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elencelebrindal · 3 years

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What about the 17th century Gold saints if they come back to life and see the world and everything that they know change? And what they will react and meet to the classic 20th gold saints?

I’m so sorry for taking so long to answer this, I’m having a ton of issues and cannot concentrate on long posts. I’m also sorry about any mistakes you may find in this, I kept forgetting what I was writing and how I was writing it. Stress is a beast.

Also... I assume you meant TLC or ND, but that XVII century throws me off. Maybe you meant XVIII? I panicked and double checked, and there’s no XVII century Saints side from the XVII century alterative (aka Sage, if the internet is not betraying me, I’m not good with dates). I went with TLC.

First of all, they will ask themselves “where the hell are Shion and Dohko?!”, because obviously they will be missing. Since, you know, they didn’t die back then. And... the premise is: everyone’s back to life. The only moment in time where the Golds were almost all together as adults was during the Sanctuary Battle, and half of them died in 12 hours. Before that, with Pope Ares being a tyrant and half the Sanctuary being empty, doesn’t work. Shion is a bit of a problem, so there’s two options: either his old friends get traumatized again upon knowing he was assassinated, or traumatized again because they learn he became a Specter (kinda). Or both. Pretty sure that at least one of them, if Shion presents himself wearing a Surplice, will instinctively punch him. They don’t even realize it’s him, they just see the Surplice and all their fight or flight responses light up more than a beacon. And then they’ll be traumatized again upon learning Shion was Pope before dying.

Dohko... well, how would you react upon discovering one of your companions didn’t die, but stayed alive and well thanks to Athena’s misopethamenos? Minus the accidental punching, obviously.

Anyway, once they finally get over that shock, it’s time for them to check out the world and the other Saints. And of course, they start from the beginning.

Aries Temple At least a couple of them will mention how Mu resembles Atla (same thing I did when I saw the kid, after all). Then, they will ask about his master, because obviously he’s Shion’s successor, so bring in another shock. Mu is Shion’s disciple. Great. They keep getting showered with Shion knowledge without even searching for it, and every single piece of information is a punch in the gut. They will leave with a dumbfounded expression on their faces, onward to the next temple.

Taurus Temple Rasgado will be absolutely jealous of Aldebaran’s name. He gets to have it since birth, who wouldn’t be jealous of that? They immediately bond, though. They’re both good-hearted people, after all, even if ready to wreck everything if they need to. Manigoldo really likes his sense of humor.

Gemini Temple Now, for this I’m in bit of a pickle. I don’t know if Aspros and Defteros are both there, if there’s only one of them, I don’t know. The fact the both Saga and Kanon have been the Gemini Saint doesn’t help either. Let’s say this. If they meet Saga, they will like him as a Saint. Powerful extremely skilled, with a great mind? All of them are going to appreciate such a man. And then, they learn about him as a tyrant, and collectively take a step back. If they meet Kanon, Athena please help them. Someone will try to punch him. Kanon will trap them in his labyrinth because there’s no way he’s going to let Aspros pass without testing him (I know, poor Aspros, but I love doing this to him). He’s going to bond with Kardia, though. They can both brag about how they defeated Rhadamanthys, even though Kanon will emphasize that he actually killed him.

Cancer Temple Please, someone take Manigoldo away from this wretched place. As soon as they step in, Manigoldo will either faint from shock upon hearing all those distressed laments, or try to kick Deathmask in the jewels for keeping innocents as trophies. There’s no way the whole ordeal could end well.

Leo Temple Immediately after seeing Regulus, Aiolia will pat him on the head. No one can resist Regulus, not even him, I won’t change my mind. And then onward to more serious stuff. Precisely, Aiolia will talk with all of them, to make sure they’re actually the real Gold Saints, and there’s a high probability he’s going to ask for a fight just to be even more sure. Just like he did with Athena, back then.

Virgo Temple Remember when I told you that Shaka, in my humble opinion, is the most powerful Gold Saint of his generation? Close to the gods? Well, at least a couple of them will hesitate before stepping inside his temple, because his cosmo is terrifying. Asmita, though... he’s curious. He’s going to step in and stand in front of Shaka, comparing his cosmo to his own, trying to understand him. Of course, as soon as he learn that his eyes are closed, Asmita will ask if he’s blind or just chose to keep them shut. They’re probably going to have the longest conversation of the group, both yearning to learn about how the other uses his cosmo and fights. And, Shaka uses that time to test them, again, because he needs to protect Athena and the best way to do that is to be careful. Libra Temple They met Dohko before reaching it. I didn’t specify it at the beginning of the post.

Scorpio Temple Milo and Kardia? Oh boy, someone’s getting hurt. Kardia, being the reckless fighter he is, will definitely want to fight his successor. Just to see how different they are. Cue Degél being forced to stop him because “there’s no way I’m going to drag your sorry ass when your heart catches fire”, and Milo watching as his “older” counterpart gets frozen in place. Though, he will tell Kardia how amusing the coincidence of both of them being close to an Aquarius is (friendship, love, whatever you want, these two are close).

Sagittarius Temple Right after meeting each other, how long do you think it’ll take for Aiolos and Sisyphus to start talking about their family? To brag about how much they love their lions? Don’t get Aiolos wrong, though. He is going to be the hardest Gold Saint to convince. He has to make sure they’re not there to hurt Athena, even if he trusts his companions. They will read his testament, and most of them will finally realize how painful and horrible those years of tyranny were for the Sanctuary. They will think about how Shion made the Sanctuary a livable place, and how Ares destroyed everything and betrayed everyone. Sisyphus will be the most shocked of the group, thinking back to when he took Sasha away from his family because Athena was more important, seeing himself both similar to Aiolos and completely different. It ends with a melacholic feeling permeating all the past Saints.

Capricorn Temple El Cid and Shura talking about their Excalibur is the first thing that happens. Who has the best sword? They keep arguing about it (El Cid more calmly) until Sisyphus intervenes. As soon as he learn the Shura gave Excalibus to a Bronze Saint, though, El Cid almost loses his cool. The encounter goes on without other accidents, luckily, so the Gold Saints can pass.

Aquarius Temple Degél and Kardia, thanks to what Milo told them at his temple, will try to understand what kind of person is Camus. Only to be confused and surprised at how a cold and calm man like him could actively be close to someone like Milo. Of course, right after they realize it’s the same situation they live in, so everyone moves on to more serious stuff, aka Degél trying to understand what happened in their Holy War, since learning from Saga wasn’t an option and Deathmask risked getting knocked out of existence by Manigoldo. Obviously, the Golds of the past are even more horrified to know that, aside from Shion, five more Gold Saints chose to betray Athena, even if they didn’t really stand by Hades’ side. Sisyphus especially, since he actually experienced what was like being covered by a Surplice (I loved that scene, I have to pay homage to it). They also learn about the Athena Exclamation used to kill one of their companions, though Camus avoids telling them of the second time they used it. After this, once the shock subsided, it’s time for the last temple.

Pisces Temple The very first thing Albafica will do when stepping in that temple is ask Aphrodite how he manages to live the life of a Pisces Saint. There’s two possible options for this: the more canon approach, where Aphrodite doesn’t have poisonous blood, so the answer Albafica receives cannot be applied to his experience; my own approach, where Aphrodite was born with poisonous blood, and he can tell Albafica that it’s not as dangerous for other people as it might seem to him, because the problem resides in his blood, not in his general person. On a more general note, Albafica will have a good conversation with him and will actually approach him, since they’re both Pisces Saints. His companions leave him be, because it’s the first time that Albafica gets that close to someone without feeling on edge, and even though they end up feeling a bit ill upon knowing Aphrodite was one of the real traitors of Athena in the past, they’ll leave with no incidents happening.

I know this is a way more generic approach to the topic compared to what I would actually write, but I don’t have a clear mind at the moment and it’s difficult for me to concentrate too much on sigle characters and situations. Also, there is one main issue with these Saints coming back to life that I didn’t tackle: how their mentality is out of place in a way more modern time like the XX century. This is too difficult for me to elaborate now, especially with a serious approach (I often see the TLC Saints being thrown into the XX or XXI century with a comedic intent, instead of a serious one, so I don’t know how other people deal with the issue), so I avoided it. Another problem is how Dohko and Shion would react to them. For the TLC Saints is not that big of a deal, they died back then, but Shion and Dohko survived. They outlived them, they saw them die. I made it sound really simple in this post, but I believe this kind of emotions cannot be easily summed up in a couple sentences. And there’s the fact that some of the classic Golds betrayed Athena, a very heavy topic for a Gold Saint. Again, I made it sound simple, from Ares to the Holy War, but in reality this would take a much bigger toll on past Saints coming back. How would you react upon knowing that your successors, the people you hoped were going to protect Athena after your death, not only didn’t follow that path but also tried to kill her? It would take some time for them to understand how those Saints got a redemption.

Again, I’m sorry for the terrible amount of time that passed since you asked me this, dear anon. I always answer asks, but sometimes I don’t have time to do so as soon as I get them. I hope you found this at least a bit interesting, and I hope I didn’t misinterpret what you asked me.

Have a good day, guys!

#saint seiya #i cavalieri dello zodiaco #los caballeros del zodiaco #os cavaleiros do zodiaco #knights of the zodiac #the lost canvas #gold saints

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hphmbang2020 · 4 years

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A Snadger Story

Merry Christmas, @slytherincursebreaker !!

From your secret santa, @thewasp1995

Elia you know that hearts never lie

A scribbling of a quill scratched the line out.

“No that’s not it.”

Elia, where the mind rests the heart never sleeps

Were I never to wake to see you, tears I would weep

Another scribbling of the quill.

“Damn. Why can’t I find the right lines to this?” muttered a boy of average height with severe but handsome features and neatly combed brown hair.

Making sure no one else was listening in (the Slytherin dungeons were not very well lit and contained plenty of snoops) Felix dipped the quill back into the ink and attempted to resume his little project once more. But this wasn’t just another monotonous essay from Professor Snape….it was far more personal.

Felix Rosier had to resist blushing when he thought of Elia Westerling. A beautiful, vivacious Hufflepuff girl who hailed from Essex. The House of the Badger was often written off as uninspiring or even useless by some critics from other houses, but this particular Hufflepuff was someone he would never soon forget. Slim, curvy, with raven hair and hazel eyes, Elia had a personality to match- confident and self-assured but also playful and a tad mischievous which made her any boy’s match if they tried hitting on her. Felix had never tried himself, but by Merlin he wanted to and rather than embarrass himself with a cheesy pickup line, perhaps a poem would be able to better catch her attention.

Then there was the matter of her family- she was of mostly French and Turkish descent though she was English on her mother’s side, the fact was wizarding blood only went back two generations- two of her grandparents had been muggles. This made it that much harder to confess his feelings, his parents would certainly frown. He could already hear his older cousin, Evan admonishing him.

Intermarriage dilutes the magical blood, Felix. Even talking to one of those wretched creatures is an affront to everything we stand for.

Even with all this in mind, Felix had long decided not to pay much attention to his family’s pure blood prejudices. Elia was a witch that was indisputable, and a damn good one. He wasn’t going to let something so trivial get in the way of at least taking a shot. Besides, Evan had held onto that ideology with an iron fist and look where he ended up? Buried six feet under, killed by Mad-Eye Moody himself.

No, he wouldn’t let remnants of the Dark Lord’s memory bully him into deciding what he wanted, and that was Elia. The bigger question remained, however: how would he give her this poem?

“Alright, let me see…”

“Whatcha doin?”

The sound of a young girl’s voice made him jump almost ten feet in the air, spilling ink all over the desk.

“Merlin’s beard, Allison! Where do you get off sneaking up on people like that?”

“I don’t know,” the girl shrugged. “I was just bored and wanted to see what you were up to.”

Felix sighed. Allison Garrison had been nothing but a pain in his arse from the day she had arrived at Hogwarts. It was his first year being a prefect but the last he expected was for them to be so…blunt, or at least that was the case with Allison. She constantly talked back, caused mischief, and lost more house points from Professor Snape in one month than any other Slytherin in an entire year. His memory of his own time at age eleven was somewhat hazy but he was also quite certain that he had been able to keep his mouth shut for the most part.

This first year held no such ability.

“It’s just homework I have to do. Nothing that need concern you, Garrison.”

“It doesn’t look like homework.”

Good heavens, this girl just won’t let up.

“And how can you tell?”

“You keep crossing things out. Over and over again. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take you that long to write a sentence for a Potions essay. And you’re mumbling constantly.”

Despite the negative attributes he associated with the first year Slytherin girl, Felix had to admit she could be quite clever and extraordinarily perceptive for someone her age. It was impressive and at times such as these, annoying.

“Whatever I’m doing, it’s still none of your business, Garrison. Now go.”

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with that Hufflepuff girl you’re always staring at-”

Felix cut her off with a temporary silence charm before lifting it.

“Must you always be a problem?”

“How’s it my problem you can’t tell a girl that you like her?” Allison responded sarcastically with a hint of a smirk. “Oh, I can picture it now. A snake and a badger together in never ending love. A snadger! Yeah, that’s what I’ll call it. Snadger!”

“Garrison, unless you want detention, I suggest you take your prattling somewhere else.”

That threat seemed to finally work as she had served a few already and would not enjoy another session pickling toad guts with Professor Snape. Nevertheless, she continued to taunt him as she left the room skipping and singing, “Snadger, Snadger, Snadger” all the way out of the common room.

“The little first year is going to give me an aneurysm someday,” Felix muttered to himself, attempting to return to his poem. With any luck, he could finish it before dinner and give it to Elia then.

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

Felix ran a hand through his hair as he entered the Great Hall, all abuzz with activity as it usually was. He knew Elia liked it that way, but he didn’t want to make it seem like he had done it on purpose. Better to be casually aloof and spontaneous than give away it was all part of a calculated plan.

Making his way over to the Hufflepuff table, he received some confused even hard stares from some of them. It was no secret that Slytherin was the least liked among the four houses and while the puffs were not quite as hostile as the Gryffindors, there was a clear stark contrast between ideologies: hard work versus ambition, fair play versus cunning, honesty versus doing whatever it took to win regardless of moral implications. Thankfully, Elia did not share such sentiments- they had been friends since first year after all, but trying to confess your feelings to girl was still nerve racking all the same.

He tried to calm himself, taking a deep breath through his nostrils.

Just ask for a moment of her time, which she’ll give you. Read her the poem, ask her to Hogsmeade and it’s over. Easy right?

Before he could debate further in his head, an odd sight made him stop in his tracks. A first year Slytherin girl that looked painfully familiar was already chatting away to Elia of all people. Feeling his stomach drop three feet, Felix rushed over as quickly as he could.

“Of all things…what on earth is she doing talking to Elia?” he muttered.

When he reached the scene, the horror reached new levels.

“Oh, hello, Felix,” Elia said, a hint of amusement in her voice. “I was just talking to one of your first years. She’s quite interesting you might say.”

“Interesting how?” Felix asked trying to keep his tone as light as possible.

“Oh, I told her everything,” Allison boasted but with a dangerous twinkle in her eye. “I told her you’re my prefect of course, how you keep trying to get me to stay out of trouble, the incident with Devil’s Snare, Merula, even giving me detention. She told me that you guys have been friends for over five years now.”

“That is true,” he replied tersely. Elia seemed like she was trying not to laugh but this was not unfolding the way he wanted it to. The mischievous look on Garrison’s face only spelled further trouble.

“So why haven’t you told her, yet? You know? About the po-mmhmhmmmff”

It was then that Felix’s patience ran out as he covered Allison’s mouth with his hand and spun her away from the Hufflepuff table.

“Very nice to see you, Elia,” he said forcing a smile that was more like a grimace. “But I do believe we must be going.”

He began leading Allison away but the Hufflepuff girl stopped him.

“Felix, it’s okay, let her go. I’d like to speak with you in private.”

Such a calm, reassuring tone from Elia, who rarely turned down an opportunity to tease him, helped deescalate the situation. He released Elia, but not before she licked his hand with her tongue.

“Ack! I’m not finished with you, Garrison. Stay here until I return.”

“Whatever you say,” Allison responded in that same sing-song tone. “Have fun, snadgers!”

Felix had to be practically led away from the Great Hall from the eyes of other prying Hufflepuffs, still mortified from Allison’s meddling.

She knows. She knows that I like her and she’s going to let me down easy. All because that stupid first year couldn’t shut her mouth for two seconds.

Upon exiting, Felix heaved a heavy sigh, figuring it was best to rip the bandage off quickly before the inevitable rejection came.

“Elia, I’m sorry about her,” he said. “I wanted to tell you myself, but she beat me to it, I guess.”

“Felix, you don’t need to apologize,” the Hufflepuff soothed him and then her infamous grin spread across her face like a Cheshire cat. “The truth is, I’ve known for some time.”

“Wait…you were already aware of how I felt?”

“Boys are hardly subtle,” Elia laughed. “Even a Slytherin such as yourself. I’ve caught you staring more than a few times.”

“So, why not say anything?”

“Well for one, listening to Allison jabber on like that was kind of cute.”

Felix couldn’t prevent the pink from spreading across his face.

“She’s getting detention for the rest of the year,” he muttered.

Elia placed a soft, feminine hand over his cheek, turning it to face her. This caused him to go from pink all the way to beet red.

“Felix, don’t punish her. She wasn’t trying to embarrass you; it was actually quite sweet. Nothing she told me was anything I didn’t know already. But she put in a good word for you, saying how you were a great prefect and how you wanted to ask me out with a poem. She thinks the world of you.”

He crumpled the piece of paper in his robe pocket.

“She does, eh?”

“Yes. And I don’t need a poem and an elaborate ritual to be convinced to go out with you,” she teased. “I’ll gladly go to Hogsmeade with you next weekend. Meet me in the courtyard at two o’clock.”

And then, without warning, Elia kissed him on the cheek and winked at him as she walked back into the Great Hall to rejoin the other Hufflepuffs.

Touching the spot where he had received the kiss, Felix proceeded to shuffle back towards the Slytherin table in a bit of a daze, wondering if he had actually just scored a date with the girl of his dreams until a loud, familiar voice snapped him back to reality.

“Felix?”

The Slytherin prefect looked down and saw the little eleven year old girl staring up at him. Functionality returned to his brain, remembering that he had instructed Allison to remain in the Great Hall until he returned.

“You told me to stay here. What’s my punishment?”

Looking into the eyes of the precocious first year, Felix knew she had tried to play matchmaker on purpose and true to Slytherin form, used her own brand of cunning to do it. But more so than that, he also knew that Allison also genuinely tried to make him look good as well, appealing to Elia’s heart and sensibility. The newfound revelation that this first year not only tried to help but liked him was touching.

“You’re off the hook this time, Garrison. Enjoy your dinner.”

Allison mocked fake surprised, but the twinkle in her eyes gave her away.

“Wow! Thanks, Felix! You really are the best prefect ever.”

Giving him a big hug, she skipped away to her friend Rowan but before sitting down, she added, “Enjoy your snadger date! Snadger, snadger, snadger…”

Felix rolled his eyes but allowed a slight smile to cross his face.

He knew this would not be the first nor the last time Allison Garrison caused him trouble.

#hphm mc #hphmsecretsanta2019

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jiveammunition · 7 years

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It’s Just Business (T)

Title: It’s Just Business Chapter: 1/?? Pairing: Reaper76 Rating: T Tags: Inappropriate Humor, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Corporate, Humor, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining Summary:

Despite insisting that he doesn't need one, Gabriel Reyes, CEO of Blackwatch Inc., finds himself hiring Jack Morrison as his personal assistant. Always full of surprises, Jack proves himself to be far more capable and reliable than Gabriel had expected.

Unpredictably, Jack ends up being a more permanent fixture in Gabriel's life than he would ever care to admit.

Secret Santa gift for @bamfbugboy!

Also on AO3 here: It’s Just Business.

If you asked anyone on the street if they’d ever heard of Blackwatch Inc., they'd immediately tell you that it’s regarded as one of the top home security companies in the United States. Gabriel Reyes, the CEO, would likely tell you that the level of security Blackwatch’s systems offer its clientele rivals even some of the best systems that its international competitors can offer.

If you asked anyone at Blackwatch Inc. about their CEO, however, they would tell you that he was a stern man whose only mission in life was to make everyone else miserable with how demanding he could be in terms of running his office. Gabriel Reyes was a work-o-holic, and pretty much every aspect of his life centered around his company. Blackwatch Inc. provided him with a center and a purpose. He did everything by himself and he liked it that way. He didn't need anything else.

At least, that's that he thought.

“You could stand to at least get yourself a personal assistant,” Ana Amari, the COO of Blackwatch, says to him one day. Normally, Gabriel wouldn't bother taking such a ridiculous notion into consideration, but after having a day where literally almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong — morning alarm not going off and causing him to come into the office seven minutes late; missed appointments due to poor scheduling; awkward meetings with important shareholders because Gabriel had completely forgotten their name; and worst of all, pickles and olives in his sandwich because his favorite deli had a new employee and Gabriel didn't think to elaborate when they asked him what he wanted on his roast beef and he replied with, “The usual everything” — it was something he actually found himself open to.

Of course, he couldn't let Ana know that. He had a reputation to uphold.

“I’ll think about it,” he replies, “I have Jesse already, after all.” Jesse, his secretary, is decent at what he does, but in all honesty, Gabriel keeps him around more as an errand boy than anything else. Jesse screens his calls and handles some miscellaneous paperwork here and there, but for the most part, Jesse helps him keep an eye on Blackwatch at the employee level. Jesse’s friendly demeanor and ability to get along with almost anyone allows Gabriel more access to information about his own company than any report Gabriel could get from Human Resources.

Ana peers up over the lip of her teacup, eyes doing nothing to hide how unimpressed she is with his answer as she finishes off her last sip of tea. With a quiet and amused scoff, she gets up off her chair, taking her teacup with her, and makes her way to the door. She gives Gabriel one last glance over her shoulder before she leaves the room, a glint shining in her eye that Gabriel doesn't like very much.

It isn't until several weeks later, when he gets to work — on time as usual, mind you, though only just barely as he had to skip his morning coffee — that he realizes just what that mischievous glint meant.

He opens the doors to his office only to find someone is already inside and sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk. They turn in their seat as if to see who had come in, and immediately get up out of their seat in when they see Gabriel. It’s a man — a very very blond and rather handsome man — that Gabriel does not recognize at all. He's dressed rather nicely for the most part — white button-up shirt neatly pressed, red necktie knotted properly, cuffs buttoned properly — but the rather slim-fitting dark blue jeans and button-up boots Gabriel sees on him have his eyebrows raised almost to his hairline. The man doesn't quite belong; there's something off about him, and Gabriel immediately responds to what he assumes is meant to be a friendly smile from the blond with a frown.

“If you're here to entertain for Amélie Lacroix’s birthday party, I'm afraid you have the entirely wrong date and office,” Gabriel says.

The smile immediately drops from the man’s face, replaced by a look of confusion. “Oh, I'm not here for that, I'm-” the man begins to protest, only to be cut off by Gabriel holding up a hand and signaling him to stop.

“No need; I get it. Did Sombra put you up to this? I told that woman to stay the hell out of my personal life! I don't have time for this,” Gabriel growled, walking past the man and heading straight to his desk. “I ought to fire her for this; I told her last time that doing this kind of thing is not acceptable — especially not at the workplace. Clearly I didn't get my point across.”

“‘This kind of thing’? I'm sorry, but what are you talking about?” His confused expression quickly shifts to that of irritation, clearly not pleased at where the conversation seems to be headed, but Gabriel continues with his rambling, paying him no mind.

“Jesse,” Gabriel begins, pressing the intercom button on his phone, “Send Sombra up here. It seems she and I need to have another talk about sexual harassment in the workplace.”

“Beg pardon?” Jesse's voice crackles through the phone speaker.

“She sent me a gigolo. Again ,” Gabriel growls.

And just like that, the expression on the stranger's face twists from irritation to embarrassment, and then right to utter anger and indignation.

“Gigolo? Excuse me ?!” he shouts, cheeks reddened with indignation. “Mister Reyes, I'll have you know, I am not a gigolo! Nor am I an entertainer , or any other utterly offensive misconception you seem to have stuck in your mind about me! I'm-!”

“Your new assistant,” a feminine voice chimes from the speaker, cutting the man off and finishing his sentence. Gabriel would recognize that voice anywhere; it's Ana again, no doubt once again sticking her nose where it doesn't belong.

“My what ?!” Gabriel demands, glaring at the phone as if Ana could see how livid he and this not-a-gigolo is.

“Your assistant. He's- ugh. I'm just going to come in there. You're being completely ridiculous right now,” Ana sighs, hanging up.

Not a second passes before the doors to Gabriel's offices opens up once more and Ana walks in.

Without even batting an eye, Ana strolls over to take the chair adjacent to the blond stranger and tosses a folder onto Gabriel’s desk. It slides across the smooth wooden surface with ease, some of the papers threatening to spill out as it spins, and Gabriel quickly pins it against his desk with his hand it before it slides completely off his desk and into his lap.

The words Morrison, J. and Security Enrichment Principal peek out from one of the pages, and without even opening the folder to look at the rest, Gabriel shoots a glare at Ana. His eyes burn with an unrestrained anger. He begins to open his mouth and demand why exactly an employee of Blackwatch’s rival company is not only here in his office, but was left unattended for so long.

Ana cuts him off before he even has a chance to get started, and makes her way over to stand beside the intruder.

"Gabriel,” she says, far more cheerful than Gabriel felt she had any right to be, and gestures to the stranger. “Meet John Morrison, your new personal assistant.”

“Ah, it's ‘Jack’, actually,” the man says without missing a beat, “John Morrison is my father.” As if realizing he spoke out of turn, he falls silent, and takes his seat once more.

“My what ?!” Gabriel asks again, in utter disbelief at the words coming out of Ana's mouth.

“Your new personal assistant,” the man- Jack repeats, irritation making itself evident in his tone of voice. “Miss Amari called me in to act as your personal assistant starting this day forward. Though apparently it seems she never gave you the memo…” Jack turns his head and gives a pointed look to Ana, who pays him no attention.

“I've already spoken to HR and the Board about this. To be honest, Gabriel, it was the Board that forced this decision. After the incident a few months ago when you nearly botched the meeting with Lúmerico, the major mishap you had with the shareholder’s meeting not soon after that, and how badly you offended Senator Heyman by confusing her with Senior Executive Viswani of Vishkar, they began to question whether or not you would be able to continue handling all the duties of the CEO.”

“I can; I have; and I will continue to do so. On my own. I have no need for an assistant. As I've said before; I already have Jesse.”

“Come off it, Gabriel. You know as well as I do that Jesse would be in completely over his head if you asked him to do even half of the duties I have Lena do for me on a daily basis,” Ana replies folding her hands in her lap, a clear sign that her patience is beginning to wear thin.

“Then why don't you take him and give me Oxton instead?” Gabriel counters, uncaring at how insensitive he sounds. “If you want me to have an assistant so badly, you could have the decency to at least give me someone that's going to be able to keep up with me, and not some… GQ underwear model who likely hasn't done anything but fetch coffee and change printer toner.”

“That's it ! I've had enough!” Jack shouts, standing up from his chair. “You have done nothing but insult me since the moment we met, when I have done nothing to deserve it. I came here to serve as your assistant because Ana -” he gestures at the other chair rather aggressively, “-said you needed my help! If you even bothered to look at my damn résumé, you'd see that I am more than qualified for this position. Hell, I'd be underemploying myself!” As if to demonstrate his point, he reaches over and snatches the folder from beneath Gabriel's hand, nearly ripping said résumé in half as he yanks it out from the folder’s pocket. He slams the folder back onto the desk, résumé presented right on top and in perfectly plain view for Gabriel to see for himself.

“But it's not like you can see much of anything, can you?! You've got your head shoved so far up your own ass, it's a miracle Blackwatch hasn't been run into the ground by now with how terrible your people skills are!” Jack continues to yell. Ana does nothing to stop his tirade, and merely watches in amusement as Gabriel is stunned into silence at Jack's anger.

“Ana, I'm sorry. I know you called me in for a favor, and I'm thankful you came to me with this job offer, but I don't think I can deal with this guy. He's even worse than Anderson, and you know how I felt about working for that asshole… I'll see you around, Ana,” Jack finishes his rant rather half-heartedly, turning to Ana as he tips his head in apology before turning to leave Gabriel's office without so much as even sparing him a glance.

Silence fills the room for the small span of time it takes for Jack to make his way to the door, and just as his hand is about to reach the knob, Gabriel bursts into nearly-maniacal laughter.

“Holy shit! I haven't had anyone talk to me since… my god, let's just say it's been a long time since anyone's talked to me like that-” he manages to breathe out, his words coming out in rather stilted sentences as laughs continue erupting from his mouth.

“That much is rather obvious,” Jack mutters under his breath, frowning. He still doesn't bother to even look at Gabriel, hand on the doorknob and starting to turn it.

“I should just let you go, but damn , Morrison, you've got some cojones on you, huh?” Gabriel remarks, wiping a tear from his eyes as the laughter finally dies down. Gabriel can't recall the last time someone that wasn't Ana Amari said anything bad about him to his face, let alone yell it at him with such vehemence in his own office. Briefly, he glances back down at Jack's résumé sitting before him, slightly surprised at what he sees.

Jack does nothing to respond beyond a clearly irritated rolling of his eyes as he pulls the door open. He takes one step out the door when the next words out of Gabriel's mouth stop him in his tracks.

“All right, Morrison,” Gabriel says, trying his best to keep his voice sounding as neutral as possible, “You're hired.”

Gabriel ignores the small sound of amusement Ana lets out, and keeps his focused on Jack, who looks absolutely dumbfounded.

“What?!”

#reaper76 #jack morrison #gabriel reyes #reaper #soldier 76 #overwatch #jive writes stuff #another multichapter fic holy cow

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richmegavideo · 5 years

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Domestic Violence – When enough is enough.

My child,

I cannot believe that you are already eighteen years old and will be leaving for college in about a year from now. I wish to share with you the story of women belonging to three generations who for very different reasons put up with domestic violence. I feel that you are old enough to understand and when your turn to get married comes, you will be bold enough to say ‘NO’ to physical, emotional and mental abuse from your partner.

As a child I witnessed the plight of an aunt of mine who was married off at the age of sixteen though she was a brilliant student who passed her matriculation examination with flying colors. Her father wanted to send her to college but her mother felt that she ought to get married. Her handwriting was beautiful and her house keeping skills excellent. On festive occasions she’d make beautiful ‘rangolis’ that would make passersby stop to admire. She’d make a perfect housewife. And so she did. But her husband was never appreciative of what she did. He’d find fault at everything she did right from the food she cooked to the way she folded clothes. Her husband was spiritually inclined and would spend his time performing an elaborate morning puja and reading religious texts. He resigned from his job for the very purpose and her's was the onus of coping with his tantrums. He punished her by refusing to talk to her for weeks if she dared to show the slightest disinclination to act as per his command. His silence hurt more than his words and she literally fell at his feet and apologized for any suggestion she had dared to make. As a child I often wondered how a person who was spiritually inclined could spit venom on his wife for minor lapses and why she put up with it. I later heard that while the world praised her for being the role model for others to emulate, her own mother in law once remarked that her son needed to be put in his place and it was her tolerant behavior that was responsible for the pathetic life she led. However, that was eighty years ago when verbal abuse was not even considered worth a mention and physical abuse happened when the woman ‘asked for it’. Emotional abuse?? A woman was not supposed to have emotions. Unknown to others she could wipe a tear if she felt hurt – the rest was part of life.

Having said this, I must admit that our generation was no better. A woman could work outside her home but the husband controlled her income. I have known working women hand over their entire salary to the husband, accept a pocket allowance from him and use the cheapest mode of transport to travel to work for to save money even if it meant leaving home early. The smarter ones resorted to scheming and plotting and ‘stole’ a small amount from their own salary for their pocket expenses by claiming that they had contributed towards a gift for friend’s anniversary or a child’s birthday party. An unexpected salary raise or a double increment went unreported and the extra money tucked in a secret pocket in her purse to be used later. A wife who dared to resist the arrangement was trying to show off that she brought home a salary and was ‘put’ in place by the husband. Why did they cope with it you may ask? Those were days when women lived in joint families and the job allowed them a life of their own and a few friends with whom they could be themselves. The domineering husband would be tolerated in lieu of some eight to ten hours of freedom.

The next generation revolted and announced that their financial independence had to be respected and no one could question their spending habit. They could order food from outside or hire a maid to cook and clean. The husband was asked to help at home. This new found assertiveness did not go down well with their men. If their wives earned more than them and/or were offered foreign assignments it hurt their ego. After all they had been pampered by their mothers and had always had their way. According equal status to their womenfolk was unheard of. Such women had to be put in place. Quarrels and snide remarks followed by physical violence took over. The bolder ones were able to say NO to abuse in whatever form. But most of them gave in and became subdued for the sake of peace in the family. The once assertive woman had been truly ‘put’ in place by her man.

You may have noticed that I have not included physical violence in the first two generations. Do you think it didn’t happen? It did. But in their case it was an accepted thing in society. No one would interfere – not even one’s parents. The woman would console herself by saying that he was burdened with the demands of a joint family and she was the only one who could serve as an outlet for his frustration. Moreover she was financially dependent on him - even if she had inherited a legacy from her parents or had a job or sold homemade pickles and papads that fetched her money.

The reason for compromise was different in the third case. These women lacked the confidence to walk out of an abusive relationship. They valued the protection offered by the husband – never mind if it was an abusive one.

I want you to be different. Have the confidence to insist on mutual respect in your marriage. If you don’t get it don’t hesitate to clamor for it. A girl known to me rang up her mother in law after the first instance of physical abuse. She asked her to warn her son to never ever raise his hand on her. She would not only walk out of the marriage but would see to it that he was put behind the bars. The words had a magical effect and her husband understood that she meant what he said. There is no shame in letting on to your well wishers that you are at the receiving end of an abusive relationship. One can never guess the amount of domestic violence that prevails in society because no one wants to discuss it. As in the case of rape victims where the offender gets away with what he did while the victim is shamed, victims of domestic violence are blamed for annoying their abusive partners. Not all men are bad or abusive. I hope you find a wonderful husband for yourself. Even if you lead a normal life where both of you have mutual respect keep your eyes and ears open for what’s going on around you and extend a helping hand and stand up for any woman who is in an abusive relationship. She could be your house help, a neighbor relative, friend or colleague. And if you are blessed with a son treat him at par with your daughter and train both of them to love and respect one another. We need a whole generation to be groomed in this manner for the society that we live in to be hundred percent functional. Your Grand aunt and friend.

This post is my contribution to the Blogathon series # A Letter To Her by Women’s Web. I appreciate the initiative taken to create awareness about domestic violence in society.

Note: I would like to read MeenaKandaswamy’s book When I Hit You because the incidents of domestic violence never get reported because it is considered a private thing to be restricted to the four walls of one’s home. The topic is close to my heart having seen various degrees of domestic violence around me. I would love to read what the author has to say and I hope it helps me extend a helping hand to any victim of domestic violence whom I come across.

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#Hip Hop

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thefabulousfulcrum · 7 years

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Someone needs to tell you.....

Wake Up, Liberals: There Will be No 2018 'Blue Wave,' No Democratic Majority and No Impeachment

via AlterNet

By Andrew O'Hehir / Salon

May 27, 2017

We received a message from the future this week, directed to the outraged liberals of the so-called anti-Trump resistance. It was delivered by an unlikely intermediary, Greg Gianforte, the Republican who won a special election on Thursday and will soon take his seat in Congress as Montana’s lone representative. (Here’s a trivia question to distract you from the doom and gloom: Without recourse to Google, how many other states can you name that have only one House seat?)

If you found yourself ashen-faced and dismayed on Friday morning, because you really believed the Montana election would bring a sign of hope and mark the beginning of a return to sanity in American politics, then the message encoded in Gianforte’s victory is for you. It goes something like this:

Get over Montana already—and stop trolling yourself with that stupid special election in Georgia too. They don’t mean anything, and anyway — that dude Jon Ossoff? He’s about the lamest excuse for a national progressive hero in the entire history of Democratic Party milquetoast triangulation. Oh, and since we’re on the subject: Forget about the “blue wave” of 2018. Forget about the Democratic majority of 2019. Forget about the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Have you even been paying attention? Because none of that stuff is happening and it’s all a massive distraction.

A distraction from what, you ask? Well, that’s a good question without a clear answer, and the message gets pretty fuzzy after that. I would suggest that rebuilding American politics and indeed all of American public discourse, now that they’ve been Trumpified, is not about the next electoral cycle or the one after that. It’s going to take a while, and I’m not sure how much the Democratic Party will have to do with it, or what it will look like.

No doubt the exaggerated media focus on Montana was inevitable, in the age of the voracious 24/7 news cycle: This was only the second vacant congressional seat to be filled since Trump took office, and the first where the Democratic candidate appeared to have a real shot. But the Big Sky frenzy also spoke to the way American politics has almost entirely become a symbolic rather than ideological struggle — a proxy war between competing signifiers whose actual social meaning is unclear.

Despite their abundant differences, Barack Obama and Donald Trump were both semiotic candidates, who appeared to represent specific worldviews or dispositions (the espresso cosmopolitan; the shameless vulgarian) but presented themselves as a disruption to “normal” politics and were difficult to nail down in left-right ideological terms. Understanding an off-year congressional election in an idiosyncratic and thinly populated Western state, where fewer than 400,000 voters cast ballots, as a referendum on the national mood or the GOP health care bill or much of anything else is patently absurd. But it’s a miniature example of the same reduction to symbolism, in which everything is said to stand for something else and democracy becomes pure spectacle.

As for Gianforte, the inadvertent vehicle for our message, nobody outside Montana had heard of him before this week, and we’re not likely to hear much from him in Washington either, where he will disappear into the chorus of fleshy, pickled-looking, age-indeterminate white millionaires who make up the House Republican caucus. Gianforte found his one moment of fame after allegedly assaulting Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs on the eve of the election, making the GOP candidate a focal point of widespread liberal wish-casting and concern-trolling. Surely the good people of Montana would see the light of reason now that the Republican candidate had been revealed — gasp! — as a thin-skinned, violent bully.

It’s almost hilarious — in the vein of that long-running “Peanuts” gag about Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football — that anyone managed to convince themselves that purportedly decking a representative of the “liberal media” would damage Gianforte. It probably didn’t make much difference; about 70 percent of the votes had already been cast before the Jacobs incident. But I think it’s safe to say that likely Republican voters in Montana, and damn near everywhere else, can be divided into two groups: those who didn’t much care or were inclined to look the other way, and those who were absolutely thrilled.

Gianforte’s decisive victory over Democrat Rob Quist on Thursday has provoked a fresh round of soul-searching from the same people who made too damn much of the Montana election in the first place. We have been told that Democrats must field stronger candidates and commit more resources, that Bernie Sanders does not possess some magic elixir that attracts disgruntled white people and that Donald Trump remains popular in places where people really like him. If that’s not quite enough Captain Obvious, Washington Post columnist Greg Hohmann devoted an impressive amount of research and reporting to the Montana aftermath before arriving at the diagnosis that there is “a growing tribalism that contributes to the polarization of our political system.” You don’t say!

Let me be clear that I’m indicting myself here as well: I edit political coverage at Salon, and I followed the Montana news closely. I knew perfectly well how it was likely to turn out, but one can always be wrong about that (as we discovered last November), and I shared some dim sense that it might be cathartic to experience an insignificant proxy victory in a state I have never even visited. But when I ask myself why I felt that way, even a little, the answers are not edifying.

For many people in, let’s say, the left-center quadrant of the American political spectrum — especially those who are not all that eager to confront the fractured and tormented state of the current Democratic Party — Montana and Georgia and 2018 seem(ed) to represent the opening chapters of a comeback narrative, the beginning of a happy ending. If what happened in 2016 was a nonsensical aberration, then maybe there’s a fix right around the corner, and normal, institutional politics can provide it.

First you chip away at Republican triumphalism, and the House majority, with a couple of special-election victories. Then it’s about organizing, recruiting the right candidates for the right seats, registering voters and ringing doorbells, right? Democrats picked up 31 seats in the George W. Bush midterms of 2006 — and will need 24 or so this time — so, hey, it could happen. For that matter, Republicans gained an astounding 63 seats in the Tea Party election of 2010, and many observers have speculated that Trump-revulsion might create that kind of cohesion on the left. So we sweep away Paul Ryan and his sneering goons, give Nancy Pelosi back her speaker’s gavel after eight long years, introduce the articles of impeachment and begin to set America back on the upward-trending path of political normalcy and niceness.

I suspect it’s pointless to list all the things that are wrong with that scenario, because either you agree with me that it’s a delusional fantasy built on seven different varieties of magical thinking or you don’t, and in the latter case I am not likely to convince you.

My position is that Donald Trump is a symptom of the fundamental brokenness of American politics, not the cause. Electing a Democratic House majority (which is 95 percent unlikely to happen) and impeaching Trump (which is 100 percent not going to happen) might feel good in the moment, but wouldn’t actually fix what is broken. Considered as a whole, the “blue wave” fantasy of November 2018 is a more elaborate and somewhat more realistic version of the “Hamilton elector” fantasy of December 2016: Something will happen soon to make this all go away.

(Let’s throw in the caveat that there are plausible universes in which the Republicans ultimately decide to force Trump out of office for their own reasons. Entirely different scenario.)

If you don’t want to believe me now, I get it. But take a good hard look at Rep.-elect Greg Gianforte, and go through all the excuses you have made to yourself about how and why that happened, and we’ll talk.

It’s worth making two salient structural points that I think are beyond dispute, and then a larger, more contentious one. As my former boss David Daley has documented extensively, both on Salon and in his book “Ratfucked,” the extreme and ingenious gerrymandering of congressional districts locked in by Republican state legislators after the 2010 census virtually guarantees a GOP House majority until the next census and at least the 2022 midterms. Yes, the widely-hated health care law might put a few Republican seats in play that weren’t before. But the number of genuine “swing” districts is vanishingly small, and it would require a Democratic wave of truly historic dimensions to overcome the baked-in GOP advantage.

As for the Senate — well, Democratic campaign strategists will mumble and look away if you bring that up, because the Senate majority is completely out of reach. Of the 33 Senate seats up for election next year, 25 are currently held by Democrats — and 10 of those are in states carried by Donald Trump last year. It’s far more likely that Republicans will gain seats in the Senate, perhaps by knocking off Joe Manchin in West Virginia or Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, than lose any at all.

Those disadvantages could be overcome if we were looking at a major electoral shift, on the order of FDR in 1932 or the post-Watergate midterms of 1974, when Democrats won 49 seats in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. I can only suppose that’s the sort of thing the blue-wave fantasists imagine. That brings us to the final and largest point: Exactly who is kidding themselves that the Democratic Party, in its 2017 state of disarray and dysfunction, is remotely capable of pulling off a history-shaping victory on that scale?

This is a paradoxical situation in many ways, one that reflects the larger decline of partisan politics in general. The Republican Party went through a spectacular meltdown in 2016, but wound up winning full control of the federal government, partly through luck and partly by default. Meanwhile, Democrats hold a demographic advantage that was supposed to guarantee them political hegemony into the indefinite future, and their positions on most social and economic issues are far more popular than Republican positions (except when you get to nebulous concepts like “national security”). Now they face an opposition president who is both widely despised and clownishly incompetent.

That sounds like a prescription for a major renaissance — but not for a party that is so listless, divided and ideologically adrift. Democrats have been virtually wiped out at the state and local level in non-coastal, non-metropolitan areas of the country: They had full control of 27 state legislatures in 2010, and partial control in five more; today they control 14 (with three splits). There was plenty of bad faith and unfair recrimination on both sides of the Bernie-Hillary split of 2016, which there’s no need to rehearse here. But the bitterness has lingered not just because each side blames the other for the election of Donald Trump (and they both could be right) but because it represents a profound underlying identity crisis that ultimately has little to do with Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. (Again, they are the symbols or signifiers.)

I have previously argued that the Democratic Party’s civil war was unavoidable and has been a long time coming. Like most people, I assumed it would play out under President Hillary Clinton, not with the party reeling in defeat and at a historic low ebb. In the face of a national emergency, maybe Democrats will find some medium-term way to bridge the gulf between pro-business liberal coalition politics and a social-democratic vision of major structural reform and economic justice. Whoever the hell they nominate for president in 2020 will have to pretend to do that, at any rate.

But right now the Democratic Party has no clear sense of mission and no coherent national message, except that it is not the party of Donald Trump. I can understand the appeal of that message, the longing for a return to normalcy, calm and order that it embodies. What we learned in Montana this week — and will likely learn in Georgia, and learn again in the 2018 midterms — is that that’s not enough. There is no “normal” state we can return to.

For the Trump resistance to have meaning, it must be more than the handmaiden or enabler of a political party that has lost its power, lost its voice and lost its way. Electoral victories will come (and go), but we should have learned by now that they are never sufficient in themselves. Rebuilding and redeeming American democracy — if that can still be accomplished — is a much bigger job, and there are no shortcuts.

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