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justjessame · 3 years

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Diamonds Are A Boy’s Best Friend Chapter 50

Vera was preparing for her first class as the premier dance instructor in Miami and of course being at the Miramar Playa only added to the appeal. The Fourth had been a resounding success and Lauren had met a boy, to her brothers’ and father’s horror. I was starting to think that I’d be the size of a parade float by the time I was ready to deliver our baby, and the time seemed to tick by ever slower - the heat of Miami bearing down on me harder and harder as the days went on.

My fear wasn’t tempered by the appointments with the doctor, even with Ike by my side and Mimi coming along for support. He was adamant that I be sedated and unconscious during delivery and that our child be forcibly removed with forceps. I was horrified by the idea that I wouldn’t be awake to hear our baby’s first cry or breath, that I wouldn’t know what their sex was - or be able to hold them immediately. Ike wasn’t taking it very well either. He attempted to find a way to negotiate something more palpable for our family, but the hospital and doctor seemed unwilling to cooperate.

Mimi went on the hunt for other arrangements, hopeful that she could find something better for us but I worried that we’d run out of time - even as I felt like the time grew longer and longer and I grew heavier and heavier.

At some point, Ike had gently warned me, every pregnant woman gets to the point where intimacy becomes uncomfortable. I’d scoffed. A time when I didn’t WANT Isaac Evans? Was he insane? And yet, as the weeks and months ticked by and my body grew bigger with our child - I realized that while my internal hunger for him was alive and well, my physical hunger for him wasn’t as readily available. Those naps he had once pressed upon me were now something I willingly took on my own, no reminder necessary. And while I still adored having his heat and body against my own, the urge to be joined wasn’t quite as urgent.

A tiny part of me worried, I admit, that he might seek the warmth of another bed. Vera was a floor below us, after all. Meg Bannock was across the way. And I’d have to be completely blind to NOT see the other willing and beautiful women who turned their heads to watch my husband as he made his rounds as host of the hotel. The old adage played in my head, “once a cheat -”, but I would push it down, only to have those photos that Ben had thrust into my hands early into my pregnancy showing Ike holding the towel open for Meg coming rushing back into my head.

Late one night, so far into my pregnancy that I’d lost count, I woke in our bed and knew that I was alone. His side was cold and I felt ice and fear creep into my veins. Ben Diamond’s voice sneaked into our home and my head, reminding me that I was a Diamond and not good enough to be the Queen of the Miramar Playa. I shut my eyes and pushed it down, thinking of what to do.

Rolling over, I slipped out of our bed, putting my swollen feet into my slippers and grabbing my robe from the back of my vanity chair. Ignoring my reflection in the mirror, huge is huge after all, I left our room and saw that he wasn’t in the living room or dining room. He wouldn’t be in Lauren’s room, so I steadied myself and stepped into the hallway and thought he might have gone to the office.

I found him sitting on the main staircase watching them clean the entryway. A glass of something brown beside him, he was in his pajamas and a robe and looked like he had just needed a moment of peace. His eyes, like magnets, found me as I stepped off the elevators and he stood up, but I shook my head. Silly man. Waddling to him, he met me on the bottom step.

“Did I wake you?” His hands went to my bump, his lips to my forehead, cool from whatever was in his glass. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“I woke up and you weren’t there,” I murmured, feeling much calmer now that he was in front of me. My hand went to my lower back, where a sharp pain was hitting me. “Ow.”

“Liz?” Ike looked down at me with all the concern I’d expect from an expectant father. “What is it?”

“A knot,” I brushed off his worry even as another stabbing pain hit me. “I must have rolled out of the bed wrong is all.” But I ruined that argument when the next pain struck and the warm fluid ran down my leg and puddled on the clean floor under my slipper.

“No, Liz,” Ike managed to sound calm even as he looked far less than, “you’re in labor.”

And then everything started moving far faster than I expected. He was calling for someone to call for a car, but I wondered if we shouldn’t be calling for an ambulance, while he was also asking one of the other workers to go wake up Mimi and also get Danny to stay with Lauren. While he marshalled the troops, his hand had fallen to my lower back where the knot was and he was slowly massaging it, his other hand cradling my bump.

“We should go upstairs so I can -” I was going to say change, but Ike shook his head, kissing my temple.

“They’re just going to put you in a hospital gown when we get there, sweetheart,” he told me, but I was thinking of the squish in my slipper, the wetness in my underwear, the all over gross feeling that I was experiencing. “Would you feel better if I had them put something down on the carseat?”

I shrugged, not particularly, but it was better than nothing I supposed. As Mimi, looking for all the world as if she’d been up and waiting for this moment, came to join us in the hotel lobby - taking over for Ike in the ordering of the troops, Ike returned to his natural state as my husband and partner. Holding onto me, soothing my fears, but I knew once we got to the hospital I’d be on my own, in darkness, unconscious and without any knowledge of what comes next.

What came next was a tense drive to the hospital with Mimi next to the driver - who looked as comfortable as any driver who was tasked with driving the owners of the premier resort of Miami while one was in labor as a very stern midwife sat next to him tersely shouting out orders - Ike’s hand was in mine and he was whispering assurances to me.

“I’ll be there, Liz, I promise.” I was scared, he knew it, that I’d be alone and our baby would be alone. “I’ll be right there waiting and I’ll make sure you and our baby are safe and -”

We arrived within minutes, or days - my nerves were frayed, the mess of my water - not a singular huge gush of fluid, but rather a series of warm gushes - the pains that kept coming and the unknown of what was waiting for me seems to make everything rush forward then slow down. It was maddening, and terrifying in heavy doses.

Ike was correct of course, I was rushed into the hospital and my night clothing was removed for a hospital gown. And as he held my hand, as he stood next to me, while Mimi tried one last press for my preference of a natural birth, it was overturned for the new, improved sedated birthing method. And I was given the sedative, and as Ike kissed me and promised me again that he’d be waiting for me when I woke up, when our child was safe and delivered, I closed my eyes and prayed.

Waking up after you’ve been somewhat forcefully sedated during your labor is entirely disorienting. I woke up and nothing felt right. I wasn’t lying flat, for one, and I wasn’t in my bed at home for another. Then there was the empty feeling - normally when I woke up, at least since the baby had started moving, they would remind me that they were there. Kicking me from the inside, moving around to let me know that Ike and I had been too active or not active enough the night before.

“Hey,” I turned my head and there he was. Isaac Evans, my husband. And in his arms? A bundle in a pink blanket. “She was waiting to meet you for hours, Liz.”

“Hours?” My eyes burned, thinking that our daughter had had to wait for me for that long, but he shushed me, and her as she started to fuss. “Is she -” But then he was sitting on the bed with me, and her tiny face was all I could see. Framed with dark curls, her tiny red face was perfect, as were her tiny fingers and toes - because I unwrapped her blanket and checked her all over. She was tiny, as Ike reminded me she took after her mother, and she was demanding - he abstained from mentioning if she took after anyone we knew. Feeding her by bottle, another new push that came from the advances of child bearing and medicine, formula, we were mesmerized by her.

“She’s amazing, Elizabeth Diamond Evans.” Ike whispered as she was drifting off after her meal, being burped, and a diaper change. “Just like her mother.”

“I think she takes after her father too,” his curls, I thought, and her eyes when they opened were as dark. “She has the same little pucker you do.” My finger traced her lips and I smiled as her mouth suckled naturally at the touch.

“Are we still sure about her name?” I nodded, watching her as she slept. “I think it suits her.”

“I do, too.” And I did. We chose a name that had no thread of our past. We’d discussed memorializing my mother or even Molly, but both of us agreed that our marriage, our family was a chance to have a fresh start, even as we combined and grew.

“She’ll have to grow into it,” he was taking her from me to put her back into the hospital’s idea of a bassinet. “I suppose you had to grow into yours, too.” He winked at me when he looked up from her tiny form, his hand was still cradling her small head.

“Still growing into it actually,” I smiled at him and his grin grew. “Miriam Sarah Evans sounds perfect for her, and I think she’ll grow into it just fine, Isaac.”

“Why, Elizabeth, are we using our full names now?” His smile was full enough to have his dimple peeking out and I was beaming back at him. “I love you, Liz, and our daughter, and our family.” He was at my side, our foreheads meeting and he was breathing deeply. “I hated not being there with you when she came into this world screaming.”

“Me too,” my eyes shut, I couldn’t do this again, not this way. “She’s a miracle, Ike, but -” His lips brushed my eyelids.

“I know, Liz, I know.”

#ike evans x ofc #magic city #alternate universe #mention of smut #mention of pregnancy #mention of child birth #Family Fluff

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reading-writing-revolution · 3 years

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Heather Cox Richardson

December 29, 2020 (Tuesday)

There is definitely a feeling of change in the air. For all his continuing insistence that he won the 2020 election, Trump is a lame duck.

Today’s complicated fight in the Senate over the one-time stimulus payment of $2000 illustrated that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), not Trump, now controls the Republican caucus. Trump originally refused to sign the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, the bill that contains the coronavirus relief measures, because he claimed he objected to its meager $600 stimulus payments. Six hundred dollars was the amount his negotiators had demanded, but he suddenly said he wanted them to be $2000. Democrats in the House jumped on Trump’s demand for the higher payment and they passed a measure on Monday to increase the payments.

Trump had attacked the bill largely because he is angry at McConnell and Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD) (a whip keeps party members in line behind the party leader) for acknowledging Biden’s victory in November. He was trying to illustrate his power by refusing to sign the bill at all. But Sunday night he gave in without winning anything. Yet, he continued to say he wanted higher payments. The House was happy to give him what the Democrats had wanted all along; today, Trump lost the showdown in the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the measure, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) killed it. This enabled the two embattled Republican Senate candidates from Georgia both to support Trump and to claim they wanted higher payments, all without actually having to vote for the higher payments. McConnell bested Trump all around: he had no intention of raising those payments no matter what Trump tweeted... and he didn’t.

Trump’s influence in Washington is waning in other ways, too. Yesterday, the House repassed the National Defense Authorization Act over Trump’s veto. Trump claims to object to the bill for a number of reasons, including that it will require that military bases currently named for Confederate generals be renamed, but this is the measure into which Congress put the Corporate Transparency Act I wrote about a few days ago. It will undercut the country’s plague of so-called shell companies, which enable money laundering and other criminal activity because they are owned and operated in secret. The new measure will require that all owners and operators of such companies be clearly identified.

This will likely impact the Trump family, which uses shell companies.

There were other rumblings today that Trump’s post-presidential life might have some sticky places. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has hired forensic accountants to help investigate Trump and his businesses. This investigation is a criminal investigation. New York Attorney General Letitia James is in charge of a civil investigation into Trump’s businesses.

But the big thing which showed momentum is moving away from Trump is that President-Elect Joe Biden is forcefully criticizing the Trump administration for its failure to plan for distribution of the coronavirus vaccine.

With more than 330,000 Americans dead of Covid-19 and infections spiking, Biden today noted that the Trump administration has fallen behind on vaccine distribution. The effort got off to a poor start as the administration delivered fewer doses than it had promised and initially blamed Pfizer for a “miscommunication,” only to have Pfizer state that it had “millions of doses” in a warehouse but had received no information about where to send them.

The administration promised to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of December, but yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that it had administered just 2.1 million doses in two weeks, although that number is likely somewhat low because of lag times in reporting. At the current rate, Dr. Leana S. Wen writes in the Washington Post, we can expect to achieve herd immunity in 10 years.

The administration at first refused to share information with the Biden camp about distribution, claiming there was a plan, even though, when finally part of discussions in early December, Biden said “[t]here is no detailed plan that we've seen, anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into somebody's arm.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar responded that Biden’s claim was “nonsense.” “[W]e have comprehensive plans from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention working with 64 public health jurisdictions across the country as our governors have laid out very detailed plans that we’ve worked with them on. We’re leveraging our retail pharmacies, our hospitals, our public health departments, our community health centers.” Azar said the distribution process was being “micromanaged and controlled by the United States military, as well as our incredible private sector. We do hundreds of millions of vaccinations a year. We’re leveraging the systems that are known, and that work here in the United States." Azar assured Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that, as soon as the vaccines were approved, the government would be shipping them “to all of the states and territories that we work with. And within hours they can be vaccinating,”

It turns out Biden was more right than Azar. The administration planned simply to get the vaccines to the states, and then leave to them the problem of actually getting the vaccines into people’s arms. But state Departments of Health are strapped for money after trying to manage the pandemic for nine months, and had been allotted only $6 million apiece to make the distributions happen. (The new Consolidated Appropriations Act that Trump just signed has significantly more money in it for distribution.)

“The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind,” Biden said today. “As I long feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should.”

Finally stung, Trump tweeted tonight that “It is up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government. We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states. Biden failed with Swine Flu!” (Biden was not in charge of the Obama Administration’s response to H1N1 in 2009, which broke out three months after Obama took office.)

Biden promised to invoke the National Defense Production Act, a law that permits the president to require companies to produce goods at the same time that it guarantees them a market for those goods, to speed up the production of supplies necessary to distribute the vaccine quickly. “I have directed my team to prepare a much more aggressive effort, with more federal involvement and leadership to get things back on track,” he said.

But he warned that we are behind and, breaking with the Trump administration, warned that things are going to get much worse before they get better. The spike in infections along with the fallout from holiday gatherings means we will see high case numbers in January and high death tolls in February. It will be mid-March, he warns, before we see improvement. “The next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, a very tough period for our nation — maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic,” Biden said. “I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth.”

“We are going to get through this. Brighter days are coming,” Biden said. “But it’s going to take all of the grit and determination we have as Americans to get it done.”

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monsterywriting · 4 years

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Demon Boyfriend (Dirrath) - pt 9

Read Part 1 Here

Read previous part here

word count: 2,560

...

“Hold this to the wound! She’s bleeding out…”

Your eyelids fluttered as you struggled to stay conscious, feeling numb despite knowing you had been stabbed. You could hear someone respond to the strangely clear voice you heard before, but couldn’t make out what they were saying exactly.

“Stand back. We don’t have long before the sedative wears off so we’ll have to be quick.”

“Mother?” You wheezed, certain you could hear her giving you instructions but unable to focus on anything in the room.

“Shit, she’s still up, hurry up and give her another dose or something!”

You felt a sharp pinch in your neck before your vision began to swim with black, your eyes lolling back and your body going completely limp as you blacked out fully.

...

You woke again with a start when you felt someone lift the hem of your shirt, your hand flying up from your side to grab their wrist before even opening your eyes.

Standing over you was an elven woman in a long white smock, her surprised expression quickly melting into a determined one as she took your hand off of her and continued to study your stomach.

“Who are you?” You ask, but make no move to interrupt her examination.

“I will have to change your bandages,” She ignored your question, and as your own surprise at the encounter subsided, you began to feel the dull throb that worked its way through your lower abdomen.

After helping you sit up and unraveling the strip of cloth around your wound, the woman finally answered your question, “I’m the royal physician, Myanthe.”

You didn’t reply, instead examining the room you were in. You were obviously still in Roquechade’s castle, if the ostentatious design choices were anything to go by. It was similar to your room in Roquechade’s castle, with a bed and matching sofas and armchairs filling the empty space. However, various shelves lined the edges of the room filled with strange devices and jars of unknown substances and herbs, more similar to the infirmary back at the castle in Altruria. You guessed a physician was a type of healer.

You hissed in pain and turned back to Myanthe as she pulled off the bandages stuck to your wound and threw the russet stained bundle of cloth on a metal table behind her.

You examined the wound yourself, initially startled by the green tinge to the wound and surrounding skin before realizing it wasn’t infection, likely just a stain from whatever salve the physician used. Your muscles tensed as Myanthe pressed a wet rag to the skin around your wound, the green color running with the water as you suspected.

Once the wound was clean, you could see thick black stitches holding the edges together.

“It doesn’t appear too serious,” you hummed, feeling around your back before moving your hand to the stitches themselves, “The sword didn’t go completely through, and the fact that I’m already conscious means he didn’t slice through anything too important. I would’ve sewn animal thread underneath but the top layer is decent. Without magic they can be removed in two weeks and I should be fine to ride in one of the wagons until we reach the border…”

Myanthe appeared surprised once again as you appraised your wound, her ears perking upwards as she listened to you, though you didn’t blame her. You had quickly learned in your single evening among the local royalty that “princesses” in the outside world were a far cry from what you were used to. Every servant you’d encountered thus far expected you to be as completely dependent on them for every basic task as the royal family.

“You’re right, but with this,” Myanthe paused as she grabbed a wooden bowl from the table behind her and scooped out a dark paste with her fingers, immediately slathering it on the wound, “The wound should heal a bit quicker.”

You cursed loudly at the sudden burning sensation as the paste touched the raw skin, a pulsating feeling emanating from wherever it touched. Your face twisted in pain but you managed not to flinch as Myanthe continued to spread the substance around.

“The sayerba may not be as fast as the magic of your home country, but it’s the best we have here,” Myanthe washed her hands in a metal basin before drying them with the front of her smock, grabbing a new roll of bandages and beginning to wrap them tightly around you, “so try not to move around too much.”

You make no argument while the physician tied off the end of the bandages at your side, pulling down your shirt as Myanthe disposed of the bloody bandages in a metal container.

“Are you ready for visitors?” Myanthe asked you, “The king wished to speak to you once you woke up and your guard has been pestering me about your condition all morning.”

“Yes, that’s fine,” You nodded, surprised when she immediately walked out and called for Roquechade to come in.

Roquechade walked in, a somber expression on his face and guilt flashing in his eyes as he met your gaze.

Olek was close behind him, the relief evident in his face as he stood guard silently by the door.

“I’m glad to see you well so soon, princess,” Roquechade said, sounding exhausted, “I apologize on behalf of my son. His actions were… foolish.”

“I wouldn’t call them foolish, Roquechade. Manipulative or treacherous, perhaps,” you said, in too much pain for politeness, “Where is Silais?”

Roquechade sighed, looking much older than he had seemed just the night before at the banquet, “He is being held in his room. Under heavy guard, off course.”

“I take it you plan for that to be the extent of his punishment?” You scoff, unable to believe that Silais wasn’t in the dungeons. Or already dead.

“Please understand, princess, he is my son,” Roquechade half pleaded, but you found it hard to feel sorry about your bluntness, “I offer my sincerest apologies for his actions, but to end my own son’s life…”

You decided against pointing out the fact that the prince effectively put his entire family’s lives at risk in trying to kill you, the inevitable war that your death would have caused apparently worth whatever Silais’ end goal was. However, another idea formed in your mind, and your mouth opened before you could think twice.

“I will not push the matter of punishment,” you paused after the statement, both Roquechade and Olek looking at you in shock, “if you accept the High Queen’s proposed changes for the old trade agreement.”

You in no way expected the king to agree to such extreme terms without further negotiations. However, you decided you may as well benefit from the situation at hand, if only to wipe your hands of this godsforsaken kingdom and return to Altruria.

Even if Roquechade didn’t agree to your request, at the very least his guilt would make for a fairly decent starting point. And while you by no means held the power to call for a war, Silais’ actions were more than enough to incite one if the High Queen were to learn of them.

Roquechade looked anguished as he mulled over your offer, clearly weighing his options. Just as you began to grow anxious that he would take offense to the thinly veiled blackmail, the king sighed once again, deflating as he sank into one of the room’s many armchairs.

“I’ll have the contract drawn up today,” he said with a nod, slowly standing, and it took all you could not to let your jaw drop.

Olek looked similarly shocked, but neither one of you said anything as you waited for the king to break his serious expression and tell you that it was just a joke.

“I wish you a speedy recovery,” Roquechade bowed and hurriedly made his leave, leaving you and Olek in stunned silence.

“Gods above and below,” you let out a breathy laugh in disbelief, unable to contain your giddiness at your change of fortune, “I should be nearly assassinated more often.”

“Please don’t joke of such things, Princess,” Olek scolded, earning an eye roll from you.

“Where’s Dirrath?” You decided to change the subject, noting how Olek suddenly appeared nervous at your question.

“He helped carry you to the infirmary, but unfortunately he disappeared shortly after your condition stabilized, Princess.”

“Good,” you sank into your pillow and sighed in relief, “He can’t complain I didn’t hold up my end of our deal. We’re leaving to Altruria as soon as this trade business is done and these stitches are out.”

“You made a deal with-?” Before Olek could open that can of worms, you were saved by Myanthe popping her head back into the room, her ears twitching as she realized Olek was in the room.

“The princess needs to rest now,” she said, waiting for Olek to leave the room before entering fully with a servant carrying tray of food.

While you were grateful at first for the convenient save from Olek’s questioning, you soon realized you were far from tired, itching to get up and move around after hours of laying down. Once you finished your dinner, you found yourself incredibly bored

There wasn’t much you could do, however, as you body made it abundantly clear it wouldn’t tolerate you getting up, much less walk around the room. It would be a while yet before you could get up without risk of tearing your wound wide open, and you had dealt with plenty of patients who never listened to your mother’s orders for bedrest. But now that you were on the receiving end of those very same orders, you could see the temptation

After a few hours passed consisting solely of you tossing and turning in the bed after multiple failed attempts to fall asleep, you decided you simply had to get up, your only source of light the moon’s entering from the windows.

Your sheer determination won over your stab wound, slowly making your way to the windowsill, your joints still somewhat stiff from being still for so long. Just as your awkward shuffle improved to a more normal gait as you grew more confident that you wouldn’t tear your stitches, you heard the quiet click of the room door being opened.

You stood completely still, half expecting Myanthe to scold you for completely ignoring her orders. Instead, as you turned around, Dirrath was standing at the doorway, looking just as shocked to see you as you were to see him.

“I was under the assumption that you were still bedridden,” Dirrath said stiffly, remaining at the entrance of your room. You immediately noticed that Dirrath was back in his human form, though you don’t remember putting the glamor back up.

“And I was under the assumption that you were long gone,” you retorted, motioning for Dirrath to enter the bedroom, “Hurry up, I’m not supposed to have any visitors.”

The demon stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, though you paid him no mind as you made your way to one of the loveseats in across from him and collapsed into it.

“If you’re here to try and say I somehow didn’t hold up my end of the deal, don’t bother,” you warned, too drained from you cross-room excursion to put the bite behind your words you wanted, “Olek already told me they couldn’t find you after I was taken to Myanthe, so it isn’t my fault if you didn’t take escape then!”

Dirrath stared at you for a moment in confusion, his nose crinkling slightly as his lip curled into a slight sneer, “No, that deal is done. But earlier, you were able to do something no one else has and I need to know if you can do again.”

“And that would be what, exactly?”

“Take off my glamor.”

You blinked slowly, digesting Dirrath’s answer, though it came across as more of a demand. Dirrath was no longer awkwardly standing, his eyes boring into your own with determination.

“The High Queen took off your glamor before,” you said finally, deciding to play dumb to the fact that there had definitely been a difference when you took off Dirrath’s glamor. The two forms had been entirely different, the demon appearing much more beastly last night than he had months ago. And Dirrath just all but confirmed to you that it wasn’t a trick of your memory.

Just as Dirrath pointed out, you had no obligation to help him since your original deal was over. And he was a demon after all, the probability that he had some heinous plans for his true form was high. However, the desperate way in which Dirrath looked at you made you hesitate before immediately turning him away. It wasn’t a dangerous type of desperation, at least, for the moment, but there was a sense of… hope?

Besides, you reasoned, it was only getting rid of a glamor. That is purely a cosmetic change, likely the result of whatever magic user who summoned him forcing Dirrath to appear human.

“Alright.”

“Alright?” The disbelief that coated Dirrath’s tone was almost enough to make you laugh, if the pure look of relief that fell over his face wasn’t too bust pulling at your heartstrings. You blamed your weakened physical state for your newfound sentimentality.

You nodded, “Sure, just get rid of this pesky wound for me and you’ll be… furry again in no time.”

“I… can’t” Dirrath sighed, frustration flashing across his features.

“What do you mean you can’t?” You snapped, “You healed me just fine after the bandit attack before.”

“I can’t heal physical wounds,” Dirrath snapped back at you, “Your wounds then were from using magic. You still had all your other scrapes and bruises afterwards”

Thinking back, you realized what Dirrath told you was true, though you remained annoyed.

“Fine. Then you can just be my nurse until I can use magic again,” you smirked, fully intending to drive Dirrath crazy as a patient, if only as punishment for not being useful.

“What the hell is a nurse?” Dirrath grunted, eyeing you suspiciously.

“They’re apparently physicians’ assistants. Myanthe told me the castle is currently shorthanded on them,” your smirk grew into a full on shit-eating grin as you saw the inner conflict behind Dirrath’s eyes.

Finally, just as you were about to rescind your offer and think of something else to get in return for helping the demon, Dirrath began to nod slowly, exhaling through his nose in exasperation.

“As humiliating as it may be… I agree to your terms,” Dirrath’s voice took on a warning tone, “but if you can’t get rid of the glamor I will end your miserable mortal life myself.”

The corners of the demon’s mouth ticked upward as you tried and failed to contain your excitement, though your expression quickly twisting into a grimace at the sudden strain on your wound. Once you finally regained your composure, Dirrath held out his hand, a clear signal for you to seal your abrupt deal.

After a moment’s hesitation, briefly wondering one last time how wise it would be to help a demon, you reached out and took Dirrath’s hand in a firm shake.

You’ve gotten this far, too late to go back now.

#exophilia #monster boyfriend #reader insert #demon boyfriend

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

Link

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 29, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

There is definitely a feeling of change in the air. For all his continuing insistence that he won the 2020 election, Trump is a lame duck.

Trump had attacked the bill largely because he is angry at McConnell and Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD) (a whip keeps party members in line behind the party leader) for acknowledging Biden’s victory in November. He was trying to illustrate his power by refusing to sign the bill at all. But Sunday night he gave in without winning anything, and yet continued to say he wanted higher payments. The House was happy to give him what the Democrats had wanted all along, but today Trump lost the showdown in the Senate.

This will likely impact the Trump family, which uses shell companies.

The administration at first refused to share information with the Biden camp about distribution, claiming there was a plan, even though, when finally part of discussions, Biden said “[t]here is no detailed plan that we've seen, anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into somebody's arm.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar responded that Biden’s claim was “nonsense.” “[W]e have comprehensive plans from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention working with 64 public health jurisdictions across the country as our governors have laid out very detailed plans that we’ve worked with them on. We’re leveraging our retail pharmacies, our hospitals, our public health departments, our community health centers.” Azar said the distribution process was being “micromanaged and controlled by the United States military, as well as our incredible private sector. We do hundreds of millions of vaccinations a year. We’re leveraging the systems that are known, and that work here in the United States.” Azar assured Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that, as soon as the vaccines were approved, the government would be shipping them “to all of the states and territories that we work with. And within hours they can be vaccinating,”

But he warned that we are behind and, breaking with the Trump administration, warned that things are going to get much worse before they get better. The spike in infections along with the fallout from holiday gatherings means we will see high cases in January and high death tolls in February. It will be mid-March, he warns, before we see improvement. “The next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, a very tough period for our nation — maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic,” Biden said. “I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth.”

“We are going to get through this. Brighter days are coming,” Biden said. “But it’s going to take all of the grit and determination we have as Americans to get it done.”

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#QUOTES #Political #election 2020 #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American

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timeisacephalopod · 5 years

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Okay so after the invasion of New York The Avengers come to live together in the Tower, everything seems fine at first until Steve and the team are confronted with Tony's open sexuality as they watch him in a conflict with a man that he had brought home the night before but is having problems with (might I mention violently having problems with) after the fun. Tony tries to brush it off as nothing but if the way he is very slightly showing signs of pain is anyting he's not fine at all.

Alrighty! This is surprisingly Steve-centric, but I think it works well as a set up and also this is very stony. Don’t know how you feel about the pairing but that’s what came out lol. Warnings for references to abuse and sexual violence. Be prepared- this is a Long Boi.

(Side note: I do have your other prompt in my inbox- I’ll get to it at some point!)

Back in his day Steve knew about queer people, lived in a community close to where they all seemed to live too. But in his day that kind of thing was wrong and no one really talked about it, and when they did it wasn’t anything good. He’s always known about his uh… attractions and the serum, it was designed to make him perfection physically. Everything that had been wrong with him was cured- no heart murmur, no asthma, no more being hard of hearing. But his attractions never went away. It’d been the first time he’d ever truly considered that maybe people were wrong about how they viewed queer people. Maybe he didn’t agree with them before- no one he’d ever met seemed all that bad, but he’d thought he’d been giving himself an out. A way not to feel bad about what he is.

But the serum was supposed to get rid of the imperfections and it never got rid of that.

In the modern day he sort of learned that the serum must only work on physical things given how hard life seems to be, harder than it’d ever been in the war and then there’s the guilt he feels over that too. Who wishes for a war just so they can feel useful again? It’s messed up. But those attractions never really went anywhere and Steve hard started to wonder if maybe it’s a mental thing like people used to say. Serum wouldn’t cure that, he knows that now thanks to the shell shock. PTSD, they call it now.

That’s about when he’d moved into the Tower and, much to his surprise, discovered that Tony must have the same attractions he does but he’s shameless about it. Natasha had been the first to notice his surprise, obviously, but had explained some about modern movements for LGBT equality. On the side Steve did his own research and it turns out people still plenty hate gay people, but there’s a lot of pushback to it. It’d been the first time, really, that he’d considered that that was something about himself that he could take pride in. Before it’d been a source of shame.

It had been watching Tony’s easy flirtations that had made the transition easier, and maybe it was Clint’s teasing back that made Tony’s sexuality feel less out of place. Clint’s straight, they all know that, but he doesn’t seem to care that Tony hits on him and it ends up being a running joke. Now the string of one night stands? That’s unusual even for this time he’s learned but Tony is Tony and he does what he wants.

Steve keeps an eye on it though, not because he has a problem with it really even if he wonders why Tony feels the need for constant companionship with no real meaning, but because it’s new, someone embracing their sexuality in this way. Even those that accepted their gayness in his time kept things secret outside of the communities they were drawn to. He thinks all that time spent watching Tony, his investment in figuring out how exactly to hold pride in his sexuality, is why he noticed the pattern before anyone else.

Tony seems to disappear for a day or two after his encounters and its not all the time, and Steve notices a skew towards disappearances after men but women make Tony disappear too. Just a little less frequently. He brings his findings to Natasha but she brushes him off, telling him that maybe Tony likes his privacy but Steve knows he has no concept of privacy. Not after growing up a celebrity- people expect him to share in every aspect of his life all the time so he’s become an oversharer. So he goes back to watching Tony’s actions and trying to find patterns. There’s Avengers downtime at the moment anyways.

It takes time but Steve eventually learns how to intercept Tony’s one night stands leaving and it takes work to predict Tony’s paths out. Its like he’s planned for this, someone trying to confront the people leaving his bedroom and Steve finds that strange but he’s seen the press harass Tony. Maybe this is a symptom of that. Steve finds his latest conquest gripping Tony’s arm in a way that’s got Tony looking leery and combative, never a good combination in Steve’s experience with the man, so he speaks up. “Is there a problem?” he asks casually, leaning against the wall.

There is, he can see it on the guy’s face right away but he knows how apprehensive people are to confront him. Could be being Captain America, could be his physical presence, but he suspects its a healthy dose of both. “It’s fine Steve, leave it alone,” Tony says, voice tight and he looks pissed off for some reason.

His eyes flick back and forth between the two of them before he turns to leave because, strange situation that Steve is suspicious of or not, Tony can take care of himself. Steve has seen his competence in action on many occasions. “Nice of you to call your guard dog off,” the guy says and Steve doesn’t like the tone he’s got, makes the hairs on the back of his neck rise and he’s learned not to ignore his instincts.

The guys sounds, he realizes, like his father when he got drunk. Except this guy is sober. So Steve turns, “actually no, let go of Tony’s arm and get the hell out,” he says. Tony gives him a dirty look for it but Steve knows something is off here.

“The hell right do you have to tell me what to do?” the guy asks and Steve rolls his eyes.

“This isn’t a fucking negotiation- get your damn hands off Tony or I’ll pull them off myself and then I’ll toss your ass out the door. Take your pick,” he snaps, unsure why he’s so upset to begin with. It seems to surprise Tony too but the threat does its job and Tony’s companion skitters off, Steve glaring at him until he’s out of sight. When he turns back Tony looks annoyed.

“I don’t need you to play White Knight, Steve. I can take care of myself,” he snaps.

Steve shakes his head, “I’ve seen you do all kinds of impossible things- I know you can take care of yourself. Doesn’t mean you can’t use the backup,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes, “I don’t need backup either Steve, I’m not some pet project and I’m not a zoo animal so if you can stop following me around like an anthropologist following some shiny new tribe.” He turns and stomps off after that and Steve frowns, unsure what the hell just happened on any level. He does, however, think that maybe Natasha won’t brush off his concerns this time.

When Natasha finally agrees to review the tapes she decides she doesn’t like the interaction Tony had had with the guy Steve intercepted but had been ready to leave it be. Steve tells her to do an actual investigation though and he’s sure she only does it because she likes him enough to listen. By the third encounter she’s searching harder for the small snatches of Tony’s encounters on tape- seems he removed them from his personal areas- and nothing looks good.

By the time they’ve gotten through three months of material Steve asks if its possible to make actual police reports about these people because Tony really can pick the worst of the worst. Steve isn’t sure he’s met anyone with that bad of luck. Natasha considers the footage for a long moment before shaking her head. “I don’t think we have enough evidence to make a case against any of these people. They’re all handsy and its inappropriate, but not enough to warrant an investigation and Tony won’t be cooperative,” she says.

Steve frowns, “why the hell not, he obviously doesn’t like being treated like this,” he says. They’ve watched, over and over, Tony trying to pull away, or stop the interaction, or some other thing consistently so what’s the problem?

“And yet he keeps bringing people like this home,” she says. He can feel the look he’s giving her and given the way people seem to crumple under any pressure he puts on them he’s surprised when she doesn’t. “Don’t look at me like that, this is what the courts will say. If he didn’t like it he wouldn’t find himself here so many times.”

He rolls his eyes, “so bad luck means you can get treated like shit now? Unbelievable.” He shakes his head and Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Oh lets not act like you came from the good old days where abuse was something people talked about and prosecuted. He’s a celebrity and he’s known for being experimental in everything he does, sex included. No one will take this seriously,” she tells him.

He looks at the screen- Tony is frozen on it, trying to pull his arm out of the grasp of some conquest’s grip and he’s clearly uninterested in whatever is happening. Natasha has a point though- in his time people treated this like it was normal, Steve has seen it happen to plenty of women. It wasn’t right then, and he doesn’t understand how this particular area of law hasn’t improved. Forcing people into situations they don’t want to be in isn’t ever okay, so how come this still happens seventy years later?

In the end Steve goes to Tony about all this because what else is he supposed to do? Natasha sits off to the side and Tony, for whatever reason, chooses to take out his anger on her. “Can’t you keep your fucking nose in your own damn business or are you always such a damn snake?” he snaps.

“I don’t know what snakes have to do with this,” Steve says, “but this? Isn’t acceptable.” He gestures to the screen and he’s sure Tony, with his genius brain, can figure out what he means.

Tony looks over and rolls his eyes, “I’m bisexual, get over it. Your homophobia isn’t my problem,” he snaps and Steve frowns, confused for a moment and Natasha takes the small lull as a moment to pounce.

“He means the abuse, not the gay thing. None of us give a shit about that,” she says.

“I don’t,” Steve adds fast, pauses, and then continues. “Would be hypocritical if I did,” he adds. That seems to shock Tony into submission for the time being so Steve uses the silence to talk. “People can’t keep treating you like this Tony- we’ve watched something like a dozen encounters and not one person treated you right.”

The comment seems to pull Tony out of his reverie and he eyes Steve up and down and gives him a small, flirtatious smirk. He’s seen the look a million times before and he ignores the way his stomach flutters because he has no time for this right now. “What, never met someone who likes it rough?” he asks and Steve wrinkles his nose on instinct at the vulgarity.

“Pretty sure people who like it rough consent to that and this,” he points at the screen where Tony is paused pulling away, “is not what consent looks like. Actually, that’s a pretty damn clear no to me. People should’t treat you like that.” People shouldn’t treat anyone like that but right now Tony is his priority given that this is a consistent thing.

Tony gives the screen a half a glance before that irritatingly arrogant dismissal Steve had, when they first met, mistaken for a lack of caring appears on his face. “Its fine, Steve, people have disagreements,” he says.

Steve raises an eyebrow, “well was this a disagreement or was this a consensual interaction that was intended to be rough? Why the change in story?” he asks. He watches Tony’s hackles rise and Natasha steps in.

“Tony, we aren’t stupid- we know you well enough to know what you act like when you’re being forced into something you don’t want. That’s not what we’re questioning,” she murmurs.

“What I’m questioning is why people think its fine to do this to you,” Steve says. “And also,” Tony tenses, flinching a little like he expects Steve to say something harsh, “how no one has noticed this before.”

Whatever Tony was expecting it wasn’t that. “What, don’t wonder why I put up with it?” he asks a little harshly.

Steve shrugs, “I know people who’ve been abused. At a certain point you’re just desensitized to it. I don’t even know if you consider this abuse at all and considering the way you talk about Howard this isn’t new to you. That isn’t okay either, you shouldn’t have to be used to this,” he says.

Natasha frowns a little, looking at him the way she looks at people she’s trying to dissect. Its a distinctly Natasha look rather than one of her many personas. Tony looks confused too. “Its not abuse, its just a disagreement,” Tony mumbles.

“Several of them that seem to play out the same way and this,” he turns back to the computer and finds the right video, “what the fuck even is this?” he asks, gesturing to Tony stumbling along- clearly drunk not that the woman he’s with seems to give a shit. “This isn’t even a consensual interaction- you can’t even fucking stand.” Its probably the most shocking thing they found and Steve suspects not the first time this woman has done this kind of thing. Looks too practiced to him and Natasha agreed.

Tony doesn’t seem to though. “Oh come on, you’ve never had drunk sex?” he asks and no, he hasn’t.

“Can’t get drunk with the serum, and before that I was too worried about hacking up a lung to drink. But I’m not an idiot Tony, there’s a difference between drunk sex and taking advantage of someone. If your partner can’t even fucking walk, they can’t consent to sex. Simple as that.” Tony rolls his eyes and looks to Natasha like she’s going to help and she looks at him like he’s nuts.

“You think I’m going to defend this woman? You’re damn lucky I didn’t hunt her down and give her a taste of what the Red Room taught me to do, Tony. Steve’s right, at the very least this is assault.”

Tony doesn’t seem to take it well, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the two of them. “I don’t need your help,” he tells them and with that he walks away. Steve sighs and goes to take off after him but Natasha hold him back.

“Let him go. I know from experience that it’s hard to accept you’ve been abused- give him time to process it.”

Its three days later and Steve’s having trouble sleeping, something that’s not entirely unusual, when Tony finds him and sits down on the couch with a blanket wrapped around him and a glass of whisky in his hand. Steve pulls the glass out of his hand and set it down on the side table farthest away from Tony. He gets a dirty look for it but there’s no real heat there. For a long time they sit in silence before Tony speaks. “Why the hell do you care about how people treat me anyway, you don’t even like me.”

Steve frowns at him, “don’t like you? When’d you get that impression?” he asks.

Tony rolls his eyes, “somewhere between ‘big man in a suit of armor, take that off and what are you’ and ‘I know guys worth ten of you’. Could have been ‘you’re not the guy who makes the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you’, or maybe it was ‘you better stop pretending to be a hero’,” he says sarcastically. “No offense, but you made it damn clear you hated me from the moment you saw me so what the fuck do you care now?”

It feels like a lifetime ago that Steve saw that, watched the footage and yeah, Tony looked like a real jackass. But Steve has spent too much time watching Tony’s self destructive tendencies to believe the footage is who Tony really is. “I misjudged you. And I also recall you calling me a lab rat and telling me everything special about me came from a bottle. I don’t hold that against you,” he points out.

Tony lets out a loud snort, “yeah, probably because I’m the only one who’s every said that to you. Wanna know how many people have said the shit you did to me? Almost everyone I’ve ever met, except you were polite about it. Lets not fucking compare the two,” he snaps.

“People used to tell me I was worthless all the damn time, Tony. That’s what happens when you grow up skinny and useless in the war effort,” he snaps. “I know more about mistreatment than you might like to think.”

“Maybe,” Tony says, “but I’m not a fucking idiot. I know when someone hasn’t felt it their whole life from everyone and it fucking sucks because I’m damn lucky. I’m rich, I’m attractive, I’m a fucking superhero so what right do I have to suffer? I’m living everyone’s damn fantasies out and I’m whining about it?” he shakes his head. “And even that’s never been fucking good enough for pretty much anyone around me,” he mumbles. “I can do the impossible- I’ve been able to do that my whole life but I was never Captain fucking America.”

Steve frowns, “who the hell expected you to be me?” he asks. He certainly hadn’t and to his knowledge no one else has either. Well, okay, people tend to compare them a lot and yeah, people favor him but that’s not the same he thinks.

Tony gives him a withering glare, “Howard. Never mattered what I did, how good I was, how much better than him I was I was never you. I used to hate you,” he says and the tone is so harsh Steve wonders if he still does.

“Why are you so pissed off about something I had nothing to do with? At Howard, I get that. He sounds like he grew into a real jackass but its not like I’ve ever made those comparisons,” he says. “And… the way you do things, it could use finessing, but you’re a damn good problem solver under pressure. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says honestly. And his solutions- they’re always something Steve never would have thought of. They’re creative, innovative- they’re distinctly Tony.

“Who do you think the guy who lays down on the wire in your analogy was, Steve? We all know the legends and stories that follow- you’re heroic sacrifice everywhere you went. Erskine chose you because everyone ran away from the grenade and you jumped on it. You’ve made your opinion of me clear so again, why the hell do you care about me at all?”

Steve clenches his jaw for a moment before sighing. “I made my first impression clear, and I made my current assessment clear too Tony. You can’t choose to hear one and not the other. And I care about you because anyone who gets treated like you do by your lovers, and I use the word loosely here, deserves kindness. You deserve better than that, everyone deserves better than that,” he says, shaking his head.

Tony goes back to being silent and Steve lets him for a long few moments. “I’m not a hero,” he says after awhile. Tony gives him the same look Steve suspects anyone would if they heard that. “I grew up Irish, back when people still cared about that kind of thing, in a bad neighborhood with a shit father and a poor mother who was trapped in a bad situation. I had so many health issues it was a damn miracle I didn’t die of polio at ten, and I felt fucking useless my whole life. I wanted to join the war for purely selfish reasons- I told myself that it was because it was important but that wasn’t it at all. I wanted to feel like, for once in my life, I wasn’t the useless little runt everyone always told me I was. I told Erskine I didn’t like bullies, I don’t, because my whole life I’ve been a victim of them. Treated like shit for things I couldn’t help.”

He shakes his head, taking a breath before he continues. “Then I get this serum and I thought I was going to do something real, be important. Instead I was a dancing fucking monkey for a propaganda machine and I hated that too. So when I found out Bucky had been captured by Nazis I did something stupid and selfish and Peggy let me because she didn’t sign up for that program to watch me fake punch Hitler. I didn’t set out to be a hero I did what I wanted because I was scared, selfish, and pissed off at not doing anything useful. Only heroic thing I ever did was land that plane. I didn’t expect to wake up a legend some asshole used to abuse his kid his whole life Tony, that just happened. To add insult to injury no one even remembers Steve Rogers- people remember me as the myth they built to suit whatever propaganda people want to throw my image on in this decade, not the real man behind that image,” he snaps.

For some reason he looked himself up once and he’d been shocked at what political parties have used his image to endorse. Most of it is stuff he’d never actually agree with but that’s because he’s Captain America, Propaganda Piece, not Steve Rogers, man with real values and opinions. And he hates that, resents it with everything he has but what’s he supposed to do about it? People listen when he talks about as much as they do to Tony. People only take what they want to hear from either one of them.

Tony shuffles in closer, pressing himself into Steve’s side and he wraps an arm around him because they both need the comfort. “You ever kiss a guy before?” he asks and Steve rolls his eyes, huffing out a laugh.

“Once. Got my ass kicked for that,” he says, shaking his head. Bad decisions used to be his MO back in the day.

“Yeah, that happened to me once too,” Tony says and Steve suspects that’s an understatement. He turns to face Steve, face close to his and his hair isn’t styled like it usually is. Instead is flops over his forehead naturally and it feels almost intimate to view Tony like this, soft and lacking his usual mask of bravado. “When’d you figure it out?” he asks, eyes bright with curiosity.

Steve knows what he means. “Don’t know really, guess I always knew. Its when I realized people thought that was wrong that I remember, not when I was attracted to men.”

Tony nods, “incidentally I happen to have the same experience. Howard. Pretty much everything fucked up in my life comes back to him,” he says. “Still though, Rhodey was nice, almost as smart as me and that’d been the first time I ever met anyone who challenged me intellectually. Helped that he has a nice ass, too.”

“Your best friend? The Colonel?” he asks and Tony nods, laughing.

“I used to be so paranoid about it- AIDS crisis was a big thing around then, people were dropping left and right. Didn’t want Rhodey to think less of me and also I didn’t much care for the idea of dying so I kept my sexuality to myself for a long time. I’m not very subtle though and Rhodey and I shared a room so he obviously noticed. Turns out he has a gay uncle and was fine with it.” Steve laughs, probably too hard because he had almost the same thing happen to him.

“I had a friend in the army, Morita. Poor bastard was Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Anyway, he was a smart little asshole and figured things out real fast. I thought… hell, I don’t know what I thought but when I finally got tired of being paranoid about it and confronted him he surprised me. Said I never judged him for being Japanese, never treated him badly when everyone else would have. That people were nicer to him because of it. So he said he didn’t have much place to judge me, and that maybe people were wrong about how both of our people were treated. He was the only one who ever knew to my knowledge.” Bucky probably could have figured it out but Steve is sure he didn’t, and Peggy was certainly smart enough too but she’s sure she didn’t look past their relationship. She had better things to focus on than who he was checking out when he thought no one was looking, they all did.

Tony takes in the information for a moment, eyes flicking down to his lips and Steve sighs. “How much have you had to drink?” he asks. Tony gives him a dirty look.

“I’m plenty in control of my faculties,” he says. “I can do math to prove it to you.”

Steve snorts, “you could probably do math half dead with a concussion. That’s a piss poor measure of sobriety.” At least for Tony- Steve, he’s never been that good at math. He’s not bad at it, but he’s much more suited to the arts. Always has been.

Tony laughs a little, “you’re not wrong, but I’m not actually drunk.”

“I can smell the alcohol,” Steve points out. Useless to lie when he can smell the truth.

“You have a super sniffer and there’s a glass of whisky to your left. Obviously you can smell alcohol. Just take my word for it and kiss me,” he says.

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it, frowning at Tony’s shocking forwardness before considering his actions. Alcohol could have made him more willing to open up, but what he had to say- that’d make anyone sober. And he knows what Tony looks like drunk too, unfortunately. But it does give him a solid assessment of Tony now and he’s not drunk, buzzed maybe, but Steve doubts that too. So when he carefully tilts Tony��s jaw up and kisses him he does it with the knowledge that Tony wants this, that he has enough mental capacity to want it. And when Tony throws himself into it Steve knows he’s made the right choice.

#stony fic #post avengers #canon divergent au #tw abuse #fanfiction

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carryonuptheandes · 5 years

Text

10 December – Chachapoyas

It was time to move on again, this time to the small city of Chachapoyas in the Amaszonas region. I had assumed that it was in jungle territory however it lies at around 2,300m, still in the Andes. I took an early morning tuk tuk for the 5am departure. The Rough Guide had informed me that it’s a stunning ride of climbing and descending mountains, much a single track road clinging to the edge of the cliffside. It also mentioned that plastic bags are handed out to passengers, since the number of twists and turns are not always appreciated by the stomachs of the locals!

It turned out to be a stunning ride and I was rewarded with decent weather for much of it. We enjoyed incredible views as the landscape and vegetation constantly changed; particularly beautiful were the cloud filled valleys below. At 7.30am we stopped at the bus company terminal in another town for breakfast, consisting of chicken broth, a bread roll and herbal tea. Then to the single carriageway road, where strangely our bus seemed to do more of the reversing into passing places as we met other vehicles, including cars. We were subjected to (but thankfully the volume was low) a movie, predictably a disaster film, this time a terrorist induced burning skyscraper and huge city fire. The constant shooting and terror didn’t exactly blend in with the view from the window!

As we climbed to the summit at 3,600m we encountered wind and rain, a road turning into a mudtrack and more evidence of mudslides or rockfalls. There were plenty of workmen in more problematic areas, clearing mud and rocks from the road, and I could understand why many routes here become impassable during the worst of the wet season, still to come. I was surprised not to see any alpaca or llama but there was plenty of cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens running around, including where we stopped at a lone hilltop restaurant for lunch. Seeing the cleanliness of the place and the owners (and not fully understanding the two dishes on offer) I stuck with my snacks!

A number of passengers were sleeping on the bus in spite of the constant horn sounding and swinging in the seat from left or right, as we negotiated each twist and turn. In spite of the roller coaster nature of the journey, I’m pleased to report no evidence of anyone needing a plastic (or paper) bag, in fact they weren’t even handed out.

We pulled into Chachapoyas nearly 12 hours later and I was more than ready to check-in to my hostal but no answer at the door! So I dumped my bags at a fire safety equipment shop opposite and head to the Plaza de Armas, got my dose of tourist info for my stay, and finally had my coffee. It turned out that the hostal owner misread my arrival time as AM rather than PM. The place wasn’t easy to find, no name by the door and not even a bell to ring. I was later to learn why...the owner hadn’t registered her business to avoid the legislation requirements for accommodation facilities and of course for tax avoidance purposes; pretty impressive for someone working in the local police force!!

By far the biggest memory I will take away from Chachapoyas is getting drenched and covered in mud! The first morning I awoke to rain (to be fair we are now at the start of the rainy season) for my tour to Kuelap, a hilltop fort at 3,000m dating from the 6th Century but developed much more between 900 and 1100. Inside the 20m high enclosure walls are the remains of around 500 circular homes and a handful of rectangular buildings including one built once the Incas had moved in. It’s incredible how much has survived to today, the buildings in different states of repair, with ongoing restoration work. The 5m high temple is in the form of an inverted cone, which was entered through a small hole in roof to access a wider chamber below, like a beer bottle.

Well, it was a truly memorable visit... Firstly the less than two years old 4km cable car is currently shut since the road serving it is closed for improvement works. So we took a dirt track to the other side of the fortress, from where we had to walk the last few kilometres. I had actually been keen to do a hike however the track was like a mudbath in places. In spite of being told that trainers would be fine I was very fortunate to have taken the decision to wear my hiking boots! Most others were however in trainers and it wasn’t long, after getting muddy wet feet and slipping and sliding all over the place, before they took advantage of the horseback service! I was determined to get in some hiking so continued on foot, bumping into another tour leader who invited me to join his group on the steeper but quicker short cut. I waited by the fort entrance for over an hour for the rest of my group to arrive, while other groups entered. We were lucky for the rain to ease off while exploring the site, but after sliding down a muddy path to our lunch spot, the heavy showers soon returned. Except for me, all opted for a return on horseback; I returned with the tour guide via the steep shorter path, sliding much of they way back down, aided by branches and other vegetation to cling to, and the guide’s hand to use as a brake. Amazingly I only ended up (front first) in the mud once!

The following day I visited the Catarata Gocta, with a drop of 771m, the third longest waterfall in the world, 200m shorter than Angel Falls in Venezuela. With the forecast of sunny spells (20% probability of rain) and waking up to a dry start, I was fairly optimistic about keeping dry. Little did I know what was to come! Other than leaving four hours later than the tourist office’s suggested hour of 6.30am, I got off to a good start, meeting a fellow Brit and a French lass as we boarded the minibus, with whom I shared a tuktuk up a windy 5km dirt track to San Pablo. After signing in, paying the entrance fee and providing our fingerprints, we set off among pretty colourful homes, lush tropical vegetation, and colourful flowers and butterflies. I was soon wondering if I should apply suncream but decided to hold off.

A light shower welcomed us to the viewpoint of the upper tier (215m) of the falls, from where we were wowed by the scale and power of the fall, and soaked by the spray. At this point I realised that my that my desire to take a swim may have been a tad optimistic, with no sign of any relatively calm pools. We then took a steep path down towards the lower section of the fall (much longer at over 500m), during which the rain got heavier and heavier, and I kept alternating between steamed up wet specs and no specs at all, neither ideal for the low light and slippery nature of the path. We eventually got to the river below, saturated to the skin (in spite of the waterproofs), and (partly since it was getting late) had no appetite for a diversion to the viewport of the lower fall. This turned out to be a very wise decision since the remaining couple of hours was mainly uphill, rather than our expected downstream descent. We were struggling a little by the end of it so we’re very happy to arrive in Cocachimba, grab an Inka Cola and snack, and find a direct minibus to Chachapoyas about to leave, so no tuktuk descent and hanging around on the main road to flag down a bus.

The rest of my time in Chachapoyas was spent keeping dry and warm with local coffee; often walking on the road (to the dismay of some drivers) to avoid negotiating the ridiculously uncomfortable stepped pavements that lined the steep streets; attempting to take photos of the two pretty main squares (both sealed off for improvement works to be (nearly) completed in time for the recent local elections), and meeting some local guys but without much of a flowing conversation.

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theabominableblogger · 6 years

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My Reaction to “Gotham” S2E19

Yep. Told ya I’d get this one up.

AN: I managed to record my reactions to this episode and hopefully I can transcribe what I said into this post.

Whoa....

What the....

“Has there been any improvement since he [Theo] woke up yesterday?” “No. But he's wonderful, isn't he?“ I... I wouldn’t say that...

“The Will and Order of St. Dumas.” What?

*Jim stops by Arkham* Oh SNAAAAAPPP!

“Pinewood Farms was started by Thomas Wayne in an attempt to cure humanity's greatest ailments on the genetic level old age, disease, even death.” “But that's not what happened, is it?“ *snaps sassy Z-line in the air* No it ain’t!

“Karen said the program tried to play God, and you [Hugo] ended up creating monsters.” “I was just a researcher with no knowledge of that until it was too late.“ Uhh, ha ha, no.

“I’m [Jim] not here for a therapy session, Professor.” Thank you.

“No. It’s more like an interrogation by a man who is no longer a police officer.” Ohh!

“[Jim] You're trying to make up for the sins of your past, and you believe that this case will somehow bring about your own personal redemption.” *grimaces*

“Victor Fries is dead, Mr. Gordon.” Well that is a lie.

“Really? I saw him last night.” Thank you!

“I [JIm] can read tells, too. [Hugo] You’re lying.” *claps and points at screen* Yeeess!

Oh there it is! There’s the theme!

*Ed explains to Aaron that the other inmate’s personality is not him via pretending to scold the air AKA “Lucy”* OK, this is actually not a bad way to diffuse the situation.

Look at Ed being the negotiator when it comes to situations in Arkham!

*claps*

“Go to hell, Ed.” Thank you!

“Nobody beats me.” Really?

“I [Jim] did. See you never, Ed.” Hahahaha!

There’s the Jim Gordon I know!

“What has no hands but might knock on your door, and you better open up if it does?“ Fate?

“I [Ed] can help you [Hugo] take him [Jim] down.“ You better not!

*One of the inmates tries to lick Ed* EEEWWW!!

*Ed explains to Hugo how he manipulated the other inmates by simply listening to them and what they want* Holy crap, Ed!

This is the Riddler!

“Everyone has a story...” Azrael?

Ed, what did you do?

“We have got to give him [Theo] a great, heroic story.” “We need to give him a good heroic dose of Thorazine, but you're [Hugo] the boss.“ ...Yes.

Uhhh.... is this a good idea??

“Hello?” *in best Hugo Strange voice* It’s me.

WHOA

“Don’t you [Theo] feel a father’s love when I [Hugo] look into your eyes?” *in high pitched voice* NOT REALLY!

“No. No. There is another life. There is a sister, a high tower-” *puts hands on head in shock* Ohhh, he [Theo] remembers Tabitha!

Whoaaa ho ho hoooo... oh my gosshhh...

“This man [Hugo] ordered my parents' death? You're sure?“ Why would Hugo Strange order the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne?

“Bruce, I [Jim] know you're frustrated, but we need to do this the right way.” “The right way? And how many times did that fail with Galavan?“ HOOO!!

“We'll work on Barnes, get him to sign off on a warrant and put Strange away for good. The right way.“ Where are they gonna put Strange if they do arrest him? Blackgate? Probably not Arkham.

Is this immersion therapy [the St. Dumas video Strange is showing Azrael]?

AN: The video actually reminded me of the conversion video from the video game “Outlast” (and no, I’m putting a link of that video in because it is also a trigger video from a disturbing game- a game that I’ve only seen gameplays for and don’t actually plan on playing anytime soon).

“This Dumas character was made a saint, performed a lot of miracles and so forth. And one of the miracles was bringing Azrael back to life.” “I [Miss Peabody] still prefer Thorazine.“ Heeheehee!

What the heck did they do to Theo’s face? Was that from when they re-stitched his face back together after removing the umbrella from the back of his head??

*Ed watches Miss Peabody take Aaron down to Indian Hill* Oooohhh...

Oh my God, is this gonna be how Ed escapes? Please do not follow them!

Yeah, where are they taking Aaron?

Waaait, they’re taking him to Azrael! Oooohhhh...

Oh I like that shot of Ed with the rose-tinted windows behind him.

*Aaron meets Azrael* Oh. Snaaaappp...

“I [Hugo] am crafting your [Azrael’s] armor as we speak, but first, your skills must be tested.“ NOOO, he’s gonna kill Aaron!!

*gasps when Azrael knocks out Aaron with the briefcase*

“Not exactly what I had in mind, but good enough. Try opening the chest, my son.“ Hahahaha...

[It’s like in “Hercules”] “USE YOUR HEAD!” “Riightt...”

Hahaha, this is exactly what happened!

“The Sword of Sin. Your [Azrael’s] ally and instrument of justice, a vanquisher of evil for generations. She thirsts for blood.” How’d they get a sword?

“My lord, I [Azrael] am the Angel of Death. James Gordon dies... tonight.” Hooo!

Why would they [the GCPD] let the press anywhere near the crime scene? That is way too close!

Where is the tape? Where is the line?

“Listen, kid- Mr. Wayne- I [Barnes] don't care how much money or pull you have in this town. I'm through talking to him [Jim].” “Are you through listening to the truth?“ Whooo...

“What are you [Ed] gonna do with all this stuff, anyway?” That’s a good question...

“I think Professor Strange is hiding something. And I think that something is a secret way out of this dump. So I'm gonna use this stuff to find it.“ This is totally like Jim Carrey-level Riddler right here... and I like this better than the actual Jim Carrey Riddler!

I like the Riddler better than Ed. What’s goin’ ON?!?

“[JIm] You self-righteous punk. You think you have all the answers? Maybe you should run it yourself!” “Maybe I will one day.“ HE DOES!

*softly gasps when the precinct lights go out*

“Who’s there?” OH SNAP!

Here’s my question: how did Hugo Strange get all the armor for Azrael?

If this armor’s bulletproof, I swear to God...

WHOA!

Grab his [Azrael’s] cape!

*Azrael leaps out of the precinct* Whoa...

Masked man in a cape- Bruce, do not take any ideas from this for Batman!

“Calls himself Azrael. Wants to kill me [Jim]. We know Hugo Strange is responsible.“ Do you?

“Excuse me, Captain. I [Bruce] find your flippant attitude to be inappropriate.“ Hoo hoo hooo!

“I [Jim] can't make the moves I need to make if I'm worrying about you [Bruce]. You need to be at home, where Alfred can look after you.“ Bruce is like “...no... I’m never liking this. When has there ever been a situation that I liked?”

Whoa! Oswald, what the heck happened to you?

*gasps when Azrael gets flashbacks of his past life*

Whoaaa!

“I'm [JIm] not a cop anymore, remember? I don't need to follow your [Barnes’s] orders.“ No, but you’re a citizen now, technically.

Through the Looking Glass? We’re getting a sneak peek of Mad Hatter this season?

Dutch angle!

If Azrael tries to storm the GCPD to get Jim, I swear to God..

*The lights go out* Oh snap, are you freaking kidding me?

Yeah, that’s freaking him [Azrael]. Hooooly crap.

He’s gonna bust through that window-

*Azrael crashes through the window* Oooohhh!!

Oh he’s [Azrael] gonna do the superhero landing. Wait for it!

Oh he didn’t- THERE WE GO!

*claps* WHOO! Superhero landing!

How do they not recognize Theo’s voice?

*gasps when Azrael butchers one of the cops*

Whoa!

*Barnes knocks Azrael to the ground* Oh, go Barnes!

“We need a bigger gun.” *laughing* Yeah...

You’re gonna have to like nuke him!

Oh yeah, like a freaking pipe [wedged in the door handles] is gonna stop Azrael. When he can literally punch a hole through the door!

[Barnes] Do not go at freaking Azrael WITH A PIPE.

“Let’s dance.” *after a five second pause* Put on your red shoes and dance the blues... let’s sway!

*gasps when Barnes knocks Azrael to the ground* Oh snap!

He’s [Barnes] gonna see his [Azrael’s] face!

*gasps when Azrael stabs Barnes in the knee*

NOOOOO! NOOOO oh my God!

Nooooo!

*Jim comes onto the rooftop* Ohhh snaaaappp...

This better not the end of the freaking episode. I’m gonna riot.

“Come to me [Azrael], and I will show you [Jim] the way to hell.” “I know the way.“ Whoooo....

*Jim manages to shoot Azrael off the rooftop* OooohhhH!

*gasps when Azrael falls on top of the news van*

Nah, no no no no, Barnes ain’t freaking dying nope! We’re not doin’ this.

*Tabitha, Butch, and Barbara go through the TV channels* OH SNAP! They’re gonna see the TV!

What the heck...

“OK, she [Barbara] scares me [Butch].” Heeheehee!

“Do we have any limes?” HAHAHAHA!

Oh my God, Oswald’s gonna go after hiiiimm [Azrael] ...

*counts off with fingers* Wait, so Jim’s going after him, Hugo Strange is going after him, probably Tabitha’s gonna go after him to... teach him his humanity, Bruce is probably gonna go after him....

“Strange must be behind this.” He’s always behind this.

“What the hell is happening to our city?” That’s a very good question, Alfred! You should ask that every single freaking time!

*trying not to laugh* What the heck is this music?

*ends up boogie-ing to music while laughing* This music!

AN: It’s “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover” by Mitch Miller

Is Ed gonna encounter Azrael at the end of this episode? Hoooly snot!

Hiii Indian Hill...

“Oh my.” Oh my, indeed.

That’s a really good shot of Ed in the middle of the aisle

Oooooh, is this Jim’s leitmotif?

*puts hands around mouth* CGI TRANSITION PANNING SHOT!

*Azrael stands on top of the bridge overlooking the city* Oh my God... that’s a freaking Batman pose!

*Azrael brings about the end logo by flourishing his cape* YOOOO!!!

*about ready to lose voice* That was so much Batman! Before we even get Batman! Aaaaahhh ha ha...

*jams out to ending theme*

#azrael #Gotham #FOX #the blogger reacts #looked at the stars and considered a reaction #hugo strange #theo galavan #jim gordon #edward nygma #bruce wayne #batman #nathaniel barnes #SO MUCH BATMAN BEFORE WE EVEN GET BATMAN!#tabitha galavan #oswald copplepot

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junker-town · 4 years

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How Obi Toppin went from overlooked recruit to NBA draft lottery pick

This is how Toppin went from recruiting afterthought to national player of the year and a future lottery pick at Dayton.

Obi Toppin pinpoints a man in the lower bowl wearing a Dayton jersey minutes before tip-off during a December game against Saint Mary’s. The two make eye contact and appear to be the only people in the building who know what’s coming next. Toppin jogs toward the hoop and throws down an achingly beautiful windmill dunk, with levitation and fury unfurled in equal parts. The crowd explodes, as does teammate Jalen Crutcher, who sarcastically celebrates next to his superstar teammate.

Toppin is ready. He opens the game with a block at the rim after switching onto Saint Mary’s standout Jordan Ford. The transition dunks pile up. The Gaels are one of the best teams Dayton will face all year, but they are no match for the Flyers’ high-powered offensive attack. Toppin finishes with 16 points and six rebounds on the way to a 78-68 win that pushes Dayton to 7-1 on the season. The school that received just one vote in the preseason AP top 25 is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest stories in college basketball.

Toppin’s rise has just begun.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Toppin came across as just another New York teenager with a basketball jones. He didn’t play in the AAU circuit and didn’t dunk until he was a senior in high school. No national recruiting service ranked him coming out of high school. A family connection might have been the only way anyone was going to see him. A friendship between Toppin’s godfather and Rodrick Harrison, the head coach of the Baltimore prep school Mt. Zion, brought Harrison to New York to watch Toppin play.

Harrison saw Division I talent, despite how raw Toppin was. He also saw a hunger in Toppin to prove himself in a crowded field of recruits with bigger names.

“You can find any 6’4 kid around the city, maybe 1,000 of them if you look hard enough, so he wasn’t sought after,” Harrison says.

Not only was Toppin behind because he didn’t gain the experience of competing against great players, he didn’t get the same exposure as other kids. Toppin desperately wanted to understand how he could distinguish himself.

“He had boundaries around him and it humbled him,” Harrison says.

Most top NBA Draft prospects never consider prep school — they’re given scholarship offers by the time they’re able to drive. Toppin took the long road. He was never ranked by any of the major recruiting services, and only started to come on after the early signing period. The eight scholarship offers made to Toppin were viewed simply as a means to add some upside depth late in the recruiting process when supply is lower than demand.

But after growing four to five inches and gaining 20 pounds from his junior year of high school through the end of prep school, Toppin signed with Dayton and coach Anthony Grant. Knowing academic ineligibility was looming, Toppin focused during his redshirt year on readying teammates as part of the scout team in practice, measuring himself up against the players on opposing teams he was imitating. At the end of the season, Toppin received the Dayton Spirit Award. Grant believes it was the first time the honor was ever awarded to an inactive player.

Former Dayton star Josh Cunningham, now with the Westchester Knicks of the G League, remembers how tireless Toppin was, even then. “When I was around, he was really one of those people who attacked every practice, every workout, every lift session, every conditioning session, he really got after it,” he says.

Toppin went on to set the Dayton freshman scoring record and immediately turn NBA scouts’ heads. Though he appreciated the feedback he got from teams as he tested the waters that offseason, he knew he’d have a starting spot waiting for him at Dayton, and never really expected to leave school before his redshirt sophomore year.

NBA evaluators had a lot of praise for Toppin, noting how Grant’s system helped him show skills — such as three-point shooting and defensive versatility — that they would need from him at the next level. Toppin took what they said and brought it back to his team.

“My whole motive was to go to these workouts, get a lot of feedback to bring back here to school and help myself and help my teammates with what it takes to play at the next level,” Toppin says.

He did more than help. On his way to winning the national player of the year award, Toppin turned in one of the most dominant individual season in recent memory. He finished in the 99th percentile of points per possession throughout college basketball and had a sky-high 68.4 true shooting percentage. Thanks in large part to Toppin’s growth as a shot creator, Dayton had the country’s No. 2 offense and was poised to enter the NCAA tournament as a No. 1 seed before the coronavirus pandemic canceled it.

Though Toppin led Dayton’s improvement, the sophomore is undoubtedly a product of the program around him, the head coach atop it, and the teammates that unlocked his special style.

Take, for example, Toppin’s jumper. Sensing the versatility inherent in Toppin’s physique and skill level as a teen, Harrison pushed him hard to become a better shooter all the way back at Mt. Zion. They would take sets of 1,000 shots and practice the rhythms of spacing the floor.

“He may have looked at me like I was crazy a couple times, but he never ran from it,” Harrison says. “That’s why he is who he is now. Once he trusts you, he’s going to do anything for you.”

Toppin knows the total number of threes he took as a freshman (21) off the top of his head. It was one of the main things he heard from NBA evaluators last summer, so he knew he would have to increase his volume and comfort level from deep. Teams wanted him to be less streaky. Toppin responded by tripling his attempts from 2018-19 and nailing a solid 36.2 percent. He made at least one triple in 19 of Dayton’s 26 games.

“I just stay true to what the coaches ask me to do and what’s best for our team, and I think that’s why they have so much trust in me and why I’ve been shooting a lot more threes,” Toppin says.

Few coaches in the league, however, would have the gall to start Toppin and Ryan Mikesell in the frontcourt. Grant says he believed the reward of playing small would outweigh the risk on defense. In Toppin, he found the perfect happy warrior to pull it off, with the right dose of offensive versatility.

The threat of Toppin’s jumper turned the pick and pop into a devastating weapon for Dayton. With Toppin slipping the screen, defenses didn’t know if he would pop out for a three, roll to the rim, or settle into the post. With an improved handle and incredible passing vision, he became a threat to create a high-efficiency shot in any situation. Everything flowed from the rim, where Toppin shot 82 percent this season.

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The threat of a Toppin dunk comes in every area of the game. Because of how well Dayton moved the ball, Toppin could trust that when he gave it up, there was always a strong chance the ball would find its way back to him.

When there wasn’t an immediate opening, Toppin was perhaps even more comfortable settling into the post, where nearly a quarter of his possessions ended this season. Toppin’s ability to keep his dribble and spray passes around the floor from inside was key to making Grant’s small-ball dreams come alive.

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“I’m always going to trade up a hard shot for a better shot,” Toppin says. “The game started to slow down for me, and my teammates and coaches started talking to me, that with the recognition that I’m getting, the way I roll to the post, the athleticism that I have, the amount of attention that’s gonna come toward me if they double-team or triple-team me in the post, there’s always going to be someone open.”

The veteran experience at Dayton also helped. All five starters had been at the school for at least three years. That cohesiveness allowed them to improve dramatically on defense over the course of the season, though this is the area in which Toppin still needs the most work. One NBA scout who saw Toppin in-person this year believes the defense is a big enough question to negate his positional versatility.

While Toppin’s mobility is above-average compared with most college forwards, he still gets blown by on the perimeter in Dayton’s switch-heavy scheme. Though Grant’s unique Dayton scheme suited Toppin well, he was equally challenged by it, asked to play on the perimeter more than nearly any college big. Without a traditional rim protector among their core rotation, Toppin was relied upon to contain dribble drives off switches, and the results weren’t always pretty.

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Because of a high center of gravity that limits his shiftiness, it will be difficult for Toppin to negotiate the NBA’s favorite action, the pick and roll, as a traditional big man defender. So in the pros, teams still should take advantage of his length and athleticism (and an “intangible ability to react” as former Dayton assistant Donnie Jones calls it) on switches. Coaches may be picking between the lesser of evils when deploying Toppin defensively. It’s not as if he’s a terrible perimeter defender. In many situations, his length and athleticism have helped him contain ball-handlers and contest their shots — it just takes more effort for him than most.

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Toppin exclusively played center in college, but he might not have the size and defensive instincts to hold down that position in the NBA. He may have to be a swing big man who can play either spot depending on which look his coach wants to give — a “prototypical 4” according to Jones, who also spent time as a scout for the Clippers.

Some have compared Toppin to Atlanta’s John Collins, another tweener big man with enough size and offensive versatility to merit some minutes at center. Toppin could be more consistent as weak-side rim protector and learn to move better on defense, but he’s shown enough flashes for their to be belief in his ability to improve in these departments. The onus falls on Toppin to work on his body, earn coaches’ trust and demand the chance to prove himself. If there’s anything he’s succeed at with Dayton, it’s that.

Since before the NBA was even a dream, Toppin has worked tirelessly. Now, he’s a near lock to be a top-10 pick. Through it all, he has maintained the humility of a player who had been overlooked all his life.

“His continued effort to stay humble in spite of our team success will only make us better,” Grant says. “I’ve had the experience of 30 years in this game, and I’ve seen guys who sometimes get accolades and when they get to certain positions, it becomes hard to accept when adversity hits or when challenges come your way, so I try to stay real.”

Toppin’s focus is on the day-by-day grind just as it was when he was on the scout team, prepping guys like Cunningham for the next matchup. Now that the college season is over, and he’s officially declared for the NBA Draft, college basketball’s best player and most pleasant surprise is onto the next phase of his career.

“I’m not the person who focuses on a next-year thing,” Toppin says. “I’m always worried about the next day because tomorrow’s never guaranteed to anybody.”

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topicprinter · 4 years

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There are many good reasons for me to try to keep the backstory short and sweet, so at least for now I will try to spare the juicy gory details. I will make a compromise: if you are interested in more anonymized backstory, feel free to PM me if you're curious. Edit: I've utterly failed to keep it short. Hopefully, it's a little entertaining though?I am the former software engineer of a tech company which brought software and hardware solutions to market. I developed software systems while my cofounder provided customized hardware configurations. I'm being conspicuously vague here, sorry about that. I am also using male pronouns for all parties involved to protect their identities.Everything started off on the wrong foot with my cofounders. There were two of us first at around 5 years prior to series A; we self-funded our own experiments and projects, and eventually the business person came in 3.5 or so years prior to achieving series A. They helped us get more traction within the industry.What held the company together and kept us working initially was a common understanding that we were onto something big.In hindsight, the rest of the often intangible stuff that is essential to a healthy startup were quite missing. My relationship with my original cofounder had begun to sour by the time it was 2 years prior to series A.This took place for many different reasons. One of them was because at that time I had begun to dedicate somewhat less of my time to the project while returned to being gainfully employed in a full time job. Side note, until the series A event I was not paid. Indeed the third cofounder was able to raise small amounts of funding prior to the series A, but I never got a cent of it. That's not a sticking point for me anyway, but worth noting.It's also worth noting that this by itself should not necessarily directly contribute to the conflict that I had with my first cofounder. What he took issue with was that the project was his baby and I was not producing as much work for him as he had come to expect. I have not become a parent yet, but I'd imagine that the emotion is similar to that of quarreling parents in this case.A common back-and-forth talking point between myself and the first cofounder that took place was the argument from him that "I work 18 hour days to make this happen, why are you always being dismissive". I'm really not trying to misrepresent things, and I'm leaving out many instances where hostilities would flame over and vulgarities exchanged. Nobody wins in these exchanges. But this is how things were.Moving onward to around the timeline of the impending series A now, the tensions and frictions remain, they have not been addressed to any effective degree, and negotiations with the prospective investor have taken place without my involvement (although I was aware of it because my cofounders had no reason to shield me from their excitement).This timing was pretty interesting for me. This point in time was about one month after the other company that i had been working for (that I mentioned above) had failed rather spectacularly. Being a core developer there, I was already attuned to what successful startup companies really need to have in order to survive long-term: the team that I was on had all the trust and the cameraderie to make the workplace exciting, engaging, and vital, and it had the best talent we could hope for. But the market did not respond as we had hoped and the company folded. So it goes.What I had on my hands then, at the time of series A, with this vividly in my rearview mirror, was a nightmare by comparison that involved no trust, nothing to hold us together other than perhaps a healthy dose of avarice. This venture was cursed. I may not have understood it as much as I needed to at the time, but I suppose that I understand it now better than most anybody would.My choices were pretty clear and my cofounders more or less spelled it out for me. The deal was contingent on my staying on board. If I walk, the deal would fall through. I could bid for more equity or more cash. I knew, given the nature of the relationship with the first cofounder, it did not matter that my part time work was the very reason for the deal in the first place, it did not matter that I stuck with it for more than five years through countless iterations of prototypes and products to bring us to that point, nor was there any possible means to demonstrate to him (beyond what was plain to see in abundant supply) that my material contribution to the company eclipsed his to an embarrassing proportion... my choices were to take a competitive salary and get a pitiful share of equity, or take a slightly less pitiful share of equity and a living wage. I went with the former.I know that I've written far too much already. But I've come this far with it, so I need to finish it. I've provided enough painful backstory to get the point across for the genesis of all the discord. I knew in the back of my mind that the next year or two I signed up for would be painful, awkward, and that I would learn from them. So that is how I justified agreeing to it instead of walking away like I wanted to. The series A deal was a mid-single digit million amount.The next year went predictably, at least in hindsight. I was sidelined in business decisions, but I enabled the transition of the core software business to a third party development shop, who predictably were friendly and professional, and whom I thoroughly enjoyed working with. The money we raised was spent to enable removing me from the company rather than to allow me to set any direction for new innovations, and after the one year vesting cliff I was happy to remove myself from the company, and what I earned was a small fraction (1e-2 magnitude) of this company (actual shares, not options).Ever since the series A event, my fellow cofounders had been at each other's throats. They both have the lion's share of stock, at least the stock that controls the board seats, which appoint the CEO. I'll spare the specifics of the drama that has continued to take place. Musical chairs wouldn't be a poor comparison to make.For my part, I just try to do the right thing, and I think that the biggest struggle of mine is in reconciling how my well-intentioned and apparently negligent actions or lack thereof has been able to produce so much suffering.The first cofounder (now months after his ouster as a short lived member of the board) wants to buy my shares and has solicited me with an offer for cash. It is absolutely the case that with my shares he can and intends to take over the company, as he has been vying to do for the past year.My stock agreement contains a right of first refusal clause, which I understand to mean that the company can always intercept the deal to take my shares instead. It should follow, then, at least in theory, that the company (second cofounder is CEO) should not be at risk of a takeover. However it is not clear what the order of events would be, which I seem to require in order to do a bit of chess playing. If indeed the ROFR prevents my ability to directly sell my shares to facilitate first cofounder's hostile takeover, as far as I can tell, I could join forces with him to use the voting rights as shareholders to reorganize the board of directors to achieve the same. Ostensibly this gives me a disproportionate amount of control over the company, a situation that I find rather ironic.I'm motivated by a desire to leave this company behind me so that I can continue to create value for myself and my family, and in the short term, my current employer. I have done a lot of soul-searching and I have no reason to back one of these bitterly opposed parties over the other. What I did eventually realize, however, is that both of these groups share a consistent history of whatever the politically-correct phrase is for screwing me over and having their way with me.I'm not driven foremost by retribution, although I must admit that I want to teach a few lessons if I still can. Although backing cofounder #1 would be the wrong choice (given his overall ineptitude when it comes to leadership) it would allow for some (perhaps disproportionate) justice served to cofounder #2.That interesting thought experiment aside, my actual question is, how does the strategy work here? I'm sure that it comes down to lawyers interpreting our contracts, but I am hoping someone could shed some light on what the practical implications of the ROFR are.Rather than explicitly back one group over the other I'd prefer to auction my shares in order to selfishly make the best out of this situation for myself.The other valid option is to ignore the offer and hold onto my shares to sell later presumably alongside series B, as I'm currently mildly optimistic about cofounder #2's ability to execute on it now that he has managed to begin improving the relationship with the A-round investor.I also do not know if it is prudent at this time for me to retain a lawyer. It's a big bill for me if no deal comes out of it.Thank you for reading.

#/r/startups #reddit

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mrwilliamcharley · 5 years

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Bamboo Bass Festival 2019 was an Indelible Year of Growth & Discovery

Living in the Pacific Northwest often means not having to travel far for bass music events. After making the pilgrimage in 2018, however, I determined that Bamboo Bass Festival is well-worth the journey. Bamboo Bass essentially takes the best in Western Canadian vibes and West Coast Bass music and drops them square in the Costa Rican wilderness, in turn creating an oasis of open-hearted individuals, amazing energy, and expertly curated music in a breathtaking tropical setting.

Photo Credit: Banana Cam

This was a pivotal year for Bamboo as they took major strides toward investing in the future and creating more permanent infrastructure. As a result, many notable changes were made, making this event felt more like an established festival rather than a flashy jungle renegade. There were significant improvements made to production, sound, festival layout, and most notably a brand new location.

With a new venue, the usual two-stage setup allowed for so much more space at either stage. La Brisa had the same beautiful setup as 2018, a geometric sunburst of abutting double arches, with illuminated fin-like wings on either side. Though the projector was a bit unfortunately positioned, beaming on people dancing at center stage, the beautiful mapped visuals added more color, depth and vibrance.

This year, La Selva was redesigned by the talented Reliquarium and had a completely new, jaw-droppingly awesome look. Giant beams of criss-crossed bamboo stems supported a 3-dimensional design comprised of multi-segmented woodcuttings that together looked like a psychedelic mecha-cicada. The stage was also endowed with insanely intricate visuals that breathed life into the insectoid facade. Bamboo’s multi-year deal with The Reliquarium is intended to bring to a new ever-morphing design each successive year. These changes I personally cannot wait to witness.

Photo Credit: Banana Cam

Bamboo changed up its sound game from the usual all-PK setup. Instead, it was a PK / Funktion One hybrid situation where La Brisa was all Funktions, and La Selva had Funktion One speakers and PK subs. The setup delivered an all-around remarkably powerful sound with PK’s seismic lows, and crisp, punchy mids and highs from the Funktion Ones.

Bamboo Bass’s musical platform is deeply rooted in bass music, and bringing the best in West Coast bass is something at which they particularly exceed. But Bamboo’s curators are also aware that talent exists beyond the bass. As such, the artist lineup featured a healthy variety of styles. There was a little bit of something for everyone on the spectrum of dub, house, drum and bass, downtempo, and breaks.

I did miss the filling of funk and glitch hop we got last year, when more Fractal Forest artists had been booked (bring Featurecast to Bamboo 2020!). However, I was most excited for the return of my Bamboo must-see Funka, a local artist from Costa Rica’s capital who I didn’t know before Bamboo 2018, and whose set that year completely blew my mind. And he really stepped it up, singing his own vocals and shredding the electric guitar to a set that started off old school funky fresh, before descending deep into the rabbit hole of heady psybass.

Photo Credit: BEEDEE

Among my most notable artist discoveries this year were Beat Kitty, during whose set I wanted to leave to get food, but from which I legitimately could not pull myself away, and Distinct who filled my soul with my favorite brand of fast, heavy fast drum and bass. Ahee was the very first artist we caught upon entering the venue, and his is upbeat style of deep and dark, to uptempo alien bass breaks was a most awesome way to kick off the festival.

I personally can’t do overly uplifting music, but Pineo & Loeb‘s set was just the right amount of glee I can take in a single sitting without feeling queasy. It was an all-around jubilant time, with both artists up on stage having the time of their lives, and us down below moving without a care in the world.

I can’t go without mentioning JVMPKICKS, who absolutely threw down for two full hours, as well as the obligatory Sleeveless Records showcase on Sunday night which involved six-plus hours of dark, heavy West Coast Bass. Zeke Beats was a new addition this year, who opened the gates to the netherworld. JLEON is a must-see at any festival, who changed it up from the usual deep dub to a hefty, and most welcome, dose of DnB. Finally, as we were rounding up the crew for the last time, I was entrapped by SuDs at La Brisa, the last artist I caught.

Photo Credit: BEEDEE

The most profound change Bamboo experienced this year was its location, which alone created all new excitements and challenges. There were certain aspects I liked about the new venue, and some I missed from the old. One thing I distinctly missed about Jaco Ropes was the dense tropical foliage. Massive leaves hanging from every direction gave it a much more jungly feel, while the flora of the new venue consisted more of an open, dry forest. The Park at Ocean Range, however, is a significantly larger venue which allows for endless possibilities. Most importantly, it gives more room for the festival to grow, with more areas to rest, frolic, move, and explore. That said, the larger space is still a very manageable size from an attendee perspective.

The wider space was utilized for installments at either stage, including art panels, installations, and platforms built around towering trees at both stages, with ample space to sit back or perch high for better views.The walk between stages was about three minutes through a dirt trail graciously illuminated with string lights. A relatively short distance, but enough to minimize sound bleed and a distinctly longer walk than last year’s. Between either stage was frolic zone of interactive art installations that included a tattered pirate ship, waterfall of projected visuals, and countless panels of street art. It was a solid place to hang out, wander around, or get lost in the sauce.

Perched on a hill overlooking La Brisa was an eating area with a covered patio, where guests could purchase food and drinks, or sit and check out the view. The sound coming from La Brisa was surprisingly crisp from up there, and it was a cozy spot to look out at the stage, whilst sitting in a chair swing with an ice cold drink. There were complaints, however, that having only one food vendor led to long wait times for food, which was definitely the case at certain points in the night. Overall, though, it was a really nice space, and hopefully they can put in more food vendors alleviate overcrowding.

Photo Credit: BEEDEE

One significant challenge the new venue presented was transportation, since The Park at Ocean Ranch is much further out of town. Jaco Ropes was just off the main highway at the edge of town, easily accessible by taxi and even walkable to certain locations. The Park at Ocean Ranch, however, was about a 20 minute drive out of Jaco, at the end of a treacherous dirt road. Not a place where taxis would organically appear, and not at all easy to walk back to civilization. What’s more, only one member of our nine-person crew had cell service in the venue, so calling an Uber wasn’t an easy option. Ultimately, getting back home took more strategizing than expected.

The festival provided shuttle services for a small fee, but the shuttles were relatively few and far between, and fairly small for the necessary capacity. The reason our crew easily made it home each night was by way of the cab driver who brought us on the first night. We obtained his phone number and negotiated a rate to take us to and from the festival each day thereafter. Unless the festival hires more shuttles in future years, I figure the most reliable way to get to and from the venue might be to rent your own vehicle or hire your own driver.

Photo Credit: BEEDEE

Moving to a new venue presented new growing pains that any young festival might face. Being set in a foreign country exacerbated some of these challenges. Among these complications was the festival gates being delayed on the first two days. It was never quite clear to me exactly what was going on, and a lot of misinformation and rumors began to spread.Though much of it was beyond the festival’s control, I believe more specificity and transparency could have been offered on the festival’s part.

I don’t want to continue spreading misinformation, and want to be clear that I still don’t know precisely what went down. But I do know that a permit issue, which was later resolved, caused doors to open late on the second day. In addition, I was told that the local police had set up a checkpoint for a brief period of time just outside of Jaco, a common occurrence in Costa Rica, but which left some festival-goers a bit shaken up.

There was also some tension between the harm reduction team, Karmik, and administrators of Bamboo, which resulted in Karmik’s absence for the final two days of the event. I cannot reasonably say more about this since I do not know the details.However, many indignant comments arose in response to these circumstances, which I found extremely arrogant and out of line. Ultimately, Bamboo Bass is set in a foreign country. Being a Canadian run event, many in attendance are naturally accustomed to the luxuries of Canadian festivals. But it’s downright foolish to assume the same expectations of a large-scale event hosted in Central America. Costa Rica isn’t Canada. This must be respected. Be smart, be safe, be flexible, watch out for your crew, act appropriately, and enjoy the setting.

Photo Credit: Banana Cam

The growing pains of Bamboo 2019 surely resulted in trying experiences for some festival staff and attendees. But in the end, my crew and I had an absolute blast. Some food for thought, even if you’re not having the best time at the festival, you’re still in Costa Rica!

Bamboo Bass Festival is a colorful multicultural landscape of art, music, and good vibes. It’s among the most inclusive festivals I’ve attended, where everyone from around the globe has a home. It feels, in some ways, like a microcosm of the country in which it’s set: an exotic escape from the norm in which everyone is welcome. I personally intend to keep coming back, and I am quite excited to keep watching this festival continue to evolve.

Bamboo Bass Festival

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massthetics-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on MASSthetics

New Post has been published on http://massthetics.net/lessons-from-greece/

The Wandering Meathead – 6 Lessons From Greece

Greece is a neat place.

For this meathead who hails from the great land of Canadia, but has olive oil in his veins, Greece felt like home in many respects.

I mean, my middle name is ‘Trikeriotis.”

It would seem that after nearly a month of being back in the great land of Canadia, now is as good a time as any to share a few insights from my Grecian experiences.

To be blunt, spending 3 months in Greece was arguably one of the most transformative periods of my life. Personally, in terms of business, and with regard to the sweet sanctitude of #themgains, as well. Honestly, I’m still coming to terms with much of the goings-on from Greece (and I expect I will be for a while longer).

But, (this was learned in Greece), I’ve found that simply letting my thoughts wander, and letting words mark where they please is as good a way as any to start sharing a story.

So let’s go.

On a personal note.

Lesson #1. Being able to question why you feel things is incredibly powerful.

This one is straight from Mark Manson’s bestselling book, The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck (I read it four or five times while I was in Greece).

If you’re trying to get to the root of some existential problem, practicing and learning to ask yourself “why” until it becomes painful and uncomfortable is a great place to start. The digger you deep, the more uncomfortable it gets, the more effective this exercise becomes.

Don’t be turned off if you try questioning yourself a few times, and don’t have much luck. This is a process that will often take 4-5 “whys” before you get to the root of the problem.

And getting down to those innermost “whys…”

To do so is not easy. It takes time, practice, and mental fortitude to be able to go that deep.

But I’ll be damned if it’s not worth every bit of effort.

Lesson #2. Being comfortable being alone is rare, and a necessity.

There is value (and power) lying within the ability to be comfortable on your own.

I’m not talking about just taking a day here and there to binge on Netflix, eat cinnamon toast crunch, and snort chunky protein shakes. I’m talking about days on end with limited (face to face) interaction with anyone other than yourself. There were many strings of days where aside from a few broken Greek/English conversations at the cafe I went to in the mornings, I was entirely on my own.

While awkward, hilted, and strange at first, it’s a funny thing that happens as you adapt to being in an environment where you can’t communicate with anyone, and alone for a large part of each day.

You learn to be unequivocally content with who you are, and comfortable in your own skin.

You learn to not rely on anyone else for your happiness (this is huge).

And that I believe, is a major win.

Off day from training today, so I took a drive to ponder anything and everything. • I sat and stared out at this average view while listening to Latin music and taking notes on what I need to do to push MASSthetics ahead. As Ice Cube would say, "today was a good day." #thethickening #thewanderingmeathead #views

A photo posted by MASSthetics (@alexmullan13) on Oct 19, 2016 at 9:06am PDT

As it relates to business.

Lesson #3. You don’t need to work all day to move forward.

Living in Greece for 3 months was great for business, and not just from a financial standpoint.

More to the point, I was forced into having a semblance of work/life balance integration that didn’t have me glued to my laptop all day for the first time in a long, long time.

I’ve gotta say…it was really fucking pleasant.

Not having wifi at home and only limited data on my cell, was one of the greatest blessings in disguise.

Ever.

Being devoid of the internet almost everywhere I spent time, this meant I was limited to 4-5 hours of internet connectivity per day, depending on how often I wanted to go to cafes. Which aside from drastically condensing my work days, also left me no choice but to work when I was at a cafe. Truthfully, much, much more was done in far less time, and still moved MASSthetics forward.

Which reminds me of Parkinson’s Law – the time to complete a task will expand to fit the time allotted – and has served a reminder to build a similar structure into my life in Canadia.

Because not only is placing limits and restrictions on yourself a great way to get shit done, but it also frees up a large chunk of your life.

To, you know, enjoy life.

And get wicked arm pumps.

Lesson #4. Building something takes time. You can only force things so much.

Building MASSthetics over the past just-under-a-year has truly been a lesson in patience, knowing when to forge onward, or kickback and regroup (kinda like bodybuilding…weird).

I do know that the only thing I know for sure, is that I have no clue what I’m doing, and that building anything takes time. Whether it’s your body, a business, or simply your life, it all takes time.

Reps upon reps. Day after day. Month after month.

On that note, it’s easy to get distracted by bright and shiny tactical shortcuts that promise you all of the results. But, just as imbibing yourself with fat burners won’t actually help you burn much fat, bright and shiny business tactics won’t do nearly as much for you as staying true to principles that helped you get off the ground in the first place (or in the case of fat loss, dialling in your nutrition and training).

At some point, whether you’re in a foreign country or your parents basement, you truly do need to trust the process and let things run their course.

Ancient wisdom from the streets of #Greece. Relevant to, well, practically everything. #thethickening #thewanderingmeathead

A photo posted by MASSthetics (@alexmullan13) on Nov 23, 2016 at 11:29am PST

You can’t take the meathead outta me.

Lesson #5. No matter where you are, many people in the gym just want to look good.

Despite wanting to travel, training is a non-negotiable for me. Not only is it nice to have a small dose of familiarity when setting up in a new country, but I truly love training, and can’t see a world where that doesn’t happen.

There’s another constant that I’ve seen hold true through gyms in different locations.

The desire to improve one’s physical attraction and/or appearance transcends location, culture, and language.

Having now trained in gyms across Canada, ‘Murica, The Dominican Repubilc, and Greece, it’s clear that people across the world share a similar desire. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Honestly, I find it fascinating that despite cultures, languages and histories being wildly different, gyms are “a thing” all over the world.

Furthermore, you can bond with people through this desire. I befriended a fellow Greek meathead (partially because he spoke a bit of english), and it was entirely due to a shared love of training hard.

Which is pretty cool if you ask me.

On the eve of leaving Greece, I found this. Better posing, a warmer toque, improved facial hair, and an added 25-30lbs on the scale. # A solid 4 months of work between these pictures. I can't wait to see what 2 more does before diving into prep for nationals. #thethickening #thewanderingmeathead #eliteFTS

A photo posted by MASSthetics (@alexmullan13) on Jan 8, 2017 at 10:25am PST

Lesson #6. Consistency is everything.

I’ve been preaching this for as long as I can remember now.

This is my answer to “what’s your secret?”

This is my answer to “why aren’t I making progress?”

This is my answer to “what more can I do?”

Consistency is everything…

(…and excuses are to be non-existent).

From what I’ve seen, the most successful (in any arena) make no excuses, and pull no punches. You won’t hear them complaining about early wake-ups, struggling to eat enough protein, or wondering how to make it to the gym.

They just do.

Consistency is key. Consistency is king. Consistency is everything.

And so it.

A micro-version of lessons learned from The Wandering Meathead’s adventure in Greece.

PS. 4 out of 5 lifters will let their rationalization hamster run wild. Building no muscle, burning no fat. The 5th lifter joined the MASSthetics Clan and put the information within the (free) Hypertrophy Handbook to good use. Problem solved. Click here to become the 5th lifter, and let me know where to send the prestigious Hypertrophy Handbook.

#Lifestyle #MASSthetics #Travel

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