#five billion years later i present this to u..

[everlastiingiimmortals]

We'll take both, Aventurine says, entirely expected and yet bewildering all the same. He'd not hesitated whatsoever -- but for once, Ratio does not make a move to protest, only sighing with muted, fond, exasperation. Aventurine's hold on his arm is light and relaxed, any uncertainties shed in the lively, little coastal town Ratio holds so dear to his heart. He seems -- and more importantly acts -- more relaxed than Ratio has seen in weeks.

It's a good look on him.

Ratio pats Aventurine's hand once in response to the lilt in his voice, meeting the cat's-eye curl of his shaded smile with a raised eyebrow. "Five points," he praises, shouldering the bag with their tapestries and leading Aventurine away from the stall, "they depict myths of this world. The first follows a king and his crew on their sea-faring journey home, after they emerge victorious in a war on distant shores. Along the way, they incur the wrath of the sea god, and consequently suffer endless trials and punishments. This particular scene is one of those trials, where the crew must sail between two obstacles: a man-eating sea monster, and the lethal whirlpools of her neighbor.

"The second depicts the story of a bull-headed monster called the Minotaur. It had been born to the queen of Crete and a bull intended to be a sacrifice to the sea god -- yes, the very same one -- as punishment towards the king, Minos, because he wanted to keep the bull for himself due to its snow-white pelt. Due to its monstrous nature, however, the Minotaur was eventually locked away in a labyrinth constructed by a legendary craftsman as per the king's command, and fed with a sacrifice of seven men and seven women from another city-state every nine years as retribution for the death of the king's son at their hands. A prince of that city-state vowed to slay the beast upon the approach of the third sacrifice, declaring he would rather die than rule a kingdom that sent its children to be devoured. He ultimately succeeded, with the aid of King Minos' very own daughter."

Ratio pauses, glancing back down at Aventurine with a vague note of sheepishness in his expression. "Rather dark stories, I know. This world loves its tragedies and the punishment of hubris.

"As for how I know this much, I am leaving that to you to figure out. You know I do not simply reward good behavior. You're clever enough to come to the correct conclusion on your own." The curve of his lips curls upwards in a small smile, expectant and no doubt anticipating Aventurine's answer. "Go on, take your best shot."

There is a pleasant air to the busy-ness of the market. Where Penacony's crowd had been suffocating with their bright colours, the air thick with SoulGlad and void ambitions and anything the senses could conjure in excess with no other goal than to numb the mind of the dreamer, this market's bustling crowd feels curiously vivifying. The fresh air of the nearby sea, the softer, pastel colours of the white stone, colourful stalls, the fabrics means to be easy on the eye rather than a strain on it, the delicate smell of ivy twining around stone pillars and of freshly cut wood... where Penacony had been the brutal frenzy of too long an agony, this humble market is gently alive. Taken in by the sights around him, Aventurine remains silent at first, listening to his companion, looking at everything his eyes are allowed to rest on, hand still lightly hooked to the crook of the other's elbow.

It is only after a little while that he begins to notice a few curious glances cast their way; and when he does, he also realises the people looking at them really are looking at him, specifically, at his face, specifically, at his eyes, since he meets their gazes head on as soon as he notices. Oh dear. People noticing his eyes usually never spells anything good, but this time, curiously enough? The culprits, upon realising they got caught red-handed, don't avert their gazes and mutter away - they blink and smile apologetically, as if to ask for forgiveness for their curiosity. Ah, I see, Aventurine thinks to himself. They don't know what they're looking at. They know it is unusual - intriguing, pretty, beautiful, even, perhaps - but they know not its significance; and, for once, ignorance stands opposite to prejudice. They see something unusual, a curiosity; and think nothing of it and welcome it in their home. Truly, he thinks, amused, people after Ratio's heart, no doubt. No wonder he likes the place. Aventurine pushes his sunglasses back on his nose - just in case. His grip on Ratio's arm, if it had briefly stiffened, is now as loose and comfortable as if nothing had happened.

Lazily, like a branch floating upon tranquil water currents, Aventurine lets Ratio carry him to a stall and through quite a fascinating lecture on local textiles and craftsmanship. Behind the sunglasses, Aventurine observes, attentive, takes note of the intricate patterns and colours and embroideries with an appreciative expression he does not attempt to hold back. "Hmm ~ you know it does, Doc. You wouldn't have taken me here if you had thought for one moment I would fail to appreciate this handiwork. Ah, may we seen this one too, please - " The merchant obliges his request, revealing another intricate tapestry, purple and gold, a sinuous maze stitched onto with with a figure drawn in the center - a monster of some sort, perhaps a guardian of some labyrinth... no doubt a story the nuances of which escape him. No matter. It is a work of beauty - dark and haunting and yet enticing as all mysteries should be. "We'll take both." Aventurine is not a man of hesitation - especially not where credits are concerned. "And you..." He teases at Ratio, eyes rising to meet his while the merchant carefully wraps up their new acquisitions. "Can tell me the stories those embroideries are meant to represent while we walk. I am correct in assuming they are not just generic motifs, am I not?"

He would know. The Avgins used to tell similar such stories through jewelry and clothing too. "And, I must ask, since you are leaving me hanging... are you ever going to tell me how you know so much about this world, or is that a secret I need to earn by being on my best behaviour? I'm not doing too bad so far, am I?"

[bluemoonsunrise]

Demons and Savages

pairing: tsu’tey and human!avatar driver (fem presenting)

content warnings: slight nsfw?, graphic language, alien vs human differences, unconventional grief, the RDA sucks, fuck u miles quaritch, tension you could cut with a knife, enemies to lovers. (also, i don’t like to capitalize sentences on tumbler :3)

word count: …idk >_<

pov: 2nd person so you can add yourself in. for writing/plot purposes, your character is named eris ramsey. i’ll use the name sparingly but i can’t take myself seriously writing y/n— so please just work with me here. i promise it’ll be worth it. (i hope)

< previous chapter

———🌌———

SUMMARY: earth was dying and your sister was, too, but cancer killed her faster than humans were killing earth. when she passed, she not only left behind an empty apartment full of memories but a billion dollar avatar without a driver. in a desperate attempt to not waste that money, the program she had spent the last five years preparing to join recruited you— her twin. of course, you agreed. there was nothing left on earth for you. there was nothing left on earth for anyone— that’s why people like your sister were sent off to pandora.

when your sister had spoken of pandora, it seemed like a dream.

the RDA promised it would be like a safari adventure.

truth was that pandora is beautiful. beautiful and unlike anything else across the whole of the universe. it is breathtaking— and that’s because what chases you through the forest hunts with the intent to kill; so you best run like hell even if your lungs are on fire. beasts and monsters of all kinds lurk out of sight waiting for the right moment to kill you dead— but none are as dangerous as him.

the blue shadow with the bow.

chapter three

— twilight river —

the floor was cold on your bare feet. as you climbed down from the bunk that you shared with jake, you were quiet as to not wake him— and norm who slept just across the room. you slipped on a pair of socks and pushed your hair out of your face. grabbing a sweater from off the coatrack and your keycard, you snuck out of your room.

you couldn’t sleep.

at this hour, the avatar labs were empty. four in the morning was no time for anyone to be up, but you could not settle. you could not rest. all you wanted to do was be where things were simpler.

the glass doors to the link-room slid open as you pressed your keycard to the sensor. gathering your sweater closer to you, you made your way inside. it smelled of soil and the sting of sterile alcohol. you had grown to like the smell.

it smelled, too, of cigarettes.

your stomach dropped as you saw her. she was sat at her desk with a smoking cigarette clinging to her lip. her glasses were low on her nose and she leaned over to steal glances at what lay magnified under her microscope as she typed away on her tablet.

“what the hell are you doing up? aren’t you tired from all the running around you do out there?” grace asked.

she knew it was you.

who else would break protocol?

link-pods were only in use from the hours of 8am sharp until — with the acceptation of you seeing as your body stayed in home tree — 9pm. no one was allowed to start earlier or end later unless having been approved by grace. with how late you usually returned, there was no way in hell grace would let you start early.

but you wanted to try anyways.

“i was curious,” you said as you made your way through the rows of desks and shelves. you kept your distance but stood on your tippy toes to see what she was documenting at this hour. “when i spoke to the tsahik, she said that she knew you. does that mean you could come to home tree?”

“no.” grace said. she took a long drag of her cigarette. you thought she would have said more but she only leaned back over the microscope.

“do you know tsu’tey?” you dared to ask.

“the hardass in line to become olo’eyktan after eytukan? yes. i’m familiar with him. he’s the one who saved you, isn’t he? what a lucky duck you are.” grace said with a shake of her head.

“he— he’s going to become the next olo’eyktan?” you asked softly. you hadn’t known that.

“yep,” grace said, popping the p. “i’m not sure if you’ve met neytiri, but she is to become tsahik after her mother. it’s tradition that the two become a mated pair. but last i heard, the whole situation is a bit complicated considering the history between them.”

your brows furrowed and you sat down in the chair beside grace. “can you tell me what happened?”

grace glanced at you.

you softened, frowning just a bit. “it has to do with why you’re not allowed at home tree, doesn’t it?”

“that’s…part of it, yes.” grace said with some reluctance. her brows drew together and she put out her cigarette with a sigh.

“i used to run a school near the village. i taught english to the younglings and the teenagers. i know tsu’tey and neytiri well because i was the one who taught them english.” grace said.

you couldn’t suppress the surprise on your face. why it shocked you so much you didn’t know. it made sense. who else would’ve been the one to teach the clan english? it wasn’t like parker selfridge or miles quaritch were sending out english books. still, to picture a younger tsu’tey learning from grace made your head spin.

“the school was open for many years. so many memories were made. so many laughs were had. so much trust was built— but nothing we touch will last.” grace said as she turned in her chair to face you. the artificial lights highlighted the grimness of her expression and it made your heart sink. “the RDA attacked the school in retaliation for a group of hunters destroying one of their bulldozers.”

“many people died. many children died. the old school house has been abandoned since. i — nor any of the omatikaya — will never step foot back there. not tsu’tey. not ninat or saela. not mo’at. not neytiri. not after sylwanin’s death.”

“sylwanin? who is that?” you asked.

“she was mo’at and eytukan’s eldest daughter. neytiri’s sister. she was to be the next tsahik after her mother. she and tsu’tey were fated to be a pair because of their roles, but they loved each other dearly.”

“it is a bit taboo for navi to engage in any kind of romance before they pass their iknimaya— the claiming of their ikran. ikran shall only ever have one rider. navi will only ever have one mate. it is in passing their iknimaya that they begin to understand the severity and the importance of life-lasting bonds.”

“tsu’tey and sylwanin walked the line very carefully after they passed their iknimaya. especially seeing as tsu’tey walked a different path than most.”

“in line to become olo’eyktan, he had to go through much more training. he had his iknimaya later than most males do. but like all males, tsu’tey was not allowed to pick a mate until after he completed his uniltaron.” grace said.

“what is that? uniltaron?” you asked.

“to some, it is considered the final stage of becoming a man or a woman. it is called the dream hunt and it…well, it just proves there is so much more to this world than we can even begin to believe.” grace said with a small shake of her head. “in order to be a man or a woman of the people, you have to be reborn. from what i know, the man or woman will ingest poison and if they survive, they return from their delirium with a message from eywa that is just for them. wisdom of some sort.”

“did you see tsu’tey go through his uniltaron?” you asked with a curious raise of your brow.

grace’s lips thinned and she shook her head. “no. tsu’tey had yet to complete it before the attack on the school. i know that he did months later after grieving the loss of sylwanin— and he’s been a different man since. colder. harsher. whatever visions he saw during his uniltaron and whatever wisdom eywa bestowed upon him, it hardened him.”

your heart sank. to imagine the pain he had suffered not only surviving his uniltaron but losing the woman he loved just before he could have her— it was unimaginable.

you had crushes on earth that ended badly. partners that made you cry and broke your heart in two.

but that was nothing like the loss tsu’tey suffered.

if navi mated for life and he was firm on his choice of sylwanin— it was no wonder there was difficultly between him and neytiri. not just for the fact that she was sylwanin’s sister but because tsu’tey had already made his choice.

he had chosen her but she was gone.

“what was he like before?” you asked. you shouldn’t have but you did— and you don’t know why you did.

“tsu’tey?” grace — as sad as she was — couldn’t help but smile the smallest bit. “a troublemaker. and a loudmouth. he was a shit-stirrer, that’s for sure.”

“but he was curious. so curious and eager. he was passionate about learning and he strived to understand all that he could. he was creative. he made wonderful paintings that i hung up on the walls of the school house. he was funny. he was selfless. he made sure that no one got left behind in their studies.” grace said. her voice was far too soft. she wiped at her eyes and cleared her throat, digging into her pocket for her cigarettes.

“grace…i…i can always raise the idea of you being allowed back at home tree.” you said as gently as you could.

grace laughed. it was a soft, sweet laugh. as she met your eyes, you could see how much your offer had struck her. her appreciation was palpable— but she shook her head.

“that is very sweet of you but the trust the people placed in me was broken. i told them it was safe and that nothing bad could come of a school— and the worst thing imaginable happened.” grace said.

“we cannot change the past. it happened. we must move forward regardless. that is what i have tried to do and that is what the clan has done. tsu’tey is still in line to become olo’eyktan. he has become a lethal warrior and a fearless leader. i hear a lot of chatter about him from the soldiers. he and his group give the RDA soldiers a lot of trouble.” grace said with a slight smile as she lit up a cigarette.

“be careful what you do out there with him.” grace ashed her cigarette and glanced at you. “if the RDA catch you on any of the stunts he pulls with the bulldozers, they’ll lock you in a holding cell and decide a fate worse for you than death. you’ll either be sent to the mines or be brought back to earth.”

you throat went dry.

on the day you arrived, you remembered seeing the bulldozers with the arrows stuck into the tires. the broken windshields. the destroyed cameras.

that had been him.

“the RDA don’t like him…” it wasn’t a question.

“hell, no they don’t.” grace said with a gruff laugh. she took a drag of her cigarette and shook her head. “he’s got a big ol’ price on his head. the RDA can’t actively hunt for him because that would start a war, but the soldiers know to pop one through his skull if they ever see him in action on one of his ambushes.”

the RDA wanted tsu’tey dead.

you felt the color drain from your face. your stomach churched and you could ringing in your ears.

the RDA wanted tsu’tey dead— and you had just been appointed their number one asset on figuring out the best possible way to dispose of him without making too much of a mess.

that is why quaritch sought you out.

he heard your fateful survival story through the grapevine and stuck his nose into your file. he found your logs. he knew the name you said in all nine of your logs. he knew who you spent the last nine days with.

you were the pupil of the navi he wanted dead.

“but tsu’tey is smart. too smart. he keeps his distance from anything that involves the RDA when he’s not actively trying to blowup the dozers and snipe soldiers from the trees. at least, he’s tried hard to.” grace glanced at you and said, “you really must be something special to fall on his radar and have him tuck you under his wing.”

seems you had that charm with too many dangerous people on pandora— and it scared you.

sitting across from grace, you wanted to tell her everything. you wanted to tell her about the atokirina. you wanted to tell her that tsu’tey would be training you to be a warrior. you wanted to tell her about quaritch and the deal you had no other choice but to make with him.

but you couldn’t.

if you did, you risked everything that was already on the line. your life. tsu’tey’s life. perhaps the life of every avatar driver in the RDA.

you had to be smart.

you needed a plan in order to keep everyone safe.

“is it alright if i link?” you asked. you couldn’t bring yourself to look at her. if you did, you feared you would’ve burst into tears.

grace took a long, long, long drag of her cigarette. she breathed out the smoke through her nose. “it’s not even five in the morning yet.”

“i know…but i want to be there. it’s my day off. a rest day, as tsu’tey said. i won’t be anywhere dangerous today. that much i swear to you. if i get tired, i’ll come back. i promise.” you said, lifting your gaze up just enough to catch the smallest glimpse of her eyes.

you were surprised to see such a soft expression.

“go on,” grace said with a wave of her hand. “i’ll fire up all the machines.”

your heart lightened and you couldn’t help but smile. “thank you, grace…”

the soft blue cushion in your link-pod was never under you for long. the black of your eyelids tunneled into white and you felt yourself make the shift. the warm open air was comfortable. even though you couldn’t feel the cold of the lab any longer, you could recall the way it made your real fingers feel numb.

you opened your eyes and took a much needed deep breath. finally, you felt like you could breathe. you focused on the rise and fall of your chest for a long time. under your palm and laid upon your chest was the small carving of mitsia. you lifted your hand up and admired the woodwork.

whether he knew it or not, this little gift meant a lot to you.

you crawled out of your hammock as quietly as you could. most inhabitants of home tree were still sleeping. the sun had not yet risen. there was no reason to be up this early— not back at the RDA and not here in home tree now.

but you couldn’t sleep even if you wanted to.

if you were going to venture anywhere outside of home tree by yourself, you’d need your gear. you didn’t have much of it. all you had was a small knife, some twine, a small pouch for food, and a waterskin.

and all of that was in his hut.

if there was one thing you’d picked up on your own over the last — now — ten days, it was how to be silent.

you crept your way inside tsu’tey’s hut. guiding the flap closed, you stayed still. absolutely silent. it was dark except for the freckles on you that glowed.

and the freckles on him.

in his bed of furs, tsu’tey slept on his back. with one hand behind his head, his breath came out even and deep. he scowled even in his sleep. the pout of his lips and deep line between his brow was not hard to miss even in the dark.

did he dream?

if he did, was he not having a good one?

you frowned.

while you worried for him, you weren’t going to stick around and wait for him to see you in his hanging hut. you’d seen the inside of his home twice before. once the first time you arrived. the second time when he needed to find you a new loincloth because you had been a klutz at dinner and bumped into someone who spilled purple juice all over you.

you knew where he kept all the gear.

plucking your stuff from the mounts on the wall, you were in and out with a silence he would’ve been impressed with had he been awake.

you kept your silent streak as you climbed down the center column of home tree and left. a few navi awake at this hour saw you and you exchanged polite glances, but no one stopped you from leaving. you weren’t forbidden from going off by yourself.

well, you’d never been told you couldn’t and you never asked if you could.

perhaps there was a lesson to be learnt today…

you strapped your stuff around your waist and kept your promise to grace. you didn’t go far from home tree. even if you hadn’t made that promise, you weren’t dumb enough to get yourself lost.

at this hour, the riverbank was illuminated by the forest surrounding it. algae in the water glowed all different shades of blue, green, and yellow. fish swam by displaying the same colored dots. bugs buzzed by, twinkling soft white lights.

peace.

your heart knew peace here.

with your feet in the water and your eyes as wide opened as they could be, you took in the majesty that was pandora at night. in the sky above, you were reminded that pandora was a moon. a moon that orbited a much larger planet alongside a smaller moon. you knew little of the planet you orbited. only that it was massive and made of gas.

as you continued looking up, you admired the stars. there were so many. while the constellations you had known about as a child were always hidden by smog and light pollution, you couldn’t see them even here. no gemini twins. no virgo. no orion’s belt. only new stars to fall in love with. new constellations that you imaged had tongue-twister names in navi.

“can you see your home from here?”

you nearly jumped out of your skin hearing his voice. you placed your hand on your chest and laughed as he sat down beside you. “fuck sake…yknow breaking a stick back there would’ve been a nice indicator that you were coming.”

“sorry,” tsu’tey smirked. “didn’t mean to scare you, skxawng.”

you rolled your eyes at him. looking back up at the sky, you shook your head. “i don’t think earth is visible. even if it was, i wouldn’t know where it is.”

tsu’tey leaned towards you and pointed upward. tilting your head back further, you tried to see what exactly he was pointing at. heat rushed to your face as he guided your chin with his other hand. you saw it. the tiny, tiny, tiny twinkling dot on the endless night sky.

“that’s earth?” you asked softly, your eyes widening.

“no. that is your sun.” tsu’tey said. he stared up at it too and shook his head. “your home is somewhere around it. too small to see.”

“huh…” you whispered.

“what are you doing here at this hour?” tsu’tey asked.

“i couldn’t sleep.” you said. it was the truth. “grace made an exception for me to link. i wanted to be out here instead of in there.”

“why are you here?” you asked, glancing at him.

“i could smell you.” tsu’tey said with a small grimace. “you were in my hut. sneaky little thing you are. stinky, too.”

you laughed and nudged him in the ribs. “asshole.”

his eyes widened and he touched his side. for a moment, you almost wondered if you’d hurt him. worse, if you offended him.

he nudged you back.

gently.

when you were alone with him— really, truly alone with him — he was not as unapproachable as he usually was. how he acted now was how he acted when you raced through the forest together. it was how he acted when he carried you on his back to safety.

it was moments like these that made you feel seen.

more than as an avatar. more than as a student. more than an alien. more than a project or a burden. more than a replacement.

you felt like a person when he looked at you.

“how did you know that was my sun?” you asked, tilting your head back once more to see it. you had to find it first— and you did so with his help.

“grace.” tsu’tey said, short and simple. not sweet. not sour. not anything besides simple.

you met his eyes. for a moment, you were absolutely captivated by the glowing freckles on his face. it was one of your most favorite things about the navi. you wanted to count each one and see how many there were. his freckles were like constellations of their own.

“i think grace misses you.” you whispered. you shouldn’t have brought up grace at all. it treaded on things he may not want you to know— but you owed it to grace to wiggle her name back into conversation.

she cared about the omaticaya.

and once, they cared about her, too.

tsu’tey scoffed under his breath and looked away. “grace can miss me all she wants. it changes nothing…”

“maybe not,” you agreed. you shrugged and shook your head. “but that doesn’t mean it can’t change anything.”

tsu’tey looked at you. slowly, he shook his head. he didn’t understand.

“the past won’t change. that much you’re right about. but just because you can’t change the past doesn’t mean you can’t make change to better the future.” you said softly.

“we have this saying on earth. time heals all wounds. sometimes, certain kinds of wounds take longer to heal. especially ones in here.” you placed your hand on your chest and looked up at the stars. “it does no one any good to dwell in the pain that has run its course long enough.”

“i cannot let go of the pain.” tsu’tey said as he pulled his knees up to his chest. he rested his chin on them and stared at the rippling water of the twilight river. “it is the only thing that reminds me that the happiness i felt had been real.”

as he met your eyes, your heart sank.

he knew that you knew.

you knew about him. about the school. about what had happened there. about sylwanin. whether he knew you had found out tonight was not important. in his mind, you had known. of course, you had known. you and your group of aliens studied and studied and studied away at him and his people.

he figured you knew everything about him.

and yet you had rejected the one question he’d asked about you.

“i was sent here because my sister died,” you said. it was harder to say than you wanted it to be because it was the first time you said it out loud.

everyone around you always said it for you.

oh, you’re here because she died.

oh, sorry your sister died.

“her name was evelyn. she was a scientist like grace. this body was meant to be hers.” you looked down at your hands. you showed them to him and cracked a small smile. “i’m a twin so i was able to take the job. i don’t offer much to the program grace runs. i’m really just an attempt at trying not to lose the RDA any more money.”

“a twin…” tsu’tey shook his head. “that is like…you resemble each other? born together, yes?”

“yeah,” you said with a small nod. “she always said i looked like her because she was older by a couple minutes. guess im the older one now, huh?”

tsu’tey smiled faintly. “sylwanin was older than me…but not anymore though.”

you shared in his downturned smile. carefully, you leaned over and rested your head on his arm. he tensed— but he did not push you off. he looked down at you. his invisible brow furrowed and he swallowed the lump in his throat.

“i am sorry about your sister, eris.”

heat bled through you like a furnace as he said you name. the air froze in your lungs. your heart nearly began galloping. it was beating against the inside of your ribs like a drum. you could ear it in your ears.

“i’m sorry about your mate.” you whispered as you tilted you head back to look up at him.

tsu’tey looked down at you and shook his head. “she was not my mate.”

“yes, she was.” you said. you smiled and gave him a soft nudge. “you chose her. just because you had no time to treat her as such doesn’t make it any less true. you loved her. im sure you still do. you would have married her. that means something.”

tsu’tey’s face pinched with soft agony. soft, sweet agony. he looked away and blinked hard. he cleared his throat and rubbed at his eyes with his fingers.

you’d struck something deep within him.

something that no one had been able to reach.

“why is it that you see such a thing and others do not?” tsu’tey asked through a tightness in his throat. he kept rubbing at his eyes. “if a demon can understand it then why can’t the tsahik?”

your chest caved in as you realized what he was referring to.

he was expected to become a pair with neytiri.

“i think it’s a matter of duty and no so much…feeling.” you said as gently as you could.

tsu’tey grunted and nudged you off him. “i know that, skxawng. all anything ever is for me is duty.”

“i— i’m sorry.” you whispered.

he looked down at you. the anger in his expression subsided and he shook his head. his ears pinned back and he hooked an arm around you. he held you against him and gave your arm a soft squeeze.

“no, i’m sorry. you are being so kind and i…i’m just…i’m angry. not at you, taronyutsyìp. at everything else. it all feels so…i don’t have the word for it.” tsu’tey said softly.

“overwhelming?” you offered.

“overwhelming…i do not know what the means but it sounds like it fits. yes. yes, i am overwhelming.” tsu’tey said with a small shake of his head.

you laughed. you couldn’t help it.

“what?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“don’t say it like that. when you say ‘i’m overwhelming’ it basically means that you think you are being too much.” you said with a small giggle, “instead, you want to say, ‘this fuck-ass shit is overwhelming.”

tsu’tey’s brows drew together and he shook his head. “this fuck-what? fukess sheet?”

“fuck-ass.” you said again. “fuck-ass. fuck-ass shit. it means like…it means this shit is like skxawng. this skxawng shit. fuck-ass shit.”

“this…this fuck-ass shit.” tsu’tey said, glancing at you. he raised an invisible brow.

“yeah!” you giggled. “this is some fuck-ass overwhelming shit!”

“this is shit overwhelming! fuck-ass!” tsu’tey exclaimed.

you raised your fist in the air. “hell yeah!”

“hell yeah!” tsu’tey said as he mimicked you.

your eyes met and the both of you laughed. it was the first time in a long time that you laughed hard enough to feel it in the core of your belly. it brought tears to your eyes to laugh so much. it was the first time, too, that you ever heard him laugh. really laugh. it was such a rich, sweet sound. he could hardly seem to catch his breath.

you had to crawl away from him. you felt like you would pass out if you laughed anymore. as you leaned away and tried to drag yourself to a place far enough that you could calm down, tsu’tey grabbed you by the waist.

“where are you going, demon?” he purred against your ear as he tugged you back toward him. “too overwhelming for you?”

“my stomach hurts— agh!” you giggled, trying to pushing him away as he turned you to face him. “please— i’m going to die.”

tsu’tey grinned down at you. “you can’t die on me, skxawng. it’s my job to protect you, remember?”

you looked up at him with the stars in yours eyes as you nudged and pushed at him. he did the same back.

this kind of touch was familiar to the both of you.

you’d grown accustom to his touch— and he’d grown accustomed to touching you. you spent most of the time you bickered swatting at each other. you’d hit him with your tail. he pinch your arm. you’d bump him with you shoulder. he’d tug your tail.

his tail be betrayed him now. you could hear it swooshing through the grass. you felt it. every now and again it would bump against your thigh. your own tail was just as erratic. thumping against the ground like a racing heart. his ears perked as yours did. you were watching each other closely. too closely. every little move you made, he made.

you wanted to run.

it came up instinctively.

for the first time, you felt a sixth sense rise within your belly. an instinctual overwhelming urge to run because you knew he would chase you. it was an unspoken promise between the two of you with your tails flicking.

and so you ran.

scrambling to your feet, you ran along the edge of the water. with the sun beginning to rise, the pandoran sky began to bleed pink. across the surface of the water, the light began to reflect. reflecting, too, were the running images of the both of you.

you spun around as he tried to grab you by the tail. jumping back, your eyes were wide. your ears stood at attention. tsu’tey was low. crouched to be level with you, his pupils were blown as wide as a full moon. you could see yourself in his eyes.

you could see him.

the shit-stirring, funny, jackass.

tsu’tey lunged at you and you scrambled back. he watched your every move. for a split second, you could imagine that this was a test. how fast were you? how agile? how strong? how would you fare in the training he would put you through?

“you are not very good at this game, taronyutsyìp.” tsu’tey said with a small shake of his head.

“what does that mean?” you asked. you were slightly breathless. “that’s— that’s now the second time you’ve called me that.”

“hunter,” tsu’tey smiled. “little hunter.”

you had no time to smile.

you narrowly escaped his grasp as he lunged for you again. he laughed. “you really are not good at this game, skxawng!”

“what game are we even playing!” you exclaimed in a fit of laughter as you dodged and dodged and dodged.

“if i touch you, you must then catch me.” tsu’tey said. he smacked you on the ass. “but you’re not good at avoiding me.”

blood rushed to your face as your eyes widened. you gawked at him and he only laughed.

“tag?” you shook your head at him and couldn’t fight the urge to smile. “we’re playing fucking tag? im lightyears away from earth and i’m playing tag with a navi?”

“what?” tsu’tey asked with an all too charming smile. “you don’t want to play with me, demon?”

you sprinted for him.

his laughter echoed across the riverbed like thunder. he was so damn fast. your lungs burned as you chased him all the way into the forest. your eyes widened as he ran his way up massive tree roots that resembled arches. you followed behind him. you moved as fast as you could but he only went higher and higher.

was now a good time to mention to him that you weren’t too sure how you felt about heights?

no.

there was no way you were letting an alien beat you in tag. you were determined to catch him.

you leapt from massive branch to massive branch in pursuit of him. he stayed just out of reach. when you got close, he would pick up his pace. teasing you. he was teasing you— and he was testing you.

“woah!” you gasped, losing your footing.

tsu’tey spun around and grabbed you by the waist. he tugged you towards the center of the branch, his eyes wide. “are you okay?”

“yeah, i— i…i got you!” you poked him in the center of his chest.

the shock on his expression was delicious.

“what! that is— this is cheating!” tsu’tey laughed in utter disbelief. his eyes were wide and his ears were all the way up.

“it’s not cheating. a smart opponent uses all their skills. my wit and my tactics are just as valuable as your speed and strength.”

“but, hey, it’s okay.” you said. you reached up and flicked his forehead. “it just means you are slow in here.”

“oh, you are…you are so…” he wanted to reach out and grab you. his fingers curled in front of your face as if he were squeezing you with his mind— but you could see the delight in his eyes. “you are an evil woman.”

you tipped your head and gave a small bow. “anything i am, i am because i learned from you, my dearest teacher.”

“mm,” he purred. the sound shocked you and you looked up just in time to see his pupils dilate. “you are mine. anyone who sees you can tell that much on first glance. you have begun to curl your lip as i do. have you noticed?”

you touched your mouth. your eyes widened. you did. how long had you been doing that for? you tried to rub the habit out of the muscle as you tried your best to ignore the way his words made you feel.

you are mine.

it touched upon that instinctual place in your belly. the unfamiliar part of you that couldn’t be denied. something that you’d only ever felt in your avatar. even though your mind was human, this body was not.

and your slow human mind couldn’t comprehend why you wanted him to bite you.

what your dumb, stupid, idiot human mind wanted to do was ask him, ‘am i?’ but you had more class.

you’d ignore the tension between you both because tonight you had found out that he’d once been the navi-version of engaged and lost his lover— and there was a gray line of him possibly being engaged to said lovers sister.

you weren’t going to try and unpack that box.

you were already on pandora.

besides, according to grace, navi could only begin courting when they passed their iknimaya. you had yet to do that. he was off the table and so were you.

yet why was he looking at you like that?

to sway the tension you felt in your belly, you walked with him across the towering tree roots. he followed you without missing a beat. the bioluminescent moss glowed as you stepped on it. as you walked, you wondered if he ever felt awkward. right now you felt awkward. did he ever feel awkward around you?

did he ever think similar thoughts to you?

you didn’t think so— but there was a part of you that couldn’t help but imagine it. he touched you so often. for humans, he touched you in places that were considered more personal. your hips. your thighs. your ass.

you still couldn’t believe he slapped you on the ass.

surely, it didn’t matter?

it wasn’t provocative for him the way it was for you.

unless it was…

“i’m curious,” you said without lifting your gaze up from the path you walked. you were afraid you’d fall off the tree root if you didn’t pay attention. “on earth, humans — more often than not — date around before they settle with ‘the one’. for your people, it’s different, isn’t it? grace said that involving yourself romantically with anyone is not usually accepted, right? because you mate for life?”

“it is a complicated matter. the expectation for those who have not passed their uniltaron is often disregarded.” tsu’tey said. he spoke with ease. a conversation between two friends. “there are some who follow the expectation. they do not engage in any kind of relations. others, like myself, will make some advances on a potential mate. flirting. kissing. others go as far as to lie with each other.”

your brows raised and you asked, “really? is sex not how you mate for life then?”

“no,” tsu’tey said with a shake of his head. he met your eyes as you looked over your shoulder at him. “to become mates, navi must form tsaheylu with each other. like ikran only taking one rider, navi can only ever take one mate.”

“so are you not a virgin then?” you asked as you turned.

he stopped and tilted his head at you. “virgin?”

“virgin. you know, like, you’ve never had sex with anyone.” you said.

tsu’tey pursed his lips and his tail swayed behind him. “you are an invasive little creature, demon.”

you asked something too personal and you could see it all over his face. there was irony in it though. of course, the guy who touched your ass would be a clam when asked anything remotely sexual.

“sorry.” you said, turning around.

“i’m not.”

you looked back. tsu’tey’s ears pinned and perked as you looked up at him. your brows drew together and you shook your head. he wasn’t what? he wasn’t sorry? he wasn’t a virgin?

“i wouldn’t be what you call a virgin.” he said.

your stomach hurt hearing him say that.

“did you and sylwanin…” you couldn’t ask outright. you threaded a thin, thin line.

tsu’tey shook his head. “no, not with her. much to my regret. i was too much of a rule follower then. so was she.”

“and you’re not a rule follower anymore.” it wasn’t a question.

“not in this regard.”

your heart skipped a beat as he stepped closer. you felt it again. something deep in your belly that seemed to weep as he neared. you wanted him to bite you. you wanted his hands all over you. he was so hot that it made you hot.

“are you a virgin?” tsu’tey asked. his voice was low. a purr that tickled your ears.

“yes and no.” you said. when he tilted his head, you kept your mouth moving. “in this body, yeah. of course. but me actually? no. i’ve had sex before.”

“and on earth sex is…similar?” tsu’tey asked, his eyes flicking across the whole of you.

your face burned. you shrugged your shoulders and couldn’t seem to find your voice. “i— i don’t know. how do navi…yknow…”

“i would turn you over and mount you.”

your mouth popped open and your eyes blew wide. your tail was smacking you in the legs and your ears hurt from standing up so straight.

weeping.

your core was weeping.

“and what then? you must have some kind of cock. navi women have similar parts between their legs to what i have in my body.” you said.

“something like that.” tsu’tey said with a nod.

“well endowed?” you asked before you could stop yourself. thankfully, a question like that would go over his head.

but it didn’t.

“i’m very tall.” he said.

tall.

did he mean that he towered over most other males so, of course, it was big? or did he mean that it actually was tall? maybe both.

you looked down at his loincloth.

it was easier than it should’ve been to imagine an erect blue pillar between his legs.

“what is your real body like?”

the question snapped you out of whatever daze had overcome you. you let out a soft breath and shook your head, “i’m not blue, for starters. i’m much smaller. my head would probably reach your hip if i’m lucky.”

tsu’tey seemed to imagine it. he looked down at his hip. trailing the length of you in front of him, his brow raised. to you, you were tall in this body. to him, you were small. he was a head and a half taller than you. in your real body, you would’ve been so, so small in front of him.

“human women have different chests,” tsu’tey said before you could ask him something more. “even now you have…” — he gestured to his chest. — “bigger. why?”

you looked down at your breasts. “i don’t know really. on earth, women have larger breasts for reproductive purposes. mothers produce milk for their babies. that makes them bigger.”

“if you think these are big, you should see me real body.” you said with an awkward laugh.

tsu’tey smirked. “big?”

“squishy.” you said.

“squishy…” he repeated the word. you knew he didn’t quite understand.

“soft.” you said. you smiled faintly. “human women are soft and squishy. navi women are tall and thin and agile.”

“do you look like this?” tsu’tey asked, flicking his head toward you. “if i saw you as you were, would i be able to recognize you?”

“it looks close enough like me.” you nodded. “this avatar looks more like my sister. even though we look the same, i still have trouble seeing me and not her.”

“but maybe,” you said. “if you ever saw me as i am you’d know because i’d probably be staring at you with my mouth wide open.”

“why open?” he asked.

“because…i can only imagine how tall you really are from all the way down there.” you said softly.

tsu’tey looked down, too. the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. “and if you kneeled now it would not be the same?”

your face ran hot and your heart thumped in your chest. “huh?”

“if you kneel down, is that not the same?” tsu’tey asked.

“no,” you breathed. shaking your head, you swatted your tail as it smacked your hips. “it wouldn’t be the same.”

“do you realize how you’re being?” you asked without thinking. well, you were thinking. you were thinking about how badly you wanted to touch his arms. how would his skin feel on your lips…

“hm?” tsu’tey titled his head at you.

the smirk he wore was all too devilish.

he was flirting with you.

you shook your head at him. “and you say i’m the demon?”

“you are.” tsu’tey said as he walked passed you. he glanced over his shoulder. “but you’re pretty for one.”

you watched as he descended the root. you hurried to keep up. hopping down after him, you followed him through the waking forest. the sun was beginning to shine. warm rays illuminated the forest in gold. the bioluminescent colors faded away.

“where are you going?” you asked. you were leaving home tree further and further behind. your promise to grace felt like a collar around your neck— but he was the one who held your leash out here.

“today is a rest day for you, demon. i will show you the best place to seek comfort for bruises.” tsu’tey said.

you wouldn’t argue with that.

while you weren’t in bad shape, you had sore spots still. mitsia had learned not to buck and throw you off, but the many times that she did sure left their mark. you walked and walked to a ridge of stone. it towered a hundred feet upward.

“this way.” tsu’tey called, trying to keep your ever-fluttering attention. new places always had you gawking. “come on, skxawng. the rocks aren’t going anywhere any time soon.”

you laughed under your breath.

shit-stirring jackass…

you followed him down into a tunnel in the rock. the darkness swallowed you both whole— until the familiar blue, white, and purple bioluminescent colors greeted you the further into the tunnel you walked. you reached out to touch the hanging flowers as you passed. they swayed as your fingers brushed against them. further ahead, you could hear the sound of bubbling, swirling and whooshing.

“wow…” you whispered.

the tunnel opened into a cavern. glowing purple crystals and vibrant blue moss filled the hollow space with light. in the center, a bubbling pool. colored algae looked like glitter in the steaming water.

“you call this a hot spring, yes?” tsu’tey asked as he made his way towards the edge of the water.

“yeah,” you said. you followed too. you dipped your foot in and smiled at the warm, bubbly sensation. “oh, this is going to be awesome.”

tsu’tey grinned. “enjoy it demon. if you do not remember your way back, head straight back down the trail. home tree’s leafs will come into view soon enough. just look up.”

you turned and shook you head. “where are you going?”

“i have things i must do today.” tsu’tey said.

“what things?” you asked.

he hesitated for a moment, looking at you too carefully. “hunting.”

a lie.

he just lied to you.

“hunting…” you said the word slowly, as if you were assessing it between your fingers. you took a step into the water and looked up at him. “for what?”

“how do you think the clan eats, demon? for food.” tsu’tey said. his voice was gruff. his annoyed scowl made a return.

another lie.

he wasn’t going to be hunting animals.

he was going to be raising the price on his head.

“can you go later?” you asked. you frowned at him and traced the surface of the bubbling water with your finger tips. “you deserve time to rest, too. putting up with me is no easy task.”

tsu’tey said nothing but he did not leave.

you knew your suspicion was right. he had a plan today. he knew where RDA would be and he knew his window of opportunity was small.

“aren’t there other hunters?” you asked.

he sighed, “yes but—”

“perfect.” you said, reaching for his hand. you gave it a small tug. “then come. sit. relax.”

tsu’tey pulled his hand from yours and wore a sour face. he glanced at the exit. after a beat of silence, he seemed to give in.

your heart lightened and the fear of him getting tangled in anything RDA related dissipated.

tsu’tey undid his loincloth and tossed it aside. your eyes widened and you turned your head away. you were staring at the moss but all you could see was a massive blue cock in your mind. your face burned hotter than the water as he stepped passed you into the hot spring. it wasn’t until you heard him sit that you dared to look at him.

“don’t get your clothes wet, demon. we have no spare because i have not gotten the chance to clean.” tsu’tey said with a flick of his head.

“you— you expect me to sit in here with you naked?” you asked with your voice all caught up in your throat.

“do humans wear clothes in water?” tsu’tey asked with a curious tilt of his head.

“for something like this, yeah. a bathing suit. we don’t swim with each other naked. well, some people like to skinny dip but that’s beside the point.” you said, swatting away those thoughts.

“just take your clothes off and sit down, eris.”

your breath froze in your lungs but your blood rushed like fire through your veins. hot. you were so hot all over as he said your name. fuck. if he said your name, you’d do anything he asked.

you undid the tie of your loincloth and let it fall free. you tossed it near his along with your gear. carefully, you took off the beaded chest piece around your breasts and placed that down, too. you looked anywhere else as you sank down into the water. it was like a hot hug. your muscles sighed as you found yourself a comfortable seat on the natural ledge.

“stop staring.” you said under your breath.

you could feel his gaze. it was hotter than the water. you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him. you didn’t want to know what kind of face he made. you didn’t want him to see how hard it was for you not to bite your lip.

“if i’m giving up a day of hunting to sit here with you, then i will look as i please.” tsu’tey said.

you met his eyes. to your surprise, he was looking at your face and not your breasts. only a few feet apart, you could see every glowing freckle on his face. you swallowed around the lump in your throat. your skin nearly melted off the bone as his eyes cut across you. they landed on your breasts.

“squishy?” he asked with no shame.

“yeah,” you whispered.

tsu’tey grinned to himself as he leaned back. he let his head rest against the ledge and his eyes fell closed. apart from the bubbling water, it grew entirely silent. he took full advantage of the time he had to relax and soak in the water.

you debated drowning yourself.

“you are so loud.” tsu’tey sighed.

“what?” you asked. your voice was hardly audible. “loud? i didn’t even say anything.”

“your heart.” tsu’tey said, flicking his head toward your chest. “your heart is loud. it is pounding.”

“well, it’s not like i can control that.” you muttered.

“great mother, grant me patience…”

before you could say anything, tsu’tey stood. water rippled down his toned blue body. the base of his cock was peeking at you from the bubbles. you could only stare at him in all his glory as he stood in front of you. the look in his eyes was far too difficult for you to read.

“turn.” he said.

“what?” you shook your head.

“if you want to be mounted so badly then turn.” tsu’tey said reaching down to lift you up by your arms.

your eyes shot open and your jaw dropped. “what? woah— woah, hold on.” you pushed your hand against his chest and stopped him. “what are you doing?”

“me? what are you doing, demon? you ask me questions about mating. you tell me to stay here with you instead of go on my hunt. i can smell your pheromones. you are not being discreet. is this not what you want?” tsu’tey asked.

you head was spinning.

you could hardly breathe.

“i— i didn’t mean to cause offense with those questions.” you said first and more most. “pheromones? i don’t—”

he cut you off. “do i look offended?”

being so close to him, you couldn’t tell what he looked like apart from sweaty and tense. his hands were curled tight at his side. his brow was glossed with sweat from the steam in the air.

offended?

no.

frustrated?

yes.

“aren’t you engaged?” you asked with more bitterness than you should’ve.

now he was offended.

he splashed you with water and bared his teeth in a frustrated growl. you gasped, wiping off your face.

“ugh! asshole!” you exclaimed with your ears pinned back.

you splashed him back. and then again. and again until he grabbed you by your arms and shook you. you grunted as your teeth clacked together. you reached a hand up to swipe at him with your nails but he caught you by the wrist.

staring up at him, you had hate in your eyes.

he had it, too.

it burned between you.

and it melted away at the both of you.

tsu’tey pushed you back against the edge of the hot spring. you made no attempt to stop him. your eyes stayed glued on his face. he stared at you, too, in a way that should’ve been far too invasive. you liked it. you like the edge to his expression. you like the power behind every moment. the dominance.

it was intoxicating.

or maybe it was the steam making your head swirl…

“no,” you said softly as he tried to turn you around. he tried again to turn you by your waist by you hooked your arms around his shoulders. “no.” you said again. firmly this time.

“navi don’t mate face to face unless they are bonded. you either turn or we stop.” tsu’tey said under his breath. it came out like a grumble.

“then we stop.” you said, dropping your arms from around his shoulders.

tsu’tey’s scowl was an old friend but you were not happy to see it. it meant that you were done. to both your dismay, it seemed. he stepped away from you and you couldn’t help but look down. he was erect. that much was nice to know.

he felt it, too. an attraction towards you like the one you felt for him.

maybe you weren’t losing it out here in the forest.

“the RDA doesn’t get along with you, do they?” you asked. you had the confidence to. rejecting his advances and watching him sit back down instead of leave gave you something to step up onto. not quite his level, but not as low.

tsu’tey scoffed and rested his head back against the ledge as he sat. “why ask questions you already know the answer to, demon?”

“because i want to know what it’ll take to make peace.” you said. the words were hard coming up your throat. you could hear the colonels voice in your head.

but you weren’t doing it just for him.

“truthfully, i want to know what it will take for grace to be allowed back at home tree.” you whispered.

“that decisions lies with the olo’eyktan and the tsahik.” tsu’tey said without opening his eyes.

“yes, but they listen to you. they listen to you and they keep their eyes on me. surely, there must be something that i could do.” you said.

it was silent for a long moment. tsu’tey stayed still. his chest rose and fell evenly. his eyes stayed shut. his expressed stayed blanket.

“there is, isn’t there?” you asked, moving towards him. the water sloshed against you as you sat beside him. “tell me what it is i have to do.”

“the olo’eyktan doubts you can form tsaheylu.” tsu’tey said lowly. he cracked a large yellow eye open to glance at you. he did not attempt to move even when you were near.

“what? how? i bonded with mitsia.” you said with a shake of your head.

tsu’tey laughed. he turned his head and looked up at you. fuck, did he look kissable right now. you could’ve just leaned down and done it. maybe he would’ve kissed you back.

“forming tsaheylu with pali is temporary. mitsia has grown fond of you because you have ridden her every day that we have trained with them. she is not yours. not really. not in the way an ikran would be.” he said.

“so…so if i form tsaheylu with an ikran, will grace be allowed to come back to the village?” you asked.

again, he laughed. “demon, if you can form tsaheylu with an ikran, you can pass iknimaya. if you pass iknimaya, you can pass uniltaron. if you pass uniltaron, you will become one of the people.”

“and that means…” your ignorance was pathetic.

you watched him fight the urge to smack you upside the head. his hand flex on the rock beside you. he had to grit his teeth. with a deep breath, he seemed to find his temper.

“that means, skxawng, that you may make your bow from the wood of home tree. you shall be welcomed by our ancestors. you shall take a mate. you shall mother many children. you shall be buried with our clan when you die.” tsu’tey said softly.

a flood of emotions ran through you in a matter of seconds. tears pricked at your eyes and you had not a clue why. looking away, you wiped at your lashes furiously.

“you cry?” tsu’tey sat forward and tried to look at you.

“shut up. no i’m not.” you sniffled, turning away fully.

“why do you cry?” he asked, placing his hand on the back of your neck. a shiver ran through you as he brushed your kuru.

why were you crying? truthfully, there were too many reasons. wiping you eyes, you turned to face him. it mattered no longer that you were stark naked in front of him. it mattered not that he was just as bare. when you looked at him, you did your best to look into him.

you looked at him.

tsu’tey recoiled the smallest bit.

“pandora has given me job after job. avatar driver. laboratory help. bunk-room maid. but you’re saying that if i past two tests…i get to live here?”

“i can have a life here?” you asked in a voice too soft.

tsu’tey seemed to soften at your words. he could see you just as you saw him. carefully, he swiped his thumb across your cheek. with a small nod, he awoke something vital inside your chest.

“yes,” he murmured. you’d never heard him speak so low. so soft. so sweet. “but they are no easy tests. you may die during each one. at the end, you will be one of the people. reborn as one of us.”

“if you claim an ikran and prove that you are navi and not just something that wears our skin, i will ask for grace’s return to home tree.”

you wanted to kiss him.

you wanted to kiss him until your lips bruised— and you had to fight tooth and nail not to.

“when can i claim an ikran?” you asked.

tsu’tey chuckled as he looked you up and down. “once i think you are ready.”

hope you all enjoyed <3 sorry for slow updates btw. i only get the chance to write before bed and i usually fall asleep, so it takes a couple days. thanks for reading! xxx

next chapter >

[yehet-me-up]

Zhang Yixing 张艺兴 (LAY) 🐑 Overview

Zhang Yixing, known professionally as Lay Zhang or simply Lay, is a Chinese rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, director, dancer, actor, author, and brand ambassador. He has been listed on Forbes list of the top 100 Chinese celebrities since 2017, at 20th, 11th, 5th, and 6th respectively for the subsequent years. In 2012 he debuted as a rapper, singer, and dancer with EXO. Please join me in celebrating EXO’s 🐑

Yixing is also an accomplished film and television actor, and has been active since his first role at six years old in the 1998 Chinese drama We The People. He later began his career as a child star after winning third place in a competition organized by the Hunan-based television show Star Academy in 2005. In November 2015, Zhang made his film debut with a supporting role in the Chinese romantic comedy movie Ex-Files 2: The Backup Strikes Back, which was a box office hit and garnered 2 billion in sales within 10 days of its release. The Mystic Nine series that he starred in placed first in television ratings and has accumulated over 12 billion views in total. 

In 2015, he founded a personal agency for his solo activities that serves as a management firm, and in 2020 Zhang established his own group of companies in China, called Chromosome Entertainment Group, and began the process of recruiting trainees from all over the world. His autobiography, Standing Firm at 24, was a best-seller in China, breaking several sales records. Yixing has additionally served as a mentor, producer, and presenter for numerous singing and dancing reality shows in China. Zhang also currently tops the list for K-Pop idols with the most endorsement deals, partnering with over 30 companies.

"Monodrama," written by Lay and co-composed and arranged with Divine Channel, broke records by staying at number one on YinYueTai's V Chart for five consecutive weeks. In 2016, Zhang released his first EP, Lose Control, in South Korea and China to commercial success; it peaked at number one on the Gaon Album Chart and number four on Billboard's US World Albums chart. His first studio album, Lay 02 Sheep, broke five records on QQ Music: Gold, Double Gold, Triple Gold, Platinum and Diamond Record. Lit, his third studio album, had pre-orders of over 1.5 million copies within seven minutes; Lit went on to sell 2.5 million records, making Lay the best-selling artist in China in 2020. 

Lay is involved in much of the production of his albums as a producer, and is often personally in charge of the composition, arrangement and writing of every song – as well as translation of the lyrics himself into other languages, including English, Korean and Japanese.

This post is part of an effort to celebrate the accomplishments of EXO over the past 10 years and to provide tangible avenues for supporting these artists in 2022 and beyond 🖤 On 8 April 2022, Lay announced that he would be departing from SM Entertainment after the conclusion of his ten-year contract with the company - we look forward to his future projects, both as a solo artist and as a member of EXO 💕

*Due to time/energy levels (not because I don’t love Yixing!) I won’t be including links this time, but this should be a thorough summary of his projects, music-related and otherwise :) His songs and albums are all available to listen on Spotify and Youtube, and his albums are for sale at most major retailers!*

🎵 Individual Music 🎶

🌔 Lose Control (2016) 1st EP/mini-album 🌔

1. Lose Control (失控) 2. What U Need? (你要什么) 3. Tonight 4. MYM 5. MYM (Acoustic Ver.) 6. Relax (守望)

❄️ Winter Special Gift (2017) 2nd EP/mini-album ❄️

1. Goodbye Christmas (聖誕又至) 2. Can You Feel Me (你的感覺) 3. Christmas Love (聖誕的愛) 4. Gift to XBACK (小小禮物) 5. Goodbye Christmas (English Ver.) 6. Goodbye Christmas (Instrumental Ver.)

🐑 Lay 02 Sheep (2017) 1st Studio Album 🐑

1. Sheep (羊) *Alan Walker re-lift version ∴ Lollapalooza 2018* 2. I Need U (需要你) 3. Peach (桃) 4. Hand (匕首) 5. Boss (老大) 6. Shake (摇摆) 7. Too Much (太多) 8. Mask (面罩) 9. Director (导演) 10. X Back (兴迷)

🌲 Namanana (2018) 2nd Studio Album 🌲 *2 Disc CD - first side is Chinese versions and second is English versions

1. 集结号 (The Assembly Call) 2. 梦不落雨林 (Namanana) *also a single remix in 2020* 3. 爱到这 (Give Me a Chance) 4. 催眠术 (Lay U Down) 5. 爱的引力 (Save You) 6. 坚持 (Hold On) 7. 幸福上瘾 (Thing for You) 8. 麻婆豆腐 (Mapo Tofu) 9. 香水 (Flavour) 10. 快门回溯 (Don't Let Me Go) 11. 贝壳女孩 (Tattoo)

🍯 Honey (2019) 3rd EP/mini-album 🍯

1. Honey (和你) (English version) 2. Bad (坏的) 3. Amusement Park (游乐园) 4. Honey (和你) (Chinese version)

🐲 蓮 LIT (2020) 3rd Studio Album 🐲  *Was released in two parts, each with 6 songs

1. 蓮 (Lit) 2 玉 (Jade) 3. 鷹 (Eagle) 4. 水 (H2O) 5. 飛 (Fly) 6. 靈 (Soul) 7. 沸 (Changsha) 8. 妈 (Mama) 9. 蹦 (Boom) *also Boom R3HAB remix* 10. 唤 (Call My Name) 11. 夜 (Late Night) 12. 愿 (Wish)

🎼 Producer (2021) 4th Studio Album 🎼 

1. Joker 2. 愛蓮說 (Love Lay) 3. 小城姑娘 (Flipped) 4. 十面埋伏 (Ambush) 5. 略過 (Stay With Me) 6. 馬 (Horse) 7. 炎黃子孫 (Descendants of the Dragon) *also has a remix* 8. 癡 (Obsessed) 9. 湘江水 (XiangJiang River) (Ft. 功夫胖 (Kungfu Pen))

🌄 東 EAST (2021) 4th EP/mini-album 🌄

1. 飛天 (Flying Apsaras) 2. 三昧真火 (Samadhi Real Fire) by LAY & GALI 3. 苦行僧 (Ascetic Monk) 4. 牧童 (The Shepherd Boy)

🚀 Singles and OSTs 🚀

⇢ Spectrum (2012) SM The Performance group single ⇢ Because of You (2013) Non-Album Single ⇢ I'm Coming (2014) Hunan TV special performance ⇢ Alone (One Person) (2015) Ex-Files 2 OST ⇢ Happy Youth with Jiang Wen and Li Xiaolu (2015) Oh My God OST  ⇢ Monodrama (2016) SM Station single  ⇢ A Man Thing with Royal Treasure cast (2016) Royal Treasure OST ⇢ Pray (2017) Operation Love OST  ⇢ Dream High (夢想起飛) (2017) SPD Bank Theme Song ⇢ When It’s Christmas (2018) Non-Album Single ⇢ Youth Day (theme song) (2018) ⇢ Everything Like You (2018) I'm Around You OST ⇢ Let’s Shut Up & Dance with Jason Derulo + NCT 127 (2019) Non-Album Single ⇢ No Man's Land with Anti-General and Jasmine Sokko (无人之域) Non-Album Single ⇢ Lovebird with Far East Movement (2019) Non-Album Single ⇢ I'm Not Well (我不好) (2019) Non-Album Single ⇢ Grandma (外婆) (2019) Non-Album Single ⇢ Love You More with Steve Aoki and will.i.am (2020) Steve Aoki's Neon Futures IV ⇢ Clear Sky Ballad with Panta Q (晴空谣) Non-Album Single ⇢ Gluttony (2020) Non-album Single ⇢ Bee With You (2021) Non-Album Single  ⇢ Dawn to Dusk with 24kGoldn (2022) Single Album ⇢ Jiu (酒) (2022) Non-Album Single 🌌

🎭 Acting Roles 🎭

⇢ (1998) We The People tv show - Huan Huan ⇢ (2015) Oh My God movie - Le Yi ⇢ (2015) Ex-Files 2: The Backup Strikes Back movie - Lee Xianghe ⇢ (2016) Royal Treasure movie - self ⇢ (2016) To Be A Better Man TV show - Xiao Cai (Cai Mingjun) ⇢ (2016) The Mystic Nine TV show - Er Yuehong ⇢ (2016) The Mystic Nine Side Story: Flowers Bloom in February web movie - Er Yuehong ⇢ (2017) Operation Love TV show - Yan Xiaolai ⇢ (2017) Kung Fu Yoga movie - Zhu Xiaoguang ⇢ (2017) Cars 3 movie - Jackson Storm (Chinese dub voice) ⇢ (2017) The Founding of an Army movie - Lu Deming ⇢ (2018) The Island movie - Xiao Xing  ⇢ (2018) Tomb of The Sea TV show - Jie Yuchen ⇢ (filmed 2018, release ?) Unexpected Love movie - Han Bin ⇢ (2019) The Golden Eyes TV show - Zhuang Rui ⇢ (2019) Empress of The Ming TV show - Zhu Qizhen ⇢ (2021) Faith Makes Great TV show - Xiong Dachen ⇢ (2021) Crime Crackdown TV show - Lin Hao ⇢ (2022) Challenges at Midlife TV show - Ning Shu

*TBD release - No More Bets movie - main role

📺 Other TV Credits 📺

⇢ (2014) Star Chef reality show - contestant ⇢ (2016, 2018) Happy Camp reality show - guest ⇢ (2019-present) Go Fighting! variety Series - main cast ⇢ (2018, 2019) Idol Producer reality show - main mentor, presenter ⇢ (2018) Rave Now reality show - mentor ⇢ (2019) Youth with You (Idol Producer S2) - main mentor, presenter ⇢ (2019) Roast reality show - guest ⇢ (2020) I'm CZR II reality show - singer-songwriter ⇢ (2020) We Are Young reality show - main mentor, presenter ⇢ (2020, 2021) Street Dance of China reality show - team captain ⇢ (2020, 2021) Let's Chat variety show - main cast ⇢ (2020) Dance Smash - team leader ⇢ (2021) The winter dream promise (TV Special) Self ⇢ (2021) Youth and Melody - Producer ⇢ (2021) Back to Field variety show - main cast

🏆 Awards 🏆

⇢ Awards and nominations complete list! 

🕺🏻 Fashion + Brands 🕺🏻

⇢ Zhang attended a Samsung event held at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai, China as the ambassador of Samsung Galaxy A8s and performed on-stage alongside ASAP Ferg and Steve Aoki. ⇢ Zhang attended the 61st Annual Grammy Awards as its promotion ambassador on the red carpet event and live ceremony. ⇢ Yixing’s third wax figure was revealed in Madame Tussauds Hong Kong in 2019, following his wax figures in Madame Tussauds Shanghai and Beijing. ⇢ Zhang is a brand ambassador of over 30 brands, including Converse, MAC Cosmetics, Chaumet Paris, Ray-Ban, Milka Chocolate, H&M and Perrier. ⇢ In 2019, he was announced as Calvin Klein's first Chinese global spokesperson for Calvin Klein's underwear and jeans lines. ⇢ As an ambassador of high-end fashion brand Valentino, Zhang has attended multiple fashion shows and events in Asia and Europe, as well at the annual Met Gala wearing a custom-made suit titled "Time Traveller" designed by Valentino Creative Director Pierpaolo Piccioli. ⇢ He served as a promotional ambassador for Huawei Nova smartphones from 2015 to 2018. ⇢ Since 2016 Zhang has served the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) of Changsha as a publicity ambassador, the first celebrity to hold such title. ⇢ In October 2017, Zhang signed a contract with the vice president of Tencent Music Entertainment Group and became a member of "Music+ Plan" (Music+ 计划) alongside TFBoys, Wang Leehom, and more. ⇢ In September 2018, Zhang signed an agreement with Easy Entertainment in which his personal studio will collaborate with Easy Entertainment to create a new team to manage Zhang's promotional activities.

🌟 Miscellaneous 🌟

⇢ Grand Line: The First Concert (2019) Solo concert ⇢ In 2015 Zhang's autobiography, Standing Firm at 24, was published. The book documents important events throughout his life and broke several online sales records with 400,000 copies sold within six months. He took the fourth place on the 10th Chinese Celebrity Writers List, becoming the youngest celebrity author to enter the charts. He was also the champion of the 2015 installment of the Annual Celebrity Book Sales and took the top spot of Asia's Best Books twice during its monthly ranking and six times on the weekly chart.  ⇢ At CCTV’s Spring Gala Festival in 2017 he sang a duet alongside Chinese actor Jing Boran ⇢ Goosebump music video (2017) Kung Fu Yoga OST featured dancer ⇢ 2019 20 January, Zhang attended a Samsung event held at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai, China as the ambassador of Samsung Galaxy A8s and performed on-stage alongside ASAP Ferg and Steve Aoki, respectively new level and boom shakalaka ⇢ On the 2011 SHINee world tour he was a stand in for Jonghyun, who was briefly unable to participate in the tour ⇢ Zhang performed a Chinese New Year song alongside Dilraba Dilmurat, Phoenix Legend, Wallace Chung, and Zhou Dongyu at the 2019 CCTV New Year's Gala. ⇢ Zhang attended the 2018 CCTV New Year's Gala where he performed a dance collaboration stage with Huang Bo and William Chan. ⇢ Yixing is also a talented songwriter and composer of most of his own solo music, as well as the song "Promise" from the repackaged edition of Exo's second studio album, Love Me Right. He also wrote the lyrics for the Chinese version of the song, while the Korean version was co-written by Chen and Chanyeol. Apart from Karen Mok, he holds composition credits to songs released by Yu Quan, MC Jin and Show Luo. ⇢ He participated in the national anthem and its music video for Youth Day in China in May 2018. ⇢ Magazine Covers listed here

⇢ Follow Yixing on Instagram @ layzhang, on Twitter @ layzhang, and on YouTube at LAY

Thank you for supporting EXO Yixing 😘

And if you want to help spread this post to folks who haven’t experienced the magic of Yixing yet, please reblog this and tell me what your favorite Yixing moments and performances are! ✨

[4haechie]

right here, right now

pairing: lee donghyuck x reader

genre: fluff, idol au, established relationship au

words: 1,782

warnings: the usual swear words here n there

a/n: this was such a cute request, thank u so much! i hope u like it, anon <3 and sorry it took a while :(

hey

come over

i miss you

you smile to yourself, reading the text your boyfriend sent you a billion times, before thinking of something to reply with.

babe we hung out just a couple of hours ago

or did u already forget about our 5yearaversary exclusive movie marathon

you sit up on your bed, phone clutched tightly in your hand, waiting for his answer.

gonna ignore the fact that u just said “5yearaversary”

and i know i know

but the members r all out

so it’s just me... and u 😉

you roll your eyes.

hmm......

i think i’ll pass ❤️

you giggle when he replies almost immediately, his frustration and annoyance miraculously but perfectly being conveyed through his texts.

Y/NNNNNNNNNNN

pretty please ☹️

alright, fine! i’ll be there in 10 minutes, you type and hit send, quickly getting ready before grabbing your bag and heading out the door.

/

“hi,” donghyuck greets you at his dorm’s front door with a big, dazzling smile and a wink.

you scoff at his flirtatious greeting, and step into the familiar living room, then turning around to face your boyfriend. “how is it possible that nobody’s home? not even doyoung?”

donghyuck shakes his head, “i told them to give us a few hours. they’re all out doing their own thing–but i think doyoung hyung went to hang out with renjun at the dreamies’ dorm. they’re practically best friends now.”

you laugh at his comment, walking over to the kitchen and leaning against their dining table. donghyuck follows you, gently holding you in his arms. you’re now pressed against him, chest to chest, breathing him in, savouring this intimate moment.

“why did you tell them to leave?” you ask.

donghyuck pulls away a little to look at you. “our anniversary isn’t over yet, baby,” he raises an eyebrow.

“it’s so weird. we’ve been together five whole years now, but the boys still tease us–doesn’t matter if we’re holding hands, looking at each other or making out, ” you say.

donghyuck laughs, “i know, right? but anyway, we have almost the entire evening to ourselves. what do you wanna do?”

you think for a moment before answering, “why don’t we just spend the rest of the day cuddling in bed? i barely see you these days,” you pause and tip-toe, giving his cute nose a small kiss, “and i miss you.”

donghyuck sighs sadly, “baby, i miss you too, more than you’ll ever know.” he suddenly pulls away completely, bending down slightly to lift you, an arm holding you firm just under your shoulder and the other hooked under your knees. you yelp as your feet get lifted off the ground without warning, so you cling onto his neck for dear life.

“donghyuck, what the fuck!” you exclaim as he leads you into his room, carefully placing you on his bed. he laughs as you huff out a breath, “give me a heads up next time.” donghyuck laughs again and climbs on top of the bed, hovering over you.

for a moment, it’s silent. you’re staring deep into donghyuck’s chocolate eyes and he’s staring into yours. he places his left hand on your waist while the other caresses your cheek, thumb softly tracing your skin. “i love you so much.”

you almost melt right then and there, but looking at your lover’s deep brown eyes keeps you grounded. “i love you so much...too.” you say with sparkly eyes and a dazzling smile. it’s his turn to try and not melt now.

donghyuck lets out a beautiful, melodious laugh and plops down right beside you, pulling you close and completely engulfing you in his embrace. “i’ve always wanted to spend the day with you, cuddling in bed while the members are out,” he says into your neck.

“oh, really? and why’s that?”

“because...the members never, ever, stop teasing me about you.”

you chuckle, turning your body and propping yourself up by your elbow. “i’m kinda hungry. do you have any food?”

donghyuck sits up on the bed, pulling you up as well. “we might have some chips? i’m not sure. wait here, i’ll be right back!” he kisses the top of your head and scurries off to get snacks.

/

he’s back minutes later, hands holding various food items. “alright, we’ve got chips–sour cream and onion, two soda cans and lollipops.” he proudly presents his findings to you and you chuckle fondly.

“better than nothing, right?” you tell him, gesturing at him to sit next to you.

“wait!”

“what’s wrong?”

donghyuck tosses the snacks and goodies on the bed, before rushing to his desk and bringing out a...camera? he walks back over to you and presents it to you. “i wanna record all of tonight–you know, for memories? i can make a copy and give it to you, so when i’m away you can watch it and so can i. so we’ll be together no matter what,” he laughs at the cheesiness of his words. “we’ll be taken back to today, right here, right now, whenever we want.”

you feel your heart swell at his beautiful words, and tears glisten at the corner of your eyes. you inhale, exhale, and stand up to walk over to him. you don’t say anything, just increase the proximity between the two of you by connecting your lips in a soft, slow kiss. donghyuck places the camera on his bed and pulls you closer by the waist. his hands travel up and down your back, causing the material of your shirt to ride up a little, sending a shiver down your spine. his hands feel warm, his lips are plump and sweet, his warmth is comforting and swallows you a whole.

you pull away, “i love you. i don’t deserve you.”

donghyuck looks at you with nothing but love in his eyes, his fingers brushing through your hair now, “why is it that you always say the words i’m thinking of? i love you so, so much. it’s me who doesn’t deserve you, y/n.”

your tears dare to spill any moment now, “god, i promised myself i wouldn’t cry on our anniversary. fuck you, donghyuck,” you say with a small laugh, but you intertwine your fingers and mirror his look of pure love and adoration. 

“i though you wanted to cuddle?” donghyuck gives you a quizzical look.

it takes you a second to realise what he meant. “shut up!” you say, punching his chest lightly. 

/

“smile for the camera, y/n,” donghyuck sing-songs, filming you.

you stick your tongue out playfully before eating a handful of chips. you lick your lips, “sing for me and then we’ll see.”

donghyuck bites the inside of his cheek, “what do you want me to sing?”

“hm...something cheesy.”

donghyuck thinks for a moment and hands you the camera. you’re filming him now, eagerly waiting to see what song he picked. he takes your free hand in his, brings it to his heart and gives it a light squeeze. the gesture makes your heart hammer against your chest rapidly.

five years and he still has the same effect on you as he did on your first ever date.

he takes a sip of water, clears his throat, and begins singing.

can you imagine?

what would happen?

if we could have any dream

i’d wish this moment

was ours to own it

and that it would never leave

then i would thank that star

that made our wish come true

‘cause he knows that

came true, oh yeah

where you are

is where i should be too

he sings from within, with his all; his eyes are closed, his hand is on his heart. there’s no music, it’s just his voice, him, you, and the camera. donghyuck’s voice is so beautiful, so mesmerising, it takes you someplace far, far away. it makes you feel like you’re casually drifting between fluffy clouds in the sky. it’s a blessing, a godsend. donghyuck’s voice is magical, capable of such brilliant things–things you’re still unaware of, even after five years of being with him. 

right here, right now

i’m looking at you

and my heart loves the view

‘cause you mean everything

right here, i’ll promise you somehow

that tomorrow can wait

for some other day to be, to be

but right now there’s you and me

he sings his heart out, sings like his life depends on it. donghyuck’s voice touches your heart, holds it close, tucks it into safety and comfort. it’s a warm blanket on a stormy night. it’s smooth like honey and soft like a feather. but it’s also powerful, confident.

donghyuck never sings off-key, never, ever gets off-pitch or sings off-tune. he’s a professional. right now, in front of you, when he’s singing to you and you only, he sings like there’s no tomorrow. the words seem to come straight from his heart. the camera isn’t designed to capture all of his emotions–sure, it records his voice and all of his facial expressions, but it’s not accustomed to film what he feels inside. that’s something only you–the witness–can do.

you don’t know what’s so intimate, so emotional and raw about him singing to you, but it strikes you. you wipe your eyes with your free hand, causing the camera to shake a little, just as he finishes singing.

donghyuck opens his eyes finally to look at you–not the camera lens. “baby, why are you crying?”

you let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and meet his gaze. “i don’t know...there’s something about your voice, i guess.”

“you guess?”

you really laugh this time, which makes butterflies fly around in donghyuck’s stomach. “there it is,” he says with a smirk.

a bashful smile forms on your lips, and he takes the camera from you, pointing it at you again. “so, y/n, will you smile for the camera now?”

you push your hair back and playfully think for a moment. “why should i?”

“aw, c’mon! i sang for you like you wanted me to!” donghyuck protests.

you let out a chuckle and give the camera a toothy grin, even holding up a peace sign to satisfy donghyuck. his lips curl up in content and a hand reaches your face to stroke your cheek gingerly. you lean into his touch, feeling the same kind of warmth from before.

“happy anniversary, y/n.” donghyuck tucks a piece of hair behind your ear.

you smile again, but this time your grin is directed at the cameraman. “happy anniversary, donghyuck.”

( “what do you wanna do for our next anniversary?”

you ponder a little before replying, “we could go to the arcade?”

“this is why you’re the love of my life.” )

[snowflake-of-destruction]

A House Divided

A little, silly kidfic Sorikai for the soul, and for @shaky-mayhemm

Note: The more times I try to change colors of the first letters of the first words in each paragraph, the more formatting glitches and scrambled paragraphs I get, so see if you can get the “oh so secret message” without it being completely pointed to.

Selphie was at fault to start with, though, if she was going to be ascribed the blame for the hurt feelings, she would have to be given credit for starting some wheels in their lives turning, which Riku and Sora both agreed she did not deserve, even if Kairi was more magnanimous. Thus, it became a habit just to talk of conversations and promises made when they were too young to fully weigh choices. Still, the most accurate account begins with: one day when they were all young-- too young to even be allowed to swim in the water surrounding play island without an adult in the surf with them--if that gives perspective--Selphie, to everyone's surprise, scored the winning goal in the game of land-blitzball the group of them were playing in order to decide what game they would really spend the day playing, and chose, to absolutely nobody's surprise, house.

How it went down, everyone accepted their fate and divided into family units with minimal grumbling, phrasing which means that Wakka threw the blitzball into the sea and lost it forever when Jecht--the parent chaperone on play island that day who was five minutes away from falling asleep on the sand and typically didn't care what they did, unlike most parents who at least had restrictions about not hitting each other in the head with wooden swords or throwing sand--refused to go into the water after it. 

As it was, the game mistress, Selphie, who should have, by all rights, been content, found a problem with Sora, Riku, and Kairi's family. Specifically, she didn't like that the family was Riku, Kairi, and Sora all together parenting a yellow coconut Kairi was trying to rock to sleep while Riku built him a bed out of sand and palm fronds and Sora cooked dinner for the household--a savoury stew of sticks, sand, and mushroom. She stood with pursed lips and hands on hips, and declared that their proud coconut son, Rekka, couldn't have all three of them for parents because that wasn't how things worked.

Kool-aid stain lips pursed and Sora asked, with all the curiosity and innocence of a child, “Why can’t it work that way?”

Yearning to prove his maturity, Riku tried a more practical, solution based approach with, "Can we change the rules?"

Madly defending her rights as alpha-female of their friend group, Kairi was more direct and firm, her, "It does if I say so," leaving very little room to argue. 

Already invested, Selphie stuck firm in her first assessment, voice gaining volume and rising in pitch to an affronted shriek that doubled down on, "It's just not how it works!" that was rooted in fear that they were trying to sabotage her game on purpose and embarrassment at being left as a single mother since Tidus and Wakka had happily coupled up and were introducing a piece of driftwood they had named Chappu to the newly dubbed Grandpa Mark IV Jecht who "just wanted a damn nap."

Young Sora provided the counter argument of bursting into tears while Kairi used every bit of her clout as the girl who had fallen out of the sky last year to put power behind the statement that she was going to launch Selphie to the moon, which caused Riku to wrap his arms around her from behind in a combination restraint and hug as the glare that he leveled at Selphie over Kairi's shoulder as he repeated his request to change the rules said that, while he'd stop Kairi from launching Selphie to the moon, he was just as upset by Sora's crying and would bury her in the ground. 

Heroic duty calling him to intervene, Tidus left Chappu in Wakka's expert care, reminding him to support the baby's head, and padded over to see what was the matter. He proceed to have the situation explained to him by an increasingly agitated Selphie who refused to admit she was wrong when the other three were cheating and leaving her with no partner to raise her baby with after she'd won fair and square, and, in the end, took Kairi, Riku, and Sora's side. "I have two dads and a mom. It happens in real life. Isn't that right dad?" He yelled the last words and Jecht gave a thumbs up, undoubtedly having no idea what he was agreeing to and not caring.

Even presented with such evidence, Selphie stayed strong, however. "Your parents are dee-vorced and your dad second-married your Papa. You don't have two dads and one mom all in the same house together. That would be chaos!" She threw her arms out to demonstrate the extreme degree the universe would be thrown off by the anarchy of two dads and one mom all living together, "And a couple is a two. When you ask for a couple of cookies even if you want three cookies you only get two cookies."

“My grandmother always told me three cookies will make you sick!" Kairi argued, "So it’s because of stomach aches, not because a couple equals a two!"

“Mmm, no, she's right." Riku's arms slackened their grip on Kairi and defeat entered his voice. "A couple means two. Three is a few. Miss Rosa taught us that grammar rule." 

In wake of that knowledge drop, the argument ended there. Riku was one year older and had been taught a great many things in school the rest didn't know yet, which made him a Trusted Authority. If he knew the rules, those had to be the Enforceable Law. Riku would have liked to lie, especially when Selphie started dragging the still distraught Sora away by his arm to be her husband and pick out a baby with her, but he couldn't compromise his Trusted Authority status. He also ruled out revenge when Kairi suggested throwing Rekka at Selphie's head ("I'm allowed. We're both girls.") both because the plan could "trauma-ato-rize" baby Rekka and cause one billion years of therapy but also because Selphie was not being mean. She was right. The three of them would never raise a baby together, or be married, or be a couple. A couple was two.

Luck decreed Sora and Selphie would divorce after fifteen minutes when Tidus and Sora started using Chappu and Sora and Selphie's baby, Spaceship Train, as swords in a fight over a spot of beach where both wanted to build a vacation home to get away from the hustle and bustle of the beach ten feet away. After a brief huddle, Riku and Kairi divorced amicably so Kairi could marry Sora with the promise that they in turn would divorce soon so Riku and Sora could get married. This triggered a new round of accusations of cheating and renewed fighting until Jecht was forced to intervene and decree that they could either all find a way to get along or he'd row them straight back to the main island. The children meant to choose the former, but the latter came true sooner rather than later

On the way back home,  Sora, Riku, and Kairi were especially subdued, each lost in thought bigger than child brains usually were forced to hold in an afternoon of beach play. Sora was absorbed in planning how to train a pet dolphin, but Riku and Kairi were both still  consumed by melancholy at the revelation about their future, or the restrictions on it.

Very carefully, Kairi traded spots in the boat, going from sitting beside a sulky Selphie, to hanging on to Tidus, to slipping beside Riku. He smiled at her, obviously faking, so she wasted no time in giving him a reason to smile for real. “You and Sora have known each other longer. You two should get to be the ones who get married when we grow up.” She had decided it, and when she decided something, she made sure it happened.

“Even if you knew you would always-and-forever-pinky-promise mean that, it doesn’t mean Sora would agree.” Riku replied after a too long pause, his face shifting into a frown that added centuries not just years to his rounded baby face. “You’re pretty special, Kairi, and pretty pretty too. He might choose you.” He knew then that he’d choose Kairi for himself over just about anyone else, using forever stakes as puppy-love often did when forever to the young mind often only lasted as long as five minutes (or ten, if you counted five as merely an eternity, less than forever).

“You know I can hear you,” Sora grumbled. Everyone could. Sora was just the only one that still cared about deciding how the friends would avoid becoming an illegal trio. “I should get to decide for myself.” Sora sucked in air to puff out his chest. “And I choose that I won’t choose. We’re going to all stick together, and we’re going to be a family. You two have to promise. Nothing can take us apart, and, even if it’s wrong, then we all go to jail together.”

On the bench behind him, Riku and Kairi shared a look, searching for one another’s reactions before forming their own. Riku was the first to nod, and give his word, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I’d make sure only I went to jail to protect the two of you.” Kairi screwed up her face like she was going to argue, so Riku took her hand to hold and squeezed it. “But it should be the three of us together. If you marry your very best friend, I have two of them now.” He paused again and waited, not getting the chance to say more when Kairi and Sora expressed their agreement by jumping to their feet and setting the boat to rock and Mr. Jecht to yell.

Undeniably, it wasn’t the most thorough or well informed discussion, and there were times where the childlike resolve that it was always to be the three of them equally, inseparably, and united in commitment (may the first to change their mind be launched right to the moon) was replaced with doubt or temporary jealousy, but all three would pinpoint that day as an early memory of being faced with the heartbreak that came trying to imagine a life not lived as one--and, yes, grudgingly, they would consider thanking Selphie for making them play house.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

According to the pundits, the revolution, if you would call it that, began with video. The first and foremost was the excruciating recording of George Floyd’s last moments as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin1 publicly pinned the life out of him. That was on May 25, but more than a month later, the recordings have continued to disseminate. Protesters uploaded photos of rubber bullets, their wounds and their mangled faces, while journalists and other concerned members of the public aggregated footage of police brutality into lists and websites.

The compilation of evidence has seemed to jar something loose, for now. Corporations are pledging to donate millions to racial and social justice causes,2 legislators have proposed tentative yet unprecedented restrictions on the police, and the Marines and Navy have banned the Confederate battle flag3 some 150 years after the ending of the war that sparked its creation.

But is this really going to be what commentator Van Jones has called a “Great Awakening of empathy and solidarity”? And if it is, is it really appropriate to claim that video has been the catalyst? I work with civic data and teach about the power of data collection, so I want to believe that data (in the form of video footage depicting police brutality against Black people) can effect social change. Just as it is comforting to see corporate and institutional pledges as revolution, it is comforting to attribute power to the millions of glowing screens that have been called as witnesses.

Data showing racism might be useful in clarifying the things we already know to be true, but it is far more limited in terms of shifting them.

But it is precisely because of my attachment to the power of data collection that I’m unconvinced video footage can solely, or even primarily, lead to meaningful change. I know too well the stories of a century of Black Americans who have presented evidence of violence and racism only to have it summarily denied or ignored. The idea that structural racism can be proven and overcome by gathering just enough or the right kind of evidence is nothing more than a myth. Historically, it has rarely been the case.

Consider, for instance, the study that the Bureau of Labor commissioned famed Black scholar W.E.B. DuBois to complete in the early 1900s. Determined to employ sound sociological methods to disprove racist beliefs that Black people were inferior, he and a team of researchers spent three years in Lowndes County, Alabama, gathering data from 5,000 Black families (approximately 25,000 individuals). It detailed the conditions of life in the region, and was one of the largest sociological studies of rural Black life ever conducted. When DuBois submitted the final manuscript, it was a handwritten document full of charts and infographics.4 Not only did the government bureau refuse to publish the study, but it destroyed the document entirely, claiming it was rejected due to technical matters. DuBois made the case in his correspondence and autobiography, however, that the bureau rejected the document because it revealed the inconvenient political truth about conditions for Black Americans.

In the case of Sam Faulkner, an innocent 20-year-old Black man who was shot in the head inside his sister’s home by Los Angeles police in 1927,5 evidence came in the form of testimony from the other cop on the scene as well as bullet fragments. Yet this was not enough to bring about a conviction, and the officer who killed Faulkner continued to work in the LAPD for two more years.6

In 1951, the Civil Rights Congress appealed to the United Nations for help, asserting that the history of disenfranchisement, lynching, and police brutality that Black people faced in the United States was tantamount to genocide.7 The CRC’s petition8 documented years’ worth of atrocities against Black Americans but was ignored by the U.N., which at the time was heavily influenced by the U.S.

In 1969, Illinois Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, 21, was gunned down9 in his Chicago apartment after being sedated by an FBI Informant. A target of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, he was perceived to be a threat to the nation for negotiating a truce between street gangs, organizing rallies and instituting free breakfast programs for children. A coroner’s jury ruled the killing a justifiable homicide.

And even more recent incidents including video footage of police brutality have been doubted. When Philando Castile was pulled over and shot by police in 2016, the dashcam footage revealed that Castile, who had been stopped by the police at least 46 times prior for minor infractions, had followed all the instructions that officer Jeronimo Yanez had given him. Regardless, an NRA spokesperson still blamed Castile for the incident, while conservative commentator Sean Hannity criticized Castile’s girlfriend, who was seated beside him in the car, for live-streaming the interaction in the first place.

These killings, and the many more that reveal just a glimpse of how totalizing anti-Blackness can be, are part of a longer trend. It is a trend that has claimed countless more names, and still more stories. By nearly every statistical measurement possible, from housing to incarceration to wealth to land ownership, Black Americans are disproportionately disadvantaged. But the grand ritual of collecting and reporting this data has not improved the situation. American history is lined with innumerable instances of what scholar Saidiya Hartman bemoans as “the demand that this suffering be materialized and evidenced by the display of the tortured body or endless recitations of the ghastly and the terrible,” only for very little to change.

If the data hasn’t undone the bias, then surely we must acknowledge that there are deeper forces that tug the levers of change in America. I am reminded of James Baldwin’s response to the 1954 Supreme Court case that ended segregation: “Had it been a matter of love or justice, the 1954 decision would surely have occurred sooner; were it not for the realities of power in this difficult era, it might very well not have occurred yet.” Love, justice, data — alone, none have been enough.

But perhaps we have asked too much of the evidence in the first place. Or perhaps we have asked too much of those who wield evidence, and too little of those presented with it. These are two different groups. After all, evidence is not intended for the people who have been harmed — why show proof of a fire to the person it burned? In most cases, evidence is used to convince an Other of a thing that they did not encounter. Ironically, data is not very good at this.

In 1949, two psychologists, Jerome Bruner and Leo Postman, designed an experiment to test people’s responses to anomalies, or moments when they faced events that deviated from what they had expected to encounter. In the experiment, participants were shown sets of playing cards and asked to identify the cards’ color and suit. The catch was that, in addition to regular cards, the sets contained irregular “trick” cards in which the color and suit of the cards had been reversed to create incongruities (like a black three of hearts or a red two of spades).

In the early rounds, the participants were quick to identify the cards, in part because they simply could not see the anomalies. When presented with a trick card like a red six of spades, they would confidently misidentify it as a red six of hearts or a black six of spades. But as they were exposed to the cards for longer periods of time, some participants began to notice that something was off. They could sense strangeness but could not determine what caused it. It was only with further exposure that some participants finally experienced what the psychologists called a “shock of recognition.” Abruptly and quite clearly, the participants were able to recognize what they had not seen before. Suddenly they could see that they had been looking at a red six of spades the entire time. From that point on, they were more easily able to identify the anomalous cards, having developed a new perception.

The conclusion: When confronted with something that does not fit the paradigm we know, we are likely to resist acknowledging the incongruity. This is because we see what we have been primed — through shared education and culture, and our own lived experiences — to see, so that new evidence that we encounter is immediately, as philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn would explain it more than a decade later, “fitted to one of the conceptual categories prepared by prior experience.” Kuhn applied this reasoning to explaining the tumultuous nature of scientific revolutions, where he argued that the conceptual categories that ordered scientific research were precisely those that made it so difficult for scientists to accept information that could challenge the frameworks they operated within. In such moments, logic and experiment alone were not enough to settle the matter. Kuhn noted, too, that the more time and effort a scientist had already invested in a research paradigm, the more resistance he or she was likely to exhibit toward accepting change. In other words, the higher the stakes, the greater the resistance.

If wider society recognizes data’s limitations, it, too, can move on from overly relying upon it as the only proxy for evidence.

You can see how this is a useful metaphor for considering the United States, racism and the role that data has historically played in unraveling the latter’s hold on the former. Data showing racism might be useful in clarifying the things we already know to be true, but it is far more limited in terms of shifting them. To those who have not experienced the ever more creative forms that structural racism can take, even when presented with evidence of racism, the world may still appear to be full of regular playing cards. This is complicated, too, by the fact that in life we face different likelihoods of encountering anomalous cards, depending on factors like the color of our skin (whiteness, of course, lowering frequency of exposure) and proximity to the affordances promised by wealth, influence and cultural/political capital. Regardless, any exposure to an anomaly card is more likely to be dismissed if it does not support the expectations of the receiver.

Of course, as in the experiment, there is the opportunity for change. Perhaps one part of what has characterized this current moment is that some sections of American society have experienced their own moments akin to when the experiment participants first squinted at the trick cards and felt that something now felt off. At some point, America will have to confront head-on the fact that the country not only has long educated its children to deny anti-Blackness and to treat any conversation of racism with silence or wariness but also has exported this worldview around the globe. For some, that point may have come.

But regardless, a luckless great many of us know that the deck has been stacked from the beginning. And because we know that no amount of shouting, pleading, calculating or visualizing will persuade those who have been educated and raised to deny this, we have put our efforts in other places.

If wider society recognizes data’s limitations, it, too, can move on from overly relying upon it as the only proxy for evidence. That which can be captured on camera is always incomplete. It is never the totality of what occurs in our lives, let alone what occurs in our communities. By considering the vast context and evidence present in the nation’s history, we can save ourselves from tacitly reinforcing the idea that structural violence matters only when it can be compressed into a form that fits what we recognize as evidence. And, in doing so, we give ourselves new frames for thinking about the many people who have died at the hands of brutality and whose deaths were not recorded. As we find a fluency in addressing the greater mass of life that is lived outside of our data, we can begin, finally, to fully address the living.

[awesomehoggirl]

the five w’s (and one h) of journalism and how to use them; as demonstrated by a. j. crowley, demon

ineffable husbands | set some short time after the apocawasn’t | literally just a drabble i wrote on the train | warnings: earthquake mention, alcohol, implied nfsw | 1261 words

they’re working steadily through the wine, joking and laughing together on the sofa when aziraphale, downy and heathersoft, wipes his eyes and sighs:

‘oh, crowley, whatever do you want from me?’

now, that’s quite a big question, especially for one so spectacularly drunk, so crowley cannot quite answer it in that moment. probably, he laughs it off, maybe he makes a flirtatious comment, but he doesn’t answer it.

later, though, he does, to his bedroom ceiling, to his lonely apartment, to himself. he lies down, shuts his eyes and answers.

x x x

to answer the question in short: i want you.

to answer the question in medium: for god’s sake, for satan’s sake, for whatever menial sake sam who works in the co-op down the road holds, for the sake of the earth you love so much, for the sake of all the old bookshops and tumbledown florists in london, i fucking want you.

to answer the question in long: here is a small essay on what i want, which is - spoiler alert - you.

the five w’s of journalism, sometimes referred to as five w’s (and one h), or 5w1h, or the six w’s, are the most basic questions used to gather and present information. they are who, what, when, where, and why (and how). often used for police investigations or news-style writing, the five w’s (and one h) are said to have originated from the work of artistotle and his nicomachean ethics, credited as the source of the elements of circumstance (or septem circumstantiae). i won’t get into their history, as i’m sure you already know all about it. you remember aristotle, don’t you? funny bloke.

so here, angel, is my answer: what i want, and who i want and where i want and when i want and why i want and how i want. here are my five w’s (and one h).

who do i want? i want the angel aziraphale, and i want all of him. i want him round and golden on a summer afternoon, dandelion-clock, weeping willow, dusty sunlight. i want him freshly-fallen snow in the winter, i want him a slice of pale sky, edges coloured dark with the weight of the weather. i want him thunderstorm. i want him lightning bright and rain soft and cloudy grey. i want him winged, i want him fallen. i want age-old hands and a heavy brow and it’s cheesy, i know. i know.

when and where do i want you? anytime, anywhere, as long as you’re with me. i want you with me in the earliest strains of the morning and i want you with me under the cool shade of the night. i want you for breakfast and lunch and dinner and dessert. be with me, in eden, in ancient rome, medieval london, paris, oh, all the times and all the places in between. frown when i make a clumsy baker leave the oven on, pout when the city’s in ashes, smile at me with your eyes when you walk through the plague hospital one final time. mouth thank you, but don’t slip away. we’ll accept our commendations and go home together. please don’t go, okay?

what do i actually want with you? that’s easy. a life, on earth, together. we could buy a cottage in the south downs and start an allotment and be beautifully mundane. we could travel the globe, never stick in one place for too long, buy a boat and breathe the sea. we could make ourselves kings - i could wage war and plunder for gold, you could heal and build and grow. we could rearrange the stars. we could make a new city. we could stay right where we are forever and ever. i want a house with you, with a bed we share, and a greenhouse full of my plants, and a library for all your books that you’ll probably never leave, and a back garden and a freezer and an oven and i’ll learn to cook. i want to get pointlessly married. i want a life with you.

why do i want you? that’s harder, because there are billions and squillions of reasons why (and we may have eternity but i don’t want to spend it listing all the reasons why). an easier question to ask would be, why wouldn’t i want you? because the answer would be two words: anyone would.

but how come i want you? you, as in an angel. we’re enemies, opposite ends on a magnet, pitted against each other from the very start. well, truth be told, i don’t really know - either i’m a really shitty demon, or you’re a really shitty angel. probably both, actually. definitely both. we’re great humans, though, so we’ve got that going for us.

i don’t know how it’s going to be. i have this image in my mind: we’ll kiss, and the earth will shake. we’ll touch, and heaven and hell themselves will snarl and raise their hackles and unleash armageddon all over again. what happens when a demon and an angel fall love? does the sky fall and rain down on the earth? does the ground explode? do tectonic plates tremble in their earthy sockets? do buildings fall, do people die? it’s scaring me shitless. i don’t even think i want to know, but i suppose we’ll find out - there’s a first time for everything, after all.

so, in conclusion, what do i want from you? i want you, aziraphale, i want you.

x x x

he tells aziraphale this, well, a rough version of this: a rather jumbled version, lacking somewhat in elcoquence, also he’s fairly drunk (again) on red, and they’re sitting in the bentley. it’s very late (or is it early?) and aziraphale, who is sober in more ways than one, rubs the backs his shivering hands as he sobs, hard and sour, the words falling off his twisted tongue in clumps, in clots. he doesn’t let the angel touch his shades. he doesn’t want to show his eyes, not right now.

and as he chokes out the last shaking ‘i want you,’ aziraphale cuts him off with a gentle kiss.

the world does not crumble. reality does not fall in on itself. the sky does not collapse and the tectonic plates stay perfectly still aside from the usual shifting and the ground does not explode. heaven and hell continue to pace, unaware. the night is still and quiet, honeysuckled, inkblack and full.

the world does not end when the demon and the angel part for breath then fall back into each other. it doesn’t end when jackets are removed, when hands brush curving spines, when eyelashes flutter. the bentley’s seats are slightly scorched and there’s a strange smell hanging, like candyfloss and sulphur, but the universe remains intact.

contrary to popular belief, the five w’s (and one h) of journalism did not originate from the ethical writings of aristotle. they’d existed, way back before him, before the first thought of ethics had even been thunked, since day one. there’s been six thousand years of them so far - six thousand years of whos and whats and whens and wheres and whys (and hows). of course there have been. they were one of crowley’s.

‘what do you want from me?’ an angel once asked.

the night is still, as crowley answers, blissfully, lovingly, again and again and again.

i want you.

x x x

can u tell i’m a lonely pining 15 year old full of hormones

hope u enjoyed this it’s very unedited and probs shit but hey i wrote something! and finished it! in under a day!

have a good morning/afternoon/evening :)

- prim

[xhxhxhx]

Herman Khan, The Emerging Japanese Superstate (1970):

[The] Japanese are something between the West, with its general Faustian attitudes and concept of "dominion over land and animal," and China, India, and many primitive cultures, which usually try to fit man into the environment in a natural, noncoercive, and nondisturbing manner. The Japanese are somewhat willing to make changes in the environment and to assert their will and fulfill their objectives, but they tend to do so less grossly, less starkly, and with greater moderation, care, and even love for the environment than is characteristic of the root-and- branch restructuring common in Western tradition.

Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons (2001):

Writers on Japan today mostly concern themselves with its banks and export manufacturing. But in the greater scheme of things, for a wealthy nation does it really matter so much if its GNP drops a few percentage points or the banks falter for a few years? The Tang dynasty poet Du Fu wrote, “Though the nation perishes, the mountains and rivers remain.” Long before Japan had banks, there existed a green archipelago of a thousand islands, where clear mountain springs tumbled over mossy stones and waves crashed along coves and peninsulas lined with fantastic rocks. Such were the themes treasured in haiku, bonsai and flower arrangements, screen paintings, tea ceremony, and Zen – that is, everything that defined Japan's traditional culture. Reverence for the land lies at the very core of Shintoism, the native religion, which holds that Japan's mountains, rivers, and trees are sacred, the dwelling place of gods. So in taking stock of where Japan is today, it is good to set economics aside for a moment and take a look at the land itself.

When we do, we see this: Japan has become arguably the world's ugliest country. To readers who know Japan from tourist brochures that feature Kyoto's temples and Mount Fuji, that may seem a surprising, even preposterous assertion. But those who live or travel here see the reality: the native forest cover has been clear-cut and replaced by industrial cedar, rivers are dammed and the seashore lined with cement, hills have been leveled to provide gravel fill for bays and harbors, mountains are honeycombed with destructive and useless roads, and rural villages have been submerged in a sea of industrial waste.

Similar observations can be made about many other modern nations, of course. But what is happening in Japan far surpasses anything attempted in the rest of the world. We are seeing something genuinely different here. The nation prospers, but the mountains and rivers are in mortal danger, and in their fate lies a story-one that heretofore has been almost entirely passed over by the foreign media.

H. P. Lovecraft, describing a creepy New England hamlet doomed to be the setting for one of his horror stories, would say, “On viewing such a scene, who can resist an unutterable thrill of ghastliness?” For a modern traveler seeking something of that Lovecraftian thrill, nothing would do better than a trip to Japan's countryside.

During the past fifty-five years of its great economic growth, Japan has drastically altered its natural environment in ways that are almost unimaginable to someone who has not traveled here. In the spring of 1996, the Japan Society invited Robert MacNeil, the retired co-anchor of The MacNeil/Lehrer News-Hour, for a month's stay in Japan. Later, in a speech presented at the Japan Society in New York, MacNeil said that he was “confused” about what he saw, “dismayed by the unrelieved banality of the [800-kilometer] stretch from Hiroshima to Tokyo, the formless, brutal, utilitarian jumble, unplanned, with tunnels easier on the eyes.”

Across the nation, men and women are at work reshaping the landscape. Work crews transform tiny streams just a meter across into deep chutes slicing through slabs of concrete ten meters wide and more. Builders of small mountain roads dynamite entire hillsides. Civil engineers channel rivers into U-shaped concrete casings that do away not only with the rivers' banks but with their beds. The River Bureau has dammed or diverted all but three of Japan's 113 major rivers. The contrast with other advanced industrial nations is stark. Aware of the high environmental cost, the United States has decided in principle not to build any more dams, and has even started removing many that the Army Corps of Engineers constructed years ago. Since 1990 more than 70 major dams have fallen across America, and dozens more are scheduled to be dismantled. Meanwhile, Japan's Construction Ministry plans to add 500 new dams to the more than 2,800 that have already been built.

To see at close hand how the construction frenzy affects one small mountain village, let us take a short journey to Iya Valley, a picturesque fastness of canyons and peaks in the center of the southern island of Shikoku. When I bought an old thatch-roofed farmhouse in Iya in 1971, people considered this region so remote that they called it the Tibet of Japan. Villagers subsisted on crops such as buckwheat and tobacco, as well as forestry.

Over the next twenty-five years, young people fled Iya for the prosperous cities, and local agriculture collapsed. With its dramatic landscape and a romantic history going back to the civil wars of the twelfth century, Iya had a golden opportunity to revive its local economy with tourism and resorts in the 1980s. Yet in a pattern that repeats itself in countless regions across Japan, Iya failed to develop this potential. The reason was that the village suddenly found itself awash with cash: money that flowed from building dams and roads, paid for by a national policy to prop up rural economies by subsidizing civil-engineering works. Beginning in the 1960s, a tidal wave of construction money crashed over Iya, sweeping away every other industry. By 1997, my neighbors had all become construction workers.

Most foreigners and even many Japanese harbor a pleasing fantasy of life in the Japanese village. While driving past quaint farmhouses or perusing lovely photographs of rice paddies, it's tempting to imagine what bucolic country life must be: oneness with the seasons, the yearly round of planting and harvesting, and so forth. However, when you actually live in the countryside you soon learn that the uniform of the Japanese farmer is no longer a straw raincoat and a hoe but a hard hat and a cement shovel. In 1972, for example, my neighbor Mrs. Оto farmed tea, potatoes, corn, cucumbers, and mulberry for silkworms. In 2000, her fields lie fallow as she dons her hard hat every day to commute by van to construction sites, where her job is to scrape aluminum molds for concrete used to build retaining walls. In Iya Valley, it makes no sense to ask someone, “What line of work are you in?” Everyone lives off doboku, “construction.”

More than 90 percent of all the money flowing into Iya now comes from road- and dam-building projects funded by the Construction, Transport, and Agriculture ministries. This means that no environmental initiative can possibly make headway, for Iya has become addicted to dams and roads. Stop building them, and Mrs. Оtо and most of the other villagers are out of work. Without the daily pouring of concrete, the village dies.

The most remarkable paradox is that Iya doesn't need these roads and dams; it builds them only because it must spend the construction subsidies or lose the money. After decades of building to no particular purpose, the legacy is visible everywhere, with hardly a single hillside standing free of giant slabs of cement built to prevent “landslide damage,” even though many of these are located miles from any human habitation. Forestry roads honeycomb the mountains, though the forestry industry collapsed thirty years ago. Concrete embankments line Iya River and most of its tributaries, whose beds run dry a large part of the year because of the numerous dams siphoning water to electric power plants. The future? Although traffic is so sparse in Iya that in some places spiderwebs grow across the roads, the prefectural government devoted the 1990s to blasting a highway right through the cliffs lining the upper half of the valley, concreting over the few scenic corners that are left.

If this is what happened to the “Tibet of Japan,” one can well imagine the fate that has befallen more accessible rural areas. To support the construction industry, the government annually pours hundreds of billions of dollars into civil-engineering projects-dams, seashore- and river-erosion control, flood control, road building, and the like. Dozens of government agencies owe their existence solely to thinking up new ways of sculpting the earth. Planned spending on public works for the decade 1995-2005 will come to an astronomical ¥630 trillion (about $6.2 trillion), three to four times more than what the United States, with twenty times the land area and more than double the population, will spend on public construction in the same period. In this respect, Japan has become a huge social-welfare state, channeling hundreds of billions of dollars through public works to low-skilled workers every year.

It is not only the rivers and valleys that have suffered. The seaside reveals the greatest tragedy: by 1993, 55 percent of the entire coast of Japan had been lined with cement slabs and giant concrete tetrapods. An article in a December 1994 issue of the popular weekly Shukan Post illustrated a ravaged coastline in Okinawa, commenting, “The seashore has hardened into concrete, and the scenery of unending gray tetrapods piled on top of one another is what you can see everywhere in Japan. It has changed into something irritating and ordinary. When you look at this seashore, you can't tell whether it is the coast of Shonan, the coast of Chiba, or the coast of Okinawa.”

Tetrapods may be an unfamiliar word to readers who have not visited Japan and seen them lined up by the hundreds along bays and beaches. They look like oversize jacks with four concrete legs, some weighing as much as fifty tons. Tetrapods, which are supposed to retard beach erosion, are big business. So profitable are they to bureaucrats that three different ministries – of Transport, of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, and of Construction – annually spend ¥500 billion each, sprinkling tetrapods along the coast, like three giants throwing jacks, with the shore as their playing board. These projects are mostly unnecessary or worse than unnecessary. It turns out that wave action on tetrapods wears the sand away faster and causes greater erosion than would be the case if the beaches had been left alone.

It took some decades for this lesson to sink in, but in the 1980s American states, beginning with Maine, began one by one to prohibit the hard stabilization of the shoreline; in 1988, South Carolina mandated not only a halt to new construction but removal of all existing armoring within forty years. In Japan, however, armoring of the seacoasts is increasing. It's a dynamic we shall observe in many different fields: destructive policies put in motion in the 1950s and 1960s are like unstoppable tanks, moving forward regardless of expense, damage, or need. By the end of the century, the 55 percent of shoreline that had been encased in concrete had risen to 60 percent or more. That means hundreds of miles more of shoreline destroyed. Nobody in their right mind can honestly believe that Japan's seacoasts began eroding so fast and so suddenly that the government needed to cement over 60 percent of them. Obviously, something has gone wrong.

[floreneiwlareedz10insurance-blog]

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immigrants can t afford insurance

[the-letter-horror-lover]

The first jujutsu shinobi by itsgiyutomioka

Anime » Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Rated: T, English, Adventure & Supernatural, Boruto U., Hinata U., Naruto U., 9-Tails/Kurama, Words: 797, Favs: 4, Follows: 3, Published: Oct 16, 2021

1

This is my first fanfiction, It's a Boruto fanfiction where he has curse energy from jujutsu kaisen, I will change a lot of things and I will try to add some new arcs it's not as long as I intended it to be but I tried my best hope you all enjoy

"Boruto" -normal speech

'boruto' –thought

*Boruto*-mumbling/whisper

"Boruto"-bijuu speaking

'Boruto'- bijuu thinking

*Boruto*- bijuu mumbling

Chapter:1

The Birth

The Land of Fire one of the members of the five great nations accompanied by the Land of Wind, Land of Water, Land of Earth and lastly the Land of Lightning. The nations were at a constant war some were against each other while some were within their own the nations used a military unit called 'Shinobi' who used to fight in behalf for their nation. Each nation dedicated a city or as they called it a 'Hidden Village', the villages were not always on good terms with each other as they had wars in which countless lives were lost some were sons and daughters of their mothers and fathers some were parents while others were husband/wives and family members, but everything changed when one man threatened all of the nations they formed a alliance under the leadership of the five Kages the leaders of the hidden villages this commenced the start of the Fourth Great Shinobi War. Many people fought bravely but the one who was considered the Hero of the great was the son of Minato Namikaze the Yellow Flash also the fourth Hokage and Kushina Uzumaki the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero also the second Jinchuriki of Kyuubi No Kitsune and the godson of Jiriaya the Toad Sage and sannin his name is Naruto Uzumaki the most unpredictable ninja of Konoha, the third Jinchuriki of Kyuubi and the reincarnation of Asura.

5 years later-

In the village hidden in the Leaf a lot had changed, there were new buildings, shops, structures and so on. We could see a blond man walking to and fo in front of operation theater "Why the hell is it talking so long", the blond said. "Don't complain about this Naruto, Hinata is giving birth in there she can't rush this" so said a man with black hair tied in a spiky style, "I know Shikamaru but I just can't sit around while she is SCREAMMINGG" naruto said to shikamaru while being a bit overdramatic at the last part. As they were arguing they heard a baby's cry they froze at their spot.

A pink-haired woman came out holding a baby boy who had blond hair and two whisker marks on both of his cheeks, "Oi baka naruto be careful with him or I will break all your bones" said the pink haired with a smirk " Yes, Sakura-chan I will be careful with my baby boy" said a sparkled eyed Naruto. The baby opened his eyes to showed those bright blue colours which everyone present there look at it in aw, Sakura looking at the boy thought 'his eyes….they are beautiful' where else Shikamaru was thinking 'whoa..I am getting a hunch that he is going to be a way good looking then most of the people I know, well best of luck kid your gonna need it', *troublesome* he mumbled. Naruto if anyone else could see the smile on his face he or she would think he had won billions of ryos, but the happiness he is felling could not comprehend to some number of money. A few seconds later tears started to fell down his eyes, "Naruto, are you ok?" asked Sakura concerned for one of her dearest friends and former team member, wiping away his tears he answered "Oh, it's nothing I just became a bit emotional as when I was a kid I always wanted a family", hearing this Shikamaru and Sakura just smiled. Looking back at the pink-haired the blonde asked "How's Hinata" with concern in his eyes she replied with a smile "She is exhausted but alright", "So what are you going to name him" Shikamaru asked him catching his attention, Naruto replied "Boruto, Bouto Uzumaki".

3 hours later

Naruto was looking at sleeping Hinata with Boruto in his arms, "Your brat doesn't have chakra Naruto" the kyuubi said " I know Kurama, I'll ask grandpa toad about it" the blonde replied the fox replied with a hmm. "You are going to great things when you grow up, won't you Boruto" Naruto said while putting his and his son's forehead together.

To be continued….

The next chapter may come up next week and it will be longer than this one, hope to see you all soon.

[thetourguidebarbie]

I got a new one buts its a bit weird. Mikael is obsessed with Caroline and trying to make her his new wife. Caroline does not know how mean he is. Family hates this but doesnt say anything. Klaus seduces Caroline and they are having a affair.

For @myselfdiagnosis, my wonderful tumblr wife. This is in a modern setting but with city-state-ish structure of government. It got a lot darker than I meant it to, and it has a lot of mentions of/implied abuse and some sexual assault, and tbh isn’t q u i t e what the prompt asked for. If that’s not your thing, do not read it. No readover, probably has errors, etc. Also much longer than I planned. I hope you like it.

Look, she just went to get some fucking groceries, okay?

It was sunny and bright, the store pleasantly cool compared to the blistering summer heat outside, and she’d been innocently minding her own business poking pears to see if they were ripe when she’d been tapped on the shoulder and informed that Mikael Mikaelson was there and wanted to speak to her.

She had no idea what the county lord wanted with her. He was oddly mysterious and never went outside of his grounds unless he absolutely had to, though she’d caught glimpses of him occasionally. There were rumors, of course, but most of the facts everyone knew for sure were pretty basic.

He was older, in his mid-fifties, probably. He had about twelve billion children and his wife had died about five years before in a car accident with his oldest daughter. He had a reputation for being harsh on crime and a bit of a grouch, and there was a rumor that he’d once added a year to a citizen’s prison sentence for refusing to call him ‘my lord’. Other than that, she was mostly in the dark--a difficult feat, because she loved celebrity gossip.

She suspected that whatever this guy was telling her was a trick, and she tried to protest in case he was about to lead her off to get abducted and stabbed in an alley or something, but he grabbed her shoulder and flashed a badge with the Mikaelson crest, identifying him as a royal guard. She set her pear back on the pile warily and turned to him.

“Okay, but I have to pay for the groceries first. Can this wait?”

“We’ll take care of it.”

She kind of wanted to argue. She’d just been through a terrible break-up and the big bag of chocolate in her grocery basket suddenly felt heavy on her arm. She really wanted to just go home and binge eat the entire bag while she watched Sex in the City, but her curiosity about what could be so important that she was being summoned to see the city lord got the better of her. She gave the basket to the second guard and let the one who had spoken guide her out the front door to a limousine. The way that the security guards jumped to attention when they saw her was almost surreal, and she felt like she’d been transplanted to an alternate universe where she was somehow actually important.

One of them opened the door for her, and she hesitantly slipped in, sliding onto the bench across from man she recognized as Mikael Mikaelson. The door was closed behind them and they were suddenly alone. The way he was looking at her made her deeply uncomfortable, like he was sizing up a piece of meat at a butcher shop. She’d normally feel compelled to break the uncomfortable silence, but her sense of self-preservation was screaming for her to shut up and wait.

For once, she listened.

“Caroline,” he said quietly, and she stiffened. His voice was heavily accented in a way that she hadn’t expected, and she tried to figure out how to respond.

“My Lord,” she said as respectfully as possible.

Prison wouldn’t be a good look for her.

His lips twitched, his fingers drumming on his thigh as he kept staring at her, and she shifted uncomfortably, honestly wishing she could be anywhere else.

“You’re quite pretty, Caroline.”

Ew.

“Thank you, My Lord,” she said, trying not to sound too disgusted.

“I saw you wandering the city last week and I couldn’t help but notice you. You have a lovely smile.”

“Thank you, My Lord.”

“It’s been a few years since Esther died, and I’ve been grieving. However, I do believe that it would be best to move on after five years. Would you agree?”

She swallowed, her stomach lurching as she processed what was happening. No, she did not agree. She wanted to be out of this car now and go back to her apartment and cry into her pillow about Klaus breaking up with her over text message after a year of dating.

Still, she wasn’t an idiot and knew what the right answer was.

“Yes, My Lord.”

His smile made her stomach turn to ice.

It followed the same pattern every time. It had for fifteen years now, since Mikael had found out what Esther had done.

Mikael would find a pretty girl just out of college with student debt, daddy issues, and a family that wouldn’t miss them and charm her into letting him court her. He’d spin lies and stories about how his marriage to Esther was in shambles because she was cruel and hateful, how he was just hurt and looking for love that his wife wouldn’t give him. Within a matter of months she’d be introduced to the family, dripping in family heirlooms and usually situated in Mikael’s room as his trophy of the next few months. He’d purposefully parade her in front of their mother as a petty cruelty, talk the girl into being rude to her for being so mean to their darling lord. Soon, the girl would either grow boring for him or would realize his web of lies and try to escape. She’d be quietly snuck out in a coffin to a shallow grave, and the cycle would begin again a month or two later.

The only thing that changed once Esther died was that he was the grieving widower rather than the suffering husband. He had an endless rotation of doting young women, and it was disgusting. Mikael had announced the day before that he had a new girlfriend and they were all to be nice to her, because he “liked this one” and had “possibly found his soulmate”.

It made Klaus sick to his stomach, because he knew exactly who Mikael was about to pull through the double doors.

He’d shielded Caroline from his true identity for as long as possible, had been quietly tucking away money to take her across the border from Mystic Falls to Lockwood Hills, away from his abusive father and her parents’ graves. He’d almost had enough, but Mikael had somehow found out and stormed into his room. He’d dug through his dresser until he found the burner phone Klaus used exclusively for Caroline and broke up with her over text in front of him, reading the cruel lies aloud to him as he typed them.

Mikael was out to ruin his life in any way possible, and the timing for the new girlfriend was too close to be a coincidence.

Sure enough, it was Caroline who walked through the front door in a floaty sundress and wrapped around his step-father’s arm. He could tell that she was miserable despite the stiff smile on her face, and when her eyes landed on him, he thought he might lose his lunch.

When her eyes landed on him they widened slightly before darting to Mikael and back to him. His father didn’t appear to notice, too busy introducing each of his children as his ‘son’ or ‘daughter’ before landing on him. “My bastard, Klaus,” he said, a maliciously smug tone bleeding through his voice.

Klaus watched as Caroline’s mouth dropped open, realization dawning on her face at what was going on before she turned to Mikael. Her brow was furrowed in a way that Klaus knew meant she was gearing up for a fight, her shoulders rising the way they did when she was taking a big enough breath to be able to let her entire rant spill out before her opponent could interrupt, and Mikael cut in before she could talk.

“Our wing is just up the stairs to the left, my dear. The bedroom is just down the hall. I’ve had all of your clothes unpacked already, along with the new ones I bought for you. I was told that you kept some men’s henleys in the drawer with the rest of your nightclothes, and I took the liberty of throwing them away for you. Didn’t want to bring back any memories of the man who treated you so cruelly. We got you some more...appropriate sleepwear.”

She flushed, and Klaus couldn’t tell whether anger or embarrassment were more present, but she closed her eyes for a second to center herself, swallowing audibly before she muttered a ‘Thank you, My Lord’ through gritted teeth.

His hand skimmed her spine, clearly about to settle on her hip, and she smoothly stepped away, muttering something about finishing unpacking and walking to the stairs, her eyes meeting his immediately, wide and imploring.

He gave her the barest of nods, resisting the urge to reach out and pull her into his arms, to comfort her and nose her temple and stroke her hair the way he desperately wanted to. She moved past him and up the stairs, only climbing faster when Mikael reminded her that they were having a family dinner.

He made eye contact with Mikael, who was wearing a malicious smile that made fury build in his gut. He’d spent almost his entire life knowing that if Mikael keeled over and died he wouldn’t care, would probably help bury the body, but now that he’d found Caroline it was somehow much worse.

She returned for dinner when Mikael sent Rebekah to get her, both of them coming down the stairs in silence, Rebekah looking oddly thoughtful.

Over the dinner Klaus couldn’t help but watch her despite the stab in his gut whenever he looked at her face, and his rage threatened to boil over as the meal went on. He watched Caroline stiffen beside Mikael when he laid a palm on her hand and bent close just before the servants brought out the soup, panic flashing in her eyes, and he longed to walk over and grab her, to take her away and run. He knew they’d never get out the door if they left in broad daylight, and he wasn’t willing to risk a failed escape attempt. Mikael could very well kill her or torture her, would most likely make Klaus watch or listen, and he wasn’t willing to risk her safety like that. Klaus’s expression was carefully stony when Mikael bent to kiss her, she twisted so that his lips landed on her cheek at the last second before giving him a faint, forced smile and patting his arm awkwardly.

He gave her a fierce glare at her neat dodge, and Klaus heard all of his siblings gasp softly, could practically feel that every single one of them was holding their breath. Mikael held her gaze for a few seconds before he pushed away from the table and stood, looking at Klaus with piercing eyes.

“Let’s take a walk, Niklaus.”

“No,” Caroline said quickly, her voice high-pitched and panicky, eyes wide. “No. It’s fine.”

“What’s fine, my dear?” Mikael asked, his voice dangerously soft.

Her eyes darted to Klaus and back to Mikael before her jaw set in a stubborn gaze Klaus recognized from every single time anyone had ever told her she couldn’t do something before she stood as well, and Klaus thought he might lose his dinner as she reached to touch Mikael’s chest, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “Let’s...I’m tired. I’m...let’s go,” she said, and Mikael raised an eyebrow, a smirk coming over his face that Klaus knew meant humiliation of the highest order.

“Go where?”

She flushed again, her teeth gritting. “Not here.”

“To do what?”

Klaus could tell that she was desperately trying to not roll her eyes. “I’m tired,” she said, her voice clipped.

“Go up to bed, then. I have to talk to Niklaus, but I”ll be there soon.”

It was a clear taunt to both of them. He wanted her to ask. Klaus knew better than to think Caroline had any intention of leaving them alone together, but he thought that the alternative was leaving her alone with Mikael was infinitely worse.

“It’s all right, Caroline, I--”

“Come to bed with me,” Caroline cut in, her tone businesslike and cold.

“You sound upset, my dear,” Mikael said, his tone mocking. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to rest.”

Caroline seemed torn for a second before she moved closer, her eyes flicking to Mikael’s lips and then to his eyes in a way that was obviously as fake as it was seductive, before she stood on her toes and hesitantly pressed her lips to his.

Mikael’s hands were immediately on her ass over the fabric of her dress, pulling her as close to him as possible, and though Klaus knew that she was pretending, that she was being ridiculously protective and hated Mikael’s guts almost as much as he did (if not more--she tended to hate people on behalf of those she cared about with an impressive amount of passion), but it still made his stomach turn.

She managed to pull away after a few torturous seconds and the silence of the room was deeply uncomfortable. “Come to bed with me,” she managed, her voice low, palm skimming over Mikael’s chest, and he dragged her off without another word.

“Well, that was eventful,” Kol said after a few seconds. “I suppose dinner’s over then? I was looking forward to cake.”

Klaus turned around to rush to Mikael’s room, ready to drag Caroline out by force if necessary, but Rebekah grabbed his arm, shaking her head when he turned to her. “He will kill you,” she said quietly. “I’m sure Father’s new trollop can handle herself even if she keeps making sex eyes at you.”

“She’s not a trollop.”

“Lord Mikaelson has asked that we escort you to your room,” said one of the guards, who had come up behind them.

“Why, exactly?”

“Orders,” the guard said simply, grabbing him by the arm.

He heard Mikael’s groans and Caroline’s harsh breathing through the door as they passed by, and he’d never felt so helpless in his life.

Caroline heard the guard pass by with Klaus outside the door and winced as Mikael groaned in pain again, her breath short from the brief wrestling match. She kicked him again for good measure when he tried to get up, scanning the room for something that could be a weapon and eventually spotting a belt peeking out of a dresser drawer and pulling it out.

She wondered what it said about her that she didn’t even feel slightly bad as she watched Mikael struggle for air as she strangled him..

As soon as she was absolutely sure he was dead she stood up, still a bit short of breath, and wiped her hands on her sundress. She managed to find the suitcases the guards had used to unpack all of her belongings in the closet and methodically began to pack up again, changing into a pair of sleep shorts and a t-shirt, throwing the slightly torn dress in the trash.

She peeked out of the door and spotted their guard, who was leaning against the opposite wall.

“Hey,” she said with her best bubbly giggle, slightly proud that her voice wasn’t even slightly shaky and reaching to twirl a lock of hair around her finger. “So like, I get really self-conscious because I’m super loud, so like, could you give us a few hours?”

“We’re not supposed to leave you alone.”

She kind of wanted to punch him in the face, but barely refrained. “Do you want me to get him out here and tell him yourself why you won’t let us have amazing sex?”

The guard left in a hurry and Caroline immediately went back in and dragged her suitcases down the hall, finding Klaus’s room quickly (it was the only one with a lock on the outside).

He was sleeping when she came in, and she didn’t even pause before reaching to shake him.

“Wake up!”

Klaus’s eyes flew open, and he immediately relaxed when he saw her face. “Caroline, I--”

“We have to go,” she said in a rush, walking around his room and grabbing clothes, stuffing them into one of the suitcases. “Before the guards figure it out.”

“What?”

“He’s dead. I strangled him with his belt before he could even get my zipper down. Can you help me pack please?”

He jumped out of bed immediately, grabbing clothes off the shelves with her and stuffing the suitcases as completely as possible before helping her zip them up.

She found Mikael’s car keys in one of his jackets and they were out of the state within hours. When they arrived at the first hotel they saw in Lockwood Hills, she grabbed Klaus’s cheeks and pulled his lips to hers as soon as the door closed behind them. The kiss was soft and sweet, and he held her as she buried her face in his neck, shaking in his arms.

“I love you so much.”

“And I, you sweetheart. I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“I’m so glad you are too,” she whispered.

[earthstory]

Kangchenjunga: The Five Treasures of the Snow

All great mountains are revered as majestic works of the earth, their magnificence evidenced by their sheer size alone. However, it is the stories, legends and experiences surrounding Kangchenjunga that set it apart as a particularly mystic rarity.

Kanchenjunga is a unique wonder in that it claims the record for the first, second and third highest mountain: rising at an elevation of 8,586m (28,169 ft), it is the highest mountain in India, the second highest mountain of the Himalayas, and the third highest mountain in the world. It lies partly in the state of Sikkim, India, partly in Nepal and only 20km south of Tibet in an area called Kangchenjunga Himal. The name ‘Kangchenjunga’ is of Tibetan origin meaning ‘The Five Treasures of the Snow’, referring to its five high peaks. The mountain has long held mythological and religious significance for different peoples across Sikkim, Darjeeling, Tibet and the Himalayas, and as a result of these sacred beliefs the summit of the mountain has never been stepped on by climbers. Kanchenjunga was assumed to be the highest mountain in the world until 1852, when the Trigonometrical Survey of India concluded (after various readings and measurements) that Mount Everest was in fact the highest. Regardless of this technicality, the symbolic quality of Kangchenjunga upholds its status to many as the true soul of the Himalayas.

The first known map of Kangchenjunga was made in the mid 19th century but it was no doubt known to traders and travellers for centuries before this. For the people of Sikkim, Kanchenjunga’s five peaks represent the five repositories of God; gold, silver, gems, grain and holy books. Local Lhopo people believe the treasures also comprise of salt, turquoise, invincible armour, ammunition and medicine, and that these treasures are hidden but reveal themselves to the devout when the world is in jeopardy. In the Limbu language, it is called 'Senjelungma' and is believed to be the home of the goddess Yuma Sammang. In 1925 a British geological expedition claimed to have seen a creature in the area around Kangchenjunga and after asking locals about it, they found that it was locally known and referred to as the Kangchenjunga Demon - it is perhaps more widely known as the Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman. Even more fascinatingly, inhabitants in both Nepal and Sikkim have recounted legends of a valley of immortality being hidden on the slopes of the mountain. This story is also well known to the local Lepcha people and in Tibetan Buddhist tradition; in the 1960s, a Tibetan lama named Tulshuk Pingpa journeyed with 300 followers to Sikkim in search of this valley, believing that it was a one way passage to a hidden utopian land.

It is tradition for climbers to never set foot on the mountain’s summit. Kangchenjunga was first climbed in 1955 by Joe Brown and George Band, who were part of a British expedition led by Charles Evans. Evans had visited a local community leader in Darjeeling for permission to climb the mountain and received blessing on the condition that they only climbed as high as they needed to in order to say that they had climbed it – but to go no higher. Respecting this decision, the climbers stopped short of the summit and every climber after them has followed suit, making Kangchenjunga’s sacred summit untouched. Brown later described the emotional rollercoaster they had experienced on their journey during a presentation at the Royal Geographical Society, but ultimately stated: “I didn’t feel like I’d conquered the mountain. I don’t know why people use the word conquered – it’s such a stupid word. You never conquer a mountain.”

The rock of Kangchenjunga is of Neoproterzoic to Ordovician age ( ~ 445 million to 1 billion years old). The mountain receives heavy snow during the summer monsoon and lighter snowfall in winter, and it is a particularly avalanche prone mountain; George Band reportedly counted the number of avalanches he could hear one morning on his ascent and counted a total of 48 in three hours! The wider landscape of the area contains three protected ecoregions, each of which are habitats for many globally important plant species, such as orchids and rhododendrons, and endangered animal species like the snow leopard, red panda and Asian black bear.

There are four routes to climb Kanchenjunga. Three of these lead from Nepal, and the fourth from Sikkim in India. However, the Indian government has banned expeditions of the mountain since 2000 as the people of Sikkim strongly revere it as a sacred mountain. Permission to climb from this side is rarely ever given. Persis Anklesaria says in her article 'High on Kangchengjunga' that “It (Kangchenjunga) is to Sikkim what Everest is to Nepal”. Permission to trek the surrounding region has recently been permitted, but as the only routes to the mountain lead from such remote locations in Nepal, the Kangchenjunga Himal has mostly gone ignored by trekkers and has maintained its untainted natural beauty.

For centuries, the mountain has held a central role to the identity of different nations and cultures, and today it still stands with great importance. In all its physical and mystic glory, Kangchenjunga offers us a striking vision of the sublime.

Mark Twain visited Darjeeling and later wrote in his 1897 book, 'Following the Equator': ‘I ... saw the sun drive away the veiling gray and touch up the snow-peaks one after another with pale pink splashes and delicate washes of gold, and finally flood the whole mighty convulsion of snow-mountains with a deluge of rich splendors. ... Mount Everest is a thousand feet higher, but it was not a part of that sea of mountains piled up there before me, so I did not see it; but I did not care, because I think that mountains that are as high as that are disagreeable. I was told by a resident that the summit of Kinchinjunga is often hidden in the clouds, and that sometimes a tourist has waited twenty-two days and then been obliged to go away without a sight of it. And yet went not disappointed; for when he got his hotel bill he recognized that he was now seeing the highest thing in the Himalayas.’

-Z.R.

Sources: http://bit.ly/2u5ziwG http://bit.ly/2sIhlAI http://bit.ly/1R4wJAh http://bit.ly/2u0LWgN http://bit.ly/2uaExfu http://bit.ly/2u5IS2I http://bit.ly/2sI60kb http://bit.ly/2qRVM2f http://bit.ly/2tGojYj

Images: http://bit.ly/2v4nZ5b http://bit.ly/2uJepFz

[angel-marvill-blog]

Comparison

United Claims United Claims Vs. Russia Russia

Russian soccer has been played as early as 1887 during the time of Tsars of Russia. Today, discussing evaluate this with the United Expresses. The U.S i9000. would have likely imported a net 4,500,000 barrels of oil per day in May. This is usually a total of 139 million barrels at a cost of $7 billion (based on Brent crude price of $50). Furthermore, the U.S i9000. Federal government regular deficit in May 2016 was $55 billion, but I believe it will be even higher in May 2017, when the U.H. Treasury releases the data.

Hands imports > Continuous 1990 US$ per capita : Hands transfers cover the supply of military weapons through sales, aid, gifts, and those made through manufacturing licenses. Data cover major standard weapons such as aircraft, armored vehicles, artillery, radar systems, missiles, and ships created for military use. Ruled out are exchanges of various other military apparatus such as little hands and light weapons, trucks, little artillery, ammunition, support apparatus, technology exchanges, and various other providers. Statistics portrayed per capita for the same calendar comparison

Also, will Amy Rodriguez and Megan Rapinoe get more than 10-minute runouts? Rodriguez was starting to adjust to the flow of the game by the time the whistle blew. Yes, the forward pool is quite deep, with several much younger players like Lynn Williams arriving along very well. But Rodriguez warrants a possibility to display if she's still up to snuff. Same for Rapinoe, who maintained to obtain into the tempo a little quicker than Rodriguez.

EDIT 2016.10: This reply provides disregarded the Borei Course nuclear ballistic missile submarine that is normally contemporary and extremely powerful. At the period of the penning of this reply, details had not been broadly obtainable if they had been implemented. They are. If just one is normally implemented at a period, that's 20 SLBMs, tipped with many thermonuclear warheads, which considerably provides to the Russian nuclear deterrent.

It is possible for the US to take on two wars at the same time and win them both, or they would come as close to it as possible to ensure that China or Russia did not really discover very much wish. They could perform this credited to having one of the most powerful armed forces factors in the globe, and they perform stand at the helm of a extremely effective armed forces connections.

Not really since the end of the Cool Battle provides Russia focused U.S i9000. head lines to the level we've noticed during this selection. Regarding to U.S i9000. cleverness providers, Russian President Vladimir Putin is certainly waging a muted, global battle against generous democracy. President Barack Obama lately derided Russia as a smaller sized,” weaker” country. But regarding to President-elect Donald Trump and some of his Cupboard designees, friendlier relationships with Moscow could advantage the U.S i9000.

age group, the United Areas wished to preserve a monopoly on its fresh tool, but the secrets and the technology for producing nuclear weapons quickly spread. The United Areas carried out its 1st nuclear check surge in Come july 1st 1945 and lowered two atomic bombs on the towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Aug 1945. Simply four years later, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test explosion. The United Empire (1952), Italy (1960), and China (1964) adopted. Looking for to prevent the nuclear tool rates from growing further, the United Areas and additional like-minded areas discussed the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 and the In depth Nuclear Check Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996.

The United Claims came into another recession after brand-new taxes proceeded to go into impact on January 1stestosterone levels. Clinton vetoed the Keystone Pipeline three situations during this calendar year, and U . s remained dependent on what small energy it could obtain in Texas and desert states. Industrial advancement all but stopped, and the nationwide debts surpassed $30 trillion. Canada started raising its military services spending significantly and shortly was on par with the BCS.

Lifestyle EXPECTANCY Before the Soviet Union dropped in December 1991, the typical Soviet citizen could anticipate to live to age 69. Just two years later on and minus Soviet bloc countries, Russia's existence expectancy fallen to 64.5 years, relating to data analysis from the World Standard bank By 2014, Russians live longer on average - 70 years - but that was nearly a decade shorter than the typical American's 2014 lifestyle expectancy - 79 years.

In a second evaluation a vengeance hit against countervalue focuses on (non-strategic human population centers) In this second situation, the US focuses on for 500 Russian nuclear weapons are selected to increase reduction of existence. If all 500 warheads detonated over their focuses on, a total of 132 million fatalities and 8 million accidental injuries are determined to happen.

After the dissolution of USSR (by treason), Russia found herself behind the USA in all armed service fields within five years, both numerically and technologically with one exception - nuclear arms. Those large Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles were what salvaged Russia from getting divided up also even more. Today Russia provides caught up with the USA technologically in all areas, and surpasses them in several. Now, in contrast to Soviet times, Russia is still behind numerically in several categories (again with the exception of nuclear missiles). But Russia does not really require to task power significantly aside as I stated over. It can be plenty of to master the Eurasian land-mass and get rid of the People in america from her edges and the previous USSR.

US Naval Forces European countries (NAVEUR) provides general command word, control and coordination for all US maritime possessions presently implemented in European countries. Presently in command word of NAVEUR is normally the US sixth fleet structured in Naples. It is normally feasible that in the potential US Naval existence in European countries might become bigger. As mentioned by Admiral Stavridis Raising the features of the Navy blue is normally essential as the Russian Federation Navy blue improves the speed, range and sophistication of its fleet”. This could end up being anticipated particularly if the Russian Navy blue forms on the coastline of Syria.

A shock U.Beds. strike provides a great possibility of ruining every Russian bomber bottom, boat, and ICBM. or vacation cruise missile. An strike arranged in this way would provide Russian management virtually no warning. This simple strategy is definitely presumably less effective than Washington's actual strategy, which the U.H. authorities offers spent decades perfecting. The actual U.H. war strategy may call for 1st targeting Russia's control and control, sabotaging Russia's radar stations, or taking additional preemptive measures-all of which would make the actual U.T. push much more lethal than our model assumes. Relating to our model, such a simple surprise assault would possess a good opportunity of eliminating every Russian bomber bottom, boat, and icbm.

As part of this contract, the IAEA and Iran agreed an analysis into Iran's previous nuclear weapons-related actions. The company agreed that Iran acquired an arranged plan to go after nuclear weapons just before 2003. Some of these actions continuing through 2009, but there had been no symptoms of weaponization actions acquiring place after that time.

The most most likely risk to America's Y-35 and Y-22s is normally China's L-20, which is normally thought to end up being in full-scale creation, and the M-31. Russia, in the mean time, is definitely operating on its personal stealth fighter that would present a significant danger to the N-22. The Capital t-50, which is normally anticipated to get into Russia's provider in 2017, is normally a even more maneuverable edition of America's Y-22.

[biofunmy]

How to watch, who’s performing, who was snubbed and more

CLOSE

It’s already been a big year for 18-year-old Billie Eilish who was just announced to perform at the Grammy Awards and received 6 Grammy nominations.

USA TODAY

Brace yourself, Billie Eilish and Lizzo fans: The 2020 Grammy Awards are shaping up to be a big night.

The Grammys are quickly approaching, and this year’s ceremony looks like it’ll live up to its rep as “Music’s Biggest Night.”

Will “Bad Guy” singer Eilish come out on top? Will Lizzo leave feeling “Good As Hell” with trophies in hand? Will Lil Nas X land some wins, or will the “Old Town Road” rapper be left in the dust? Oh, and when is it again?

From the breakout nominees to the surprising snubs, here’s everything you need to know going into this year’s Grammys.

What time are the Grammys?

The show will broadcast live from Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Sunday, Jan. 26. It airs on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

How can I watch the Grammys on TV or online?

Well, if you have regular TV, on CBS. If you don’t, the show is available for streaming on CBS All Access and on live TV packages through services such as YouTube TV and Hulu live TV. 

You can stream all the red carpet arrivals on Grammy.com.

Notable 2020 Grammy nominees

Lizzo received the most nominations – eight, including album (“Cuz I Love You”), record and song (“Truth Hurts”) of the year. She’s followed by Lil Nas X and Eilish, who are tied with six nods each. Artists with five nominations include Ariana Grande, H.E.R. and Finneas O’Connell. 

Eilish, 18, joins Lizzo, 31, in the album of the year category with her genre-bending, critically acclaimed debut “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” The trend-setting teen, whose music has amassed more than 15 billion combined streams across platforms, is also up for record and song of the year for No. 1 hit “Bad Guy.” That makes her the youngest nominee in Grammy history to be nominated in all four major categories, according to the Recording Academy.

Lizzo received the most Grammy nominations this year, with eight, including album (“Cuz I Love You”), record and song (“Truth Hurts”) of the year. (Photo: Don Arnold, Getty Images)

Lil Nas X, 20, whose real name is Montero Hill, is similarly up for best album with his eight-song debut “7.” “Old Town Road,” his country-rap collaboration with Billy Ray Cyrus that topped the charts for a record-breaking 19 consecutive weeks this summer, is nominated for best pop/duo group performance, and his follow-up single “Panini” is up for best rap/sung performance. 

Grande’s five nods include record (“7 Rings”) and album of the year (“Thank U, Next”). The best album category is rounded out by Bon Iver’s “I, I,” Lana Del Rey’s “Norman F***ing Rockwell,” H.E.R.’s “I Used to Know Her” and Vampire Weekend’s “Father of the Bride.” 

10 best albums of 2019, including Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey and FKA Twigs

Grammy nominations: Lizzo leads, Billie Eilish makes history, and ‘Old Town Road’ scores

Who got snubbed?

Though this year’s nominations shined a light on new artists, established favorites, such as Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, were left in the dark.

10-time Grammy winner Swift made history in 2016 by becoming the first female artist to win album of the year twice, for “1989” and “Fearless” (a feat managed a year later by Adele, with “25” and “21”). Swift’s Grammys streak has slowed: Her divisive “Reputation” earned just one nod in 2018 for best pop vocal album, and this year, she garnered only three nominations, including song of the year for “Lover.”

Her critically beloved album “Lover” failed to land a best album nod but showed up in best pop vocal album. Her pro-LGBTQ anthem “You Need to Calm Down” eked out a nomination for best pop solo performance but missed out on record of the year. 

Taylor Swift is no stranger to Grammy wins, but this year, she has only three nominations. (Photo: Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images)

Similarly, 20-time winner Springsteen has been a reliable Grammy presence since 1984 and was honored in 2013 by the Recording Academy’s charity arm as MusiCares Person of the Year. The Boss returned this summer with the country-tinged “Western Stars,” which marked his first album of solo material since 2012’s “Wrecking Ball.” Voters didn’t welcome him back with open arms, snubbing “Western Stars” and Springsteen entirely. 

Grammy snubs 2020: Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen miss out on major nominations

Alicia Keys will host the Grammys for the second year in a row. (Photo: Emma McIntyre, Getty Images for Billboard)

Who’s hosting the Grammys?

After hosting the 2019 Grammys, Alicia Keys is back and ready to take on the gig for the second year in a row. With 15 Grammy wins, Keys is certainly qualified.

“It’s almost like a marathon: You can’t just run a marathon (once),” Keys said of her desire to host a second time. “I feel like now, more than ever, I’m familiar with the space on multiple levels. It’s going to be an exciting, inclusive, beautiful experience, and that’s what I want to create.”

2020 Grammy nominations: See the complete list of artists up for an award

Who’s performing?

This year’s Grammys should be a big night for Eilish and Lizzo, not just because of their nominations but also because they’ll each make their Grammys stage debuts. 

Demi Lovato will also take the stage, marking her first live performance since she was hospitalized after a possible drug overdose in 2018.

“I told you the next time you’d hear from me I’d be singing,” Lovato wrote on Instagram Tuesday, along with the announcement.

Also returning to the show is Grande, who didn’t attend last year after a dispute with Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich.  

Ehrlich will be honored in a tribute performance Sunday featuring artists involved in his 40-year career. Performers will include Camila Cabello, John Legend, Cyndi Lauper and Ben Platt, among others.

Power couple Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani will perform together at the show for the first time. Additionally, Billy Ray Cyrus, Lil Nas X, BTS, Diplo and more will join forces for an “Old Town Road All-Stars” performance.

Aerosmith, Run-D.M.C, Charlie Wilson, Bonnie Raitt, Camila Cabello, H.E.R., the Jonas Brothers, Rosalía and Tyler, The Creator will all also take the stage.   

Sunday’s show will also pay tribute to rapper Nipsey Hussle, who was shot to death outside his Marathon clothing store in the South Los Angeles neighborhood where he was from in March 2019. DJ Khaled, John Legend, Roddy Ricch, Kirk Franklin, Meek Mill and YG will honor Hussle’s legacy with a performance. The late rapper is nominated for three awards this year including best rap song. 

Who’s presenting?

Famous faces set to hand out the golden gramophones include Trevor Noah and Jim Gaffigan, who are both nominated for Best Comedy Album, as well as Brandi Carlile and Tanya Tucker, who are also set to perform.

Also presenting are previous Grammy winners Common, Cynthia Erivo, Dua Lipa, Billy Porter, Smokey Robinson, Shania Twain, Keith Urban and Stevie Wonder, as well as past Grammy nominees Ava DuVernay and Bebe Rexha. 

Music industry titans Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne will also hand out trophies.

How are the Grammy Awards different this year?

This year’s Grammys will have more women, people of color and young people choosing who wins.

Responding to criticism that the awards show has lacked diversity among nominees and winners, the Recording Academy invited 900 members to join the voting body, emphasizing women, people of color and those under the age of 39, or some combination of the three. 

Who will be honored at Grammy Awards events?

Grammys fun kicks off way before the main awards show begins.

One of the most famous lead-up events is record producer Clive Davis’ star-studded pre-Grammys gala, held this year on the Saturday night before the show.

At this year’s gala, three-time Grammy winner Sean “Diddy” Combs will be recognized as the 2020 Grammy Salute to Industry Icons honoree for his 25-year career in the music industry.

The Friday before the Grammys, rock band Aerosmith will be honored as the 2020 Person of the Year for MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charity for musicians in critical financial need. The band earned the title for their philanthropy and impact on music history.

They will be honored with a tribute concert featuring Gary Clark Jr., Alice Cooper, Foo Fighters, H.E.R., the Jonas Brothers, Emily King, John Legend, John Mayer and Yola, among others.

The Tuesday after the Grammys, late music icon Prince will be honored with an all-star tribute concert featuring Beck, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Chris Martin, Usher, H.E.R., the Foo Fighters, Earth, Wind & Fire and others.

Contributing: Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY; Mesfin Fekadu, Associated Press 

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[rolodexthoughts]

The Rain

So this has been sitting in my documents for like a year and I decided my dyslexic brain had edited all that it could. It is not beta read so if there are any major problems I apologize. I hope you enjoy this little McKirk kid fic fluff. Bones was starting to come back to the land of the living, slowly. It didn't really happen until after 2 cups of coffee and reading the news. Bones stretched his arm out for his husband,eyes still firmly shut, but he just felt cold sheets. He cracked his eye open just enough to look at the time, he groaned.There had been an accident a few days ago at a farm equipment show and Bones had been called in, off leave to help. Bones thought it was ridiculous that even in this advanced age it seemed farming was just as dangerous as it had been hundreds of years ago. Not that he really minded, he was a trauma expert and had seen more in his two five missions than any of the Doctors in or near Hope U Like It. God even after all these years he still hated that name, too damn cheerful. Bones groaned again, he was still exhausted he had slept maybe 9 hrs in 3 days, and all he wanted was to wrap his arms around Jim, maybe steal a kiss or two and go back to sleep but NO his husband was nowhere to be seen. Granted that was not very far with half a eye open. That was when Bones heard it. It was a very quiet but very distinctive sound. With a grunt Bones sat up grabbed his pillow and walked out their bedroom door. He opened Jojo's door and looked at his little girls sound asleep, Jo of course was at the Academy and not so little any more. After the third time Jo ran away and got halfway to the Enterprise, Jocelyn let her move. Jo has the stars in her blood just like Jim. It was really Eileen and Lias room now but they and Jo had always been close. It looked like they had fallen asleep talking crammed on Eileen’ s bed. He knew they missed each other. Ever since they had adopted the girls Jo had taken her role as big sister very seriously even if she was only two years older. Next year they would be gone as well and Bones would never admit the tears stinging his eyes at that thought. He then moved onto the next room. As usual Hapl was falling off the bed. Bones went to Hapl and tucked his 16 back in bed, grinning at the shuffling sound he made and the way his blue hair stuck up. He was definitely Jim Kirk ' son adopted or not. He walked to last bedroom, a add on after they decided to stay planetside towards the end of their last mission two years ago. He opened the door and sure enough Chrissy and Sammy were missing. Though every toy they owned was easy to see spread out on the floor. Yeah, Jim was definitely cleaning that up later. Bones walked out back and the noise that had drawn him out got a little louder. There he found Jim leaning against the glass door with a blanket wrapped around him and the boys that said future Starfleet Captain on it. A gift from Sulu. Jim was watching the rain and the boys had fallen asleep on Jim's lap. Bones just stared for a moment. He thought back two years ago when they were just about to re-up for another mission. They never really thought about staying planetside, all the kids had been older when they adopted them. Something Jim had wanted because you are never too old to need a family or love. Bones agreed wholeheartedly. Jim and Bones were at a rare dinner alone when a call came in from a race called the Tracian who told them that while on planet they had accidentally created life. What they really meant was that the Tracian used living organic incubators to reproduce. Jim and Bones had looked at one to see how it functioned but had been assured that it did not work on any other race. HA SO NOT TRUE. Bones was irritated but they had two babies that needed them. Jim on the other hand freaked the fuck out. He had never been around babies except on Tarsus and Bones did not count a teenager after seeing his brother killed in front of him running for his life with 15 other kids all younger as an accurate scale to judge on. It was not until they saw the boys for the first time that he really understand why Jim was so freaked out. The Tracian rolled the babies over just a few days old. Jim let Bones put the older one in his arms ( he would be named Christopher David and become Chrissy, thanks to Jo). Jim said nothing as he held the baby, then Chrissy opened his eyes and for only the third time in his life Bones saw his husband cry. Bones looked down to make sure nothing was wrong a million diseases running through his head. But all he saw was bright blue eyes, Kirk eyes. "He has my eyes , when I first saw them they looked just like you Leo, and I thought good they need to have as much McCoy in them as possible. But he has my eyes." Said Jim. About that time the baby who would become George Samuel the 3rd or Sammy after the brother and father who died so Jim could live, started to fuss so Bones picked him up and leaned against Jim. "Jimmy" Bones said in a quiet soft voice "look at me, first of all we don't know if they will look like me too early to tell. Secondly they both do seem to have your eyes darlin but that makes me very happy. I love your eyes. Thirdly just because they look like one of us does not mean they are going to become us." Jim look up startled at first, though he should have know his husband knew him better than anyone. Bones continued "We are going to give them the best family possible. They have four older siblings and a billion aunts and uncles waiting for them. And two parents who will make mistakes, not be perfect BUT will love them more than--" "the stars" Jim finished. Bones looked at him surprised. " Bones you and I are not fresh out of the Academy any more I mean we are not old but I think maybe we should start these boys off on earth. It will be a little safer and we will get to spend more time with them and the older kids. I just want my kids to know me not a statue of me. I mean the other kids were older w-" Bones kissed him with their two kids between them. They asked for reassignment the next day, made plans to move into the old McCoy house and never looked back. "Are you gonna stand there or come cuddle your good looking husband?" Jim asked pulling Bones from the past into the present. He leaned down kissing his favorite place behind Jim's ear before getting under the blanket and putting his pillow next to him and bringing Sammy into his lap. "You should still be asleep, I know you have not slept much.Sammy had a nightmare and woke up Chrissy so I took them out here to settle them down." Bones leaned into his husband and laid his head on top of his shoulder . "I woke up to a empty bed, but then I heard the rain. I find it very ironic that it freaks the boys out hearing it just a little but seeing it puts them right to sleep." Jim took the hand not running through the babies soft hair and laced his fingers with Bones "Well you know those temperamental McCoy genes" he said teasingly. The boys indeed did look just like Bones with Jim's eyes. Bones snorted but wrapped up in his husband, the snoring of his boys, and the knowledge the his family was safe, he started to drift off lulled to sleep by the rain. The last thing he heard was Jim whisper "love you Bones sleep tight I got you". And Bones did.

[jobsearchtips02]

U.S. small businesses face mass closures without more pandemic aid

OAKLAND, Calif./ NEW YORK (Reuters) – After enduring 2 strokes at age 27, Olivia Colt tossed herself into starting a catering organisation, a long-lasting dream. Ten years and another stroke later on, she had actually built Salt & Honey Catering Plus Occasions into a flourishing operation in downtown Oakland.

Mary Foster prepares a product sample gotten from a factory overseas at Bentonville Copy & Ship that has actually been running a curbside service because March in reaction to the coronavirus illness (COVID-19) break out in Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S., July 24,2020 Ellie Boswell/Handout via REUTERS

Now with the coronavirus pandemic requiring cancellations of her customers’ wedding events and occasions, she has slashed her personnel from 25 to six and attempted to attract brand-new company by selling groceries online. She protected a $100,000 forgivable loan under the U.S. Income Protection Program (PPP) and another $150,000 loan under a federal program generally utilized for natural disasters. She anticipated the cash to get her through simply a couple of months of challenge.

However the hardships are dragging on.

” I have actually gotten all the grants and loans, I have maxed out my credit card, utilized my business’s reserves, invested my cost savings,” she stated.

Colt now fears she might need to shutter her service permanently. Numerous small companies across the country are reaching comparable breaking points in an economy with the greatest unemployment rate considering that the Great Anxiety. Small companies have endured the pandemic up until now with a mix of federal government aid, forbearance on debt and lease and creativity in selling to an increasingly homebound and economically distressed population.

As the very first wave of U.S. help runs short – and proprietors and lenders lose persistence – lawmakers remain in tense settlements over a brand-new round of stimulus, which might include more cash for small company.

The White House did not respond to an ask for comment.

A lot of companies have already lacked the cash they protected from the $600 billion Paycheck Defense Program, according to a survey released today from the National Federation of Independent Organisation, a leading trade group for little U.S. firms.

The federation also found in early July that 23%of respondents expected to be out of service within 6 months unless economic conditions change.

Costs Phelan – who tracks small business borrowing for credit reporting company Equifax Inc. – states defaults are up greatly to about 2.7%of small company debt. By next year, his designs are anticipating an increase to 5%or 6%. (For a graphic on business default trends, click tmsnrt.rs/ 2CVqyzZ)

Defaults peaked at 6.35%in 2009, throughout the Great Economic crisis, Phelan’s information programs. Then, U.S. government stimulus amounted to less than $1 trillion – compared with $3 trillion up until now given that the pandemic hit.

” The forbearance and the PPP have helped out a load, but they can’t go on forever,” he said.

Without a vaccine to combat new ages of infection, Phelan anticipates double-digit rates of default in hard-hit sectors consisting of hospitality, food service, and retail.

Entrepreneur like Colt are hard-pressed to stay open without accumulating more debt – without any warranties of success.

” Is it worth handling more debt, if your service can’t make it through?” she asked.

SURVIVAL BATTLE

Colt, whose mother and grandmother immigrated from the Dominican Republic, moved her kitchen in May to a cheaper space in industrial West Oakland. Her previous landlord initially had been understanding but quickly started requiring payments she could no longer afford.

The new business she’s cobbled together isn’t enough. Sales are a third of her pre-pandemic forecasts. Now she’s talking to accounting professionals and legal representatives about how to shut down her company – while hoping it never comes to that.

Similar dramas are playing out nationwide, specifically in states where surges of infection are requiring regional officials to tighten up constraints on services. Concerned customers are likewise picking to stay home and spend less, data from JP Morgan credit-card purchases show.

That’s making company owner take a hard look at closing down for excellent, stated Ari Takata-Vasquez, who leads the Oakland Indy Alliance, a group of about 500 small firms in Northern California, consisting of Colt’s.

” Three weeks ago I saw a shift in energy,” Takata-Vasquez stated. “A lot more individuals appear to have closure on the table.”

Some 44%of members surveyed recently have only sufficient money to run for three months or less, Takata-Vasquez states. To assist forestall a rash of failures, the Oakland company this week introduced a campaign to raise $4 million from donors to fund grants to regional firms, with concern offered to companies owned by immigrants and individuals of color.

Business owners who brave the financial conditions still face the ever-present risk of a health-related shutdown. Colt closed her catering operation for two weeks in May, when a worker hired with a fever, to permit her personnel to get tested and wait on results. The tests did not find coronavirus.

Farley’s East coffee shop, which used to sell lunches and lattes to Oakland’s downtown office employees, has actually now burned through its PPP funds and gets by through a contract with a not-for-profit organization that purchases meals from dining establishments and disperses them to those in requirement. Co-owner Chris Hillyard states the cafe’s long-lasting practicality depends on office buildings resuming – an outcome looking unlikely anytime soon as California leads U.S. states in COVID-19 infections and location schools won’t reopen until the surge subsides.

” We’re holding on,” Hillyard says.

WHAT NEXT?

Thousands of miles away in Florida, toy importer Basic Fun Inc says sales are increasing sharply as huge merchants consisting of Walmart Inc and Target Corp return to more normal operation. But chief executive Jay Foreman doesn’t have the $10 million he requires to purchase the product to fulfill that need.

In Bentonville, Arkansas, Holly Thomas has actually lost money because February on her printing and shipping company, a household company started by her father three decades earlier. She’s been paying her five employees, including herself, thanks in large part to a PPP loan of about $55,000 She’s trying not to dip into the extra $150,000 she’s borrowed from the federal Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.

Slideshow(4 Images)

Earnings for this year through July 24 is down 35%compared from in 2015. She quit some storage area to decrease her lease expenses by a 3rd, however her medical insurance expenses increased by 8%in April. At the current rate, she expects to be out of funds by October or November.

And then what? She worked formerly in the film and music industries, and worries it might be hard to discover a task in any market with millions of people unemployed.

” A lot of individuals are dealing with that exact same concern – what do I do next?” she said. “I understand I’m going to be competing with numerous individuals for just a handful of offered tasks.”

Reporting by Ann Saphir and Jonnelle Marte; Extra reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh and Tim Aeppel; Editing by Dan Burns and Brian Thevenot

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from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/u-s-small-businesses-face-mass-closures-without-more-pandemic-aid/