#( ABOUT. ) ┈┈ A TEMPER AT FULL SPATE

[hieromonkcharbel]

A DEADENING OF THE SPIRIT

1. Insensibility both in the body and in the spirit is deadened feeling, which, from long sickness and negligence, lapses into loss of feeling.

2. Insensibility is negligence that has become habit, benumbed thought, the child of predispositions, a snare for zeal, the noose of courage, ignorance of compunction, a door to despair, the mother of forgetfulness which gives birth to loss of the fear of God. And then she becomes the daughter of her own daughter.

3. He who has lost sensibility is a witless philosopher, a self-condemned commentator, a self-contradictory windbag, a blind man who teaches others to see. He talks about healing a wound and does not stop irritating it. He complains about sickness, and does not stop eating what is harmful. He prays against it, and immediately goes and does it. And when he has not done it, he is angry with himself; and the wretched man is not ashamed of his own words. ‘I am doing wrong,’ he cries, and eagerly continues to do so. His mouth prays against his passion, and his body struggles for it. He philosophizes about death, but he behaves as if he were immortal. He groans over the separation of soul and body, but drowses along as if he were eternal. He talks of temperance, and self-control, but he lives for gluttony. He reads about the judgment and begins to smile. He reads about vainglory, and is vainglorious while actually reading. He repeats what he has learnt about vigil, and drops asleep on the spot. He praises prayer, but runs from it as from the plague. He blesses obedience, but he is the first to disobey. He praises detachment, but he is not ashamed to be spiteful and to fight for a rag. When angered he becomes bitter, and he is angered again at his bitterness;; and he does not feel that, after one defeat, he is suffering another. Having overeaten he repents, and a little later again gives way. He blesses silence, and praises it with a spate of words. he teaches meekness, and during the actual teaching frequently gets angry. Having woken from passion he sighs, and shaking his head, he again yields to passion. He condemns laughter, and lectures on mourning with a smile on his face. Before others he blames himself for being vainglorious, and in blaming himself is only angling for glory about himself. He looks people in the face with passion, and talks about chastity. While frequenting the world, he praises those who live in stillness without realizing that he shames himself. He extols almsgivers, and reviles beggars. All the time he is his own accuser, and he does not want to come to his senses — I will not say cannot.

4. I have seen many people like this hear about death and the terrible judgment and shed tears, and with tears still in their eyes, they eagerly go to a meal. And I was amazed how this tyrant, this stinkpot of gluttony, by complete insensibility, can grow so strong as to turn the tables even on mourning.

5. As far as my poor powers and knowledge allow, I have exposed the wiles and weals of this stony, obstinate, raging and stupid passion. I have not the patience to expatiate on it. He who is experienced and able in the Lord should not shrink from applying healing to the sores. For I am not ashamed to admit my own powerlessness, since I am sorely afflicted with this sickness. I should not have been able to discover its wiles and tricks by myself, if I had not caught it and held it firmly, probing it to make it acknowledge what has been said above, and plying it with the scourge of the fear of the Lord and with unceasing prayer. That is why this tyrant and evil doer said to me: ‘My subjects laugh when they see corpses. When they stand at prayer, they are completely stony, hard and darkened. When they see the holy alter they feel nothing; when they partake of the Gift, it is as if they had eaten ordinary bread. When I see persons moved by compunction, I mock them. From my father I learnt to kill all good things which are born of courage and love. I am the mother of laughter, the nurse of sleep, the friend of a full belly. When exposed I do not grieve, I go hand in hand with sham piety.’

6. I was astounded at the words of this ravening creature, and asked her about her father, wishing to know his name, and she said: ‘I have no single parentage; my conception is mixed and vacillating. Satiety nourishes me, time makes me grow, and bad habit entrenches me. He who keeps this habit will never be rid of me. Be constant in vigil, meditating on the eternal judgment;; then perhaps I shall to some extent relax my hold on you, and then battle against my mother; for she is not in all cases the same. Pray often at the coffins, and engrave an indelible image of them in your heart. For unless you inscribe it there with the pen of fasting, you will never conquer me.’

The Ladder of Divine Ascent: Step 18 by St John Climacus

[reignthem]

@archivaltm​ said: ‘ mistletoe ’ from lois  &  accidental ;)

MISTLETOE

it’s been  FOUR MINUTES  since sam arias was idling at an l-corp holiday party suited up to her slim shoulders in a sleekly tailored blazer formed out of warm red velvet  &  trimmed with black lapels for the occasion.  four minutes ago, sam’s festive earrings studded like holiday packages with glitzing gold ribbon winked to match the gems bubbling up in her champagne glass.  &  four minutes ago, sam arias stood toe to toe, towering down at lois lane with a firm slash cut into her mouth.  

in the moments leading up to that collection of two hundred-forty heated seconds, they’d been battling a new headline  &  its disregard for the charitable gifts lining the firs rounding the perimeter of the room.  sam’s temper simmered, nearly breaking into a boil while lois played the typical daily planet dance around the confirmed facts for a soundbite.  

sam’s fingertips clutched tighter, winding with the tick of her jaw until the flute gripped between thumb  &  forefinger trembled, too brittle in the force of her hold.  

but then  ---- 

then, in a shattering cacophony of windows smashing, the clock started to count down on the fateful four minutes leading up to this very instant.  a racketing roar, blinding lights scorching villainously crimson so much brighter than sam’s jacket,  &  the decimation of a family-friendly train display give enough distraction for her to slip away.  she shucks the buttons from her shirt, exposes the glyph,  &  sam arias is now SUPERWOMAN.  

in that first sixty seconds, she’s little more than a blur of a caped fabric dipping  &  dodging to scoop away a pair of elves costumed for the celebration, a waiter precariously balancing a tray full of hors d’oeuvres that unfortunately do not survive the assault,  &  landing in front of the little chugging engine clicking its wheels on the ground.  her booted stance is defiant, her own paired scorch of vision erupting from the twin flames of her gaze.  

&  the ensuing two minutes gets lost in a spinning twist of embattlement narrowly avoiding christmas pines  &  shattered ornaments.  sam’s fists are all brutal impact.  her form  &  footwork stutter toward strategy.  she isn’t as well-refined as superman or supergirl but she does rescue an impressive chandelier from exploding in high-wattage against the ground.  

the last minute is where things get dicey.  

because lois lane, much to sam’s still-mercurial irritation, gets smart with her phone camera  &  dances too close to the struggle of superwoman’s combat against her extranormal opponent.  a meaty punch barrels toward lois but sam is there to stop it with her palms locking around the hooked grasp.  from there, it’s a tango to the edge of the building.  in the last fifteen breaths of the time, superwoman delivers a crushing uppercut that sends the alien into a collapsed, dozy heap.  

“  you could have gotten yourself seriously injured,  ”  she finds herself right back in the fray with lois  (  except THIS time, the crowd is untangling from the trauma of it all to throw cheering excitement.  this time, sam’s wire-rimmed spectacles are tucked safely into a back office  &  instead of a neatly fitted suit, there’s a sigil emblazoned on her breast  &  a cloak fluttering around her collar.  this time, she’s afraid of the tight squeeze at her heart that means she was actually worried about lois lane. ).   sam’s hands flex above the utility belt on her hips.  

lois just looks up at her with that infuriatingly all-knowing smirk carved into her lips. 

the partygoers all still clap but their chanting has morphed into something that drives a furrow between sam’s brows.  lois, with that maddeningly coy curl at her smile, points up overhead.  

sam follows.  a little spate of greenery dotted with pearly berries clustered close to cherry ones hangs between them.  mistletoe.

“  --- oh.  ”  somehow feels like a worse defeat than her sagged-over white martian who crashed the event.  camera bulbs splash all around them.  lois has a brow arched up sharp enough to break through even sam’s steeled exterior.  “  i guess it is for a good cause,  ”  she relinquishes at last.   

&  as she sweeps lois up into her arms effortlessly,  &  bends to meet lois with a slanted kiss, she ignores the way that annoyance still blustering behind her sternum coaxes to something a little fonder.  

has anyone seen sam?  pierces a voice through the gala attendees’ raucous applause.  

just like that, superwoman’s four minute  &  thirty second interlude comes to a close.  &  sam arias is back on the floor, straightening the hem of her coat, plastering on a disgruntled expression,  &  winging an elbow between lois’ ribs.  

“  ------ now that’s one hell of a headline, ms. lane.  ”   sam’s wink is the last interaction she trades with the reporter before disappearing into a gaggle of discussions about mergers  &  quarterly earnings for the rest of the evening.  

[syntheticsoulmates]

Day 9-Cashbox

It was a dull day at the bank, and Harry was about ready to fall asleep at his teller booth. There was no one in the lobby but employees inside the lobby and Ron, their security was making eyes at Hermione. Hermione was pretending she didn't notice, focusing on an account spreadsheet Harry knew she had completed hours ago. Harry sort of wanted to kick him. He’d told Ron Hermione took work hours very seriously. Although if there was a day to senselessly moon, it would be today. They’d had one customer since they opened. Harry was going to have to take his break to take a walk around and stop from falling asleep.

He turned to Hermione, “‘Mione--”

The doors to the lobby burst open, the glass doors trembling and threatening to break in their frames.  

The lobby rang with the stomping of combat boots. Five armed people stormed into the room. Harry stared ludicrously at the assortment of masks. The woman in front was wearing a unicorn and toting a rifle, and Harry wanted to laugh until she swung the butt of her rifle and clocked Ron across the face.

Ron crumpled with a hurt noise and didn’t get up. The woman was cackling, mantling over him and pulling back her foot to kick.

Harry knew he had an inappropriate fear response, thank you very much, but it was a whole other thing when his friends were being threatened as well.  He dove for the alarm button.

A spate of three bullets hit the countertop in front of him. Harry froze, the hairs on the back of his neck raising and his throat feeling tight and hot.

“Hands up,” ordered the man in the back, holding up one hand into a fist. He sauntered forward, wearing a pale white snake mask with blood-red eyes and a painted forked tongue. Harry stared at him for a moment, at his long hands, his dominant stroll. Shite. Harry thought. This better not awaken anything in me.

Harry saw Hermione’s hands go up in the corner of his eye. Harry looked over, watched her make a micro-shake of her head. Fuck. Hermione hadn’t managed to hit the alarm either.

“Beauty, stop playing with your food,” Snake-face ordered, without even looking, and the unicorn woman pouted but dropped Ron’s head, immediately, causing it to make a small thumping noise on the bank’s shiny parquet. Harry tried to stop his hands curling into fists.

“Seneca, the bags,” he ordered, and a man Harry was pretty sure was wearing a one of those generic white-bread senators stepped forward.

“Which one of you can open the vault?” Snake-face asked.

Hermione spoke, “I can.” She began to lower her hands, “Just let me get the keys,” she cajoled.

“Ah, ah,” Snake-face ordered. Hermione froze. “Beauty, please,” he said, and she trained her rifle on Ron’s head. He was groaning and his eyebrows were fluttering, but he wasn’t getting up off the floor. “Junior. Please, examine the key situation.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Junior hopped over the counter, the manic clown face bouncing a bit as he landed. He ended up too close to Hermione, and Harry bristled, edging closer.

Hermione gestured towards the keys. Junior picked them up, jingled them over his head.

“You,” Snake-face ordered, gesturing with one pale long-fingered hand towards Harry. “Come around the counter.”

Harry hesitated, looking at Hermione. She nodded, and Harry walked around, slow.  

“Kneel. Hands behind your back,” Snake-face ordered, casually, and Harry was fully expecting a muzzle to the forehead and not at all expecting the tangle of long fingers in his hair, pressing his face into the surprisingly soft fabric of Snake-face’s pressed pants. He smelt electric, like gunpowder and a musky sandalwood cologne, and Harry very carefully did not fidget on his knees. He watched Hermione out of the corner of his eye and tried not to breathe in deep.

“Go, open the vault,” Snake-face ordered, and this close Harry could hear his voice rumbling in his lean body. Hermione disappeared into the back with Junior, but Snake-face kept Harry’s face pressed to one lean thigh, hand tight enough that it just barely pulled on his curls.

Hermione came back quickly, before Harry could really wonder how effective biting Snake-face’s thigh would go. Seneca was still emptying a cashbox full of diamonds into a sack, and Hermione was still, thankfully, unharmed, if as pale as her deep brown skin could go.

Snake-face began to pull back, obviously happy, attention shifting, “Good--” he started, and then the last man, quiet until now in the corner, put up his hand, interrupted.

“Gunshots reported at this address, my Lord.” He said, brushing his ear.

Snake-face paused. “Really, how interesting.” He sounded breathy, exhilarated, attention stolen by this new development. “Thank you, Reindeer.”

“We’ll need a pretty little hostage!” She crowed. She did a little joyful girlish twirl, and then pointed her gun at Hermione.  “I vote that one!”

Snake-face shrugged, obviously uncaring, and began again to pull away from Harry.

“No,” Harry said. He purposely leaned forward into Snake-face’s thigh, hands still clenching his own wrists. He nuzzled his thigh when Snake-face’s hand tightened in his hair, trying to keep his attention. “She's pregnant,” he lied. “You'll have to take me instead.” He looked up, peered up at Snake-face through his eyelashes to temper his demanding tone.

He could hear Hermione's frustrated noise in the corner, but she knew it would just weaken both their positions if she argued back. “Harry, no,” she still said, exasperated and angry with it.

Snake-face cocked his masked head at Harry, pulled Harry back by his hair until his throat was exposed.  Harry got the impression he was smiling, excited by this turn of events, excited at being reported, excited at the possibility of a shoot-out, excited at the kneeling, excited at a little spark from his hostage. “Acceptable,” he drawled, voice amused.

“Junior, please accommodate our guest,” he ordered, and the man moved immediately. He dropped his gun on it’s strap, and then pulled out a handful of industrial zip ties. Snake-face continued to grip Harry by the hair as the man bound his wrists, tight enough that Harry could feel a tingle in his fingers. Harry let loose a sigh of relief, shot Hermione a cheeky grin over his shoulder. They were taking him, leaving her. She was glaring at him, fingers clenched. She knew just as well as he did what usually happened to hostages. 

Snake-face released Harry with a little pat, nodded to Junior. Junior abruptly lifted him off the floor. Harry scrabbled for footing when Junior pushed him, but he was hauled back in, and this time the muzzle of a hand-gun was really pressed to his forehead. He gave one last look at Ron. He knew Hermione’d call an ambulance as soon as she could. 

The street was still empty, and Harry couldn’t hear any sirens, but Reindeer pointed one direction and the troupe took off at a jog the other way, Harry stumbling to keep up.

It was a tense ten seconds, before Junior pulled him to an abrupt halt in front of a van for a nearby carpet cleaning business. Seneca neatly jumped the hood, sliding into the driver’s seat, and Reindeer folded into the passenger seat.

Snake-face folded into the very back, and Junior pushed Harry in after. Harry landed in the footwell, and Junior went back around to the side. “Hey!” He protested, banging his knees, but no one was listening. They pulled away from the kerb with the squeal of tires. 

Beauty was lolling over the middle bench seat of the van. Her head was over the edge and she had pulled the bottom of her unicorn mask up until her mouth was bare. Reindeer was leaning over from the seat in front, kissing her swollen mouth upside down like a Spiderman reenactment. Snake-face made a disgruntled noise. “Beauty, really,” he drawled, “not in front of our guest.”

They both froze, uncertain.

“Well, blindfold him, you idiots.” Snake-face snapped, and the last thing Harry saw was his pale, long-fingered hand tousling the back of sweat curled dark brown hair as he pulled off his mask.

***

TBC??? I dunno. 

[satonthelotuspier]

I'm seeing prompts on your site and does that mean you are accepting them right now? I've never requested a prompt before and I don't know what to do? But if I'm doing it right I'd really like to see 13 for XueXiao from the bodyguard au prompt list? Fluffy or angsty, as you please. Am I doing this right?

OK so Im being obvious, but this contains XueXiao.

Modern Bodyguard AU so none of the complications of canon apply.

Now the disclaimers are out of the way, I have to apologise to the very patient @amaskinamirror bc this took so much longer to write than I expected. The reason being most of my prompt fics end up around the 1k-1.4k word mark and this kept going and kept going because there was a story there. It came in around the 4.5k work mark. Think of it as added value, unless you hate it in which case it’s not ;)

Pompts from this post here

Part 2 now available here

Xue Yang is the enfant terrible of the music world and his manager has pretty much had enough of his shitty behaviour. Features a thorny Xue Yang shaped by the worlds opinions of him, and a hardass yet caring Xiao Xingchen who maybe might just start to see beyond the lies.

Possible triggers/warnings: Also features swearing, man-handling, use of a date rape drug, minor injury and blood. Luckily XXC is there to save the day in all situations.

Xue Yang was woken up from a deep, no doubt alcohol-induced, sleep to the feeling of cold water being splashed in his face.

He shot upright coughing and spluttering and wiping water out of his eyes, trying to process what the hell had happened. The unconscious bodies around him all started to stir and groan back to lucidity.

Xue Yang followed the long line of the leg in front of him up to eventually meet a pair of dark eyes staring down at him without expression.

“What the fuck?” he demanded and tried to get up but someone he didn’t even remember the name of was laid across his legs.

It had been another party. One where they’d drunk hard and passed out before dawn some time; he didn’t know half the people here. That had never stopped him. Being the enfant terrible of the music industry took both time, effort and commitment.

The tall man bent down to extricate him, then yanked him to his feet.

“You have rehearsals in ninety minutes. Get showered, you smell like a brewery” a garment bag was pushed into his hands then he was waved in the direction of the hotel suite’s bathroom.

“Excuse me, but just who the fuck are you?” honestly his head felt a little woolly still from the after-effect of the alcohol he’d been drinking, but he was sure he didn’t know who this man was or what he was doing in his hotel suite.

“Your Fairy Godmother, Cinderella, now go get a shower, you’re wasting time”

Xue Yang grabbed hold of the collar of his jacket, “Don’t bullshit me”

The hand that clamped around his wrist was steel-like, “Your new security. Your manager sends his regards. I won’t tell you to go and shower again”

“Firstly, if you are security you are not my boss, so you can stop with the ordering me around like I’m your little bitch, secondly, you are my security? I’m sure if a duckling gets too close you’ll do a great job, otherwise…” he was going to push the other away, sure because of his willowy frame it would be easy. Quite how he ended up in an armlock and being dragged to the bathroom he didn’t know. He bit his tongue to stifle the cry of pain; no way would he utter the noise aloud. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he snarled as the other kept going into the bathroom.

“I’ve already explained. I’m not going to repeat myself” the man opened the shower door, pushed Xue Yang into the cubicle and pushed the on button.

Of course Xue Yang never learned his lesson; he launched himself at the other only to bounce off the cubicle door as the other shut it behind him, holding it closed.

“New world order, xiao-Xue, get used to being my little bitch” the other grinned as Xue Yang punched the glass then yelled at the pain in his hand, “Clean up, I don’t want to be forced to come in there and clean you up myself”

***

Xue Yang curled himself up as small as possible on the back seat of the car; he was in high sulk. After calling his manager to demand an explanation of what was going on Jin Guangyao had told him in no uncertain terms he’d better get used to the idea of Xiao Xingchen being around. His new security was not only there to provide for his personal safety after a spate of disturbing mail (more disturbing than the usual run of the mill threats at least), but to whip him into some kind of shape as Jin Guangyao was convinced his terrible behaviour, bad reputation and general personality was about to lose them some very large contracts.

Everyone loved a bad boy in theory, but when it began to affect his ability to make his management company money then they were definitely going to act to protect their asset.

And that had come in the form of Xiao Xingchen, who looked as gentle and fragile as an orchid but who had already handed Xue Yang his ass once today already.

“A-Qing, I need breakfast” Xue Yang whined at his assistant as his stomach rumbled for the fourth time.

“You shouldn’t have upset the new bodyguard then” she mocked him quietly, and he retreated even more, pulling the hood of his jacket up and wrapping his arms around his knees as A-Qing took pity on him and leaned forward to ask the driver to stop at a nearby coffee shop.

They did, and A-Qing and the driver returned with coffees for all and a bag full of muffins.

Lao-Xia, the driver, and A-Qing had been with Xue Yang long enough to not meet his gaze as they started on their own food; Xiao Xingchen had no such warning; he was too busy goggling at Xue Yang who had made his own muffin disappear like a magician with a rabbit.

“Are you going to eat that?” Xue Yang asked, pointing at the baked bun in Xiao Xingchen’s hand.

He simply offered it over; perhaps surprised at the demonstration of the speed at which a muffin could be demolished without trace.

The second one followed the first in quick order and Xue Yang froze as the other reached  over to brush the crumbs that had stuck to the corner of his mouth away with a thumb.

“You don’t want the Paparazzi to catch that” he said simply before turning in his seat to look out of the windscreen and sip at his coffee.

Xue Yang curled back in on himself and held his ridiculously sweet iced coffee to his chest.

“You eat too much sugar” Xiao Xingchen told him as Lao-Xia started the car and set off driving to the studio, “You need something to give you energy for the first meal of the day”

“Good luck with that, he functions on pure sugar and supplements” A-Qing mocked and Xue Yang shot her an annoyed look.

***

Xue Yang didn’t know why he was surprised the next morning when he was awoken by a solid shake to the shoulder.

He hadn’t been able to avoid the other to sneak off to party last night so he wasn’t hung over but that didn’t mean he was any more amenable to the idea of waking up.

“Come on Sleeping Beauty, you have to be at your first interview in an hour”

Interviews. His mortal enemy. The thing he hated most in the world. And he was still no better at dealing with them than he had been as a fresh face on the music scene, where the press had crucified him, thrown every painful fact of his past in his face and then painted him as a troubled bad boy with a temper; a role he’d eventually just given up fighting against and embraced.

He threw the blankets over his head; maybe if he just went back to sleep the interview would disappear.

The blankets were thrown back.

“Dude, what the fuck?” he demanded, was he allowed no privacy at all anymore?

“Get up” Xiao Xingchen jerked his head towards the bathroom.

“Fuck off. I’m not going” he reached out to push the other away.

It went about as well as yesterday had for him; he ended up face down on the bed with his arm locked up between his shoulder blades.

“Are you going to learn any time soon? I mean, kudos for persistence but lose points for stupidity. Now, last chance to get up on your own, otherwise I’ll throw you over my shoulder and you can go dressed like that”

Xue Yang wasn’t sure he believed the other was strong enough to actually carry him out of the hotel room, but he daren’t take the chance he might be dragged out kicking and screaming and dressed in his ratty old t-shirt and shorts.

“Fine, yes, I’m getting up. Let me go, please” as a street child he’d learned to beg prettily and it wasn’t a skill he was averse to using if he needed to, to survive. It didn’t need to be sincere, it just needed to sound it, to be calculated to pull on the other’s heart strings.

It didn’t seem to affect Xiao Xingchen, but he was released nonetheless.

***

Xue Yang of course arrived on time for his first interview, (there were three in total scheduled for today), as far as they went it wasn’t particularly gruelling for him, but he was fully aware he was a mess by the end of it; he’d probably come across like he was on drugs, but it wasn’t like that would be the first, second or third time the rumour would circulate in relation to him.

He knew Xiao Xingchen eyed him in consideration, but he ignored it; he didn’t have the presence of mind to survive the next two interviews and worry about what his new security agent was judging him for today.

He was much worse by the end of the second; he had been left alone a sitting room of the hotel the interview’s had been arranged at and he lowered his head into his hands, trying to even out his breathing and calm himself. His professionalism would be questioned even further if he failed to complete the last interview, or screwed up during it.

He felt the couch dip next to him, “Here” he looked up, poison on his tongue ready to be spit at Xiao Xingchen when he realised the other held out one of those large chocolate chip cookies in a napkin. There was also iced coffee sat on the table in front of him.

“Just relax, empty your head, and focus on the cookie” Xiao Xingchen informed him; raising an eyebrow as Xue Yang didn’t immediately accept the confectionery from him.

He took it with tentative thanks; and it vanished almost immediately once he’d decided to accept the gesture. Once he’d gotten the sugary coffee inside him too he felt much better.

***

Despite his trash reputation he wasn’t late for a single appointment over the next weeks; Jin Guangyao assured him it was perfectly alright to project the rebel for the masses but when you played the brat with the people in the business you’d soon be blacklisted; a risk he wasn’t willing to take with Xue Yang.

Xue Yang hadn’t managed to get near alcohol or a party in that time due to Xiao Xingchen’s hawk eyes and iron control.

Since the second morning though instead of being woken up with a bucket of water to the face or bickering the other had started showing up with a sweet pastry and a staggeringly sugary iced coffee which he traded off for Xue Yang eating better at other mealtimes.

Overall it didn’t seem Xue Yang had a moment of time where the other wasn’t somewhere close, controlling everything, keeping a watchful eye out.

And it bothered Xue Yang; he didn’t get used to the feeling of Xiao Xingchen being there like he’d been assured he would. He was still hyper aware of him, and he didn’t necessarily think it was because he was intimidated, despite the fact they’d had a few more altercations, none of which ended well for Xue Yang.

***

He tried to ditch his new security for his monthly visit to the orphanage his charity had built and ran; the less people who knew about it the better. Of course he couldn’t shake the other off so he had to attend followed by Xiao Xingchen, and explain to the children who the tall ge was. He was a great hit with them, and although Xue Yang pretended to be annoyed at Xiao Xingchen getting all the attention that the youngsters usually showered on him secretly he was entertained as he watched the other romp with the rough kids, or play softly with the quieter ones.

“This is the first time you’ve brought a bodyguard” he turned slightly at the sound of Tian Ying, the matron of the orphanage and the woman who’d helped bring him up in a similar institution when he had been a boy had come up beside him. “Are you in danger, xiao-Xue?”

“Of course not” he didn’t consider the crazy mail Jin Guangyao was filtering from him any more of a threat than any of the other mail he’d received in the last few years, and he definitely didn’t want her to worry about him, “They just decided I needed someone to carry my bags for me”

He didn’t have time to say much more as he was dragged into an impromptu game of football in the yard, where he and Xiao Xingchen were on opposite teams.

They played around half-heartedly until a Xiao Xingchen who was grace incarnate except apparently on a football pitch, stuck his foot out and took Xue Yang’s feet from under him and he tumbled. The fall itself wasn’t bad but he was a little grazed as they played on the yard and not grass.

Xiao Xingchen was unusually all apologies and personally saw to tending the grazes Xue Yang’s tumble had caused, despite his assurances he was absolutely fine. The touch of the other still made his pulse flutter in some odd emotion and the way Xiao Xingchen kept glancing up at him, like he’d discovered a rare and new species, was disconcerting. And pissed him off, because he could guess what it was about.

“Just don’t” he said through his teeth so no one around them could hear.

“Don’t what? Congratulate you on what you’ve built here? On what you’re doing for these kids?”

“Yes, don’t. I don’t want to hear it” he sucked a breath in at the sting of the antiseptic where Xiao Xingchen applied it to his grazes.

“Alright, whatever you want” Xiao Xingchen let it drop but he still looked at Xue Yang with something approaching admiration in his eyes.

And it was addictive, to have someone look at him like that, and not like he was trash. But then it had never bothered him before. Was it purely because it was Xiao Xingchen and he wanted to be more than trash in that man’s eyes?

“I guess you read too many gossip rags” Xue Yang sniped, “I’m not on drugs, in any weird cults, or a complete slut either”

Instead of bullshitting him and denying he’d thought anything of the kind Xiao Xingchen agreed instead, “I’m beginning to see that. Of course that doesn’t mean you don’t have a vile temper, that you don’t ever learn your lessons, or that you don’t sulk like a baby when I tell you no”

He was about to make one of his usual responses when the game of football moved closer and he clamped his lips closed on the curse.

There was a knowing, teasing look in the other’s eyes and as Xue Yang looked down into that finely-boned face he realised why the other’s good opinion had meant so much to him; why he was on tenterhooks whenever Xiao Xingchen was near, which was all the time at the moment, and why his pulse fluttered like his veins were full of butterflies whenever the other touched him. He was in love with Xiao Xingchen.

Well fuck.

***

Xue Yang paced around his hotel bedroom, feeling like a caged tiger. He wanted to destroy something. No, he really wanted a stiff drink.

Was he a masochist? What had made him fall in love with a man who knocked him around for fun? No of course that was unfair, Xiao Xingchen only ever restrained him and only when Xue Yang attacked first. Still, it must definitely be masochism.

Or Stockholm Syndrome; he had been at the mercy of the other, a virtual prisoner, for weeks now.

“I need a drink” he exclaimed aloud; and so he formulated a plan.

He took a quick shower and changed into something black and sexy and flashy, then he he called reception and asked for a taxi cab, and that they ring up to let him know when it had arrived.

He waited by his bedroom door, peeping through the tiniest opening for the phone to ring back; and as Xiao Xingchen got up from the couch to answer it he dashed out and past as silently as possible to give himself as much of a head-start as he could manage.

The doors of the elevator were closing just as he saw Xiao Xingchen enter the hallway and yell at him in rage.

He was in the taxi and away; his freedom all the sweeter for being carefully wrought.

***

Xue Yang was beginning to feel pleasantly buzzed and he was chatting quite happily with the guy who stood next to him at the bar of the VIP lounge. He’d been greeted by the usual crowd who hadn’t seen him around for the weeks he’d been kept prisoner, (OK maybe that was a little dramatic), but he’d never seen this guy before and new people were interesting.

Although he was beginning to get uncomfortable at how the other stared at him intently after he’d finished his drink.

He excused himself to “visit the bathroom” when life finally caught up with him. Life of course being Xiao Xingchen.

He pushed Xue Yang up against the wall of the corridor to the bathrooms, which was surprisingly currently empty.

“Hey” Xue Yang protested, although with alcohol relaxing his muscles it hadn’t really hurt as he hadn’t tensed for impact. Actually being pinned against the wall by the man you’d fallen in love with was quite nice. He had zero experience, bar some awkward kisses with a girl who’d known as little as him when he was younger, but apparently being manhandled was beginning to be something he enjoyed. Maybe because it was Xiao Xingchen though.

“I’d advise you to keep really quiet, I’m this close to spanking the living hell out of you” and really he’d never seen Xiao Xingchen’s deceptively delicate face so twisted in anger.

But of course alcohol impaired one’s judgement; to dangerous levels sometimes.

“Is that what you like?” he asked.

“What?” Xiao Xingchen was confused, his hand tightened on Xue Yang’s collar as if he suspected the other was planning something.

“Spanking, do you get off on it?”

“You really have no fucking self-preservation instincts do you?” Xiao Xingchen demanded and if Xue Yang hadn’t been so muddled due to the reaction of his body to the other, and the alcohol humming through his bloodstream he might have realised how much trouble he was in; he had never heard the other curse before in all their weeks together.

Instead he gave in to the urge pounding at the base of his brain, unable to control it anymore. He threw his arms around Xiao Xingchen’s neck and kissed him.

Well, it was clumsy and unskilled, but it probably still counted as a kiss.

He was pushed back against the wall unceremoniously, “What do you think you’re doing? You are my client. You are drunk. You are so out of line right now”

Of course he hadn’t really expected a different response. He somehow managed to pull himself free and stumbled back out into the VIP lounge.

Actually he seemed to be more drunk than he’d realised. He was suddenly barely able to control his body and he felt like his head was full of cotton wool. A hand touched his back, “Oh, you look terrible. Do you need to lie down? Should we get you out of here?” he was vaguely aware the voice wasn’t Xiao Xingchen’s, it belonged to the guy he’d been talking to at the bar, as he was guided towards the door but he really did need to lie down right now. He was about to nod his agreement when the supporting hand was violently removed.

“What the fuck did you give him?” that was Xiao Xingchen, although he couldn’t work out what the question meant. He felt the iron-grip of his security’s hand and he was pulled close to the other; he recognised the familiar scent of his aftershave and it set his mind at rest.

***

It had been days since the nightclub incident; and he’d managed to act completely clueless about the entire evening. In honesty there were huge swathes of Xue Yang’s memory that were completely blank, but he was cursed with vague recollection of him kissing Xiao Xingchen.

He wanted to die from embarrassment. He wanted to mope around at the rejection. He had to pretend like he was completely clueless about everything that happened though and let the other just write it off as a side effect of the Flunitrazepam the random guy at the nightclub had put in his drink.

He had been in touch with Jin Guangyao and begged the other to find him new security. He couldn’t carry on being around Xiao Xingchen all the time, feeling like he did, and scared to death he’d do something stupid to reveal his feelings in a way that couldn’t be pretended away like that stupid kiss.

He had faithfully promised he’d keep up the good behaviour Xiao Xingchen had bullied into him so long as Jin Guangyao replaced him with someone who wouldn’t cause Xue Yang such pain to have close.

His manager had promised to at least look into it.

Xue Yang didn’t realise he’d been wool-gathering in his head and managed to separate slightly from Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing until he saw a face in the crowd that made him uncomfortable.

He didn’t recognise the man but the fear that skittered down his spine was very real; he turned to try and get closer to Xiao Xingchen who called his name and dashed over; the flash he caught from the corner of his eye had him raising his arm in self-protection. He was dragged out of the way and thrown to the floor, catching nothing but a glancing blow as Xiao Xingchen took out the threat.

It was all very chaotic after that as the crowd helped keep the attacker captive until the police could arrive, and ambulance was also called as both he and Xiao Xingchen had taken knife wounds.

His was a cut to the arm that didn’t particularly bother him, it was the wound on Xiao Xingchen’s side that scared the life out of him. He used his folded jacket to keep pressure on the injury.

A-Qing fluttered around trying to get him to let someone else take over so they could do the same for his arm but he just waved her off; it was nothing.

“You really have no fucking self-preservation instincts” Xiao Xingchen told him in annoyance; luckily he seemed fully conscious at the moment.

“I know. I‘m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll be better from now on” he felt close to tears but fought them back brutally.

Xiao Xingchen nodded at what he said and looked into his eyes, “At least you’ll get your new bodyguard now, silver linings right?” he reached out with his left hand to thumb away one of the tears that Xue Yang hadn’t realised had escaped.

Fucking Jin Guangyao and his stupid big mouth.

“It’s for the best, xiao-Xue, in light of everything”

Which meant Xiao Xingchen was aware of his feelings and agreed the best way to deal with it was to move on. Well there went his dignity.

“You’re too precious for this cruel world in the limelight, anyway” Xue Yang tried to mock, his voice a little strangled.

“Which of us do you mean?” Xiao Xingchen asked and it was both an arrow to his heart and salve to his ego to hear such an opinion from the other.

He was glad when the paramedics had arrived and he was shuffled away to have his own wound dealt with so he could save some face. If the paramedic thought the tears were a reaction to the pain or shock of being attacked then good.

They were taken to a nearby hospital to be treated. Xue Yang’s cut needed a few stitches so he was ready to be sent away reasonably quickly, but he stayed in the waiting room until A-Qing came back to report Xiao Xingchen was fine, he’d be kept in for a few days as his would was deeper and nastier but he was stable and in no danger.

“Aren’t you going to visit before we go?” she asked, but he shook his head. And honestly she was smart enough that she probably knew what was going on and why he didn’t want to impose on the other. “Alright, lets get you back to the hotel. I think Jin Guangyao will be waiting, unfortunately, I can’t do anything to put him off this time”

Xue Yang sighed and accepted his fate.

One Month Later

The stage lights faded for the last time and he was finally able to slip offstage. He was lathered with sweat and completely exhausted. Xue Yang’s knife wound hadn’t been particularly deep or damaging but it was surprising how much it had knocked him down. He still tired out so much more easily than he was used to, but he hadn’t wanted to put this concert off, preferring to get it out of the way so he could take a holiday for a couple of weeks and use it to think about the next steps in his career, and indeed life, with nothing hanging over his head.

The man who had attacked them had been the same who had drugged his drink in the nightclub, although due to the effects Xue Yang couldn’t identify him; it had been lucky his subconscious had reacted to the man though, or it could have been so much worse.

He accepted the towel A-Qing held out for him as he met his entourage in the back stage passages and dried off, pulling on the coat she had also brought him.

There was an oddly smug look on her face and he questioned her.

“Nothing, just something funny is all” she refused to be drawn on what caused her to smile so.

They made it back to the dressing rooms and he was bundled inside.

He wondered, uncharitably, if she was on drugs.

“No rush, your car won’t be here for quite some time yet” A-Qing told him as she shut the door behind him and he turned to find his street clothes. Except he wasn’t alone.

Oh.

Suddenly he daren’t move from the doorway, not sure whether to tear it open and flee or move into the room and act like he wasn’t bothered in the slightest.

In the end he compromised, did nothing and stayed exactly where he was.

“Why are you here?” he tried to keep his voice steady, and luckily it didn’t shake too much.

“Why do you think?” Xiao Xingchen asked him.

[scrapironflotilla]

Do you have any favorite books about the ANZACs/AIF on the Western Front?

Oh man yes. So many. So in no particular order:

General:

Broken Nation - Joan Beaumont  - The best single volume history of Australia at war. Covers the AIF and its campaigns, the home front and modern memory of particular events. If you read any book from this list, read this one.

The Broken Years - Bill Gammage. The published version of Gammage’s PhD thesis, this is a superb book that tells the story of the AIF mostly through diary entries and letters of soldiers. For an understanding of life lived in the AIF during the war nothing beats it.

The Great War - Les Carlyon. A tome of a book, but a very engagingly written account of the AIF on the Western Front. Features a lot of down in the trenches detail about the battles from diary and letter accounts.

Australia and the Empire:

The Anzac Illusion - Eric Andrews. A fantastic look at the AIF and how it fit into the broader British Army during the war. Looks at some of the myths about Australian superiority and how similar Australians of 1914-18 were to their British counterparts.

The Anzac Experience - Chris Pugsley. Despite the name actually covers Australia, New Zealand and Canada, comparing the commanders and formations of each Dominion and seeing how their wartime experiences were both similar and different in all sorts of interesting ways.

Anzac and Empire - John Connor. Technically a biography of wartime Australian Defence Minister George Foster Pearce, this book mostly covers his work during the war. Fantastic look at the political side of the AIF and how it had to juggle public and political sentiment at home with the needs of the military and the British government.

Operational:

To Win the Battle & The War with Germany - Both by Rob Stevenson. To Win the Battle is an in depth study of the 1st Australian Division during the war and shows how an Australian formation lived, worked and fought during the war and what it took to produce a successful fighting formation. The War with Germany provides great coverage of the Australian campaigns on the Western Front, explaining the fighting they took part in as well. Covers how the battles were fought and where they fit into the larger picture.

Attack on the Somme & The Battle of Pozieres - Meleah Hampton. These are two deep operational analyses of Australian battles of 1916. Full of great research they’re probably not for the casual reader, but if you want to know how operations in 1916 were imagined, planned and carried out, these are where to look.

Monash as Military Commander - Peter Pedersen. A great study of Monash the general that clearly lays out his strengths and weaknesses from his time at Gallipoli through the Hundred Days. Puts Monash firmly in his place as a good, but not genius, general who used skills gained as a civilian to effective use on the Western Front.

Biographies:

Pompey Elliot - Ross McMullin. Another tome of a book but a truly great biography of one of the most colourful characters of the AIF. A charismatic leader and fiercely Australian, Elliot split opinion both in the AIF and the British military. A smart commander he was passed over for promotion due to his explosive temper and clashes with his superiors. Details how deeply affected he was by the events of Fromelles and how his life ended in suicide after the war.

John Monash - Geoffrey Serle. The biography of Monash. There’s been a spate of them in the last decade and none come close to this one.

The Soul of Anzac: William Birdwood - John Dermot Millar. It’s tough to understand the AIF and it’s peculiar brand of Australian Britishness, but it helps to know the man who led the AIF.

Misc:

Bad Characters  - Peter Stanley. Looks at the dark side of the men of the AIF looking at topics of criminality, discipline, sex and disease and the like. A good counter to a lot of the Anzac mythology.

Anzac’s Dirty Dozen - Craig Stockings. Despite the terrible name this is a very good look at some of the most enduring myths about Australia during the war and shows that the reality is much more interesting.

What’s Wrong With Anzac? - Marilyn Lake, Henry Reynolds, Joy Damousi, Mark Mckenna. Not strictly about the war itself but a good look at where we are now with commemoration and the raising of Anzac to a secular religion in Australia. Not actually an attack on Australian history, but more on the culture and politics that have twisted it.

[snowbellewells]

“A Long Forgotten Song”

(A CS family fluff fic for @whimsicallyenchantedrose‘s belated birthday gift!)

by: @snowbellewells

This little fic was meant to be for Jennifer (@whimsicallyenchantedrose‘s) birthday, but that was more than a week ago now.  I’m hoping this bit of fluff and CS family feels will still be an enjoyable gift for her in appreciation for her friendship, writing encouragement, and just being a helpful, amazing, gifted and kind member of the fandom.  This isn’t necessarily divergent from canon, but it’s certainly future headcanon, in which Hope is five or six and I have imagined Killian and Emma might have adopted a child as well.  (That doesn’t really come into the fic, I just think they would adopt with their histories, and Killian is mentioned as being a father of three at one point. )  

Before it gets any more belated….

“A Long Forgotten Song”

It had been a rather long day at the station - somewhat tedious and dreary - and so Killian Jones had been more than happy to volunteer for picking up their daughter from her voice lessons at five-thirty and escaping the mundane parade of dwarves accusing one another of some brazen act of malfeasance, complaints about leaky cellars and roofs due to the recent spate of rainy days, and the pleas to go out on search patrol for missing house pets possibly lost in the downpour. Certainly he would take these common small town grievances over dangerous new villains swooping in and raining down chaos of which his Sheriff wife and fellow deputy father-in-law would heedlessly throw themselves in the way, regardless of the risk to their own lives and limbs. Still, one could only try to decipher Dopey’s flying hand gestures accusing Leroy of once again stealing the extra bacon slice Granny fondly slipped onto his breakfast plate at the diner so many times before having to get out of the office for a breather.

The sky was still a heavy grey full of low-hanging clouds that threatened even more rain as he parked the cruiser at the curb of the pretty blue house with a wide front porch, just down the street from the convent where the nuns - well, the fairies, technically - made their home in Storybrooke. He could already hear Hope’s high, chattering voice as soon as he opened the door, and he shook his head in amusement as her light words prattled along, hardly pausing for breath, added to only occasionally by a calmer, more sedate, adult chuckle at the proper moments in his little girl’s story.

Glancing up the walk, Killian could see his daughter and her music teacher both seated on the woman’s large, cushioned front porch swing, Hope’s tiny powder-keg of a form bouncing in excitement as she continued her narrative, and her ever-patient instructor nodding along with fittingly wide eyes as if she had never heard a more gripping tale in her life. Of course, once he had stepped out of the car, the sound of its door closing caused Hope’s head of riotously curling dark hair to whip around at the noise and a squeal to leave her upon catching sight of him.

“Papa!” she called, leaping to her feet and up from the swing as if she thought she could fly - startling both his and her teacher’s hearts into their throats until she landed safely on the porch floorboards. Running down the steps to grip him around the knees, Hope then took his hook in both of her little hands and tugged him back the way she had come, still exclaiming, “Wait until you hear what I learned today! It’s so pretty!!  And Ms. D. says a pirate lady might have sung it on her ship during watch late at night.”

Killian Jones couldn’t help the raised, curious eyebrow and smirk he shot toward the other adult on the porch at her proclamation, anymore than he could staunch the swell of emotion that nearly overcame him every single time his daughter grasped his metal appendage as easily and as simply as if it were a hand of flesh and bone, not troubled in the least by its presence, or the surge of pride he somehow felt - as retired as he might be - at Hope’s constant interest in pirates and the sea. To his chagrin, and Emma’s perpetual amusement, Hope was more than a bit piratical in her bearing and the mischief she could concoct as well, so the very suggestion that the song she had learned in her day’s lesson might have been sung at sea had surely made her a quite willing pupil. “Is that so, Love?” he asked mildly, holding back his mirth in the hope of avoiding the sort of stubborn temper one could flare in her if not careful.

“Sorry if I’m a bit late,” he added for her teacher’s benefit. Jennifer was her name, though Killian did not feel quite familiar enough to address her that informally, though he knew Emma often did. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

He rarely used most of his former flirtatious feminine nicknames with women about town either, not once he and Emma had been married and since he had become a father of three. Not that he felt there had been anything wrong with such playful appellations, and he still pulled out the fanciful “Milady Snow” for Emma’s mother and occasionally flushed Granny’s cheeks with a pleased blush upon calling her “Lass” as if she were twenty years old once more.  But it had only taken catching the tense, worried look of fear on Emma’s face (which she tried to deny when he asked) one time to make plying his charms with anyone other than his wife lose all appeal. It had appeared as if she still thought someone could actually beguile him or lure him away from her, and he could only shake his head in stunned disbelief at the very idea. So when Aurora smiled at him thankfully as he caught her runaway second son at the T-ball diamond, or when Tink giggled merrily and laid her hand on his forearm while  he joked with her at the market, Killian was friendly and kind, but also quick to gently disentangle himself as clearly as possible without any of his old quips to play up the moment.

Jennifer smiled back at him, her expression open and genuine, with an indulgent sparkle in her eyes as they flicked back to Hope beside him. “Of course not. It just seemed like such a lovely evening. Hope and I thought we’d come outside to wait until you arrived.”

Killian figured that was quite probably mostly Hope’s idea. His little buccaneer would never willingly stay indoors if given the choice, and her teacher was plainly just one more friend and neighbor who could not withstand her natural charm.

“Papa, come on!” Hope urged impatiently, practically wriggling at his side. “Don’t you want to hear the song we learned? It’s a sea shanty.”

“Aye, little love, of course I do,” he nodded, ceasing his conversation and wandering thought and turning full attention back to her.

Nodding sagely, as if she would have expected nothing else from her doting papa, Hope’s tiny fingers, still wrapped around his shining metal appendage pulled him behind her as Ms. D. led them back into her foyer and through to the sunroom where she kept her piano. Hope proudly led him to the settee on one wall, under a large window, urging him to sit where he could enjoy her performance; her teacher all the while merely watching with a gentle smile on her face.  

When Jennifer saw that the Captain was settled and ready for them to begin, she seated herself at the piano, much as she had been during Hope’s vocal lesson earlier, and the child came to stand practically at her elbow, beaming and nodding that she was indeed ready when asked.  Her teacher held in a chuckle at her pupil’s enthusiasm, the Jones’ daughter puffing her little chest out with pride at having something new to show her father, and her bright green eyes sparkling with joy and excitement.  Turning to place her hands on the keys, she gave Hope a count to prepare her, and then launched into the first notes of the piece they had been practicing that afternoon.

As often happened, especially when she had a willing compatriot to get swept along with her, Jennifer lost herself in the words and the notes, letting the tune she had found for Hope’s newest song carry her along on its soothing melody. So carried away they both were in fact, that she didn’t really come back to herself until she played the last note, Hope stopped singing, and they both looked over to find their former pirate audience with misty eyes, shaking himself as if from a dream, before quickly straightening up and slapping his hand on his thigh in applauding approval.  “That was beautiful, ladies!  Truly quite magnificent!” Killian Jones praised sincerely.

She wasn’t going to call him on the fact that his voice sounded hoarse with some unspoken and hastily covered emotion. His daughter, however, showed no such restraint.  Rushing forward, Hope threw herself into his lap, her arms wrapping around her father’s neck and squeezing until he unwound them slightly to breathe properly again. “Oh no, Papa, what’s wrong?  Didn’t you like it?  Ms. D. looked up a special song just for me.  We thought it was really pretty.”

Killian Jones seemed to master himself, and whatever melancholy had gripped him momentarily was gone from his face as he shook his head, quickly moving to reassure his child. He also seemed to be shooting an apologetic look Jennifer’s way over Hope’s curls, though she was hardly offended (if admittedly a bit curious). “No, no, I liked it very much….it’s...nothing like that.”  His voice trailed off for a moment as he gathered Hope more securely on his knee.  “I just… that melody...I hadn’t heard it for many years. It seemed to be coming out of a dream when you started it.  My mother used to sing that to me…. A long time ago….”

Now, Jennifer knew enough of the reformed Captain Hook’s story to know just how long ago that truly might have been, but she wasn’t going to pry, and she wasn’t going to confuse a six-year-old if all of that realm-hopping, time-stands-still in Neverland confusion hadn’t been explained to Hope. She knew for herself the power of a song to take a person back to another place in time. While that power was a gift, it could bring bittersweet memories as well as purely happy ones.

Gentleman to the core though, Killian Jones seemed determined to see that they both knew he found their performance lovely.  ���Thank you, both of you.  I would not have thought to ever hear that chorus again.  It was captivating.”

Jennifer merely nodded, letting him know he was more than welcome.  Hope, looking relieved, merely hugged her papa tightly, then slid down to the floor, her fleeting attention no longer content to be still.  “Yes, thank you Ms. D! See you next week!” And then she was skipping back out of the room to the door.

Captain Jones remained just a moment longer, his voice quiet, still a bit awesd and touched as he added, “Thank you, Milady...truly. It was wonderful to hear my mother’s lullaby again.”  With a little bow to her, he followed his daughter down the porch steps and back to the car, leaving Jennifer infinitely glad she she had picked that particular song of the many that she had uncovered in her research.  She would have never expected Hope’s father to listen to it as if they had been giving him the best treasure ever unearthed in his long and storied career.

~ Notes: I was going to include lyrics to a sea shanty (I looked up several) for Hope to be singing, but I decided to leave that open to interpretation. The one I was leaning toward, with lyrics like: “Yo! Ho, how we go!

Oh how the winds blow!

White Wings, they never grow weary

Night comes I long for my dearie

I’ll spread out my white wings

And sail home to thee…” ended up being too fast paced to sound like a lullaby once I looked up a recording of it.  I considered some others, “Endearing Young Charms”, “Cliffs of Doneen”, and others (Including “She Moved Through the Fair”), but in the end I liked them all and couldn’t really settle on one for sure.  If you know of an Irish sea shanty you particularly like, just pretend it’s that one Hope’s singing! :)

[nicksswedishblog]

10 Swedish fiction books

1.We Know You Remember- intricately plotted police procedural set in the alluring landscapes of Sweden’s High Coast region of Ångermanland. A murder in a small town brings the memory of a long-closed murder case rising to the surface, uprooting guilt, collective grief and the town’s festering secrets. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

2.Rites of Spring - After moving to the small, inward-looking community of Tornaby in Skåne, a doctor becomes embroiled in the investigation of a decades-old murder of a young girl. Feeling an affinity with the young girl’s troubled past, she becomes increasingly determined to unearth the truth – and with it the community’s painful secrets. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

3. Anxious People - From the multi-million-selling author of A Man Called Ove comes this witty, unpredictable story about a bank robbery gone wrong and the havoc that ensues. After trying to hold up a cashless bank, a would-be robber bursts into an open apartment viewing and politely takes everyone hostage. In true Backman form, the novel is packed full of exuberant, entertaining characters, from bitter IKEA addicts to ridiculous estate agents to an actor-slash-rabbit. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

4. Osebol - this quiet, meditative ode to a small Värmland village on the brink of depopulation is quite unlike anything else. Composed of the interwoven testimonies of almost all of the 40 remaining inhabitants of Osebol- - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

5 The Family Clause- a bad-tempered, arrogant father’s ten-day visit to Stockholm to see his adult children brings old tensions to breaking point. Told from the perspectives of multiple characters (including a ghost and a four-year-old child), personal crises, generational conflicts and painful memories build to a heady cocktail of familial resentment and frustration, as the son tries to break free of a pact he made with his father. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

6. To Cook a Bear - It is the summer of 1852 in a small village in Sweden’s far north. Jussi, a young Sami boy fleeing an abusive home, is taken in by kind and charismatic Revivalist preacher Lars Levi Læstadius. Jussi becomes Læstadius’ eager disciple. When a spate of murders strike the inward-looking community, Jussi assists the preacher in unmasking the true predator. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

7.Nordic Fauna - In this collection of strange, mesmeric short stories, Andrea Lundgren explores the borderlands of the human and natural (and even supernatural) worlds to create a northern magical realism with a dark, earthy undertow. From foxes to whales to angels, the creatures that roam through this collection spark a desire for something more in their human counterparts: a longing for transformation. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

8. The Bear Woman - As punishment for a scandal aboard a ship, a sixteenth-century French noblewoman, Marguerite de la Rocque, is abandoned on a small island north of Nova Scotia. Against all the odds she manages to survive. Centuries later, a writer sets out to rescue her story from the margins of history, but her search for ‘the Bear Woman’ forces her to contemplate much wider questions of fact and fiction, and her own writing process. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

9. W. - In this internationally acclaimed novel, Steve Sem-Sandberg masterfully pieces together the life of Johan Christian Woyzeck – a former soldier who killed the woman he claimed to love, and the subject of Georg Büchner's ground-breaking unfinished play from 1836. Making use of archive and documentary material, Sem-Sandberg explores the life and inner turmoil of Woyzeck, and the unjust society that created him. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

10.  The Antarctica of Love - Opening with the brutal murder of a young woman on the margins of society, Sara Stridsberg’s stunning yet haunting fifth novel follows its protagonist, Inni, into the afterlife, as she looks back on her life, her murder, and the ongoing lives of those she left behind. - https://sweden.se/culture/arts-design/10-must-read-books-from-sweden

[laurelsofhighever]

The Falcon and the Rose Ch. 15 - West Roth

The winter of 9:31 Dragon draws to a bitter close. Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir, hero of the people, has revealed a string of secret letters between King Cailan and Empress Celene of Orlais. The specifics are unclear, but suspicion of Orlesians run deep, and there are always those willing to take advantage of political scandal. Declaring the king unfit to rule, Loghain has retreated to his southern stronghold in Gwaren, with Queen Anora by his side. Fear and greed threaten to tear Ferelden apart. In Denerim, Cailan busies himself with maps and battle plans, hoping to stem the tide of blood before it can start. In the Arling of Edgehall, King Maric’s bastard son fights against the rebels flocking to the traitor’s banner, determined to free himself from the shadow of his royal blood. And in Highever, Rosslyn Cousland, bitter at being left behind, watches as her father and brother ride to war, unaware of the betrayal lurking in the smile of their closest friend.

Words: 2826 Chapter summary: After weeks of trying to hold her people together, Rosslyn finally meets Howe on the field of battle.

CW:  canon-typical violence, battle scenes, and gore throughout; animal cruelty in the first two paragraphs

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

Seventeenth day of Drakonis, 9:32 Dragon

Sat atop her horse, Rosslyn watched the battle unfold with anxious intensity. She was hidden in the trees along with her house guard and a unit of mounted templars, waiting for the right moment to spring her trap. Across the river, the dust of the first skirmishes had settled, and the main force of the two armies slogged it out, shield-to-shield in the afternoon sun.

They had chosen their field well, on a flat plain tucked into a meander of the West Roth River so that their enemy couldn’t use his superior numbers to outflank them. Perceiving them trapped against the spated river, Howe had sent his cavalry thundering down the slope, with the war dogs baying and the troopers’ blades flashing, in the hopes of panicking Highever’s infantry into a rout. But that morning, runners had gone out beyond the battle lines and scattered a cloud of deadly-sharp caltrops just where the ground began to level out, and at full gallop the charge had never stood a chance. With a terrible noise of horses and dogs, Howe’s cavalry had fallen apart before it could even reach its target, a wall of muscle and steel that writhed and kicked and struggled, impaled on barbed iron spikes. Troopers had shrieked as their mounts crushed them. It had been horrifying, a tragic waste, but war was war and in one stroke Howe had been robbed of his swift victory, his army had been hobbled, and his soldiers had been made witness to the ruthlessness of Highever’s commander.

Even so, Rosslyn had been glad when Teagan ordered the archers to loose a volley into the line and put an end to the screaming.

Howe had learned caution after that. What remained of his cavalry had retreated, his pet apostates had cracked and frozen the ground to make the caltrops useless, and with a steady beating of swords on shields, the massive bulk of his infantry had advanced stolidly down the hill.

“Much good may it do you,” Rosslyn murmured now with a vicious grin. “There I am, you mongrel. Go and get me.”

She watched as Morrence, dressed in as much of Rosslyn’s armour as would fit on her smaller, slighter frame, wheeled Highever’s cavalry across the field like a flock of starlings, with Cuno at her side. They danced just out of Howe’s reach, strafing along the ranks of pike-defended archers and then propping away before the remains of the enemy cavalry could retaliate. The brow of the falcon helm flashed in the sun, drawing attention away from the almost too-easy advance of his infantry. It wouldn’t be long now. Lasan stamped an impatient hoof.

Down in the melee, the house standards of Highever’s allies stood out like butterflies against the dullness of leather and dust – the Storm Crow of West Hill, Loren’s Sunburst, and in the centre, the Tower and Stars of Rainesfere next to her own Laurels. Alistair was down there somewhere, holding the line of the shield wall.  A prick of worry needled Rosslyn’s gut before she could push it away, remembering when she had last seen him, when he had sought her out by the picket lines to deliver Teagan’s final report before Howe’s troops crested the hill. Most of her guards had been mounted already, waiting only for her to lead them into the woods beyond the camp.

“Are you set?” she had asked as she waved him over.

“Everything’s ready,” he answered. “We’ll stick to the plan, don’t worry. We know what we’re doing, and all we can do now is wait.”

She nodded, glancing over her milling troops. “I’ve never been very good at that.”

“The trick is to let your mind go blank and avoid thinking about anything at all,” he replied, with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Easier for some than others, I would say.” Banter she could do. It added distance to the churn of her stomach, knowing that she wasn’t just leading a skirmish, but commanding an entire force that was relying on her to see them safe.

“Was that an insinuation about my mental capacity?”

She gasped. “Such a suggestion is unwarranted slander.” The effort was too much. She had to steady her breath. “You’ll be in the thick of it – they’ll come straight for you,” she said.

“If you’re not careful, my lady, that noble façade of yours will crack and everyone will find out you do care.” But the tease fell flat and Alistair rubbed a hand through his hair, so it stuck up at odd angles.

She fought the urge to reach out and smooth it down. “Decent sparring partners are difficult to find these days.”

“Is that so?” His gaze flicked down to the Cousland sword belted to her waist, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “You promised.”

Her fingers closed over the pommel. “I remember, but… Howe’s out there. This is my chance to –” She stumbled. Howe needed to die by her father’s sword, and she needed to be the one to do it, but explaining why either of those things mattered took more effort than she had when confronted by the hurt shining in his eyes. “My family deserves justice.”

Alistair’s scowl deepened. “I see.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If you were that sorry, you wouldn’t be doing it,” he snapped.

“Believe what you want.” She made to step away – it was a waste of time to try and make him understand, she should have known he wouldn’t – but he blocked her path.

“So that’s it, is it?” he growled. He took a step forward, looming in his coat of splintmail. “This is how the valiant Falcon of Highever keeps her word? The darling of the people, so desperate to show what she’s worth and too proud to use a common sword, even if it’s likely to get her killed. Is that what you want? Will it be worth having Howe’s head when your guts are spilling over the grass? You know it won’t bring them back!”

He blinked, then, mouth agape as if to catch back all the words he had not meant to say, but she had already marched past him towards where Lasan waited in the hands of a groom. After a final check that her horse’s tack was sitting properly, she mounted and gathered the reins, taking care to steady her temper.

“You’d best get back to your troops, Ser,” she said, when Alistair remained unmoving.

He shook his head. “It’s not worth your life, Rosslyn.” The look on his face…

“Gods go with you.”

And she had turned and ridden away, in too high a temper to appreciate that she might never see him again.

She couldn’t afford to think about that now. Howe’s infantry was beginning to spill around the edges of her own. The weight of superior numbers threatened to envelop the Laurels entirely, and with nowhere to run, it would only be a matter of time before they succeeded, but the scent of victory had drawn them far enough away from Howe to make them vulnerable. It was the moment she had been waiting for.

“Send the message,” she said to the runner waiting at Lasan’s shoulder. The young man saluted crisply and darted down the bank to where a team of carpenters and mages waited with ice spells and a drawbridge made of pallets and spare logs. Rosslyn watched him go, choosing to focus on that rather than the thrill of fury coiling in her stomach.

“Are you ready, Gideon?” she asked her commander.

“Right behind you, lass,” he replied, his white teeth flashing against his dark skin. “Wouldn’t miss this.”

“We’re all with you,” Irminric added from her other side. He and the two templars riding with him would be her defence against Howe’s apostates, while she went for the man himself.

Rosslyn laughed. “In that case, it’s time for some Bear-baiting.” She stood in the stirrups and turned to the troopers behind her. “Make ready! You’ve all waited for this; you all know what’s been taken from you! I promised you vengeance, now go down there and take it!” She drew her sword high, the weight of it a comfort in her hand. Two hundred blades flashed in answer, drawn with a wave of whoops and wordless shouts that drowned out the noise of battle below, and with a feral grin she gave the signal to advance.

Her cavalry poured down the hill. They clattered over the ice-anchored bridge at a trot, and as they climbed the other side, Rosslyn stood high in the stirrups, a piercing yell on her lips, a shriek like her epithet. Lasan whinnied a challenge, echoed by the other horses as the soldiers echoed her. They crested the bank at a ground-shattering charge, a wall of sound and steel appearing out of nowhere with the Laurels blazing as they split into two horns to smash the enemy left and right. Rosslyn saw the line of Amaranthine infantry pause in confusion – Morrence swept down on them, the first Falcon on the field – she felt the ripple of uncertainty, and when the spearpoint of her attack broke into their flank, it crumpled like wet paper.

The smack of impact jarred up her arm; momentum alone carried her through the first stunned ranks of the enemy. Men fell screaming under the flash of her blade, under Lasan’s hooves and Iriminric’s shield. She lost track of things, her head full of noise, her throat already hoarse from shouting and her eyes blinded by the westering sun. Howe’s soldiers tried to run, but the mages sent immolations over their heads, creating a line of roaring flame that pinned and panicked those it did not consume.

In seconds the balance of the fight shifted, and the defensive bend of the river became a killing field. Surrounded on all sides, with magic raining from above, the Amaranthine army was pushed towards the river as Highever’s ranks parted and reformed to block their enemy’s escape, with the cavalry sowing chaos enough to keep them from forming a defence, and the day began to turn. Heartbeats stretched. Rosslyn sank into herself, detached from the slaughter, the faces of those she struck down blurring as each next one rose to take the place of the one before, the one thought in her mind the drive to press out of the melee, north, to the hill where her family’s murderer sat smug under the fluttering orange and white of the Bear.

“House guard to me!” she yelled when she finally found an opening. She rode Lasan through the last line and saw a flash of blue and knew the Laurels followed her. Others stayed to corral the enemy but as she flew past, her soldiers cheered in salute and hurried to plug the space she left in her wake. Howe was turning, fleeing from the unexpected change in fortune, but the hounds bayed at her heels and her horse was a spark of fire, and she herself was the Falcon, who dived out of the sun and swept in death with her wings, and she would not suffer the traitor to live.

They were gaining.

“Ware, riders!”

The cry came from her right, and she looked, puzzled, drawing in Lasan’s speed to follow the trooper’s pointing finger to the bottom of the hill behind her. What she saw made her blood run cold.

A wedge of heavy horse, charging without banner along the river’s edge, the troopers’ blades high as they bellowed like bulls, straight for the exposed back of her infantry. A secret reserve? She couldn’t think.

“My lady!”

She saw Howe’s banner disappear over the hill, the coward running to save himself, taking her vengeance with him.

“Lady Rosslyn, what do we do?”

She saw her soldiers turn, saw their courage break even as Morrence dragged her wing out of the melee to meet the new threat.

“Which way, my lady?”

The goal was Howe. Without him, there would be no need for rebellion in the North. Without him, Highever could be free. There could be no second chance. If she lost him now, he would sit in comfort and let her break herself against her own walls and laugh as she spent her rage and her blood to tear him down. And yet to chase him down would be to abandon those who had laid their lives on her trust, to break the promise she had made them just like she had broken the promise made on her family’s sword.

Her army, or her home?

“My lady…?”

I’m sorry, Father. She squeezed her eyes shut and kicked Lasan into a gallop.

--

The ground trembled as Alistair braced against the oncoming cavalry. He shouted for the ragged shield wall to hold. They had found spears from somewhere, and the line in front of him dug them into the ground, the points levelled straight for the horses’ hearts. It wouldn’t be enough. The Amaranthine infantry clawed at the lines behind him, spurred by the appearance of allies and the panic it had caused among Highever’s ranks. Loren’s banner had fallen, the Templars were being overwhelmed, and Alistair himself had watched Teagan go down under a mace before he managed to stem the rout and rally the line. He didn’t know if his uncle still lived, didn’t have the spare energy to find out. He thought back to his only other battle, all the waiting he had done under the winter-sleeping pine trees, and after, when he had laughed until he choked to find himself still alive. There would be no survival this time, he knew; the only question was how long his strength would last. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the falcon helm flash in the sun as Captain Morrence led the Highever cavalry on a bloody path to rescue the mages, and readjusted his shield on his arm.

“Hold steady,” he growled at the soldiers next to him. “We can hold them.”

He breathed. The horses came on. Eight strides – five. At least Rosslyn made it away. At least she was safe.

And then, three strides out from the clash, a banner unfurled and blazed the royal War Dogs of Ferelden, and the cavalry propped and swung away, flowing around the Highever infantry like a river around a rock. In the confusion, Howe’s mercenaries pressed their advantage. The line broke. The cavalry washed against the melee without a clear target and was deflected for another pass, and between on heartbeat and the next Alistair lost track of the banner as the ordered fighting devolved into a writhing sea of steel.

His feet slipped in the mud. He smashed his shield into someone’s face, recognising only the orange and white of the Bear before whirling to the rescue of a boy with the Laurels on his surcoat. His breath sawed through his lungs but he kept pushing, kept slashing at anything that came within range of him, half-blind with other people’s blood.

“To me!” he gasped. “To the Laurels!”

Finally, the defensive line was reined into some sort of order, but a flurry of arrows hissed overhead and the man beside him was too slow to raise his shield. Alistair cursed. There seemed no end to the Amaranthine soldiers. The royal cavalry penned them in, driving them onto the battered and wavering shield wall. In battle with fresh soldiers, the tactic might have worked, but right now it was only going to get more people killed.

“Look, over there!”

The cheer went up and Alistair turned despite his better instincts. It was Rosslyn. She surged through the enemy like a scythe through summer hay, cutting off the advance of the Amaranthine infantry with a wall of swords and striking hooves. The pressure on the defensive line eased. They pushed forward, gathered up the wounded. Someone must have recognised her, or her horse, because the enemy swarmed towards her with renewed vigour, but by then she was already clear of the melee and arcing around to meet it again.

Movement distracted him from the sight and he flinched as a broad-headed axe swiped for his head. He raised his shield just in time, cursing himself for forgetting the first rule of combat, but the axe caught it at a bad angle and with a deep crack pain shot through his arm into his shoulder. He managed to parry the next blow and staggered backwards, but his feet slipped again. Exhaustion took him to his knees. His opponent prowled forwards, a giant in armour that was hard-used but well-maintained, with a neatly trimmed moustache beneath his helmet. Alistair supposed it must be the shock that was letting him see such fine details. He bared his teeth and brought his sword in close. The axe came swinging for his head.

[spicynbachili1]

Best PC gaming deals: graphics cards, SSDs, games and more (November 9th)

I hope you all loved burning the effigy of a 412-year-old man who occurred to be standing by some gunpowder beneath the Homes of Parliament final weekend. Now that I’ve lastly washed the odor of bonfire out of my garments, it’s time to look forward to that the majority joyous of November holidays, the deals-athon the tip all deals-athons, Black Friday. Some retailers clearly didn’t get the memo about it being simply on a Friday this 12 months, as a few them have began their Black Friday deal celebrations early, these sillies. That’s excellent news for us, although, because it means low, low costs now that received’t change on the day itself (nicely, it does if you happen to’re procuring at Ebuyer a minimum of).

To that finish, there are many large reductions to be discovered over within the camp this week, however there are nonetheless loads of recreation offers happening, too, simply in case the current spate of gross sales hasn’t made your Steam library collapse in on itself but. Whether or not it’s low-cost Paradox video games, sneaky Klei financial savings or a Blendo Video games assortment particular, your offers herald will present.

Keep in mind, if you wish to preserve observe of each deal happening proper now, skip on over to our Black Friday 2018 hub, the place yow will discover all the most effective graphics card offers, finest monitor offers and extra.

Sport offers

Ever fancied making an attempt your hand at making your personal RPG? Effectively, Degica are doing a giant previous RPG Maker software program bundle over on Humble at this time, and the one monster you need to politely take turns beating with a stick is your personal pockets. Hooray! There’s an entire host of various tiers you will get, together with RPG Maker XP, three Sport Character Hub packs and dialog JRPG Final Phrase for simply $1, or RPG Maker VX plus two extra video games for $eight (round £6.10).

If you happen to’re actually feeling within the artistic temper, there’s additionally RPG Maker VX Ace and a bevy of video games accessible within the $15 (£11.44) bracket, and Visible Novel Maker + Stay 2D, RPG Maker MV and greater than a dozen MV-related graphics packs within the prime $50 ($38.15) bundle. As all the time, you possibly can pay no matter you need for every tier, and you may select how a lot of your cash goes to Degica, Humble or Humble’s chosen charities.

It’s Ubisoft Heroes week over on GamesPlanet proper now, which basically means you will get medieval/samurai/viking sword ’em up For Honor for cheapsies, in addition to numerous entries within the May & Magic Heroes sequence for as much as 75% off their traditional worth. Bizarrely, Simply Dance 2017 additionally counts as an ‘Ubisoft Hero’ in line with GamesPlanet, as a result of apparently humiliating somebody on the dance flooring with a 67% off deal is simply as heroic as sticking weapons in individuals’s faces.

Alternatively, why not indulge your strategic mind with GamesPlanet’s Paradox sale? Right here, Cities Skylines Deluxe Version goes for an enormous 80% off (that’s £5.99 within the UK), whereas the Crusader Kings II is 77% off (all the way down to £6.99). In the meantime, Europa Universalis IV Digital Excessive Version can be 80% off, which can set you again simply £7.99.

In the meantime, over on Steam, Blendo Video games Full Assortment is experiencing 73% flights of reductions proper now, bagging you all 5 video games from Blendo’s again catalogue for simply $17.89 or £13.02. That features Quadrilateral Cowboy, Thirty Flights of Loving and extra, however be sure to nab it fast, as the gathering will return to its common worth of $65.94 / £47.94 at 6pm GMT or 10am PT TODAY.

If that doesn’t take your fancy, Klei are additionally having a writer sale on Steam this weekend till November 12, the place you possibly can decide up such delights as harrowing survival recreation Don’t Starve for simply £1.79 / $2.79, musical roguelike Crypt of the NecroDancer for a mere £2.19 / $2.99, and glorious espionage ’em up Invisible Inc for a sneaky £three.74 / $four.99.

UK offers:

Time to sound the offers horn, as a result of have I obtained some candy reductions for you this week. First up is the MSI Radeon RX 580 Armor OC (8GB), which goes for simply £200 (down from £310) as a part of Ebuyer’s Black Friday Early Hen offers. This implies the worth received’t change or go any decrease between now and Black Friday itself, so you possibly can bag your self a discount early protected within the data that you just received’t get duped by yet one more worth reduce in two weeks time. Have a learn of our AMD Radeon RX 580 evaluation to see the way it stacks up, however in brief it’s my prime finest graphics card suggestion for flawless 1080p gaming and respectable 1440p gaming proper now alongside Nvidia’s 6GB GTX 1060.

Ebuyer are additionally performing some jumbo early Black Friday reductions on Samsung’s 860 Evo SSD as nicely, with the 1TB mannequin going for a tasty £160 (down from £242), plus you get a free copy of Murderer’s Creed Odyssey thrown in as nicely. Once more, that is a part of Ebuyer’s Black Friday Early Hen offers, so the worth will stay mounted all by means of Black Friday. Have a learn our Samsung 860 Evo evaluation to see why it’s prime of my finest gaming SSD rankings.

Elsewhere Overclockers UK have shaved 20% off the worth of the Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX Vega 64 OC, the place it’s now £500 as a substitute of £630. Sadly, AMD’s three free video games provide is not operating, so it’s not fairly pretty much as good worth as earlier than, however that is nonetheless an excellent card for prime notch, max high quality 1440p gaming, in addition to a little bit of 4K, so why not have a gander at our AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 evaluation to see the way it compares to its principal rival, the very similarly-priced GTX 1080.

Over in monitor land, the Acer Predator XB271HUA is presently all the way down to £440 over at CCL, down from its traditional worth of £610. I actually, actually appreciated its smaller sibling, the Acer Predator XB241H – a lot so it went straight in our greatest gaming monitor record – so if you happen to fancy the concept of a 27in 2560×1440, 165Hz TN panel with Nvidia G-Sync for lower than £500, that is an absolute steal.

Sticking with Acer for a second, their Predator Z35 continues to be going low-cost at Field, too. Effectively, I say low-cost – £799 is hardly pocket change within the grand scheme of issues, however it’s nonetheless a heck of loads higher than paying £995 for it, I’ll inform ya that. Once more, I used to be a giant fan of the Acer Predator Z35 after I examined it earlier this 12 months, and it’s arguably one of many higher curved 35in, 144Hz, G-Sync screens round.

US offers:

Newegg have additionally began their Black Friday celebrations with their large Black November occasion, however these costs appear to solely final for per week at a time, so there’s no assure these merchandise received’t abruptly obtain one other worth reduce on the day itself. Nonetheless, if you happen to’re prepared to warning to the wind and dive in now, then the Sapphire Radeon RX 580 Nitro+ (8GB) is an effective place to begin. That is now simply $260 till Monday.

Equally, these after the largest monitor they’ll probably match on their desks ought to try the 38in, 3840×1600 curved FreeSync display that’s the LG 38CB99-W, which is all the way down to $1000 from its common worth of $1800. Plus, you will get one other $50 off with the promo code 116BNGS32). That’s additionally till Monday.

There are nonetheless loads of good offers exterior of Newegg’s Black November occasion, after all, together with Dell’s 34in, 3440×1440, curved 120Hz G-Sync monitor, the Alienware AW3418DW, which is now simply $900 from Newegg (down from $1500), and the 34in, 3440×1440, FreeSync monitor, the LG 34UB88-P, which is all the way down to $420 from its traditional $800.

That’s all on your weekly offers heralding at this time. As all the time, a few of these offers might get snapped up fairly quick, so apologies if a few of these have already gone by the point you click on on them. For extra offers than you possibly can shake a stick at, do take a look by means of our jumob Black Friday hub, or have a flick thru our particular person Black Friday part pages, which cowl the most effective graphics card offers, finest monitor offers, finest gaming headset offers, finest gaming mouse and keyboard offers and finest SSD offers. Till subsequent week, glad offers searching.

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/best-pc-gaming-deals-graphics-cards-ssds-games-and-more-november-9th/

[hieromonkcharbel]

A DEADENING OF THE SPIRIT

1. Insensibility both in the body and in the spirit is deadened feeling, which, from long sickness and negligence, lapses into loss of feeling.

2. Insensibility is negligence that has become habit, benumbed thought, the child of predispositions, a snare for zeal, the noose of courage, ignorance of compunction, a door to despair, the mother of forgetfulness which gives birth to loss of the fear of God. And then she becomes the daughter of her own daughter.

3. He who has lost sensibility is a witless philosopher, a self-condemned commentator, a self-contradictory windbag, a blind man who teaches others to see. He talks about healing a wound and does not stop irritating it. He complains about sickness, and does not stop eating what is harmful. He prays against it, and immediately goes and does it. And when he has not done it, he is angry with himself; and the wretched man is not ashamed of his own words. ‘I am doing wrong,’ he cries, and eagerly continues to do so. His mouth prays against his passion, and his body struggles for it. He philosophizes about death, but he behaves as if he were immortal. He groans over the separation of soul and body, but drowses along as if he were eternal. He talks of temperance, and self-control, but he lives for gluttony. He reads about the judgment and begins to smile. He reads about vainglory, and is vainglorious while actually reading. He repeats what he has learnt about vigil, and drops asleep on the spot. He praises prayer, but runs from it as from the plague. He blesses obedience, but he is the first to disobey. He praises detachment, but he is not ashamed to be spiteful and to fight for a rag. When angered he becomes bitter, and he is angered again at his bitterness;; and he does not feel that, after one defeat, he is suffering another. Having overeaten he repents, and a little later again gives way. He blesses silence, and praises it with a spate of words. he teaches meekness, and during the actual teaching frequently gets angry. Having woken from passion he sighs, and shaking his head, he again yields to passion. He condemns laughter, and lectures on mourning with a smile on his face. Before others he blames himself for being vainglorious, and in blaming himself is only angling for glory about himself. He looks people in the face with passion, and talks about chastity. While frequenting the world, he praises those who live in stillness without realizing that he shames himself. He extols almsgivers, and reviles beggars. All the time he is his own accuser, and he does not want to come to his senses — I will not say cannot.

4. I have seen many people like this hear about death and the terrible judgment and shed tears, and with tears still in their eyes, they eagerly go to a meal. And I was amazed how this tyrant, this stinkpot of gluttony, by complete insensibility, can grow so strong as to turn the tables even on mourning.

5. As far as my poor powers and knowledge allow, I have exposed the wiles and weals of this stony, obstinate, raging and stupid passion. I have not the patience to expatiate on it. He who is experienced and able in the Lord should not shrink from applying healing to the sores. For I am not ashamed to admit my own powerlessness, since I am sorely afflicted with this sickness. I should not have been able to discover its wiles and tricks by myself, if I had not caught it and held it firmly, probing it to make it acknowledge what has been said above, and plying it with the scourge of the fear of the Lord and with unceasing prayer. That is why this tyrant and evil doer said to me: ‘My subjects laugh when they see corpses. When they stand at prayer, they are completely stony, hard and darkened. When they see the holy alter they feel nothing; when they partake of the Gift, it is as if they had eaten ordinary bread. When I see persons moved by compunction, I mock them. From my father I learnt to kill all good things which are born of courage and love. I am the mother of laughter, the nurse of sleep, the friend of a full belly. When exposed I do not grieve, I go hand in hand with sham piety.’

6. I was astounded at the words of this ravening creature, and asked her about her father, wishing to know his name, and she said: ‘I have no single parentage; my conception is mixed and vacillating. Satiety nourishes me, time makes me grow, and bad habit entrenches me. He who keeps this habit will never be rid of me. Be constant in vigil, meditating on the eternal judgment;; then perhaps I shall to some extent relax my hold on you, and then battle against my mother; for she is not in all cases the same. Pray often at the coffins, and engrave an indelible image of them in your heart. For unless you inscribe it there with the pen of fasting, you will never conquer me.’

The Ladder of Divine Ascent: Step 18 by St John Climacus

[junker-town]

Tiger Woods, drunk fans, and a few other reasons to watch The Players Championship

The Players is the biggest event on the PGA Tour and the biggest moneymaker in its history returns to TPC Sawgrass after three years away. Here are a few more reasons to get into this 2018 edition.

The debate over The Players Championship as golf’s fifth major is one of the more tedious debates in a sport full of tedious debates. It’s a cool annual golf tournament that is the biggest event on golf’s biggest tour, which, oddly enough, has no control or ownership of the four biggest stops on that tour. The Players could be your 5th major, or it could not be in the same way Joe Flacco was or maybe wasn’t once an elite NFL quarterback. Some people love it and others make snide remarks. The strength of field, however, is undeniable and the course is the most recognizable venue on the schedule not named Augusta. The general public knows it and may have some history with it, or at least watching its island 17th hole.

Whatever arbitrary status you want to assign it, The Players is mostly good and this one should be especially good. Here are a few reasons why I think it will be worth watching this year.

It’s time for PGA Tour to come out of hibernation

It’s been sleepy since Patrick Reed rolled in that final putt to win the Masters. The four weeks on the PGA Tour since have been ... we’ll be charitable and call it slow. We got:

Satoshi Kodaira winning an RBC Heritage that was tape delayed.

Andrew Landry, a fine story but not exactly a guy the Tour is going to promote, winning the Texas Open on arguably the worst course on the schedule.

Scott Piercy and Billy Horschel winning a two-man Zurich that lacked juice all weekend (despite, ICYMI, walk-up music).

A Wells Fargo Championship that just sputtered along and gave us some low-grade fireworks (think sparklers and smoke bombs) with a name champion at the end.

Sure, if you’re a golf nerd, there have been things to get into and takeaways that may have scratched your itch. And to be clear, there’s been plenty of cool things happening in the game outside the PGA Tour. But we’re due for something big and exciting this week. I’m sure of it!

Duval Drunks.

The PGA Tour can walk a fine line between hosting an outdoor drunkfest and a Shooter McGavin “Damn you people! This is golf, not a rock concert!” moment. This is almost the case every week now on the PGA Tour, where partying is mostly encouraged and the grazing herds oblige, using the nearby golf tournament, which they may or may not be watching, as reason to sit outside in the sun and get drunk.

The Tour’s marquee event, The Players, is a high profile test case of this constant line straddling. It’s not trying to be The Masters, and walking around makes you feel like they’re attempting to be the exact opposite of the staid and reserved notion of the “patron” upheld in Bobby Jones’ vision at Augusta. This event played at the Tour’s HQ and it’s their biggest event, but it’s also maybe the biggest non-Phoenix Open party on the schedule. The 17th gets notoriously raucous, and it puts some stress on this balance the Tour tries execute each week (I wrote many words about the scene after an enjoyable visit last year.)

It went sideways in 2015 when Sergio was heckled “three or four times” on every hole on the back nine on Sunday. Fans shouted during his swing, yelled for his ball to get in the water, and made him back off his shot several times, including at the 17th.

It was a mess that was overshadowed and quickly forgotten thanks to Rickie Fowler’s win, arguably the best finish in the event’s history.

Earlier this year, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan made a surprising (to those who follow this closely) tempered statement in response to players who were speaking up more often about a spate of fan behavior issues. Monahan said that, while they would monitor it closely, fans “yelling, ‘get in the bunker,’ that’s part of what our players have to accept.”

The merciless heckling of Sergio is an isolated, extreme case but given how many people there are around 17, and how many of them are drunk, you’re going to get idiots shouting. As an outsider, it’s a fascinating tension to watch, especially at the home of the Tour.

The money bath.

For years The Players boasted the richest purse in golf. That title has jumped around recently as the arms race between majors intensified, purse sizes started to become a thing more people talked about, and a flood of TV money buttressed the hosting golf organizations. In late 2013, it was big news when the PGA Tour and PGA of America made the joint move to bump the purses of their two marquee events, The Players and the PGA Championship, to $10 million. They even held a press conference for it!

Since then, all the majors have shot past that $10 million mark and now even the damn WGCs have $10M purses. The “richest purse” in golf title has changed hands a few times and now rests with the U.S. Open, which made the signficant jump from $10 to $12 million last year.

This year’s Players purse is up another $500k to an even $11 million. The winner’s payout is right on the cusp of the $2 million mark. For your edification, here’s your top 5 payout breakdown:

1 — $1.98 million

2 — $1.188 million

3 — $748,000

4 — $528,000

5 — $440,000

So here’s an opportunity to watch a (likely) current millionaire play for a silly amount of money at one the richest events in the game. Every little stroke or bad bounce on Sunday is usually the difference between hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It’s the best field in golf

This boast is an annual tussle between The Players and PGA Championship. The PGA, without fail, makes sure the top 100 in the world rankings get an invite. But there’s also a swath of their field reserved for PGA pros — their members from across the country giving lessons and selling sweaters at your local course. That’s a hit to the “deepest field” framing, and a problem The Players doesn’t have -- there are no amateurs, club pros, past champs with lifetime invites, or random open qualifiers.

This week we have every single player in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings (update: now just 49 thanks to Paul Casey WD’ing with an injury). After that, the field of 144 is filled with a whole bunch of top-level pros competing on the deepest, most competitive Tour in the world during an era when it’s never been deeper or more competitive. There was a time when some Euros would take a pass on this event. Maybe it just didn’t work with the schedule, or maybe there was some message trying to be sent to the stateside Tour (remember when world No. 1 Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy just skipped it in 2011). That never happens anymore, at least with the high-profile players. If you get an invite and you’re not hurt, you play.

This week we got everyone on hand and as a sign of just how deep the Tour is right now, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods are playing in the same group. For decades, the Tour didn’t have the luxury of loading them into the same group. They were always on opposite sides of the draw, to spread out the maquee names. But opposite Tiger this week is the trio of Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, and Justin Thomas, among other groupings. Phil isn’t needed to anchor the other side of the draw.

Everyone is here and some are bound to be involved come Sunday.

The car crash effect.

At these events, it can be fun to watch bad golf. These are often some of the most enjoyable moments of a four-day tournament with the best in the world scattered all over the course. Water on almost every hole and some notoriously difficult winds can create some car-crash conditions at this venue most know so well by now. The big numbers can pile up and while it may not be fun to be the player getting punched in the face over and over in public, it’s fun for everyone else watching.

Allegedly, the winds are much more intense and unpredictable in March, which is where this tourney is moving next year. Yay, more carnage.

Tiger.

You may have heard and read and seen, but Tiger Woods is here. He is playing in his first Players Championship since 2015. On its own, this is a reason to plug into this particular Players.

[flghtsldier-blog]

tag dump

( &.   visage  ‚    where the wind goes

( &.   aes  ‚    who has seen the wind

( &.   musing  ‚    caught by the sun i walk on fire

( &.   about  ‚    a temper at full spate

( rel.   michiru & haruka  ‚    wave of love and sound you take me

( rel.   o. senshi  ‚    like heaven’s own glorious stars

( ch.   michiru  ‚    where the sea whips and sings

( ch.   usagi  ‚    playing her parchment moon

( ch.   setsuna  ‚    with the past sitting warm on her knee

( ch.   hotaru  ‚    to a child dancing in the wind

[satonthelotuspier]

❄️ Untamed Winter Fest 2019 ❄️

Day 1 - Shiver - 1.5k

The first snow of winter had been falling steadily since earlier that day and the ground was now covered with a generous blanket of white.

Lan Jingyi paced around the perimeter, more to keep warm than over concerns of a breach, but even so it didn’t stop the shivers from skittering down his spine at the tendrils of cold which seemed to find their way under his robes, even wrapped up as tightly as he was.

He’d been set to guard the manor of the family who had asked for the Gusu Lan clan’s help in clearing up a sudden spate of ghoul attacks on their village. So here he was, patrolling the manor grounds as the one who’d drawn the short straw.

This time it wasn’t a particularly glamorous role, and he would much prefer to be in the thick of the action with Senior Wei and Sizhui and his peers, but after all, the Lan Sect’s teachings were responsibility and righteousness, not personal glory or preference.

He may sometimes come across as unreliable because he was argumentative and opinionated, but he’d never shirked his duty before and tonight wouldn’t be the start.

He heard the crunch of fresh snow underfoot, and turned to identify the cruncher.

The Wu family had asked the Lan sect for help because their manor was located near Gusu. That didn’t really explain what he was doing here. Or what he was doing at the manor rather than being at the forefront of the action with his uncle, Senior Wei.

“Jin Ling” he greeted cautiously, his breath frosting in the air. He paused with a flash of embarrassment as he remembered the other’s position and the manners he was now required to demonstrate as such. He coughed awkwardly, cupped his hands and gave a deep bow, “Sect Leader Jin” he corrected himself, “This humble disciple spoke in haste and gave offence”

Jin Ling snorted his displeasure, “You only ever open your mouth to give offence, Lan Jingyi” he said in that superior tone than stroked every hair on the back of Lan Jingyi’s neck the wrong way.

“Then I’m sorry my mouth offends you so easily, Young Mistress Jin” Lin Jingyi felt his colour rise with his temper as he scoffed at the other.

Instead of responding like for like a triumphant half-smile pulled at the side of Jin Ling’s mouth, clearly visible in the bright light shed by an almost-full moon reflecting on pure white snow.

Lan Jingyi had been neatly tricked out of his excessive formality.

And if he noticed what that smile did to Jin Ling’s normally sour face, or how snowflakes clung to the dark fan of his lashes, well that was no one else’s business but Lan Jingyi’s.

His problem to deal with. His secret to keep.

“Why aren’t you with Senior Wei?” he asked, none of his usual challenge in his voice because he was genuinely curious.

Oddly the question still seemed to rile Jin Ling up, “You-! Mind your own business” his chin cocked a notch higher, and his eyes flashed, readying himself for the inevitable argument that would follow whenever they spoke to each other.

But tonight Lan Jingyi just didn’t want to feed him.

“Fine” he tried to shrug but it turned into another shiver. As talking to Jin Ling had stopped his patrol all the extra warmth he’d generated had dissipated and the bitter cold of the night was making itself known again through his robes.

Jin Ling must have noticed because his head tipped downwards briefly, before he brought his arms out from behind his back. He held a fur-trimmed cloak.

“Here, its cold. Wear this” it was white, with a gold fur collar and the white peony, Sparks Amidst Snow, embroidered onto the breast.

Lan Jingyi was confused, “Why would I wear that? We live on a mountain and we’re used to the cold, our robes are warm enough”

“You’re shivering” Jin Ling countered his refusal with perfect sense..

“It looks garish. Your sect is so flashy, always throwing their money in people’s faces”

Jin Ling pulled a calming breath in through his nose, “I can’t help the Sect I was born into. And Gusu Lan is just as rich as Lanling Jin”

“At least we don’t dress like peacocks”

“No, just mourners at a funeral” Jin Ling snapped. “You’re such a mouth on legs” he sounded exasperated, and despite the fact Lan Jingyi hadn’t wanted to antagonise him into an argument he wasn’t going to take that insult gamely.

“And you’re just a bad temper with a bow”

Far from enraging Jin Ling that seemed to amuse him and he shook his head with a smile, vermilion forehead mark catching the moonlight.

“Jingyi don’t be so stubborn” Jin Ling complained, unfolding the cloak and holding it out for the Lan disciple, who had frozen in place and then actually quivered as he realised he really had heard Jin Ling drop formality completely and call him just Jingyi.

Jin Ling took advantage of his stillness to slip the cloak over Lan Jingyi’s shoulders, seemingly oblivious to what he’d said. His knuckles brushed the side of Lan Jingyi’s throat as he settled the fur trim into place. That sent another shiver coursing through Lan Jingyi, but for an entirely different reason.

And then Jin Ling gathered Lan Jingyi’s hair up and pulled it free from the collar of the cloak.

Lan Jingyi didn’t know how to react so he only managed to let out a choking noise. It was only then Jin Ling realised what he’d done.

“You-!” Lan Jingyi’s voice sounded like he’d been strangled, he turned around and backed away.

“I’m sorry Jingyi, I didn’t think, it was an accident”

“You-!” Lan Jingyi raised a shaking hand, pointing a finger at Jin Ling in accusation. The other’s temper rose to meet it.

“I said I was sorry, who cares about your stupid forehead ribbon anyway. I only wanted to see what you looked like in Jin colours, I didn’t mean to touch the thing”

“You-!” Lan Jingyi felt the angry flush, and took a threatening step forward, before Jin Ling’s words sank in. “Wait, what? Why would you want me to wear your clan colours?”

Jin Ling’s mouth fell open as he realised what he’d said, before he cast a panicked look around the courtyard as if he gave serious thought to just running away.

“Who said I wanted that? Why would I want to see you in Jin colours?” he demanded as his fist clenched tightly around Suihua’s scabbard.

“Jin Ling. You said it, tell me what game you’re playing immediately” Lan Jingyi was so frustrated at the hints, at the about faces, at Jin Ling’s obvious lies of denial he could scream.

“I’m not playing at anything. Listen, I’ll talk to Sect Leader Lan tomorrow. Don’t be mad, I’ll do it properly-”

“Jin Ling!” Lan Jingyi virtually shouted in his face, “Do what properly? Talk to Zewu-jun about what? What’s going on?” honestly, Lan Jingyi had a rough idea what Jin Ling wasn’t saying now, out of embarrassment, and shyness, and his usual contrariness, but he really, really wanted to hear him say it, because then he’d be able to say it back finally.

Jin Ling took a deep breath, “I touched your forehead ribbon, I know what it means. I’m willing to take responsibility for it”

Really? Lan Jingyi was stunned to silence at his stupidity. He shook his head and turned, preparing to stalk off, but Jin Ling grabbed his wrist.

“Where are you going?”

“To patrol, what I should be doing instead of listening to your drivel” his voice was tight with anger and it was obvious Jin Ling didn’t know what to do about it, or why he was angry

“I’m trying my best Jingyi”

“You don’t tell a boy you’re going to do the right thing just because you touched his forehead ribbon, moron” Lan Jingyi yelled at him.

“But why not? I like you” Jin Ling yelled back.

Finally.

“And was that really so difficult to say?” Lan Jingyi asked through the grin that took over his entire face.

Jin Ling stared at him, slack-mouthed and uncomprehending.

So Lan Jingyi took pity on him, “I like you too, idiot. Did you really stay here instead of going out to hunt with Senior Wei just to see me?”

Lan Jingyi watched the automatic denial rise to Jin Ling’s lips before he lowered his head, smothered the word, and nodded slightly.

He was such an adorable moron.

But what their mutual, if slightly abrasive, confession meant for them and their futures would have to remain a conversation for later because they both sensed the approach of the ghouls outside the manor gate.

It looked like they wouldn’t miss out on all the action of tonight’s hunt at least.

Their swords flew from their scabbards and they stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to defend the manor and each other.

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

NEET continues to be political sizzling potato in Tamil Nadu as three pupil suicides spark outrage amongst folks, events

http://tinyurl.com/y35jhdxg Chennai: The Centre might need hoped that Tamil Nadu will finally come to just accept the truth of NEET, the Nationwide Eligibility cum Entrance Take a look at that has been made obligatory throughout the nation for these making use of for medical schools. However this 12 months has not been type to these sitting for NEET from the state. Along with the three NEET-linked suicides, the common outcomes have usually been dangerous for Tamil college students, opening up political faultiness as soon as once more. NEET was held within the state for the third time on 5 Could beneath a shadow of condemnation. Coming in the midst of the overall elections, it was not distant from folks’s minds. A couple of lakh college students had appeared for the check, nearly 20,000 amongst them from state and state-funded colleges had been receiving devoted NEET teaching. Opposition get together DMK had promised vociferously that, beneath their authorities, NEET can be gone; it might have, in no small measure, accounted for DMK’s complete sweep of the state’s Lok Sabha seats. Their alliance companion Congress was additionally in full assist of this. Rahul Gandhi had burdened this on his marketing campaign path and the state’s self-determination concerning NEET discovered a point out within the Congress manifesto. BJP, in the meantime, has at all times been candid about not giving the state any form of exemptions. However with the decision on the Centre not beneficial, NEET is ready to proceed. However ought to the suicides? Within the outcomes that had been declared on 5 June, out of the 1,23,073 college students who appeared for the examination, solely 59,785 have handed. The cross proportion is 48.57 p.c, a bounce from 39.56 p.c final 12 months. Nevertheless, it was nonetheless dangerous information. No pupil from Tamil Nadu made it to the all-India prime 50 listing. Ok Shruthi from Chennai scored 685 out of 700, getting the primary rank within the state, 57th rank throughout India place and fifth rank amongst girls candidates. Within the differently-abled quota, Karvanna Prabhu scored 572 out of 700, securing fifth place throughout India. Representational picture. Wikimedia Commons The cross proportion amongst those that wrote the examination in Tamil was notably dismal, with solely 2.06 p.c of the 31,239 college students passing. This has not been an encouraging development for rural college students who had a greater likelihood to get a medical seat in one of many 24 schools within the state (with 3,350 seats) on the idea of 12th examination marks, because it had been the case till 2016. As medical aspirants throughout the nation had been coming to phrases with their outcomes and what it meant to them, information of two back-to-back suicides rocked the state. On Thursday, one other pupil took her personal life. It was the suicide of Ariyalur pupil S Anita in 2017 that kickstarted the maelstrom round NEET in Tamil Nadu, making it a political sizzling potato for the ruling AIADMK authorities. The cry for “no extra Anitas” has been silenced annually since then with a spate of suicides following the outcomes. Together with this 12 months’s three suicides, a complete of eight college students have killed themselves over NEET since 2017, all of them women. The primary pupil to take this drastic step was 18-year-old S Radhishree from Tirupur, each of whose mother and father labored in a neighborhood vest manufacturing unit. She had scored 490/600 in her faculty exams and was anxiously awaiting the outcomes on Wednesday. Her mother and father had left for work and he or she was alone at dwelling when she learnt that she had scored 68/700. Eager to find out how she had fared within the exams, her mother and father referred to as her from their office at round Three pm. Subsequent calls went unanswered. Sensing one thing mistaken, they rushed dwelling to search out their daughter’s chilly physique. She had hung herself. Chatting with reporters, her father M Selvaraj stated, “She had been eagerly anticipating the outcomes from the morning. I had thought she would rating properly, and I’d take no matter mortgage I can to ensure she grew to become a physician. She scored properly within the tenth and twelfth exams. However the considered not getting a medical seat on account of her low NEET marks was too upsetting for her.” Inside a number of hours, information of one other suicide trickled in. This yet another brutal. Tanjore district resident N Vaishya was a medical aspirant from a really younger age, in line with her father R Namburajan, who takes care of a bicycle stand on the Pattukottai bus stand. Over the previous few years, he would come dwelling to his academically-gifted daughter, determinedly finding out to grow to be a physician. However on that day, when she learnt that she had solely acquired 230/700, she poured kerosene on herself and set herself on fireplace. Her screams alerted the neighbours who rushed her to the hospital the place she succumbed to her accidents. Her household held the Tamil Nadu authorities liable for her demise. Chatting with reporters, a relative A Balamurugan stated, “There are two totally different syllabus, one from the Centre and the opposite from the state. NEET is primarily based on central board syllabus and college students who examine beneath the state board are pressured to face defeat.” To cease different college students from ending their lives, the examination have to be banned within the state, he stated. Because the state was nearly to complete mourning these two deaths, the following day, information got here of M Monisha from a fishing village in Villipuram, who had hung herself from the ceiling fan in her room the night time earlier than. Her father is an workplace bearer with an AMMK-affiliated fisherfolk union and he or she had accomplished her education from a personal faculty and supplemented it with NEET teaching in Puducherry. Regardless of this, she scored 31/700 which despatched her spiraling right into a darkish temper because the day progressed. Her father found her physique at round 7.30 am the following day. That is the second consecutive suicide within the district. Final 12 months too, one in all 4 women who killed themselves was from right here. Varied political events have condemned the incident, together with AMMK normal secretary TVV Dhinakaran, MDMK normal secretary KS Azhagiri and PMK coordinator Dr Ramadoss, and AIADMK, and demanded that they be exempted from Tamil Nadu. Chief of Opposition MK Stalin launched a press release saying suicides due to NEET have grow to be a seamless saga annually. “Within the upcoming parliamentary session, our DMK MPs will firmly press this matter and get it resolved. The DMK condemns the two-term PM Modi’s silence on this, whilst he arrogantly observes these occasions.” Over the past time period, AIADMK was targeted simply on prolonging their authorities and never taking this up firmly with the Centre, his assertion stated. CPM state normal secretary Ok Balakrishnan stated Tamil Nadu’s common NEET rating is lesser than even the nationwide common. “These are usually not suicides, they’re murders. That even Ayurveda programs will come beneath NEET from this 12 months is a horrible state of affairs,” he stated, whereas calling upon all Opposition events to come back collectively on this matter. Medical doctors’ Affiliation for Social Equality normal secretary GV Ravindranath has stated it’s due to the Centre and state governments’ adamant nature that the three deaths have taken place in Tamil Nadu. He insisted that the federal government ought to present compensation of 50 lakh to the households of the scholars. In comparison with different states, Tamil Nadu college students are much less more likely to qualify for the examination. So the probabilities of college students from Tamil Nadu getting seats in nationwide and personal medical schools is much less, which is worrying. “The Tamil Nadu authorities has not been offering high quality teaching for NEET exams for college students from the state colleges,” he stated, stressing that the requirements have to be raised instantly. The state should instantly up the requirements of each the teaching centres and the faculties themselves, he stated. He accused the federal government of intentionally not releasing the advantage listing, fearing questions over how few of Tamil Nadu’s medical aspirants are in a position to get positioned within the medical schools within the state. Your information to the newest cricket World Cup tales, evaluation, reviews, opinions, reside updates and scores on https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2019.html. Observe us on Twitter and Instagram or like our Facebook web page for updates all through the continued occasion in England and Wales. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function() {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)} ; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '259288058299626'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.9&appId=1117108234997285"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); window.fbAsyncInit = function () { FB.init({appId: '1117108234997285', version: 2.4, xfbml: true}); // *** here is my code *** if (typeof facebookInit == 'function') { facebookInit(); } }; (function () { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); function facebookInit() { console.log('Found FB: Loading comments.'); FB.XFBML.parse(); } Source link

[bountyofbeads]

Partial government shutdown assured after House adjourns without spending deal

https://wapo.st/2EKjgOI

Partial government shutdown assured after House adjourns without spending deal

By Erica Werner, Damian Paletta and John Wagner | December 21 at 7:03 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted December 21, 2018 |

Breaking news: House lawmakers left the Capitol Friday night without passing a budget agreement, ensuring funding for several key government agencies will lapse at midnight.

The partial shutdown comes amid an impasse between President Trump and Democrats over billions in federal funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. This story will be updated.

White House officials and congressional leaders were in last-minute discussions Friday in search of a deal that would avert a partial government shutdown set to start at midnight.

The Senate narrowly passed a procedural vote in the evening the Republican and Democratic leaders said preserved the possibility of a compromise, though no agreement has yet been reached.

Spending for a number of federal agencies, impacting hundreds of thousands of federal employees, expires at midnight. But negotiations remained extremely fluid, and it was unclear if any spending measure would be able to resolve intense disagreements about whether to fund 215 miles of wall along the Mexico border.

“I hope Senate Democrats will work with the White House on an agreement that can pass both houses of Congress and then receive the president’s signature,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told other lawmakers after the vote passed 48-47, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a tie.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats were open to discussions with the White House and Republicans, but would not agree to any measure that funded the new construction of a border wall.

The talks could prove to be the final legislative effort before funding lapses at midnight. Other federal agencies would not be impacted, including the Pentagon, because their budgets were approved earlier in the year. But a number of other agencies, including those that oversee homeland security, law enforcement, tax collection, and transportation, would have to halt certain operations.

Trump and Schumer had dug in after the president reversed course Thursday morning and renewed his demand for taxpayer money to build the wall. But there were signs of a late thaw on Friday, when McConnell, Democrats, and Vice President Mike Pence began huddling separately in the Capitol.

Pence separately joined Trump adviser Jared Kushner and White House budget Director Mick Mulvaney for a meeting with House conservatives.

The construction of a wall along the Mexico border was one of Trump’s top campaign promises in 2016, and he had promised that Mexico would finance the entire project. But since taking office, he has demanded the money come from Congress, and Senate Democrats have easily blocked every attempt.

In recent days, Trump has tried a number of different tactics to try and secure the money. He called on cabinet secretaries to search their budgets for extra money, and on Wednesday he pronounced the entire project would be funded by the military. But by Thursday he was back to demanding that the money come from U.S. taxpayers, leaving many GOP lawmakers scrambling to accede to his demands.

Trump sees the final days of 2018 as his last, best chance to secure the funding, because Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives in 2018.

Last week, he told lawmakers he would be “proud” to shut down the government over the issue, and he urged McConnell to change longstanding Senate rules on Friday so that a House-passed measure to keep the government open through Feb. 8 while providing $5.7 billion for the wall could pass even without support from Democrats.

McConnell refused.

“We’re going to be working very hard to get something passed in the Senate,” Trump said earlier Friday in the Oval Office. “Now it’s up to the Democrats as to whether or not we have a shutdown tonight. I hope we don’t but we’ve very much prepared for a long shutdown.”

The frantic negotiations followed a near-miss earlier this week when lawmakers thought they had a deal to avert a shutdown.

On Wednesday night, the Senate unanimously passed a short-term spending bill to keep the government running through Feb. 8 while denying Trump his wall money.

Lawmakers had expected Trump to sign that measure — especially after he asserted he could find other ways to fund his wall. But the president abruptly changed his mind in the face of a vicious backlash from conservative lawmakers and commentators.

Trump had met with advisers in the Oval Office Wednesday evening, where he told them that his base would revolt in he gave up the fight for a wall, and that as long as he pursued it, the shutdown would not hurt him politically.

At a meeting with GOP Senators Friday morning, Trump again demanded wall money and unsuccessfully pushed the Senate to change its rules to get it, but he provided few specifics on what he would sign, according to two people present who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.

The meeting frustrated some in the Senate, as the president’s repeated demands for the wall did not include any way out of a shutdown, these people said.

Lawmakers of both parties acknowledge Democrats have the votes to follow through on their vow to block the $5.7 billion in border funding from passing the Senate.

“This is tyranny of talk radio hosts, right? And so, how do you deal with that?” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn). “You have two talk radio hosts who completely flipped the president. And so, do we succumb to tyranny of talk radio hosts?”

Still, after meeting with Trump at the White House, McConnell called a vote aimed at advancing the $5.7 billion border wall bill, saying the legislation would not be considered controversial in more normal times.

“I’m proud to vote for it,” McConnell said.

There were signs of an effort for a last-minute deal Friday afternoon. Vice President Pence and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, met with Schumer on Capitol Hill.

After the meeting, Schumer signaled they had made little progress, with a spokesman saying the minority leader made clear “that any proposal with funding for the wall will not pass the Senate.”

One reason for the White House desperation was that it appeared a Senate bill containing the wall funding wouldn’t even advance past an initial procedural hurdle — and even if it did so, the 60 votes needed for final passage were out of reach.

Nonetheless, the procedural vote took on the air of a cliff-hanger Friday as senators of both parties waited and watched to see if it could obtain the majority vote needed to advance in a Senate split 51-49 between Republicans and Democrats. Failure of the procedural motion would kill the legislation on the spot -- and if that happened it would be because of defections from lawmakers of the president’s own party.

The vote had to be held open for hours as senators hurried back to the Capitol from their home states and other locations they had traveled after Wednesday night’s vote, on the belief that their work was done for the year.

As the hours ticked by, intense negotiations ensued. Retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) voted “no,” the first Republican to do so. Democrats were pressuring Corker to do the same, and all eyes were on him because, under the math of the Senate, a “no” vote from Corker would likely kill Trump’s border bill.

First, Corker huddled with Schumer and other Democrats on the Senate floor. Then he said “let me go listen to the other side,” and headed out of the chamber to talk with Republicans.

Tension hung over the Capitol, four days before Christmas, with a partial government shutdown hours away, and Republicans in their last gasp of full control over Washington. As the GOP prepared to relinquish its majority in the House, the party was deeply divided, and partisan rifts with Democrats were growing ever more bitter.

In a spate of morning tweets, Trump sought to pin blame on Democrats for a potential shutdown even though he said last week that he would proudly own one if lawmakers did not provide at least $5 billion toward his marquee campaign promise.

“The Democrats, whose votes we need in the Senate, will probably vote against Border Security and the Wall even though they know it is DESPERATELY NEEDED,” Trump wrote. “If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time. People don’t want Open Borders and Crime!”

After Trump threatened Thursday to veto the Senate measure that did not contain the border funding he sought, the House hurried to appease the president, pulling together the bill that would keep the government funded through Feb. 8 while also allocating $5.7 billion for the border wall and nearly $8 billion for disaster relief for hurricanes and wildfires.

But Democrats showed no signs of relenting.

During a floor speech Friday, Schumer noted that the Senate had unanimously agreed to a spending bill earlier in the week and accused Trump of having a “temper tantrum.”

“President Trump, you will not get your wall,” Schumer said. “You’re not getting your wall today, next week or on Jan. 3 when Democrats take control of the House.”

In a contentious Oval Office meeting last week with Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Trump said he would be “proud to shut down the government for border security.”

“So I will take the mantle,” he said. “I will be the one to shut it down. I won’t blame you for it.”

“The Democrats now own the shutdown!” Trump insisted in one of his Friday morning tweets.

In other tweets Friday, Trump urged McConnell to “fight for the Wall and Border Security as hard as he fought for anything.”

Trump also urged McConnell to “use the Nuclear Option and get it done!”

That was a reference to a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. Trump was advocating that McConnell change the rule so that only 51 votes are required. By doing that, Republicans would be able to pass a bill without Democratic cooperation in a chamber in which Republicans hold 51 seats.

But a McConnell spokesman soon put out a statement making clear that wouldn’t happen.

“The Leader has said for years that the votes are not there in the Conference to use the nuclear option,” said McConnell spokesman David Popp. “Just this morning, several Senators put out statements confirming that there is not a majority in the conference to go down that road.”

[investmart007]

SEOUL, South Korea | Reality check on optimism swirling around Trump-Kim summit

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/2eN2tz

SEOUL, South Korea | Reality check on optimism swirling around Trump-Kim summit

SEOUL, South Korea — It may be the strangest feeling in decades to descend on the Korean Peninsula — a wave of optimism, and not always of the cautious variety, when it comes to North Korea and its nuclear bombs.

Ahead of a planned summit Tuesday in Singapore between President Donald Trump and North Korean autocrat Kim Jong Un, there has been talk of complete denuclearization, North Korea has shut down (for now) its nuclear test site, and senior U.S. and North Korean officials have shuttled between Pyongyang and Washington for meetings with Kim and Trump. The top U.S. diplomat declared that “Chairman Kim shares the objectives with the American people” amid talk of a grand bargain that could see North Korean disarmament met with a massive influx of outside aid.

Skeptics, however — and that’s usually the default mindset for many Korea watchers — say there are still plenty of ways that diplomacy can implode. For decades, if a potential deal with North Korea looked too good to be true, it almost certainly was. And wasn’t it just months ago that North Korean test-missiles filled the air and Trump and Kim were slinging threats and insults at each other?

So who’s right?

There are clues that something unprecedented is indeed happening — no U.S. president has met with a North Korea leader, after all. But there’s also a recognition that optimism at what might be a once-in-a-generation chance for peace must be tempered with a clear-eyed acknowledgement at what North Korea is aiming to get out of its turn from provocation to diplomacy.

Here’s a closer look:

___

THE OPTIMISTS

Very senior officials from the United States and South Korea have set the tone here, with a huge though indirect assist from Kim Jong Un himself.

Seoul quoted the North Korean leader as saying during his recent summit with his South Korean counterpart, “If we maintain frequent meetings and build trust with the United States and receive promises for an end to the war and a non-aggression treaty, then why would we need to live in difficulty by keeping our nuclear weapons?”

Trump and his lieutenants — with his hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, a notable exception — have jumped on comments like this to frame the summit and used them to bolster their own direct, and extensive, private talks with senior North Koreans.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a longtime dove who has met twice with Kim in recent weeks, “is putting tremendous faith in a sudden conversion of Kim Jong Un to better behavior,” according to Robert Kelly, a political science professor at Pusan National University in Busan.

This has led to “remarkable optimism” in the South, Kelly writes. “Again and again when I speak on panels in South Korea now, I am the lone hawk or skeptic.”

The optimists argue that since North Korea has declared itself capable of accurately targeting the entire United States with nuclear-tipped missiles — something many analysts think is still not quite possible — it’s now ready to turn to Kim’s other overwhelming concern: Bringing economic security to his impoverished nation of 25 million.

To do that, Kim needs to ease crushing sanctions and somehow encourage investment. If outsiders provide enough money and security guarantees, the argument goes, the North will begin to ease its grip on its nukes.

A recent analysis by Stratfor, a geopolitical analytical group, based on talks with North Korean contacts found that “Pyongyang is genuinely serious about this dialogue. They see this as a unique opportunity in dealing with an unconventional president like Trump.” The North, according to the analysis, wants U.S. mining, mineral, IT and other investments.

Kim’s age also resonates with optimists. He’s only 34 and may see diplomacy as the best way to stay in power long after Moon and Trump are gone from the scene.

___

THE PESSIMISTS

In a way, these folks have it easy. Calling themselves “realists,” they simply need to point to all the so-called past breakthroughs that have crashed on the rocks of mistrust and acrimony.

Joseph Yun, the top U.S. diplomat on North Korea policy until March, recently outlined how far apart the two sides are.

Trump wants “immediate CVID (complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization), a difficult-to-grasp phrase that would elicit eye rolls from my North Korean counterparts whenever it was mentioned during our encounters.” Kim, meanwhile, “is focused on the survival of his regime, beginning with the recognition of his country as a legitimate state, followed by an easing of economic sanctions,” Yun wrote.

“This mismatch between U.S. and North Korean goals has remained more or less consistent over the decades and has so far stymied all agreements that have emerged between the two sides since the first round of bilateral denuclearization negotiations in the early 1990s.”

Thae Yong Ho, a former senior North Korean diplomat who defected to the South in 2016, said recently that the idea that the North will completely denuclearize is a “fantasy.” Kim Jong Un “will never accept a process of discarding nuclear weapons that would lead to the collapse of his absolute rule over North Korea.”

Skeptics also warn about the dangers of ridiculously high expectations surrounding the summit.

Jeffrey Lewis, a U.S. arms control expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, recently titled an analysis: “Optimism About Korea Will Kill Us All: The first step toward peace is lowering your expectations.”

“North Korea has famously broken its previous pledges,” writes Bruce Klingner, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and former Korea specialist at the CIA. “Seoul and Washington must maintain sanctions against the North, and military deterrence, until Pyongyang proves it has truly altered its modus operandi. When you’re approaching the altar with a serial philanderer, it’s best to keep the divorce lawyer on speed dial.”

Pessimists note that North Korea has always balked at outside nuclear inspections, at demands from outsiders to close what the U.N. calls a massive system of prison camps where dissidents are tortured and killed, and at angering a powerful military that thrives on anti-U.S. and anti-South Korean sentiment.

___

THE MIDDLE GROUND?

There could be some, if Trump and Kim can compromise.

Yun, the former U.S. nuclear negotiator, laid out some “easy, immediate deliverables,” including opening North Korea’s main nuclear facility to inspections and monitoring by U.N. officials. A much more difficult, but crucial, “get” would be a full “declaration and accounting of all North Korean nuclear sites and fissile material.”

Trump and Kim can also silence skeptics in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, Yun wrote, by producing “a clear timeline for the ultimate goal: the disablement and dismantlement of all North Korean nuclear and ICBM facilities, material and devices.”

Another, more limited result could be a North Korean agreement to freeze its missile and nuclear tests in return for U.S. sanctions relief and security assurance.

In the end, some argue that this spate of unusual diplomacy should be judged less on whatever documents are signed than on the relationships that are forged.

“Summits are when leaders size each other up, for better or for worse,” writes Robert Carlin, a frequent visitor to North Korea, both as a U.S. official and outside analyst. “They are when every nerve strains to absorb, to calculate, to weigh. They are when leaders smile and sniff the air, when, over a glass of champagne, they gain their own impressions more vivid, more real than all the briefing papers, than all the intelligence, than all the murmurings of advisers.”

__

By FOSTER KLUG, By Associated Press

___