s email services and read through his mails, too. The more he saw, the less suspicious his brother appeared to be and the more guilty he felt, but it was too late to turn back. So he kept reading, until he did find something.

It was a forwarded email Jiseong had never replied to or if he had done so, he had already deleted the evidence. The original letter was a report on the break-in to the medical centre; the person claimed there had been three or four suspects, but no gender, approximate age or physical features had been stated. The first response was about the punishment of the guards who had been working that night; the second one was an ID number; the third said: it’s done. Collateral damage: one person.

Jiung’s hands were trembling slightly when in the last email attached to the conversation there was a follow-up report from his uncle. It had been sent at five in the morning, mere hours ago, and it said they were ready for shipping.

‘What the…’ he murmured under his nose, finding it hard to process that these people might have been talking about you.

Jiung deleted the search history and closed the browser. He turned off the computer and took a moment to think. Should he have visited his uncle’s researcher centre on his own or should he have told Keeho about these emails like he knew the older boy wanted him to? Should he have tried to figure out what was going on in the legal way or gone behind his uncle’s back, too, lacking spare time to waste? What had they meant by shipping anyway?

Before he left the office, Jiung took a quick look at the interior from above his shoulder, then stepped out to the hallway and fished his phone out of his pocket. He called Keeho and when it went to voicemail, he sent the older boy a cryptic text about how he needed him as soon as possible.

A rational part of Jiung was aware he needed backup, but he wouldn’t have waited hours just to hear back from his friend.

Luckily, Keeho had reached out to Jiung within an hour, hence the two boys could meet up at the 7-Eleven across from the research centre around three. If Jiung wanted to be honest, it was the worst time either of them could have picked: it wasn’t close to lunch break nor did it align with anything else that could have drawn the attention from them, but he didn’t want to wait until closing time. He wanted to check every room on every floor as soon as possible in case, for some reason, you and Soul were in there.

The more he thought about it, the more this place seemed like the perfect cover-up and this thought drove him up the wall.

‘Sorry we’re late,’ a familiar voice demanded attention, followed by a loud, screeching sound as the intruder pulled out the metal chair and sat next to Jiung. Intak’s smile was too wide for the older boy’s liking, but at least it didn’t look genuine. The visible distress that blended into his friend’s cheery facial expression made Jiung feel less paranoid even though he would have gladly accepted that he was overreacting and let the guys make fun of him if that had meant you and Soul were chilling somewhere in the countryside.

‘Why are you here in the first place?’ Jiung asked, his gaze sliding from Intak to Theo who also took a seat by the table in the meantime.

‘Duh. Cause I’m the best thief you know and you’re about to break into the enemy’s lair in broad daylight?’ Intak’s question was dripping with sarcasm, his cold tone making it sound more like a statement. Jiung bit back a nasty comment about how Soul would exceed him in no time with his connections all across the city because thinking of the younger came hand in hand with thinking of you and he couldn’t have that.

Jiung put his elbows on the table and intertwined his fingers. He raised a brow as he looked at Theo, the silent question why he was there hanging in the air.

At first, Theo’s response was no more than a shrug, but as the tension became palpable, he let out a defeated sigh. It was clear, he didn’t think he needed to explain himself, especially because both Soul and you were a part of their friends group.

‘Someone’ll need to stand guard.’ It wasn’t something Jiung could argue with even though he would have liked to believe that even if they had gotten caught, his connection to the head of the institute could have gotten them out of trouble. The thing was, he couldn’t say it for sure anymore and this uncertainty and his sudden lack of trust in his own blood were stressing him out. If the boy’s thoughts hadn’t returned to your disappearance every two minutes, he might have already broken down due to the revelations he had needed to face in the last twenty-four hours.

‘Cool. Now, let’s order something and talk about the plan,’ Intak proposed, earning a judging side-eye from Jiung and a frown from Keeho when he pushed his chair back, making more space for himself to be able to stand up and walk up to the counter. ‘What? You chose a café for this group meeting. It’s pretty suspicious if we don’t order anything,’ he put his weight on his palms, leaning closer to the boys over the table.

Jiung let out a scoff.

‘I’ll have one small iced cappuccino,’ Keeho broke the growing silence before he changed his mind. ‘You know what? I’m coming with you. We’ll be back in a minute.’

Instead of following his friends with his eyes, Jiung’s gaze stuck on the massive building on the other side of the road. He couldn’t not feel like in a matter of mere hours, the life he had been living would cease to exist for good. Whether because his own uncle and step-brother were parts of a mafia-like system he had been blind to all this time or because he had chosen to betray them when he had decided to paint them as the enemy, it didn’t matter. Their bond that had been built on trust would break beyond repair once Jiung broke into the research centre. It might have already done so when he had read through his hyung’s emails.

‘You won’t turn on us, will you?’ Theo’s question pulled the blond boy back to the present, his sharp eyes cutting deep into his being. He didn’t blame his friend, though, even if the assumption that he would have left them behind to save himself was offensive.

His pride could take this much.

‘I want to get them back,’ Jiung said firmly, hoping that the sincerity in his voice would be enough and Theo didn’t expect him to come up with a whole monologue about how he was ready to go against his own family and burn Seoul down to the ground to find you. Because honestly, he wasn’t ready for any of those. He wasn’t ready to face the elephant in the room.

‘And that’s what we’ll do,’ Keeho patted the blond boy’s shoulder, taking a seat next to Theo while Intak sat back on the empty metal chair on Jiung’s side. He slid a small cup of black coffee towards the younger and took a sip from his mint choco frappé.

‘Which part of the building we want to infiltrate first?’ Intak asked and Jiung also let out an amused laugh when he saw the other boy fishing out a worn laptop from his backpack. Neat, serious and responsible weren’t adjectives Jiung would have ever used to describe his hyung, but he sure took this job seriously. It was actually pretty impressive.

‘The sixth floor and the basement. You need a special keycard to get to both or the elevator won’t start,’ Jiung said, going into more details about the security system although his knowledge was very limited. He had been in the research centre only twice and both times he had been left with his father’s secretary in the canteen while his father and uncle had been talking about business.

The soft clatter of the keyboard filled the air and embraced Jiung with its normality; he took a sip from his coffee and let the warmth spread in his body. He might have hated the thought of his friends getting in trouble because of his fixation on your sudden disappearance, but a selfish part of him found solace in their presence. He wasn’t alone.

‘Okay guys, we’ll do it this way,’ Intak spoke up after a couple of mumbled swear words and a delighted hum that reverberated through all of them. He pushed the laptop further from himself so that everyone could take a look at the screen, then pointed at the live footage of one of the security cameras inside the building. ‘Based on their social media posts and public appearances, these two researchers are the easiest to lead on. Out of the two, this one here, Dr. Kim Ryeowook is the one who possesses one of the six magic cards to the elevator.’

‘You figured these all out, skimming through a few Facebook posts?’ Jiung raised a brow and it was actually Theo who shook his head first, reaching out to the laptop and clicking on the tab next to the one everyone was staring at.

‘Actually, it’s a text analysis software we still need to work on with Beomgyu for one of our classes. Once it’s finished, it’ll help people make decisions, like solving complex problems for them, based on the imported information,’ he explained, slapping Intak’s hands away so that he could check the accuracy of the information.

‘Oh, okay! That’s cool,’ Jiung nodded to himself, letting the guy overwrite what he needed to overwrite before he confirmed the prediction.

Dr. Kim Ryeowook. The man was currently walking down the hallway on the second floor. If they were lucky, they could snatch his keycard and sneak it back into his coat’s oversized pocket before his shift ended around six.

Jiung’s heart was about to explode when the elevator’s doors closed behind their back and he caught sight of the sterile interior of the sixth floor. As they were running low on time, he was only with Keeho while Intak searched through the basement, his humming deafening even from the other side of the call that kept them connected.

‘Could you please focus? Look for papers, anything about shipping can be important,’ Jiung scolded his friend while they walked down the eerie hallways that led from the elevator to the laboratories. Although they were both dressed in the white coats of the researchers’ uniform, the boy couldn’t have said he felt disguised enough. In fact! He felt as though they were both sticking out like sore thumbs. They were walking too slowly, the caution in their steps almost alarming.

‘I don’t know about you, guys, but I don’t think they’re storing papers in here,’ Intak’s voice sounded almost pained before his words got replaced by a very forced, very loud coughing fit. Jiung furrowed his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Keeho.

‘What are yo—’

‘Fuck! Is this a freaking liver?’ Intak asked in terror, his question tugging on Jiung’s insides forcefully, making him nauseas. Because while it was a known fact that the employees at his uncle’s research centre were looking for ways to cure incurable diseases, Jiung would have never thought their vaccines and experimental medicines were tested on human organs. Sure, it must have been less cruel than testing them on living, breathing people, but the method still sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.

Looking at Keeho and listening to Intak’s uneven breathing, his friends had to be of the same opinion.

‘Guys, some of the organs have the same set of numbers…’ Intak didn’t have to finish the sentence, it was obvious what that meant. Yet, he still forced the words out. ‘I think they belonged to the same person. Livers, kidneys, hearts. The list is endless,’ he said.

Jiung hadn’t realised he was shaking until Keeho wrapped his fingers around his wrist and stopped the uncontrollable trembling of his left arm.

‘Don’t touch anything. Take pictures if you can, but stay alert,’ Keeho instructed, then pulled Jiung forwards.

The two picked up their pace and walked down the hallway with purpose in each one of their steps. When they reached the first door on the left side, Jiung reached for the handle with his sweater paw covering his hand, then pushed it down so that they could enter.

Inside, there were two dozens of hospital beds, unconscious people tied to the meal structure of the furniture, high-tech machines monitoring their vitals. It shouldn’t have been as scary as it felt with the eerie silence filling the atmosphere.

‘Do you thin—’

Jiung didn’t let Keeho finish his question. He had to stay focused; if the older boy had asked him whether you and Soul were in one of these rooms, in one of these beds, his thoughts would have tried to come up with an answer and ended up being all over the place.

‘I’ll check the beds on the left,’ the blond boy volunteered, simultaneously praying that you weren’t one of these people and that you were here so he could get you out of here.

Jiung’s movements were frantic by the time he got to the last patient - victim? - at the end of the row without being able to touch you. He snapped his head towards Keeho who was taking pictures of the sick, fighting his frustrated tears, in hope of good news.

Neither of you was in the room. Or in the next one, or in the third.

‘I found him! Jiung, quick!’ Keeho exclaimed, his hands already working on detaching the machine from Soul’s fragile body. Jiung could taste bile in his mouth when he saw the bloody dressing around the pale boy’s torso. He couldn’t see the wound and he had never been particularly good at Biology, but he had a faint idea that the red line across the textile was somewhere around his friend’s right kidney.  

‘Hy-hyung,’ Soul mumbled weakly, his half-lidded eyes barely open and his lips a mixture of lilac and blue as his head fell on Keeho’s shoulder. It took everything in Jiung to not throw his million questions at him about you and his family members like a spoiled child.

‘It’s okay. We’ll get you out of here. You’re safe now,’ the older boy whispered against the boy’s temple, then looked around, searching for something. Jiung couldn’t stop thinking of… ‘That wheelchair! Jiung-ah, we need to put Shota into that wheelchair.’

The urgency in Keeho’s voice pulled Jiung back to the present and he rushed to the other side of the room to get one of the wheelchairs for Soul. Keeho was right, there was no way they could have sneaked their friend out of the research centre when he was in a half-unconscious state. A patient in a wheelchair might have been a tad less suspicious than a lax body hanging from their shoulder. Though, a voice in the back of his mind said neither was a common sight in the building.

Jiung’s entire body tensed up when Intak dropped the phone on the other side of the call. The younger’s curses and his desperate ‘No, no, no!’ froze his blood even though Intak’s voice was barely above a whisper due to the sudden distance between him and the electronic device.

Contemplating whether he should have helped Keeho with Soul or pleaded Intak to give them an explanation of what was going on in the basement, Jiung let out a frustrated sigh while he was keeping the wheelchair in place.

‘Intak! Intak! What’s wrong?’ Jiung tried to gain the boy’s attention, but it wasn’t working. So they exchanged a worried glance with Keeho and came up with a plan: they checked the last room on the sixth floor, then the older got Soul out of the building while Jiung went down the basement to collect their friend (and whatever he might have found or encountered with).

Jiung hoped it wasn’t one of the security guards who had caught him red-handed, but if it had been, he was Intak’s best chance to get out of trouble. And that was the least he could do for his friend as without him, they might have never gotten to Soul.

The thought that he might have been facing his uncle’s rage at any moment should have been more terrifying. Jiung had no doubt about it that under different circumstances, mere weeks ago, he would have shitted his pants from the presumption that he had messed up so bad, the old man needed to be involved in the situation. But as he was running in search of his friend, passing by shelves full of glass containers and what not, he feared whatever triggered Intak’s uncharacteristic reaction the most.

It didn’t take long for Jiung to find the room with the open door. On the contrary, it became pretty easy once he got within hearing range, because Intak’s painful wailing echoed off the walls and surrounded him on the empty corridor.

Trying to regulate his nerves, the first thing Jiung noticed when he crossed the threshold was how the room was slightly colder than the rest of the basement he had raced through. Then, the sour and irritating smell of vomit and formaldehyde.

‘Intak.’ Jiung crouched down in front of the younger boy, cupping his face with his own, trembling hands, so that the boy could take notice of his presence. He had never been particularly good at comforting others, but he had seen Keeho do it to the boys enough times to have a vague idea about what he should have done.

Jiung pulled his friend’s snotty and tear-stained face against his chest and patted his blade bones gently, for a calming rhythm. Meanwhile, he looked around the room with his chin resting on top of Intak’s head, trying to figure out what could have happened.

‘She… she’s… no-hoh,’ Intak cried out desperately as he grabbed Jiung’s arm and held onto him stronger, body shaking from the threat of another pile of bile-filled vomit. Jiung looked down at the boy and closed his eyes. Should he have reminded him that they had to leave the basement soon? Should he have asked for answers?

Keeho would have rocked him back and forth until he calmed down, but Jiung was afraid they didn’t have enough time.

‘Intak, we need to leave. The keycard, we…’ The rest of the words stuck in Jiung’s throat when Intak pushed him away aggressively, shaking his head and screaming frantically as though the blond boy said something unforgivable.

‘We, no! We have to… we need to! No!’ He protested, crawling backwards on his hands and feet until his head crashed against an open compartment in the wall. With bold, palm-sized characters, there was a number written on it: 0327.

Now that Jiung paid more attention to the odd-looking doors on the right side of the room, his anxiety started to pick up. He pushed himself into a standing position and walked past Intak, trying to take a better look at the inside of the compartment. It must have been the younger who had opened it, which could mean that whatever was in there had triggered his hysterical reaction.

Jiung’s brows were knitted together in confusion when he felt a hand on his ankle. He looked down at his friend, who was shaking his head, mouthing his objections so quietly, the blond boy didn’t hear a word.

He turned back towards the compartment and pulled it entirely open. The piece of white clothing that was hiding the thing underneath was as big as a comforter. Although it brought no warmth or comfort when removing it, Jiung’s gaze fell on a pile of chewed out skin. There were no bones, no organs inside the violated corpse, only damaged skin and a head with more stitches, indicating that he couldn’t have found the brain inside of the skull, either.

Jiung fell on his knees when he recognized the ghost of your features on the corpse’s face. He coughed up bile and that little food he had in his stomach before the first tears rolled down his cheeks. He felt sick.

Neither of the boys could have told how long they were cursing and crying in that room with your corpse mere centimetres from them, but at one point Intak’s ringtone overpowered their sobs and pulled them out of their heads. Although Intak was closer, it was Jiung who reached out for the abandoned device and received the call, his voice hoarse and weak that did barely a thing to alarm the caller on the other side.

‘What the hell guys! You have to get out of there! Dr. Kim is already looking for his keycard, they are on their way to the sixth floor and I’m pretty sure the basement will be the next,’ Keeho said, panic and worry evident in each one of his words.

Jiung looked at Intak, then shifted his gaze to the open compartment. A part of him knew that there was no way they could have taken your remains without throwing up at each corner on the way out, that letting the others see you like this, especially Soul, would have traumatised them for life. He was also aware that as stubborn as you were - had been -, you would have wanted him to pull himself together and get the hell out of there before those who had done this to you would have done the same with the people you cared - had cared - about.

But it was so freaking hard to leave you there or to get up from the floor.

‘Are you listening to me? Please, guys, come out! Whatever there is, it’s not worth it, please, guys, please!’ Keeho was pleading, forcing Jiung’s limbs to move.

‘We’re on our way, hyung. Stop worrying so much,’ he forced out the sassy reply to ease the older’s nerves before he hung up the call and shoved the phone into his pocket.

Considering that cleaning up their vomit wasn’t an option, Jiung didn’t bother with checking the room for potential evidence they could have left behind. On the other hand, he put the textile back on your corpse and made sure the compartment you were laying in was closed before he opened another one and took pictures of another damaged body. He didn’t have the heart to do the same to yours.

Dragging Intak out of the basement was time-consuming and by the time they reached the elevator, Jiung’s muscles were screaming for a break, but he pushed himself until they were out of the building. The boy knew that their initial plan had been to sneak the keycard back into Dr. Kim’s pocket or at least leave it at the reception desk as though someone had found it accidentally at one point of the day, but with the mess they had left in the morgue room, these kinds of details had lost their importance.

Instead, they crossed the street to get to the coffee shop’s parking lot at a speed that didn’t draw too much attention, then got in Theo’s old car and refused to talk about what they had found in the basement until they got somewhere safe in the outskirts of Seoul.

The shocking news of your death lingered around the boys like smoke: sickening, ugly, bad. They couldn’t get rid of it and it threatened their health, especially Soul’s who refused to eat or drink anything for days despite his weak state until Keeho aggressively shoved some plain porridge down his throat.

Intak and Jiung weren’t that much better. Jiung just knew you would have lectured him for his self-harming behaviour if you had seen him skip his meals, so he forced himself to chew and gulp without the slightest care for the taste of the dishes Keeho put on the table. They could have been the saltiest, most disgusting soups and porridges of his life, the boy wouldn’t have noticed.

Although they didn’t know whom they could trust, the boys agreed on one thing: they needed to show the country, if not the world, the real faces of those monsters who led their nation since the first wave of the pandemic. They had to make people see how terrible they were, so horrible, inhuman things like this could have never happened again. 

The problem was that even when they tried to upload the pictures they had taken on the web, they got taken down almost immediately. Then, after two weeks of futile attempts at sharing the evidence with the citizens of South Korea, the news was filled with the same lie on every damned channel: a group of young people committing terrorist acts against the country.

Honestly, Jiung knew that he had burnt down all the bridges when he had chosen his friends and the truth over his family, but seeing his ID picture next to those photos that the people in power had chosen to put on display in the media was numbing. He felt too many emotions at once to distinguish any of them properly. He couldn’t even say he was angry: the word itself did no justice to the thunderstorm inside his chest.

‘We can’t give up now,’ Soul said and Jiung tore his gaze from the screen of his tablet to look at the younger. He still looked so fragile, but as he balled up his fists and opened his mouth for Keeho to feed him some soup, he finally had some colour to his cheeks.

‘We won’t,’ Jiung promised and for the first time in weeks, the silence that followed his statement didn’t drain him. If anything, this newfound determination gave them all another reason to find a way to stop this madness.

Not even twelve hours after their faces were plastered all over the capital city, a girl called Elijah reached out to Jongseob, claiming that she and her uncle had seen the photos Jiung had taken of the damaged corpse before they had gotten taken down and that they wanted to help them fight against the system. It was freaking suspicious and at first, they decided to ignore it altogether. However, when Soul pointed out that Jongseob hadn’t been at the Dream House with them, nor had he joined them when they had broken into the research centre, they talked through their options one more time.

And they decided to follow the instructions of this faceless person towards a place that was promised to be safe for them in two groups just in case it was a trap.

Jiung, Soul and Keeho were the first ones to leave the city. They took Theo’s car, saying one of them would come back for the rest of them if things were really safe, then followed the GPS signals given to them real time by this Elijah girl who hacked into its system.

‘What do you think we will find when we get there?’ Keeho asked from behind the driver’s seat, his voice low on purpose to not wake up Soul who had fallen asleep in the backseat.

Jiung shrugged.

‘Dunno. Two more hours and we’ll find out,’ he stated, looking out the window, taking in the scenery. The countryside looked so peaceful and slow from the inside of the car, but he knew it was only the illusion of obliviousness. He refused to believe that there was any place in this country that hadn’t been corrupted by the government. He knew that the outside world was just as rotten as his life was without the rose-tinted glasses he had been wearing all these years.

Shaking his head, the boy tried not to think about the last conversation he had had with you. Still, he wished he had listened to what you had been saying. He wished he had stopped you when you had turned your back on him and walked away, visibly wary. You had given him so many chances to understand. Yet, here he was, figuring out too late:

History was made by monsters dressed as saints.

the end.

#disharmonycollab #jiung x reader #jiung x you #p1harmony scenarios #p1harmony x reader #p1harmony x you #p1harmony #p1harmony collab #p1harmony angst #ssbyme

[volcanokids]

Hey idk who needs to hear this but the shit going on with Robinhood and Gamestop right now should make you really fucking angry and I’ll tell you why

If you’re not up to speed on the situation, here’s some good posts explaining it. The gist is that using completely legal means, a bunch of individual retail investors (fancy words for normal ass people who, like the rest of us, have very little money) who invest on online brokerage apps (like Robinhood) bought stock in Gamestop after hedge funds worked hard to manipulate the market for their own gains. These average people interrupted the plans of these much larger hedge funds to essentially drive Gamestop’s stock price into the ground by buying all of the stock these companies had and holding onto it, which has now costed these hedge funds BILLIONS of dollars, and for once has disrupted their long standing practice of market manipulation to fuck people over and maintain the wealth of the 1%.

Otherwise average people with accounts on Robinhood, Fidelity, Webull, etc., have now taken and held a ridiculously huge amount of control over GME stock and the rich corporations invested into it and caused it’s growth to absolutely explode. I’ve seen COUNTLESS stories in which many of them turned hundreds of dollars into thousands, made enough much needed money to pay off debts, medical bills, or just to put into savings that they wouldn’t have gotten under other circumstances. They accumulated small fortunes and gave power back to the people, and best of all took that money directly out of the hands of greedy and corrupt billion dollar hedge funds.

But of course, there had to be backlash for this.

Last night (1/27), Robinhood took away its investors’ ability to buy any more stock in Gamestop than they already owned, and today has made its user base fully unable to trade Gamestop stock AT ALL unless it is to sell their already owned shares, like literally fully took away the button that lets you purchase GME stock, period. Straight up preventing trade like this to any degree in the free market, much less to favor billion dollar corporations, is incredibly blatant market manipulation which is very illegal, hence the class-action lawsuit that has already been filed against Robinhood. Hedge funds have lost literally BILLIONS of dollars to normal people trading stock legally, and Robinhood halting trade and making selling the ONLY option for Gamestop, AMC, and similar companies is their attempt at helping the hedge funds gain back their fortune after they failed to manipulate the market in their favor, and fucking over the average people who are invested on their platform in the process. 

Retail investors—regular people—when this happened, lost THEIR ability to buy, and therefore continue taking back the wealth held by the hedge funds, but this restriction on Robinhood has NO effect on hedge funds, who have now been able to buy and sell all day today (1/28) freely. They used the opportunity to drive the price of Gamestop down again, essentially trying to bail themselves out after they manipulated the market and fucked themselves over in the first place. So, Robinhood, several other trading brokers, CNBC, and any other large corporation who has pissed on Reddit for “manipulating the market” have also now revealed their alignment with these companies, who are the reason the wealth in America is as disparaged as it is. They’re complaining, shifting the blame, even making up straight up lies about retail investors being involved in the alt-right to defame the people who have beat them at their shitty game.  

People on Reddit saw the manipulation, played the game fairly, and hedge funds are STILL trying to fuck them over for daring to touch the fortunes that they have gained by their shady as hell practices and fucked up the economy by hoarding. Reddit saw an opportunity to actually literally redistribute wealth, and these companies are trying to put us all in our place and keep that from happening by extremely corrupt means.

Market manipulation has been going on for a very long time with very little pushback from the people who actually take the blow when the market tanks—i.e. lower to middle class people who can’t afford bailouts and end up broke and out of jobs when the market crashes. The crash of ‘08 was caused by big brokers doing illegal shit and fucking around with people’s money with absolutely no personal repercussions. No lawsuits (or at least no lawsuits that did fuck all about it) no jail time for anyone responsible, nothing. Not only has this Gamestop movement taken back some of the wealth, we are beginning to finally hold these companies accountable. Again, as of right now, a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Robinhood for their blatant market manipulation, and hedge funds invested in GME have lost over 5 billion dollars.

We always talk about eat the rich, fuck the 1%, redistribute the wealth. I know the stock market is confusing—it’s made that way on purpose—and I understand anyone’s personal reluctance to participate in the stock market directly because of the hatred for it’s capitalistic nature and everything it’s done wrong and every way it’s failed so many people. But, if you want to actually be a part of a movement that is literally taking billionaire’s wealth and redistributing it right now, show support on social media for the people putting in time and money to make this happen.

I am not qualified at all to give financial advice, and I can’t in good faith tell anyone to buy stocks, ESPECIALLY knowing many, many people do not have the disposable income to be able to do so. Do not spend money you don’t have. But the media is going to and has been altering the narrative, making the small investors look like they’re being corrupt. Do not believe them. They’re often paid out or owned by these big corporations in the first place, they do not give a shit about any of us, about ruining our lives, about taking everything we’re worth. They’ve done it forever. But the HUGE number of people buying GME, supporting, and cooperating with each other with the solitary goal of fucking over these hedge funds, fighting them and beating them at their own game is scaring the absolute shit out of them. It’s becoming a movement that’s being compared to another occupy wall street. It’s showing people they have the power to instigate change and could legitimately lead to an entire restructuring of the system if we play our cards right. Of course changing one capitalist system into another capitalist system is not ideal nor is it the goal, but this whole thing has very quickly become a movement backed by A LOT of people who have knowledge about the system, have seen it work and seen it get corrupted in real time, acknowledged exactly where it fucks us all over, and are beginning to break it down by exposing a huge and obvious instance of corruption at the hands of billionaires.

If you can do nothing else, educate yourself about all the fuck shit these companies are doing, rally support on whatever social media you use, keep posting diamond-hands-we-like-the-stock-gme-to-the-moon-memes, put pressure on the brokerage apps like Robinhood who are manipulating the market and let them know there will be hell to pay. Robinhood is sitting at a well deserved one star review on the google play store for their shitty actions and has gotten burned over and over on twitter, lots of investors are planning a mass exodus and closing their Robinhood accounts when all this shit is over, as WELL as the lawsuit, and all of it has garnered the attention of some very influential figures who now have our backs. All of the repercussions they’re facing is the direct result of our outrage and backlash. Be outraged with us and let’s make real fucking change.

GME to the fucking moon everyone 🚀

#gme #gme to the fucking moon 🚀🚀🚀 #gamestop #wall street #stocks #im sorry this is so long fdhjfbhjfarw pwease read it

[lumiolivierlithium]

The Good Old Days Chapter Twenty: Heart to Heart

A/N: Hi, friends! So, we kind of had a little bit of a holy shit moment last week, didn't we? And I'm kind of in love with that holy shit moment from last week. And now, we're going to see what the Old Man has to say about it. Alright? Let's go!

“You what?” The Old Man stared me down like I was on something. But for the first time in what feels like a long time, I had the utmost mental clarity. I hadn’t had a drink all day. I got fantastic sleep the night before. Everything just…seemed to be falling into place for me. With the exception of the accusations of kidnapping my girlfriend. That’s not exactly a win in my book, but if it meant having her, I can call it one. Oh, well. Life’s not perfect, but she is. And I’ll die on that hill.

“Yeah…” Now that I said it out loud, that was in the universe for someone, no one, or anyone to hear. And hopefully, it gets to the right ears. All I knew was that I could say it with absolute certainty, “I want to marry Vanessa, Old Man. Plain and simple.”

“Easy, kid,” he slowed me down, “Let’s think this one through for a second.”

“Why?” I asked, “I already know I don’t like being without her, so why not make it official, you know?”

“That’s all well and good,” the Old Man shut me up, “But we’re going to think this one through before you rush into things. Alright? Are you listening?”

“Yeah,” I sat down across from his desk, “I’m listening.”

“Good,” he rubbed his eyes in exasperation. I always knew I had my moments where I was a handful, but I thought the Old Man could handle me by now, “You’ve known this girl for…what…three, maybe four months? In order to meet her, you had to have her make the first move because you were too damn twitchy to do it yourself.”

“Wounding my pride here, Old Man…” I bit the inside of my cheek, “Not exactly appreciated.”

“And I’m not done,” he continued, “On your first date, I thought you were going to throw up. You’re trying to chase after a blue blood while working for one of the biggest kingpins in the city.”

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “What about it?”

“Oh, Frankie, Frankie, Frankie,” the Old Man shook his head, “I really do love you, but someone needs to knock you upside the head with a goddamn frying pan.”

“What did I do?” I squealed, “All I said was that I wanted to make the best decision I could possibly ever make in my life. Is that so terrible?”

He sat back in his chair in absolute awe, “You really do love this girl, don’t you? Despite all odds. Despite her mother wanting you arrested for kidnapping her.”

“Allegedly kidnapping her,” I clarified, “Vanessa told me that if this goes to trial and she gets on the stand, she will be sure to say that everything was completely and one hundred percent consensual. And that there’s a slight chance her mother would say something along the lines of Vanessa not being in the right mind to be a credible witness. But if it comes to that, Vanessa’s demanding a psych evaluation to prove she’s of sound mind and can be a credible witness.”

“It’s not just that you love her,” he thought, “But you two have already hashed this shit out?”

“It was mostly Vanessa,” I gushed, “She’s kind of good with this whole lawyering thing. It is what she’s going to school for. I’d expect nothing less.”

“And you’re sure this is the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?” the Old Man asked, his face still unreadable. I’m not sure if he’s going to congratulate me or take me into the warehouse and beat some sense into me.

“Without a doubt,” I nodded, “She takes care of me. I take care of her. That’s all this ever needs to be. I want to keep this one around so bad, Old Man. Vanessa’s the best thing to ever happen to me and I don’t want to let her get away.”

“I’m happy for you, kid,” he smiled a bit, “Really, I am. But good luck getting permission for her hand.”

“Her dad’s going to be easy,” I assured him, remembering everything Vanessa told me, “If I can corner him, she’s mine. Her dad’s got a spine like a wet noodle.”

“Then, I don’t think her dad’s going to be the one you need to worry about,” the Old Man warned me, “I’ve told you this before, Frankie. Victoria Scarlotti is not a bitch you want to get tangled up with. Trust me. It will not end pretty for anyone involved. And God forbid it comes back to bite Vanessa. She’s a sweet girl and she doesn’t deserve that.”

“You know what, though?” I thought back to last night. How pissed off Victoria made Vanessa, “I’m pretty sure those two are one big blow up away from never speaking to each other again.”

“Oh, fuck, really?” he perked up, “But if that does happen, what are you going to do? You know she’s going to either lean on you for support or she’s going to resent you for being the reason she cut her mother out of her life.”

“If she’s leaning on me,” I told him, “I’ll gladly support her. I’ve dealt with her mother. She is not a pleasant human being. But I know somewhere else she’d lean, too. It’s not like she’d be totally without a mother in her life. Have you ever met mine?”

“Yeah. Several times. Your mama’s a peach.”

“Right there,” I went on, “Right there would be my safety net, if need be. Because Mama and Vanessa get on like a fucking house on fire. She’d be alright. But if she resents me for it, then…I don’t know. I guess I could kiss marrying her goodbye. I’d give Vanessa the space she needed to recover and if she came back to me, then she’d come back to me and everything would be…Probably on shaky ground for a while, but we’d be ok. Eventually. How am I going to find out which one I get if I didn’t stick around?”

“So,” the Old Man pressed a little more, “You’re not worried about her mother?”

“Not at all,” I assured him, “Because at the end of the day, I’m not marrying Victoria. At the end of the day, that’s Vanessa’s decision, whether Victoria likes it or not. You know what Vanessa told me last night?”

“What?”

“She told me she spent her trust fund on her education,” I felt a phantom ache in my chest. Seeing Vanessa so pissed and so hurt killed me. Never again, baby. Don’t you worry about that, “because it was the one thing Victoria couldn’t take from her. It was the one thing she could call entirely her own. And when I heard that, she fucking broke me. It made me wonder what else she’s taken from her. She almost took her love life away from her.”

“What do you mean?” the Old Man looked at me strange.

“Victoria was trying to set up Vanessa last night…That’s the reason why I took her away from the party last night. It was fucking smothering her and she could hardly contain herself. I got her out of there, so she could breathe again. And even after she told Victoria she had a boyfriend, she told Vanessa to find her when she stops going through her rebellious phase.”

“Ouch…” the Old Man winced, “I’m sorry to hear that, kid.”

“I can’t totally hate Victoria, though,” I admitted, “As much as I’m not her number one fan, I can’t totally hate her. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t think we would’ve met. Or at least, we wouldn’t be like we are now.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” I giggled to myself, “Remember the night we met? When I seemed like I just got my ass kicked a million times over and I hated everything?”

“You were rough,” he agreed, “Yeah. What does that have to do with Victoria?”

“She was the reason why I looked so tired and defeated,” I remembered that night all too well, “The customer isn’t always right, Old Man. Sometimes, the customer has a false sense of overentitlement and needs to get knocked down a couple pegs. In the form of me falling in love with her daughter a couple nights later…I think that’s when it was. Then, you put me on my first collections job and that was the night I met Vanessa. Sort of. Like you so kindly pointed out, she had to make the first move, but dammit, I’m glad she did.”

“Yikes, kid…” the Old Man cringed, “I’m so sorry you had to deal with that. But hindsight, I guess.”

“You know,” I leaned back in my chair, finding patterns in the ceiling tiles. And I had a feeling that under at least a couple of these tiles were drugs, but what the Old Man does in his free time is his business. Not particularly one for them myself, but I don’t judge, “I’m not a big believer in destiny or fate or whatever you want to call it. But I do think the right people are put in the right path. It’s just whether or not you got the stones to take the path in the first place.”

“And now, you’re some kind of philosopher?” he teased, “Hard to believe you haven’t asked Vanessa to marry you already.”

“I’m serious, though,” I admitted, “It’s like…This all fell into place the way it should. One person out of place and my life could’ve gone completely different. No Victoria to wear me down would’ve meant me still working at the restaurant and not coming to work for you. If Vanessa wouldn’t have been in the club that night as a wake up call from her sister Violet, we never would’ve met. Or even if Veronica wouldn’t have been by Abuela’s food truck the morning after, I don’t think I ever would’ve gotten my second chance with her. Sure, I could’ve still called her, but there’s no guarantee she would’ve agreed. But having Veronica to vouch for me might have been what saved my ass. It’s just…There’s a lot of what ifs that could’ve never been and it would’ve sent me in a different direction, but it didn’t. I’m here. And hopefully, if I’m very, very lucky, I’ll be with her. For as long as we live. And I don’t know about you, Old Man, but that’s the kind of future I want. I’ve never been able to see much of it before, but…I don’t know. Something about her makes it so…Bright…So clear…”

“You don’t have to sell me on it anymore, kid,” the Old Man settled me, “If you can get her away from Victoria, you have more than my blessing. Now, before you make me an emotional wreck, how about we get you on something to get your mind off of possibly going to jail for the woman you love, ok?”

“Alright,” I wasn’t going to say no. I could use the distraction, “What do you got for me? After I’ve worked all day at the bar.”

“Don’t think I’m going easy on you,” the Old Man jabbed, “Just because you put in honest work doesn’t mean you’ve worked for me today. I’m not the one that owns the bar. It’s just under my umbrella.”

“Dammit,” I grumbled, “Alright, Old Man. What do you want me to do?”

“It’s just a collection job, Frankie,” he laughed, “Relax. It’s not the end of the world. Although, I don’t want you going on your own. Go get your brothers first.”

“What?” I wondered, “Why? Where the fuck are you sending me? I can probably handle it on my own.”

“No,” the Old Man put his foot down, “I know you’re a scrappy little shit, but trust me. I want someone watching your back. In this particular instance, I want two someones watching your back. Go get your brothers. You’re going to the outskirts of our territory and not on a good side.”

“Again,” I started to sweat a little, “Where the fuck are you sending me, Old Man?”

“The outskirts of our territory,” he reiterated, “But on the other side of the line is the Bronx. You know about the Bronx.”

“Yeah,” I knew better than to play over on that side of the fence. The Old Man made sure to keep me out of there. Which made me wonder why the fuck he’d be sending me there now. Especially after everything I just told him. But I knew I could do it. Even if it means babysitting Tony and César while they’re supposed to be babysitting me, “I know not to be too conspicuous. I know not to piss anyone off around there. Keep my head low, get in, and get out. Right?”

“That’s right,” he applauded, “You do listen when I tell you shit. Good to know.”

“Of course, I do,” I rolled my eyes, “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’d be amazed at how many apprentices I’ve taken on in my life,” the Old Man explained, “And not too many of them listened. You know what happened to them?”

“What?”

“They’re dead, Frankie,” he put a hand to my shoulders, “Don’t be like the others.”

“Are you serious?” I gasped, “All of them?”

“Na,” the Old Man settled my nerves, “Not all of them. Some of them are, but not all of them. The ones that are dead got that way from being stupid. I got a couple that just got demoted and keep an eye on shit for me in different places. They’re information guys. You don’t want to be information. Believe me. My informants do double duty as patsies. You don’t want to go down that road.”

“No, I do not,” I promised, “I like where I am.”

“Stay at my hip, kid,” he gave me a little pop to the shoulder, “You’ll learn a thing or two. But for now, go get your brothers. Go get my money. Come back and we’ll talk about your cut.”

“Got it, boss,” I started getting up only to be pushed back down again, “What the hell, Old Man?”

“This is a big score for you, Frankie,” he kept his voice down, “You know how normally when you do collections for me, it’s maybe five grand, ten grand max?”

“Yeah.”

“This one’s around the hundred thousand mark,” the Old Man filled me in, “The envelope’s going to feel a little thicker than normal. This is a big score. Don’t blow it. Don’t get yourself killed. Don’t make friends, but don’t make enemies either. And what’s the number one rule when you got that money in your hand?”

“Don’t count it in front of anyone else?”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s just rude?”

“And…?’

“Because it’s a sign of mistrust,” I knew the rules. I wasn’t an idiot.

“That’s my boy,” he gave me a pat on the back, “Go on. Go get your brothers and my money.”

“Ok.” I did my best to keep my cool in front of him, but holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. I’ve never held a hundred grand before. Even when the Old Man needed his money laundered, I wasn’t the one to take it. That was one of those things he did on his own. Why? I don’t know. But I figured it wasn’t my place to ask.

Still…I had to go to the borderlands. I was about to be within spitting distance of the Bronx territories and we’ve had that conversation. That’s not a place for me to be. If they find out who I work for, I’m fucked. But I suppose that’s why the Old Man wants me protected. That and the fact that he doesn’t exactly hide who the favorite is around here. I’m surprised no one’s tried to pick a fight with me yet. Probably because of what I’ve already done in the warehouse. That guy walked out of there limping with a trail of blood following him.

When I got home, I did a quick check of the calendar. Mama was working late tonight, but that didn’t mean Tony and César were. At least not yet. I checked the apartment for my favorite pair of brothers and couldn’t find them anywhere. They weren’t in the living room. They weren’t in the bedroom. Although, when I poked my head out our bedroom window, I found them both on the fire escape. Why was I not surprised? It was a beautiful night. I couldn’t blame them.

“Hola, hermanito,” César stomped out the end of his cigarette, “Que pasa?”

“You boys care to make some money tonight?” I asked, a smirk on my face. I knew they weren’t going to say no. Not to me.

“What for?” Tony wondered. Always the skeptical one.

“The Old Man’s got me on a job,” I told them, “And he wants me protected, so he told me to take you two with me. Sound like a night?”

“What if we had plans?” César whined, “What if I had shit to do tonight, Frankie? We can’t just drop everything for you to use us as bodyguards.”

“Do you have anything else to do tonight?” Tony asked, “Because I don’t remember you making plans, César…”

“Dammit, Tony,” César put his head between his knees, “I swear, you were malnourished in the womb.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Tony gave him a shove.

“So,” I figured, “You don’t have shit going on tonight, do you, César?”

“Nope.”

“But,” I put things into perspective, “You know how well the jobs the Old Man puts us on always pay out. And I think tonight might be a damn good one.”

“What do you mean?” César perked up, “How much is this one paying, Frankie?”

“The Old Man didn’t tell me,” I explained, “But he did say it’s the most I’ve ever scored from one collections job.”

“Which is…how much?”

I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if I wanted to, “A hundred grand.”

“No fucking way,” César gasped, “Frankie, that kind of money could take care of the trip home this year.”

Or my cut could go toward an engagement ring and a damn nice wedding, but priorities, I guess. They weren’t ready to hear that one yet, “So, I’m thinking it’s safe to say you two are in?”

“I am,” César nodded, “And I don’t trust Tony home by himself, so we’re in.”

“Alright then,” I gave them both a nod, “Vamanos.”

#the good old days #oc backstory #fan fiction prequel #mafia au #switch #for the family

[quakerjoe]

You do realize that one of two people will be the President of the United States on January 20, 2021–yes? Either the incumbent or the Democratic nominee will hold the office, and that’s a legacy as old as Jefferson and Hamilton. If you can not stop trashing both aspirants to the office may I suggest that you pursue the acquisition of a passport as well as some means of leaving the country? Your laments are so doleful as to finally become comedy.

You know what’s really funny? Everything about YOU. I’ll tell you why, since you bothered to ask. I at least owe you that much since you didn’t ask anon.

I get this sort of banter every now and again so I thought I’d display it and answer the question at hand.

First off, this “#Murica, love it or leave it!” horseshit has two facets to it in response.

ONE: “Go fuck yourself. If you’re so willing to lie down and take it in the ass for one of the parties constantly screwing you, you’re pretty useless. Why don’t YOU leave since you’ve clearly given up the fight? “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” comes at a price, sometimes a high one, and you have to FIGHT for it. If you’re willing to just bend over and take an elbow deep fist in your ass from the Democrats so it can jerk off the GOP while its dick is constantly forced down your throat, then perhaps YOU are the one who needs to pack up and fuck off to Saudi Arabia or North Korea. Maybe Russia or China are more your speed.

 TWO: Are YOU going to pay my way if I decide to give up on America and abandon my home and the nation that I love? I may not love your precious politicians, but I’m still proud to be an American. I served, am a vet, but THIS is not the nation I signed up to defend. This era of US history is the Big Sellout, and you, dumbass, are a part of that.

 You people had chances and opportunities to make this a better place than when you found it, but over the five decades I’ve been alive all I’ve seen is people fighting to get in line to buy the government snake oil like it’s a Cabbage Patch Kid or the new iPhone. It’s pathetic how much the US lacks vision or has any real pride or dignity worth talking about. We’re not #1 at fuck-all anything worth bragging about unless it’s how bad the education system has gotten or that we’re the TOP nation in the world for incarcerated citizens per capita and it’s mostly geared towards men who happen to have a dark complexion.

 The rich and powerful exist here because WE ALLOW it. People  like you, you defunct Fox “News” fan, are either a cheering fan for the status quo of yesteryear with Biden who wants to turn back the calendar to a time that BROUGHT US TRUMP in the first place OR you’re a trump fan who has NO IDEA… well, no ideas or thoughts about anything. Trump’s shown us who we really as a nation apparently- deluded, self-centered, selfish assholes, and the WORLD can see it. Not all of us, granted, but as a generalization, we truly suck. Such a waste of enormous potential, especially given all the resources we’ve had over the years.

 As a result, we’re being overwhelmed by a virus that’s killing us by the thousands and perhaps millions some day. But, since we no longer believe in or do science anymore, nothing much is coming to save us. If/When the time comes that its run its course and should we find a vaccine, there are still anti-vaxxers who’d rather die than take a cure. Then there are the religious zealots who think Jesus will protect them. You know; the ones who are dropping like flies these days? Those assholes; the hypocrites who think they’re part of ‘the faithful’ who, if you believe in that sort of thing, do Satan’s bidding more than Jesus’.

 If you’re not boiling mad at the GOP for literally doing everything they can to go out of their way to keep the US a hateful, racist, peddler of death nation bent on keeping its citizens poor and undereducated, you’re not a part of the solution. If your fucked-up solution is to have those not happy with the butt-hurt they peddle move to another country, it shows you’ve got no pride or respect for your country or yourself. You’re weak, ignorant, selfish and stupid all rolled into a big burrito of go fuck yourself.

If you’re not making a fist so tight that your nails are digging into your palms when you hear that the Democrats are literally forcing us to choose one racist sexual predator that can’t hold a thought or form sentences as the “champion” to replace the incumbent one, you’re DEFINITELY not a part of the solution. Also, you’re an idiot, an asshole, and totally a Biden Bro.

 What will it take for YOU to open your window and shout out “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” eh? You people rolling over for Biden are pathetic weaklings who sold out women and #MeToo and sold your souls to #MeTooExceptBiden, allowing the bar to be set to the same, low, cesspool standard that the GOP glorifies in. You sold out party, country, woman, minorities, and everything that was once even remotely good about the party that allegedly represented the working class so that the party leaders can keep their cash flow from Big Pharma, the Insurance lobby, Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex. You’ve turned the Democratic party into yesterdays feckless, weak and worthless GOP while the current GOP drags the country even FURTHER to the fucking right. You’re aiding and abetting the foulest elements of the nation’s existence.

Your attitude has cost us our place on the world stage and most of our allies while we crawl under the covers with bedfellows we once considered enemies because they treat their people like shit. Now WE are one of those shithole countries you people used to rant about… AND YOU’RE PROUD OF IT and unwilling to stand up and fix it. Instead, you prefer those who are willing to do your job FOR you to just move elsewhere. Loser. Listen, if you’re too much of a wuss to stand up to the establishment that’s using your tax dollars to bail out the rich while pissing table scraps down upon you, that’s on you. You’re too stupid to know better. I get it. But until YOU get off YOUR ASS and hold your government accountable, you’ve got no room to criticize those who ARE doing it.

We’re in the middle of a pandemic and the ONE GUY who has been fighting for his decades-long career for UNIVERSAL health care was someone YOU opted out. American apparently hasn’t suffered enough to grow a pair of whatever motivates it to stand up to the wealth inequality. The US idolizes the rich and instead of fighting for a chance to live at least a DECENT life without having to worry about going tits-up and pear-shape because of hospital bills or job losses, they’d rather just piss away their fortunes and futures so that people with more money than they can spend in a lifetime of ten could possibly spend, all while THEY pay little to ZERO taxes, leaving YOU stuck with the bill. That’s on YOU if you’re willing to bend over and just take it in the ass and take it dry; no kiss, no lube, not so much as a feel-around. That’s YOU.

You, sir, are the problem. Clearly, with people like you, the US is simply BEGGING for 4 more years of trumplefuckery. Perhaps you even deserve it. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but who am I? I’m just one of the few willing to call anyone out on their bullshit, from the GOP overall to Pelosi’s feckless approach, to Schumer’s “kid who gets beaten on the schoolyard daily” approach to trying to appear useful. I’ll shit on Liz Warren for not backing a Progressive approach and getting behind Sanders EARLY; screwing her friend and ally AGAIN like in 2016. I’ll call out all the other “candidates” who say one thing while their track records show that they’re pretty full of shit. I’ll DEMAND that we have a party that’s transparent and willing to fight to drag us BACK to the Left instead of the “oh, let’s settle for plutocracy and oligarchy because it’s better than fascism” route. Fuck that, fuck them, and of course fuck you too. Thought I forgot about you? Oh, this is all about you, you spineless goon.

 So let me know if you and your ilk are willing to throw your precious few dollars into a GO FUND ME to finance my move to another country. This includes my family, all our belongings, and of course a home once we get there. Naturally, you’ll be finding us ALL gainful employment there and the costs for the passports, visas, and whatnot and you’ll of course be lining us ALL up with jobs. I’ve got a big family, so it’s going to be pretty goddamn expensive. Shit, just ME moving is going to cost more than you’d be willing to cough up.

 In the mean time, I’m going to remain here, giving the finger to the GOP, the Establishment/Corporate owned Democrats, and people like you. Seriously, you’re an idiot.

@ imall4frogs He’s talking about people like YOU.

#imall4frogs

[pointlesstrashyexistence]

Any idea why my reblog wouldn't go through? Since I obliterated every single point you made, you ought to read it. The reply I posted tagged you instead.

No idea. As far as I know I haven’t blocked you and I don’t know what post you are talking about since I haven’t been tagged in anything.

Never mind. I realized that you were in fact were a racist and I blocked you’re other account so you got bitter and tried to argue using information that is innacurate. And if anybody would like to know the other account of this person, it is thoughtsandreplies.

So I’m going to go over each statement the person made with the exception of what originally began this, Immersion (Piss Jesus). Art is a very personal experience, but how you interpret art does not give you the right to use it as an excuse for racism.

So 1) No one is actually saying that Lincoln was a racist. They’re arguing whether or not the depiction of the Black man in the Emancipation Memorial, a real former slave named Archer Alexander is racist and if it should be taken down because of that. This specific instance is not about the white man involved, but the black man being represented and if his representation as someone physically and what could be taken as symbolically lower than a white man is degrading. This is a complex issues that even two of his descendants are have opposing opinions on. Muhammad Ali was a direct descendant of this man and his third cousin, Keith Winstaed, and his oldest daughter, actress Maryum Ali, have opposing opinions. Winstaed is in favor of keeping it because he is more focused on the historical context, that the sculpture of Alexander was meant to be seen as empowering because has broken his chains and beginning to rise. However, Ali is viewing with the eyes of someone living in the 21st century who expects better representation for minority communities that have historically been vilified in art, literature, television, and politics. She believes the statue is degrading and offensive because even if Alexander’s chains are broken, he is still below Lincoln, a white man, and is in a position that can be interpreted as him bowing to him. As I said before, art is personal and both people have valid interpretations of this piece. This is not the same as tearing down statues of actual racists. We put up statues of people to honor them, but we must be able to recognize that we can no longer honor people who were legitimately horrible. I don’t see any statues of Hitler in Germany so what’s your excuse for why you want to keep up sculptures of racists?

2) off the bat I could tell you were a racist who hasn’t bothered to examine their words and actions by referring to the Black Lives Matter Movement as a “historically illiterate mob”. Most of the people in the movement are black so I can assume you are perpetuating the stereotype that black people can’t read which is enforced by the fact that it was illegal for slaves to be literate and black and brown communities have historically and continue to receive less funding for their schools, which leads to lower quality books and teachers, which leads to students who have difficulty in their studies, which leads to students who have lower grades, which leads to black and brown communities being forced to accept work at lower paying jobs, which leads to black and brown parents that are not able to spend time with their children in order to make enough money for food, water, electricity, and housing, which leads to kids who don’t receive the attention they need, which leads to students who are being taught by these same lower standard teacher with old outdated books, which leads to students being frustrated over not being at the level of their studies that they should be but are unable to seek outside help because of a lack of tutors and familial help, which leads to students who “act out” because they were not able to develop the emotional tools necessary to monitor behavior and are then forced into prisons by teachers who have called the police on them, which leads to another lack of education because the U.S. prison system does not want to rehabilitate prisoners and help them become better people, it just wants to find a way to legally continue slavery.

3) It does not matter if someone had doubts about whether or not someone had doubts over their racial superiority. What matters is that they still willingly continued to be a part of that system that benefitted them because it was more convenient to not do anything. Also, nice job on conveniently leaving out the fact that Jefferson was known to have raped his slaves and produced multiple children with slaves, but still did not bothering freeing any of his slaves.

4) Don’t bother bringing up almost any of the other founding fathers also since they were also slave owners perpetuating the system because it helped them make money. And don’t try to excuse it by claiming that it was just accepted at the time. Abolitionism was a thing during that time. Even when Columbus began raping and pilaging, there were people who knew what he was doing was bad. There is writing about how people already knew Columbus was fucking insane and even Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, you know, the ones who started the Spanish Inquisition, was so disgusted by rumors about Columbus that they had him investigated and took away his titles when they found out about what was happening. They’re not off the hook though because they were still, you know, the reason for why many Saphardic Jews were imprisoned, killed, and forced to run away.

5) No, I don’t use the word “racist” too lightly, you’re standards for what count as racist just don’t include enough things that are racist.

6) Black people live in fear because they have historically and systemically have had legitimate reasons to, not because I’m calling out things that have been blatantly racist.

7) Yes there has been property damage. Yes there are people who are going to use these events as an excuse to do whatever they want. That will always be a part of protesting. But don’t act like cops aren’t doing this same thing, intentionally planting themselves in protests and then creating violence or causing property damage in order to give other cops a reason to attack protestors. If you know enough, you can spot them based on whose wearing shoes that can be run in or heavy combat boots, whose wearing nondescript clothes that you can see protective gear under, and who is wearing the “color of the day”, a tactic cops have used in order to disguise themselves among protestors but signal that they are cops to other cops by wearing matching accessories like armbands, headbands, or wristbands.

8) Funny how you don’t want to bring up the fact that these are populations with large black and brown communities that are usually overpoliced. Also, just because someone is a Democrat does not make them a liberal. The only reason I’m in preference of Democrats is because of the multiple marginalized communities that will hold them accountable for anything they do.

9) Not every single time a black person is killed is it because of racism. That “black-on-Black crime” people like to bring up? That’s not racism, that’s just the fact that people in close proximity to each other are more likely to kill each other and there are still heavily legally segregated parts of America due to wealth disparity. That example you brought up about a black cop killing a black man? That’s not racism. That a person knowing that they are untouchable because of the power that they have because the only good cops are cops that have quit. If you haven’t quit or been fired, you are likely a member of the blue wall of silence that refuses to condemn offices who intentionally act violently knowing that they will not be punished. Also, let’s not forget that people can also be prejudiced against people in their race or ethnicity because of the shade of their skin and the socio-economic class.

10) When have you seen any white man being bashed for having a black wife or being a “big brother” to black children? Often the only people who have problems with black women getting married to white men are black men who feel like they own black women and then claim they are “betraying their race” when they seek love from men in other races and ethnicities, but expect black women to stay silent as they chase after snow bunnies who fetishize mixed children. The only other case I could think of would be racists not wanting races to mix. And the “big brother” thing? The only reason I could think of would be complaints about wanting more black men to be “big brothers” because white men just cannot relate to the experiences of being a black child.

11) You conveniently left out that despite being one of the smallest racial communities in the U.S., black people are also the most policed, and will get arrested for things cops would let a white man go with like weed charges. Look no further than lovely white wonderbread comedien John Mulaney saying in his second comedy special “the comeback kid” “it’s (weed) always been legal silly goose”. This means that they have a disproportionate amount of black people in their records because if black people only make up 13% of people in the entire nation, they should only make up about 13% of all crime to, but they make up more because policemen have quotas to fill for how many people they arrest in order to receive more funding, and its easier with a racist system backing you up to arrest Black than white people.

12) Again, people in close proximity to each other are more likely to kill each other than people who do not know each other and people who live far from each other. Also, it’s the ultra extremists who really want to abolish the police. I still think we need a protective system, but we need it to work for the common people, not corporations and politicians. I think that every district should use the same system as wealthy white neighborhoods, where anyone who wants to be a policeman must be assigned a position in the neighborhood they are from because anything they do wrong will make them accountable to their neighbors, family, and friends. Also I believe that all cops should undergo mandatory psychological evaluations every 3-6 months, especially cops who have worked on extremely traumatic cases. I also believe that the U.S. should require at least 3 years of school for anyone wanting to become a cop because no one is actually able to learn the law, learn to enforce it through peaceful means unless in dire circumstances, and care for the wounded, mentally ill, physically disabled, or anyone mentally impaired by drugs and alcohol in 6 months.

13) Another example of how this person is racist because they are actually suggesting that we enforce racial discrimination and black poverty. Also, if you want to bring up gangs, the biggest gang in the U.S is police force using propaganda that promotes the idea of “belonging” and economic stability in order to entice people who do not feel like they belong wherever they are, and then giving them a gun and badge that basically means “kill whoever you want because we will cover it up for you”.

14) Unless a woman feels like she is able to provide a stable enough home environment for her and her child, NO ONE WILLINGLY CHOOSES TO BE A SINGLE MOTHER! Single motherhood is caused by multiple events. A woman was impregnated by someone who left her, a couple with a child divorced because of legitimate reasons because divorce is a long and financially exhausting process, a woman was raped and decided to keep the child, and woman was raped and forced to give birth because she lives in a state that limits women’s healthcare, which includes abortion.

15) Fatherless homes do not equate to a rise in criminal culture. If that were the case, all wlw couples and single mothers would raise criminals. Do you know what does equate to criminal culture though? Teaching people that they are superior to someone else because of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality and then promoting violent behaviors in that child.

16) Black families were never more intact during slavery than after slavery. Slaveowners and slavetraders intentionally worked together to make money and create a lack of unity among slaves by selling individual families members to different regions. One of the first things that former slaves did after they were freed was go out and find their stolen family members.

17) I can’t say anything about economics since I don’t have much knowledge about the economic system before the New Deal. However I will say that this is the only valid point you have made. Politicians have historically tried to get as many black votes as possible when they realized what a reliable voting community they were and then never actually done much to help the black community. However this is a very general statement.

18) How is group called Black Lives Matter that is focused on gaining racial equality attempting to sow discord in a nation by basically say “can you stop targeting us just because you’re racist and don’t like the color of my skin”.

19) How is a group asking for racial equality a lie? Are you really going to deny racism when we have seen shootings, lynchings, and people getting run over by cars all within the last month and a half?

20) WTF IS A LIE ABOUT A CHANT THAT MEANS “I HAVE NO WEAPONS, DO NOT KILL ME”

#black lives matter #blm #black women matter #black lives are human lives #black lives are important #black lives have value #black lives count #racism #race #oh look i found another racist for you Tumblr

[screensirenfic]

Black Leather - Chapter 27

“If that little shit says code fucking red one more time; I swear I’m gonna—“

“Woah, woah, woah; Lo! Cool your jets.” Soothes Steve, though at this rate I’d settle at punching him unconscious.

If it wasn’t enough that I spent a weeks worth of pay checks on diced beef, because despite having a wallet that cost more than my entire wardrobe, someone forgot to bring his allowance; I now was having to deal with all the joys of working with a twelve year old boy.

Sorry; thirteen, as he keeps reminding me.

Thank god Eleven was a girl!

But at least we had some semblance of a plan now; Steve’s BMW parked in the woods at the start of our carnivorous crumb trail that would eventually lead to the junkyard.

Steve popped the trunk of his car; rubber gloves already on hands, because of course; the pretty boy couldn’t get his hands bloody.

The scent of blood and death was strong within; the result of nearly ten pounds worth of prized sirloin chopped in buckets, because according to the little shit; his ex-pet was a fussy eater.

Steve did the honours; hauling out two heaping buckets of meat which were already beginning to smell thanks to the heat of the car.

“Jesus, Lola; do we really need this much meat? He asked; his nose wrinkled in disgust.

Apparently I’d forgotten that a pampered trust fund teen like Steve probably never even had to wash dishes; let alone do any meal prep with raw meat.

“Shut up and unload the trunk.” I ordered; not willing to take any of his crap.

It had been his damn idea to put his faith in the wild imaginations of a thirteen year old, not mine.

I would’ve been more than happy to stay at Charlie’s and finish fixing Marty’s truck, then go out with Bil—

Shit! I’d almost forgot!

Billy would be coming to pick me up in a couple of hours, and I was currently about to start traipsing through mulch and animal shit, spreading the contents of a corpse with Steve and some weird kid.

Of all the fucking excuses I could be giving him; this one really took the whole damn pie!

Even if I did manage to make it back in time; he’d never believe me.

Not even when I stunk like a butchers shop and felt half as dead.

Steve was gonna fucking owe me for this—

“Lo; you still with me?” Steve asked; breaking through my mental rant to try and play the reasonable friend, and I wanted to fucking read him out, because I’d lost out on a good damn night for this and maybe even lost my chance at being with Billy for good; but fuck, Steve didn’t know that.

And I couldn’t blame him; not really.

“Nothing. Just forgot if I’d left the stove on.” I replied; the absurdity of that statement going straight over Steve’s pretty head as he pulled his rucksack out of the boot, alongside several cans of gasoline, unknowingly kindly donated by Charlie’s auto repairs.

Steve pulled out his nailbat; a post-apocalyptic beast of a thing that actually had belonged to Jonathan, before it was valiantly commandeered by Steve in the demogorgon attack last year.

Now it seemed the enigmatically named nailbat man was to make a reappearance; all for the sake of avenging some dumb kid’s cat and a half eaten candy bar.

I, however, liked to keep things more practical; having made time to stop home during our little errand to pick up a most vital supply.

I pulled out my dad’s sawn off shotgun from the trunk; making sure this baby was loaded with the finest buckshot, before cocking it.

Steve can wave round that little tennis racket as much as he liked; meanwhile I’d blow this bitch to smithereens with pure homegrown American lead.

Steve looked at it with a mixture of apprehension and awe, still not comfortable with me bringing a loaded weapon, despite me having learnt how to shoot before I could even drive.

He’d get over it.

Fuck; he might even be thankful once we bring this overgrown slug down without even breaking a sweat.

I let him slam the trunk closed, and by the sounds of it, E.T. was finally done phoning home; Dustin pushing down that ridiculous antenna at last, before the Venusians tried to contact us on it.

“You gonna actually help any time today kid, or is your plan just to play operator whilst we do the real work?” I queried; picking up the first of the heavy metal buckets in front of me.

“Alright, alright; hold your fucking horses. I’m coming.” The kid placated, and maybe I should’ve said something about the language, but then again; I wasn’t exactly a saint, and I wasn’t the kid’s mother, so why the fuck should I care?

Instead, I stood back as he picked up the lightest of the buckets, leaving the heaviest for Steve, but you know what; let him.

It was Steve’s damn sympathies that got us into this mess; so let’s see him feel so sympathetic when he’s done spreading meat for the next two hours.

———————————————————

So maybe playing pied piper to a B movie creature feature wasn’t as mind numbingly boring as I’d thought it would be.

I mean; the company was decent, me and Steve wasting the time away by playing twenty one questions and talking with the kid.

Think of it as community service; us near adults taking the time out from our busy lives to give back to the younger generation.

Of course; I’d also forgotten how blatantly dumb boys of the younger generation could be.

“All right; so let me get this straight...” Drawled the voice of Steve as he trailed behind keeping pace with the kid; after refusing to keep step with me.

It’s not my fault; really. He’d dropped a question on cannibalism on me, and I’d rose to the challenge beautifully; managing to both freak him out and educate him in one answer; a finer achievement than any teacher at Hawkins High had ever managed.

“You kept something dangerous in order to impress a girl... who you just met?” Steve asked with such incredulousness, you’d almost forget this is the same kid who took up football in freshman year just to impress Kathy Williams; an absolute disaster which ended with him getting tackled by a senior quarterback and him spending two weeks in Hawkins Med with a broken arm.

Still got that date with Kathy though.

“Alright; that’s grossly oversimplifying things...” The kid objected, because pigheaded stupidity was a primarily male trait with symptoms that included complete denial when it came to pursuing the fairer sex.

“I mean; why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?” Steve asked; the question perfectly rational, but clearly absurd in the eyes of a thirteen year old.

“An interdimensional slug?! Because it’s awesome!” Dustin exclaimed, and I swear the nerd levels here were sweeping off the chart.

“Lola; would you like it if I showed you a slug?” Steve called ahead to me, finally breaking his selective silence to ask an actual female about their kind.

Still; didn’t mean I was gonna give him all the answers.

“I’m not going anywhere near you or your slug, Steve.” I retorted; still not managing to contain a chuckle. Yes; that was an innuendo, and Steve was probably rolling his eyes right now, but fuck; if I didn’t like winding him up.

“Well; even if she thought it was cool, which she didn’t... I... I just... I don’t know.” Steve reasoned with a sigh, forgoing all attempts to get me on side, because I was a petty bitch and still wasn’t quite over when he asked me about bra size.

“I just feel like you’re trying way too hard, man.” Steve confessed, chucking down another handful of meat with resigned indignation.

“Well; not everyone can have your perfect hair, alright...” Dustin griped, and I could barely contain my laughter, because was I the only one who fucking remembered?!

“Perfect?!” I scoffed; the word half hidden in a bout of laughter. “You should’ve seen him in the eighth grade! He looked like the fourth Beegee!” I exclaimed with thunderous laughter, because it was true; goddamnit!

Steve’s hair had been so goddamn hilarious, and just remembering it now brought back flashbacks of the Snow Ball; memories of crisp white suits straight out of Saturday Night Fever, and a much younger Steve Harrington busting a move on the dance floor like a barely pubescent John Travolta.

Steve didn’t find it funny, shooting me daggers that clearly said “shut the hell up”, despite the fact his embarrassment would only rile me up further.

“Anyway; it’s not about the hair...” He returned his attention to Dustin, clearly understanding that giving me evils was getting him nowhere.

“The key with girls is just... acting like you don’t care.” Steve bestowed his worldly piece of wisdom, and I could barely keep myself from rolling my eyes.

Yeah; because of course the girls liked Steve because he acted like a total douche, and not because they thought he was dumber than a sack of dirt and didn’t know any better.

The hair was a bonus though.

“Even if you do?” The kid asked innocently; and it was hard to believe that all twelve year olds took advice so easily.

“Yeah; exactly. It drives them nuts.” Steve said; and I had to stop them there.

This kid was no Steve Harrington and would probably end up dying alone if he followed Steve’s example.

Fuck; Steve might end up dying alone with a shovel to the back of the head if he kept pissing me off like this.

“Or he could just tell this girl how he actually feels, rather than acting all emotionally constipated about it; Steve...” I interrupted; offering an realistically sound piece of advice, which might end up with the girl actually liking the kid, rather than mistaking him for the douche of the century; who was clearly already walking among us.

“Don’t listen to her...” Steve dismissed my advice with a wave of the hand, and this time, I really did roll my eyes.

“Why? Because I’m a girl?” I countered smartly; as if sound logic ever meant more to Steve than macho grand standing.

“No; because you’re a psychopath...” Steve replies, tossing a handful of meat at me, as if I was a mischievous bitch that could be fended off with a scrap of food.

“Hey!” I exclaimed; nimbly leaping out of the line of fire before I could amass another interesting stain on my jacket.

“You know; I liked you better with your headphones on, Blondie...” Steve drawled; his attention fully averted from counsel giving, to our usually programmed showing of me and Steve acting like complete jackasses around each other.

“And I liked you better in Wham!; George...” I retorted; knowing how much Steve hated the smarmy pop band, despite Nancy’s insistence that they were gorgeous.

“Why don’t you come back here...” Steve began to bluster; picking up another handful of bloody meat with a mischievous smile on his face, but it was too late.

I was quicker than him, already dancing away further along the track, before slipping on my headphones; because despite being a slippery bitch, I was a good girl and sometimes decided to appease our noble king; if only for an easy time.

I hit play on my Walkman; happy to hear the starting notes of Heart Of Glass chiming into my ear canals.

I turned it up loud and proud to sing along; resolved that if Steve and the kid wanted boy time, they could have it, but I would be as much of a nuisance as possible.

“Once I had a love and it was a gas

Soon found out he had a heart of glass

Seemed like the real thing, only to find

Much of mistrust; love’s gone behind.”

#stranger things #stranger things 2 #stranger things fandom #stranger things2 #fanfiction #fanfic #strangerthingsfanfiction #strangerthingsfanfic #stranger things oc #strangerthings oc #original character #jim hopper daughter #hopper daughter #Billy Hargrove #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove fanfiction #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #dustin henderson #Lucas Sinclair

[stopforamoment]

Wacky Drabble #9: A Lesson in Metaphors and Irony

TRR after Book Three Bastien Lykel and OFC Rinda Lykel Word Count: 1,151 This is written for @emceesynonymroll wacky drabble challenge #9 Maybe you’re too innocent. Prompt is bolded in the story.

Bastien and Rinda are married in this one. Bastien is the Head of the Cordonian Emergency Response Program, Drake is the security officer at Valtoria Primary School, and Rinda is now a professor at the Cordonian University. Colin is Rinda’s close friend from grad school and another professor at the University. His wife Deirdre is a primary school teacher in Cordonia, and the couple share Rinda’s political views. A/N: This one is ripped from the headlines—Secretary Betsy DeVos visited a school in Milwaukee, WI and this is where my brain went.   This drabble is totally off the rails, so suspend reality with me and enjoy! Also, of course alcohol isn’t allowed on school property, as much as teachers may need to drink to get through the day! If you are a fan of President Trump, Secretary Betsy DeVos, or school choice, this won’t be your thing.

A Lesson in Metaphors and Irony “Can you believe that crazy bitch has the audacity to spin her anti-public education bullshit as ‘education FREEDOM’? And these fucking cherry-picked examples. Public schools do this stuff too. And they could do even more if these mother dick vouchers didn’t drain resources from our public schools. What a clusterfuck.” It was no secret that Rinda was a proponent for public schools and that she loathed Betsy DeVos. The idea of DeVos as the United States Secretary of Education, a person who should advocate for public education, was an oxyMORON. And now Rinda was fuming because DeVos visited Milwaukee, Wisconsin for some shitty photo ops, pontificating on the importance of vouchers and charter schools so parents could have better taxpayer-funded options for their children. And don’t even get her started that DeVos considered Milwauke the “birthplace of education freedom” because the voucher program started there. Bastien smiled because Rinda still considered American public schools to be “our” public schools, and he put down his phone to he could give his full attention during her Rinda Rant. He knew Rinda was appalled by the racial divides and socioeconomic inequalities in the city where she lived for so many years. Bastien also knew it was empathy, along with anger over any injustice, that motivated Rinda to make a difference. However, when Rinda was this pissed off and reacted out of anger, it never ended well. Bastien knew his Tria, and Rinda Rants were a much safer way for her to blow off steam. However, Bastien also quickly sent a message when Rinda’s back was to him. It wasn’t announced yet, but President Trump and Secretary DeVos scheduled a trip to Cordonia to visit some of the primary schools. Bastien knew he had to deny all security clearances for his dearest wife, and it was probably best if Rinda wasn’t allowed near Valtoria Primary School or the duchy during that time. Bastien did the math in his head. A restraining order for thirty miles should be enough. Rinda would be working at the University, and she could spend the night with Colin and Deidre while the President and Secretary were in Valtoria. . . . . . King Liam and Queen Riley smiled diplomatically as they listened to Secretary DeVos’ ideas on Freedom Scholarships, and Bastien maintained his stoic facade as President Trump pontificated on the benefits of arming teachers in classrooms. Thank God Tria isn’t here for this shit storm—there’s no way she would keep her composure for this. The Secret Service would have her detained by now and we’d have an international incident. The meeting was tolerable, although King Liam and Queen Riley soon needed to excuse themselves for an urgent phone call. That left Bastien with President Trump and Secretary DeVos. He began to wish Tria was there. She knew by heart the statistics about charter schools and vouchers, along with their negative effects on public schools. She also had detailed rebuttals for every counterargument against public education. And her inappropriate comments about President Orange Cheeto and Cruella DeVos would help make this meeting tolerable. Maybe even fun. He almost started chuckling as he thought about the jokes Rinda was making regarding the latest Betsy in his life. Betsy Beaumont the Badass Bastard Bird and now Betsy DeVos. I fucking hate the name Betsy. President Trump was still talking, unaware that Bastien wasn’t even listening, when Bastien’s phone rang. Drake needed his help with a school security matter and no, it couldn’t wait. Bastien let out a sigh of relief before turning to President Trump and Secretary DeVos, promising to return as soon as he could. In the meantime, they were welcome to explore the school and observe the students. When Bastien got to Drake’s office he was surprised to see Liam and Riley there, drinking very expensive whiskey with Drake. Whiskey that Rinda gifted him before she was banished from Valtoria for two days. Bastien’s jaw twitched. “What did Rinda do?” No one answered. Bastien glared as he called his wife. “Tria, why are the King and Queen drinking expensive whiskey in Drake’s office instead of finishing the meeting with President Trump and Secretary DeVos? Drake snickered as he watched Bastien pinch the bridge of his nose while he listened to his wife’s response, and Riley giggled when she heard Bastien hiss “Maybe you’re too innocent” as he abruptly ended the call. “Have a seat with us.” Liam gestured for Bastien to sit next to him, but there was an impish gleam in the King’s eyes. “Plausible deniability, Bastien. As far as we know, Rinda is simply working at the University and waiting until you say she can come home. Now, would you like a drink?” Soon there was the sound of secret service agents running in the halls and shouting directives. Drake swirled the whiskey in his glass as he automatically chanted “Use your walking feet. And zero volume in the halls.” There were several minutes of confusion, but Bastien finally pieced together what happened. A climbing rock wall had been delivered to the school, but it had inadvertently been dropped off in a location that sealed President Trump and Secretary DeVos in a section of the school. They were trapped behind the rock wall, and the only ways out were to climb over the rock wall or remove it. Riley and Liam started laughing when they realized the predicament, and Drake poured himself another whiskey. Bastien called Rinda again, this time putting her on speaker. “Tria. Do you know anything about a rock wall being delivered today? Or where it was dropped off?” “Hi, Tiger! Oh, did that finally arrive? I know the gym teacher has been waiting for it. They’re doing a unit on—” “Tria! I know you’re behind this. What were you thinking?” “Um, metaphors? Irony? Trump on the wrong side of a wall, barred from reaching a safe place that has more resources and opportunities? DeVos trapped in a public school, left behind because the rest of you had a voucher to get out and didn’t give a shit about her?” “I love you Tria, but I’m furious with you.” “Hey, at least I didn’t send the gift basket. I just couldn’t decide. Bags of Cheetos? Or I could really go for it. Fruit basket with oranges and peaches. I’m not orange. I’m peach.” Rinda laughed. “Impeach. Get it, Tiger?” Bastien took Rinda off speaker and turned around, speaking in a whisper that everyone else could still hear. “You know what this means. I want you to come home tonight where I can keep an eye on you, and you’re waking me up with a blow job for the next week.” Everyone heard Rinda’s laughter through the phone, and Bastien needed to excuse himself as his very contrite Tria told him what else she would do to make it up to her Tiger.

#wacky drabbles #wacky drabbles challenge 9 #maybe you're too innocent #bastien lykel #OFC Rinda Parks #choices trr #tiger and tria

[lhs3020b]

Post Mortem

I promised some thoughts on the nightmarish debacle that has happened. Here they are.

TL;DR I am scathing about everything. Everyone who should have helped us, failed.

It's the morning after. They've won. Continuity Remain is dead; there isn't going to be any second referendum and Article 50 won't be revoked. You cannot imagine how I feel right now, typing those words. However, I have never sought to deny reality (however lovely denial might be) and reality is what it is. We've lost a referendum and two general elections; we're finished. There is no come-back from this. The country has made a sick, twisted, greedy, myopic and stupid decision - but that's the decision it's made. I have nothing good to say for what happened, except that it did happen.

Well, let's look at the one tiny silver lining: since the ship has now sailed, I can indulge my deep, seething pool of vitriol for our collection of useless opposition parties. I'd held back previously because I didn't want to add to the circular firing squad. But they've all shot each other now and the corpses have largely stopped twitching. So off we go. (Before we start, I won't be writing about CUK/TiG/Change-UK, because they were just annoying, and I can't be arsed. I think we've all spent enough time on that shower of idiots.)

Here's the core reason for why I'm so angry: all this was completely avoidable. The media will, of course, spin BoJo's victory as a paragonic triumph of political conservatism. Like that infamous Pravda article from the 30s, on the Soviet constitution, they'll fawn over BoJo and declare him a visionary and a victor, a veritable genius of the ages, dripping with lyricism and wit. He isn't. He's an over-promoted buffoon who lucked into the top office due to the self-destruction of his inept predecessor, aided and abetted by a lying and sycophantic media - and, by a collection of opposition parties whose sole interest was in fighting each other.

Here we have the real core problem. The people on our side only switch on for fighting each other. There's little sign that they actually really care about Brexit, or the wider state of the UK. But pursuing partisan vendettas against each other? Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Let's think back to the summer, when BoJo was faced with stalling polls and a hung parliament. He could have been ousted then - but, of course, the Lib Dems were adamant that they couldn't countenance the idea of Mr Corbyn as Prime Minister. They'd had this tendency for a while - it's not new - but it accelerated and was nurtured under Jo Swinson.

When she was elected as leader I was initially a bit sympathetic - it seemed reasonable to give her a chance. Unfortunately, it turned out that she might be the most rightwing leader they've ever had - I actually suspect now that she might be to the right of Clegg. And she went and turbocharged all of their most self-destructive tendencies. I think what she thought she was doing was clawing Tory Remainers off of the Tories. This ran into two problems; 1) there weren't that many Tory Remainers to begin with and b) most of them are more Tory than they are Remain. So they mostly stayed put, and they few who did leave (thank you, to those of you that did) just weren't enough. Meanwhile, the hard-right tilt scared off the Lib Dem's left-leaning supporters.

A while back I predicted they'd lose seats at this election; I'm sad to have been proved right. I am, however, grimly-amused that Swinson herself lost her seat. The other problem with Swinson's rampany anti-Corbynism was that it partially demobilised continuity!Remain. A lot of people sensed that she was more anti-Corbyn than anti-Brexit; that also implied no plausible chance of an anti-Brexit coalition. Hoenstly, given how overt and personal the vitriol between her and Corbyn got, it's hard to see how it could ever have worked. And there's no point voting for something that you know is impossible. I do wonder if maybe this switched some left-leaning people off, or perhaps even sent a few ditherers back to the Tories (under the assumption that any sort of government is better than no government, I suppose).

As for the Lib Dem campaign, it was a mess. At one point their leader went on air to deny killing squirrels (yes, seriously, this actually happened). She got all excited about thermonuclear genocide at one point, because that's not at all weird and creepy, amirite?! Then there was the bizzarity that was "skills wallets" (don't ask - basically, the sort of policy abortion that happens when a collection of wonks are locked in a room with a boxed set of the West Wing and too much cocaine).

[OK, I'll expand this one. Briefly, skills wallets were a weird continuing-adult-education idea, where you'd have a pot of money that you could access at certain ages, apparently to take some kind of training or re-education or something. Why the ages in question, why that amount of money, and why not just make adult-ed free at the point of use, were never really explained. Then there was the can of worms that was additional voluntary contributions - what I took away from this was it was the adult-ed version of pensions auto-enrollment. I spent the last four years fighting a corrupt auto-enrollment fund, so I have strong feelings here!]

As for general themes, really, the LD campaign didn't have one. There was a lot of "Corbyn, THE MONSTER, the monster, Corbyn!". And, kind of oddly, there wasn't actually that much about Brexit. It actually didn't figure very strongly in their campaign. You came away from watching it all with a) a bad taste in your mouth and b) a nagging feeling that these people didn't know what they were doing.

To be fair to them, their vote share did go up, a bit - from 7.4% in 2017 to 11.4% yesterday. Which is, uh, not exactly dizzying. And it seems to have happened in all the wrong places, so they still managed to lose seats overall.

OK, we've gawped at the piss-stained ashes of the old Liberal Party, lying in state where some eggregious family-member has dumped them, on a roadside verge in the middle of nowhere. (Perhaps some enterprising squirrel has buried a nut amongst them.) Let's move onto the other vast, soul-sucking black hole of despair, also know as the Labour and Co-operative Party.

Oh dear god. The Labour Party.

The Labour Party is Britain's perennial second party, and nothing that happened last night challenged its second-place status. Their vote share dropped by 7.8 percentage points on 2017; this is what produced the Tory landslide, essentially. The Tory vote went up a little, by about 1 point, but otherwise stayed largely flat on 2017. This time, though, Labour collapsed. They lost a swathe of seats across the country, including places like Bolsover and Blyth Valley, which were previously rock-solid.

What went wrong? Everything. Basically, the stars aligned against us, in every single way.

First of all, Labour's campaign was dogged by the antisemitism scandal. And you know what? It was bloody well right that it did. The leadership dealt with antisemitism by ... doing nothing. Anyone who tried to raise the issue instead would get "Corbyn outriders" dumping on them on Twitter. Apparently we're suddenly not allowed to be concerned about racism on the Left anymore? Frankly, fuck that.

What they should have done was a quick-and-brutal party purge, perhaps early in 2018, when there was still time. Take some initiative, get control of the narrative again, and get rid of people who are only going to shit all over your campaign. But, uh, no. That didn't happen. I'll note that the Chris Williamson show in particular went on far, far longer than it should have.

Then we come to Brexit itself. Corbyn spent three years equivocating on the issue. OK, I'll allow that in hindsight, perhaps strategic ambiguity made some sense back in 2017 (though note that they still lost that election too). It didn't by 2019. But Corbyn was still trying to stand in the middle of the road as late as the summer - and by doing so inadvertently opened up political space for the (brief) Lib Dem revival, which in turn shunted Labour onto the defensive. And as I believe Paddy Ashdown once said, if you stand in the middle of the road, you get hit by traffic.

Eventually, the Labour leadership reluctantly adopted a second referendum position, but by then the damage was done. Basically, Corbyn had convinced Leavers that he was a Remainer, and Remainers that he was a Leaver. Labour appears to have lost votes about evenly across both Remain/Leave areas(!). In a way, he actually did unite the country - just against him. Ooops.

The rest of Labour's prospectus was a mess this year. Home Office reform was de-emphasized (arbitrary deportation by the Home Office is a huge concern amongst ethnic minorities). Drugs-law reform seems to have fallen off the agenda. There was no obvious theme to the campaign - surprising given that 2017's "For the Many" theme did cut across. Instead the "offer", such as it was, appeared to be a largely-incoherent grab-bag of spending promises, some of them with very large headline numbers. (The £58 billion for the WASPI pensions thing stands out there.) A lot of people simply didn't believe the country could afford it. You don't vote for things that you fear will bankrupt you.

Also, in a way, there's a parallel to the skills wallets thing here. Labour would have been better off, I think, just doing something straightforward like saying, "If elected we'll raise disability, sickness and unemployment benefits by £x per week, and we'll get rid of the ATOS fit-for-work assesments". It would have the advantages of simplicity, clarity and a clear political theme. Instead we got this weird fiscal machine that would produce some of those effects, except via a complicated multi-part kludge (which probably wouldn't even work properly anyway). I don't know how this came about; presumably it was an after-effect of one of the party's unending internal power-struggles.

Corbyn himself is a controversial figure, from his past associations with the IRA (more vague than the press would have you believe, but still a drag on the doorstep) to the perception of socialist extremism. Again, let me note that the "but he's a Communist, because that starts with 'C' too!" stuff is disingenuous, but this perception exists, and the Party have not found any apparent way to challenge it. Honestly? If your candidate is a ship that's holed below the waterline, yes it is horribly-unfair and all the rest of it, but you do need to run someone else. (I see no point softening that punch ; while Corbyn's been leader, the whole UK has voted 4 times, at 2 general elections, 1 referendum and 1 EU Parliament election. Every time, Labour has bombed. It's hard not to see a pattern here.)

Finally, the Labour Party itself has failed to ever re-unite. It's effectively two political parties in one - or possibly three, depending on how you want to look at Momentum. On a fair day with a strong wind, the Parliamentary portion sometimes manages to move just-about-consistently, but nothing else seems to have that behaviour. Honestly I suspect a lot of people's real fear about a Labour government is not that it would be a socialist tyranny, but rather that it would implode within about six months. Labour has lost its way amongst a storm of factional infighting. To be fair to Corbyn, this isn't new. Ed Milliband's desperate tenure was derailed by internal struggles. Even the 1997-2010 period had the ongoing squabbles between Brownites and Blairites (remember them?).

So yeah, Labour's campaign was an absolute shambles this year, and the whole country is suffering now for that.

Lastly, let's have a quick look at the Green Party. Where were they this year? With Extinction Rebellion making headlines, the Amazon burning, Australia on fire and weather records being smashed everywhere - remember that day when we had summer back in February? - it should have been the Greens' year. Environmental concerns are going up in salience - people are starting to get genuinely worried. And, uh, where were they? I can't recall hearing a single peep from the Green Party during the election. Whatever it was they were doing, it seems to have completely failed to capitalise on the moment. Perhaps they should have been a bit more visible.

The only people who come out of this with any credit are the SNP. I haven't heard anything teeth-grinding about them - though, that might just be because I live in southern England.

Oh, and let's take a final kick in the teeth, shall we? If you add up the shares of the votes received by pro-second-referendum parties ... guess what it comes to? Yup: 52%, versus 48% for the pro-Brexit parties. 52/48 - aaaaargh! Yet, the 48% had a narrative that kept their vote all in one place, so they won an absolute majority at Westminster. Ours got scattered to the four winds by several separate inept campaigns and several useless party leaders. Had there been a second referendum, we could have won it. But we never got the chance, because everyone supposedly on our side were completely, perfectly, useless.

Sigh :(

#UK internal politics #diary of a disaster #We're surrounded by idiots

[willowcarlyle]

QUICK FACTS.

Name: Willow Carlyle 

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Sexuality: Bisexual

Hometown: Edens Town

Occupation: Twitch Streamer Odd Jobs 

District: Downtown

DOB: January 11, 1985 (35) // Capricorn  

Fun Fact: She had a closet dedicated to costumes. 

tw; drug mentions

@edtintros

PAST.

Willow Carlyle had always been beautiful – beautiful in the sense that her mother always signed her up for beauty pageants. Unfortunately, she had one many competition as a child and her mother made her follow through until her teen years. Willow hated every moment of it, but had no idea how to tell her mother to fuck off because she still had respect for her mother – the woman who birthed her. Who gave her what she wanted when she wanted it… like the newest gaming system, the best games, and allowed her to do what she wanted as long as she kept up the image that her mom wanted her to be. This meant intense workout sessions, her meals being approved by her mother, and learning how to do makeup from artists. It was all a job, anyways. Willow was the way that her mother made money, time after time, and it never occurred to her that not a cent went to her.

Until she started venting on one of the other pageant contests who was in it for the money – for herself. It was strange for Willow to think that all the money she was making was going towards her mother, but she had just assumed that they were all going towards her college fund – whatever that may have been. At the age of fourteen, she approached her mother about the ordeal and her mother wafted the idea away, as if it were some bug in the air. It’s none of your concern what I do with that money. Which made Willow think – she was making that money, so why wasn’t she getting any of it? And so, she rebelled.

It happened at the first pageant where she didn’t show up and her mom found her holed up at home playing on the gaming console. Then it happened when she was actually on stage and deliberately gave a nip slip which caused the audience to gasp and a cackle of laughter from her own lips (it probably helped that she was high and drunk as hell). Willow fell in with the wrong crowd, yes, but she felt like it was all due to the fact that she had to show her mother that she couldn’t make it without her. The only way they could afford their little apartment was that Willow was working while her mother did nothing. It never occurred to her that her mother didn’t know how because her father was the one who had worked, he was the breadwinner, and that all went to shit once he walked out and left for another woman.

She was young, upset that her dad left, pissed that her mother was using her, and she felt as if she weren’t looked after from anyone at all. So, she didn’t give a shit if her mother was yelling her brains out once they got home. She didn’t care that her mom was crying her eyes out and that her life was ruined because Willow decided not to wear panties during a contest and spread her legs wide open as she sat down. She didn’t care. And her mother noticed. So she kicked her out at the age of 15 after dealing with Willow’s rebellion for an entire year. She was emancipated, told to figure out how the hell to work her life on her own.

And so, she did. Being an emancipated minor meant that she still had to go to school, which she was looking forward to dropping out of. Most of the friends she had were the influences of drugs and alcohol and while it was fun when she was getting back at her mother, it was another thing when she was trying to figure out how the hell to get a roof over her head. With the help of government aid, she was able to afford to rent out a room and pushed herself to get her grades higher within the next year. Who would have thought that all she needed was to get away from her crazy mother in order for her life to start to pave its way for her?

High school, after that, was easy. She found herself a part-time job for the weekdays and a weekend job for the weekend. If she wasn’t working, she was studying and/or in class. Willow seemed to have thrived in this type of constrained environment, but she missed the freeing feeling of playing video games – but that was for children and for her, she was alone. She couldn’t do that. At least, not until she reached college. Going to the community college a city over (so she could avoid the locals at Edens Town), she found herself thriving in computer design and animation. Being commission a few times, she made enough money to buy herself her very own gaming computer and spent the rest of her free time playing games. She was good. Really good.

Blizzard had released Star Craft a few years ago, but Willow quickly made her way up to the top of the game as a player. She joined competitions and won cash money – she realized that she could actually make a living out of this. And so, for the next few years she constantly joined gaming competitions, spent time learning how to sew, use a 3-d printer, among other things in community college, and traveled to gaming conventions. It took a few years for her to gather up a following of people who not only wanted to watch her play games, but wanted constant updates about her, who she would cosplay as, and how she was doing.

PRESENT.

Willow is a slightly famous Twitch Streamer for playing a different variety of games. A lot of people online claim that it’s her good looks that get her so many viewers, but she does pretty well in playing those games. Her online persona is very bubbly – one that laughs at the lame jokes that people may say and is nice to everyone that comes to her stream. Even her Instagram and Twitter seem show off a genuinely sweet girl. However, that’s not who she truly is. Most of the time she has to remind herself to not curse while streaming and misses the days when her following was a lot smaller. Willow is paranoid of people thinking the worst of her and losing her following – it’s the only way for her to make money at this point.

Although, she does do odd jobs here and there. She sometimes picks up random waitressing jobs for a few months, she was a delivery girl for quite some time, a receptionist for about a month (she hated it), a dog walker (which she still does), babysitter… among many other things. Even though she gets money sent to her from her viewers for both her streams and her cosplay, she still finds it hard to live up to a lifestyle that is more comfortable for her. Because she has to buy the latest gaming console, has to have good equipment to record, and spends money on her cosplays… she often finds herself running a bit short when it comes to rent. It’s the reason why she had odd jobs and she’s often seen doing something different around town. However, it doesn’t discourage her. Willow does like doing what she does, though she wishes she could be her true self.

FUTURE PLOTS/PLANS.

Willow constantly bounces between the idea of showing her audience who she really is and keeping it all secret. It’s hard when there are so many other people watching your every move and comment when you do something utterly stupid and fucked up. She once made a jaded joke about a player and people jumped on her about it – she so learned to keep it all to herself. In order for Willow to feel comfortable during her streams, she sometimes cosplays as another more ‘firm’ woman from a game so that her viewers doing talk about her harshly. It’s strange – when she dresses up it’s as if they would let her be a whole different type of persona. Still, she really is hoping to come clean with her audience and let them know how much of a potty mouth sailor she is, and how this “cute girl” image is nothing like who she really is.

Eventually, Willow would like to reapply to community college. She only finished a year and a half and was very close to getting her AA degree in education. She only needs a few classes, so it’s something that is totally feasible for her to do. Because much of her life is online, though, she’s thinking of applying to an online course for a BA in education – eventually. Her end goal is to be a high school teacher because she knows there’s a lot of kids out there that may have gone through stuff similar to her and they need help. Just like she needed, but never had the chance to find it in another. She found it in the internet, that’s why she spends so much time doing it. For now, though, she’s fine doing her streams and taking odd jobs in order to keep afloat.

OTHER/INSPIRATION.

Most of her viewers believe that she lives in New York City and uses a VPN from there so that people can’t try to track her back to Edens Town. It’s because she has such a difference in her personality and the way she dresses on camera versus off camera that there would be a TON of shit thrown her way if they found out.

Her online persona is the “kawaii, nice girl” who blushes whenever someone compliments her. In real life, she doesn’t give a shit if she’s hurting someone’s feelings – sometimes people need a blunt person in their lives.

Willow speaks Japanese, Korean, and is learning Mandarin at the moment (though she’s pretty shit at it). She also knows how to sign pretty well because one of her jobs had a deaf woman on staff and she hated that people wouldn’t converse with her. So, she learned in order to have a conversation.

There has been no contact between her parents and her since she was younger, and she doesn’t plan on trying to reform that connection. Willow believes that people who leave her are gone for good. The ones that stay are the ones that stay.

Willow has no filter and truly says what’s on her mind when she’s not online. However, she does never really speak about what she does as her actual “job” because she is a little bit embarrassed by it. She also doesn’t want people to find out that she’s GhostPhoenyx.

She has a lot of casual sex – she’s actually never had a relationship in her life. Because of her parents and their messy divorce, she never really believed in love. She thinks of relationships as more of something of a transaction – she wants something, sex, and they want something, sex. If it’s anything more than sex, she bounces right away and peace’s the hell out.

She curses as if it’s essential to her life like breathing is. It isn’t. She sometimes curses when streaming but her viewers deem it “cute” because it happens rarely. In person, she’s swearing left and right.

Willow loves to party, dance, get drunk, and hook up. At least one of her weekend days are spent partying and getting drunk – she loves the atmosphere of people who have given up their restraints and are just free.

#wc:fullbio

[talvin-muircastle]

From my old LiveJournal Account

I wrote this back in 2015, and frankly forgot all about it.  I was looking for some of my old fics, and I found *this* in the stream.

It still applies.

Pardon me, please. I need to vent about something. More than once, I have found myself befriending and counseling teenagers who were seriously considering suicide. Sometimes I have done this within the context of a larger support group of family, professional therapists, etc. Sometimes I have had to go it alone. It's some scary stuff, I'll tell you. I don't go looking for it, it just finds me. Perhaps the reason they find me is because I was seriously considering the same thing at that age. So glad I didn't. Every situation is different. Every teenager is, first and foremost, a *human being*, with all the diversity implicit in that. I can't make many generalizations: different races, both genders, different social classes, different environments, different *cultures*--for the most part. There is one cultural item, however, that seems pretty universal. And it really, really pisses me off. Just about sends me to a boil when I encounter it, and it seems to come up every time. "These are the best years of your life!" Oh, *bullshit*! That is nothing to say to any teenager, nevermind one who is contemplating suicide (and how do you know they *aren't* when you say it?) That is the first thing I get out of the way. IT'S A LIE! A DAMN LIE! DON'T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT! Hey, it *gets better!* Seriously. Junior High and High School are NOT the best years of your life. If they are, well...that's kinda sad, really. What's the kindness, where is the justice, in saying this to somebody whose body is changing unpredictably, who is expected to conform in a social scene every bit as vicious as that of High Society but without the redeeming graces, who is stereotyped, marketed to with images of sexuality while being told they can't even *talk* about sexuality, tested and graded and evaluated to a fare-thee-well, used as a political football in education debates, maybe treated as a criminal merely based on race or gender or age, punished for drinking alcohol, punished by others for NOT drinking alcohol, judged and punished by *somebody* no matter *what* they wear, and confined involuntarily for 180 days a year in a poorly-funded institution where everybody else is going through *the exact same crap!* Oh, and you better figure out a career choice during this time, but the economy sucks. Don't tell somebody in that situation that it never gets any better. If you want to torture them, try waterboarding: not because that is a GOOD thing, but because at least then the kid is likely to find somebody willing to admit it really *is* torture! Note that the above is a *typical* American Teenager. Add in some complications like divorce, abuse, mental health issues, whatever... Guys, it's a LIE. These are not the best years of your life. They sure as heck were not the best years of MINE! Ask somebody with a career and family if they *really* want to go back to that. Ask somebody who has found lasting love. Ask an astronaut who has been to space, or an author who got her work published, or a doctor who has saved a life. Ask ME, a guy who has been through a variety of jobs and various hardships. Do we REALLY think that time in our lives was the best, and everything else has been downhill? I will concede that a few people probably CAN say that in all honesty. They are the exceptions who prove the rule. It's pretty sad. So I have to admit, yeah, for some, it probably was the best time in their lives. Most of us, though, don't really find our wings until we are out of the nest. Adulthood, I note, is not *easy*. Nope, you gotta get your own food, pay your own bills, take responsibility for your own actions. Yep, there are consequences if you screw up, and sometimes even if you don't. But why would I want to trade watching my child be born for another afternoon in Mr. Rush's Health Class? Why would I think that *actual, paying work* where I earn real money is less fun than being a football equipment manager and getting a plaque and a jacket at the end of the season? Why would I trade away *anything* for the chance to get beaten up in the bathroom again? Why would I value fifteen years of happy marriage less than that stupid crush I had on that girl in 8th Grade? I gave my crush a rose and I got laughed at. I gave my wife everything I possess including myself, and she gave me all that and more in return. Nostalgia can be a dangerously seductive thing. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" is true of our own pasts, as well. Don't get so wrapped up in your fond reminiscence that you fail to think about how your message may be received: if somebody is facing problems, the last thing they need to hear is that things only get worse over the next 60 to 80 years. Especially when that is *not true*. I always tell them: it's a lie. Don't believe it. It gets better. I also tell them: I will always listen to you. I will never lie to you. It's amazing how well that works with teenagers. Listen, be honest. They tend to respond in kind. Try it. Get to know some of the teens that I have been privileged to know. The time you spend with them may be the best years of your life.

[sl-walker]

I am just pickled enough to do this.  So, let’s do this.

The AU that no one could ever have imagined before I made the mistake...

... the awesome mistake...

...the decision to write SioF.

So, it goes like this.

The Republic has a problem with understanding the requirements of juvenile offenders, which is why they keep somehow ending up in the general prison population instead of, you know, in a juvie rehab facility.  (Lookin’ at you, Boba, you poor little duck.)  Sometime around the age of thirteen, fourteen, they ended up with this half-zabrak who killed three guys in a highly illegal gladiatorial combat ring, but instead of doing the thing that would make sense, like maybe treating the kid with decency, they pretty much just throw him in prison.

There is actually some surprising interest in this nobody nightbrother teenager; the senator of Naboo, for instance, petitions for his release, but that doesn’t matter because he ends up killed in a mysterious airspeeder accident.  Hego Demask pointedly does not show an interest.

The kid survives half a dozen assassination attempts, and ends up maiming the inmates who tried, never mind causing some real damage to a guard or two.  By now, the Republic is probably never, ever going to let him go.  Luckily for them, a new breakthrough by an independent laboratory funded by the IBC has come up with a way to paralyze the midichlorians of Force users for a time and has given the drug to the Republic-- for a price.  Hey, research isn’t cheap!  The Jedi are really very pissed off about this, in a perfectly peaceful, serene and acceptable manner, but that cat’s out of the bag.

(We won’t talk about how Plagueis totally would direct a laboratory to release this and still make a damned profit on it, all at the same time.)

Speaking of the Jedi, it had been a Jedi observer who figured out that the kid who got convicted of killing people was Force sensitive, but despite their petition for custody, they were turned down.  Who knew what would have happened, but the Republic wasn’t willing to let him go.

So, a couple to few years pass.  Cut off from the Force, Maul gets rather subdued and despondent; he’s still more than capable of defending himself, but he has heard nothing from his Master, has no access to the senses he was born with and has relied on his whole life.  He basically marks time, but he doesn’t even really think about escape after awhile, because the reality of it sinks in: Where would he even go?  He’s horribly equipped to deal with the world, the only experience he has with interacting with it is Orsis, and let’s face it, there’s a difference between interacting with mercenary cadets and the public.

It’s a pretty miserable situation, basically.  Depression would be putting it mildly.  He might not even exist, in any real sense of the word.

Meanwhile, though, there’s a bill being floated by Bail Antilles, on the urging of any number of civilized systems, to improve prison conditions in the Republic.  It’s purely happenstance (unless it’s the will of the Force, but let’s not get too flighty) that Bail Organa is on Coruscant -- he’s on the board of directors for three different charities and that involves travelling sometimes for various functions -- and that he’s visiting the Senator of Alderaan at a time when he ends up invited on the tour of the facilities.

Not too surprisingly, since this is my AU, he does catch a glance of the teenager hanging around the general population and, not shockingly, gets curious enough to ask questions.  Because Bail’s definitely not the kind of guy to just let things go.  He doesn’t get much, at first, but even though he’s not even thirty yet, he’s been raised as the heir to a major player house on Alderaan and indeed, in the Republic, so he definitely has his connections and so he’s able to get a bunch of information even the Jedi couldn’t.

This takes months.  His eventual petitioning for Maul’s parole takes several more.  But Bail is persistent, from a powerful family, from a rich family, so eventually he gets what he wants, which is a paroled half-zabrak.

Maul has literally no idea what the hell is going on.

No, really.  This is out of the blue for him.  He was fully expecting to spend the rest of what was shaping up to be a very short life in prison, all connection to the Force numbed, until someone managed to off him.  He does not expect probation.  And who is this really unnecessarily large human who won it for him.  And why?

But this is how Maul ends up on Alderaan.  Lost isn’t even the word for it; is there a stronger word than lost?  Because whatever word that is, that might come within a few parsecs.  Maybe.

He gets his sense of the Force back, but he’s become so accustomed to doing without that he doesn’t feel anything about the return of it; not triumph, not hope, not anything.

He really has no idea how to live outside of someone else’s control.  Prison had just made that worse, so while he has plenty of opportunity to run away, it just-- doesn’t happen.  Again, where would he even go?  What good would it do him?  He’s a weapon, and a highly-specialized one, at that.  Beyond that fact, though, he’s been so adrift for years now, so shut-down, that he’s more like a walking ghost than a person.  Because if Mustafar was bad, if Orsis was structured, prison-- prison was devastatingly numbing and empty.

This does not get better quickly, either.  He just keeps marking time, waiting to go back to prison, or for his master to reclaim him, or for direction.  Something.

Meanwhile, House Organa isn’t one hundred percent thrilled with their prodigal son, given they have this convict under their roof and protection, but it’s a mixed bag and frankly, Alderaan has a very long history of taking in refugees and those who have no home.  And Bail has more than enough force of personality to keep Maul around, even if he serves no purpose at all, except to haunt the grounds like the ghost he is.

That isn’t to say Bail doesn’t care.  But while he holds a degree in political science and has been involved in some form of public service since before he even has memory, he’s never in his life had to actually rehabilitate anyone.  He’s out of his depth, so he mostly just tries to muddle through it; once a day or so, he goes and asks Maul how he is, how he’s doing, and sits with him for awhile even when it seems to make no difference.

One hundred percent of the time, he doesn’t get an answer.  Only about thirty percent of the time does he even get eye contact.

Bail might not know what he’s doing, but he doesn’t give up.  And honestly, he’s prepared for the idea that House Organa might just end up playing host to a specter forever; even then, Bail is pretty sure it beats prison.

The first thing Maul says -- literally the first thing he says, he’s been silent for months and months -- when Bail one day asks him how he is, is “I don’t know.”  It’s just barely above a whisper.  And this poor kid hasn’t even heard his adult voice yet; this is the first time.

Later, though, he remembers the day with shocking clarity; they are on the estate, near the stream running through the heart of it hard and fast; it’s summer and the sky is bright and clear, and it smells good here, clean and alive and since he has gotten his Force senses back, he can feel the echoes of generations of this family on this property; of their loves and sorrows and hopes and fears.  Of course, he isn’t a part of it, but maybe that’s why he says anything.

The second thing he asks is, “Why am I here?”

The third thing he asks is, “What am I here for?”

Bail has no good answers, but he takes each word as some kind of gift.  Somewhere along the line, he got invested.  He has no good answers, because really, Maul isn’t here for anything.  But despite not having any good answers, or even any answers at all, he cares a hell of a lot.

Once their ghost becomes a little less of a ghost, they get him a tutor; he’s shockingly well educated, but there are also shocking gaps in that education.  Maul, on the other hand, is a rather diligent student because this, at least, is something he can understand.

The first time he goes from being a ghost to being alive, present, he gives Bail one helluva black eye.  The panic attack seems to blow in out of nowhere like a storm; one minute that mostly numb calm, the next the floodgates open, and he’s properly in his skin, and it’s more than he can cope with.  Bail just reaches out to offer a bracing hand on the shoulder and gets hit so hard he ends up on his back, clutching his face.  Maul doesn’t know what set him off, but he never wants to feel that way again.

However, this is the first panic attack, but nowhere near the last.

In between, there is a lot of pacing.  Maul does run once; something in his head snaps and he makes for the spaceport.  But the same problem he had before is still there: Where would he even go?

There’s another problem, too, though: There’s this unnecessarily large human who cares about him and who has never tried to hold him prisoner -- indeed, has gone to great lengths to get him out of prison -- and if there is one thing that Maul has never had before but has always wanted, deep in the core of himself, it was for someone, anyone, to believe in him.  And Bail does.

He goes back and that is the first and the last time he tries to bolt.

It’s also the first real choice he has ever made as an adult.

That does change things.  He engages more, if slowly and haltingly.  He still panics, still loses all orientation, still lashes out in that state despite not meaning to.  After he ends up giving poor Bail a concussion, he decides it’s time to train the man in self-defense.  Because while Bail learned very quickly to back away, the man still refuses to outright leave Maul alone in such a state, and the only way he won’t be a target will be if he can prevent himself from being a victim.

Bail doesn’t like Maul’s reasoning, but self-defense is useful in its own right.  He’s not entirely lacking in grace, but he grew incredibly fast and spent a few years as a genuine clutz, and even just past thirty, he still doesn’t always feel perfectly comfortable in his own skin.

Maul, though, is a shockingly good teacher.  In his element, he is confident and calm and skilled and he’s also incredibly patient.  It’s something even he didn’t expect to be, but it’s a comfortable fit.  

(He also ends up teaching more rudimentary self defense to Bail’s three sisters, but he isn’t sure they’re actually there to learn it.)

The years pass; by the time he is twenty, he is three years past the age of majority on Alderaan and has been declared rehabilitated by an independent Republic observer.  For the first time, he’s free, but he still stays with House Organa.  By now, he is firmly one of them, even if not officially speaking; this is his home, and he knows every inch of this estate, and he would defend it with his life.

It’s before this that he discovers an unexpected talent, though: He can make Bail Organa laugh.  Maul doesn’t even mean to, at first; it’s an accident, a matter-of-fact observation of a particularly stodgy dignitary visiting, and he’s actually startled when Bail starts laughing, hard enough to redden his face and make him wipe his eyes.

This rapidly becomes one of the top five things Maul enjoys in life.

He hones his wit like he would a blade; it comes naturally and really, all Maul needs to learn is the timing, to hit the exact moment he needs to, in order to have Bail curling around his own ribs.  He first learns to really laugh himself because he learns how to make Bail laugh.

Bail is observant.  But he doesn’t notice the way Maul starts watching him.  By now, they are not quite kin, but they are close; they are at least deeply friends, if in a nonstandard way.  For Bail, friendship is easy; for Maul, it is more like devotion.  Because while Bail has steadfastly refused to name what he’s for, Maul has learned how to make some decisions and Bail is one of them.

When he is twenty -- free and as close to okay as he has ever been in his relatively short life -- he sweeps Bail to the mat and pins him there, and there is nothing unintentional about this.  Bail -- who is usually steady, a solid sort of presence to the occasional firestorm Maul can be -- must sense some of the tenor of this; his dark eyes are wide and his heart is hammering so hard that Maul can feel the beat of it against his palms, where his hands are wrapped tight, but not bruising, around Bail’s wrists.

It’s such a strange feeling; it is predatory, but not.  And tender, too, in a way.  It’s a rush of heat and the urge to bite and the urge to soothe, all at once.  It’s not the first time Maul’s ever felt this, about this man, but it’s easily the strongest.

To Bail, this has never really crossed his mind; he hasn’t failed to notice how striking Maul is, because honestly anyone with eyes could notice that, but the thought of something other than friendship just hasn’t occurred.  There is thirteen years of age between them and while Bail has certainly been involved with people before, he has always known ultimately that he would marry for his House and that his life is one of service.  But he isn’t just pinned bodily, but by the intensity staring back at him, vivid gold and calculating, but so filled with adoration that it almost aches to be on the other side of it.

Maul asks, “Do you want me to let go?”

And Bail, at a whisper, shaken and feeling the whole world as he knows it shift invisibly under the foundations of his life, answers, “I don’t know.”

It’s an honest answer.  The best kind of answer is an honest one.  The desire doesn’t go away, and there’s nothing in Maul which hesitates, but the rush of warmth and softness is a real thing, and this is the first time he has ever kissed anyone.  He only has observation and want to go on, no practice or skill, but--

But it’s enough.

There’s more, obviously.  Like how that plays out.  And Breha.  And life.  But.  XD  I am pretty damn drunk by now -- forgive the typos -- so have one of the most unlikely pairings in SW and why I think it’d work out. XD  To start.

#maul #bail #and how i'd ship it #forgive any typos #i am definitely not sober #game of thrones: alderaan

[moneypedia]

My piss is currently undertaking the scientific wonder of converting to steam. I am getting fucked off with people that cannot connect the dots and see that retail trading – the stuff that Trading 212 & Plus 500 shove down your throat by way of adverts every two nanoseconds, has anything to do with the “professional” world of trading.

‘But its the same, its the same!’ I hear you cry. It ain’t.

Lets break this down and break a few fucking eggs in the process.

What is Trading?

Trading is the pursuit of making money from the markets in a risk controlled fashion. I would argue systematically.

If you cannot reliably/repeatedly (systematically) make money then what the fuck do you actually have? Nothing. These are the basic tenets of system methodology – look them up. Note – this actually covers ‘just’ putting a trade on in the markets for a client with a commission (think client needs to exchange a currency on a deal made – multiple clips of the ticket occur here). It also covers proprietary trading where a trader may put on a trade on behalf of themselves/the firm they work for (think HFT operations, Hedge Funds and trading arms of investment banks).

Who are ‘Traders’?

Traders are either human beings or computers controlled by humans (don’t get into ML/AI – it was still programmed) that put a trade on in the financial markets in a professional capacity.

There is a big demarcation line here that will make most of the people that think they are traders balk. If you are not managing someone else’s money then chances are you ain’t a trader.

Why? Because go back to ‘what is trading?’ – if you are not making money in a risk controlled fashion then you ain’t trading.

Most people calling themselves ‘traders’ online are not traders – note those 200% myfxbook returns in a week/month – you cannot make those returns if you are trading.

Note, that it isn’t just me that states this – this is a clear demarcation line by HMRC and by the courts in cases that have been brought forward by HMRC by those trying to claim tax back where they list themselves as a professional trading entity – it has to meet several criteria – look it up. Where you will eventually get to is – you cannot trade less than $250,000 to get anywhere near close enough to be considered a trader because less than that and you ain’t got enough to live off to cover basic living costs if trading 1-3% per trade.

Media / TV / Journalists / Reporters – stop calling internet marketers – ‘traders’ – they are nothing of the sort.

I have to correct journalists and reporters at the rate of two a week at present. For fuck sake stop it.

Read above.

Retail ‘trading’ (bedroom ‘trading’) is so far away from professional trading in hedge funds and trading floors that I consider retail trading gambling.

Again this will make most readers balk – those educators across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, Whatsapp and Linkedin are engaged in selling your bullshit courses on gambling platforms.

If it wasn’t gambling then why are you not making money? – Because you don’t have enough discipline? – Because you don’t believe hard enough? Again – This is the equivalent of those church pastors saying your wife died from cancer because you didn’t believe in God strongly enough.

Where are all the customers yachts?

Nicking Fred Schewd’s title…

I have published on this blog at least two studies showing no one makes money ‘trading’.

This is a fucking warped dialogue in itself. People still cling to the “fact” that someone ‘made it’ – of course they fucking did – outliers are a thing. Throw the space time continuum into that topic and you are totally fucked. Its a fact nearly all of the ones who ‘make’ it lose it. Where are all these bedroom ‘traders’ that have made it? There aren’t any are there? The stat was/is 0.03% – yet people cling to this as if its validation to throw their life and their earnings away (worse borrowing) in the pursuit of getting rich.

You are not going to get rich retail trading. The stats prove you won’t.

The reality of retail trading

Retail trading is sold to you as some sort of intellectual pursuit. Some challenge to overcome in terms of psychology and mental fortitude with the ability to be a robot and mystic technical reader of the markets to predict something you absolutely have no fucking way in hell you can predict at retail level.

– All you have available to you at retail level is price and time. – All you have at retail level is what happened and what currently is happening. – You have no idea on will happen in the future – NONE.

Did you get that bit? You have absolutely no way or chance of accurately predicting 100% what the market will do in the next second let alone the next minute, day, week, month or year. None. Yet you spend all your waking hours and money “trying” to find a way. If only your discipline was better, if only your system was better – but you get better at these but what happens? You still don’t make money. But what about all these people on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, Whatsapp and Linkedin? – They are all doing so well? – They are all making money? – They are all showing charts of entries and signals winning? – The broker says 25% win? Because if you correctly digested the above – they are all lying to you. Every single one. Remember the stat. Only 0.03% are making consistently profitable decent returns.

Ok break it down then…

So here is the killer. You have $1000. How the fuck are you going to turn that $1000 into $3,000,000 within 2 years? You cannot by actually trading. That is a fact. It doesn’t matter if you have all the time in the world, it doesn’t matter if you have the best system in the world, it doesn’t matter if you have that bullshit compounding spreadsheet. If you employ proper risk management you will initially not risk more than $30 each trade – how long is that going to take you to make $3,000,000?

That is even before all of the obstacles.

Obstacles

Say tomorrow you start ‘trading’; – Have you got a working system? – Have you got empirical evidence of your system showing expectancy during a given period? – How far have you back tested it? – Have you accounted for time you can actually trade? Add this basic base, to the picture of people thinking they can trade full time / make a living from trading with an account less than $250,000… – No idea if you will make any money that day. – You work more hours than any job you would have previously done so you actually earn less per hour. – You cannot take time off so you are glued to a chair – your health suffers in every aspect – Mentally – You don’t get out, you ignore friends/family, You add weight from little exercise, Your eyes deteriorate etc etc. – You get no pension. – You get no sick pay – you can’t take a day off. – You get no holiday pay. – Broker slips you. – Broker adds latency. – Broker drops connection. – Broker doesn’t guarantee stops. – Most brokers could go under at any minute and you never see that money in your account again. – Broker charges you commission so doesn’t give a fuck if you win or lose – they either run their own book or hedge you. – Broker charges you swap. – Market whipsaws you. – News even blows you out of position and your stop. – Market ranges for months.

All that just to make less than you would in your 9-5.

People call this glamorous… So much for an intellectual money making pursuit – this all sounds pretty fucking shit to me.

Educators are selling this as a dream lifestyle.

Internet marketers sell this as a get rich pursuit.

What happened to the trading off a laptop on a beach/by a pool?

Retail ‘trading’ is so far away from Trading that Retail “trading” needs to be classified as gambling – urgently.

Reality Trading

Has anyone actually told you any of this? Are you still ignoring the facts? – that only 0.03% of all of the millions of people who try, only make meager consistent profits? These “Profits” are nothing more amazing than your 9-5 and STILL have to go through all those obstacles every single fucking day. Do you fucking get it yet?

Here is an interesting statistic of my own;

On a platform where I test strategies I haven’t logged in for a few months – i.e. no trades have been made by me.

For the month of July I am currently in the top 38% – I HAVEN’T EVEN TRADED. No trades for July, none.

I am in the top 38%, out of thousands of ‘traders’ – ‘traders’ so fucking good, that they bothered to put up a strategy – which takes going through a month long process and actually being published, to then actually trading…

I HAVEN’T EVEN TRADED AND I AM BEATING 62%.

You must have read the statistic where ‘trader’s cannot even outperform the S&P 500?

In conclusion;

You will not get rich retail trading forex/bitcoin/equities – ever.

The only people making money in trading are the educators, gurus, course sellers, affiliate scammers, brokers, market makers, book sellers & publishers – these people are people who could not do it – NO ONE CAN. Of course they will say I am wrong and that you can make it. They couldn’t trade consistently profitable accounts so they have to sell something to you – They worked out it is far more profitable with less risk. They make far, far, far, more money per month than they ever could trading – that is the whole point.

[sumergosuigeneris]

September 4, 2019

Phew. Lots happened since my last post. On Sunday, we had the sailing club thing. Friend picked me up, and we were on the road when her cousin called and said he wanted to come.

Now, he is a character! First, wouldn’t let me drive (he’s the man). Second, he said he hadn’t been drinking, but methinks he was high. Third, I thought I was going to die. He had no respect for lanes. And the speeding. And weaving. I can’t believe I was ever like that in my youth, but I definitely did my share of weaving and speeding. In my late teens and early 20s. Dude’s in his 50s. But knew a where all the speed traps were. And was a font of random trivia. Knows a lot about drugs.

He’s a DJ too. One of the members is a DJ and he was going to do the music. But Cousin took the fuck over. And while I like his brand of music well enough, house, I was looking forward to the r&b/soul music I didn’t get.

We got there and it was nice and chill. The food was great. We built a fire and a committee of us was maintaining it. We were pacing ourselves, or at least I was pacing myself, until the racers got there b/c it was definitely going to be a rager.

Note: I thought dude had turned it from a private party to an everyone’s invited party, but it was mostly private, outside of the club’s racers.

Anyway, I guess the wind died completely so it took them hours and hours to get there. They do and they’re beat. Plus one more day of racing to go. So it was a chill rest of the night.

But dude comes over to our fire. We’d been warned B is a fire bug, okay fine. But he came over like he owned the fucking place. He criticized our fire and told us he was going to fix it. Like we hadn’t been maintaining it all day. He was just so mutherfucking stereotypically white male privileging the whole thing that I could not keep my mouth shut. I’d have let him do whatever he wanted, but I really could not not say anything. So I said something along the lines of ‘is the white male coming over to tell us how to tend a fire?’ something like that. Some of the ladies thought that was awesome. Anyway, I would have been done but he goes - alright, I��ll give you 10 minutes then I’m adding a log to the fire. So I said, no we’ll give you 15 mins and then maybe we’ll let you add a log. He left us the fuck alone, but I definitely did not make a friend. Also, he was the DJ. And on the crew of the sea scout boat.

At some point, the hotep dude I know told me that some of them had raced over on the sea scout boat. And he’d recommended to them that I be on the crew. That kind of pissed me off, bc I was like who are these people, they almost all have their own boats, one’s a guest, and they’re all white men. Actually, turns out one was black, but still. All male crew. All own their own boats. None of them had anything to do with taking care of the boat. I mostly moved on though.

But I did talk it out a bit with one person. And then another person, who is the one who’s supposed to be maintaining the boat. And she said she’d help me find a racing crew. Maybe we’d make an all-women crew. Cool. I was happy. But she must have said something, there’s no way she didn’t because a bit later, there were a few of them, including her, discussing the crew on the boat and I got pulled into it a bit. I went inside to make myself a plate, and they called me back out to say they *were* gonna invite me. The commodore couldn’t find me on Wednesday. It was a last minute thing.  I was like fine, whatever. They pretended to offer to let me ride back, but when I said no bc I had plans, they a) got an attitude and b) said the boat was kinda packed, like bitch I’ve been on that boat, 5 men is not packed. And I explained I was looking to get into racing but hadn’t found anyone, and the commodore, I really hope she was drunk, because she said to me that I need to educate myself and stop being narrow-minded. I was stunned, like wtf are you talking about??!?! She definitely meant about racing (if not that plus other things) and tried to soften it, but didn’t manage it.  So then I had to spend time justifying that I wasn’t hugely upset about the race, that I had tried to find a boat, but not *that* hard - it’d been a busy summer. How I ended up feeling like I needed to defend myself that I wasn’t upset about shit I didn’t bring up to these people I don’t even know. Such bullshit.

Also, for the record, the commodore didn’t try to reach out to me. She could have emailed or called. There were several days between Wednesday and the racing. They didn’t want me.  But seriously, my opinion of her is dropping, due to something else too.

So that upset me a bit, but I was determined not to let it get out of hand. But at that point, I was tired too, so I drowsed a while, helped tend the fire (learned a lot from one lady and the commodore who were both girl scouts), then went to try to sleep. Did not get a good spot.

I’d brought my tent to camp, but forgot the poles. Then picked a communal tent but was told a couple was in there. Went to another tent, found out later that another couple was in that one two. These huge communal tents should not have been monopolized by just two couples but whatever. I felt like Mary and Joseph looking for room at the inn.

Next day, I helped cook a little. And got asked to ride with someone else back. Still wondering if S will have something to say about that later. But I was happy to not risk my life again, and get back a little earlier. And I thought I’d be spending more quality time with another person (didn’t happen, I was invited as a buffer but that’s fine). Cousin palmed me something. I looked later - we’d.

I slept like a mofo when I got home. Then joined some bar peeps to go to a festival. They re-dressed me. Which was funny and nice. And we had a decent time. But at one point we got split up. I couldn’t find them and only had 1 of 2 numbers. The one I had wasn’t answering. Eventually, she called me. But I couldn’t fucking hear her over the band. She kept calling me back instead of texting me like I asked. And I thought they’d saved a seat for me, but it was a dude’s so I sat on the ground. It was funny b/c he was kinda pissed, but it’s not like anyone, including his girl, said anything to me. And I guess he knew the people I was with, but didn’t realize until the end I was with them. Like, you think the ‘white’ girl would just be glomming on to some random people? I guess....

Then we after-partied at the other lady’s house. It was nice. Her daughter’s a freshman, and you know I got all up in that. I left later than I wanted but it was a good time. And now I’m thinking other friend isn’t a lesbian? She might be bi or open or whatever but she definitely made a comment about wanting to hook up with some dude.

Kinda dead yesterday. Kinda dead today too if I’m honest. We’ll see how race night goes.

But I need to mention the call. So party/sea scout dude called me and told me that basically the commodore and her hubby had pushed him out of managing the boat. They didn’t ask to use it for this last weekend’s race, and they also registered it for another race without asking him. Actually, they pretended to ask him, but someone outside the club had already said something to him about it being registered. So he’s bringing that up at the board meeting. I’ll be curious b/c the funds used to buy the boat might make all that very sketchy.

[faithfullyscared]

Why I cry in church...

I saw an article with a similar title this morning and felt compelled to write about why I stopped going to church.  The answer is simple, when 45 was elected in November 2016 I realized that there was darkness inside of people that I loved.  If you can justify the way this man treats EVERYONE around him than clearly we have a very different idea of what the Bible says.  I actually don’t care that you didn’t vote for Hillary, I GET it, but why, oh why, did you think HE would be better?

I think I felt the need to say something because it is Father’s Day.  God, for me, was the best father I ever had.  When I was at my darkest, he was there for me.  As were the people in my church, but now I realized that if God is in control of what is going on right now?  Actually, no, I don’t believe that.  I believe that Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr. are false prophets (i.e. profits) and mega church pastors that are flying around on their private jets and living in million dollar estates taking the last bit of money their parishioners have are false profits (i.e. prophets.) I’m looking at you Joel Osteen.  I believe that 45 is a result of our desire to value ourselves and our money over others which is exactly the opposite of what scripture tells us to do.  

I do not believe that everyone deserves to have the same house, the same car, the same portion of everything.  I am not a communist, although, 45′s best friend is, so I really don’t understand why Republicans love him so much.  I believe that what I have is enough.  I believe that I can live in a decent apartment, drive a decent car, eat well (obviously), etc. and that I can afford to give to others with what is left over.  It doesn’t mean that I believe that someone working at McDonald’s should make the same salary that I do having earned a Masters Degree.  I means that someone working at McDonald’s should be able to have a decent apartment, a decent car etc. the same as I do.  I understand that our definition of decent changes with our means, but if you feel like a multi-million dollar Bugatti is any version of decent you are delusional or that a family of 4 needs a $16 million dollar house you are just an ass.  It is time that we stop indulging the Kardashians with our hard earned free time.  Stop indulging 45 with his campaign of hate. Stop pretending that everything that we need to buy is on Amazon.  Stop pretending that corporations give a damn about their workers and that the tax cut was a fraud and you people that voted for him fell for it.

I cry when I go to church and realize that there are others in the pews beside me that think they are good Christians and I don’t have the heart or strength to tell them they are not.  45 will not be kind to others, but we don’t have to be like him.  We can be kind to others.  We can hold doors, or let cars in front of us.  We can pay it forward in the drive-thru or not get irritated in the grocery store.  We cannot stop men from treating women like crap, but we can teach the men in OUR lives to be different to be better.  We can volunteer when it scares us to be around people on THAT side of town.  We can give a dollar to a reputable charity when they need it.  We can take the time to donate what we can rather than spend another $25 on clothes.  We can take the time to educate ourselves about what is going on in the world and realize that we are some lucky muthers living in this country. 

I was at the grocery store the other day and felt palpable tension every time I came face to face with another shopper, saying excuse me, I’m sorry etc.  You know why?  Because we are afraid that the next person that we piss off is going to go the fuck off, because we are FUCKING SCARED in this country because every day we are waiting for another disaster, another mass shooting, another threat of war with North Korea, another insane speech about treason or the fake news.  Another petty attack from 45 towards a private citizen.  Another Brent Kavanaugh who is living his best live while Christine Blasey Ford still can’t go back to work full-time because of death threats against her.  Then I got to the cash register and there was a young man working that was differently abled.  Clearly able to mentally execute the job, but with physical and speech limitations.  Every person that went through his line had the biggest smile on their faces because he was working, he was doing his part and you know what he should get in return for that?  A decent apartment, a decent car or whatever else he needs to live a decent life.  But also, thank you to the retailer that gave him a chance.  Because it takes that too, it takes someone giving you a chance.  You can’t create something out of nothing.  That is white privilege. 

If you have gotten this far in this rant, thank you and I apologize because I have one thing left to say.  The 9/11 first responders fund.  Neither of our 2 Republican Senators in NC are co-sponsors of this bill and I believe 3 of our Republican House Members are not either.  I don’t care who you are, how old you are, where you came from, but if you do not support this bill, YOU ARE CANCELLED.  Block or defriend me on Facebook, take my number out of your phone.  These men and women are DYING because they showed up.  They are being forced to retire and be unable to take care of their families because they showed up.  You can find money for a fucking WALL that we DON’T need, but you can’t find the money for this?  You are trash and don’t even begin to tell me that you are a Christian because God showed up for those people when they lived and it is time for us to show up for them so they can keep living.  Tell yourself, that if any of these people do not vote for this bill to go into law, you WILL NOT VOTE FOR THEM EVER AGAIN.  I’m looking at you Virginia Foxx.

I should really blog more, because then they wouldn’t be so long.

So, until next time. I cry in church because I am sad to be surrounded by bad Christians, so I just don’t go.

#911 victims compensation fund #father's day #church #45 #socialism #love #virginiafoxx

[at-funeral]

After 300-vote loss last year, Carfi goes after Pody again

Mary Alice Carfi is hoping the voter sentiment that has lifted Democrats to wins in Republican strongholds across the country can help her close the gap on state Sen. Mark Pody.

— Lyle Graves | The Ledger

On the heels of a near upset in December, 2017, Mary Alice Carfi isn’t banking on a blue wave to defeat Republican Sen. Mark Pody in the race for state Senate District 14 just east of Davidson County.

“I think it has the potential to help people everywhere,” she says of a number of Democratic wins nationally since President Donald Trump took office. “But I really think the biggest part of my appeal is just the fact that I want to work … I don’t care if it’s somebody who’s a Republican or Democrat, I want to work together with them to figure out solutions for our state and to do things that make our state better. And I think that message is being heard loud and clear and it’s being received really well.”

Carfi, a Lebanon Democrat after moving her law office there from Mt. Juliet, lost to Pody, a sitting House member at the time, by 300 votes to fill the seat left open by departing Sen. Mae Beavers when she decided to run for governor.

The Smith County native who grew up on her grandparents’ black Angus cattle farm, Carfi won Smith, DeKalb and Clay counties, while Pody wrapped up Wilson, Macon and Cannon counties last December.

As she did late last year, Carfi is pushing for expanded Medicaid, better schools in every county, and higher wages, all of which are inextricably linked and meat-and-potatoes issues for most Democrats statewide.

Thus, Carfi is among a field of Democrats filling nearly every state House and Senate ballot across Tennessee in an effort to turn back the Republican tide that swept the state during mid-terms of former President Barack Obama. In comparison, Democrats put only six candidates on 16 Senate ballots in 2016 and about 66 candidates on 99 House district ballots two years ago.

That showing allowed Republicans to maintain a supermajority in both chambers, 74-25 in the House and 28-5 in the Senate.

The Tennessee Democratic Party has been touting its lineup for months, in anticipation of riding a potential “blue wave” in the November election.

“We’re excited to have the largest class of Tennessee Democrats stepping up to run for office in recent memory – and we’re working hard to ensure these candidates have the resources they need to run effective campaigns, from Mountain City to Memphis,” state party Chairman Mary Mancini says.

State Sen. Mark Pody is relying on voter approval of how the Tennessee Legislature has performed to fend off any pro-Democrat movement that might affect state elections.

— Lyle Graves | The Ledger

Carfi says she’s not certain the state party will come up with the money to back her campaign this fall, but she is confident she will have enough to compete, saying even if it takes $200,000, she’ll be prepared.

Pody, even though he held a House seat for seven years and the Senate post for six months, says he’s still introducing himself to people in the district, visiting county commissions and holding town halls.

He’s well aware of the potential for Democrats winning seats at the mid-term of a Republican president. But as for a blue wave sweeping across the nation and rolling into Tennessee, Pody calls the state “an outlier” compared to the rest of the nation.

While other states are seeing teachers grow disgruntled over pay, Tennessee has increased teacher salaries and bolstered education spending.

At the same time, the state is holding unemployment at the 3.5 percent mark, a record low for Tennessee, and consistently adding jobs in rural and urban areas.

“I feel the voters here in Tennessee are going to look at the jobs we’ve done and will vote accordingly,” Pody says.

He contends the Legislature made the prudent choice by not expanding Medicaid or approving Gov. Bill Haslam’s Insure Tennessee plan. He points toward the federal government’s recent move to cut subsidized rent payments by 20 percent as proof the feds are moving to reduce the deficit and leave states to pick up the slack.

“So states that are saying we want to be more reliant on the federal government are going to be finding that that is drying up and they’re going to be undertaking the cost of any programs they started with the federal government,” Pody says.

Knoxville rematch

Democrat Gloria Johnson is hoping the third time is the charm when it comes to matching up against Republican state Rep. Eddie Smith in Knoxville and says a “blue wave” of Democratic wins nationwide could push her to victory.

“I do because what’s creating that ‘blue wave’ is the energy behind the people interested in voting and bringing a change,” says Johnson, 56, a retired special education teacher who served one term in the state House in 2013-14 before falling to Smith twice for the District 13 post in East Tennessee.

Johnson’s message includes expanding Medicaid to provide access to insurance for some 280,000 uninsured people, including 25,000 veterans who should be able to take advantage of the taxes Tennessee pays on the Affordable Care Act.

“It truly is a no-brainer, and I do truly believe this is the biggest mistake in modern history in Tennessee, the Legislature not expanding Medicaid or passing Insure Tennessee,” she explains.

Johnson contends the state is underfunding K-12 education by about $500 million annually, and she wants to prevent charter schools and vouchers from “siphoning” money from public schools. Instead of looking at alternative operators, the state needs to invest in its public schools and build stronger “community schools” where children stay in their neighborhoods.

She points toward those situations in Knoxville where schools have large community gardens where parents and their children come and work and can take home fresh vegetables, enabling them to avoid the unhealthy environment of “food deserts.”

Despite facing a 9-point Republican advantage and large sums of outside money, Johnson has gotten within roughly 150 votes of Smith.

“So I think with the energy we’ve got this year, more people engaged, more people really focusing in on health care and education as well, I think we are gonna put it over the top,” Johnson says.

Smith, on the other hand, doesn’t believe Johnson will benefit from any “blue wave,” saying little has changed in District 13 during the past two years. He points out she’s never won 50 percent in any race this decade.

“I believe the voters of this district have rejected her twice, and I have worked to bring common sense back to being a legislator,” says Smith, 39, who works on event production and management. “While I am a Republican, if it’s good public policy and helps benefit our constituents, that’s what I’ve worked toward and I believe the voters will see that once we have a chance to talk to all of them again this year.”

Smith sponsored legislation in 2018 to enable what he terms a “slow” Medicaid expansion by reforming the TennCare system and enabling the state to cut pharmaceutical costs, save $768 million and use that money to expand coverage. The measure was headed for passage in the House before the Senate killed it, he says.

Smith took off notice a bill he sponsored directing the commissioner of Finance and Administration to seek a waiver from the federal government for block-grant funds to provide medical assistance to people in a TennCare population with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty line.

Based on his passage of legislation creating recovery high schools where students with addictions can work toward graduation instead of dropping out, as well as his efforts fighting the opioid epidemic and helping historically black Knoxville College resume operations, Smith says he has “a record of success” voters will continue to support.

Chippy in Chattanooga

Democrat David Jones decided to run for the state House District 26 seat in Chattanooga last summer, long before a hint of any “blue wave” started making its way across the country.

And while he’s hoping to ride the political momentum, he notes, “I would just as soon Tennessee be purple as red or blue.”

Investing in health care and education and boosting wages are his three priorities, aligning him with the Democratic leadership across Tennessee.

Suddenly, Jones finds himself without an opponent after veteran Republican Rep. Gerald McCormick announced he is taking a job in Nashville with Asa Engineering and leaving the Chattanooga district. Another Democratic primary challenger, Jean-Marie Lawrence also says she is dropping out of the race after her apartment building closed and she was unable to find another place to live in the district able to meet her disability needs.

Jones conceded beating McCormick in November would have been a “heavy lift,” and he was prepared to raise questions about his residency. He’s still expecting Republican opposition to arise.

“As a citizen, it is pretty serious to me to not be living in the district you’re representing, even though he says he does. It sure seems like he doesn’t. That’s a pretty important qualification to be in the district a lot when you’re representing it,” says Jones, 64, a retired small business owner who says he will also bank on his 60 years living in the district.

“I wouldn’t even want to be someone who represents just a portion of the constituents. I want to try to represent as many as I can that I hear their voice. … I would hear their voices and that would have an effect my decision, but sometimes I would still vote in a way that pisses people off,” Jones says.

McCormick acknowledges he rented a Nashville house for 13 years and bought one a year ago because his wife, Kim, works as an aide for Board of Regents Chancellor Flora Tydings. He says he continued to own the 3,500-square-foot home in Chattanooga where he has lived for 18 years but couldn’t pass up this lucrative job opportunity and decided to leave the Legislature.

“It will require my relocation, which is OK. My wife is living up there. My kids live up there, and I’m about to have a grandkid living up there,” McCormick says.

The former House Majority Caucus leader and chairman of the Finance, Ways and Means Subcommittee, McCormick says he checked with Attorney General Herb Slatery and confirmed Republican candidates would have 10 days to qualify to run in his place in an August Republican primary, even though the initial qualifying deadline was long gone.

“There’s no scandal brewing and nothing embarrassing,” says McCormick, who predicts Republicans will maintain the seat even after he leaves.

McCormick’s exit leaves the race wide open, not just for the district seat but for speaker of the House, with Beth Harwell leaving her post to run for governor.

He mentioned former Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Robin Smith as a potential candidate to run in his stead, though he had not tipped her off he was leaving. She made headlines in 2008 by making derogatory statements about President Barack Obama.

McCormick predicts a Republican will win the Chattanooga district where President Donald Trump won 68 percent of the vote in 2016, and he says any semblance of a “blue wave” will peter out in Tennessee.

If Democrats are “lucky enough” to reverse a couple of seats held by Republicans, McCormick says the GOP is likely to win some Democrat-held seats, as well.

“They’ve got several vulnerabilities,” McCormick says, noting after he attended the Statesmen’s Dinner recently in Nashville with more than a thousand other people, “I just don’t see the Republicans not being motivated to get out and vote in November.”

Memphis movement?

After knocking on thousands of doors for other Democrats, Memphis candidate Allan Creasy is working on his own behalf this summer as he tries to unseat 12-year Republican Rep. Jim Coley of Bartlett.

“As someone who has volunteered for campaigns for so many years, it is amazing to me the energy and excitement of volunteers in the campaign. It’s so rare to see the number of folks willing to go out and knock on doors,” says Creasy, 37, a bartender and restaurant manager. “As far as a blue wave happening, it will happen if folks get out there and volunteer. It will happen if folks are willing to make phone calls and more important than anything else, knock on doors.”

Creasy points toward one-term Democratic Rep. Dwayne Thompson from Cordova who beat established Republican Rep. Steve McManus in 2016. He says he knocked on thousands of doors for Thompson.

Expanding Medicaid is Creasy’s main focus. He says Tennessee has lost billions of dollars in recent years that could have helped hospitals and individuals, and he accuses Coley of voting against Medicaid expansion in the 2018 session.

Creasy contends Coley voted for a health care compact in 2012 that would have turned Medicare into a state-run program of TennCare and in the same year voted to cut millions in funding for senior in-home care, which would have forced many seniors into nursing homes.

Coley denies voting against Medicaid expansion, though he voted to table a related amendment on a proton therapy bill for cancer patients this session. Gov. Bill Haslam vetoed the proton therapy bill, but legislators declined to reconvene this summer to override the decision.

On the campaign trail, Coley says he is talking about efforts to end human trafficking, an issue he has “championed” for eight to nine years, helping move Tennessee from the middle nationally to No. 1 in the country for the strength of laws combating human trafficking.

In addition, Coley is continuing to talk about the level of services in some areas annexed by the Memphis City Council, places such as Cordova trying to get out of the city. The measure was at the forefront of Memphis politics two years ago but was put on hold because the city was offering a compromise. Coley, though, says the matter could be renewed in 2019.

As for a blue wave and the potential of it affecting his race, Coley says he believes the “gap is closing” already in the polls, and he doesn’t think the Democrats have a message for people.

“I think you can only be critical so much and then you’ve got to offer some idea for what you want to do, and they haven’t done that yet,” Coley says.

“The generic polls have closed remarkably in the last two months, so I expect it to be a very hard-fought campaign.”

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