#we started our Our Traveling Home campaign and I am already filled with so much emotion for these characters

[liesonthefloordramatically]

Half awake I wander through this house Lost in a labyrinth and left with no way out I built this hall of mirrors all myself Faces staring back at me look like somebody else

#今日の気分は #*inhales* thinking about..................................THEM (Ferron and Stanza) #we started our Our Traveling Home campaign and I am already filled with so much emotion for these characters #also all of us are leaning HARD into themes around embodiment and self-image and Bein' Perceived ;w; #music #The Arcadian Wild

[oumaheroes]

Earthbound: Ludwig’s Story

Characters: Germany, Prussia

Context:

Hundreds of years after the fall of Earth, mankind is slowly starting to return. Some people have a stronger urge to return than others, confused by fragments of memories from a life already lived.

Arthur’s story can be found here. 

Matthew’s story can be found here.

Gabriel’s story can be found here.

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

Ludwig is six, and is sick again. The doctors don't know what's wrong with him; they know what's causing it at least but they have no idea why. He can't keep food down and every time he tries to stand the world pitches and swims and he can't keep his balance so he never manages to stay up for long before he bonelessly falls to the floor, where he feels no better.

It's the gravity, the doctors say, for some reason he's affected by the gravity. The artificial gravity that he's known all his life; it's as if he's just climbed aboard and his body suffers from relapses where it just can't acclimatise. Where it suddenly realises that something's not quite right and rebels against him for a week or so. This his family already knows, but his mother isn't satisfied with such a lacklustre answer so she takes him to a different doctor every time he suffers another attack just in case one of them is even marginally more competent than the last. These 'episodes', as his mother likes to call them, don't happen all that often, but he seems to have one every ten months or so and they are regular enough to annoy his mother to no end. Ludwig doesn't really know if she's annoyed that no one can fix him or with him himself, Gilbert won't say and normally his big brother talks to pretend that he knows something so his silence worries Ludwig the most.

Mother is a very important person with a very important job: she's a governor of the space station upon which they live and it is very important that Ludwig remembers this. So, when he's laying in bed clutching at his belly and desperately clenching his eyes shut to minimise the swaying, his friends at school think that he is away for a special training academy. Because can you just imagine, the governor of a space station's son being space sick?

His father doesn't like to call it that because he thinks it's degrading so his mother doesn't, when she thinks Ludwig can't hear, anyway, but Ludwig knows that's what the kids at school would say so he happily keeps mum because it's easier than lying. They don't talk to him much besides, they find him too cold and distant but that's because he's so scared of disgracing his mother further that he can't quite relax fully.

When Ludwig is thirteen his mother, after exhausting all doctors aboard their large floating colony, finally accepts that it's unlikely that this small problem of his is going to go away. Her way of dealing with it is to pretend that it just doesn't happen; during an attack Ludwig is sent to his room where he stays painfully alone with only his books for company whilst she busies herself with her new campaigns. She's running for director now, aiming as high as she can go and there's no room for weak, feeble Ludwig all the way up there.

His brother tries his best to keep him entertained and happy during these times, but Gilbert is healthy, strong, smart; he's everything that Ludwig should also be able to grow up to be and their parents have sent him off to expensive schools which means that he's more often away from home than not. Sometimes Ludwig wonders if they've sent him away because they want Gilbert to be the all around best he can be, or if it's to distance him as much as they can from Ludwig. It's almost as if they're worried that Ludwig will taint him, or that maybe Gilbert will grow too attached to him and distract himself from what's really important. That Ludwig will anchor him down.

At five years older it's highly unlikely that Ludwig will be the one doing the influencing, but his brother, despite hardly seeing each other and such a large age difference, does seem to genuinely care for him. During one particular attack, when Ludwig is eighteen, Gilbert is home from university; it is almost Christmas and his family are preparing to travel to where his grandparents live on the other side of the space station, where they'll spend the holiday. Of course, it is now that his body decides to betray him.

He, his parents, and his brother are gathered around the large dining room table finishing off dinner. It is tense. Mostly it is Gilbert who talks because despite their mother's cool demeanour and their father's lack of interest he seems to always have something to say to fill the silence and speaks easily. Even with the response he gets, or lack of it, he seems honestly unperturbed and remains cheerful, somehow managing to both eat and speak without seeming impolite. As much as he loves his brother, Ludwig is also supremely jealous.

He stares at his fork, contemplating which point in the evening would be best to ask if he could slip away, when his body decides for him. His stomach swoops, his ears pop and the table tilts alarmingly. He clenches the edge in panic to remain upright and the noise alerts his mother, who looks up from her dessert in irritation.

'Ludwig, we are going away tomorrow.'

'M- mother-'

His mother sighs and looks at his father, who sharply stares back. 'Dear?'

His father grunts and spears another forkful of fruit pie. 'They're expecting him to come.'

'But the photographers-'

'What do you want me to do, Hilda?'

Meanwhile, Ludwig has still not been dismissed and cannot now seem to find the words to ask for permission himself without spewing all over the fancy silverware. He doubts that that will make the situation better, somehow. Gilbert notices and stands, attracting his parents' attention.

'I'll take Luddy to his room.'

'Darling...' their mother tries to say something, but it's what she's trying not to say that comes across the loudest.

Gilbert ignores her and walks around the table, slowly helping Ludwig to his feet, then away from the table and swiftly towards a bathroom. They make it just in time. Gilbert pats him comfortingly on the back and rubs soothing circles into his shoulders until he's finished, then hands him a glass of water.

'So, they're still arseholes, huh?'

Ludwig snaps his head up in horror, but this is a bad idea because the image of Gilbert swims before him and he has to shut his eyes.

'Don't call them that.' He finally manages, weakly.

Gilbert tuts. 'What the fuck did they feed you with in order to churn your personality out.'

Ludwig lays his head on the cool tiles of the floor and groans inwardly at how nice the feeling is. 'They're not arseholes.'

'Yeah, and my name's Shirley.'

Ludwig cracks open an eye, but Gilbert's not joking. He is, for once, deadly serious. 'How'd you put up with them Lud?'

Ludwig shrugs and gives a small shake of his head. 'They're our parents, Gil. They still care for me. Besides, I'm not exactly making it easy for them.'

Gilbert looks disgusted. 'You're their fucking son, arsehole. They're supposed to take care of you. They ain't even doing that right are they?' Gilbert runs a hand through his shock of white hair and bits his bottom lip whilst he shakes his head. 'Look at how they treat you versus me.'

'Yes, but I'm not exactly-'

'But nothing!' Gilbert raises his voice slightly and swallows. When he speaks again, he's much quieter, back under control. 'Have they got you in a university programme yet?'

Ludwig's silence is answer enough and Gilbert sighs deeply before brushing back Ludwig's sweaty fringe. 'There's nothing wrong with you Lud.' His brother sounds so very sad. 'Fuck, there's nothing wrong with you at all. They know full well that if they put you on a planet rather than this floating heap of rust that you'll probably be alright. And have they? Have they fuck.'

Ludwig wants to argue against him, wants to say something to stand up for himself if not for their parents but his eyes are suddenly burning and his throat is choked up. He knew a long time ago that his parents had given up on him, but to hear it from someone else hurts more sharply than anything he tells himself.

There's an odd companionable silence for a while; Ludwig lays still with his face against the floor and his brother's hand carding through his hair so he almost misses what Gilbert says next.

'I was gonna wait till Boxing Day, but I've got us tickets for Earth.'

Ludwig tenses and holds his breath. Gilbert continues. 'I was gonna wake you up on the 26th and take you away with me, but I want to tell you now instead, cause you look like shit. We're gonna get out of here Luddy; I've always wanted to take you to a planet and what better one is there than the original, huh?'

'You, I- you can't- what about your studies? The internship you've got?' Ludwig manages to stammer out, opening his eyes.

Gilbert brushes his concerns aside. 'I never liked medicine, really. I've always wanted to go to a planet, so I'm mega up for it.'

Ludwig knows he should say no, knows that he shouldn't take up the offer. He'd be denying his brother so much, he'd be exactly what their parents worried he'd be because he'll only drag Gilbert down and down and down like a heavy lead weight and ruin all of his chances at a good life.

But Ludwig wants to be selfish. He reaches out and clasps onto Gilbert's hand, squeezing it tightly. 'Gil...'

Gilbert flashes him a grin and winks. 'I know, right? How awesome am I?'

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

AN:

I’ve been a very busy bee recently and haven’t been able to write anything, so in lieu of something new, have something old.

This is from my fic Earthbound, which I’m embarassingly fond of. It’s made up of several different stories and Ludwig and Gilbert’s is the one that I’m the most happy with after all these years.

Hope you enjoyed!

#aph germany #hws germany #hws prussia #aph prussia #hetalia #Hetalia Earthbound AU #my writing #I'll give it that epilogue one day i swear it

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Everything you need to know about day one of Brexit

By Ian Dunt

Oh sweet Christ not Brexit again.

Yes, you will never escape. It will never be over. Decades from now, as your wrinkled fingers grasp the remote for your 3D holo-viewer, the main news item will still be about Brexit.

At least we got a break during the coronavirus emergency.

Yep, say what you like about pandemics, but at least they take trade talks off the front pages. Still, it's back now. We leave at the end of the year. And deal or no-deal, things at the border are going to be very different.

OK lay it out for me.

For decades we have had frictionless trade with Europe in the customs union and single market. The customs union got rid of tariffs, which are taxes on goods entering a territory, and the single market harmonised regulations, which means goods are made to the same standards. Once you're outside of them, you need checks at the border to make sure people are paying the right tax and complying with the regulations.

And that's what's about to happen?

Exactly. And this will apply regardless of whether there is a deal or not. I want to issue a word of warning before we go any further: It's a horror show. The level of tediousness here is off the scale. This is like someone came up with a super-powered serum for the concept of bureaucracy and then injected it directly into your bloodstream. But you didn't turn into Chris Evans in Captain America, you turned into Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. The worst things are the acronyms. Everything has an acronym. But you need to get your head around it in order to understand what's going to happen to us next month.

I don't care. I hate this. I want this conversation to stop.

You can't, it's too late. You are trapped here with me and the acronyms. OK so here's the basic problem, the one from which all others follow. Our customs system currently processes around 55 million declarations a year. In 2021, it will process around 270 million. It needs to massively ramp up capacity.

It's just as well the government has such a good track record of implementing complex IT projects at speed then.

Quite. To be fair, the government has put a lot of effort into this, albeit belatedly. More than 35 government departments and public bodies are involved, including HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), the Home Office (HO), the Department for Transport (DfT), the Border and Protocol Delivery Group (BPDG) and the Transition Task Force (TTF).

Sweet Jesus the acronyms.

Actually, most of those are abbreviations, but let's not get caught up on details. We've barely scratched the surface. There are three key areas where the government needs to build capacity: IT systems to process the customs declarations, physical infrastructure at or near ports, and staff in government and the private sector to keep the customs system going.

That's a lot to do.

It is. But the government made things easier in one crucial respect: it delayed its own import declarations system until July next year.

What does that mean?

It means that stuff coming into Britain from Europe basically gets waved through. There are still technically customs requirements, but they've been pushed back six months. This allowed them to make sure goods would still enter the country and let them focus on trying to get the exports right.

It's hardly taking back control, is it?

No it isn't, but they're undertaking a systems-level change at an eye-watering timetable, so it was a necessary sacrifice.

Couldn't they have extended transition to prepare for this?

Yes they could, but chose not to. That's cost them. Covid seriously delayed preparations, dominated attention in business and government, paused ministerial decision-making and put communication with traders into deep-freeze over the summer.

So what are the biggest risks now?

The IT systems. There are 10 critical IT systems which are needed at the GB–EU border. Then there are the European systems which UK exporters will need to use to get access to the continent. We're not going to go into all of them here - we're going to massively simplify.

Thank heavens.

Don't worry, it'll still make your brain dribble out of your ears. We're also going to simplify by taking goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland off the table. That's its own separate hellscape. And we're going to focus on the Dover-Calais crossing. There are many others going from England to France, but this is the main route. It serves 'accompanied goods' - when a driver in a lorry takes the goods onto a ferry and then drives it off on the other side of the Channel. This is called RoRo, for roll-on-roll-off.

Acronym. Drink.

If you keep that up you'll be smashed by the end of the article and won't have any idea what I'm talking about.

I already have no idea what you're talking about.

Fair enough, drink away. The trouble with customs IT systems is this: Everyone needs to be filling in the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. If they don't, things break down. That doesn't just apply to the UK and French governments. It applies to exporters and importers, ports, hauliers and others. Customs is all or nothing. If one section is wrong, it's all wrong. Lorries are often full of lots of different consignments of goods from different exporters. Plenty of them travel with 100 individual separate consignments on them. This is called 'groupage'. So if one input of one customs form in one of those consignments is wrong, the whole lorry is delayed. And if that lorry is delayed, all the lorries behind it are delayed. The potential for breakdown is therefore very significant.

This is already making me anxious. It's like Jenga but it reaches all the way into the sky and is composed entirely of knives.

You also need to make sure that third party software used by places like the ports integrates with the government systems. And that assumes that the government IT systems actually work and have staff with the proper experience and training to operate them. And this too is interrelated. If one of the systems breaks down, it has a knock-on effect on the other systems. You keep seeing this same problem crop up. It's not one of error, exactly. It's about the consequence of the error, the knock-on effects of it.

How robust are those IT systems looking right now?

Not great. Some have been delayed indefinitely, some for a set period, some are in trials and some are online. But even when they're finished, you really want to give all the people using them time to understand them, to get used to them, so that when we leave transition there are as few mistakes as possible. All four industry representative bodies, including the Road Haulage Association (RHA) and the British International Freight Association (Bifa), have raised concerns about the government's level of preparedness, saying that they don't believe the border will be fully functioning by next month.

That's two more acronyms by my count.

I'm glad to see you sticking to the important information here. The trouble is that lack of government preparedness doesn't just affect it - it affects trader preparedness as well. If they're not getting clear communication from the government about what is happening and how it is happening, they don't know what to do. And the government has a bad record here. It has marched traders up the hill on no-deal several times over recent years, only to march them down again. Now many simply ignore it. Government communications have, until recently, centred on the "opportunities" of Brexit, which does nothing to indicate the urgency with which people need to make expensive and time-consuming changes. Even in October, just 45% of high-value traders who trade exclusively with the EU had started to invest in readiness.

Oh dear.

There are some reasons to be more optimistic. The first is that government communication has belatedly started to improve.  A new campaign in October was much better, telling traders that "time is running out". There's also one really important thing to remember about all this: it's not a long term problem. Brexit has plenty of those and they are severe, but this is not one of them. This is a short, sharp, embarrassing shock. Eventually, the market will adjust. People will see what happens in January and find ways around it so they can get their goods to market. Some people think that will happen very quickly indeed - no more than a month. Some think it'll take the first quarter of next year or longer. But very few people think it will last the whole year. What we're looking at here is the most dramatic, but also ultimately the most superficial, of Brexit impacts.

Starting to feel a bit tipsy now.

Cool, then it might be a good time to start talking about the IT systems.

No. Stop.

What?

I don't want to hear it. I want to get out.

It's too late. You're trapped here in an imaginary world in which I am talking to myself and explaining customs procedures. And in fact your resistance to this conversation probably points to some kind of deep-seated psychological trauma which I'm working my way through.

Dog carcass in alley this morning. Tyre tread on burst stomach.

Very good, Rorschach. So look, there are really four forms you need to remember. First, the import/export declaration. Second, the safety and security documentation. Third, the sanitary and phytosanitary measures for agricultural goods. And fourth, the system that collects these data sets and connects them to the lorry which is transporting the good.

What's in the import/export declaration?

They basically state what the good is, its value and how much duty you have to pay on it. It's the tax bit. It's all very complex, laborious and crammed full of technical minutiae but that's the executive summary. It needs to be lodged before the good gets to the French border.

How do you lodge it?

You do it through a UK system called the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight, or Chief.

Drink.

This is a really old system and before Brexit was even a twinkle in Boris Johnson's eye, the UK planned to turn it off and migrate all traders to a new system called the Customs Declarations Service, or CDS.

Drink.

CDS was meant to replace Chief from January 2019 and then switch off altogether by March 2021, but there were repeated delays. So instead they're keeping Chief for trade between Britain and the EU and using CDS for trade between Britain and Northern Ireland, because it has the capacity for dual tariff fields. CDS is then going to be scaled up until it can deal with all the declarations.

No acronyms there.

Actually trade between Britain and Europe is called GB-EU and trade between Britain and Northern Ireland is called GB-NI, but let's not worry about that. The government insists that Chief now has an increased capacity that can handle 400 million annual declarations - way higher than the 265 million which are expected. HMRC has paid Fujitsu £85 million to provide technical support. But others aren't convinced. They're not sure it can handle the load and nervous that there isn't enough support if something goes wrong.

Very reassuring.

Isn't it. Remember that the importer on the EU side also has to be doing all of this - at the right time, in the right place - on the European customs system.

OK so what about the safety and security thing?

It's a document outlining what the good is, so it can be assessed for potential risks. Again, it's a long complex thing with multiple data fields. Like import/export, it has to be done in advance of the goods reaching Calais. It's submitted to the UK government via a new system called S&S GB.

Drink.

It must also be submitted to the EU member state's Import Control System, which is called ICS.

Drink. OK tell me about the sanitary pad things.

Sanitary and phytosanitary measures, or SPS.

Drink.

These are there to protect people, animals and plants from disease or pests. They cover products of an animal origin, like cheese, or meat, or fish, as well as live animal exports, plants and plant products, and even the wooden crates used to transport other types of goods. It's painstaking stuff, but I think, given the pandemic we're all going through, we all understand why it's important.

Yeah, fair enough. You've sold me. I'm totally on board with this stuff.

These kinds of goods have to enter Europe through specific Border Control Posts, or BCPs.

Drink.

And there they undergo some, or all, of a variety of checks. There's a documentary check for the official certification which travels with the good. There are identity checks, which provide a visual confirmation that the consignment corresponds to the documentation. And there's a physical check to verify the goods are compliant with the rules, for instance temperature sampling, or laboratory testing. You know that whole chlorine-washed chicken thing?

Sure.

Well this is where they check whether it has been and stop it getting into Europe if it has. But it's actually the documentary check which is the hardest part in terms of UK preparedness. It includes something called an Export Health Certificate, or EHC.

Drink. Jesus Christ.

These are documents which confirm that the product meets the health requirements of the EU. So they might say that the animal was vaccinated, for instance. Some products, like a cut of lamb, will just have one EHC. But others, like a chicken pizza, will have more than one.

We've talked about this before. People shouldn't put chicken on pizza.

You are wrong, it's a perfectly legitimate pizza topping, and in fact you are so wrong that I have started using chicken pizza as my trade-good shorthand. Chicken pizza is the new widgets.

What even are widgets?

No-one knows, that's why economists love them. A chicken pizza, however, is a composite good for the purposes of SPS. The chicken and the cheese are different animal products, so they would need separate export health certificates. And all these certificates have to be verified by an official veterinarian, or OV.

You're just messing me about now.

No seriously, they use that acronym. This whole area of public life has been radicalised into extreme acronym use. Anyway, the OV goes through the details, queries the documents and signs them off. But there's assistance from a person pulling together all the paperwork. They're called a Certification Support Officer, or…

I can't believe this.

...CSO. These guys are mostly in private practices, usually farming practices. It's not a big part of their workload - maybe 20% of what they do. But if you don't have those vets, you can't send the export. That would be catastrophic for the farming, food and hospitality sectors. And that's where we have an issue. There are restrictions on getting that many OVs up and running. There's a tight labour market for vets and the UK is highly reliant on Europeans coming over to do the job, but the end of free movement makes that much more difficult and expensive, as does the covid pandemic.

So what has the government done?

It pumped £300,000 into providing free training for the role. Many vets took it up. The number of qualified vets has jumped from 600 in February 2019 to 1,200 today. But that still leaves a capacity gap of 200.

Well that doesn't sound so bad.

No it doesn't, but when you start to scratch away at the figures, they fall apart. The 200 figure is the number of 'full time equivalent' qualified vets required. And if vets only spend about 20% of their time doing this, it means we'll actually need an extra 1,000 vets training in the additional qualification.

Oh dear.

Yep. Groups representing the sector are seriously worried about this. And as with customs, the smooth functioning of the border will rely on the importer on the EU side doing all the bits they're required to do too, by creating a record in the Trade Control and Expert System, or Traces NT.

Drink. OK, what's the fourth bit of IT?

Transport. This involves wrapping all the other forms together and attaching them to a vehicle. In the UK, we'll be doing this through something called the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, or GVMS.

Drink.

It links export declaration references together into one single Goods Movement Reference, or GMR.

Drink. Bloody hell man these people are out of control.

The GMR should come out like a barcode, a one-stop shop for all the tied-together information we've been discussing. GVMS will be needed for certain movements in January, particularly for trade with Northern Ireland, but it won't be a requirement of all imports until July. It's currently being tested and there are dark murmurs about its functionality from those who have come into contact with it. Mercifully, exporters into Europe on January 1st will be using the French system, SI Brexit. This was operational a year ago and has been fully tested several times.

Those lazy French with their useless romantic dispositions.

It's almost like they're a nation that cares about shopkeepers.

Speaking of which, how're British businesses going to deal with all this additional paperwork?

Many companies will be OK. Very big corporations are well ahead and in many cases have set up a European entity so that they can sell directly from their UK entity to the EU one. Then they'll probably just reflect the customs costs in a subtly increased retail price. Smaller companies who are used to exporting to the rest of the world outside of Europe also have an advantage. They're used to these kinds of things. The people who are most at risk are the small-to-medium-sized enterprises who have traded exclusively with Europe.

Small-to-medium-sized… Oh no.

Yeah, that's right. SMEs. Which, by the way, comprise the vast majority of companies in the UK. If you send just two or three loads of your product a month to Europe, it probably won't be worth the cost in manpower and money preparing for all this stuff. They'll likely just accept a shrinkage in their business. For many of them, the whole thing is a bafflement. Honestly, you read the guidance on all these systems and it's like it's in an alien code - a garbled assault of acronyms and complex systems. Many small firms, already suffering from covid, just throw up their hands in despair.

Bleak. It's always the little guys that get it.

Yes, although paradoxically, that actually presents one of the few reasons for optimism. Well, not optimism exactly, but a hope for least-badism. Now that so many people feel January will be chaotic, they might just decide not to bother trying to send anything. Goods will get stuck at a warehouse instead of on a truck.

Seriously? That's your good news? Aren't you just displacing disruption from the ports to other parts of the supply network?

Yes precisely. But there really are no good outcomes here.

Because if that doesn't happen, the system seizes up?

Yeah exactly. Lorries head to Dover then get held up because they don't have the correct paperwork. Then lorries behind those lorries get caught up, pushing the queue out, dominating Kent, creating a huge singular blockage. The government's own Reasonable Worst Case Scenario, or RWCS…

Drink.

... estimates that between 40% and 70% of lorries may not be ready for border controls, leading to queues of up to 7,000 trucks.

But that would only be going out right? The stuff we bring in to the country would be unaffected because we're not putting in place controls.

Kind of. It's certainly true that most imports should have a clear run into the UK. You can keep those two lanes separate. But most hauliers are from Romania, Lithuania, Hungary and Poland. They pay a lease on their trucks, which means they have to keep them going if they're to make money. They can't afford to get stuck in a queue at the border. So there's a good chance they'll look at the log-jam in the UK and think: 'I'm not touching that with a barge pole'. This would mean Britain struggled to get its imports, including potentially fresh food and medicines.

Wow.

Yeah, it could be bad. But there are plans for that eventuality. The government has set up some emergency routes, for instance on the Newhaven-Dieppe crossing. There's additional ferry capacity at eight ports, with the Department for Transport acting as the referee on which vehicles get onto their crossing. But it's not a like-for-like replacement. Many of these crossings take much longer than the short gap between Dover and Calais, and they often operate for unaccompanied goods overnight. If the import is urgent, or fresh, or, like some covid vaccines, needs to be kept at a certain temperature, then you may have a problem.

What is the government doing to make sure this doesn't happen? How will they control the blockage?

There's three parts to that really. The first is controlling access to Kent, which the trucks head into to get to Dover. This project has no acronym, but instead adopted one of the least elegant names in the history of British policy-making: The Check an HGV is Ready to Cross the Border Service.

Wait but...

Yeah. HGV: Heavy Goods Vehicle.

I fully accept now that it was a mistake to adopt this drinking idea.

Before the lorry gets to Kent, the driver will fill out an online form with a bunch of information - the registration number, the destination, details of the consignments, confirmations that the import/export documents have been filled in, export health certificates, the whole lot basically. Those that are judged to have all the documentation are given a Kent Access Pass, or KAP.

Drink.

And that allows them to go into Kent. Police can hand out £300 fines to lorries found on the Kent roads without the permit.

But this is all done on trust right? It's a self-assessment form.

Yep. It'll rely on people filling it out right. It's not linked to EU customs systems. So there's no guarantee that documents they claim to have completed will be accepted by EU customs authorities. But on the plus side, the software was launched recently and most people think it'll work OK. It's better than nothing, basically.

Alright so what's next? Traffic management?

Exactly. It's uncanny how naturally your questions lead me onto the next thing I want to discuss.

That's because I am you.

Don't talk about that, it makes it weird. Alright so first up we have the traffic flow plans. The Department for Transport is taking an existing temporary system to create contraflow on the M20 and putting it on a permanent footing, allowing 2,000 lorries to be held on the motorway while traffic still flows in both directions on the London-bound side.

OK, what's next?

Well then there's the issue of actual sites. HMRC has identified seven locations outside the ports. There's prep work being done at a site in Sevington, Ashford, at a cost of £110 million, to act as a clearing house for another 2,000 lorries. Some 600 lorries can be held on the approach to Manston airport, with more at the airport itself. These two sites, along with the M20 contraflow, are for holding traffic. There are also plans for Ebbsfleet International Station, North Weald Airfield and Warrington to be used for bureaucratic checks away from the border. Other sites, potentially in the Thames Gateway and Birmingham areas, are also being considered. They insist that this should give them capacity for 9,700 lorries, which is above the 7,000 in their worst case scenario.

Assuming that scenario is correct.

Right. Covid and other unrelated events, like a fire breaking out for instance, could mean that even the worst case scenario is an underestimate. We just don't know. Plus that relies on all of this being up in time. The government has passed legislation to streamline planning processes, but the timetable is unbelievably tight. The same thing goes for staff.

These are the customs officials who check all the paperwork, right?

That's certainly part of it. They're split into two departments: HMRC and Border Force. HMRC needs 8,600 full-time equivalent staff in place for January 1st. They still need another 1,500 but seem confident they'll have them. Border Force recruited an additional 900 staff ahead of a possible no-deal last year and is trying to bring in 1,000 more. Ministers are confident they'll have enough people in place by January 1st, but trade experts are less convinced.

Recurring theme.

Indeed. It's easy to get fixated on numbers but it really matters how well you've trained people too. You can have someone helping with customs work after a day or two, but for them to have any real sense of what they're doing, you're going to want a year's training. And then there's the question of personality type. Customs is a very specific kind of work, full of extremely complex documentation which must be got right. For some people, that is unimaginably boring. For others, it's very satisfying. But you need the right ones. And that's not what typically happens when people get desperate on a recruitment drive.

What's the other part of the staffing problem?

The private sector. It's a job called 'customs broker'. They're basically people who come in and help companies with their customs forms. Like I said, this stuff is mind-meltingly complex. You really do need someone to come and help you do it. And that's what the government wants too of course, because the more people getting it right, the fewer delays at the border. But as of last September, just 53% of traders said they planned to use a customs broker, with 30% unsure and 18% saying they were going to do the work themselves. Those aren't good numbers.

Are there enough of them to meet demand?

No. This has been a long-running problem. Almost two-thirds of customs brokers do not have enough staff to handle the increased paperwork from leaving the EU. And actually capacity seems to have reduced over the year due to the covid pandemic. The UK needs thousands more.

What's the government doing about it?

It's invested £84 million since 2018 into training, recruitment and IT system development. But many customs brokers are still hesitant about taking on new salary costs to build a capacity that won't be fully required until next July and they're nervous about taking on unprepared customers.  Of the £84 million on offer, just £52 million had been taken up in mid-October.

Is that… is that it? Please say that's it. I'm wasted.

It is.

OK so give me the executive summary.

We're about to experience the sudden implementation of complex customs processes in a nation which forgot they existed. This involves the introduction of numerous interrelated IT systems which have been under-tested. It's not clear that either government or traders are fully prepared for what's about to happen. In order to minimise the disruption the government is introducing various traffic management projects and trying to bulk up staff capacity. But there's just too many variables to know how it'll pan out. Maybe the systems will hold out and many traders will anyway sit out January because of concerns about queues. Or maybe the systems will fail, traders won't fill in forms right and the whole thing will blow up in our face. The most likely outcome right now is somewhere between shambles and catastrophe. We have to hope it's a shambles.

Can you do it in acronym-speak?

Amid RHA and Bifa concerns about the lack of progress, HMRC, Defra, the HO, the Dft, the BPDG and the TTF are building up IT systems for post-Brexit GB-EU trade and particularly for RoRo at Dover-Calais which will involve exporters submitting import/export declarations to Chief and the CDS, S&S information to S&S GB and ICS, and collating their SPS documentation - including an EHC filled out by an CSO under the supervision of an OV sent via a BCP - with the importer logging it on Traces NT, while generating a GMR via GVMS and SI Brexit, and then HGVs getting a KAP, all to avoid the RWCS.

D… Drink?

Yes I think so. That seems very sensible.

#Brexit #customs

[guidedbynors]

The Heirs of Oralia (Part 1)

Note: This week I am changing up the formatting to practice and reflect on how the official Quest website (adventure.game) presents its signature adventure: Mischief Mountain.

Premise

For Guides:

Currently, Maergale is surrounded by an army of undead, per the scenario in Riot In The Streets, Ghosts of Crescent Wood, and The Dead Light. This adventure can be played in conjunction with these other adventures, or by itself.

Fischer Fissure was created a thousand years ago by a great and powerful wizard. Her name was Oralia Fischer. It is said she stood against an invading army by herself with nothing more than her wand and dressed in robes of crimson. As the invading army bore down on her Oralia stood her ground, raised her wand, and cast a spell that tore the earth asunder, creating a fissure that stretched 20 miles, from Lake Maer to the plainlands of Groth. However, legends say that as Oralia cast her spell, an arrow, fired from the bow of an archer struck Oralia in the heart. She died there and the invading army rode the distance around the fissure and sacked the village near Lake Maer. The populace of Maergale is the descendants of the invading army.

This adventure is about the perceptions we have of history. At first, Questers will be led to believe Oralia is the champion of this town, only to discover it is the archer who founded the Maergale City as it is today.

Intro

For Guides:

At the beginning of this adventure, Questers are presented with the dire situation outlined in Riot In The Streets. There doesn’t need to be a riot about to break out, but the undead army of Curiel Neralo is still present.

If this is a new group of players and characters, ask players how they know each other, why they are in Maergale and define some character dynamics. If you have fit this adventure into our own campaign or been playing through the Maergale City line of adventures, this may not be applicable.

When everyone is ready to play, read the introduction below. Modify the text to fit your players' situations in terms of experiences together.

At the beginning of this adventure, Questers start in Maergale City, but it won’t be long before they are sent on a quest.

Maergale City

Exposition: Read Aloud:

Maergale, the azure city, is named for the pure glacial waters of Lake Maer. It is a model of civilization. Perfect brick streets, towers that stretch to the sky, artists and merchants, scholars and students: all belong here. Yet a stench blows into this city. The undead army of Curiel Neralo waits outside, biding their time. What they wait for, nobody knows. They seek something of great power.

This is why you have been called by The Daughters of the Crescent. Yet all you have found, as you enter their offices, is a well-dressed possum in a tiny pantsuit, shuffling around on a high oak desk strewn with papers.

As you enter, the possum stands on its hind legs and nods its head, as though it knew you were coming.

Daughter Pelomn, Quest Giver, And Transdimensional Lawyer

For Guides:

Daughter Pelomn is a member of the Daughters of the Crescent, a political opposition group to the city council of Maergale. Daughter Pelomn is a possum with a degree in transdimensional law, and their main goal up until this point has been to bury the city council in bureaucracy and paperwork. Pelomn will tell Questers the story of Oralia Fischer and the wand she carried. Pelomn is unaware that Oralia isn’t the ancestor of the town, but rather, kin to the undead army outside (the people who inhabited the land of Maer before the invading army destroyed them). Pelomn believes the wand of Oralia is somewhere in the fissure she created. They ask Questers to retrieve the wand.

Exploring Fischer Fissure

For Guides:

The western tapering of Fischer Fissure runs along the north edge of Maergale. The northern gate of the city leads directly to a draw bridge that spans this tapering fissure. Below the bridge is a fast-moving river, though not white water, about 30 feet across. This is the ample outlet of Lake Maer.

Exposition: Read Aloud

The northern gate of Maergale is a broad wooden drawbridge reinforced by thick iron bands. It is closed, drawn up against the city walls, and the arched entrance that leads across the tapering fissure just beyond the wall. Five city guards occupy a checkpoint just within the wall and more sentries line the wall above, peering through parapets, their bows at the ready.

For Guides:

The guards are reluctant to let the bridge down. On the other side of the fissure is an army of undead and the guards are terrified that if they let down the bridge, the horde will seize the opportunity to attack and gain entrance to the city.

Bridge Master Bawb:

For Guides:

Bridge Master Bawb is a young and nervous man. He is terrified of the undead and will flatly deny Questers any request to lower the bridge. Questers can use clever roleplay or magical abilities to persuade Bridge Master Bawb to do so, but the grooling undead should be a focus if Questers decide on this course of action. Alternatively, Bridge Master Bawb will ask why Questers wish to leave the city. If they answer him truthful and tell him they wish to descend into the fissure, he will suggest repelling down from the city wall. Questers can also use any magical abilities to achieve the same outcome. If they decide to rappel using a rope, they will need thousands of feet.

Fischer Fissure:

Exposition: Read Aloud

The cliffs of the fissure are rough reddish stone. Below you, hundreds of feet, the water flows rapidly along. There are ample handholds and ledges as you descend, toward the water, the temperature dropping, a pungent and earthy tone reaching your nose. A mist glistens on your arms and legs, your face. Drips from your brow as you drop lower. Before long, you are soaked through with cold dampness.

At the bottom of the fissure, the cliffside recedes, leading to an undercut where the water has carved out sections of the cliff in the winter.

Everything is shadowed down here. It is difficult to tell how far the water has carved out the cliffs on either side of the river.

For Guides:

At the bottom of the fissure, nearly everything is in shadow. The ledge where Questers can find footing after their descent is a long and carved out part of the wall which is wide enough to walk three abreast for the most part. There doesn't seem to be anything in the initial vicinity, but Questers should know (or be reminded) that the place where Oralia Fischer made her last stand was some way to the west of where they have descended into the fissure. Questers will need some light, though it is too damp down here for torches. If they have no way of creating magical light, Questers' attention may be drawn to the river, which is home to a luminous fish that, if caught, can be used as a pale light. As your Questers travel west, following the river, you may choose to have them face a Trial in order to stay dry and warm. For every hour they are consistently chilled and wet, you may increase the cost of their abilities by +1 Action Points. Abilities that would usually cost 0 AP, would cost +1 per hour. This reflects the exhaustion Questers would feel at constantly being wet and cold more thoroughly than filling their inventory with exhaustion per the Quest Game Book.

Exposition: Read Aloud

You travel west along the thin ledge, the water and cold ever-present near you and on you. After about an hour of traveling along the river, the wall to your left suddenly opens up to a vast and yawning cave mouth. On the walls to either side are markings. Not made by water, but surely carved into the stone by hand. The carvings are simple and crude, though easily interpreted. The carved scene depicts a vast group of people on horses riding toward a solitary figure holding up a hand, rays slashing out from it toward the ground as well as the oncoming charge. A single arrow flies toward the solitary person.

As you examine this curious carving, you suddenly hear a scuffling sound from deeper within the cave.

The Heirs of Oralia:

FOR Guides:

Within the cave is a civilization that is directly descended from Oralia Fischer and the indigenous peoples of what is now called Maergale. They have burrowed into the cliffside, and then up so that during the winter they do not get flooded. Their homes are completely underground and they have evolved to possess a tremorsense that lets them detect vibrations in the ground. Their underground city is a labyrinth of small rooms, stone stairwells, and underground fungus gardens. There is no centrality to the city, but it seems fast and difficult to navigate once Questers are presented with it.

The underground people are not hostile, though they will become so if threatened. They look like humans but have overly large eyes and some webbing between their fingers and toes. Most of them wear clothes spun out of a strange and stringing fiber (from a fungus). They do not speak the same language as Questers, nor do they speak "common." Questers can explore the underground civilization as much as they want, but details concerning the underground city are not present or essential to this adventure. Instead, an emissary is sent to communicate with Questers but doesn't invite them in as they don't know if they can trust these outsiders.

Exposition: Read Aloud

From deep within the darkness of the cave a shape moves, tall, thin, and then slowly emerges from the dimming shadow. Is it a woman or a man? It is difficult to tell. The person is human-esk in appearance, but with eyes far larger than any human possesses. They have no hair, either, and wear a strange shimmering robe, woven of thick strands the same hue of oyster shell.

They speak: Gragek?

FOR GUIDES:

Let Questers struggle with the language for a time. There may be a magical item or spell Questers already have so to understand this person, if not, the emissary will point to the lone person depicted on the wall, then point to themselves. They are not trying to communicate that THEY are Oralia, but rather, Oralia and her people are their people. Then The emissary will point to the horde of cavalry and point to the Questers. If the Questers are able to communicate that they are not from Maergale, then the emissary will point to the cavalry and point up, toward Maergale instead. After that, the emissary will point to the arrow, then withdraw a small, thin stone box from its robe. Within is the arrow that killed Oralia (See Arrow of Oralia, at the end of this adventure for its magical properties). Lastly, the emissary will point to the hand of the solitary person, from which the rays of light spring. Then they will shrug, point to Questers, then to themselves, and offer Questers the arrow, as if in exchange. The emissary will point upward, out of the fissure and toward the army of undead, then to the place where Oralia's wand is indicated on the wall. Of course, if any of your Questers have a way to understand the emissary, this interaction can take place without the game of charades.

The Wand of Oralia:

For Guides:

The wand of Oralia is not in the fissure river, but rather with Curiel Neralo. He is using it to control the undead, though of course, Questers do not know this. The Heirs of Oralia do, however, though are unsure if they can trust the Questers with the information.

To Be Continued

Item: Arrow of Oralia

This arrow is old and worn and must be re-fletched before it can be used. This arrow always finds the heart of its target. It kills anything it is shot at.

#Quest RPG #ttrpg #indie games #rules lite #Adventure

[yastaghr]

Our Skeleton 34

This time on Our Skeleton radio: Let Flowey be Mean 2020!

The farmer wasn’t quite sure why this strange flower monster wanted to rent his goats for the day. They were just goats. They weren’t trained to do yoga or pose for pictures. They would eat anything and everything in sight, but hey! Who was he to turn down this much money for something so simple? If he did he’d be a fool.

It wasn’t until much, much later, when he saw the column in the next day’s paper just above the fold, that he had a clue. He wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or to double over in laughter. Laughter won. The article read:

WILD GOAT HERD RAMPAGES IN HILLSBURY HILLS Gardens were decimated today in the well-to-do neighborhood of Hillsbury Hills when a seemingly wild herd of Boer goats descended. The herd, at least 30 strong, mowed through grass, flowers, shrubbery, and other vegetation alike. Affected residents estimate that the goats did over $250,000 worth of damage in the space of a few hours. Police were called on the miscreants as soon as a local servant noticed the goats. By the time the officers in blue responded, though, the goats had vanished from the scene. They left devastation and a large amount of pellets in their wake. No clues as to their origins have been reported. However, the property managers have posted a $250 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the perpetrators. Information is to be reported to the city police. They can be reached at: [phone].

The farmer reflected on a couple of things as he reread the article. The first was regret that he hadn’t asked the strange flower’s name. The second was the likelihood, even if he did know that information, that the police would believe him. Then he wondered why, if the property managers were the ones who had posted the reward, the police were the ones who were collecting information. Wouldn’t that invalidate any ability to claim the prize? From there he reflected on the word ‘posted’. Nowhere did it say that the reward would actually be paid. Finally, he wondered if this strange flower was happy that his revenge had been so complete. Surely that kind of dedication to destruction should be rewarded with a little bit of loyalty? Say, enough loyalty not to snitch? Especially since the flower had returned his goats happy and safe. Yes, the farmer thought to himself, renting out his goats out was definitely worth it for today.

=====

A giant nest (or possibly a fort) of couch cushions, blankets, and pillows had sprung forth in the middle of the living room. At the moment it was mostly empty. Only Papyrus, Sans, and Frisk were in there now. The rest of the crew wasn’t far away, though. Everyone except Toriel was on the phone, spreading the news of their little human’s burden to all of their guardians, also known as all of monsterkind. Toriel was baking a celebratory butterscotch-cinnamon pie. Today’s honesty and revelations deserved it.

In the cuddle pile, Sans had his arms around Frisk, and Papyrus had his arms around both of them. Frisk’s hands were free so they could sign. “let me get this straight. you have this power to save and load, and you’ve never done something silly with it? come on, you can tell us. you have to have done at least one silly thing. i know i would have.”

Frisk giggled. [Okay, there was one thing. It was the first time I came through the Underground. I’d just gotten past you and I ran into Doggo. I wanted to pet him, so I LOADed a few times just to pet him more. I kinda did that with all of the Dog Squad, especially with Lesser Dog. If I had a hard time or got scared by someone else in Snowdin I would go back and pet him a bit. That usually helped calm me down.]

Papyrus nodded wisely. “AN EXCELLENT DECISION. I, TOO, HAVE FOUND MYSELF SEEKING COMFORT FROM SIMPLE THINGS. PETTING A DOG IS CERTAINLY ONE OF THEM. I BELIEVE YOU HAVE SPENT QUITE SOME TIME GETTING TO KNOW DOGGO’S NEW SEEING EYE DOG?”

[Yes,] Frisk signed happily, [She’s the best! I don’t bother her when she’s working, but when he’s at home he lets me spend time with her. I give her pets and we play with toys and we cuddle. It’s great!]

Sans blinked at his brother and Frisk, then smiled cheekily. “you could say she is doggone good, huh kiddo?”

Papyrus groaned. “SANS! THAT ONE WASN’T EVEN GOOD!”

Sans chuckled. “i know, bro. that’s why i like it.”

=====

Flowey considered the fine selection of knives, swords, and other cutting blades in his collection. They were all razor sharp, which is what he wanted right now. Cutting through fabric required a sharp edge. He considered which length would be best for this task. The swords would be too unwieldy. The daggers all were too thick for what he had planned. That left the knives. There were eight of them. He dismissed the ones with serration. That left four. He would be traveling under the ground for this trip, so he needed a sheath to keep the blade fresh. That left two. He decided on using the double edged one. That way if the first side went dull he could still cut. Plus it had a good heft to it, which he liked.

Once that was settled Flowey turned to his other armaments. In this case they were dye bombs, glitter bombs, and water bombs. Usually he used bombs that were a little more destructive, but he didn’t want to destroy anything, he just wanted to ruin them.

With all of that tucked in his inventory Flowey set out for the mansion. It was child’s play to sneak in. All of the servants were busy trying to repair the damage from the goats, and the two targets of his campaign were away at some kind of a party. That left the house empty for him to exact his revenge. He started in the upstairs closets. There were easily more than a hundred dresses and suits. He took great pleasure in cutting the fine fabrics into tiny little pieces. He didn’t make them even, either. He sliced at odd angles, cut in wonky curves, and generally made it impossible to sew the clothes back together.

Once he was finished with the clothes Flowey moved on to the other linens in the house. He shredded pillows, mattresses, bed clothes, curtains, towels, and rugs alike. When he was done it looked like a rogue confetti machine had been let loose in the house. He smiled wickedly. That was attack number two.

=====

“What are they doing now, Grillby?” Toriel asked quietly. Her hands were covered in flour to prevent the pie crust she was kneading from sticking to her fur. She’d made enough for three pies. She hoped that would be enough for everyone to get their piece as well as enough that anyone who wanted to have seconds could.

Grillby, who was standing in the doorway talking to her while she worked, turned around and peered over his shoulder. “..... My boys and Frisk….. are still in the fort. Gerson left….. to go talk to the monsters in the Underground. Asgore is still….. on the phone. Undyne and Alphys have….. finished their phone calls and are now cuddling. I believe they may….. be kissing.”

Toriel huffed. “I hope they are not doing so in front of Frisk. They are a child. Such a display of affection is not appropriate for them to view.”

Grillby chuckled. “Miss Tori, times have changed. It is no longer….. the fashion for children to be prevented from seeing….. kisses and hugs. It would not surprise me….. if they had already seen them. Perhaps you should ask? In any case….. Undyne and Alphys are allowed to kiss in front of them….. and so are you.”

She blushed. Why did he always know how to push her buttons? “I am more than satisfied as I am, am I not?”

“Yes…..” Grillby said slowly, “but are your datemates?”

Toriel froze. Were… were Asgore and Sans happy with this? Asgore could be incredibly affectionate. He loved to touch and kiss her. And Sans… Sans needed all of the love they could give him. But she could still hear the voice of Asgore’s mother screaming at them for daring to kiss in front of the younger guests at a party. It had hurt. Toriel’s parents never screamed at her, even when she had upset them. Toriel wanted to make Asgore’s mother happy… but she was dead now, wasn’t she? Why was Toriel still trying to please a woman who had died nearly 1,000 years ago?

“I will think about that, Grillby. I will do some research as to what is appropriate. Now, can you go get the filling from the fridge? I’m just about ready to lay this crust out in the tins to be filled.”

=====

With the fabrics thoroughly bombed and destroyed by Flowey’s hands he turned to his next task. He reached up to the curtain rod nearest him, now denuded of its usual burdens, and pulled it down. The hooks that held it to the wall clattered on the ground; in this case, it was the marble floor of the entrance hallway. Flowey offhandedly knocked them under the furniture with one stray vine. Then he turned to the rod itself.

It was child’s play to remove the finials from the end of the rod. They unscrewed quite easily. Flowey hoped (in a very detached way) that that didn’t mean that they changed out the ends on a regular basis. He wanted this prank to haunt them for as long as possible.

With the finials off, Flowey pulled out his secret weapon: a whole platter of cocktail shrimp. He popped the lid off and grabbed three of the shrimp. One went in his mouth. The other two went, one each, into the open ends of the curtain rods. There they would rot, slowly and surely, and give off a haunting scent that would not be cleared until the curtain rods were replaced. The servants would, of course, be blamed. But Flowey knew that most of them were there under threat to their family. Losing this job would be freedom for them, so if Frisk ever asked he could truthfully say that they weren’t suffering because of his actions. Frisk cared about stuff like that. He had no idea why.

After planting the shrimp Flowey screwed the finials back on the ends of the curtain rod and dropped it carelessly onto the floor. That let him move on to the next curtain rod. And the next. And the next.

=====

“Move your elbow, Papyrus. I swear it feels like you’re all bones,” Undyne complained. She was currently in a giant cuddle pile. Everyone, from Toriel and Asgore to Frisk and Sans, was in the fort. They could generally be described as a giant heap.

Papyrus obligingly moved his arm, resting it instead on Grillby’s knee. This dislodged the Annoying Dog’s head. No one had any idea when he had shown up. He just did. Papyrus had sighed and grudgingly allowed the mongrel to stay. “BUT, UNDYNE, I AM MADE OF ALL BONES. I AM, IN FACT, A SKELETON!”

She snorted. “That doesn’t mean you have to feel like it. Do that thing where you go all fuzzy! I know you can do it. Sans is already doing it!”

Asgore’s voice rumbled into the conversation. “That would, in fact, be my head, Undyne.”

“Oh,” She said, sounding disappointed.

Sans decided to join in. “that doesn’t mean we can’t do it. it’s just kinda tricky when there are so many people around. it’s easier when there’s only one or two.”

Alphys mumbled, “... Vector matrix of magical signatures…”

“yup,” Sans said. His ear was currently pressed up against Alphys’ mouth. “that’s it exactly. you got any tips to overcome the gradient issue? pap is better at resolving it than me, but he’s never been able to explain how he does it.”

Alphys blushed. Undyne, whose hand was on her shoulder, squeezed it. “Go ahead, babe. You got this science sh...ip.”

The doctor snorted out a laugh. It was more of a hiccup than a snort, but snort made more sense. “O...kay. Well, I don’t what what you’ve, um, tried? But when I had to consolidate the differential between Mettaton’s magic and that of the power grid in order to charge his magic I, um, found a vector that’s perpendicular to the average of the other two vectors and projected them onto it? That resulting vector, the one that was the difference between the projections, was easier to handle. I just sort of… inversed it? I can’t remember what that’s called, but-”

“that’s genius, alph!” Sans interrupted enthusiastically, “i can just…”

A beat passed. Then Grillby smiled. “You have….. achieved your goal, Sans. You are now….. quite fluffy. Papyrus, do you understand….. what he’s done?”

Papyrus shook his head, dislodging Frisk’s foot. “I DO NOT, BUT I KNOW WHAT I NEED TO DO TO BECOME FLUFFY LIKE HE JUST DID. I NEED TO DO THIS! UM… IT DIDN’T WORK. DID IT?”

“Yeah it did! Right on, nerd!” Undyne cheered.

“I must admit,” Toriel commented, “that is one skill I have never seen on another skeleton monster. Do you two know where it comes from, by chance?”

It was Grillby who answered. “I am afraid it comes from….. me. I will admit I tried to teach them….. how to show their magic more….. but I taught them as if they were fire elementals. We can control how hot our flames are….. so I assumed their magic would work similarly. This….. was the result.”

“Oh!” Toriel said, “That is interesting. I wonder if there are other abilities like that that different monster types have that they don’t know about. I wonder how we could learn…”

“when you get your school you might learn. you’re going to be teaching all kinds of different monsters and humans, right?” Sans pointed out, “you’re bound to discover a hidden ability or two. especially with the humans in the mix. humans have such weird magic, right frisk?”

Frisk, who was on top of the entire pile with a quite relaxed expression on their face, signed, [Humans don’t have magic, Sans.]

Asgore chuckled. “My dear child. Humans have always had magic. You cannot live without it. It just manifests differently than monster magic. I believe, for example, that your magic controls these SAVEs and RESETs. Rodger’s magic is that of his ability to see ghosts all the time. He’s told me about several ghosts in the area that I didn’t know about, including one that seems to follow you.”

Frisk froze. Everyone else didn’t seem to notice. Well, except for Papyrus, who Frisk was laying on. But he didn’t press. Maybe he decided that Frisk was allowed to keep some secrets, just like he and Sans were. Everyone should have a secret or two.

“That’s very nice! Humans can be very judgmental about that, can they not?” Toriel said.

“They can. I am glad he…… felt safe enough with you to share,” Grillby said quietly. “Terrance has told me….. that he worries about Rodger. He seems afraid of the teachers at the school you used to attend, Frisk. Perhaps we should try and convince Terrance and Leopold to enroll him at your school, Miss Tori.”

“That sounds wonderful! He is a delightful child with wonderful parents. I would be happy to have him as a student,” Toriel said, sounding delighted. Everyone in the room knew how much this school meant to her.

“heh. how many more weeks is it until school starts again? i know we’re getting close,?” Sans said with a smile.

“The school opens for students in 8 weeks, but the other teachers and myself start work in seven. I have already begun planning my lessons. Frisk has been helping me, have you not, my child?”

Frisk knocked enthusiastically. [Yes. I’m the fun checker! I have to make sure that every lesson includes something fun!]

“WOWIE. THAT IS AN IMPORTANT JOB, BUT ONE THAT I AM CERTAIN YOU WILL DO WELL! JUST LIKE YOU ARE AN EXCELLENT HERO, FRISK. AND AN EXCELLENT FRIEND!”

Everyone nodded their agreement. That was true. Frisk was the kind of person who could (and would) be friends with everyone. Who knew what they would befriend next?

=====

With all the shrimp successfully hidden in the curtain rods Flowey moved on to his last prank. Well, extremely mean hearted payback. That was the same, right? It was to him.

He pulled out the little tube-like trigger thingy. He’d only ever seen it used to dispense guacamole, but he definitely felt like that wasn’t the original purpose. It looked kind of like a giant hot glue gun without a cord. He’d bought it at a home improvement store from an old man in a yellow apron. The apron was the same colour as his petals, a fact that the old man couldn’t shut up about. Flowey had never heard anyone so chatty in his life.

Lifting himself up to the level of the handle was harder than he thought. It was only a few feet. A few frustrating feet. When he reached the door handle he clung to it, bending the lever down a bit. That was fine. Any position would work for what he planned.

Flowey carefully lined the tip of the little trigger thingy up with the opening of the lock. He pressed the trigger for a few seconds, forcing the hard-setting epoxy into the locking mechanism. Only when it started to overflow did he stop. He put the tube back in his inventory, lowered himself to the ground, and slithered off to find the next door with a lock he could destroy. He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself as he did so. The Revenants had no idea what was coming to them.

#sansgoriel #flowey #sans #papyrus #frisk #alphys #undyne #toriel #grillby #asgore #gerson #yastaghr

[solitaria-fantasma]

((Extensive Session #3 highlights.))

We go to Von Trikona’s tower and are greeted by three students and a handful of golems.

Humphry eyes Mountain with abject terror.

Von Trikona gives us the preserved bodies wrapped in burial shrouds, and teleports us to the town of Fwee - just past the security gates, but not right in town square.

The map for the town of Fwee is heckin’ pretty.

“Oh no...oh no, I fucked up. I made a mistake! UwU!!!”

“Please don’t comment on the corpse-shaped backpacks!”

Udaji may be tol and stronk but she is also dumb and can’t roll higher than a 10 on her Perception checks.

“The only ones who don’t blend in with the local crowd are the Halfling and the Dragonborn.” Claus and I just can’t catch a break…

We walked around the marketplace with the preserved corpse backpacks for a while as we asked for directions to the Rose family home.

Mountain’s intimidation checks are on-point.

Udaji’s average Perception roll is a 4 while the rest of the party averages around 16.

It has been decided that this scaly baby should never have been allowed out of town on her own.

Somebody in this town is throwing mud balls and glitter bomb darts at our rogue and Udaji is seeing NONE of it.

“Claus would like to point out that you’re covered in paint.”

We entered a house and the DM resized our icons to reflect the height differences. It looked like a bad game of Agar.io and I was winning.

Matthias - still covered in paint - was politely asked not to sit on the furniture, and handed a single tiny-ass napkin to ‘clean up’ with.

“Yeeeaaahhh...there was no easy way to do this, was there?”

“Is it more disrespectful to put the bodies on the ground or the table?”

“It might be more disrespectful to try and unwrap the bodies one handed and risk dropping them.”

“Above the board, do we have to tell her that the bandits were already dead when we found them?”

Matthias ‘accidentally’ smeared paint on the servant on his way out, and offered him the tiny-ass napkin back.

Lady Rose thanked us for returning her family’s bodies, but asked us to give her some time to process her loss.

We then went to the magic district (mostly wizards, mostly elven) to get started on the errands we promised to run between Von Trikona and her friend Vincent.

We knocked on the door, heard a loud ‘CRASH’, and poked our heads through the unlocked door Scooby-Doo style.

The DM promptly had us roll for initiative.

I keep forgetting to select my token BEFORE rolling for initiative heck.

“Hopefully you guys don’t die.”

“Gotta be honest - I’ve thought about what character I’d bring in if Udaji DID die. But it would be really, REALLY sad.”

I had to run down to get dinner and missed half a turn of combat but I made it back just in time for my second go.

“Oh! Udaji! You missed this part, but the old wizard man has cried out for you to not set anything on fire.”

“Can do! That’s not my kind of dragon heritage!!”

The old wizard man is ‘Vincent Oman’ - an artificer. We returned his stuff, and he offered us dinner.

“This guy is, like, peak Grandpa. He’s very happy to have people over.”

Vincent has not heard of Lord Hassan, but recalled an enchanted lockbox a cohort of his (Ceri, another artificer) had made on commission for the dowry of a local girl marrying a man in the next kingdom over.

That lockbox (enchanted to be neigh on impossible to break into) was part of Clarissa Rose’s dowry, and now I’m sad.

Vincent drew us a map to Ceri’s house, and then we nearly left without picking up Maxine’s books (three advanced spellbooks & some of her notes).

He also offered to let us sleep in his attic for the night, since it was getting late, only asking us to try and keep quiet, as he was a delicate sleeper.

Matthias finally got to wash off the paint in the ‘waterifier’ (re: magical, water-creating shower).

Vincent reminds Udaji too much of her own dad, and she took one point of homesickness damage. Vincent gave her heartwarming life advice, and more food.

“It’s okay if you get sad sometimes, when traveling far from home. You will find people who will not, perhaps, fill the void, but surely make it feel less empty.”

I’m going to adopt Vincent holy heck

Ceri confirmed that the lockbox was commissioned to keep safe a dowry traveling a long distance, and told us that it could only be opened by using two skeleton keys simultaneously.

We had found one of said skeleton keys in the bandit/necromancer lair back in Session 1.

“We were too eager to shout ‘MURDER!’ in front of the guards back in Torrin so now we’re afraid to whisper it in Fwee.”

Ceri confirmed that the key we found is one of the lockbox’s two keys.

We then debated for five minutes who the key, lockbox, and dowry would legally belong to, now that Clarissa and Donald are dead, but never officially reached the wedding.

“This is not the kind of law my family studies!”

Ceri whispered a few rumors of engagements in the area that had fallen through due to ‘accidents’ which saw the dowries go missing, and that the enchanted lockbox had been commissioned by the Rose family to protect against that.

He then told us to get out of his house.

“That’s the kindest ‘GTFO’ I’ve ever gotten.”

“We haven’t heard back from Lady Rose yet, but I feel like it would be too awkward to go back to her house and knock on the door like “Hey, are you done grieving yet?”. The answer is probably ‘no’...”

“Maybe if we walk around town, someone will try to throw more paint at Matthias.”

We wandered around the marketplace for a while, trying to lure out the mysterious woman who’d been throwing things at us the day before.

[Just to set a little reference - this is all happening within the first two hours of the campaign.]

Matthias got egged, and we chased the perpetrator into a public park.

Mountain got distracted by the beautiful view, and Matthias threatened the woman with his bow. The woman pulled her own bow and threatened right back.

“I am going to swing my lute around in front of me to act as a shield in a worst case scenario. I’m not taking an arrow over an egg.

THE WOMAN. IS MATTHIAS’. CHILD.

DM: “How long has it been since you last spoke with your lover?”

Matthias: “Let’s say it’s been….twenty-five years, seven months.”

The kid’s name is Astrid, and she is mAJORLY pissed off at ‘dad’.

Udaji is backing away from the awkward family reunion, and Mountain is still distracted by the park scenery and has no idea.

“You’re Hohenheim, and she’s Edward.”

[I understood that reference!!]

“Udaji makes eye contact with Mountain and shakes her head like “Don’t get involved you’ll regret it”.”

Mountain officially confirmed for Tiefling.

Claus tries to calm Astrid with the blessings of Lathander. She refuses. Udaji bends over a little and pats Claus on the shoulder consolingly.

His player has difficulty articulating it (and honestly, who wouldn’t? Words are hard), but Matthias is legitimately upset to hear that his lover had died.

“You go up to her and give her a hug with a pat-pat?”

“She immediately starts sobbing in your arms.”

“I shed a single manly tear.”

Mountain has only just now caught up to the fact that these rogues know each other.

Astrid is now refusing to leave. Udaji is still the party baby.

“The only reason I was allowed out of town is because nobody could physically stop me.”

“Claus gives you a comforting pat on your hip, as that’s about as high as he can reach.”

After all that chaos, we were approached by a servant from the Rose family, calling us back to Lady Rose’s house.

Her name is now Ingrid Rose, because the DM forgot to name her until this very moment. Mood.

Matthias is still covered in egg.

Lady Rose admits that she thought the offer of marriage from Lord Bryant Hassan to her daughter was too good to be true.

She also admits that she thought the Lord had asked for a rather greedy amount of dowry with the proposal.

“Were any of my husband or daughter’s possessions recovered?”

Don’t look at Matthias. Don’t look at Matthias. Don’t look at Matthias.

Lady Rose asks us to look into the recovery of the enchanted lockbox that was carrying her daughter’s dowry, and offers to reward us for it.

She ALSO asks us to put a knife in the throat of whomever arranged her daughter’s death, should we find it to not, in fact, be a tragic accident.

Astrid is basically June from AtLA but without Nyla.

Everybody stocks up on rations for a long trip back to return Maxine Von Trikona’s books.

We get on the road back to Torrin, retracing the ill-fated Rose party’s steps as we go.

After two days on the road, we come across a seemingly wounded man on the side of the road, by an overturned cart.

He asks us for gold to get back on his feet.

Udaji immediately fell for it, and had to be physically stopped from reaching for her gold.

Miraculously, we all managed to avoid a bunch of mysterious projectiles and whistling noises.

Interestingly, both of the guard corpses we had ‘interviewed’ reported hearing a whistling noise before their death.

Mountain took an arrow to the horn, but only three points of damage.

We were all tired by this point and there were a lot of bandits so combat was looooooong.

Claus has two waiting Bardic Inspiration dice and is having a very good day.

“You’re going to shoot THROUGH your daughter and your cleric??”

ONE BANDIT DOWN!

I charged at a bandit, sword drawn, but couldn’t quite make it there in one turn, so I added an intimidating roar for good measure.

I rolled a nat 20, therefore proving that I inherited SOMEthing from my white dragon mother, and the bandit pissed himself.

THREE BANDITS DOWN!

I took 8 points of damage from the other bandits and it’s a good thing the DM had us level up at least once bc if I’d still had my lvl. 1 total of 9hp that damage would have damn near killed me.

“Ew, he’s got a skull face with horns! ...oh, wait, he’s just ugly nevermind.”

“If I cast the magic, but Matthias says the words, can we duet ‘Vicious Mockery’?”

“My mother [the white dragon] would be proud of that, and I’m not sure I’M proud of that.”

I stand corrected: Astrid is a ranger, not a rogue.

Dragonborn zoomies.

“I may be wearing a flower crown, but I’m still scary.”

I have now decided that there will be - at minimum - one fight where I take off my flower crown and force someone else in the party to hold it.

Probably Claus.

SIX BANDITS DOWN!

“Well, they identify as a corpse right now, so…”

We got distracted for another five minutes arguing about how useful Hawkeye was to the Avengers in the MCU vs. how useful Hawkeye was to Loki in the MCU, which spawned from the DM apologizing for her slowness in playing out Astrid’s turn, as she had never played a Ranger before because she thought they were useless.

Poor Hawkeye.

The bandit captain tried to ambush Astrid, hit her with one of two scimitars, and failed his dagger roll badly enough to stab himself.

Claus - incredibly inspired by Udaji’s music and heroics - saved Mountain from dying.

Udaji keeps rolling really well on attacks and damage...if only I could shuffle some of those over into Perception.

Astrid got the killing shot on the bandit captain.

I looted his body, and found (2) scimitars, tattered leather armor, the queen piece from a set of dragon chess, and (7) silver.

I took the chess piece, and nothing else.

Astrid found footprints leading back to the bandits’ camp, so we took over it for the night.

We leveled up! Woo!!!

Zone of Truth. Zone of TrUTH. ZONE OF TRUTH-

And College of Creation. This is gonna be fun!!!

#OOC #Quarantine D&D #((these keep getting longer and longer...)) #((I need to learn to summarize))

[four-loose-screws]

FE4 Suzuki Novelization Translation - Chapter 6 Part 1

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations - Ko-fi

Minor T/W: One antagonist character very briefly expresses rape intentions.

———————————

Chapter 6 - The Bard’s Introduction

Part 1

Upon returning to Evans Castle, Sigurd wrote to both his father and King Azmur for their approval of his marriage.

His father gave his blessing, and wrote that he would be waiting impatiently for the day of his son's triumphant return, so he could meet the bride face-to-face.

King Azmur gave both his approval, and ordered Sigurd to stay stationed at Evans Castle to maintain order in Verdane while pressuring Augustria not to make any sudden moves.

Sigurd and Deirdre held a quiet ceremony at Evans Castle.

-

About a week later, a swordsman came to the castle, and challenged all the sword fighters to a duel.

Knowing that it would be good training, they all accepted his challenge, but not a single one of them so far had won.

Upon hearing the noise coming from the courtyard, Sigurd walked out to investigate, and saw Ayra coming forward to challenge the swordsman. "Wait! Allow me to be your opponent." He stopped Ayra and took the wooden sword she was holding for himself.

"I'll take on everyone and anyone who wants to come at me!" The man said without a concern in the world, and readied his sword.

'I can take him!’ Sigurd thought.

However, though the swordsman's stance looked sloppy, it actually didn't leave Sigurd any openings from which to attack him.

'He just might be better than me…' Sigurd refocused his thoughts, and pretended he was on a true battlefield. He imagined himself leading his army, about to strike down a powerful foe...

As the image became clearer in his mind, he felt his body fill with strength.

"Hiiiiiii-yah!!" He shouted, lunged at his foe, and swung his sword down.

He hadn't put any thought into how the swordsman would react. If the man blocked it, he could easily counterattack, hit Sigurd’s torso, and decide the match.

Luckily for Sigurd, the swordsman's sword broke in two, and the upper half went flying through the air.

"Dammit!" The swordsman cursed and threw away the remaining chunk of his sword.

"The match isn't over just because I broke your sword!"

"No, I lost. ...There is something within your sword that I have never seen before. It is like a great, awe-inspiring spirit. It saw the weak point in my sword, and that is why mine broke. ...Please, tell me your name."

"I am Prince Sigurd of Chalphy."

"So you're the great Prince Sigurd, huh? ...I am Chulainn, a mercenary. …I have only ever fought for money. But your skills made me see just how boring that life is. You fight not for yourself, and that is why you risked it all to defeat me in a single blow. Allow me to join your army, Prince Sigurd. I want to try fighting for something other than myself for once."

"You are welcome to do so, Chulainn. I won't be able to pay much, though…"

"All I need is enough to keep myself fed. In exchange, I may leave whenever I want if I lose interest in you…"

"I am neither your master nor someone you are contracted to serve, so you are free to do what you want."

"I like that idea! For now, you can just provide me with three square meals a day, and I'll be happy."

With Chulainn and the other allies that had joined him along his travels, Sigurd's unit was now starting to look more and more like a proper army.

However, the campaign in Isaach still had yet to reach a conclusion, and the situation in Augustria was getting worse and worse.

-

Eventually, King Chagall declared that he would invade Grannvale, and gave orders to each house in Augustria.

The moment Eldigan finished reading his order to dispatch troops, he called Lachesis into his room.

"Lachesis, I'm going to Augusty to ask King Chagall to stop this foolish campaign."

"Wait, Brother! Rumor has it that King Chagall killed his father! There's nothing you can say that will change his mind! If he could slaughter his own father, just think about how easily he could do the same to you. Please reconsider going to Augusty!"

"Lachesis, I understand what you're saying, but I must go. If King Chagall really wishes to go to war, then I've already made up my mind to protest it. I know the rumors, but there's no solid proof that he killed his father. There's no proven reason to believe I'm being reckless."

"But…"

"Don’t say anything further. If I put my all into persuading him, then the king is sure to understand my point."

Lachesis knew full well that there was no chance Eldigan could persuade Chagall. However, she'd also known since they were small that once he made up his mind, there was no changing it.

Realizing how futile it would be, she became worried for him, and burst into tears.

"Don't cry, Lachesis. I'll be okay. I promise I'll come home. I would never die and leave you alone."

"Eldie…"

Eldigan gathered his Cross Knights and traveled north to Silvail Castle, as it was lacking in soldiers. When one of his soldiers saw the Heirheinian Army marching towards them, Eldigan reassured them that Sigurd would bring reinforcements from Evans Castle soon, then traveled to Augusty with just one attendant to support him.

'How ironic is it that I trust a man from another country more than one from my own?' Eldigan thought. 'All this stemmed from King Chagall misunderstanding things.'

-

When Chagall heard that Eldigan was coming without his unit, he burst out laughing.

He had just become king, so he had yet to establish his full authority. The house leaders still questioned his abilities, and the rumor that he'd killed the previous king was still circulating. Because of this, he hated Eldigan most of all, for clearly opposing him. It also irritated him that Eldigan was Mystletainn’s inheritor.

‘If I am firm with Eldigan, then everyone will realize my power. It'll also be my revenge against him, killing two birds with one stone!’

With his mind made up, he calmly greeted Eldigan.

"Your Majesty, please stop preparing for war! Your father always wished to live peacefully with Grannvale. War will only make the people suffer and curse your name. It is the one thing we cannot allow to happen!"

"Eldigan of Nordion." Chagall said, putting on a happy face.

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

Chagall paused to look at the Nordion King. Then, he sneered at him.

"My father adored you, and I was happy that he shielded me from you. You remember that, don’t you?

"..."

"However… my father is dead, and now I am the one who rules over all of Augustria. Understand?"

"Yes, but…"

"You ignored my order! I cannot let you go unpunished for your crimes! ...Someone throw him in the dungeon, where he can think about how he's made a fool of me!"

At Chagall's order, the two soldiers standing behind him each grabbed one of Eldigan's arms.

"P-Please wait a minute, Your Majesty!" While he yelled as he was carried off, Eldigan did not resist.

'That went just as Manfroy told me it would!' Chagall thought. 'So long as it's an order from his king, he'll obey! At least he has one merit!'

Bishop Manfroy had promised Chagall hegemony of the Jugdralian continent.

-

"If you invade now, Grannvale will be easy pickings, and you will become Chagall, ruler of the entire world! All you must do is become king of Augustria."

"And how do I do that?"

"That much is simple, isn't it? If only your father dies, then you will become king. That's all that needs to happen for you to become the emperor of Jugdral!"

As Manfroy told him so, Chagall imagined a dazzling throne before him. When he sat upon it, countless courtiers bowed to him. From outside, he heard thousands of voices cheer for him as the new emperor.

Chagall killed his father soon after that.

-

Chagall sent a messenger to each house with the order to attack Castle Nordion. 'It's finally begun! Once I've seized Nordion, I'll have all of Augustria’s armies invade Grannvale! Then, the world will be mine!'

When Heirhein's King Boldor received the order, he immediately ordered Prince Elliot and General Phillip's units to ready for battle.

"I’m going to take Nordion from the other houses. I want you two to guard Hehein’s Castle. Do not open the castle gate for anyone without good reason, not even for King Chagall. When I return, Nordion will be ours!"

Elliot was ecstatic to gather his cavalry unit and pass on the order.

"Once Eldigan is gone, we will have nothing to fear! All units, move out! Let's get our revenge!"

As the horses galloped along, Elliot pictured Lachesis in his mind.

'Once Nordion has fallen, I'm going to take that Lachesis and make her mine! She’s so full of herself! Every time I try to talk to her, she turns away! But I wonder what kind of look she'll give me once I’ve ripped her clothes off...'

General Phillip commanded an armored unit, and therefore marched very slowly. Once Elliot and his cavaliers were out of sight, he ordered his soldiers to halt in the middle of a field.

"We will prepare for battle and be on standby here, as our only duty is to keep the enemy from reaching Castle Heirhein."

He did not think it proper for Augustrians to fight amongst themselves.

-

When Sigurd received news from Nordion Castle, he immediately ordered all his units to go and provide backup.

With the castle suddenly in a panic, Deirdre went looking for Sigurd.

She found him giving orders to his soldiers in the reception room. "Are you going to start fighting again, Lord Sigurd?"

"I am, Deirdre. I received a request from Nordian Castle to provide reinforcements. Eldigan's been thrown in Augusty's dungeon, so we must be the ones to save his little sister, Lachesis."

"Then I'm going with you!"

"No, I won't allow it. We won't be fighting any mages this time, and Augustria's armies are large and properly trained. I don't want to put you in danger."

"But you promised you would never leave my side… I'm scared. ...I feel that if we part for even a moment, we'll never see each other again… Please. Please let me go with you."

"I'm sorry… You're right. I did promise that. We'll go together. But you must promise to stay right next to me."

"Yes, I promise."

However, when the army started to march, Sigurd galloped off with the cavalry unit, and couldn't keep their promise. Deirdre fell behind to the rear with the infantry unit.

-

Nordion Castle was surrounded by Elliot's army, but they had yet to break the castle gate. 

'Thank the gods! We made it in time!'

Sigurd immediately ordered his entire army to attack. The cavalry unit clustered together and broke through Elliot's troops like a drill.

They hadn't expected Sigurd's army to show up so quickly, catching them off guard. From that one opening, their entire formation began to fall apart.

Sigurd aimed for the enemies in front of the castle gate, and rushed towards them.

Elliot was surprised by the sudden appearance of an enemy, but knew it was too late to run. He readied himself to fight the man charging at him - who he presumed to be the enemy leader - however, he was no match.

Once they saw Elliot fall off his horse, his men flew into a panic.

Seeing that the enemy was attempting to flee, the Nordionian soldiers opened the castle gate. When Sigurd entered inside, he was greeted by Lachesis, who was dressed ready for battle.

"Thank you for coming to help, Lord Sigurd. You've saved us. For now, at least…"

"I'm happy to see you safe, Lachesis. Is Eldigan still imprisoned?"

"Yes, he is still in Augusty… All the houses of Augustria have turned against us. Please, Lord Sigurd, I beg you, lend us your strength. At the very least, save my brother…”

“I will. I don’t want to fight the other houses, but at this point, we don’t have any choice.”

Sigurd then went out to look for Oifey, so he could discuss their next strategy.

Oifey was atop the castle wall, already assessing the situation. “Lord Sigurd, the fight still rages on. The Cross Knights have returned from Silvail Castle to the north, and are now chasing after the Heirheinian Army. We cannot ignore this. We must fight with them…”

The main force of Sigurd's army split off from those who would stay behind to guard Nordion Castle, then began to march again.

Philip's unit did as they were ordered, and fought without taking even a single step off the plain, leading him and all his soldiers to meet the same fate all together.

Even though that battle was over, the Cross Knights did not stop to rest, instead heading directly towards Heirhein, a strategy so harsh it surprised even Sigurd. He guessed they must be fueled by their grudge towards their king's cruelty.

The two armies pressed on together, and finally captured Heirhein Castle.

With that battle over, they were able to take their well-deserved break. But even then, it wouldn't be long before they would have to fight again.

#fire emblem #fe #fe4 #genealogy of the holy war #nintendo #snes #super nintendo #famicom #super famicom #japan #japanese #translation #novel #light novel #fe4 suzuki novelization translation

[alj4890]

For @krsnlove who asked for something for today, LOL.

(Thomas x Amanda) (Maxwell x Nadia)

@walkerinfolkvangr @alleksa16 @penguininapinktuxedo @blackcoffee85 @stopforamoment @fullbeaumonty @cocomaxley @darley1101 @hopefulmoonobject   @krsnlove    @annekebbphotography @gibbles82   @bella-ca  @hopelessromantic1352 @pixieferry

"Must we spend the entire weekend with them?" Thomas asked as he buttoned his shirt.

"They came into town specifically to see us." Amanda called out from the bathroom. "They plan on doing other things, but they wanted the evenings with us."

He frowned as he tucked in his shirt and walked into the bathroom. Amanda was standing before the mirror finishing her makeup and looked at his reflection.

"Thomas, they love us."

"No, they love you. Since you love me, they tolerate my prescence." He propped his hip on the counter and folded his arms.

"You know that's not true!"

He sighed. "Yes, they consider me a friend, but...couldn't they consider me a long distance friend?"

She chuckled as she placed her makeup back in her bag. "You are a long distance friend. You just happen to be friends with two people who love to spontaneously travel and you reside in a very popular state."

"I suppose that's fair. I had wanted you all to myself this weekend." He took her hand and tugged her closer. "I had plans for us."

"Oh?" She said softly as he moved her closer.

"Yes, plans for just us. Plans that started tonight and didn't stop for days. Nights made for you and me. No one else." Each word was breathed against her skin as his lips hovered over her neck.

They both jumped when they heard the doorbell ring. "There they are." Amanda looked up at him and kissed him. "Perhaps you will have what you want."

He shook his head no as he followed her down the stairs. "Not with those two involved."

"Here we are!" Nadia squealed as she hugged them both. Maxwell in turn hugged Amanda, squeezing a yelp out of her then shaking Thomas' hand. Nadia produced a basket filled with sweets, cheeses, and wine.

"Let's get the night started!" Maxwell exclaimed.

The boisterous couple seemed to hold within them the very fabric of a nightclub filled to the brim with people having a good time. Thomas was amazed how between the two of them, they managed to turn his quiet home into one of skull thumping loudness.

Amanda encouraged them to sit down and be comfortable while she retrieved some glasses. Thomas followed her and pinned her between the counter and his body.

She began to laugh softly. "May I help you Mr. Hunt?"

He turned her around and kissed her. "Only if you can figure out a way for us to be alone." He thought of the long hours he had spent editing his current film and the need to be near her. That was what this weekend was supposed to be about.

Amanda let out a sigh and kissed his cheek. She handed him two glasses and gently nudged him back to the living room.

As they caught up on what everyone had been doing, they opened the contents of the basket and were soon sitting on the floor near the fireplace.

"Oh! Let's play a game!" Nadia offered. She looked expectantly at Maxwell who beamed at her way of thinking.

"Let's make it an interesting one. Amanda, we will need paper and pens please." Maxwell said.

"What are we playing?" She asked as she went to get the items.

"Two truths and a lie!" He announced.

"Oh! I love that game, pumpkin." Nadia wrapped her arms around Maxwell.

"I know you do, angel eyes." He kissed her nose.

Thomas rolled his eyes at their pet names and settled more comfortably when Amanda returned.

"Who's going first?" Nadia asked.

Everyone was silent. "I'll go first." Amanda offered.

Maxwell leaned forward, his blue eyes staring directly into hers. "Remember. Make them interesting and difficult. You have two of us here who know you very well."

"Okay, okay." She muttered as she quickly wrote out her two truths and lie. She put a star next to the lie and folded it up, setting it on the stone hearth.

"First thing is...I once threw my drink in a date's face when he accused me of inviting a tipsy guy to kiss me. Second, I once was a bartender for a hockey team's party. Third, I once changed my college major to geology and then changed it back to English the following semester."

Maxwell and Thomas sat there studying her while Nadia shook her head. "Has to be the bartender that's the lie."

Maxwell narrowed his eyes. "I know you collect rocks, I can't remember if you changed majors or not. I think I'm with Nadia on this one."

Thomas studied her. "You are much too sweet to become overly dramatic and throw a drink in a guy's face."

"Is that your final answer?" She asked with a grin. They all nodded. She opened up the paper and they gasped.

"You really were a bartender for a night?!" Nadia exclaimed. Thomas shook his head. "I can't believe you threw a drink in a man's face."

"Wow. Okay, clearly we did not hang out as often as I thought. Now who's next?" Maxwell asked.

"I'll go next." Thomas replied. He quickly wrote out his three and marked the lie before folding the paper and setting it on the table. He cleared his throat. "First, I once moved to San Francisco and developed a business plan for a local smoothie franchise. Second, I was an assistant manager at an electronics store. After closing, I would kill all the lights and project movies on the blank wall inside. I charged friends and friends of friends two dollars a person to come in and watch them. Third, I was once an underwear model."

Amanda snorted and choked on her sip of wine. "Thomas! An underwear model?" She had tears falling as she laughed. No one else laughed. She looked at them all surprised. "Are you serious?"

Maxwell and Nadia shared a glance. "Everyone knows that was his job before directing."

"I didn't know!" She said, her voice getting defensive. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Thomas rubbed the back of his neck. "Honestly, I thought you knew. I assumed you knew all about me before coming to work with me."

"I didn't! I had no idea that everyone had seen you naked!" Her tone was now a mixture of hurt and anger.

"I wasn't naked! I had on underwear!" He responded, a bit touchy at how she was acting.

She turned toward the other couple. "Have you seen my husband in his underwear?"

"Well, yeah. I mean it was a pretty big ad campaign of Calvin Klein's, so..." Maxwell trailed off as her eyes narrowed. Nadia slumped down Maxwell's side as she confirmed she remembered the ads.

"That's just great. Everyone has seen my husband naked." She nearly yelled.

"Oh for the love--I wasn't naked!" Thomas yelled.

Amanda glared at him. "I can't believe this."

"Come on Amanda. Isn't Hollywood filled with folks that have seen each other in their underwear?" Maxwell asked, trying to help out.

"He is not an actor. No one should have knowledge of how he looks in his underwear, except me! I bet Nadia just loves the fact that on Google Earth, when you zoom in on Ramsford, you are seen naked in the window."

"What?!" Screeched Nadia. "Maxwell Percival Beaumont!"

Maxwell covered his face. "Why? Why would you reveal that?"

Amanda suddenly stood up. Her anger rolled off of her in waves as she stormed upstairs and slammed the bedroom door.

Thomas got up to go after her, when Maxwell stopped him. "We're going to get out of here and give you guys some privacy." He glanced at his own shocked wife and groaned. "I think we both have some things to work out."

Thomas walked them to the door and apologized at how the night had fallen apart. He locked up and turned out the lights, delaying the moment when he had to face his wife. He squared his shoulders and walked up the stairs and down the hall to their bedroom. He raised his hand to knock and then decided to try the door handle first. It was unlocked.

He slowly came in and saw Amanda calmly flipping through channels on the bed. He paused in surprise.

"Are they gone?" She asked quietly

"Yes." He said slowly. "Um, about the modeling, I--"

She started laughing. His shock kept him immobile.

"I already knew all about it." She said after wiping her eyes. She grabbed her phone and opened up her calendar app before tossing it to him.

"April first." He muttered as he raised his head to look at her.

She chuckled. "Sorry. I had to trick you too if I was going to empty our home of company."

"So you knew all along about my past career?" He asked as he stood before her.

"I did. When you offered it up as the last during the game, I'm afriad I took it as a way out. It would have been hard to get upset over your business plan in San Francisco." Her eyes twinkled with humor.

He shook his head in amazement of her trickery and it resulting in what he wanted. "So? Did you see those ads?"

Her cheeks turned red. "Um, yes. I might have been a big fan of them"

"Really? Is that why you agreed so quickly to come here and work with me?" The look in his eyes made her nervous.

"What? No! I mean they didn't hurt my making the decision." She began to scoot over to his side of the bed as he advanced on her.

"Thomas!" She squealed when he pounced on her. He smoothed the hair out of her face and kissed her.

"I know I shouldn't still be in awe each time you manage to give me what I need, but I can't help it." He said softly.

She smiled and gently pushed him off of her. "I know a way you can thank me?" She winked suggestively at him.

His smile was mischievous as he began unbuttoning his shirt. "And how long am I supposed to pose in my underwear?"

"Hmm. One shouldn't rush art."

#the royal romance #trr maxwell #thomas hunt x oc #maxwell x nadia #thomas hunt #choices rcd #pm nadia

[rarestereocats]

recap of the first session of the mercenaries campaign!

It's an exciting day for the capital city of the Phoenix Kingdom as the yearly festival is set to begin soon.  People are milling about and setting up their stalls and shit while the rest of us close in on the city for whatever reason.  Torik,  a dwarf cleric,  and Sam,  an aarakocra monk;  are travelers stopping in town for work and shopping,  for spices in particular.  Beldroth is an elven ranger who is a little socially stunted from his many years in the woods.  All three of them are in search of something (outside of spices and social abilities),  Torik and Beldroth both seeking out ancient artifacts of their people and Sam is out with a thirst for knowledge.  I,  on the other hand,  am not in search of anything and I'm just a goliath guard from the lowly,  downtrodden town of Kilan and I've been sent to Fragifell to be on guard for the festival.

Beldroth inquires around town about the artifact he seeks.  The All Seeing Eye which is literally a glass eye that belonged to an ancient elven hero and is now,  very obviously,  lost as fuck.  Much like him,  honestly.  All he has to go on right now is that it's in the area,  but beyond that,  nobody knows a thing about it.  After cracking down on some crime,  I go to watch as Torik does his job which is to preach about worshipping our ancestors instead of the gods and my old tribe held onto a belief that all dwarves are devoid of their spirits,  so I'm baffled by this display.  So baffled that I call him out on it,  making everyone within a ten mile radius uncomfortable,  but I also don't pick up on social cues every well from too many blows to the head.  That's right,  folks,  you're in for a wild ride cuz this is the official,  full scale Dumbass Squad because all four of us are lacking something upstairs apparently.

After the other three collect a job from the notice board that I was there to witness,  but was not privvy to cuz I can't read,  we all part ways to enjoy the festival as it's finally starting.  It's good night,  lots of fun to be had,  but everything good must come to an end and that end tonight was demons.  With the crowd running faster than a gaggle of old women who've heard there's a sale on cranberry juice,  Torik,  Sam,  and Beldroth try to formulate a plan;  but hi,  me barbarian and me smash.  Without consulting anybody,  I charge into battle,  only to be immediately frightened by the sight of an imp and some lesser demons.  But thankfully,  Torik and Beldroth slay the beast that has frightened my fragile,  stupid heart and I immediately go into a rage.  We slay the demons together and while they discuss with the guards what happened,  I start rage investigating the scene of the crime.  Nothing around but a suspicious group of rats who manage to escape the justice system and with that,  my boss calls us all into her office.

After introductions are over,  my boss asks me to explain what happened and I do the best I can.  Proving that they will steadily become the truest of friends,  the rest of the party backs me up as I bring up the suspicious rats and Ellie is probably horrified by just how many jackasses her office can hold without the collective IQ dropping for everyone.  She tells us to come back in the morning to go over this further and with that,  we all part ways yet again.  Beldroth seeks out a place to stay by walking into a random old man's home and being absolutely shocked that these people aren't cool with it.  His culture's widely different than their own,  but this man and his wife take pity on the dumb elf who strolled in and give him a room to stay in for the night.  Sam heads back to the temple to,  as I assume,  get away from the rest of us while Torik goes off to perform one last ceremony.  And me?  Cue the Cops theme.

I'm pissed that no one's going to follow the lead on the suspicious group of rats and I have no idea where those fuckers ran off to.  They got information and you know what I want right now?  If you guessed "a shining miracle that grants me an above average intelligence so I stop making poor decisions",  you would be correct;  but we're not here for that,  alright?  I spot a pair of rats climbing into a garbage can and immediately charge after them,  managing to grab one of the tiny bastards.  I aggressively interrogate it,  trying to coax its many secrets out,  but instead;  it dies of fright and now I'm panicking cuz I just killed a lead in this investigation.  Mournfully,  I hide the body and make my way back to the barracks,  swearing to take this secret with me to the grave.  Come morning,  we all meet up at Ellie's office and everyone picks up on my somber mood,  but I'm not willing to confess to my sins just yet.  My boss lets us know that they have assembled a better team more tasked to investigating delicate matters,  so we're enlisted to help out the region as a whole.

There's cases of missing people in the town of Windermare,  so that's our first stop on a journey that has already been filled with emotional turmoil for one of us (spoiler alert:  it's me).  As we set out,  we all get to know each other a little better and learn where we all came from,  but the conversation's cut short when a group of kobolds make the mistake of trying to ambush us.  They manage to get a few good hits in and we're getting some ouchies,  for sure,  but we pull through with our newfound power of friendship and prevail.

#adventures of the volunteer fire department #oc: aki kulumavi #game: dnd mercenaries

[narniakid]

The majority of 2018 I spent educating people about the worst drought in 800 years. The Central Coast listened; we not only banded together to raise thousands of dollars, but we filled an entire truckload of donations to deliver to farmers in Western NSW.

It all began sometime around February, when I can recall seeing an article somewhere about how Australia was currently in drought. My family own and operate Mangrove Produce and Hardware, where we supply hay, grain and feed to locals in the Mangrove Mountain region. My mum had mentioned she was having a bit of trouble sourcing feed, because with no grass for cattle to eat, the demand was quickly rising – and so were the prices.

One night when I was reading statistics and stories about the drought, I stumbled across a charity called Rural Aid, who’d been running their fundraising campaign, Buy A Bale, for some time. The aim was to encourage donors to purchase a bale of hay for a struggling farmer by donating $20 or more.  It was a fantastic idea, and I got in contact with them. At a time when they weren’t a very well-known non-profit nationally, they were eager to send me fundraising materials to help raise money and spread the word.

March 2018: Help my Mum & I raise money for Buy A Bale!

As I asked around friends and family, and began posting about the drought on social media, I found that most didn’t even realize the majority of our own state was in the middle of severe drought. My good friend and photographer Andrew Cooney approached me with an idea; he discussed travelling to the worst of the drought-affected areas to document the damage, and we agreed to team up with our fundraising efforts to educate the Central Coast and just how bad it really was.  Below are some of his photographs from his first visit to a farm in Gunnedah, NSW, and they speak for themselves.

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His photographs caught the eye of Samuel Lentini from Eastcoast Beverages – a local juice company on the Central Coast. Sam decided that he wanted to come on board our fundraising campaign as well, and so – with me still busy collecting our donations, spreading the word, and putting together marketing materials – Andrew and the Eastcoast Beverages team headed to Gunnedah once again, where they delivered a truckload of orange peels from the factory for the cattle to eat. It was such an extraordinary site, it attracted a lot of media attention, including The Daily Telegraph, ABC and Prime 7!

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We spent another few weeks fundraising in person and online, when all of a sudden, the national media seemed to wake up. TV stations and major news publications started to report on all the debt, all the cattle lost, and all the mental struggles the farmers were dealing with.

That was when I met a lady named Sara Evans. She came into my workplace at the radio station, after listening to the breakfast shows discuss the massive impact of the drought. A co-worker steered her in my direction, as I had already been campaigning and fundraising to support our farmers for several months. Sara basically said to me, ‘I’ve got a truck and a driver who’s willing to donate his time, I want to do something really BIG to help these farmers.’

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We both agreed to organize a Coast-wide donation drive, which was a huge job, and we’d only given ourselves a month to plan, market and collect donations leading up to the event day. The idea was to run a drive-through drop-off zone in a central location near the freeway, as we wanted to make it as easy as possible for the public.

We both had a bit of previous fundraising experience, but nothing of this scale, and we hadn’t taken into account exactly just how much help we were going to need – pallets to pack the donations on, a place to sort and store the goods before they were loaded onto the truck, a forklift and qualified driver, traffic control on the day, a LOT of fuel money to get the semi-trailer across the state and back… we’d sort one problem, and then another would arise. And we were juggling this all while still working full-time. It was definitely a giant learning curve for both of us, but we were so incredibly grateful to have the help from dozens of local businesses.

Working for a media company, I was lucky enough to have marketing materials at my disposal – radio interviews and commercials, flyers and posters, and access to our promotional cars to draw listeners in on the day. My whole workplace was extremely supportive, and I am still so thankful to this day for all of their help. I couldn’t have pulled it off without a platform to send out the message across in the first place.

The Central Coast For Our Farmers Donation Drive was a success – while the number of people we had wasn’t as many as we were hoping, the amount that came brought an enormous amount of goods. There were donors who had collected that much dog food, groceries and water that they had to make second and third trips to bring it all to us. We had local schools collect items, business owners filling boxes and boxes of stuff at their workplaces, and families who had added extra items into their trolleys every week when they did their own shopping. It was just phenomenal how much people wanted to help. I certainly didn’t expect collecting enough donations to fill the entire truck, but we did!

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When deciding on where we were going to deliver the donated goods, we had a look into some of the most remote parts of the state, where help hadn’t yet reached. We chose the Packsaddle region, an area about 180km north of Broken Hill. The standout feature of this barren land was a popular venue called Packsaddle Roadhouse on Packsaddle Station, where tourists and truck drivers would often stop to stay the night and grab a feed.  The roadhouse was also home to the local SES Base, and Sara got in contact with the venue owner, who kindly offered up the venue for free to deliver and unpack the donations for the farmers, as well as a place for us to stay the night.

We began the road trip about 2 weeks later, with volunteers from Rotary Gosford North coming along as well. My wonderful Dad offered to drive my partner and I in his car, and on the first day, we traveled 14 hours to Broken Hill. As soon as we passed the Hunter Valley region, it was like entering a different country – the overcast weather and rolling hills of the wine country suddenly turned into flat open plains scattered with gumtrees. Everything was so incredibly dry and brown, it was hard to believe that it was once all green. We passed lots of herds wandering the roadside, with farmers leading them from behind to any patches of greenery they could find – the paddocks had turned to dust, so they were forced to look beyond their own properties for food.

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The halfway point to Broken Hill was a town called Cobar, and that was really when the effects of the drought were evidence. I almost expected a tumbleweed to roll past as we got out of the car for a stretch. From there, it got worse – we passed countless signs marking where rivers once were, now dry as a bone. The amount of dead animals on the roadside almost doubled, and as we drove the endless, straight route towards Broken Hill, there was almost no evidence that it had actually rained 50mm in the previous 24 hours. Most of the puddles had dried up already, and the sudden dump of rain had washed away the top soil on any spring crops that were planted. It was heartbreaking to think that at the time we were travelling, it was supposed to be the peak season for growth, but there wasn’t a blade of green grass in sight.

After a night’s stay in Broken Hill, we drove another 4 hours north to deliver and unpack around 60 pallets of donations. Sara and I had organized a party for all the local farming families at the roadhouse, and some had already arrived when we got there to help us set up.

The people I met were just amazing – the most hardworking, honest and down to earth people who could laugh at anything. The best part was seeing the joy on their faces. These farmers, they’d been stuck in a depression, some had really been struggling to get up to work each day. I feel so humbled and privileged to get to see first hand these people reunite with their neighbors and friends, some who they hadn’t seen for months, but had known all their life. We cooked them a free feed for lunch and dinner, treated them to plenty of free beer and set up the truck as a stage where they sang, danced and partied on till early hours of the morning.

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Most of them owned well over 100,000 acres. I spoke to a beautiful woman who’d lived on the land her whole life. To give you an idea of the size, the entire city of Chicago in the USA is around 149,000 acres – she had 250,000 acres, with a few thousand head of cattle. I asked when she’d last received rain. She laughed and said the last time she can recall was late 2015 – more than 3 years ago.

She had 10 working dogs, and the bagged dog food cost too much, so she was shooting kangaroos for them to eat instead. Each dog needed about 2 kangaroos each for a decent feed, but the ammunition for the bullets cost hundreds as well, with each bullet equaling about $5 each. There were hundreds of goats on her property which she could also shoot and sell (too skinny for the dogs to eat), but their value had dropped to $2 per goat – less than the cost of the bullet needed to shoot them.

This same lady had broken down in tears when we showed her the shed full of donations, because it wasn’t the donations themselves that brought these people overwhelming joy – it was the fact that we had gone to the effort to collect them, bring them out here, and put on a big party for them.

We wanted to show them that we cared beyond just making a cash donation for a farm thousands of kilometers away, we wanted to say ‘we hear you, we know you’re there, and we’re coming to give you a well deserved break from the day-to-day stresses of the big dry.’

Every farmer would only take the bare minimum of what they needed, insisting that there were others that needed it more. It was like a big supermarket; they could grab bags and boxes and fill up their utes with whatever they needed. They put aside boxes and pallets of stuff for their friends and neighbours who couldn’t make it.

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Many had told me that a major problem they’d encountered was the rise of bore water in the area. The water quality from the bore water, due to a substantial increase in bores being put in, meant they had to go deeper, and the little water that they could get was full of poisonous minerals and wasn’t drinkable. Most of the money they had went to buying bottled water and bagged feed, because hay prices had skyrocketed.(My family’s own business was suffering too, and we were getting phone calls from all over the state with people willing to travel hours and hours for any hay available to purchase). A lot had told me in terms of food, water and feed, they were down to about 3-4 weeks supply on hand at a time, because they couldn’t afford to redirect any money to stock up. The donations we brought have added another few weeks’ worth of supplies for them and – as equally as important, if not more – a well needed mental relief.

Andrew and I have continued to raise funds for Buy A Bale, long after I returned from delivering donations with Sara and the Rotary team. We just recently crossed the $19,000 mark, thanks money raised at our local Grill’d restaurants through their Local Matters program. We also raised money through selling merchandise and continuously spreading the word through an online campaign, radio commercials, money tins in our workplaces and articles in local newspapers and magazines.

Despite raising the money and delivering the donations, what truly touched my heart and made this experience stand out from other non-profit work I’ve done was actually travelling there and seeing the devastating impact of drought for myself. It’s one thing to press a button, share an article, give some money, but to actually see the difference it’s making is just extraordinary, and to this day it is one of the most challenging but life-changing things I’ve ever done.

Local businesses are doing it tough and desperately need an economic boost from visitors. A recent NSW Business Chamber survey in regional areas found the drought has negatively impacted more than 84%. Domestic tourism is the backbone of many regional communities, with 86% of domestic travel done by car.

Tourists spent $110 billion in local towns, cities and communities in regional Australia during 2016-17. However, of the international tourists that do visit, over 90% only stay in Sydney or Melbourne.

The best thing you can do to support our farmers is get out and shop in the local shops, eat at the local pubs, and get the money flowing through the local economy again, because the drought affects everyone – not just everyone in these remote towns, but our whole economy.

Drought conditions of NSW as of 24th January 2019 (Source: edis.dpi.nsw.gov.au)

How I Led A Team Of Volunteers to Deliver A Truckload Of Donations & Raise Over $19,000 For Aussie Farmers The majority of 2018 I spent educating people about the worst drought in 800 years. The Central Coast listened; we not only banded together to raise thousands of dollars, but we filled an entire truckload of donations to deliver to farmers in Western NSW.

#australia #charity #climate change #drought #environment #family #farm #farming #fundraiser #fundraising #gift giving #good cause #government #inspiration #media #outback #personal #photography #rural #travel #volunteer #weather #youtube

[bibliophilicwitch]

Alright, enough of you would like to see my likely long rambly post about my 3-day weekend away so let’s do this.

About a month ago a friend of mine connected with me and asked if I would be interested in a girls’ weekend because there’s a loud music festival that happens practically in her backyard every year and she didn’t want to be in town for it. This friend lives in Appleton nearly 2 hours away from me and we rarely have reasons to be in each others’ neck of the woods anymore so I don’t really visit with her much anymore. So when she asked I really wanted to say yes, but she just so happened to be suggesting a 3-day trip the same month as my 6-day vacation to travel to North Dakota to see family and attend my cousin’s wedding. We planned a budget accordingly and I just gotta be conscious of money the next couple of weeks.

The music started on Thursday and ideally we would’ve left town that evening, but I ended up being scheduled to work until 9 PM closing time at the pharmacy that night… of course. We had plans already scheduled for midday on Friday, so I had to pack everything before work and then left immediately from work for my nearly 2 hour drive and arrived at her house at about 11 PM. I listened to some of the first campaign of Critical Role - time well spent.

So our Friday morning was spent running a few errands and finishing prep to leave Appleton before heading out to Milwaukee including running her pup to a friends’ house, getting groceries, and picking up coffee to fortify ourselves. We headed out around 11 AM I think and arrived early for our massage in a Milwaukee suburb with time to spare. It was my first massage and it was pretty good other than too much on my neck which led to a light headache. I really should’ve said that it was hurting too much, but I wasn’t sure if it would or would not be beneficial as I had never had a professional massage before.

Our hotel was in Wauwautosa and we arrived a good two hours before check in so we went and got food at Dave and Busters which, for those that don’t know, is an arcade for adults - meaning there is a bar. It was fun, but 3 of the 5 games we played didn’t work correctly or at all and then it was time to head out. Kinda wish we had had the opportunity to go back for another hour since I had plenty of credits still and would’ve really liked to play Mario Kart and check out one or two more games. I did play a Star Wars game with the wrap around screen which was pretty wicked cool.

That evening, after we checked into our hotel and washed off our oils from the massage, we went to a suburb to participate in a Paint and Sip class - this one was a paint your pet class and they even had little gift bags with goodies for you pet. I picked a picture of Binx that was low lighting which they oversaturated so you could see both his eyes, but since they oversaturated the picture he no longer looked like a true black and white tuxedo but like he had shades of grey and black all over which would not have been my kitty. Since I was not following the picture exactly it was proving impossible to distinguish his features, so I gave up and just used my time to fill in the areas I knew I could and plan to ask another of my friends, who works with me for the library Paint & Sip classes, to help me finish it some time. No idea when that may actually happen since she is super busy, but I have plans that meant I was okay with my experience. Not thrilled since it was a $35 class not including our wine, but eh. Meanwhile my friend was frustrated because even though she asked a few times for help with colors she never got close enough to be happy with her picture. On top of that she had chosen a picture of her goofy dog with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, but they CUT OFF HIS TONGUE and then didn’t make the picture as large as they could’ve so she had a lot of negative space. She was unimpressed to say the least. At least our wine was good. Really the class should’ve had prerequisites such as having participated in their other classes to be sure customers would get the best out of their experience. They did see that I had not finished and were offering a free session to join their free paint classes for help finishing… which we couldn’t do since we both live too far away (in my case a good 4 hours). I do really wish it had been a more standard paint class with the fast blended background and straightforward foreground. Ah well.

We finished day one at the Cheesecake Factory, a first for me! My friend commented that she was never very impressed by their food and she wasn’t surprised do be unimpressed yet again (though I didn’t mind my food at all), but we finished off with cheesecake, obviously, and that was delicious. Unfortunately I forgot my leftover cheesecake at her house in Appleton.

Saturday was our busiest day. We started at the Milwaukee Public Museum which was excellent though it really is a whole day affair not the two hour filler we planned for it. About halfway through my friend started to get anxious about her car and concerned it had a ticket or had been towed and I think she was also just getting tired of being on her feet. I think I was overall more interested in the exhibits too and she seemed to only be truly interested in specific things. I’m also a reader and wanted to actually read some of the shit while she just breezed through exhibit after exhibit. Like I said, we really didn’t have the time, but it was disappointing to be rushed so much.

Then we went downtown to The Safe House which she had wanted to check out. She did not realize it was literally right downtown and there was some anxiety, but we made it! For those that have not heard of Safe House, it’s a restaurant where the servers are in-character as secret agents and guests are also secret agents. There is a password to get in and if you don’t know it you have to prove you aren’t a spy by acting out some silliness. The interior is a wild and zany pieced together hodgepodge with references to spies in popular culture. Guests are given a list of missions (clues) to wander about and try to figure out the password. If you figure it out you are able to get a discount on their merchandise.

It was more confusing than my friend was expecting and not as engaging as she had expected either. She was pretty sure she figured it out, but neither of us were really worried about the merchandise, so we just didn’t even bother. They had a pen listed that we both kinda wanted, but they didn’t have any in stock.

After that we went to the North Point Lighthouse which is a lighthouse museum and I really enjoyed that little attraction. After that we finally headed back to the hotel for a short break and to get bandages because she wore strappy shoes that were trying to eat her feet. We discovered there was some sort of convention going on so the hotel was packed and TOO busy for only two slow elevators.

Next we went to Water2Wine, a winery in a suburb that imports their grapes and then makes their own wines in house. It was cute and pretty decent, but we weren’t overly impressed tbh. Next door to the winery was a Half Priced Books which my friend suggested instead of going to Barnes and Noble in the mall. So we wandered around, which was the first time I’d been to a Half Priced Books, but she got bored relatively quickly and dragged me out well before I would’ve like saying I could go to Barnes and Noble instead and then if she got bored she could wander the mall. So then we ended up at the mall and I was ready to settle into browsing for nearly an hour before wandering around the rest of the mall until close, but again she dragged me out likely because it isn’t that fun to wander by yourself. I did pick up a book at both places, Of Fire and Stars and Spinning Silver. I could’ve stayed in the bookstore all evening and likely only bought the one book, but nooooo, I ended up in the game store and bought an expensive gorgeous metal dice set. Pft. I also bought macarons which I had never been able to try and the ones I got were disappointingly too sweet for me to enjoy. We were both ready to be done, so we grabbed Chipotle, another first for me, and just curled up with a little TV before bed.

Sunday we got brunch at the ludicrously hipstery Cafe Hollanders. Very good and excellent atmosphere, but I couldn’t get over how chique it was being. The cafe was located in this ritzy area filled with high end stores that neither of us could afford, but we wandered around and gawped at insane prices before heading out to the Milwaukee County Zoo which I have WAAAY too many picture of to share here, so just check out my Instagram. I mentioned a few times, because I was seeing merchandise, that we hadn’t seen the red panda and my friend said she thought it might be a seasonal exhibit. After I was home I checked… it wasn’t. We literally missed it and I kinda wanna cry tbh.

We left Milwaukee around 4 and I ended up home around 7:30, but I tossed some gas in my car, washed it, and ran to the grocery store first so idk exactly how long my drive was. Though not everything was amazing I still had a pretty damn good time, my friend on the other hand seemed to get bored and/or impatient and/or disappointed/frustrated on a regular basis and I swear she didn’t enjoy the trip nearly as well as I did which just makes me sad. I also realized that since the last time we had really hung out we have both changed. Whereas I am online a lot and am fairly socially conscious she was not and she made a few borderline racist jokes (okay, not really borderline at all). Nothing nasty, just those ingrained stereotype jokes that are just not funny when you recognize how hurtful they can be. It also became more apparent that our interests do not overlap much at all. Which is another post to ramble about later. I loved the lighthouse and the zoo and wish I could’ve had just a bit more bookstore time and arcade time. It was nice to get out of town and not think about work while getting to catch up with an old friend though.

#text #personal #general related #milwaukee trip

[buzzworddotie]

The 8th Amendment Referendum in Ireland

And how history is being rewritten one step at a time

It's been a long time coming but on May 25th 2018 the people of Ireland were asked if they would like to amend the Constitution to decriminalise abortion in Ireland.

What's it all about?

Up until now, an Irish women who seeked out an abortion for personal reasons or medical ones was a criminal under Irish law. A woman would have to either travel to the UK or attempt to dangerously take abortion pills acquired illegally at home under zero medical supervision.

Or the alternative, for years, decades, Ireland and the stronghold held over her by the Catholic Church, would force girls and women into homes to have the baby. Often these babies wound up dead, buried away, hidden. Bones have been found in septic tanks.

Girls and women were treated brutally.

Secret pregnancies were also a thing, who knows how many women and girls suffered in silence?

Right up until May 25th 2018.

That's when we finally got to be heard.

Enough is Enough

I can't take a single piece of credit for getting this vote to happen but there are countless women who can. Women who have been banging on doors, demanding bodily autonomy, demanding rights, demanding choice. Finally the demand was heard, finally the government agreed to allow the people to make a decision.

The Campaigns

As soon as the vote was announced, I knew this was not going to be a particularly nice campaign. That's putting it lightly. In 2015 Ireland held the Marriage Referendum. An opportunity to change the Constitution to recognise and allow same sex marriage in Ireland. It passed, of course, but the campaign was filled with some uneducated, hateful rhetoric fuelled by the Catholic Church. Regardless of how much they wanted to deny it, hardcore religious groups and their followers were against that law with vigor and venom.

And I knew that hate would amplify for this one. I already knew what way I wanted to vote, I didn't need anyone to convince me either way, much like the Marriage Ref. But unlike then when I did tune into radio debates and absorbed the arguments, this time I made the conscious decision to avoid it as much as possible.

Marketing

Despite that it was tough to avoid, every pole, every surface available was covered with Yes and No posters. The Yes posters usually said something like "Yes for choice" "Together for Yes" or a simple "Repeal"...

Murals went up by artists like Maser, badges were made, Repeal jumpers and through the help of crowd sourcing the Yes campaign managed to gain more support for their message.

Our message.

On the No side there were an abundance of posters, I have seen images of feotus in the womb telling me babies will be murdered. Billboards across towns, rural and otherwise.

The whole thing turned into a massive marketing campaign. To a degree, on both sides. Paid ads on social media, Google and streaming services, posters... So... Many... Posters.

Social media attacks, hashags... I just didn't want to hear it. I know burying your head in the sand isn't a solution but I personally don't believe that an issue as important as this should boil down to who has the most money to promote a post or buy a billboard.

One thing I will say is that, at least where I have travelled, there was far more "No" campaign imagery than "Yes". Those were the ones with the billboards, the video ads that interrupted my viewing and I had to wonder, where was all this money coming from?

In the end Google and Facebook to the best of my knowledge pulled paid advertising on their platforms but there were other means.

Attacks on People, places and things

Another side of the campaign was the inevitable attacks. Digital rows blazed up as the concept of reasoned debate flew out the window. Some of the words I have witnessed being used against women on social media were beyond appalling, disgusting, shameful.

Were there bot accounts? Yes, there were. It doesn't take too much probing to see that and that minor exercise in investigation proved that really the "No" side was in the minority. It was clear but you could never be certain.

And by no means would I ever suggest the "Yes" side were entirely innocent, I just didn't catch the trolling by them.

"No" campaigners also attacked places, apparently in one constituency very graphic posters were hung very close to a school, causing uproar.

They also stood outside maternity hospitals.

Let me reiterate that, MATERNITY HOSPITALS.

They stood outside them holding graphic posters, other establishments too, but that one made me sick to my stomach.

Then on the stunning Benbulben, in my home county, a place I adore, they stuck a massive "NO" sign. For some reason this triggered me. Using the landscape of this country, which throughout history has been defined with feminine pronouns, to announce that women's rights were not of value was disgusting.

Photo: https://garethwray.com/product/classiebawn-benbulben-sligos-iconic-duo/

Not more disgusting than standing outside a hospital or plastering graphic and insensitive imagery around a school but a different kind of insult. As if they were claiming this land shared their voice.

What was even weirder was the fact the people who did it were practically a parody of themselves, announcing on radio that the men had put up the sign as the women made them tea and sanwiches.

This had to be a joke, right?

It's not funny

Truthfully though, this issue wasn't a joke, not to me or to anyone involved. This vote could actually be the difference between life and death for so many women.

By night, reports were coming out saying that the turnout to vote had been exceptional, people had been travelling back home from all around the country to take part.

Many popular Irish female voices had been so loud in their messages to push this cause, many Irish men got involved too stressing the importance of men getting behind women, taking a stand with them, recognising this is their issue too. Women should not be alone in this.

Soon we began to hear the results from the Exit Polls. First the Irish Times showing a landslide in favour of Repealing. It was something like 68% in favour, an insane number.

RTE Uses Us

The "main" Irish broadcaster, the state owned one, decided to announce their Exit Polls on what I think is supposed to be a late night chat show, The Late Late Show.

I found this disgusting and I didn't watch, because I never watch, because it's utter fucking drivel. But what RTE did was decide to use this campaign for their own ratings gain. They knew people would tune in and so they decided to, as far as I know, discuss how "Toxic Masculinity is a Myth", very fucking timely decision lads. As well as this they had some gobshite on NATIONAL TV talking about how she speaks to fairies.

Because heaven forbid we take a step forward as a nation.

Now, I don't know at what stage they announced the results but I do know that it wasn't before any of that other shite. Again, that was a calculated move and they will point to those viewing figures to justify the ridiculous wages that we fund for that show and it's (wooden) presenter. I'll pause that one right there.

History is Rewritten

In a move that has the potential to shock anyone not clued into who most modern Irish people actually are, the "Yes" side achieved a mammoth victory with over 1.4 million people deciding to Vote Yes, over 66% of voters.

And the 8th Amendment has been Repealed. I am so proud of all of us.

Photo: Maser, https://deandublin.ie/events/maser-exhibition/

What Now?

So where do we go from here?

I can never shake a Bell X1 lyric from my head in times like this. Fitting, given they are an Irish band:

"...History is written by the winners. And I want my say."

If we want to continue to create an Ireland that is just, inclusive, fair and reasonable we have to keep banding together and becoming the winners. The people on the reasoned side do not always need to feel like they are being walked all over.

That's how things have felt for so long, I won't even say in the past because it is still happening. This moment was monumental and something that, just like the Marriage Referendum, should be really allowed to sink into the minds of every single person who voted, the real power of what was achieved this day is epic.

We didn't just pop an X next to a box. We have literally changed the Constitution of this nation twice. We have asked to please get a chance to update this nation to reflect who we are and not to be bound to the decisions of the past, which maybe were the right decisions back then or maybe the alternative was too alternative. We had to crawl for a while, but we started to walk and now we have the chance to run.

I don't want our interest in matters like this to start and stop with things that are so clearly emotive. There is so much more to do to keep pushing forward.

And the further we move ahead the more resistance will be out against us but we can't turn a blind eye.

OK the 8th is Repealed, what can we put in place now to ensure any womelan who require ls a clinic is not harassed with hate on entry and exit as is the case in other countries?

And there are more issues outside of this.

We need to really strive to separate Church from state, the stranglehold the Church has over schools is poisonous. There are laws that exist that people are not even aware of, did you know that if you work as a teacher in one of the many, many Church affiliated schools and you do something outside of the Catholic ethos like sleep with someone outside of marraige, they can fire you?! Can you believe this shit!?

Then there are the other social issues including housing, homelessness, classism which are still very active and we need to fight back against those structures too.

We have to keep saying when enough is enough.

We have to keep looking out for each other, from all walks of life.

Sure, An Taoisach gave some really character defining moments during this debate but he and his party need to be just as active in helping people out elsewhere. Maybe it won't get them as much PR but it should and if they make the best decisions it will.

Simon Harris has been charming people during these debates. Is that enough? Is that all it takes? He is Minister for Health of a system that is simply disasterous. A system where hospitals are under funded, where women are being improperly diagnosed with ceverical cancer, where patients are left on trolleys, where I don't know if my own father is getting the best treatment he can be getting right now because I simply do not trust the HSE.

The rich are getting richer, you can barely afford a basic, single bedroom roof over your head. People, families are homeless. Maybe the few are doing well but I'd argue the majority are struggling still.

Prospects are few and far between.

Really heinous crimes have been committed, some very recently, against women and girls. A lot of them. These are issues too that need to be examined, there is an underlying problem to this that needs to be addressed.

Mental Health needs to be treated as a real issue with real, available and affordable treatment. People should be able to get counselling or therapy as easily as they can get the flu shot.

That barely scratches the surface.

Yes, we achieved something outstanding and worth celebrating but this should be the fire in our belly to ignite us to realise we can do so much more.

We don't have to sit back and take our lot. We need to keep demanding better from our leaders and our services from the extreme examples to the basics of decent roads, schools and water.

The water in my own home been undrinkable for nearly 6 months that we are aware of. And it could have been longer.

Honestly the Irish rail service Iarnrod Eireann's slogan sums us up perfectly, "We're not there yet. But we're getting there."

This country is moving forward but we can't stop demanding true equality, for everyone.

A chairde, comhghairdeas, rinneamar stair le chéile. Ligeann an treocht seo a choinneáil.

Is féidir linn é a dhéanamh.

#repealthe8th #repeal the eighth #repeal #ireland #eight #8thammendment #irish #vote #history #constitution #yes #politics #voting #church #simon harris #leo varadkar #may #change #marraige equality

[prongs-mileven]

Next to Normal - Chapter 2

Mike Wheeler was the type of guy that enjoyed college. He enjoyed every aspect of it, even the actually attending class part. He had enjoyed moving into his tiny little dorm room with Lucas. He enjoyed having Dustin and Will down the hall from him, and he enjoyed eating nothing but noodles every day, as both Dustin and Will were the better cooks of the group. He had enjoyed going to purchase his text books and equipment required for his Biology and Chemistry classes. Lucas on the other hand, wasn't as fond of the college experience as Mike. He also enjoyed the classes, having always enjoyed Science, ever since Mr. Clarke had introduced him to a Bunsen burner back in sixth grade. However, he didn't enjoy having a diet less variable than that of a Squirrel. Nor did he enjoy how expensive all his textbooks were, especially if you were him, and had to buy them every couple weeks as they always found a way of disappearing without a trace. He did enjoy living with Mike though. He hadn't imagined enjoying it as much as he did, but the truth was, the two got on very well and understood each others boundaries when it came to sharing a bathroom.

The four boys had lasted the whole first month of college before being coaxed into going to a party. It wasn't that the boys were against parties, they just enjoyed Star Wars marathons and the occasional Dungeons and Dragons campaign more. They weren't, however, impartial to alcohol, and all four had managed to consume copious amounts impressively within two hours of arriving at said party. The party was being thrown by someone in Will's art class, who had invited Will two days prior.

"You should totally come Will. It'd be nice to see you in clothes that aren't covered in clay." The boy had smirked. Will blushed profusely, promising that he'd consider it. Truth be told, Will had wanted to go more than anything in the hopes he would see the boy, again and had begged his friends to join him at the party. They had all sighed in agreement, deciding that if Will was actually excited about going to a party, that the party must be worth going to. They had been correct.

The room stunk of alcohol of course, with music blasting and lights dimmed. The boys entered into a sea of bodies, unsure of where to stand or what to do. It turned out that not attending many parties in High School hadn't actually been a good idea in the longrun. Never the while, the four had drunk plenty of the punch on display, not caring what was in the bowl and shaking their heads in disgust as they chugged the liquid down.

"Look, all I'm saying is that maybe, JUST maybe, Darth Vader is actually a misunderstood guy." Dustin slurred, staring up at Mike who towered over him. Mike looked down at him with an eyebrow raised.

"God Dustin how much have you had?" He laughed.

"Enough to know that YOU, Michael Wheeler, aren't drunk enough!" He raised his glass and swallowed another gulp. Mike chuckled before joining his friend in another drink. Shortly after, Will grabbed both their hands and pulled them into a circle full of people with drinks in their hands and a bottle placed firmly on the floor. Mike rolled his eyes as he sat down, Dustin one side of him and Will the other. Will looked over at the boy from his art class, whose name he had learned was Ryan, and blushed when he caught his eye.

"I L O V E spin the bottle!" Dustin shouted to which the rest of the group cheered. Mike laughed again, deciding he definitely wasn't drunk enough and took another large gulp from his cup.

"Wait! Wait for us! Do not start without us!" Called a voice. He searched over to see two girls pushing through the bodies to join the circle. One had bright fiery hair, long and wavy down her back, with bright blue eyes, dressed casually in a yellow hoodie and jeans. The other was petite, with little brown curls wrapped around her face and big brown doe eyes. She was dressed cutely in a little dress and tights. The first girl seemed very excited whereas the second girl could not look more uncomfortable. She sat there quietly as the game began. Mike concentrated on the game, watched as people he didn't know leaned across the circle. The bottle got to Dustin's turn and he spun, with the bottle landing on a boy from their Biology 101 class, and the whole circle erupted with laughter. Mike gave Dustin a pat on the back as he leaned in and dutifully kissed the boy quickly on the lips before rushing back to his spot, embarrassed, cheeks filling with blush. Mike then spun the bottle himself, and it landed on the girl with short brown hair. She looked alarmed and Mike felt his cheeks burning. He made his way to the centre of the circle and watched as her friend shoved her forward.

"We, uh, don't have to, if you don't want to." He muttered when they came face to face. He found his heart pounding heavier than usual, and blamed it partially on the alcohol and partially on just how attractive this girl was up close. She smiled sweetly.

"No, it's okay. I'm playing aren't I?" He chuckled and lightly kissed her lips, as soft as he could manage. Everyone booed.

"At least give her a real kiss. We're not in kindergarten!" A girl across from Dustin yelled. This made the girls cheeks blush even further and her friend laugh. Mike shrugged before sitting back down. The rest of the game didn't last very long. Will didn't get his chance to kiss Ryan and a fight had broken out before the bottle had gotten round to the girl with the short hair. The fight had consisted of two boys, fighting over something Mike couldn't quite make out but didn't sound very serious. What was serious was the punch that was thrown. The boy had fallen backwards, into the circle they had formed. He wasn't down for long, grabbing the bottle they had been playing with before launching it back at his aggressor. Mike had quickly ducked out, pulling Will and Dustin with him. They found their way to Lucas, who had decided to cling to the redheaded girl from the game earlier. She was laughing at him, and looked unimpressed as he tried to talk to her.

"What you're saying is, you have been staring at me all night? Is that supposed to make me want to sleep with you?" Lucas giggled loudly, his head swaying.

"I mean I didn't say sleep with, but if that's what you want to do I am totally cool with it." The girl laughed.

"You don't even know my name." Lucas paused.

"Is it... Lucy?" She laughed again.

"For a stalker, you didn't really learn much about me did you? The names Max, and this is my friend El." She gestured to the girl stood next to her awkwardly. Lucas put his hand out to her. El stared at his hand, not sure what it was she was supposed to do. Max gave her an eye, before El's eyes widened quickly and she took his hand.

"Uh... Hi." She smiled awkwardly, before turning around, bumping straight in to Mike.

"Oh, it's you again." He smiled sheepishly. He found the girls sight intoxicating. She was several inches shorter than him and he had to crane his neck slightly in order to look directly into her eyes. Eyes that were brighter and sweeter than he could have hoped. She smiled up back at him, shyly. Mike quickly spoke again, hoping to defuse the awkward tension. "So have you picked your major yet?" She giggled.

"Its like our second week in... why have you?" She asked, alarmed. He smirked and shook his head.

"No, definitely not. I'd probably be in my dorm, already stressing about it if I had."

"If it were up to me, I'd probably be in my dorm, stressing about anything rather than at this party."

"Not much of a party animal?"

"No. Not really."

"Me neither. The drinks help though." She laughed again.

"I had been avoiding those actually. Is that your secret?"

"What? Get too drunk to care? Of course it is." The rest of the night had gone by in a blur, Mike and El spending it at each others sides, cups repeatedly refilled by both parties. Will managed to lock himself in the bathroom, and Max had been the one to break down the damn door in order to get him out, despite both Dustin and Lucas' efforts to open the door first.

"Really? We get our asses beat by a GIRL?" Dustin has exclaimed loudly, gaining an eye roll from Lucas and a punch in the arm from Max herself.

"You'll get your ass handed to you if you carry on." She had responded. The six of them had left the party a little around 3am, merrily singing as they strolled across the campus.

"Just come back to our place! Saves you trudging back halfway across town!" Dustin had suggested, and Max had agreed before El couldn't even get a word in. El walked back quietly with Will next to her, learning more about his past.

"I've always been into art I guess. My mom would always bring home new colouring pencils from the shop she works at back in Hawkins." El's stomach dropped. Will kept talking about his family, seemingly not noticing El's sudden tense body next to him. El bit her tongue. "You'd be surprised though, Hawkins is actually really nice in the spring. Lucas, Dustin, Mike and I would go to the quarry all the time after school." El's stomach dropped further. All four of the boys were from that place. The place she had resided in for the first fifteen years of her life. In all honesty, she found herself desperately trying to move on with her life, like Max had, but she couldn't help it when the lab and Papa and her hospital gown visited her every night as she slept. She didn't tell Max that she visited the void at least twice a week, hoping to find any trace of what had happened, where Kali might be, or if Papa had lived. The lab had burnt to the ground. That she had found out via the newspapers Max picked up on their travels. "El?" Her thoughts were interrupted by Mike's voice. She looked up at him, wide eyed and embarrassed. "Where would you like to sleep? Max seems to be bunking with Lucas." He laughed, much to Dustin's dismay who had ducked into his room. Lucas and Max had run ahead to Mike's dorm, hand in hand. El looked up at Mike.

"I reckon they may need a bit of privacy. Please tell me you don't share a bunk bed." Mike scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. Will poked his head back from inside his dorm room.

"Me and Dustin are making enchiladas and are gonna watch a movie! Would you guys like some?"

"Yes!" Exclaimed the pair simultaneously. They laughed as they entered the smaller boys room. El had to admit, the alcohol was starting to ware off and she was starting to feel more anxious about the fact she had found her way into an unknown apartment with three boys she hadn't met previously. Three boys who had grown up less than ten minutes away from her. Will and Dustin had started cooking the enchiladas already, something El had never tried before. However, Dustin, who had claimed to head to his room to look through his collection of DVD's had managed to pass out as soon as his head hit the pillow. This left Will to finish the cooking by himself as both El and Mike were hopeless, and had decided to sit on the couch and patiently wait. The last thing El remembered was listening to Mike explain the plot to one of his favourite films - Lord of the Rings.

#stranger things #prongs mileven #mileven fanfic #stranger things fanfic #next to normal fic

[sevillajamie]

Life Plan: Part III (Social, Public Service and Pleasure Goals)

Focus Area H. Social and Public Service Goals

In both maternal and paternal side, I grew up in a very loving and close-knit family centered to our grandparents. Going home to the ancestral’s house whenever possible is always a special part of our family’s weekends and holidays. All special occasions and even random weekend will be spent going back to our center of the family and it is always filled with love. I am very grateful that to this day we are still able to show love to them in our little ways. It truly does not take much to make them happy. For them, to see you, create a Sunday meal, have catch up conversations about how life is going, with some hugs and kisses are enough of fuel for them in living life. Because of this, grandparents would always have a special place in my heart and I wanted to make an advocacy to make elders feel more loved and cared for.

Milestones and Timeframe

           Within the next year, I plan to connect with an organization that ensures their needs are met and in my little ways be able to spread the word for this cause. I would create drives and campaigns to help raise funds for them. Within the next five to ten years, I plan to create an annual giving back tradition to donate or visit home for the aged to extend love to our grandparents with my family and with some of my friends.  

Focus Area G. Pleasure Goals

           I look at pleasure as experiences that feed your soul and recharge your energy for life. Hence, pleasure to me is beyond the material things but life moments. Pleasure is to create beautiful memories that I can keep and reminisce for a long time through seeing and experiencing the world. Through traveling, you get to shortly escape life and through it create an appetite for it so big that it would make the world you live in bigger, and more extraordinary that it already is. If that feeling and renewed energy for life is still not a reward in itself, then what is? Bill Bryson said, “The greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if it is for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar. It is often taken for granted.”

Milestones and Timeframe

           Within the next year, I plan to start an annual self-tradition to go to a place I have not been to alone. This is to have some quiet time, reflect on the year that was and will be and to focus on myself a little more by spending unbothered quality time with the self. It relates to my well-being goals of self-care. Each year, I will carve out time to make this happen to celebrate life and create memories of my own. It need not be a grand travel. The goal is t ground myself and reflect on life at that time. With this, I also intend to open myself up to new adventures of meeting new people, cultures and the adventure of exploring myself.

           I take pleasure in sharing the same filling experience of travelling with my family so within the next five years, I would have taken them to some international travel trips where we can create memories as a family while we learn about the cuisine and history of other countries. Within the next 10 to twenty five years and if God willing, I would be seeing the world with the love of my life. To see more places in the Philippines, travel abroad and see Europe has been one of my life’s greatest goals and to set foot in those cities that I dream of through photos and movies would be one of my life’s greatest pleasures.

[four-loose-screws]

FE4 Suzuki Novelization Translation - Chapter 3 Part 3

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations - Ko-fi

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Chapter 3 - The Military Campaign in Isaach

Part 3

Mananan didn't tell anyone about Gala's predictions.

Instead, he thought them over that night, and made up his mind on his own. 'If I am going to die no matter what, then I should do what I wanted to do from the beginning.'

The next morning, he went to Prince Mariccle, and told him that planned to take Trent's head and go to Darna to apologize.

 "But that's too dangerous, Father! Please, allow me to go instead!"

"No, I'm the only one who can do this. As the king and inheritor to our holy weapon, I have the power to request an audience with Prince Kurt. He is sure to understand. You must go to Rivough, and guard the city with your life, no matter what may happen."

"What if something happens to you?"

"If something does happen to me, then it means Grannvale will try to conquer Isaach. If I do not return, then you may request reinforcements from Queen Rahna of Silesse. If, after all of that, you go to war, then Shanan must flee the country immediately. If what Gala predicted is true, and we prolong his life, then Isaach will be restored one day."

"Did she say where he should go?"

"With her final words, she said, "the country of forests and lakes," and... "Ver."

"Was she trying to say Verdane, perhaps?"

"Yes, that's probably it. Verdane is called 'the country of forests and lakes.' And it is a remote, poor country, so I don't think any other country will try to conquer it and make it their territory. Alright then, Verdane it is. I can't promise that he will survive if he goes there, but all we can do at this point is trust his lucky stars." Mananan said, then gave Balmung to Mariccle. "This is the best opportunity for me to hand this over to you. I intend to return home safe, but even then, you should be the one to rule Isaach from now on."

-

Mananan only requested two of his attendants to accompany him on his trip to Darna.

It took them eight days to cross the desert.

Once they could see Darna, Mananan unfurled Isaach's flag. It depicted a white sword floating diagonally above the ground, which was colored red.

A group of soldiers quickly came out from within the town and ran towards them.

The leader walked up to them. "Hault!" He shouted.

"I am King Mananan of Isaach. I have come to apologize for the attack. I'd like to speak with Prince Kurt."

"Understood! Please follow us into town."

The soldiers surrounded Mananan and his attendants, then walked them through the castle gate.

General Aida was waiting for them inside, and behind her was a large number of Grannvalian soldiers.

"I am King Mananan of Isaach."

The moment he finished his sentence, Aida said, "Arrest these invaders!"

"What!? But I've come to apologize! I wish to speak to Prince Kurt!"

Aida didn't even flinch as she continued to give her cold orders. "We're going to arrest you. If you resist, then we'll kill you."

Her soldiers unsheathed their swords and surrounded him.

"I won't resist, just please, listen to me! I did not order the attack on Darna! I've brought the head of the man who did and am here to apologize!"

The soldiers stepped closer and raised their swords.

"I am the king of Isaach and a descendant of Sword Saint Od! Have you any manners!?"

"Place each of them in a private cell." Aida said before turning her back on him and walking away.

Mananan was placed in a small underground cell.

Both the walls and floor were made of stone, and there was no bed inside, only a plain blanket.

The moment the soldiers holding torches walked away, he was surrounded by darkness.

He felt around for the wall, then laid out the blanket and sat down on it.

'I really am going to die here.' He thought.

Not that Gala's predictions had ever been wrong before.

'All I can do now is maintain my dignity as a warrior.’

When he closed his eyes, he pictured his grandson's face.

Shanan was still only ten years old, yet he already knew well what it meant to be a king.

'But who knows what kind of hardships await him now.' Mananan thought, and felt his chest suddenly become hot.

-

He had no idea how much time had passed, but when light returned, it came with bread and water. He assumed that it was his dinner.

The guard lit a small lamp in the hallway, so he had just enough light to take his meal.

The bread didn't have much flavor.

‘Nothing is set in stone. I cannot give up.' He reassured himself, and ate every last crumb.

After some time, the guard extinguished the lamp, and he was once again surrounded by darkness.

He closed his eyes, and tried to fall asleep, still leaning against the wall.

-

He had no idea how long he'd been asleep for, but he awoke to the sound of footsteps echoing off the stone floor.

A light drew closer.

Aida appeared, leading three soldiers. She wore a simple black uniform without any ornaments, and a plain cape. The inside of the cape was a vivid scarlet that complemented her fiery red hair.

Mananan stayed in his sitting position, not budging even an inch. "Did you give Prince Kurt my message?" He asked quietly.

Aida nodded.

"And what did he say?"

"Kill him."

'You're lying.' He thought, but didn't say. 'After all this, I'm not going to put up a fight.'

Two of the soldiers drew their swords, and walked into the cell.

ー

By the time messengers from Grannvale arrived in Rivough, two weeks had passed.

The Isaachians had already been told of the king's death by one of his attendants.

Prince Mariccle kicked them out for Grannvale's cruelty to the king, knowing full well that doing so was an act of war.

He then went to his younger sister, Ayra, and told her to take Shanan, flee the country, and go to Verdane.

"Brother, I have trained my whole life to become a warrior. I want to fight and avenge father!" Was her response.

He knew that she was being modest, as she was an exceptionally good sword fighter, even among the other Isaachian soldiers. She was especially famous for her finishing move, Astra, where she slashed the enemy multiple times in rapid succession.

"I know how you feel, Ayra. But this is what Father wanted. If Shanan survives, then so will Isaach. However, if he was sent out with an entire guard to protect him, he'd be a walking target for the Grannvalians. That's why I have to entrust him to the greatest warrior in our country. Please, you must take him to Verdane." She stared at him with her large, black eyes before finally nodding.

"I understand. For the sake of our home, I will guard Shanan with my life."

-

Mariccle and Ayra went to Isaach Castle, where they explained everything to Shanan.

"From now on, think of your aunt's words as my own, son. And do whatever it takes to survive, no matter what happens. You are Isaach's future. Okay?"

Ayra dressed as a mercenary, and gave Shanan clothing fitting for a mercenary's nephew. They traveled in a half-circle around Isaach, and made it into the Kingdom of Sliesse without even stopping to rest at Ganeishire Castle.

They continued in a straight line across Silesse. When they reached one of the western port towns on the coast, they heard the news that a large Grannvalian army was currently marching across the desert towards Isaach.

Shanan ground his teeth together, and spoke not a word, instead making a vow to himself. 'One day, I will have my revenge against them!'

From there, they took a boat headed for Madino, Augustria.

-

About halfway along their journey by sea, two fast-moving ships appeared. One blocked their boat's path, and the other came up beside them.

On those ships' masts, long, black, triangular flags fluttered in the wind.

"Pirate ships!!" One of the passengers cried out.

Ayra walked to the side of the boat, looked at the pirate ship, and saw a woman standing in the center of the deck holding a bow.

"Let down your sails!" The captain called out.

"What are we going to do? Fight them?" Ayra asked one of the sailors.

"Heavens, no! That woman is the infamous Brigid! Everyone who dare challenges her gets an arrow to the heart! It's better to just pay their fee. They'll let us go free if we do."

The pirates let down their sails and stopped moving, then sent out a rowboat.

Once rowboat reached the side of the boat, Brigid called out, "Ahoy, Selen!"

"Ahoy, this is the captain of the Selen!"

"What are you carrying?"

"Some silver trinkets and strong ale!"

"How much is it all worth?"

"Three thousand gold, give or take a few!"

"And how many passengers do you have aboard?"

"Forty-eight!"

"Then the fee is ninety-five gold!"

"Yes Ma'am!"

The captain counted the coins, put them in a leather pouch, and lowered it into the rowboat with a rope.

Brigid took the pouch and recounted the money.

"Ninety-five gold exactly! There shouldn't be any other ships in these waters, but we'll follow you to Madino just in case!"

"Thank you kindly, Brigid!"

"What would happen if the captain lied about what's on this ship?" Ayra asked the sailor.

"He would never! The pirates have friends at the dock, and they check everything that comes through. If he lied, they'd just get their payback on the way home."

"Wow, they would really do that?"

'There are all sorts of things happening in this world.' Ayra thought.

-

Just as Brigid promised, one of the ships followed them to Madino, never once trying to capture or leave them.

The Dominion of Augustria was a country rich in both resources and culture. It shocked Shanan, who had just traveled the barren lands of Silesse. In Augustria, there were multiple large cities, each filled with elaborate buildings. Huge populations of people lived within them, and the shops were lined with things he had never seen before.

Outside of the cities, farmland stretched on for miles, and well-flattened livestock could eat as much grass as they pleased.

In every city that they stopped to rest in, they asked around for information about what was happening in Isaach, but were unable to learn much. To the people of Augustria, Isaach was a far off land, and they didn't care about what happened there.

Ayra and Shanan were angered by it, but they knew that there was nothing they could do.

-

Two weeks later, they reached Verdane.

As they crossed the river that served as the border, the landscape changed completely.

The moment they saw Verdane on the horizon, they understood why it was called the country of forests and lakes.

#fire emblem #genealogy of the holy war #fe #fe4 #famicom #super famicom #nintendo #super nintendo #snes #japan #japanese #translation #light novel #fe4 suzuki novelization translation

[lastsonlost]

YES THIS IS A LONG POST BUT IT IS AN INCREDIBLE JOURNEY.

THIS IS VERY MUCH WORTH THE READ.

Their public conference had been interrupted by a demonstration march and a bomb threat, so the white nationalists decided to meet secretly instead. They slipped past police officers and protesters into a hotel in downtown Memphis. The country had elected its first black president just a few days earlier, and now in November 2008, dozens of the world’s most prominent racists wanted to strategize for the years ahead.

“The fight to restore White America begins now,” their agenda read.

The room was filled in part by former heads of the Ku Klux Klan and prominent neo-Nazis, but one of the keynote speeches had been reserved for a Florida community college student who had just turned 19. Derek Black was already hosting his own radio show. He had launched a white nationalist website for children and won a local political election in Florida. “The leading light of our movement,” was how the conference organizer introduced him, and then Derek stepped to the lectern.

“The way ahead is through politics,” he said. “We can infiltrate. We can take the country back.”

Years before Donald Trump launched a presidential campaign based in part on the politics of race and division, a group of avowed white nationalists was working to make his rise possible by pushing its ideology from the radical fringes ever closer to the far conservative right. Many attendees in Memphis had transformed over their careers from Klansmen to white supremacists to self-described “racial realists,” and Derek Black represented another step in that evolution.

He never used racial slurs. He didn’t advocate violence or lawbreaking. He had won a Republican committee seat in Palm Beach County, Fla., where Trump also had a home, without ever mentioning white nationalism, talking instead about the ravages of political correctness, affirmative action and unchecked Hispanic immigration.

He was not only a leader of racial politics but also a product of them. His father, Don Black, had created Stormfront, the Internet’s first and largest white nationalist site, with 300,000 users and counting. His mother, Chloe, had once been married to David Duke, one of the country’s most infamous racial zealots, and Duke had become Derek’s godfather. They had raised Derek at the forefront of the movement, and some white nationalists had begun calling him “the heir.”

Now Derek spoke in Memphis about the future of their ideology. “The Republican Party has to be either demolished or taken over,” he said. “I’m kind of banking on the Republicans staking their claim as the white party.”

A few people in the audience started to clap, and then a few more began to whistle, and before long the whole group was applauding. “Our moment,” Derek said, because at least in this room there was consensus. They believed white nationalism was about to drive a political revolution. They believed, at least for the moment, that Derek would help lead it.

“Years from now, we will look back on this,” he said. “The great intellectual move to save white people started today.”

Eight years later, that future they envisioned in Memphis was finally being realized in the presidential election of 2016. Donald Trump was retweeting white supremacists. Hillary Clinton was making speeches about the rise of white hate and quoting David Duke, who had launched his own campaign for the U.S. Senate.

White nationalism had bullied its way toward the very center of American politics, and yet, one of the people who knew the ideology best was no longer anywhere near that center. Derek had just turned 27, and instead of leading the movement, he was trying to untangle himself not only from the national moment but also from a life he no longer understood.

From the very beginning, that life had taken place within the insular world of white nationalism, where there was never any doubt about what whiteness could mean in the United States. Derek had been taught that America was intended as a place for white Europeans and that everyone else would eventually have to leave. He was told to be suspicious of other races, of the U.S. government, of tap water and of pop culture. His parents pulled him out of public school in West Palm Beach at the end of third grade, when they heard his black teacher say the word “ain’t.” By then, Derek was one of only a few white students in a class of mostly Hispanics and Haitians, and his parents decided he would be better off at home.

“It is a shame how many White minds are wasted in that system,” Derek wrote shortly thereafter, on the Stormfront children’s website he built at age 10. “I am no longer attacked by gangs of non whites. I am learning pride in myself, my family and my people.”

Because he was home-schooled, white nationalism could become a focus of his education. It also meant he had the freedom to begin traveling with his father, who left for several weeks each year to speak at white nationalist conferences in the Deep South. Don Black had grown up in Alabama, where in the 1970s, he joined a group called the White Youth Alliance, led by David Duke, who at the time was married to Chloe. That relationship eventually dissolved, and years later, Don and Chloe reconnected, married and had Derek in 1989. They moved into Chloe’s childhood home in West Palm Beach to raise Derek along with Chloe’s two young daughters. There were Guatemalan immigrants living down the block and Jewish retirees moving into a condo nearby. “Usurpers,” Don sometimes called them, but Chloe didn’t want to move away from her aging mother in Florida, so Don settled for taking long road trips to the whitest parts of the South.

Don and Derek always stayed on those trips with Don’s friends from the white power movement, and soon Derek had heard many of their stories. There was the time his father, then 16, was shot in the chest while working on a segregationist campaign in Georgia. There was the day in 1981 when he and eight other extremists made plans to board a boat stocked with dynamite, automatic weapons and a Nazi flag. Their plan, called Operation Red Dog, was to take over the tiny Caribbean island nation of Dominica, but instead Don had been caught, arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. He learned some computer programming in federal prison and eventually launched Stormfront in 1995 under the motto: “White Pride World Wide.”

Over the years, his website attracted all kinds of extremists: skinheads, militia groups, terrorists and Holocaust deniers. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate-watch group, a handful of the people who posted on Stormfront had gone on to commit hate crimes, including killings. One message board user shot and wounded three children at a Jewish day-care center in Los Angeles in 1999. Another killed his Jewish neighbor in 2000 in a town near Pittsburgh. “We attract too many sociopaths,” Don posted, and he decided that more moderation would give Stormfront greater mainstream credibility.

By then Stormfront had become his full-time job, even though he wasn’t making much money and the family was getting by on Chloe’s salary as an executive assistant. Each morning, she would go to work, and Don would go to his crowded desk in their single-story house, where he recruited authors and academics from the alternative right to post on his site.

In 2008, he banned slurs, Nazi symbols and threats of violence, even as other parts of his own language remained unchanged. He didn’t have friends so much as “comrades.” Everyone was either “with us” or “against us,” “sympathetic” or an “enemy,” so Derek strengthened his relationship with his father by becoming his greatest ideological ally.

Derek learned Web coding and designed the Stormfront site for children. He was interviewed about hate speech on Nickelodeon, daytime talk shows, HBO and in USA Today. “The devil child,” was how Don sometimes referred to him, with pride and affection.

But Don also read through nasty emails his son received from strangers who were offended by the Stormfront children’s page, and he began to worry about a 13-year-old who was becoming so familiar with the two-way transaction of prejudice and hate.

“You will rot in hell,” read one email, in 2002.

“I WISH you were in the same room as me right now,” read another. “You would have to eat through a straw, you low life scumbag.”

Don told Derek to stop checking his messages. He would later remember wondering: “Did I foist this onto him? Is he just doing this for me?” He asked Derek whether he wanted to shut down the children’s page, but Derek said the emails didn’t bother him. That was the enemy. Who cared what they thought?

After that, Don began to see something different when he looked at his son: not just a child born into the movement but also an emerging leader, with drive and conviction that seemed entirely his own. Don had spent more than four decades waiting for whites to have a racial awakening in America, and now he began to think that the teenager living in his house could be a potential catalyst.

“All of my strengths without any of my weaknesses,” Don would later say about Derek back then. “He was smarter than me. He had more insight. He never held himself back.”

So many others in white nationalism had come to their conclusions out of anger and fear, but Derek tended to like most people he met, regardless of race. Instead, he sought out logic and science to confirm his worldview, reading studies from conservative think tanks about biological differences between races, IQ disparities and rates of violent crime committed by blacks against whites. He launched a daily radio show to share his views, and Don paid $275 each week to have it broadcast on the AM station in nearby Lake Worth. On the air, Derek helped popularize the idea of a white genocide, that whites were losing their culture and traditions to massive, nonwhite immigration. “If we say it a thousand times — ‘White genocide! We are losing control of our country!’ — politicians are going to start saying it, too,” he said. He repeated the idea in interviews, Stormfront posts and during his speech at the conference in Memphis, when he was at his most certain.

Derek finished high school, enrolled in community college and ran for a seat on the Republican committee, beating an incumbent with 60 percent of the vote. He decided he wanted to study medieval European history, so he applied to New College of Florida, a top-ranked liberal arts school with a strong history program.

“We want you to make history, not just study it,” Don and Chloe sometimes reminded him.

New College ranked as one of the most liberal schools in the state — “most pot-friendly, most gay-friendly,” Don explained on the radio — and to some white nationalists, it seemed a bizarre choice. Once, on the air, a friend asked Don whether he worried about sending his son to a “hotbed of multiculturalism,” and Don started to laugh.

“If anyone is going to be influenced here, it will be them,” he said. “Soon enough, the whole faculty and student body are going to know who they have in their midst.”

***

At first they knew nothing about him, and Derek tried to keep it that way. New College was in Sarasota, three hours across the state, and it was the first time Derek had lived away from home. He attended an introductory college meeting about diversity and concluded that the quickest way to be ostracized was to proclaim himself a racist. He decided not to mention white nationalism on campus, at least until he had made some friends.

Most of the other students in his dorm were college freshmen, and as a 21-year-old transfer student, Derek already had a car and a legal ID to buy beer. The qualities that had once made him seem quirky — shoulder-length red hair, the cowboy hat he wore, a passion for medieval re-enactment — made him a good fit for New College, where many of the 800 students were a little bit weird. He forged his own armor and dressed as a knight for Halloween. He watched zombie movies with students from his dorm, a group that included a Peruvian immigrant and an Orthodox Jew.

Maybe they were usurpers, as his father had said, but Derek also kind of liked them, and gradually he went from keeping his convictions quiet to actively disguising them. When another student mentioned that he had been reading about the racist implications of “Lord of the Rings” on a website called Stormfront, Derek pretended he had never heard of it.

Meanwhile, early each weekday morning, he would go outside and call in to his radio show. He told friends these were regular calls home to his parents, and in a way, that was true. Every morning, it was Derek and his father, cued in by music from Merle Haggard’s “I’m a White Boy.” Derek often repeated his belief that whites were being wiped out — “a genocide in our own country,” he said. He told listeners the problem was “massive, nonwhite immigration.” He said Obama was an “anti-white radical.” He said white voters were “just waiting for a politician who actually talks about all the ways whites are being stepped on.” He said it was the “critical fight of our lifetime.” Then he hung up and went back to the dorm to play Taylor Swift songs on his guitar or to take one of the college’s sailboats onto Sarasota Bay.

He left after one semester to study abroad in Germany, because he wanted to learn the language. He kept in touch with New College partly through a student message board, known as the forum, whose updates were automatically sent to his email.

One night in April 2011, Derek noticed a message posted to all students at 1:56 a.m. It was written by someone Derek didn’t know — an upperclassman who had been researching terrorist groups online when he stumbled across a familiar face.

“Have you seen this man?” the message read, and beneath those words was a picture that was unmistakable. The red hair. The cowboy hat.

“Derek black: white supremacist, radio host…new college student???” the post read. “How do we as a community respond?”

By the time Derek returned to campus for the next semester, more than a thousand responses had been written to that post. It was the biggest message thread in the history of a school that Derek now wanted badly to avoid. He returned to Sarasota, applied for permission to live outside of required student housing and rented a room a few miles away.

A few of his friends from the previous year emailed to say they felt betrayed, and strangers sometimes flipped him off from a safe distance on campus. But, for the most part, Derek avoided public spaces, and other students mostly stared or left him alone, even as their speculation about him continued on the forum.

“Maybe he’s trying to get away from a life he didn’t choose.”

“He chooses to be a racist public figure. We choose to call him a racist in public.”

“I just want this guy to die a painful death along with his entire family. Is that too much to ask?”

“I’d like to see Derek Black respond to all of this. …”

Instead of replying, Derek read the forum and used it as motivation to plan a conference for white nationalists in East Tennessee. “Victory through Argumentation: Verbal tactics for anyone white and normal,” he wrote in the invitation. He had spoken at several conferences, including the one in Memphis, but only now did he feel compelled to create another event as white nationalism continued to spread. The white genocide idea he had been championing had finally become a fixture of conservative radio. David Duke had started trying to build a relationship with “our friends and allies in the tea party.” Donald Trump had riveted the alt-right with his investigation into Obama’s birth certificate, and one Gallup poll suggested that only 38 percent of Americans “definitely” believed Obama was born in the United States.

“A critical juncture to keep increasing the profile of our movement,” Derek said on the radio, so he registered 150 attendees and scheduled speeches by his father, Duke and other separatist icons.

Another New College student learned about the conference and posted details on the forum, where gradually a new way of thinking had begun to emerge.

“Ostracizing Derek won’t accomplish anything,” one student wrote. “We have a chance to be real activists and actually affect one of the leaders of white supremacy in America. This is not an exaggeration. It would be a victory for civil rights.”

“Who’s clever enough to think of something we can do to change this guy’s mind?”

One of Derek’s acquaintances from that first semester decided he might have an idea. He started reading Stormfront and listening to Derek’s radio show. Then, in late September, he sent Derek a text message.

“What are you doing Friday night?” he wrote.

***

Matthew Stevenson had started hosting weekly Shabbat dinners at his campus apartment shortly after enrolling in New College in 2010. He was the only Orthodox Jew at a school with little Jewish infrastructure, so he began cooking for a small group of students at his apartment each Friday night. Matthew always drank from a kiddush cup and said the traditional prayers, but most of his guests were Christian, atheist, black or Hispanic — anyone open-minded enough to listen to a few blessings in Hebrew. Now, in the fall of 2011, Matthew invited Derek to join them.

Matthew had spent a few weeks debating whether it was a good idea. He and Derek had lived near each other in the dorm, but they hadn’t spoken since Derek was exposed on the forum. Matthew, who almost always wore a yarmulke, had experienced enough anti-Semitism in his life to be familiar with the KKK, David Duke and Stormfront. He went back and read some of Derek’s posts on the site from 2007 and 2008: “Jews are NOT white.” “Jews worm their way into power over our society.” “They must go.”

Matthew decided his best chance to affect Derek’s thinking was not to ignore him or confront him, but simply to include him. “Maybe he’d never spent time with a Jewish person before,” Matthew remembered thinking.

It was the only social invitation Derek had received since returning to campus, so he agreed to go. The Shabbat meals had sometimes included eight or 10 students, but this time only a few showed up. “Let’s try to treat him like anyone else,” Matthew remembered instructing them.

Derek arrived with a bottle of wine. Nobody mentioned white nationalism or the forum, out of respect for Matthew. Derek was quiet and polite, and he came back the next week and then the next, until after a few months, nobody felt all that threatened, and the Shabbat group grew back to its original size.

on the forum; Matthew wondered whether Derek was trying to cultivate a Jewish friend to protect himself against charges of anti-Semitism. But they also liked each other, and they started playing pool at a bar near campus.

Some members of the Shabbat group gradually began to ask Derek about his views, and he occasionally clarified them in conversations and emails throughout 2011 and 2012. He said he was pro-choice on abortion. He said he was against the death penalty. He said he didn’t believe in violence or the KKK or Nazism or even white supremacy, which he insisted was different from white nationalism. He wrote in an email that his only concern was that “massive immigration and forced integration” was going to result in a white genocide. He said he believed in the rights of all races but thought each was better off in its own homeland, living separately.

“You have never clarified, Derek,” one of his Shabbat friends wrote to him. “You’ve never said, ‘Hey all, this is what I do believe and this is what I don’t.’ It’s not the job of someone who’s potentially scared/intimidated by someone else to approach that person to see if they are in fact scary/intimidating.”

“I guess I only value the opinions of people I know,” Derek wrote back, and now he was beginning to count his Shabbat friends among those he knew and respected. “You’re naturally right that I deemphasize my own role,” he wrote to them.

He decided early in his final year at New College to finally respond on the forum. He wanted his friends on campus to feel comfortable, even if he still believed some of their homelands were elsewhere. He sat at a coffee shop and began writing his post, softening his ideology with each successive draft. He no longer thought the endpoint of white nationalism was forced deportation for nonwhites, but gradual self-deportation, in which nonwhites would leave on their own. He didn’t believe in self-deportation right now, at least not for his friends, but just eventually, in concept.

“It’s been brought to my attention that people might be scared or intimidated or even feel unsafe here because of things said about me,” he began. “I wanted to try to address these concerns publicly, as they absolutely should not exist. I do not support oppression of anyone because of his or her race, creed, religion, gender, socioeconomic status or anything similar.”

The forum post, intended only for the college, was leaked to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which kept a public “Intelligence File” on Derek and other racist leaders, and the group emailed Derek for clarification. Was he disavowing white nationalism? “Your views are now quite different from what many people thought,” the email read.

Derek received the message while vacationing in Europe during winter break. He was staying with Duke, who had started broadcasting his radio show from a part of Europe with lenient free-speech laws. “The tea party is taking some of these ideas mainstream,” Duke said on a broadcast one morning. “Whites are finally coming around to my point of view,” he said another day, and even if Derek now thought some of what Duke said sounded exaggerated or even alarming, the man was still his godfather. Derek wrote back to the SPLC from Duke’s couch.

“Everything I said (on the forum) is true,” he wrote. “I also believe in White Nationalism. My post and my racial ideology are not mutually exclusive concepts.”

But the unstated truth was that Derek was becoming more and more confused about exactly what he believed. Sometimes he looked through posts on Stormfront, hoping to reaffirm his ideology, but now the message threads about Obama’s birth certificate or DNA tests for citizenship just seemed bizarre and conspiratorial. He stopped posting on Stormfront. He began inventing excuses to get out of his radio show, leaving his father alone on the air each morning to explain why Derek wouldn’t be calling in. He was preparing for a test. He was giving those liberal professors hell. Except sometimes what Derek was really doing was taking his kayak to the beach, so he could be alone to think.

He had always based his opinions on fact, and lately his logic was being dismantled by emails from his Shabbat friends. They sent him links to studies showing that racial disparities in IQ could largely be explained by extenuating factors like prenatal nutrition and educational opportunities. They gave him scientific papers about the effects of discrimination on blood pressure, job performance and mental health. He read articles about white privilege and the unfair representation of minorities on television news. One friend emailed: “The geNOcide against whites is incredibly, horribly insulting and degrading to real, actual, lived and experienced genocides against Jews, against Rwandans, against Armenians, etc.”

“I don’t hate anyone because of race or religion,” Derek clarified on the forum.

“I am not a white supremacist,” he wrote.

“I don’t believe people of any race, religion or otherwise should have to leave their homes or be segregated or lose any freedom.”

“Derek,” a friend responded. “I feel like you are a representative of a movement you barely buy into. You need to identify with more than 1/50th of a belief system to consider it your belief system.”

He was taking classes in Jewish scripture and German multiculturalism during his last year at New College, but most of his research was focused on medieval Europe. He learned that Western Europe had begun not as a great society of genetically superior people but as a technologically backward place that lagged behind Islamic culture. He studied the 8th century to the 12th century, trying to trace back the modern concepts of race and whiteness, but he couldn’t find them anywhere. “We basically just invented it,” he concluded.

“Get out of this,” one of his Shabbat friends emailed a few weeks after Derek’s graduation in May 2013, urging Derek to publicly disavow white nationalism. “Get out before it ruins some part of your future more than it already irreparably has.”

Derek stayed near campus to housesit for a professor after graduation, and he began to consider making a public statement. He knew he no longer believed in white nationalism, and he had made plans to distance himself from his past by changing part of his name and moving across the country for graduate school. His instinct was to slip away quietly, but his advocacy had always been public — a legacy of radio shows, Internet posts, TV appearances, and an annual conference on racial tactics.

He was still considering what to do when he returned home to visit his parents later that summer. His father was tracking the rise of white nationalism on cable TV, and his parents were talking about “enemies” and “comrades” in the “ongoing war,” but now it sounded ridiculous to Derek. He spent the day rebuilding windows with them, which was one of Derek’s quirky hobbies that his parents had always supported. They had bought his guitar and joined in his medieval re-enactments. They had paid his tuition at the liberal arts college where he had Shabbat dinners. They had taught him, most of all, to be independent and ideological, and to speak his beliefs even when doing so resulted in backlash.

He left the house that night and went to a bar. He took out his computer and began writing a statement.

“A large section of the community I grew up in believes strongly in white nationalism, and members of my family whom I respect greatly, particularly my father, have long been resolute advocates for that cause. I was not prepared to risk driving a wedge in those relationships.

“After a great deal of thought since then, I have resolved that it is in the best interests of everyone involved to be honest about my slow but steady disaffiliation from white nationalism. I can’t support a movement that tells me I can’t be a friend to whomever I wish or that other people’s races require me to think of them in a certain way or be suspicious at their advancements.

“The things I have said as well as my actions have been harmful to people of color, people of Jewish descent, activists striving for opportunity and fairness for all. I am sorry for the damage done.”

He continued to write for several more paragraphs before addressing an email to the SPLC, the group his father had considered a primary adversary for 40 years.

“Publish in full,” Derek instructed. Then he attached the letter and hit “send.”

Don was at the computer the next afternoon searching Google when Derek’s name popped up in a headline on his screen. For a decade, Don had been typing “Stormfront” and “Derek Black” into the search bar a few times each week to track his son’s public rise in white nationalism. This particular story had been published by the SPLC, which Don had always referred to as the “Poverty Palace.”

“Activist Son of Key Racist Leader Renounces White Nationalism,” it read, and Don began to read the letter. It had phrases like “structural oppression,” “privilege,” “limited opportunity,” and “marginalized groups” — the kind of liberal-apologist language Don and Derek had often made fun of on the radio.

“You got hacked,” Don remembered telling Derek, once he reached him on the phone.

“It’s real,” Derek said, and then he heard the sound of his father hanging up.

For the next few hours, Don was in disbelief. Maybe Derek was pulling a prank on him. Maybe he still believed in white nationalism but just wanted an easier life.

Derek called back, and this time his mother answered. She said that she didn’t want to speak to him. She handed the phone to Don, and his voice was shaky and tearful. Derek had never heard him that way. “I can’t talk,” Don said, and he hung up again.

Later that night, Don logged on to the Stormfront message board. “I’m sure this will be all over the Net and our local media, so I’ll start here,” he wrote, posting a link to Derek’s letter. “I don’t want to talk to him. He says he doesn’t understand why we’d feel betrayed just because he announced his ‘personal beliefs’ to our worst enemies.”

For the next several days, Don couldn’t bring himself to post anything more. “I was a little depressed anyway, but at that point I wanted to quit everything,” he said later, remembering that time. “What’s the point? I didn’t do much of anything for probably 10 days. It was the worst event of my adult life.”

He logged back onto Stormfront a week later. “After a miserable seven days, I feel the need to vent,” he wrote. “I only know what Derek tells me, which has been baffling. I’ve decided he really believes this crap. Derek repeated his belief that family ties are separate from politics. I said that obviously wasn’t true with a family centered around political activism.”

Hundreds of posts quickly followed. Some offered Don condolences. Others said that Derek was a traitor or that Don could no longer be trusted, either. Don wrote a few posts in response, sometimes defending Derek and other times distancing himself, until after a few weeks it all hurt too much.

“I’m closing this thread,” Don wrote, finally, describing it as an “open wound.”

***

Derek returned home a few weeks later for his father’s birthday, even though his mother and his half-sisters had asked him not to come. “I think I might be getting disowned,” Derek had written to one college friend. But he was about to leave Florida for graduate school, and he wanted to say goodbye.

He arrived at his grandmother’s house for the party, and he would later remember how strange it felt when his half-sisters would barely acknowledge him. His mother was polite but cold. Don tried to invite Derek inside, but the rest of the family wanted him to leave. “I got uninvited to my own party,” Don later remembered. “They said if I wanted to see him, we both had to go.”

They left and went for a drive, first to the beach and then to a restaurant, where they sat at a booth near the back. Derek still had his dry sense of humor. He still made smart observations about politics and history. “Same old Derek,” Don concluded, after a few hours, and that fact surprised him. His grief had been so profound that he’d expected some physical manifestation of the loss. Instead, he found himself forgetting for several minutes at a time that Derek was now “living on the other side.”

Don asked Derek about the theories that had emerged on the Stormfront message thread. Was he just faking a change to have an easier career? Was this his way of rebelling?

When Derek denied those things, Don mentioned the theory he himself had come to believe — the one David Duke had posited in the first hours after Derek’s letter went public: Stockholm syndrome. Derek had become a hostage to liberal academia and then experienced empathy for his captors.

“That’s so patronizing,” Derek remembered saying. “How can I prove this is what I really believe?”

He tried to convince Don for a few hours at the restaurant. He told him about white privilege and repeated the scientific studies about institutionalized racism. He mentioned the great Islamic societies that had developed algebra and predicted a lunar eclipse. He said that now, as he recognized strains of white nationalism spreading into mainstream politics, he felt accountable. “It’s not just that I was wrong. It’s that it caused real damage,” he remembered saying.

“I can’t believe I’m arguing with you, of all people, about racial realities,” Don remembered telling him.

The restaurant was closing, and they were no closer to an understanding. Derek went to sleep at his grandmother’s house. Then he woke up early and started driving across the country alone.

Every day since then, Derek had been working to put distance between himself and his past. He was still living across the country after finishing his master’s degree, and he was starting to learn Arabic to be able to study the history of early Islam. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in white nationalism since his defection, aside from occasional calls home to his parents. Instead, he’d spent his time catching up on aspects of pop culture he’d once been taught to discredit: liberal newspaper columns, rap music and Hollywood movies. He’d come to admire President Obama. He decided to trust the U.S. government. He started drinking tap water. He had taken budget trips to Barcelona, Paris, Dublin, Nicaragua and Morocco, immersing himself in as many cultures as he could.

He joined a new online message group, this one for couch surfers, and he opened up his one-bedroom apartment to strangers looking for a temporary place to stay. It felt increasingly good to trust people — to try to interact without prejudice or judgment — and after a while, Derek began to feel detached from the person he had been.

But then came the election campaign of 2016, and suddenly the white nationalism Derek had been trying to unlearn was the unavoidable subtext to national debates over refugees, immigration, Black Lives Matter and the election itself. Late in August, Derek watched in his apartment as Hillary Clinton gave a major speech about the rise of racism. She explained how white supremacists had rebranded themselves as white nationalists. She referenced Duke and mentioned the concept of a “white genocide,” which Derek had once helped popularize. She talked about how Trump had hired a campaign manager with ties to the alt-right. She said: “A fringe movement has essentially taken over the Republican Party.”

It was the very same point Derek had spent so much of his life believing in, but now it made him feel both fearful for the country and implicated. “It’s scary to know that I helped spread this stuff, and now it’s out there,” he told one of his Shabbat friends.

He also wondered whether he would ever be able to completely detach himself from his past, when so much about it remained public. He was still occasionally recognized as a former racist in graduate school; still written into the will of a man he had befriended through white nationalism; still the godson of Duke; still the son of Chloe and Don.

Late this summer, for the first time in years, he traveled to Florida to see them. At a time of increasingly contentious rhetoric, he wanted to hear what his father had to say. They sat in the house and talked about graduate school and Don’s new German shepherd. But after a while, their conversation turned back to ideology, the topic they had always preferred.

Don, who usually didn’t vote, said he was going to support Trump.

Derek said he had taken an online political quiz, and his views aligned 97 percent with Hillary Clinton’s.

Don said immigration restrictions sounded like a good start.

Derek said he actually believed in more immigration, because he had been studying the social and economic benefits of diversity.

Don thought that would result in a white genocide.

Derek thought race was a false concept anyway.

They sat across from each other, searching for ways to bridge the divide. The bay was one block away. Just across from there was Mar-a-Lago, where Trump had lived and vacationed for so many years, once installing an 80-foot pole for a gigantic American flag.

“Who would have thought he’d be the one to take it mainstream?” Don said, and in a moment of so much division, it was the one point on which they agreed.

FOR MORE SEE: WHAT HAPPENED TO DEREK BLACK?

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#derek black #white nationalism #white supremacy #Redemption #breaking the cycle #fighting hate with understanding