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traineecryptid · 16 days

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NPSS Weibo Q&A (20240831) Part 4

This is a Q&A session held on Weibo. People will tag their questions with the hashtag #南派三叔藏海花在线答疑# (#NPSS Zang Hai Hua Online Q&A#) and NPSS will look through the tag to pick some to answer. The event started at 1500 hours on 2024 August 31st.

Folder with screenshots and big compilation google doc is here. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.

1608

Q: Man crush, honestly, do you think that West Lake Vinegar Fish is delicious? Can you finish a plate of Vinegar Fish from Louwailou by yourself?

A: Actually, I really can’t. At most, I can eat two bites. But I’ve heard that they’ve improved their recipe lately and now it’s very delicious.

1609

Q: Shu, how long do you spend online from day to night? Your mental state is great. (T/N: “great” as in “wow what a mental state!”) A: I actually have too many things to write but well, I’m a liuliang celebrity, aren’t I?

1609

Q: The unbeatable, most handsome man crush in the universe, may I ask if Wu Xie would get caught by Xiaoge and Pangzi for sneakily buying game currency in LOL so he can buy skins? A: You can’t skimp on skins no matter how poor you are. Everyone understands this.

1611

Q: Sanshu, you have written about so many places in China, have you considered letting the Iron Triangle go tomb robbing overseas? A: I’ve written a movie script previously. The three of them were kidnapped and brought inside a pyramid. I was prepared to direct it myself but there was an Ebola outbreak right when the filming site in West Sahara finished construction.

1611

Q: I’ll post this again. Lei, can you invite the original singer to perform Three Days of Silence next year? People go to the bathroom three times (T/N: this is the proverb meaning to visit a place persistently until you get the result you want), why don't you go to the bathroom three hundred times. After all, there’s still more than 300 days till the next 817.

A: I visit once per day? Won’t it make me look like a loan shark?

1613

Q: When will this Q&A end?

A: It won’t end. I will answer at any time.

1613

Q: Shu, you’ve previously said that you’ll slowly delete the drafts on your public account. Can you not delete them? I really like to read the drafts over and over again.

A: There isn’t enough space. There’s too many [drafts]. Even if I don’t delete them, you can’t find them either.

1615

Q: If Zhang Qiling could only say one sentence to Wu Xie in this lifetime, what would he say?

A: I can only say one sentence to you in this lifetime, go get paper and pencil, I’m going to start saying this sentence and try my best to not stop and tell you everything that I can say, don’t interrupt me, let’s see how long I can make this sentence, now listen up, Wu Xie, my plan is goes like this bla bla bla bla bla—

1616

Q: Do you think that you can write better than you have previously? Or has that best feeling stage passed? A: I can go back [to that state], but I will go insane. Once I go insane, I will hurt everyone, including you all.

1618

Q: Shu, I think you wrote the best when you were in the psychiatry hospital. Can you trouble yourself and fulfill us and go there again? A: Here comes the crazy guy.

1620

Q: I’m praying for Shu to get Tianshou today and update nonstop.

A: Once the Tianshou ends, there’s a great probability that I will go to Liuheta (T/N: a culture park in Hangzhou, West Lake area) and run around naked.

1623

Q: What were the first impressions Zhang Qiling and Wu Xie had of each other?

A: Wu: Wah, it’s a show off. Zhang: Looks like there’s a layman on the team.

1624

Q: Man crush, if you were to choose a birthplace in DMBJ, would you choose the Golmud Sanatorium or the Bronze Gate?

A: Are these birth places? What is my mom thinking?

1629

Q: Which one do you like more; going to work or going to jail? Can you write while you’re in jail or write while you’re at work?

A: What’s the difference?

1631

Q: Shu, what do you think ZHH means to you?

A: I was suffering a lot when I wrote ZHH. It was before my mental breakdown. I went crazy after finishing it.

60 questions in! /laid flat on the ground. Only 60 questions in... and the list keeps getting longer. On one hand, I kinda regret spacing these out so much but on the other hand... I need something to fill my days between the ZHH updates. Maybe I'll do double updates tomorrow! Who Knows!

#npss #dmbj #daomu biji

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spade-riddles · 5 months

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Submission: Death/Dying/Mortality & The Jack-O-Lantern of it all.

The first 🎃 was sent on May 13, 2023.

#4. 🎃 “Speaking of, I love Halloween, don’t you? I’m already counting the days until October.”

#11. 🎃 “Imagine this. It is 3 am and Halloween is over"

All Saints Day, while exact origins are uncertain, was originally most commonly celebrated in May (like, a LONG time ago. ~300-600 A.D). Specifically…MAY 13. The night before All Saints Day was called “All-Hallows Eve”, which is what we now know as Halloween. (I acknowledge that is through the Christianity lens, as I know there this is a holiday with pagan roots as well).

This is a celebration dedicated to remember the dead. I believe the use of the pumpkin/jack-o-lantern and the references to this celebration were easter eggs for the direction of TS11, before we even KNEW a new album was in the works. Furthermore, someone sent in a post identifying May 13 as the first documented date of JK & KK, which was also linked to the original spade riddles about MAY.

Now that it has been a few days since the release of TTPD, I’m shocked to see just how many references there are to the concept of death, dying, endings, resurrection, etc. Here is an incomplete list of all of the references to this theme throughout the TTPD rollout and release:

TN easter egg

“We hereby conduct this post-mortem” - AKA….after death. This was ultimately revealed to be lyrics from “How Did It End?”

Track 4 - Down Bad

“I might just die, it would make no difference.”

Track 5 - So Long, London

“My white knuckle dying grip holding tight to your quiet resentment.”

“I died on the altar waiting for the proof.”

Track 9 - Guilty As Sin

“One slip I’m falling back into the hedge maze, but what a way to die.”

Track 10 - Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

“If you wanted me dead you should’ve just said. Nothing makes me feel more alive.”

Track 12 - loml

“Are they second hand embarrassed that I can’t get out of bed, cause something counterfeits dead?”

“And I’ll still see it until I die, You’re the loss of my life.”

Track 14 - The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

“Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?”

“I would’ve died for your sins, Instead, I just died inside.”

Track 16 - Clara Bow

“I’m not trying to exaggerate but I think I might die if it happened, die if it happened to me”

Track 17 - The Black Dog

“Old habits die screaming.”

“Now I wanna sell my house and set fire to all my clothes, and hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons, Even if I die screaming, And I hope you hear it.”

Track 19 - The Albatross:

“She’s the death you chose”

Track 21 - How Did It End:

“We hereby conduct this post-mortem”

“Say it once again with feeling, How the death rattle breathing, Silenced as the soul was leaving, The deflation of our dreaming, Leaving me bereft and reeling. My beloved ghost and me, Sitting in a tree,D-Y-I-N-G”

Track 23 - I Hate It Here

“I dreamed about it in the dark, the night I felt like I might die”

Track 25 - I Look In People’s Windows

“I had died the tiniest death.”

And finally…resurrection (note: I am not a religious person, I’m writing about this from a literature/contextual perspective).

Track 9 - Guilty as Sin:

What if I roll the stone away? They’re gonna crucify me anyway. What if the way you hold me is actually what’s holy? If long suffering propriety is what they want from me, they don’t know how you’ve haunted me so stunningly. I choose you and me, religiously

propriety (noun) - 1: the quality or state of being proper or suitable, 2: conformity to what is socially acceptable in conduct or speech, fear or offending against conventional rules of behavior especially between the sexes.

🫚 - 2/5/2024

Frost untouched, Conformity wins fights.

This 🫚 message seems to convey the message that conforming to what what society and the media, her fans, etc expect of her and will tolerate from her, is the only way she could gain enough traction to move forward. But in Guilty as Sin, she finally asks the questions “what happens if I roll away the stone?” Rolling away the stone, in a biblical sense, would reveal an empty tomb. An empty tomb was EVIDENCE that Jesus had risen from the dead.

So my thought is, what does rolling away the stone mean for Taylor? What are the implications of her asking, “What if I just give them all the evidence revealing my truth? They are going to judge me no matter what, so I might as well. If they want me to suffer my entire life by conforming to societal standards, they don’t know how impossible of an ask that is.”In Summary, 🫚 & 🎃 have absolutely proven themselves credible in foreshadowing the themes of this album and overarching story. And I’m sure as we continue to decipher their messages, we are going to find so much more.

#submission #🎃#🫚#this is excellent work

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ooppo · 1 year

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National Bipolar Awareness day - March 30th.

I remember the first time I had a auditory hallucination (that I was aware of) was when I was, like, 15~ years old and I was sitting in my bed reading fanfiction. It was 7 at night when I heard the sound of these musical instruments being knocked together at a steady beat:

I started to look around really, really confused because like where the fuck is this sound even coming from? It sounded like it was being played right near me. So I was looking around until I found the source of the wooden knocking, which was from my stomach. Once I found the source the rhythmic knocking slowly faded until it was silent. Before this incident I had several visual hallucinations of spiders and bugs that weren't there but I attributed that to being tired (after a Google search of 'tired hallucinations') so when faced with this very loud new hallucination at 7PM when I was feeling awake, I told myself "oh. I must be tired." And went to sleep.

Moral of the story is that your brain will downplay the signs of serious mental disorders if you aren't educated in what they are. I think everyone should learn the signs of what mental illnesses look like just so they can help themselves or others. I went undiagnosed for seven years and my father went undiagnosed for nearly 50. The signs were there and obvious to both us and outsiders, but due to a lack of information that could have been cleared up by a simple search of 'bipolar symptoms' 'what are delusions' 'what kinds of hallucinations are there' these symptoms were overlooked.

Serious mental illnesses like bipolar/schizophrenia aren't as uncommon as you think. Here are some popular actors/celebrities who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (ones that are open about it):

I don't want to post a ton of links here so you can Google "celebrity name bipolar disorder" if you'd like to. Historically influential people with a suspected bipolar disorder diagnosis are Virginia Woolf, Vincent Van Gogh, and Edgar Allen Poe.

With national bipolar awareness day coming up (March 30th which is also Van Gogh's birthday) I wanted to post something for it.

So please learn the signs of mental illness for your sake and others. Bipolar disorder is as common as autism. They are both 1 in 100. Schizophrenia is 1 in 300. Ocd is also 1 in 100. Here are some helpful articles about the signs of these illnesses:

Bipolar

Schizophrenia

Ocd

Schizoaffective

Your mentally ill siblings aren't scary boogyman, they are mothers, teachers, artists, lovers, poet's, garbage men, deli workers, etc. They are people.

I remember when my father was diagnosed after me, he told me: "All my life people would ask me, 'what the fuck is wrong with you?' and I would always say, 'I don't know'."

You could be the reason why someone gets help.

No one in my fathers or my life knew what bipolar disorder looked like, so we suffered with it for years unknowingly.

I remember when I was learning the signs when I was suspecting my diagnosis, I had learned the signs for schizophrenia as well (since psychosis is a shared symptom between the two illnesses) and when I saw the symptoms of schizophrenia I remembered my old highschool friend who I thought was weird because he talked about how he could get called into the matrix and would go still for long periods of time when he was "transferring" from this world to the matrix world. Now I see that as possible signs of delusions and catatonia. That weird and off putting kid in school could be suffering unknowingly. Your strange uncle who accuses people of stealing his shoes could be suffering. YOU could be suffering and asking yourself why you're so weird/don't fit in/can't keep up.

So please for national disability month and bipolar awareness day learn some of the symptoms for serious disorders because you or a loved one could be suffering from it without knowing. Thank you.

#bipolar awareness day #bipolar disorder #disability awareness month #awareness #buzz aldrin #kurt cobain #mariah carey #selena gomez #david harbor #carrie fisher #vincent van gogh #edgar allen poe #virgina woolf #awareness post #long post

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lawlznet · 9 months

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State of the Meme 2023

Content Warnings: Depression, Death, SH, Hatred, a lot of self deprecation What follows is an explanation and also rant about why I haven’t been online for this entire month. If you’d just like to skip down to what I’m planning to do in 2024, scroll all the way down to where the line break is.

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Hey everyone, Lawler here. This is the “State of the Meme” for 2023 and for the purposes of this post, I will be speaking out of character; as myself, not the vtuber.

This has not been a good year for me and it is with bated breath that I look forward to the next one. As some of you may be aware, my father fell ill in late September, suffering cardiac arrest and other diagnoses besides. His chances of survival, much less recovery, were slim given his age and the extent of his complications, but in a series of miracles that I hope to not take for granted for the remainder of his, and my, natural life, he recovered enough to be transferred to a nursing home, and then back to our home. Few of his complications remain and we optimistically foresee him returning to his “pre-accident” state sometime halfway next year. In the days since he returned, around the week of my birthday in early December, he has already recovered enough to move around the house on his own- to feed himself (via a tube connected to his stomach), to prepare his own medications, and to slowly retake ownership of household duties that had fallen to me in the months passed- paperwork and such. Prior to this blog post, it was nearly impossible for me to find time away from assisting him; even our previously late evening streams or early morning and afternoon were not a sure bet, and in fact I had to cancel my participation in a stream on my birthday for this reason.

It is with cautious optimism that things may stabilize enough in my household, to where I could possibly return to vtubing with the regularity I afforded before.

But before that can happen, I have a number of things to talk about first.

I feel like I’ve walked with death all the course of my life, and that does not just include attending one too many funerals for family members, both young and old, or that of friends and acquaintances whom either had theirs taken, or had taken their own. I generally treat the concept as the great unifier of all people, regardless of race, creed, sexuality, or any other descriptor we may use to divide ourselves from one another. It is the one great certainty and on some level, I like to think that I give the concept more weight than most.

Then I find myself spending hours doomscrolling, consuming thread after thread of outrage over strangers I had never met, and only learned hours before. A-drop-in-a-bucket hot celebrity name does something immensely stupid, either intentionally or unintentionally, and I join the lamentation that someone with so much apparent wealth and status can afford to be so flippant. Sometimes I’ll even repost OP or bits and pieces of the thread, telling myself that these individual statements, crammed into 280 or 300 characters, are somehow so poignant so as to redeem the discussion; and that by not mentioning their names, I am somehow not adding to the problem.

The problem of using my platform to further magnify people who we spend a whole lot of words discussing as “evil...” and for what?

Is it fun? Do I feel better about myself? Does anyone, besides the subject, benefit from my “contribution?”

No.

I was depressed before I burned those hours away. My employment is shaky and in a side universe I might have been laid off. I rarely have time for myself anymore that isn’t in the wee hours before getting out of bed or the minutes before falling asleep from exhaustion. And I chose to spend it on reading about how someone I claim I don’t care about did something “horrible,” or at least mildly uncomfortable- about how a country somewhere is doing bad things to people they claim are bad, or “as bad,” or, nowadays, without any sort of justification- and when I’m not doom-consuming, I complain to myself that I don’t have enough time for anything.

That I hate everything.

And well,

I’m not wrong.

But I’ve had this conversation before. I’ve complained about it before, online and on social media and in private discords, and I’ve even, in my continuing hypocrisy, chided others about it. I might try to make myself feel better by telling myself, “oh, well you see...”

“Social media is a ‘necessary part of my job.’”

“You *must* expose yourself to constant, attention grabbing toxicity, and participate in its accumulation- its dissemination, its detached, virtue signaling, people pleasing, mock-outrage generating content creation.”

As opposed... to someone who just, reads reddit, screengrabs accounts with sub two digit readership with obnoxiously bad takes, watches political discourse tiktoks and uncited youtube video essays; yes, you see, surely these people and their misery are entirely *self* inflicted, as opposed to myself, who is “mandatorily” victimized, right?

It’s bullshit.

I hate it.

And so it follows that I must *also* hate myself.

Because I participated in it.

So,

I’m going to try to stop.

Prior to this I never publicized, but internally created some rules for how I interact with this “content” and the people who produce it. Most, I believe, are not intentionally malicious. We are just the successful products of an inherently evil industry; living proof that everything is working exactly as intended.

The only way out is to break the cycle, and in order to do so... I almost always avoid, and if necessary mute, or block, anyone who:

1) Makes generalizing, sweeping statements of an entire group of people,

2) Issues ultimatums on their public facing social media accounts,

3) Anyone who regularly disparages any group of people, especially people whom they are supposed to be a part of- e.g. anyone who regularly harps about “how terrible the vtuber community is,” without the slightest bit of introspection.

For the sake of my own mental stability and to gradually wind down my own involvement in making the internet a worse place, I have decided that beginning in 2024, I will:

1) Reduce or completely eliminate reposting, replying to, or commenting on, any political or negative thread of which I am not directly or indirectly involved, or are not a subject matter expert or hobbyist.

2) Remove all feeds, block or ignore all search terms, and avoid discussing or entertaining any of the above subjects in any capacity outside of private conversations.

3) If necessary, mute, unfollow, or block accounts which only seem to exist to further spread the above content.

As some of you know, I am a cyberpunk influencer and consider myself a “cyberpunk” outside of my online personas. I’ve also recently dipped my toes into the world of Linux and am eager to dive into the worlds of cybsec and opsec beyond browser addons and lists of FOSS programs. I’ve been into this subculture for the majority of my life and I don’t see that changing anytime soon; nor will I censor content that I deem directly or inherently related.

There’s a sheer cliff of difference between merely complaining about celebrities and a toxic online culture and explaining not just how, but *why* it is in your best interest to avoid or defeat these things. Within weeks of a certain major social media website’s fall from grace, a number of user created addons were developed to make said website’s use tolerable (OldTwitter by Dimden as an example); Youtube’s attempts at forcing adblock users to turn off their extensions ironically vastly improved these extensions (uBlockOrigin), and both of these addons, in addition to their “obvious” case use, have further ramifications for the end user than simply complaining about Former Billionaire 9000 and The Evil Company.

For one thing, it’ll save you money in the form of not clicking on malicious advertisements or shelling out a monthly subscription for something you could have gotten for free. But I digress.

These changes are a long time coming, and I apologize to the people whom I long promised I would “avoid” these things... only to return to them when it was convenient, or when I told myself that “this is a special exception,” or when I didn’t care, when I should have. You know who you are.

I’ll most likely fuck up again and find myself having this conversation with myself or in the illusory safety of a chatroom.

But you see... I’m in my mid thirties. And while its true that I have these conversations with myself and others, all the time, and I regularly beat myself up and hate myself for my participating in the “culture,” the truth is... every day, I am more and more grimly reminded, of what little time I have to do things I actually want with my life.

Of how my perception of time seems to be speeding up. Of how little potential time I fear I might have. I don’t just mean the possibility of the Four Horsemen riding and causing such an orgy of misery that will make the last ten years look like Christian cis heteronormative missionary with clothes on and the lights off. I mean the fact that it is atypical for my household to travel to family gatherings in individual vehicles, and that on that evening in September, it was only through sheer chance that we decided to attend my niece’s birthday party individually- that my mother had to be hospitalized for an illness herself, and that I, for reasons I don’t even remember, chose to drive on my own. If this had been any other evening, my father may have had a heart attack while we were all together in the family SUV. On a highway.

And as spooky as that scenario is, every time I get on the road, or even walk down my own street, I think about the possibility of dying. Maybe someone’s in a hurry and wasn’t paying attention while merging onto my lane. Maybe someone’s drunk. Maybe someone needed a twenty and thought they’d rob this weirdo walking around the streets at night and weren’t expecting a fight. Even when you set aside all the political, worldly garbage that trad-media constantly shits down the throat of an unwilling (and sometimes masochistic) boomer populace, you aren’t guaranteed whatever illusion of stability and peace you have right here and now. It could change as easily as the wind blows. And I think I am so tired... of burning so much of my life on shit that has done little for me except to make me upset, when I could have so much, much more to be upset about in the next few minutes.

I walk with death every minute of my life.

If possible, I’d like my last memory to be doing something I actually give a crap about. Or talking with, or about someone that I admire or care about. I don’t think I ever thought those experiences were a waste of time.

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Thank you for reading this far. And now, for changes that actually apply to my “real” content moving forward... (as in, actually applies to you because last I checked, I’m a vtuber, not a vtweeter or a vskeeter or whatever the shit they call it these days...) I’ve worked in corporate for too long. Even if it’s a long shot or doesn’t make that much money, I really feel like a career in the entertainment and art-space is a better occupation to strive for than pushing paper in the universally and permanently depressing healthcare industry.

I’ll keep streaming video games and fighting games will always be part of that routine, but for reasons I don’t understand, I’ve neglected first person shooters. That changes now. (I hope the kind of Doom y’all like are the video game kinds.)

I am in the process of dipping my toes into youtube short form videos and will be uploading some cringey garbage to just about everywhere except Twitter, because of changes to their terms of service which potentially gives total ownership of my IP to the website. Fuck that.

I miss virtual reality.

Those vroid comics take a ridiculously long time to make but god do I enjoy doing it.

I am greatly reducing my usage of Twitter, Bluesky, and Mastodon, aside from announcement posts. Twitter is nearly unusable even with a subscription and unlike Bluesky and Mastodon (which... are basically the same thing) are bereft of the tools necessary for curating my experience and Making Me Less Wanting To Kill My Self. So yeah, Fuck Twitter. But what else is new.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I designed this blog the way I did and by the time you read this, I’ve probably reset it to be a lot easier to read on the eyes, at the cost of not looking as “cool.” I’m going to be making fiction writing a priority again. I have some vtuber tabletop campaigns to write up and then to run.

If I don’t successfully finish in time for Christmas and New Year’s, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I don’t have a timeline of when I’ll be able to stream consistently again. Thank you for your patience with me.

Love,

Lawler Hix

#lawler hix #state of the meme #update #announcement #vent #rant #vtuber #envtuber

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p1nkm1lkslug · 1 month

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Hello dear friends! ❤🤍🖤💚

🍉I am Mahmoud Ayyad, a Palestinian from the besieged and destroyed Gaza 😭😭, coming from an extended family of young children, women and elderly people ❤❤ who have been suffering😭😭 for 300 difficult days from an aggressive war.

Our lives are harsh because we lack all the basic necessities of life. Everything has become scarce and unattainable. There is no food, no water, no medicine.

So, I ask you to help me keep my family safe and alive, especially after we had lost all our sources of livelihood.Please do not leave my family to struggle and suffer these difficult days alone. You can support my campaign by donating whatever you can or by sharing my posts to reach others who can help us survive the war to safety and peace. You are helping the lives of many people with your small contribution. Every donation makes a difference in our very difficult lives. But this is a legitimate campaign and has been checked by 90-ghost.

https://gofund.me/31c5cbe3

please tto those donate and reblogg

People are still suffering in Palestine🇵🇸

Just because you haven't seen any posts doesn't mean it has vanished

Continue to boycott all Israel supporting brands, celebrities and companies

Remember to block all those with large followings who refuse to speak on the issues at hand

🇵🇸💕💕

#free palestine #save palestine #palestinian genocide #i stand with palestine #palestinian lives matter #free gaza

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sa7abnews · 1 month

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Bangladesh PM Hasina resigns and flees country mass protests

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/06/bangladesh-pm-hasina-resigns-and-flees-country-mass-protests/

Bangladesh PM Hasina resigns and flees country mass protests

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule of the country ended on Monday as she fled weeks of mass protests and the military announced it would form an interim government.

Hasina had sought since early July sought to quell nationwide protests against her government, but she fled after a brutal day of unrest on Sunday in which nearly 100 people died.

In a broadcast to the nation on state television, Bangladesh’s army chief, Waker-Uz-Zaman, said on Monday Hasina had resigned and the military would form an interim government.

“The country has suffered a lot, the economy has been hit, many people have been killed — it is time to stop the violence,” Waker said.

“I hope after my speech, the situation will improve.”

Hasina, 76, fled the country by helicopter, a source close to the leader told AFP shortly after protesters had stormed her palace in Dhaka.

The source said she left first by motorcade but was flown out without saying her destination.

Jubilant crowds had waved flags, some dancing on top of a tank in the streets on Monday morning before hundreds broke through the gates of Hasina’s official residence.

Bangladesh’s Channel 24 broadcast images of crowds running into the compound, waving to the camera as they celebrated.

Others smashed a statue of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahma, the country’s independence hero.

Before the protesters had stormed the compound, Hasina’s son urged the country’s security forces to block any takeover.

“Your duty is to keep our people safe and our country safe and to uphold the constitution,” her son, US-based Sajeeb Wazed Joy, said in a post on Facebook.

“It means don’t allow any unelected government to come in power for one minute, it is your duty.”

Security forces had supported Hasina’s government throughout the unrest, which began last month against civil service job quotas and then escalated into wider calls for her to stand down.

At least 94 people were killed on Sunday, including 14 police officers, in the deadliest day of the unrest.

Protesters and government supporters countrywide battled each other with sticks and knives, and security forces opened fire.

The day’s violence took the total number of people killed since protests began in early July to at least 300, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials and doctors at hospitals.

‘Final protest’

The military declared an emergency in January 2007 after widespread political unrest and installed a military-backed caretaker government for two years.

Hasina then ruled Bangladesh from 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Rights groups accused her government of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Demonstrations began over the reintroduction of a quota scheme that reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.

The protests escalated despite the scheme being scaled back by Bangladesh’s top court.

Soldiers and police with armoured vehicles in Dhaka had barricaded routes to Hasina’s office with barbed wire on Monday morning, but vast crowds flooded the streets, tearing down barriers.

The Business Standard newspaper estimated that as many as 400,000 protesters were on the streets, but the figure was impossible to verify.

“The time has come for the final protest,” said Asif Mahmud, one of the key leaders in the nationwide civil disobedience campaign.

In several cases, soldiers and police did not intervene to stem Sunday’s protests, unlike during the past month of rallies that repeatedly ended in deadly crackdowns.

In a hugely symbolic rebuke of Hasina, a respected former army chief demanded the government “immediately” withdraw troops and allow protests.

“Those who are responsible for pushing people of this country to a state of such an extreme misery will have to be brought to justice,” ex-army chief General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan told reporters Sunday.

The anti-government movement attracted people from across society in the South Asian nation of about 170 million, including film stars, musicians, and singers.

#World

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redheadinjapan · 7 months

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New Year’s in Niigata City: Celebrate at Hakusan Shrine

Okay, I recognize that this is very, very late, but I wanted to write about New Year’s in Niigata City before I leave at the end of this year. As I mentioned in my New Year's post last year, New Year’s in Japan is focused more on the first few days of the year rather than the night before as it often is in the US. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t stuff to do on New Year’s Eve in Niigata City. It just might not be as big of a party as in the US.

I can’t talk about New Year’s in Niigata City without bringing up Hakusan Shrine. Hakusan shrine is one of the most famous shrines in Niigata City, which many people go to for New Year’s Eve for their hatsumode, or first prayer of the year. There are, of course, other shrines as well, including Yahiko Shrine and Gokoku Shrine, but Hakusan is somewhat close to Niigata Station, making it a popular destination. The shrine stays open through the night for people to visit and buy Omamori, or charms. While there wasn’t a cool lion dance or performance like there was at the shrine in Tokyo, there was a big fire to burn Omamori for purification and good luck. Plus, for 300 yen, you can fish for a New Year's fortune.

Like most shrines do for New Year's, Hakusan Shrine had rows of food stands set up for people to pass through as they waited to pray. They set up the stands along the walkway into the shrine anytime there’s a big event–including Sakura season in the spring and the wind chime festival in the summer–and New Year’s is certainly a big event in Japan. They usually have all of your typical stands at a Japanese festival–yakisoba, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, fruit candies–in addition to some of Niigata’s specialties, like Poppoyaki, the little pancake sticks they serve at many Niigata festivals.

Then, for the first few days of the New Year, many stores in Bandai City and all around Niigata have the same fun New Year’s sales as stores across Japan. These can range from regular in-store sales for the first few days of the year (usually the 1st through the 3rd or 4th) to specialty bags you can sign up for or buy in stores. These bags, known as Fukubukuro or Lucky Bags, come with a variety of the store’s products and might even include some New Year’s exclusive items. A friend and I split a Lucky Bag from Imayotsukasa Sake Brewery that came with three sake, one of which was only available in the Lucky Bag.

You may have also seen that this year there was a big earthquake near Niigata on January 1st. While this is not typical of New Year's in Niigata, it was an interesting and somewhat frightening way to start this New Year. It was my first big earthquake, so there was a lot of frantic researching, trying to figure out what to do and if I needed to do anything at all other than stay put. Luckily, things turned out alright for me in the end and Niigata City suffered minimal damage, but some of the closer areas are still recovering.

While most New Year’s in Niigata City won’t go off with quite as much of a bang, there’s still plenty to do. Your celebration will certainly look different from New Year’s in the US, but you can drop by a shrine on New Year’s Eve with some friends for food and prayers, then shop until your heart’s content during the sales over the next few days. Overall, not a bad way to start the New Year.

#japan #jet program #niigata #niigata city #edgeofniigata #new year's eve #new year #hakusan shrine #lucky bag

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whatisonthemoon · 1 year

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The Graying of Richard Viguerie (1989)

By Lloyd Grove The Washington Post June 29, 1989

There is absolutely no shortage of money for your organization. There is only a shortage of creative ideas to raise that money. -- a framed epigram hanging on a wall at the Viguerie Co.

All is calm in the blue-carpeted anteroom of the Viguerie Co. in Falls Church. A few wan fish, the color of old newspapers, hang suspended in the greenish fluid of a decorative aquarium. A receptionist quietly shuffles papers under the gaze of a larger-than-life oil rendering of the figure once celebrated as "the Wizard of Direct-Mail Fund-Raising" for the movement once called "the New Right."

When he finally appears in the flesh, however, blinking through wire-rims and grinning a fragile grin, the Wizard bears a closer resemblance to the man behind the curtain.

"If the truth were known, I'm getting tired," says Richard Art Viguerie, 55, running his hand over a balding pate ringed with gray. "If I had to do it another 25 years, I'd do it. But it's not my druthers."

The afternoon turns to dusk as Viguerie holds forth in his new headquarters, where the phones are finally working after being out of order for half the previous week. His suite is a floor below the old one and half the size -- "a more efficient use of space," he says -- in what was once the Viguerie-owned office building on Leesburg Pike, where once he employed 300 people, compared with about 50 today. One side of his private office is cluttered with unpacked boxes, the big move having been completed a few days before. He refuses to pose with the boxes for a picture. "People wouldn't understand," he says, keeping his distance.

Desperately in debt in October 1987, he sold the building for a reported $10 million to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church -- a transaction he describes as a fire sale. "The area was depressed," he complains. "If we could have held on to it a few more years, we could have done a lot better." The Moon-supported American Freedom Coalition, which touts itself as a "bipartisan" lobby, is among Viguerie's principal clients these days.

Viguerie's alliance with the mysterious South Korean "messiah" who aspires to "the natural subjugation of the American government and population," as quoted recently in U.S. News & World Report, is a source of concern to some of his former comrades in arms. "If Richard's come to peace with it, then it's fine for him," says Executive Director Edwin J. Feulner of the Heritage Foundation, a self-described "movement conservative" who worries that Moon might have an unsavory hidden agenda. "It's not our way of doing business."

The '80s, which began with such bright promise -- indeed, with the election of Ronald Wilson Reagan -- have not been kind to Viguerie or his cause. Somewhere, somehow, something went wrong. The Reagan Revolution, which was supposed to have empowered the conservative dream, gave way to the era of George Herbert Walker Bush, the embodiment of non-ideological, establishment Republicanism. During the 1988 presidential campaign Bush dismissed Viguerie as "fringe," and once said pointedly, "I'm a conservative but I'm not a nut about it." (Notwithstanding this hostility, Viguerie found himself supporting Bush -- something he could not have foreseen in his wildest nightmares.)

Meanwhile, back at the fringe, such onetime powerhouses as the National Conservative Political Action Committee went belly up. Elements of the Christian right were beset by scandal and plunging donations. The Moral Majority more recently closed its doors, and Viguerie became entangled in lawsuits with former associates while suffering a series of financial, political, and personal reverses--such as the breakup of his marriage--from which he is still trying to recover. He seems at sea, like the movement he helped create.

"I don't want to talk about it, quite frankly," Viguerie says testily. "I literally have been up since 4 this morning and 5-something yesterday. ... It's been a long day, and I've got a thousand things on my mind."

Yet because Viguerie in person is the soul of geniality, just as his rhetoric is harsh and unforgiving, he ultimately relents. Soon he is giggling his trademark giggle, which is somewhere between a cackle and a squeal, as he talks about his plans to withdraw from active control of the Viguerie Co. and move into direct mail for credit cards, life insurance, "whatever it might be" -- conjuring up the image of a burned-out ideological warrior hawking magazines for Publishers' Clearing House and cash prizes to the visitors of far-flung time-share developments.

"Need name for new company," he has scrawled on a pad. He also hopes to build his fledgling political action committee, United Conservatives of America, start a small foundation to contemplate public policy and another one to lobby politicians and pundits, and, most important, discover some creative idea, any idea, that can "resurrect the conservative movement."

"I was telling a friend of mine recently, 'Yes, we're out of the woods and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,'" Viguerie says with a giggle. "And like a wise guy, he said, 'Look out. It may be a train.'"

"The simple truth is that there is a new majority in America -- and it's being led by the New Right," Viguerie wrote in his gloating manifesto, "The New Right: We're Ready to Lead."

At the time, just after the 1980 election, there appeared to be much to gloat about. Reagan -- "the country's foremost conservative politician since 1966," Viguerie wrote -- was in the White House, having humiliated Jimmy Carter in a landslide. The Senate was suddenly in Republican hands for the first time in 26 years. All was right with the world.

"It has been obvious for a long time that conservatism is rising and liberalism is declining," Viguerie wrote, confidently predicting a revolution. "Despite all the talk in the media about 'trends,' 'cliffhangers,' and 'last-minute shifts,' the plain truth is that more and more Americans are sick of liberalism -- and aren't afraid to say so."

Yet somewhere in this glorious triumph for Viguerie and the New Right were the seeds of ... deep doo-doo. Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus, today one of Viguerie's 20-odd direct-mail clients, recalls that Reagan's victory served not to energize but to "lobotomize" the faithful.

They had helped him into office on a tide of resentment and opposition -- to abortion rights, gun control, the Evil Empire, taxes, the Panama Canal treaties, the Washington establishment, Iran -- and passionate support for such sacred principles as supply-side economics and prayer in school. But they hardly noticed when the Gipper inevitably sinned, raising payroll taxes, selling missiles to Iran and embracing the Soviet Union.

"The lobotomy occurs when you look at an apple and say it's an elephant," Phillips says. "When you're so much in love that policies that would have angered you if implemented by a Jimmy Carter simply delight you when implemented by a Ronald Reagan."

Worse still, the money was drying up -- or rather, the cash that would have gone to New Right causes, according to Phillips, "was being transferred into the coffers of various Republican Party organizations."

Viguerie, who had grown rich on the spoils of fundraising for groups well outside the Republican mainstream (at one point George Wallace was among his clients), quickly felt the pinch. His relations with the Grand Old Party had long been strained - he'd tried and failed in 1976 to become the American Independent Party's vice-presidential nominee - and now he was once again on the outs.

"He was irrelevant eight months into Reagan's first term," claims a Bush administration political operative. When Viguerie, Phillips, and others began pointing out Reagan's apostasies - a campaign that reached its climax in December 1987 when Phillips branded Reagan a "useful idiot" for negotiating sweeping arms reductions with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev - few conservatives seemed to be listening.

"Viguerie's in the discontent business," says William F. Buckley Jr., the conservatives' paterfamilias. "He found it very hard to say favorable things about Reagan. But there was a sense in which when Reagan was president - and for so long as he was president - a lot of conservatives figured that nothing could go seriously wrong. When someone like that becomes president, a whole audience tunes out."

Some of Viguerie's problems, admittedly, have been of his own making, such as his quixotic and financially draining race for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1984. The following year he was forced to part with Conservative Digest, a glossy magazine he founded in the mid-1970s that lost $4 million. Then there were the hazards of the direct-mail fundraising industry that Viguerie virtually invented - only to see several former employees go into direct competition with him for ever-smaller pieces of the ideological pie.

"I don't run a business," Viguerie has said, "I run a university." Republican political consultant David Keene notes that Viguerie, who pioneered the use of direct-mail computer systems that were as expensive when he bought them as they are obsolete today, is at a distinct disadvantage in the marketplace against his microchip-savvy protégés. "It's a little bit like a Japanese shipyard trying to compete against a Korean shipyard," Keene says.

Viguerie is loath to discuss the acrimonious divorce proceedings between him and his wife of 27 years, Elaine, and then only off the record. He hardly speaks to fellow activist Paul Weyrich, with whom he has been engaged in a legal skirmish over contested bills, one of several Viguerie has fought against former associates in recent years.

Journalist Alan Crawford, who did much for Viguerie's reputation as a wizard in his 1980 book "Thunder on the Right," was recently moved, in the Nation magazine, to write his political obituary. "And the movement shows every indication that it can sputter along without him," Crawford wrote.

"What you're seeing is somebody who has had tough experiences and he's learned from them," Viguerie says. "It's up to others to evaluate, but I'd like to think it hasn't been for naught. You never know how a person's going to react until they've had problems. ... It's not how you drop, it's how you bounce."

He has sold his estate in McLean, where he used to throw glittering dinner parties under heated tents in his expansive backyard, and decamped to a farm in Rappahannock County, Va., an hour down the highway from Falls Church. "I try to be a gentleman about the whole thing and just sit back and watch the grass grow," he says. "These days there's a lot of it, with all the rain. ... I'm spending a fair amount of time conceptualizing what I want to do with the rest of my life." He has given up his annual Fourth of July festivities that featured horse-drawn carriages to transport his guests.

And he has abandoned the New Right, at least as a nom de guerre. "That's passé," he says. "Now we call ourselves the Movement, in shorthand terms. When we talk we say, 'We've got to get the Movement back on track.'"

As the Bush administration goes its merry way, with the president enjoying high popularity ratings, Viguerie has been busying himself sending out press releases. They are datelined "Washington, D.C.," cast in wire service style, and mailed and faxed from Northern Virginia to about 40 news outlets under the banner of United Conservatives of America. They've gone largely ignored in what he calls "the establishment media," but they offer compelling documentation of his quest for the Grail -- a single powerful theme that will rejuvenate the cause.

"Populist conservatives expect that {the proposed 51 percent congressional pay raise} will be the No. 1 issue in the 1990 congressional elections," Viguerie wrote on Feb. 1, a week before the House of Representatives voted it down and removed it from public discussion. "Conservatives plan to make the 'Imperial Congress' THE issue of the 1990 congressional election," Viguerie wrote on March 22. More than a few subsequent releases demanded that House Speaker Jim Wright resign, an issue that evaporated when Wright did just that. "Oliver North deserves a medal, not a prison sentence, Richard A. Viguerie said today," begins a release dated May 4.

"This conviction will be remembered as one of the great travesties of justice in human history," he said.

"Once again, the Panama Canal is an issue that could change the course of American politics," Viguerie wrote, perhaps sentimentally, on May 17. (It was opposition to Carter's Panama Canal treaties that put the New Right on the map and paved the way for Reagan's election.) Viguerie's release of May 24 attempts to create a stirring synergy: "'The injustice that has been done to Ollie North is but one glaring example of the tyranny of the liberal-controlled Congress,' Viguerie said." By the next day, he has found yet another horse to ride. "President Bush has 'the historic opportunity to become the leader of freedom-loving people throughout the world,' Richard A. Viguerie said today. 'But he is blowing it.'" This, when Bush was being widely celebrated for his "triumph" at NATO. "World events are rapidly spinning out of control," Viguerie added.

Through it all, Viguerie makes promises of "immediate" and "massive" direct-mail, telephone, radio, and television campaigns -- which so far have failed to materialize. He launched United Conservatives of America last summer and in March hired an organizer of Pat Robertson's presidential campaign, Guy Rodgers, as the group's executive director and sole paid employee. Rodgers estimates that the PAC has sent out more than 300,000 pieces of mail, including 150,000 bumper stickers reading "Jim's not Wright for America" and contributed a total of $6,000 to about 30 candidates. "It's a very low-key operation," Viguerie says.

Conservative analyst Kevin Phillips, no relation to Howard, calls it "a paper organization." He adds: "What Viguerie would like, of course, is to have a liberal Democratic president." "Oh no," Viguerie responds, shaking his head. But then he muses, "If you could have the benefit of knowing what would happen, and if you could make that choice, yes. It helped immensely to advance the conservative cause to have Jimmy Carter in the White House."

It's a far cry from the good old days. "This is literally a true story," Viguerie says, replaying one of the set pieces from his public reminiscences. "When I was 10 and 12 years old, and the neighborhood kids were running around playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, I was shooting -- in my head -- communists. Where that came from, I don't know." Viguerie grew up, the son of a union man turned petrochemical executive, in Pasadena, Tex. He assumed the mantle of conservatism early on, and in 1952 was even a Taft Republican. By the late 1950s, he was an activist in Young Americans for Freedom, the conservative juggernaut launched from the Buckley family's Connecticut compound.

For Viguerie, the good old days began in earnest with Watergate. As Richard Nixon self-destructed, Viguerie, Weyrich, Howard Phillips, and others plotted their revolution over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. "Figuratively speaking, we all got together and we walked to the front of the plane," Viguerie says. "We didn't like the way the plane was being flown. We wanted to give some recommendations as to how to fly the plane. So we opened the cockpit door and, lo and behold, what do we find? Nobody's home! Nobody's flying the plane."

If this was a hijacking attempt, it was followed by a tailspin. "What happened with Watergate," Viguerie says, "is that it purged a lot of the Republican leaders. A lot of good men and women went down to defeat. The Republican Party was bereft of leadership, and that which was left was disillusioned and discouraged."

In other words, the perfect environment for the ascension of the New Right. "It gave us an opportunity to come in and help fly the plane," Viguerie says.

There was some turbulence along the way. Viguerie worked for the defeat of Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, an establishment-Republican purveyor of compromise and conciliation. He thrived under Jimmy Carter, his direct-mail empire growing by leaps and bounds. Eventually Ronald Reagan got hold of the joystick.

"He wasn't all we wanted, and he wasn't everything the left was afraid he would be," Viguerie says with a sigh. "The Republican Party -- where is it? What an opportunity to decimate the Democrats! To do for the Republicans what FDR did for the Democrats -- to set up the machinery of the political process so that those who share your views would govern for 40, 50 years. But Reagan didn't think like that."

Today, Viguerie finds reason to stand up and cheer for House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia, Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater "and the crew." But he gives the raspberry to such establishmentarians as House Minority Leader Bob Michel of Illinois and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, who have expressed discomfort with Atwater's divisive tactics.

"Establishment Republicans," Viguerie spits out. "They have never met an issue yet that they weren't terrified of. What they remind me of is the old segregationists. The old segregationists said, 'Don't get me wrong. Some of my best friends are black. I like blacks. It's these new young radicals that make me nervous -- i.e., those that are going to change the system. Uncle Tom I like. He's safe.' "

Likewise, according to Viguerie, the establishment Republicans say, "Don't get me wrong. I like conservatives. Some of them are my best friends. It's these new young radicals that make me nervous." Following this novel analogy to its logical conclusion, Viguerie is the moral equivalent of Martin Luther King -- while Atwater might be a stand-in for Stokely Carmichael.

"Every time America is polarized ideologically, we do not automatically win," Viguerie says. "But the only time we win is when there is a sharp ideological difference." His goal, he says, is to harness the themes that will "divide the country ideologically."

On the walls of his suite are pictures of Viguerie embracing James Watt, and Viguerie sharing smiles with Jesse Helms and David Stockman. "There was almost a revolution around here about putting that Stockman picture back up," Viguerie says, rolling his eyes at the conservatives' Benedict Arnold.

But Viguerie fiercely defends his association with the American Freedom Coalition and Moon's minions. "Their religion is not my religion," says Viguerie, a Catholic, "but I have found them to be good, decent people who are strongly anticommunist. I don't see any reason why not to work with them. These people are putting major, monumental dollars into trying to alert the world to the dangers of communism. I think that we are in serious danger of losing our freedoms to communism. I don't know of anybody else that spends that type of money to get the conservative message out there. We're a movement that's in bad shape."

Meanwhile, he says, "the left works with truly radical, revolutionary, bad people. You know, Playboy magazine, all kinds of pornographic publications, doing things that are highly destructive and immoral. They will be funded by organizations that get their funds from trading with the Soviet Union, people who are heavily into promoting the drug culture, the whole Hollywood scene." But, he says, concluding his tirade, "the establishment protects the left."

It's a half-hearted tirade at best. Soon Viguerie is on to other subjects. "I guess what I'm saying is that we have some growth plans and I am looking to find someone else to run the company," he says. "There's not a search committee on right now, but I am moving in that direction. What I don't mind saying is that I'm moving toward playing less and less of a role in the company, and more and more of a role in public policy."

"As he should well know, that's a pretty crowded field," says the Heritage Foundation's Feulner. "Just as Ed Feulner would not find it easy to become a master of direct mail, I think it would be hard for Richard to get out of direct mail and move into think tanks. I would hate to lose Richard's considerable ability in the direct-mail area. But if he has been so burned out that he wants to turn over that part of the business to other people, then that's his decision."

Outside Viguerie's office window, thunderclouds are forming. The Wizard seems uncharacteristically muted. "Maybe I can take comfort in the fact that few people have accomplished much who haven't had to overcome this adversity or that adversity," he says. "And it's not the fact that you've had problems. It's hard to think of anybody who really accomplished much who didn't. It's how you dealt with those problems, and how you came back."

If the Movement is wandering, is Richard Viguerie mellowing? "Why would you say that? You didn't choose a bad word," he says. "I burn with the same passion I always have, I work as hard as I ever have, but there's a certain mellowing, perhaps, that comes with age."

*The internet version of this article had no paragraphs and a number of formatting errors. The formatting, including the paragraphing, used here is not the original formatting. The picture included here was not in the original article.

#Richard Viguerie #new right #politics #right-wing politics #moonies #unification church #unification church in the united states of america #unification church in the united states #unification church in usa #american church #American Freedom Coalition #republican party #u.s. politics

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amythecinnabunny · 3 years

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Ooook... How about “So I just have to pretend to date you for a month and I get to piss my cousin off? Okay!” with Felinette, but Adrienette endgame?

Sjjdje fun fact, anon, this line is from an adrinette fic! Albeit with different plots, of course.

Marinette folded her hands on the table, possibly to hide the fact that they shook a little. She was never really a friend of Felix's. They'd hung out maybe twice and it was because Marinette had been invited to a family thing due to being Adrien's girlfriend. In fact, Marinette was closer to some of Felix's friends than she was to him.

Trying to study the man was hopeless. Unlike Adrien, who wore his emotions on his sleeve, Felix was unreadable.

"So," Felix said, leaning forward slightly. The ghost of a smile played on his lips. "I just have to pretend to date you for a month and I get to piss my cousin off?"

Marinette nodded quickly.

"Okay!"

"Okay?" Marinette echoed, certain she had heard incorrectly.

Felix leaned back in his chair and nodded. "Okay. Don't you worry. You'll have your stupid Sunflower begging for you within half a month. Only if you do exactly as I say."

Marinette narrowed her eyes warily. "You're going to put me in designer, aren't you?"

Felix clapped his hands, delighted. "I do love a good opportunity to mess with Adrien. Come on, finish up your coffee. We have a lot of stores to hit."

"I'm beginning to regret this."

"You and I are gonna be best friends by the end of this month, Marinette. Just you wait."

Marinette sighed, but she couldn't help her own amusement. It was nice to see Felix smiling -- even if it was just because they were about to probably give Adrien trust issues.

300 followers celebration. Send me a prompt from here.

#300 people suffer my posts celebration #miraculous ladybug #felinette #adrinette #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #felix agreste #i did one ask and now im going to bed

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randomkposts · 3 years

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Happy birthday Desmond. If you guys are reading me on of of my accounts, you will know that I post a one shot story for Desmonds birthday. And I wanted to add something to it this year, and put something up here as well. So, I don't think I'm going to finish this, or at the least not in the direction this inital one is going, but enjoy what is written, if you like. Featuring Soulmark words AU, fed up with the hetronormitivity in the world ace-aro Clay, contemplative Desmond, and my stab at first person PoV.

-----

They didn't tell you my name

---

Why are people so much more comfortable seeing violence portrayed then sex? I've seen people wonder that, but never really got why they wondered. Violence has always been an open subject. Long ago, public hangings used to be the sort of event that you brought the family out for. Yep, nothing like a good old public hanging. Nowadays, we don't have that, so now people block traffic to look at a car crash, and crowd the accident sites. It sickens me.

Violence has always been a part of our culture, how we indulge in it is optional.

Sex, that's a big part humanities culture too, always there, but that's always something that seems to have been intended to be private, yet nosey creature that we are, constantly poke our nose into each others business.

People always want to know who you're sleeping with. We see it in the rich elite, like royals and celebrities. We see it in homophobia , people expressing the opinion that same sex or whatever, is not someone you should sleep with. We see it expressed in Racism, and health class, and the media. We hear love songs played across the radio every day, see them on the tv, in our books, in our dreams.

It's suffocating.

Let me tell you, I'm sick of it.

Don't even get me started on words.

Words. Said to be uttered by your other half. Personally I've always thought, no one should be stuck in a relationship with a price of themselves. That would drive me nuts. I'm not a good person, and I already don't make me happy. Why do I need another.

Besides, I've seen plenty of people who can't stand their "other half". My parents, I'll have you know, love each-other somehow, that's not my reason for being sick of all the talk about love.

No, to tell you the truth, I'm asexual, and have never been Romantically inclined.

I know there are other worlds out there, and that's why I'm so bitter about it.

Somewhere out there, in some happier universe is a me with no words on his arm.

Someone who does not know, one day he will meet his match, and have to live up to all the expectations, he or she has.

Someone who hasn't spent their life preparing to meet "the ONE"

It starts with words. Parents encourage their kids to be as unique with their words as possible. It is expected that upon meeting anyone new, no matter what you were doing, or how late you were running, that you shout your words. And so off we go, shouting things like "I can fit 300 French fries in my mouth!" To everyone we meet.

But really, everything in life has the soulmate component attached to it.

"Work out! Be the healthiest person you can be, and have a healthy soulmate when you meet."

"Study hard and have a Career your soulmate will be proud of."

It drove me nuts. I didn't want a soulmate, particularly one whose culmination of creativity is to announce "sixteen " upon seeing me.

That was before Abstergo.

Before I found out Sixteen meant imprisonment.

Before I planned my death.

Honestly it was probably one of the Templars.

I'm very bitter about that.

The perfect soulmate that I was supposed to strive to be the best person I could be for, was someone who would imprison me. Who wanted nothing from me but my genetic memories.

My word in return, is "NO"

I'm not Sixteen. My Name is Clay!

--------

Quite a shock you've suffered out there

---

I've always wondered who would talk about the eye of providence, and what that has to do with seventeen. Why was it drawn, and the number written out.

Was my soulmate a conspiracy theorist? A Freemason? Heavily religious?

Why was all of it not spelled? Is soulmate mute? I used to wonder a lot about my soulmate. People told me that I was lucky, that I had an interesting soulmate.

But I never thought I would meet my soulmate.

I didn't get to meet much of anyone cooped up in the farm.

And so ,on my sixteenth birthday , I left the farm. I didn't want to be trapped there anymore, and I figured that if there was any year I would meet my soulmate, it would be that one or the next. But it was coming. I was convinced of that. And I intended to meet them somewhere else.

By the time I had reached eighteen, I had stopped looking. The world was larger than I had ever thought, and I wasn't ready to settle for anyone or anything. I would make my own impact in the world, without them.

When I was twenty five, I got a motorcycle licence legitimately. That turned out to be my undoing.

I found out what Seventeen meant. No one talked to me about the eye of providence, that I could remember. No one wrote anything to me either.

Seventeen meant it was probably a Templar.

I did see one drawn out once. It was drawn on the ground, where my head rested on the animus. It's what caught my attention on to the rest of the glyphs. The writing was familiar. The same style as what was on my ankle.

But who had put them there and Why?

I don't know that I want to know the answer.

---

It's not the last of the messages. Everytime I look, outside of the Animus, there are new ones. One a day, the first one I find in the Animus. The glyphs grow up my leg and across my chest. Some days it's morse code and music notes from rifts.

It's confusing, because I am increasingly certain my soulmate is dead. Subject Sixteen, no other name given. I am increasingly unsure of how to ask for his name. That would complicate things with Lucy, and Lucy is already a pretty complex relationship. But I keep looking for the messages he has left behind.

Apparently Sixteen went crazy, and killed himself. These messages are not rambling of a sane person. Then again, a sane person would probably not believe let alone join Templars or Assassins. So maybe it's a better match than it looks. I was raised in a cult that he was crazy enough to join.

Society builds up soulmates as this big life altering romance, with all this One nonsense, but the way I grew up taught about it, its two people destined to meet. Friends, enemies, lovers, your meeting is going to impact your life in a way no other will. Save maybe family. But family doesn't tend to end up soulmates.

Seventeen could have been from a templar. Being kidnapped and ending up in a coma would be pretty life changing before I died. Not in a good way.

Maybe in a different life, he joined the Assassins, and I never left, and his biggest impact on my life is as my best friend. Maybe in some other life, he became a templar and we played a long game of cat and mouse, trying to kill each other. Maybe in some life without soulmarks, we both meet at a bar and have some kind of life changing conversation.

I like to think of the maybes, as I don't see any future for us now.

He said hope is lost. To find Eve in Eden. And to find him in the darkness.

I can't think of any meaning for the last, which isn't terrifying.

---

#writing #assassins creed #desmond miles #clay kaczmarek #ace aro #soul mark au #soul mark au- words #assassins creed calculations #plot bunnies #first person perspective #happy birthday Desmond Miles #random k #assassin's creed

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diningwiththeasquiths · 3 years

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Masterlist of my Star Wars fic(let)s

Kylux

'Eat, Prey, Love' - Kylo Amidala and hand feeding (900 words)

People find out about them after they switch sides (600 words)

Unrequited love - Hux struggles with being aroace (800 words)

Kylo Amidala is rather forward (500 words)

Yoga AU (400 words)

Classic Kylux smut (350 words)

Surprisingly soft Major Hux (300 words)

Modern AU - Business rivals meet at a funeral (375 words)

'The Rains of Arkanis' - BDSM, watersports (1600 words)

Hux gives in to his feelings, it doesn't work out (400 words)

Body Swap AU - Featuring my beloved tiny dick Hux (600 words)

Not recognising him, Hux seduces a helmetless Kylo (600 words)

Gingerpilot

'Born to be Loved' - Poe wants to celebrate Hux's birthday (800 words)

'Shell Shock' - Cultural misunderstanding fluff (875 words)

'Empty Vessels' - Post-canon smut (3150 words)

'A Different Light' - Stranded together (1700 words)

Hux finds it difficult to ask for help (700 words)

'Thirteenth Time's The Charm' - Smut with feelings (10k so far)

Poe deals with PTSD and breaks down during sex (1300 words)

Hux gets a sunburn (400 words)

Hux suffers another loss - H/C, animal death (900 words)

Fix-it for the ficlet directly below (1200 words)

Poe loses his temper - Angst (400 words)

Hux discovers new preferences - Past Kylux (300 words)

Poe only fucks him when he's drunk - Angst (300 words)

Hux's people mate for life (250 words)

Poe stands up for Hux (300 words)

Renben

'The Week of Ren 2022' - Renben + KORlo prompt fills (7800 words)

'A Jolly XXXmas' - Renben Christmas smut (1350 words)

'Push Me, and Then Just Touch Me' - Trailer Park AU sequel (4100 words)

'If You Feel Resistance, Push Again'- Trailer Park AU (3500 words)

'Cushion For The Pushin'' - Renben smut (1600 words)

Other ships, rarepairs and gen fic

'Lie Back and Think of The Resistance' - Darkgingerpilot non-con (1500 words)

'Yes Spelled N-O' - Ex Machina Nathan/Caleb non-con (1600 words)

Relationship reveal - Finnreypoe (600 words)

Unrequited friendship - Hux+Phasma (150 words)

Hux's first crush - Hux/OMC (200 words)

Hux struggles to connect with people - Gen fic (500 words)

Finn/Mitaka (200 words)

Hitaka fluff (1700 words)

Hitaka angst - Major Character Death (300 words)

Drabbles, prompts and random thoughts

My 'Hux headcanons' tag (Gen, Gingerpilot and some Kylux)

Noncon drabble - KOR/Hux (100 words)

Kylux prompt - Nothing more than a sex toy (50 words)

Some classic Kylux meta (150 words)

Kylux Retail AU idea (100 words)

Cute Gingerpilot drabble (100 words)

Kylux bed wetting prompt - Watersports mention (150 words)

Hux's people mate for life - Kylux version prompt (100 words)

Some thoughts about Hux and humour (125 words)

Angsty Hux meta (200 words and 6 screenshots)

Kylux prompt - They meet and fuck in their dreams (150 words)

#I finally made one!#masterlist #dining writes #kylux #gingerpilot #renben #finnreypoe #jedistormpilot #finntaka #hitaka

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yurimother · 5 years

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Updates to WLW Visual Novel ‘A Summer’s End’: Dev. Acknowledge Hong Kong Protests, Teases Trailer, Delays Release to 2020

Oracle & Bone Studio’s upcoming Yuri visual novel, A Summer’s End - Hong Kong, 1986, has been delayed to early 2020. It was initially scheduled for release in December 2019. The interactive game looks to pay homage to Asian cinema and LGBTQ history.

On December 26, the developer posted on Twitter that, although the game was delayed, “hours of more content” were added to the game, as well as improvements to the story and art. The studio also promised the release of a new trailer in 2020, which it teased in a short video.

youtube

A Summer’s End - Hong Kong, 1986, follows the story of Michelle, a young woman living in Hong Kong in the 1980s. She meets the free-spirited Sam, and the two begin a relationship. As the women grow closer, Michelle is forced to choose between her feelings and tradition.

The visual novel boasts over 300 unique art assets, including 30 CG cutscenes, divergent paths with two endings, and adult-orientated scenes. According to the studio, A Summer’s End will have an average playtime of five hours.

Oracle & Bone describe the visual novel as a “story about seeking identity and meaning in a rapidly changing world where conflicting worldviews and cultures collide.”

The studio is looking to pay homage to classic Asian cinema, such as Early Summer and Rouge. The artwork and character designs are inspired by 80s anime, such as City Hunter, as well as Hong Kong-based manhua and contemporary fashion.

In a post on the official A Summer’s End website, the developers expressed the importance of telling an accurate account of lesbian love in 1980s Hong Kong, “ When we began our project, we worried about the authenticity of the story’s premise... We wanted it to be a believable and realistic love story. We had to do our research.” Oracle & Bone looked at LGBTQ history in China, including specific accounts. Although they admit that written statements and history are few and often prejudicial, ultimately, Oracle & Bone decided to acknowledged and contribute to both the queer women of Southern China who were able to live “quiet but beautifully fulfilled lives” and those who experienced suffering and tragedy because of their identity.

Finally, the studio looked to the current situation in Hong Kong, the setting of their game. Hong Kong, which is a special administrative region of China, has been experiencing massive ongoing protests about China’s control and influence (this is a drastic oversimplification). In a statement on its website (copied in its entirety below), Oracle & Bone acknowledge the “privilege of creating this work in a place where freedom of speech, right of assembly, and LGBT rights are relatively protected” and the “struggles that Hong Kong people are facing now.”

I believe that Oracle & Bone are taking a significant risk and swinging large with this project. Still, I also clearly see the great care the developer is putting into the title, the delicate political and historical situation surrounding both Hong Kong and LGBTQ identity and history in the region. They have my full support, and I wish them nothing but success and good fortune.

A Summer’s End will be released on PC and Mac via steam in English within the next few months. Future versions of the game will be available on Android, iOS, and home consoles. The game will be translated into Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Korean after release.

Oracle & Bones full statement regarding Hong Kong:

We chose 1980’s Hong Kong as the setting in our visual novel project, A Summer’s End, because we felt it to be a time and place important to us. The 1980s can be considered the golden age of Hong Kong cinema. Hundreds of films were produced during this time and brought stardom to many actors and actresses. We wanted to represent this time not because we wanted to glorify Hong Kong or co-opt its aesthetics for visual appeal, rather, we wanted to showcase Hong Kong as it was in acknowledgement of this time.

Flash forward to the summer of 2019. Mass demonstrations have been happening almost on a daily basis in Hong Kong over what her people consider the erosion of the “One Country, Two Systems” principle of governance in Hong Kong. We have the privilege of creating this work in a place where freedom of speech, right of assembly, and LGBT rights are relatively protected. We know in our hearts that we cannot produce a game set in Hong Kong without acknowledging first the struggles that Hong Kong people are facing now. We hope our readers can recognize that there exists an existential and constitutional crisis in Hong Kong and that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly does not come anywhere without a price.

Movies, music, and celebrities form a collective memory of what Hong Kong was like, real or imagined. When all has been said and done, we hope Hong Kong will not be remembered as a caricature of its past but as a diverse and vibrant world city and that her vitality still lives on today in the people fighting for the future that they believe in.

#yuri #a summer's end #oracle & bone #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+#queer #gay #wlw #visual novel #hong kong #news #anime #cinema #asia #history #lesbian #manga

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wattpadscapcons · 3 years

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I know no one wants to hear this from me. You can just skip this if you want to.

I just watched a playthrough of a video game that literally showed me what it's like to suffer for the sake of numbers and views. It's easy to lose yourself in the interaction you get online, regardless of whether or not it's positive. I've honestly felt that in a way that may be negatively affecting me and my writing.

I mean, I'm fine, don't worry. It's just the thought of me having to de-train myself from relying on the approval and praise of people I don't even really know, it's scary. You can often get lost in that feeling, it manifests into this ugly mass of guilt and self-hatred that can metaphorically suffocate you. The literal amount of stress it takes to stay relevant on any platform must be soul crushing.

When I first started making posts on this platform, I was receiving lots of that feeling. It hadn't quite become the overall sickening stress by the end of the first week, not even the second week. I just received so many likes that it became addicting to seek out others attention by writing. The whole "numbers game". Over 300 likes at my very peak of this "career"! Now a days I can barely hit 30 or on a good week maybe I'll hit 70 or more. That's still a lot of people, and believe me I'm very grateful for those who are still here.

I hate just how sick and disappointed that makes me feel. It fuels me with so many negative thoughts like:

"Do people not like my content?"

"Is the only way to get any kind of feedback is to do exactly what my followers ask me to?"

"Have I already become boring?"

"Have I been shadowbanned?"

"Why won't anyone talk to me? Did I do something wrong?"

The lack of interaction kills me. I hate how quiet it is here even when everyone's awake. It doesn't even have to be positive, tell me my work sucks! That you hate it! Tell me you liked it! Gush about the characters you like in my dms or comment section of my posts! I really don't care! Just say something so that I know you're reading and that I'm not slaying over the computer screen for hours at a time for no reason!

I know it's a needy, selfish request. Please don't hate me for saying it here. I know some people don't have the time, nor the energy to do anything. I have mutuals that are like that, busy people, parents even!

They can feel really stressed out and I always feel like I'm bothering them when I text them out of the blue after being silent for a few days. That's fine. I just hate the feeling of being ghosted. I'm not going to bite, I'm not some kind of god or celebrity that thinks they're above you.

I have trouble reaching out to a lot of you myself, to tell you I like your work because I don't want to come off as awkward. So believe me, I know how it feels! It doesn't even have to be a long conversation! You don't have to wait for a reply before you log off. That would be fine.

I've already had a major fight on this platform too. Well, not exactly major, nothing I would have to go to therapy over. It was upsetting, and I'm sure some of the followers I've had since the very beginning remember what I'm talking about. I bring this up because that had a negative affect too, as it was a simple misunderstanding that showed me just how cruel anons could be to people online.

I know this may hit kind of heavy coming from a small time tumblr user that not everyone is the biggest fan of, but I... I don't know. I guess I just feel a little better after writing this out? I know this platform is exactly the best for letting out all of this negative steam. I don't want to come off as needy or obsessive or self-centered. This is just how I feel.

#tw negitive #tw negative thoughts #tw negativity #capcons

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noco7 · 2 years

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ch.10 ramblings

What I tried to achieve in ch.10/what I want to achieve later/what I think of Sierra

So ch.10 was pretty long, so I’m almost not sure where to start when talking about it. I guess I’ll start with some of my goals (one of them ended up being so long that im putting it in a different post) 1) (Too long see - it will be in the next post)

2) I wanted to re-explain Ch. 9 I feel like ch.9 wasn’t my best work? Lol. Like although people could see the argument coming, there wasn’t a lead up in the chapter itself. And a lot of things Noah said were like. New. And also rlly harsh at the end? Haha. At the end of ch.5 people were like “oh i see both sides” but at ch.9 people were like, taking sides. Either Cody was oblivious or they couldn’t see where exactly Noah was coming from. So I decided to explain it better, via those flashblack lines, and the conversation with Trent, where Cody could finally really process what had gone down. It also gave me a chance to insert some like second-hand noco fluff, just because it had been so long and also to remind us what was at stake here. Lol. We also see Cody start to like, internalize what Noah was saying. Usually when they’re arguing Cody’s just ... *reacting*. He’s denying, or apologizing, or just figuring out smth to say Back. And not really being like... wait maybe he has a point. Wait. And once he starts thinking about it, that’s when it comes crashing down for him. Oh maybe I am a bit of a problem person. Yikes. 3) I wanted this chapter to rlly be about sides. “nothing is black and white” Courtney is on one side and refuses to see the other. Heather is helping Cody but she’s also helping herself. Mrs. Morrison sees Cody as a son but Courtney sees him as a project. Noah was right but Noah was also wrong. Cody is innocent but also not. The housekeeper did something bad for the right reasons. There’s Sierra’s side and there’s Codys but both of them are suffering. Sierra doesn’t get a perfect sentence and somehow both Noah and Cody lost the same argument. 4) I wanted to humanize Sierra. Or at least make you feel bad for her In the show she’s always meant to be like “wow she’s WEIRD” and i guess she is. Some people say she’s autistic. My fic gave her the diagnosis of “erotomania” which honestly.. I don’t stand by? Like I have no idea. And I purposefully the psychologist kind of a sucky dude. Like he’s disrespectful, he’s probably just tacking on a label that seems to fit and that the public can ooh and ahh over. And I feel bad for her. There was always something tragic about her to me, that she put all this effort and focus into a guy who’d never love her. And her belief that he did love her... it’s hard not to wonder if it’s just denial. Or Sunken-Cost fallacy. Like she’s done this much for him, she can’t back out now. Honestly, she reminds me of kpop stans. I say this as a person who listens to kpop music and used to be heavily involved in kpop fandoms.. There are so many people wasting hours of their life to stream and buy and provide for their fave celebrities. I have spent over like.. probably $300-500 dollars on that boy group and I’ll never get it back lmaoo. I could write whole essay about fandom culture and how fanwars are ultimately to the gain of the companies, everything goes back to them, but uhh. Not going to. But anyway, Sierra is a person who bought into it, went too far, and now refuses to get back out. And I feel bad for her. Honestly, I think that like Cody, she just has no one else. Like she’s latched onto him as her saviour and she has nothing to fall back on otherwise. I mean she’s still a huuuge creep but uhh. Still. There is a line from World Tour I can’t get over, in the semi-final episode where she tells Cody that he has to work to deserve fans like her. And that just shows off the entitlement, the fan-culture. And I find that really fascinating, overall. I kinda like her. And not in a “I want to tone her down,” or “I wish she used her knowledge of total drama more and was a smarter contestant.” No. I like her just as a stalker fan. That’s compelling enough. Total Drama didn’t do much with it but repeat the same jokes over and over, but there’s a well of depth behind it if you reach. I don’t think I really showed that off in this chapter though, just the denial bits. If I make another fanfic that involves Sierra, I definitely will. 5) There’s also stuff I could say here about like. The media coverage, but I think it’s abundantly obvious I am not a celebrity and have never dealt with it so like. It definitely falls short. But smth smth, having no control over your public image is frightening. Cody did control it for a week and that was a great high, but in the end it got away from him. Good attention and bad attention. Cody can never catch a break. I’ll go into it more kinda.. the good vs bad attention in some other chapters. I’m sleepy. I’ll also go more into the need for “control,” that Cody kinda has in this fic. It’s not that he’s bad at being passive or doesn’t enjoy it, but “control” gives him that cool guy masculine rush. So. yeah. anyway thanks for reading this long post.

#NCi7

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countessofbiscuit · 3 years

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If it’s not rude to ask, would you write a post war-no order 66 with codex, I just read joiuny command, and loved the way you wrote them. And also of course I always want a happy future for them instead of depressing canon

:3 ask and you may receive, with a hefty scoop of Self-Indulgence.

Field Day | 1k, Teen | also on Ao3

. . .

The room was cold and the birthers were miserable, just as Marshal Commander Cody, GAR (Retd) intended.

Drawdown had been good to him.

He wouldn’t have predicted so, two years ago, when the only thing worse than war was the Great Unknown looming at its end. Sure, he bitched, but that was a soldier’s god-given right. Privately, Cody figured a forever war would be fine. Forever wasn’t that long for a clone.

But then a series of unexpected events occurred.

Skywalker stowed away with the 212th, General Grievous was eliminated, and Special Advisor Tano popped into Cody’s palm in Pau City, sheepishly asking for Master Kenobi.

Why? Because she’d kind of ditched Mandalore with Maul and he wouldn’t fucking shut up.

Shut up about what? This guy named Sidious.

Everything afterwards was a holosoap wrapped up in a spice dream. A cascade of the most bizarre reports and message chains to ever brighten Cody’s HUD. Even before the twins.

General Skywalker, Dad (Busy) was praised for ending the war with the press of a button. It wasn’t that simple. Nothing ever was.

But after months sweeping up droid cysts and pockets of dyed-in-the-jar Separatists and excising the corrupt cancer of Palpatine, the Jedi Order had done the most extraordinary thing. They’d taken joint responsibility for the creation of the clone army. In public. Before a horde of holocams. And after stepping forward for the clones, they’d formally stepped down.

Overnight, the cadre of marshal commanders became the flavor of the month. They were tapped for every paying civ-mil role going, from Coruscant to Csilla.

Cody had survived Kenobi and his Padawans. That wasn’t something to celebrate behind a desk. There were plenty of junior officers who’d mastered interoperability, C2, force design, and all that other big-brained shit in daily expectation that Cody & Co. would snuff it. Proximity to a Jedi often did that to a person.

Cody celebrated by saying no to the Chancellor of the Republic.

That he’d turned around two minutes later and said yes to a different job offer wasn’t the point.

The point was this: this morning, Cody had rolled out of bed, gone for a run, and molested Rex in the shower, all in his own sweet time; and he was now holding court before a platoon of birthers to declare without any regret:

“Ladies, gentlebeings, and other people who aren’t clones, welcome back to Self-Defence and Incident Response 101.”

His audience remained unmoved. They were a motley crew of Senate aides, interns, and staff. The sort of folks who could afford anything but complacency.

“You all made some real progress last week,” he continued, lying through his teeth. Barring the dug, most possessed all the proprioception of a whiff-whaff ball. GARMAP this wasn’t. “Today we’ll start practical hand-to-hand drills. And I’ve invited a special guest to help demonstrate the manoeuvres.”

He turned to Rex, who’d turned out in blacks and limmie shorts, to really test Cody’s commitment to professionalism.

“Rex Torrent. Decorated former army commander, current skipper of Anaxes LC, and veteran of more than his fair share of brawls — oh, and my little brother.” Cody ruffled his partner’s handsome hair. “Like last time, we’ll start with calisthenics, before moving into the main body of instruction. After lunch, there’ll be presentations on mobile urban assault, PERSEC, first aid, and other shit you best remember if you want to survive in the Federal District. Estimated finish time: 1900. Any questions?”

A nervous wobbling of heads indicated a negative. For now, anyway.

“Right. If you could please pair up — ”

He was interrupted by a dull throbbing that shook the plasteel walls.

Music. Shitty music.

Cody frowned. This was a converted Guard drill hall. And the redjobs still lived next door.

Clearing his throat, Cody deployed his field voice. “Please pair up with somebody of roughly equal weight, height, and limb count and join Rex on the floor. He’ll lead the warm-up while I fix this.”

Rex chuckled, knowingly. “Fix this. Someone is so dead.”

“Just take care of them,” Cody said, indicating to his students as he marched out.

He may have been only a civilian himself nowadays; but Cody’d never had trouble visiting the fear of Fett upon anyone. Least of all pink-nippled shinies who were probably finding inventive ways to waste credits.

He crossed the wall of noise into their gym.

Whatever he expected to find, it wasn’t Marshal Commander Fox, RG (Active) benching 300 and Prime Ambassador Chuchi to an audience of guardsmen.

They broke off ogling to glare at Cody.

“Got something to say, Sunshine?” Fox shouted over the godawful din, as he suspended enough weight to dent the floor.

Cody did. But with an eyeful of Chuchi’s ass, if it didn’t jettison right out of his head.

He shuffled a couple feet to his right. “Yeah, I do. Turn — this — racket — off.”

He was actually suffered to wait a few reps and one obnoxious chorus more before being acknowledged. Fierfek, Cody still hated this guy.

“Jams, cut the tuneage,” Fox grunted, racking the bar and his girlfriend, who swung down smilingly into his arms. He rolled up and regarded Cody coolly. “Yes?” he prompted in the silence, cocksure as a crime lord. Which he basically fucking was these days, sitting pretty atop the Republic security food chain. Even the Senate Blueys bowed to him now.

Cody rolled his eyes. “I just needed you to lower the music. I’ve got a class.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say,” Fox deadpanned. He stood, chucked Chuchi into a fireman’s carry, and led his posse to a different machine.

“Fuck you, too,” Cody shouted after them, leaving them to their occult rituals. The Corries had been decanted in a separate facility and remained a breed unto themselves.

As he walked back, Cody marvelled how little martial order remained in his life.

He wasn’t ready to wish for another war, though. Not even when he returned to find Rex signing autographs.

Happiness was an undisciplined thing.

. . . . .

Ao3

#codex #commander cody #captain rex #foxiyo #commander fox

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