#I know like a lot of flags and can somewhat recognize a few countries on a map

[dragoninahumancostume]

I literally love seeing country flags like yesss I know that one and this is the name and it's in this country and i might even know the capital or be able to name at least one city

Which means I also love "guess the country with the flag" games

[madamewriterofwrongs]

my sweet darling - how about an armed forces 911 AU? Maybe Eddie meets Navy Seal Buckley overseas? Maybe they meet back stateside at the VA?

You, my darling, always send me such fun and interesting prompts. I promise I didn’t forget. 

Ooh, okay. Let’s see...

Prompt Me with AUs

Delta X-Ray (I am Sinking) 

Read on Ao3

Eddie first sees him as he’s getting off the plane in Washington. He’s going to receive a medal. Apparently his work in Bagram made him a hero and not a broken, shell of a man. Who knew. And really, it’s just a glance because he has other things to worry about besides a Navy man getting dressed down by his captain. He doesn’t need to hear what’s being said to know that’s exactly what’s happening. He’s seen that look too many times, felt the hot breath of his superior as they spat harsh words meant to ‘toughen him up’.

As he passes the sailor, he hears something to the effect of “if it happens again, you will be dismissed.” And Eddie wonders how many times this particular man has received this exact lecture. It doesn’t really matter, anyways. He just wants to get his medal, shake a few hands of politicians who think they had anything to do with his ‘accomplishment’ and go home to his wife and child – ex-wife, he reminds himself. Shannon had the papers shipped to Afghanistan. Couldn’t get away fast enough, his mind bitterly supplied. All he would have at the end of the day was his son, and a medal to replace the wedding band he’d worn since he was 19.

Before he knows it, he’s standing on a small stage, a million lights flashing in his eyes as cameras and stage lights practically blind him. His shoulder aches – out of the sling for the afternoon so he can at least look more put together than he feels – and he’s dizzy from the attention. That’s his excuse for why he doesn’t recognize the man standing beside him.

“Seaman Petty Officer First Class Evan Buckley.” A blond man steps forward and Eddie catches himself staring at the dress whites and stone expression for longer than is strictly necessary. He seems a far cry from the officer being scolded less than an hour ago, but it is definitely him. And he was standing on stage beside Eddie, about to receive a medal of his own.

“For distinguishing oneself by heroism not involving actual conflict with an enemy of the United States, Petty Officer Buckley is awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.”

As he watches the stripes being pined on the officer’s lapel, he lets himself wonder what crime the man could have committed to be dressed down and rewarded in the same afternoon.

He’s so curious, in fact, that he nearly misses his own name amongst the titles thrown around.

“Staff Sergeant Edmundo Diaz.” He steps forward, holding his breath until the entire ordeal is finally finished. “For gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States, Staff Sergeant Diaz is awarded the Silver Star.” The medal is heavier than he anticipated, but he supposes that makes sense. It is quite a burden he’ll be carrying around, and now he has a gold star to go with it – he wants to chuckle at the irony of his ‘Silver Star’ actually presenting as a golden one.

It seems everything about his life is a life.

There were a lot of reasons Eddie hated attending events like this: The politics, the bravado, the crowds of people ‘thanking him for his service’. Mostly, though: he never knows anyone. Sure, he can charm a senator or two for a few minutes, swap stories with other officers from other divisions about where they were and what they saw. But those are fleeting relationships, meant to get him through the day. He’ll go back to his hotel room at the end of the night with no more friends than when he’d stepped off the plane in this awful, awful town. Eddie is tired of ‘schmoozing’. With any luck, today will be the last time he has to tell the governor’s wife how lovely she looks in her dress.

That’s when he spots the man sitting at the edge of the bar like he’s trying to hide from the world, and he decides to make his way over.

“Do you mind if I join you?” He asks, even as he sits down.

The other man’s eyes light with recognition – and damn, are they as blue as the sea. “Not at all. Diaz, right?”

“Eddie.” He supplies, raising a finger to the bartender to snag his attention. If he is going to make it to the end of the evening, he’s going to need one, good drink. “And you’re Buckley.”

“Actually, it’s Evan but you can call me ‘Buck’.” His amusement must be evident because his new drinking buddy supplies the answer. “There are a surprising amount of ‘Evan’s in the Navy.”

It had never occurred to him to check how many ‘Eddie’s were in his squadron. Maybe he should ask his CO if that’s why he always called him by his full first name.

“Congratulations, by the way.” Buck looks somewhat nervous even as the words leave his mouth. “On your medal. Good job.”

“Oh.” Is all Eddie can bring himself to say as he stares into the bottom of his glass. “Thanks.”

“You don’t look too happy about it.”

He really isn’t doing a good job of hiding his emotions if this relative stranger ca read him so easily. “No, I-” he takes a deep breath to recalibrate his thoughts and paste his best fake smile. “It is a great honour.”

“Bullshit.” Buck laughs in his face but for some reason, Eddie doesn’t bristle nearly as hard as he expected. It almost feels playful. The rest of Buck’s response is cut off by his buzzing phone on the counter. The man quickly grabs it long enough to check his notifications, returning it to its place at the bar with a disappointed look.

“Are we keeping you from something?”

“Uh, no.” It’s Buck’s turn to look caught out and in need of recalibration. His expression changes much slower. “I’m just waiting for a call from my sister. I sent her an invitation to this thing but she never responded.”

Eddie has experience with family not coming to big social events like this one. Of course, in his case, he never invited them in the first place.

“Family ain’t easy.” He shrugs as he takes a long sip of whatever burning liquid he’d ordered – it really doesn’t matter so long as he can stay sitting here and not mingling with the crowds of vultures.

“It’s more than that.” Buck looks worried, and the way he bites his lip is… Eddie shouldn’t be focusing on that. “It’s just…” The man shakes his head, dismissing whatever feelings were eating at his gut. “I don’t want to bore you.”

“Please.” Eddie leans into his space with a playful smile. “It can’t be any more boring than this event. Please try to bore me to tears, if you dare.”

When Buck smiles, Eddie’s heart flutters out of his chest and sits beside him as they listen to Buck begin to speak. He tells Eddie about his sister, how she cared for him growing up, how she went away with her asshole of a boyfriend – now her deceased asshole of a husband – leaving him to fend for himself. He talks about travelling the country, trying every odd job he could get his hands on, until a buddy of his suggested he join the Navy. And he loves the work, he really does, but he hasn’t seen his sister in over a year. Their last conversation ended in a fight about some family secret that Buck is reluctant to talk about. Even Eddie can tell that the man just misses his sister. No matter what the argument was about.

Eddie finds himself talking – in less detail – about Shannon and the divorce and his son at home. At Buck’s prompting, he shows off his favourite photos of Christopher (avoiding the one burning a whole in his shirt pocket, torn and bloody, which never leaves him). The man’s face positively lights up when he sees the kid, offering an appropriate amount of sympathy for his divorce without pushing him for more emotions.

It’s easy talking to Buck, he realizes after a few hours. Because suddenly, the venue rental is nearly up and he’s still sitting at the corner of the bar, talking to Buck. Sure, a few people have passed by and shaken their hands, thanking them for their service – Eddie cringes every time and Buck has to hide his laughter once he realizes – but for the most part, it’s just the two of them, sitting and talking.

“The flag signalling we use now was established in 1855.” Buck explains as he leans further into Eddie’s space. “And while Robert Morse invented Morse Code in the 1830s, the International Morse Code that we use didn’t come out until the 1850s.”

“How do you know all of that?” Eddie was fairly certain he hadn’t had to study the history of communication when he was in training. But he’d also been very focused on his medical textbook.

Buck was incredibly cute when he blushed, Eddie decides – though he opts to keep that opinion to himself for now. “I get bored and I read.” The man shrugs nonchalantly, as though he hasn’t been entertaining Eddie with stories of Naval history and his own dumb-ass mistakes all evening. Honestly, Eddie wants to sit here all night and listen to Buck tell him stories of the world. It seems like he’s lived a lifetime already. And what has Eddie done? Gotten a girl pregnant, joined the army, gotten shot, and now he doesn’t even have a wife to go home to.

“Can I ask you something?” Eddie realizes too late that Buck looks nervous. He thinks he probably wouldn’t have said yes if he’d noticed. “How did you get your medal?”

Now he knows he doesn’t have to answer – and his initial instinct is to close out his tab and see if he can run to El Paso on his still-injured leg. But he also realizes that he hasn’t told anyone since it happened. Not the full story. Even now, he might not have the words. But he tries.

“Our helicopter got shot down while transporting wounded. I could still move so I got everyone out. Or I tried to get them out.” The echo of gunfire is not as distant as the others told him it would be. He can still smell it. “Support finally arrived and they decided to give me a medal for holding down the fort.”

Buck places a gentle hand over his and Eddie gasps, reminded that it has been a very long time since anyone has touched him. God, how he misses it.

“You saved wounded soldiers in the middle of the desert while being fired on. And you think you were just doing your job?”

“I’m an army medic.” He reasons with the bottom of his glass. “It’s my job to save people.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think that’s why you do it.” Without elaborating, Buck smiles at him and Eddie forgets the question.

“What about you?” He asks instead. “What’s yours for?”

Unlike the enthusiastic, bubbly personality he’s been talking to for the last few hours, Buck melts into the face he saw up on that stage. The stoic, professional.

“We were on our way back from an escort mission when we encountered some rough seas. I happened to be on deck with the chief mate when he had a stroke. I tried to tend to him but the storm was getting worse and no one could find the captain, so I just took over navigation. It was rough, I had no idea what I was doing, but we all made it out safely and the chief mate was okay.” As Buck shrugs, memories of an overheard conversation come flooding back to Eddie’s mind.

“Wait, were you on the USS Angelo?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Eddie can’t believe it. He has to laugh. “You were the cadet who sailed out of Hurricane Ida?”

“I am a petty officer first class, I’ll have you know.”

“Buck, you navigated a 2,000 ton ship out of a hurricane and all they gave you was a lousy medal?”

“I should get that printed on a t-shirt, or something.”

“That was incredibly reckless but also incredibly brave. Buck, you’re a hero.”

“I was just doing my job.” The smirk tells Eddie he knows exactly what he’s doing but it still hits him that he’s throwing Eddie’s words back in his face. Cute and cheeky.

He doesn’t know why he asks – well, he does, but it’s incredibly stupid and impulsive, and he definitely can’t blame it on the alcohol but he sure would like to.

“How long are you in town?”

Buck looks pleasantly surprised by his question but answers with regret in his eyes. “I head out with the Fifth Fleet in the morning.”

Wow. “You just got a medal, and you’re headed out to earn another one?”

“Something like that.” Buck laughs and Eddie wishes he was braver than he felt. “But I won’t be gone forever. And I’m really good at telegraphy if you wanted to send anyone a message.”

He’s so grateful that Buck has the good sense to be everything he needs right now. Because asking the next question is easier with someone standing next to him. “I suppose I’ll need a way to get in touch with you, then.”

Buck winks and Eddie has never been gladder that the concept of ‘standing’ was only metaphorical. The man should not be so irresistible after only a few hours, but Eddie can’t help but watch him push off his barstool and walk around the side of the bar.

“Hey, Diaz!” The spell is broken long enough for him to look across the room at where his name is being called. He waves at old friends – well, Senior Airman Han and Space Force First Sergeant Wilson are the closest things he has to old friends but in actuality, he’s not sure he knows their first names. “We’re going to the afterparty, want to join?”

On a normal night, Eddie would decline on the basis that he doesn’t want to go, and would rather lay in bed and watch reruns of ‘Murder She Wrote’. Tonight, Eddie wants to decline on the basis that he doesn’t want to go, and would rather stay up all night talking to someone who makes me feel curious about the future.

“Not tonight.” He shouts back across the room. “I’ll catch you at the next ceremony.”

They wave him off because they know it’s the same excuse he makes every single time but the only thing that matters is getting back to Buck.

“So.” He turns to the bar only to find it empty. The seat beside him is also unoccupied, as is any of the space surrounding him.

Had he dreamed up Buck? Had he been imagining this person who made him feel like divorce wasn’t his last chance at happiness? Was he truly so desperate and lonely?

“Hey.” Eddie looks up with too much hope in his eyes to only come face-to-face with the bartender. “He left this for you.” The man – who is not Buck, no matter how much Eddie hopes to see those eyes again – slides a napkin across the counter and walks away before Eddie can ask anymore questions.

He picks up the napkin and reads the blue ink-stained note written in messy scrawl.

Kilo

--... .---- --... ..... ..... ..... -.... --... ----. .----

The dots and dashes he recognizes as a series of numbers – a phone number, he hopes – but the word above? He tries to recall his academy days.

Kilo. Short for Kilogram. Used in the International Code of Symbols to represent the letter ‘K’. In Maritime Signal Flags, it indicates: I wish to communicate with you.

He’s pretty sure the bartender hates him for how late he stayed and how loudly he laughed at Buck’s note, but he can’t bring himself to care. Instead, he spends his energy memorizing the napkin’s contents long after he’s input the number. It’s more than just a piece of paper: it’s hope.

[pedropascallovebot]

Let's Kill Tonight

summary: You're a bit out of practice, but being entrusted with the retrieval and return of Helmut Zemo shouldn't be too hard, right? Even if he is your old sorta-boss and you still are nursing unfortunate loyalty towards the team. You can manage. And him being... slightly more attractive than how you last left him won't be a problem.

Right?

warnings and a/n: i have.... no clue what this is if not a complete rewrite of mcu canon purely for self-indulgence. reader has a kinda shady past and in result will talk graphically about violence in later chapters and there's lots of gun action in this one. very fun, very cool! alright. i hope y'all enjoy teehee

—

The weather where you're at doesn’t usually vary much from a sunny sky, but alas, you’re absolutely drenched by the time you step inside the diner. You hadn’t expected the rain. Your usual five minute walk to work turned into a hike through muddy sidewalks and water droplets that kept hitting your eyes, and by the time you tied your apron around your waist the day felt over before it even started. Your boss gives you a closed-lip smile and glances at your empty section of tables, and you just know you’re going to be late on rent again.

For what it’s worth, Lüleburgaz isn’t the worst place to slip under the radar. It’s not underpopulated by any means, but it makes it perfect to blend in with the crowd as best you can. Honestly, you're just trying to make it a day without a proper therapist. Your roommates are great listeners, don't get it twisted- but all they really know about you is you're Sokovian and they don't really need to hear about the stuff that happened before your country was crushed by some guys in tights and iron suits. They don't ask you much, and you're grateful.  After an unfortunate five-year gap in employment (which isn’t your fault- it’s kinda hard to find jobs when you’re reduced to dust unexpectedly) you were lucky to find somewhere that was willing to hire you without a legally issued identification card and that was also willing to pay in cash under the table. You broke out the books and attempted to learn the language as best as you can, and while you're struggling a bit, you can at least understand the menu and what a customer is ordering. It was far from ideal- ideal would be completely erasing any trace of memory regarding you and your… history, so to speak, from anybody who has the potential to be a threat to you. Ideal could also be an island somewhere, maybe Praslin or Nassau, where you could swim in clear waters and drink copious amounts of fancy fruity drinks instead of whatever liquor your roomies had hiding under the counter. But until that happens, being on the sorta-run for some questionable past career choices seems to stick.

Said questionable career choices led you to be introduced to a network of interesting people, some less horrible than others, but all of them carried the same unmistakable signal of danger displayed in flashing lights above their heads. When you hear the bell to the restaurant door jingle, signaling the arrival of someone new, that weird gut feeling activates and your eyes flicker up to see a pair of high heels and sunglasses, even though the sun hasn’t been out all day. Everyone else eating their food don’t even spare a glance to the door. This should comfort you, it should tell you that you're fine and that there's nothing to worry about, but it absolutely doesn’t and suddenly you’re inconspicuously making your way to the back, muttering something to your boss about taking your break early. Ripping off your apron, you throw it to the side and let it land on the ground next to you, and you lean your head against the brick wall behind you. Your fingers are twitching as the pressing issue of impending doom continues to rise in your gut. You barely register the creaking sound of the back gate opening.

“Do you want a cigarette?” Suddenly, you’re in fighting stance as an unfamiliar voice speaks less than a foot away from your ear. You don’t recognize this new face, but she looks expensive and entirely too out of place for a diner that receives in its eggs already prepared and frozen.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” she continues, and fishes a lighter and pack out of her coat pocket. “Good choice. These things will kill you- and so will this godawful food you serve here. What a relief that after today you won’t step foot in this place ever again, huh?”

Your mouth opens to say something, but you decide against it. Instead, you slightly lower your fists, keeping your eyes trained on her seemingly unbothered expression. She takes a long drag of her cigarette before giving you any more information. The silence is deafening, and you mentally take note of the clear path you have through the open fence and towards the street if you chose to run. Something tells you this lady didn’t arrive here on foot though, and she probably had an expensive vehicle waiting out front waiting to catch up to you if you chose to make a break for it.

“You’re jumpy- probably a little bit out of practice from the whole ex-assassin thing, right? I can work with that. I have to applaud you: as far as hide and seek spots go, this wasn’t horrible. We’ll have to improve your people skills, but-“

“Who are you?”

You grow increasingly frustrated as it starts to sprinkle again, leaving you cold and wet as your company opens an umbrella she had previously stored away in her coat.

“I don’t like being interrupted, so let’s not make it a habit, hm? My name is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and you’ve become annoyingly important to my cause. Come on, we’re leaving.”

She begins to walk towards the gate, but you stay put, beginning to toy with the idea of unsheathing the knife stored in your boot.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, lady.”

This makes her turn around and sigh in frustration.

“The way I see it, you have two choices. Go back and finish bussing tables so you can make an extra couple dollars, or come with me so we can talk real business. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the only one between the two of us that poses a threat. I’m not the one with weapons hidden in my clothes, am I?”

Your eyes narrow, but you don’t argue. Instead, you hesitantly join her in her path towards a gaudy car (you knew it) that looks way too out of place to be in this parking lot. For a split second you consider going back and giving your manager somewhat of a notice of your absence, but Valentina’s walking so fast that you don’t really have time to continue considering.

“By the way, I distinctively said my name is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine- I don’t like to repeat myself, don’t make me do it again.”

-

You barely have time to sit down before Valentina is barking directions at her driver and scolding you for getting rain water in her backseat. You remain silent, and a little bit uncomfortable as Val finishes her cigarette completely before bothering to inform you of whatever the hell she’s got going on.

“Tell me what you know about super soldiers,” she finally gives, crossing her legs and glances at you expectantly.

You search her face for any kind of indication that she’s kidding, but she seems serious. It kinda feels like your soul is being stared into and you want to look away but you can’t. What does she not know about super soldiers that she can learn from you and not from literally anywhere else? Admittedly, all you know is what clips of newspapers would give you. Something about rogue experimentation, something-something Winter Soldier, and then, most recently, the Flag-Smashers and the rumors flying around that they've got some serum floating around. All of this seemed to be public knowledge though. Nothing a woman who’s willing to corner people in the backlots of their jobs couldn’t find out from a simple Google search.

“I asked you a question, didn’t I?”

“I can’t say I know much.”

For what feels like the millionth time in the span of twenty minutes, she sighs, bringing out her cell phone and starts punching some buttons.

“And what about this man? Does he ring a bell?”

You do your absolute best to not look as tense as you feel when out of the corner of your eye you see a familiar face in a tiny, grainy picture. She shoves the device in your hands, and right there center of the screen is-

“Zemo, right? That was a trick question. Hard to forget the face of your old boss, I’d assume.”

Suddenly, you’re upright in your seat, the earlier feeling of danger settling right back into place. Valentina, of course, just lets out a laugh, while you’re planning on swan-diving out the damn window.

“The Colonel isn’t my boss,” you protest, and a burning sensation makes its way to your throat.

“Isn’t he though?” Valentina is now fully turned towards you, her hand reaching to grab the phone back. More buttons are pressed, and she’s reading your name from an official looking online database. “It says here you’re wanted in a lot of countries, huh? I wonder why that is- oh, look at this, would you? Seems like your name and EKO Scorpion are mentioned in the same sentence at least three times just on this page.”

Your eyes narrow, and you waste no more time in grabbing your gun from your coat pocket, and Valentina seems to have the same idea, the phone  in her hands is now replaced with a much newer and nicer pistol than you’re carrying. It’s silent in the car for a few seconds, and the driver in the front dares not move a muscle. Val is the first to break, and she lowers her weapon with a shit-eating grin you’re growing tired of seeing.

“Let’s start over. You’re associated with an elite death squad assigned to defend the interests of a country that’s no more than a pile of rubble and dead memorial flowers on the ground. You never had an official invitation, but they paid you good enough money for you to get your hands dirty for them. Too bad that without a leader, your little syndicate fell apart, didn’t it? Unfortunate, what happened to him really. And how inconvenient it must have been for you- I’m sure the law doesn’t usually side with individuals associated with terrorists. Luckily for you, you had a five-year break from being on the run.”

The urge to fall back into old form and pull the trigger at the slightest sign of trouble starts to rear its ugly head, but you take a deep breath and try to align your focus to your current situation. This doesn’t have to be deadly. She knows your history, she knows your name. She could just be blackmailing you. Easy fix, offer her better information on individuals that are far, far away from you. You’re sure you can think of something juicy enough to entertain her and fray her interest in you. This doesn’t have to end in a gunshot. She has access to all of the shit you’ve done. You don’t know what she knows. She could be from the American government. Kill her, and lessen the risk of being thrown in a prison cell to rot.You’re desperate, and you’re scared, and it’s making you vulnerable. You take another deep breath in, and lower your gun.

“What do you want?” Valentina falls back into her seat, clearly very amused by the entire situation now that guns weren’t drawn.

“The Flag-Smashers are becoming increasingly difficult as they’re forming alliances with seemingly every gang of mercenaries for hire. The serum belongs in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it, don’t you think?”

This lady is clearly out of her mind, but you’re too far in now and you don’t feel like questioning her on her morals or the ethics of this situation.

“I don’t want any business with Morganthau, and I don’t care about super soldiers. If that’s all you need me for, you might as well find someone else.”

“Who said anything about you dealing with Flag-Smashers? No, for you,” she starts, grabbing the phone once more and resuming that annoying clicking as she searches through various links, “I have a slightly less… hazardous task. No killing involved, sadly. I’m sure your lovely skillset will keep until it’s needed, but you will be finding Zemo for me, where I can pay him far too much money so he’ll kill the Flag-Smashers for me.”

It’s your turn to laugh, now. “In case you haven’t heard, Helmut Zemo is rotting away in prison for the rest of his life. How is he going to be of any help to you?”

Valentina doesn’t bother giving you a verbal response, just shoves that damn phone in your face again. You glare at her before your eyes skim over the article. Breakout. Zemo. The Falcon. Prison. You curse internally, and she lets her arm fall back to her side. You realize you haven’t been paying too much attention to where the driver was taking you both until you feel the vehicle holt to a stop, and you look up to realize you’re in a parking garage, and the faint sounds of airplanes fly overhead.

“As of now, you and I are a two-man team, but this won’t be the case for long. Zemo is with Sam Wilson and James Barnes in a safehouse in Riga. You and I aren’t the only ones looking for him, however, which makes your job a little tricky, but I don’t have much faith in the guy assigned in returning him to Berlin.”

“Who is he?”

“I assume the name John Walker doesn’t need an explanation?”

You shake your head.

“Walker can be of use to us, and we’re gonna need him- just not yet. What I need from you at the current moment is to make sure you get to these coordinates,” the driver is suddenly handing you a slip of paper with numbers scribbled on it, and you take it, “before Walker gets Zemo.”

You inhale, and Valentina gives you a look.

“I assume you have a question?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to get Walker on your side sooner? Maybe if you could say the right thing, persuade him to bring Zemo to us-"

Valentina cuts you off with a scoff. “What? That if we tell Captain America to hand over an international prisoner so we can extract information and hire him to kill for us he’ll do it? Walker wants one thing right now: he wants that serum. Coincidentally, your friend Zemo wants that serum gone. IF we get to him first, which you will, he’ll be more than happy to oblige. Walker is at a tipping point, but he’s not useful to us. Yet. We just have to wait until he's vulnerable.”

She takes your silence as an okay to continue. “Get to Latvia, find Zemo. Use that pretty face of yours to charm him into coming with you, maybe share some war stories around the campfire. I don’t give a damn how you get it done. Walker’s already halfway there by now.”

You are really starting to question how Valentina is getting her information, but before you can say anything else, she’s motioning for her driver to slide another piece of paper in your hand. Your eyes go wide at the numbers listed after a dollar sign.

“I assume this would be enough to cover your services?”

You look up at her, nodding your head slightly.

“Half now, half when you bring him to me,” she finishes, and the driver is unlocking your side of the car. “It looks like we’re in business then.”

[sagasofazeria]

Stranger In A Strange Land

Song of the Seven Suns, Part 1

Taglist (ask to be added/removed!): @hellishhin

Faulkron Rhodes was a long way from home. He stood on the deck of a small sailing ship, the golden light of the late afternoon sun glinting off of the sapphire waters, searing his eyes even as he shaded them with his arm. Looking past the glaring reflections of the sun, he could see the shoreline ahead, and a port city bustling with all kinds of ships. He was relieved to see land again, after being on the open water for so long. He had almost begun to regret his somewhat on-a-whim decision to cross an ocean and leave the land he’d grown up in. However, with a new land in sight, his faith was reaffirmed. Readjusting his leather armor and his greatsword on his back, he couldn’t help but be eager to see the new land ahead. As he stated at the port, he heard the captain of the ship called out to him from somewhere to his right.

“Hey, adventurer! We’re about to dock in Corias! Welcome to Leinos!”

From what the crew had told him along their journey, Leinos was a young country. Corias was just one of many ports along the coasts of a massive continent, and trade thrived there. Leinos had access to seas that connected it and every country Faulkron had heard of thus far, and more. An up-and-coming mercenary like Faulkron would do well there, he hoped. Supposedly, they were a peaceful nation since the end of the war between Leinos and the peoples further inland, so Faulkron hoped to have luck fighting problems they might not want to solve with their personal swords.

Eventually, the ship had docked, and as the sailors began to unload their cargo, Faulkron took his leave. He walked from the docks through the town, taking stock of the city. He could see tiled colorful roofs, and lots of hanging colorful cloths around the streets, partially shading the many people walking around, going about their business. Clay pots, cloths, art, all sorts of things in a variety of styles were being sold all along the streets, by people who looked to be from all over. He recognized very little of what was being sold here, and realized growing up on a small farm in the middle of the hills back across the ocean in Unterras probably wasn’t the best environment to meet new people. Regardless, he walked on through the city, taking in what he could. He saw numerous guards as well, dressed in silver-painted, hardened leather armor, with blue crests of dyed horse-hair adorning the helmets. An amount of guards he wasn’t expecting for a supposedly peaceful nation. In addition to the guards, he also thought he could make out some sort of fortress further inland, situated on a hill that overlooked the port, hanging banners depicting a blue flag with silver bordering, a stylized crest of some sort emblazoned on it.

He eventually found himself in a town center, with even more market stalls than by the docks. He could see storefronts of buildings on the edges of the square, as well as some sort of pavilion with what appeared to be people drinking and talking. He also noted a statue in the center of the square of a sitting man. He was well dressed, in long flowing robes. He had a thick beard, and curly hair down to his shoulders, his head adorned by a crown. Faulkron, in a remarkable display of intelligence, deduced this guy was probably important. He couldn’t read the plaque beneath it through all the people, but as he got closer he realized he wouldn’t have recognized the language anyways. He looked at it for a little longer, looking for some translation in Common, but was startled out of his search by a voice.

“Hey there. Noticed you looking at the statue, and I haven’t seen you around before. Who are you?”

Faulkron turned to the voice, looking for its owner. In front of him, standing significantly shorter than him (most people did, at his nearly 6 foot height), was a human woman. She was wearing simple light cloths and leather bracers. She had a lyre on her hip and a wooden violin case that appeared to double as a scabbard for the sword on her back. She had wavy brown hair in an undercut swept to one side that was dyed a vibrant purple at the ends, and tanned skin, like many of the Leinai he’d seen so far. He stared for a moment, still slightly confused as to who she was talking to, but she kept looking at him, and there was no one behind him but the statue.

“I’m Faulkron, Faulkron Rhodes. Who are you?”

“Well met, Faulkron. I’m Jetra, I’m a storyteller of sorts. This guy right here—“ she pointed at the statue “—is King Akeron II. He was the last king of Leinos. His son is Akeron III, the current king.”

“Oh. Didn’t know... Wait. Why’d you say you hadn’t seen me before? Isn’t this a trade city? Wouldn’t most people be unfamiliar?” Faulkron took a step back. He couldn’t help but be a little suspicious of the ‘storyteller’. She seemed overly friendly, and he wasn’t exactly used to just being approached and talked to like this. In response, the woman just laughed.

“You got me. I just thought you looked interesting. Plus, most of the people here are selling something, so that limits our conversational opportunities, know what I mean?”

Faulkron nodded hesitantly. Was everyone like this is Leinos? It would definitely take getting used to. He thought about leaving, but she began talking again.

“Well, what brings you to Corias? You look like the adventuring type, you going somewhere?”

“Not yet. I only just got here. I was thinking of finding some sort of job board, or maybe some other mercenaries?”

Jetra nodded. “Well, I can get you to either of those. I know a mercenary group that is based here in Corias you might wanna talk to, the Icaon mercenaries. And there’s a job board over by the tavern, near that pavilion there.”

Faulkron weighed the options, but decided a fully fledged mercenary company would probably pay better. “Let’s go to the mercenaries.”

“Alright then, come on.” Jetra began to weave through the crowds, heading further into the city. With a small shrug to himself, he walked off after her.

•••

Jetra was very interested in the adventurer she’d met in the marketplace. He looked to be extremely capable, judging by his extremely strong build. She’d quickly noticed he held himself with strength, and she knew she’d need it if she wanted to deal with her problem. She lead him to the Icaon mercenaries, walking toward their complex by the docks, where they trained and did most of their business. She turned back to her new companion.

“Okay, I’ve worked with some of the Icaon before, they’re generally pretty up-front. You shouldn’t have any issues. So, where are you planning on going? Thinking about heading inland?”

Faulkron thought for a moment, before nodding. “I guess. I just sailed here, so I figure that’s where I should head. Why, what’s that way?”

“Well, there’s the capital city, Anikora, to the east a ways, along the coast. Corias is actually the westernmost point in Leinos, other than the Ceana region down south, but it’s pretty far away. Between here and there is a massive rainforest, and you’d have to cross most of Azeria to get there. It’s a remnant of the war, seperated but technically still a part of Leinos. As far Leinai cities in this region, especially looking inland, there’s not much. Some farming villages, and I know there’s Kuretion in the hills before you get to Great Rainforest. We might find something near there. There’s a lot of land to explore, my new friend. I can help guide you, if you like. I’ve traveled quite a lot, gathering my stories. I’d be willing to help you get where you’re going, if you help me. You seem friendly enough.”

Faulkron took in what she’d told him. This new world was bigger than he’d expected. He figured it’d be smart to have a guide. Plus, if she betrayed him or something, he was sure he could easily take care of her. “Deal. We can travel together, at least for now.”

She grinned. “Great! Traveling is always more fun with someone to sing to, in my opinion. Well, before we set off, let’s see if we can get paid for it, huh?”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Well, that was at least the first step done. And he looked like he had a somewhat solid idea of his own path forward, even if he was a bit closed off right now. She needed people who knew what they were doing if she was going to succeed.

As they approached the wooden archway that served as the entrance to the Icaon camp, Jetra raised a hand in greeting, and started to speak.

•••

Faulkron, walking behind Jetra, nearly stopped in his tracks. There were two guards standing watch at the gate, both human. One of them was leaning against the wall, barely paying attention to them at all, her eyes gazing vaguely into the distance. The other one, however, was a sight to behold. He had longer dark brown hair, tied into a small loose ponytail, skin that looked forged from bronze, and a sharp jaw with a fine dark stubble all across it. His chest was bare, save the leather strap that held on his shoulder armor. He was well muscled, and on his hips were two shortswords, and all of his gear looked like it had seen lots of use.

Maybe it was the fact that he’d been out to sea for so long, maybe it was the fact that the sun sinking in the west definitely complemented this man’s looks. Maybe it was the fact that his green eyes were so vibrant. Faulkron didn’t know, but he had forgotten for the moment about mercenary work and traveling inland. He was caught, in a cruel irony of words, entirely off-guard.

The man stepped forward, before they could enter. When he spoke, his voice had a rich accent.

“Hola. Why do you approach?”

Faulkron stood silently, still regaining his composure.

Seeing this, Jetra quickly responded, “Just to see if there might be any opportunities for me and my friend here. Figured this was a good a place to start as any.”

The man nodded. “Sí, you would be right. This is one of the few organized mercenary companies based in Leinos that hasn’t been assimilated into the military. We operate all along the northern coast. You can enter. Talk to Elikon, he’ll get you familiar. I’m off my shift at sundown if you need me, ask for Alejandro. I know my way around, if you need help.”

It was at this point that Alejandro’s eyes met Faulkron’s. They both paused, and Faulkron stumbled over his words before blurting, “Off your shift? Cool cool. I will definitely do that.” Mentally, he scolded himself. First hot guy you talk to in 3 years, and you’re making yourself look like a fool, he thought.

•••

Jetra turned around, surprised by how sheepish the massive warrior behind her sounded suddenly. She followed his eyes to the guard, and back to him, and realization dawned on her. She couldn’t help but crack a grin. “Faulkron, when you’re done talking to Alejandro here, come meet me inside?”

Faulkron nodded, still locked in some sort of awkward homosexual staring match with Alejandro. Chuckling, Jetra slipped into the compound.

•••

“Do you have something you’d like to say?” Alejandro smiled, watching as the elf in front of him quickly looked away, obviously flustered.

“I. So... yeah. What do you do? For a living. Wait no-“

Alejandro just laughed. You could always tell which ones had been stuck on a ship for just a little too long. He had to admit, the awkwardness of such an imposing warrior was quite cute. He was tempted to just walk inside, but he couldn’t skip out on another shift, he’d get thrown out of the company. And he was really trying to settle into a rhythm in his life, despite it not working at all.

“Listen, why don’t we talk after my shift? I need to do my job, boring as it may be. And I’ll give you a little time to collect yourself, maybe?”

The warrior just nodded, averting his eyes from Alejandro’s smirk. “Yeah. I’m gonna- Yeah.”

Alejandro stopped him before he went inside. “Wait. I never got your name.”

“It’s Faulkron.”

“Hasta luego, Faulkron.”

Prologue | Part 2

[katehuntington]

Title: Black Dog - part two Word count: ±2250 words Episode summary: When Sam gets an anonymous phone call with information about his father, Dean receives a text message with coordinates to different location. The brothers clash and split up, one following orders, the other   trusting his instincts. Meanwhile, in the wilderness of Cascade Range, Washington State, Zoë loses grip on a personal case and is forced to confront her demons. Without back up, this might very well turn out to be her final hunt. Part two summary: After successfully wrapping up a werewolf case in Waco, Texas, the boys are on their way again. However, an unexpected phone call might just result in a change of course. Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only! Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and  medical procedures. Supernatural creatures/entities, mentions of demon possession. Swearing, smoking, weaponry. Descriptions of  torture and murder. Illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks. Descriptions of suicidal thoughts and tendencies, depression, panic attacks, hallucinations. Author’s note: Beta’d by @winchest09​​ & @deanwanddamons​​​. Thanks, girls!

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist

S1E03 “Black Dog” Masterlist

     Waco, Texas      November 30th, 2005 - Present Day

     “Get your motor runnin’. Head out on the highway! Lookin’ for adventure, and whatever comes our way.”

     It’s early morning in sunny Texas as the black Chevrolet Impala shoots down Interstate 35, just outside the city of Waco. The temperatures are still cool at this hour, but the orange sun that’s rising in the East will change that within hours. It is exceptionally warm for this time of the year, even for this far south. 

     Dean has his window rolled down and joins Steppenwolf’s lead singer John Kay on the vocals. The hunt was pretty straight forward; after a day of traveling and three more to track the creature, the hunters were able to make the kill. He feels ten times better than he did five days ago, the night he got pulled out of the water without a pulse. But the rest, time and a high dose of antibiotics did him good. Deep breaths aren’t much trouble anymore and the cough is as good as gone. Even the sprint to tackle the werewolf didn’t set his lungs on fire. He’s off pain medication, slept horizontally for the first time in days, and is behind the wheel of his Baby; Dean feels good as new. His way of celebrating is by belting out every word of the legendary rock classic Born To Be Wild.

     “Yeah, Darlin’, go and make it happen. Take the world in a love embrace. Fire all of your guns at once and explode into space.”

     His brother, who is huddled in the corner of the door and the front seat, opens his eyes slightly and glares at his sibling through the drowsiness. He’s not sure what’s more surprising, Dean’s unbelievably good mood or the fact that he’s able to hit the notes.

     “Like a true nature’s child, we were born, born to be wild. We can climb so high, I never wanna die!” Dean sings as he drums on the wheel.  

     “Dude, I’m trying to sleep,” Sam complains. “Turn that shit down, will you?”      Dean looks aside, as if his brother just said something vile. Did he just call Steppenwolf shit? The oldest of the two shakes his head; I tried so hard to raise him right. 

     Instead of honoring Sam’s request, Dean lets go of the steering wheel and plays the solo on his air guitar. Startled, the passenger reaches to take control in order to keep the car steady, after which he eyes his brother. As he does, Dean turns the volume button clockwise and sings along again.      “Born to be wi-i-ild!” he cries out.      “Seriously?” The youngest of the two shoots a look of annoyance at the driver.      “Ah, c’mon, Sammy. Why can’t a guy have a little fun?” Dean replies.      “It’s Sam,” his brother reminds him. “And for one, because I barely slept last night, and secondly, because it’s seven thirty in the morning.”      “So? You’re usually the one who’s all chirpy at the crack of dawn. This way we have the whole day ahead, y’know. Make some use of it,” Dean quips.

     Sam lifts one eyebrow and observes the driver for a few seconds. Is this truly coming from his brother, who is anything but a morning person? Bullshit, he thinks to himself.      “That’s the best you could come up with?” he confronts.      Right at that moment, AC/DC’s Stiff Upper Lip starts playing on the radio channel and Dean can’t help but to shout out when he recognizes the introduction.      “Man, I love this song!”      Sam shakes his head. All that his brother is doing is avoiding the topic of conversation. “And Erin didn’t mind you leaving before the alarm?” 

     Dean looks aside, thinking of the gorgeous brunette he picked up at a bar last night during their celebratory drink. “Not sure, she was still asleep when I left,” he admits.      The younger Winchester scoffs. “That’s just mean.”      “It ain’t my style to hang around too long, you know that,” Dean reminds his brother, defending his actions.      “Why the hell are you in such a hurry? We don’t have a lead on Dad, we don’t have a lead on any case at all. Yet you dragged me out of the motel room at 6 AM to hit the road,” Sam questions.

     His brother shrugs and fails to answer the question. Instead, he mouths the lyrics of the song while cheerily banging his head to the beat.      “Dean!” Sam shouts, trying to get his brother to focus.      “What?!” Dean bounces back, getting somewhat annoyed with his brother’s persistence. “I just wanna get to Hillsboro to pick up that lock so I can finally fix the trunk, that’s all.”

     The passenger rolls his eyes at the lame excuse. “That’s not the reason, Dean. And you know it.”      Dean lays his hand on top of the wheel and shakes his head. “You’re seeing things that ain’t there, know that?”      “Funny, though, apparently you know that I’m talking about Zoë, without me even mentioning her,” the youngest returns with an attitude. “And do you honestly think I didn’t notice that you’re driving north?”      “We’re in Texas, Sam. I can’t exactly go South without crossing any fucking borders,” Dean argues. “Not to mention that ‘north’ is a lot of square miles in this country. How the hell would we possibly be able to find her?”      “I don’t know, man…” Sam stares up the road ahead, but then looks aside. “But you did think of it then.”

     Dean sighs, realizing his slip of the tongue. Okay, so maybe he did, but he isn’t going to admit that. “You are the one who keeps calling her every day. You’re full on stalking her, no wonder she doesn’t pick up.”      “I hope to God that’s the reason,” Sam responds, worried.      “She’s probably just neck deep in a case,” the driver brings to mind. “Zoë’s a good hunter, she knows her shit. Why would you think she’s in trouble?”      “I don’t know, just the way she took off. Like she wasn’t expecting to see us again,” Sam recalls.      “You mean that she was nice?” the oldest rephrases. “Look, if she’s in trouble or not, we’d be searching for a needle in a very big haystack. For now -” He turns on his blinker and exits the highway, “- I’m gonna patch up my Baby.”

     Ten minutes later, they pull over on 526 West Elm Street in Hillsboro. It’s a quiet lane on the outer side of the city, on which a little auto shop called Ronny’s Garage and Wrecker Services is situated. It’s not a big place, just a shed, from which the Stars and Stripes flag flutter playfully. A big Chevrolet truck is parked in front of the lawn, and several wreckages fill the large yard behind the house. On the other side of the sober home next to the shed, there’s a small gas station. 

     Dean cuts the engine and gets out of the car. A largely built man with big sideburns and a slight limp in his walk shows up from under the garage door and moves into the sun. Whipping his hands clean with a dirty cloth, he smiles at the sight of the ‘67 Impala. The oldest of the two Winchester brothers walks up the driveway.      “Ronny Davis!” Dean grins as he approaches him. “Man, it’s good to see ya.”      “Long time, no see, Winchester,” the big man says, embracing the hunter.

     Dean pats him on the back and restores the space between them. It has been a while. Last time he saw the brawny guy was at a shady diner in Tampa, where he and John helped Ron out on a Djinn case. It must have been four years ago, at least. Sam just left for college around that time.      “How’s your old man?” he wonders.      “He’s alright,” Dean says, keeping up appearances. “Workin’ another case.”

     It’s not a lie. Well, technically it’s not. He will leave out the part where his father is missing, though. Not telling the truth to the old friend is not something he’s comfortable with, but he will do anything to make sure his father’s work isn’t jeopardized. Sam was eager to reach out to other hunters in order to find him and although Dean wants to track him down just as well, he prefers to keep this in the family, letting sleeping dogs lie. Who knows who, or what, might be listening in. They will find Dad, when he wants to be found. 

     The two men enter the garage, where a 62’ Lincoln Continental lays on the operating table with a bared engine bay. While Dean nods at the car with appreciating eyes, Ronny turns around to  observe the youngest Winchester for a moment, who gets out of the car.      “I see Sam is back in action.”      “Yeah, dragged his ass back into the game,” Dean replies with a trace of regret in his voice.      “He’s an excellent hunter. We can use a few good men like him,” Ronny says. “Especially now that one of the very best was sent on early retirement.”      Dean chuckles at his comment and glances down. “How are you, by the way?”      Ron pulls up the pant leg of his overhaul, revealing the bionic prosthetic.      “It doesn’t even hurt a bit,” he jokes. “Ruguru took it right off, knee and all.”      “I’m sorry, man,” Dean sighs, his sympathetic eyes meeting Ronny’s.      “It’s quite alright, actually,” he assures, smiling at the ground. “I mean, I still have holy water on my nightstand and a sixgun by the door, but instead of killing monsters I fix cars now. Life could be worse.”

     Dean can’t help but to agree on that. A small prick of jealousy pierces his heart, because deep down, he wouldn’t mind living the ordinary life. Sure, he has embraced hunting, or at least acts like he has. He finds fulfillment in the job, saving people who are in need and ridding the world of evil, but it comes with great sacrifice. Who knows, maybe when they finally find the son of a bitch that killed his mother, he can lay down his weapons. Some day.

     The former hunter has walked to his workbench on which a dissected transmission box lays bare. “So, what brings you here?”      “Passing through, just wrapped up a case in Waco,” Dean tells him. “Some scumbag tried to break into the trunk, though. The lock is busted, couldn’t fix it. And since you have six and a half a Chevy in your backyard, I figured you’d be the guy who could help me out.”      “I actually dismantled a 69’ Caprice last week, same lock as the ‘67.” He moves a few boxes around, snuffling through the thousands of parts. In this organized chaos Ron is able to find what he’s looking for and pulls the lock plus keys from a drawer.      “Let’s get to work,” Dean suggests, contented.

     As the mechanics take a look at the Impala, Sam wanders off. Not going anywhere in particular, the youngest Winchester strolls down the crooked sidewalk, taking in his surroundings. None of the lawns in the neighborhood are taken care of, no one made the effort to water the grass. The houses seem neglected, paint is coming off the wooden frames and weeds growing through the tiles. 

     With a sigh he takes out his phone. Scrolling through the list of last outgoing calls, Zoë shows on the display over and over again. Dean’s right; he is stalking her. Despite that thought, he presses the green button and puts his new Blackberry against his ear, since the last one perished in the lake in Paragould.

     “This is the voicemail of Zoë Sullivan. You can leave a message after the--”

     Annoyed, Sam hangs up and walks on. As he enters the small shop by the gas station, a bell rings. A middle aged woman behind the counter looks up and greets him politely. He gives her a nod and takes a few candy bars from the selves, since there is no healthy alternative in stock to choose from. So much for breakfast, but at least this will save them from starvation.      “That will be $ 3,60, sir,” the lady informs while she puts the bars in a plastic bag.      He passes her a five dollar bill and takes the bag and his change. As she wishes him a nice day, he leaves. The sun almost blinds him, still hanging low, but shining brightly already. Sam narrows his eyes and starts to make his way back to the garage, when his phone rings. A bit startled, he hastily takes out his phone, hoping it’s Zoë, but the caller ID isn’t identified on the display. While wondering who it could be, he answers.      “This is Sam.”      “Sam Winchester?”

     A bit stunned, the young hunter looks back at his display to make sure the woman on the other end of the line isn’t Zoë. The voice coming through is different, softer, with a slightly dissimilar accent. Sam digs deep down his memory, but he doesn’t recognize the person on the phone.      “Who is this?” he asks, still cautious.      “I have some information for you.”      Whoever she is, she got his attention. Sam tries to not sound too curious as he responds. “What kind of information?”       A short silence follows before the girl answers, but when she does, her words bring his heart and mind to a full stop.

      “I know where your father is.”

There you have it, the first chapter of the new episode “Black Dog”. I hope I got your attention! Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you  do want to give me some extra love, you are free to reblog my work or  buy me coffee (Link in bio at the top of the page)

Read part three here

[cruelangelstheses]

the path to girlhood

fandom: love live! rating: T characters: rin hoshizora, hanayo koizumi words: 3.9k additional tags: character study, au, trans girl rin, bullying, internalized transphobia, high school description: rin struggles to accept herself at her new school when she discovers a love for dancing. a/n: hello hello!! i wrote this a little over a month ago and decided to finally polish it and post it! this au is pretty similar to canon except that they’re just regular high school girls and not idols. i promise it’s not as angsty as the tags make it seem!! i will never write write a fic in which rin hoshizora is cis. happy pride to my fellow Transes of Gender <3 title comes from kururin miracle aka rin’s Trans Song. i love her so much. that's my fuckign daughter

read it on ao3

—

On the first day of high school, Rin Hoshizora goes to school in a skirt.

She hasn’t worn one out in public since she was a child, having resigned herself to hiding inside hoodies and sweatpants. As she wanders the unfamiliar hallways, Rin tries not to be conscious of the way some of her peers sneak curious glances at her from behind notebooks or open locker doors. If nothing else, she hopes the button on her backpack—a striped flag of pink, white, and blue—will be enough to clue them in, if any of them even know what it symbolizes.

Last month, Rin’s parents successfully enrolled her into the local but relatively well-regarded Otonokizaka Academy for Girls, mainly thanks to “proof” from her doctor that she has, in fact, started taking hormones and that she is, in fact, a Real Trans Girl, whatever that means. It’s an old, impressive school with plenty of extracurriculars and classes to choose from, and her best friend, Hanayo, goes there, too. Most importantly, though, it’s a chance to reinvent herself, to meet new people who don’t know her dead name—to make a statement, simply by wearing the Otonokizaka uniform and sitting in an Otonokizaka classroom, that says, I am a girl just as you are.

So far, it doesn’t feel quite as empowering as she thought it would.

Instead, she feels like a newborn baby, cut from the umbilical cord of the closet, naked and confused as she’s thrust into a strange new world. There’s no turning back now, no chance to abort the mission. All she can do is step forward into the light, with all the beauty and danger that it brings.

—

When Rin steps into her homeroom class, a soft, familiar voice calls out, “Rin-chan!”

Hanayo jumps up out of her chair and scurries over, her red glasses bouncing on her face. Rin grins and wraps her arms around her, squeezing her tightly, and for just a moment, she forgets about the rest of the world. There’s nothing outside this classroom, nothing outside her best friend’s warm embrace.

Rin opens her mouth to say something, anything—a how have you been or a help me please I don’t know if I can do this—but she doesn’t get the chance, because then the bell rings, and the homeroom teacher strides into the room. In a flurry, the students rush to their desks. Hanayo has saved a seat for Rin in the back, right next to her, and Rin sighs in relief as she slides into the chair.

While the teacher introduces herself, Rin scans the room, searching for any sign of a reaction from her classmates. Most of them are facing forward, listening or at least pretending to listen to the teacher. One girl sitting a few seats away pokes her friend on the shoulder and gestures to Rin. “Wow,” she mutters, just loud enough that it’s clear she wants Rin to hear it. “They’ll let anyone in this school, huh?”

Rin’s face heats up, and she quickly looks away, down at her empty notebook. In an attempt to seem nonchalant, she pulls a pen out of her pencil case and starts doodling a cat to distract herself. She likes her short hair—it’s cute and easy to manage, and it doesn’t get in her face when she’s playing sports—but suddenly she wishes it were longer so she could hide behind it. That probably wouldn’t work too well, though—before long, she’s sure her peers will be able to recognize her just by her decidedly unfeminine frame.

“Psst,” Hanayo whispers, and Rin turns her head to look at her. Hanayo props up her notebook horizontally. On an otherwise clean page, she’s written in pretty, curly handwriting, I believe in you! with little hearts all around it.

Rin flashes her a tiny smile and mouths a thank-you, but she still can’t shake the feeling that everything about her is wrong. Her knees are too knobby, her handwriting isn’t neat enough, her voice is too loud. She feels like a randomized Sim, like someone just threw together a collection of traits and lumped them all into a person. She’d like to give the spirits a “You Tried” sticker.

—

Rin likes talking to people. She likes jumping in on a conversation about athletics or music or pets and talking about her favorite type of cat (orange tabbies, obviously) or her favorite sports (how could she choose just one?). She likes introducing herself to those who look shy or lonely—in fact, it’s how she met Hanayo. Today, though, she finds herself infuriatingly tongue-tied, stumbling over her words in a way she never has before. Though she attempts, as always, to appear friendly, most of the girls she talks to seem to be at least somewhat uncomfortable with or uninterested in her presence, as if they’re just waiting for her to go away. The last thing Rin wants is to make someone unhappy or upset, so once she senses that she isn’t quite welcome in a particular group or conversation, she politely withdraws from it.

When Rin walks into the bathroom, all the girls that were hanging out and doing their makeup immediately grab their things and leave.

Rin overhears a few more rude comments throughout the day, but no one is overly confrontational. She finds herself pondering over girls and the way they show aggression—how girls who speak disparagingly about others behind their backs are referred to as “catty,” while physical fights between girls are often called “catfights.” Either way, aggressive or passive-aggressive, dealing in physical damage or emotional, girls are consistently compared to cats. It’s unfair to cats, Rin thinks, to associate them only with animosity and violence. Cats can be sweet and loving, too. Cats wouldn’t hate her just for wearing skirts or referring to herself as a “she.”

“Rin-chan,” Hanayo says later that day when they walk home from school together, “are you going to join any clubs or activities? They’ve got a lot of sports.”

“I might do soccer,” Rin replies, “and maybe basketball in the winter. But I’ll have to try it out first to see if I like it.”

Hanayo raises an eyebrow but says nothing. Rin loves soccer; they both know she loves soccer. What Rin’s really saying is, I’ll have to see if I’m treated in a way that deters me from playing.

“Well, if you don’t like it,” Hanayo says delicately, “you could do other sports that aren’t team-oriented. There’s track and cross-country. And there’s dance.”

“Dance?” Rin repeats. “What makes you think I’d be any good at that?”

“Well, you’re so coordinated, and you have really good stamina,” Hanayo says, twirling a strand of light brown hair. “And you like music. It looks like it’d be really fun.”

“You should do it, then,” Rin says, not unkindly.

Hanayo chuckles sheepishly. “I’d like to, but I’ve been too nervous to go by myself. Maybe you could come with me? Just to the first couple of meetings.”

Rin frowns. It’s not that she dislikes the idea of dancing, necessarily; she’s just never considered it. Dancing is for pretty girls with limbs as pliable as putty and skin softer than rose petals, not a scrappy little transgender tomboy with scraped-up knees and a finger that didn’t heal properly because she took it out of the splint before she was supposed to. Dancing is for girls who would never be mistaken for boys.

“The people there seem really nice,” Hanayo adds. “And I’ll be with you, remember?”

After a few moments, Rin finds herself nodding slowly. “Okay,” she says, trying to picture herself dancing to pop music or classical arrangements. It doesn’t quite feel right. “But if it falls on the same day as soccer, I’m choosing soccer.”

—

At the first soccer practice, they have a scrimmage against one another. It’s a perfect chance for Rin to show her teammates what she can do, to earn their trust and start to build camaraderie just like when she played on boys’ teams. Within the first few minutes of the mock game, however, it becomes abundantly clear that most of the girls have no interest in establishing a rapport with her. Some shift uncomfortably whenever she’s near. Others, especially those on defense, play particularly aggressively with her, pressing so close to her that they almost touch, nearly shoving her out of the way, or “accidentally” kicking at her heels when attempting to steal the ball from her. Nearly all of them seem to refuse to pass her the ball, even when she’s wide open, and even though she’s one of the fastest and most experienced members, so that the only times she ever actually manages to get it are when she steals it from the other side. The coach claps whenever Rin scores a goal, but hardly anyone else does, and it only seems to be out of politeness.

At the end of the practice, Rin is about ready to fall over in exhaustion, but not in a good way. She doesn’t think she’s ever had to work so hard in her life to try to make people like her, or at least play nice with her.

Hanayo texts her that evening. How’d it go?

Not great :-( I think I’ll come with you tomorrow to the dance club, Rin responds.

Hanayo’s reply comes a few seconds later. Oh no I’m so sorry!! Tomorrow will be better I promise!!

Rin sighs and flops down on her bed. “I sure hope so,” she mumbles to no one as she stares blankly across the room. A dress she bought online hangs on her closet door, unworn.

—

The room used for the dance club is similar to a gymnasium, except that it’s smaller and has walls made entirely of mirrors. When Rin steps out onto the hardwood floor and sees a few other girls chatting in the center of the room with a dance instructor, her chest tightens.

Beside her, Hanayo takes a deep breath. “I’m nervous, too,” she says, taking Rin’s hand in her own. “But we’re here together.”

They amble up to the small group, and the dance instructor turns to them with a smile. “Oh! It’s so good to see some new faces,” she says. “You can call me Miyazaki-sensei.”

“Hi,” Rin and Hanayo say in unison. They both giggle nervously.

“Hey, there’s no need to be nervous!” says a spunky girl with a side ponytail. “Anyone can learn to dance. I’m living proof! Plus it’d make great material for the talent show!”

Rin and Hanayo exchange glances. “Talent show?” Rin says.

“Yeah!” the girl says. “Every year right before summer break, the school holds a talent show. Anyone can enter! It’s really fun! Last year Kotori-chan, Umi-chan, and I performed as a trio,” she gestures to the other two girls in the room, “and we’re hoping to do it again this year! Sign-ups should be—uhhh, Umi-chan, when are the sign-ups again?”

One of the girls, Umi, sighs in exasperation, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face. “Two Mondays from now. So not this coming Monday, but the one after that.”

“Great!” says the ponytail girl. Turning back to Rin and Hanayo, she adds, “Are you two friends? You should perform as a duo! It would be so cute! I bet I could find the perfect song for you guys—”

Miyazaki holds up a hand. “Why don’t we see if they actually enjoy it first, hm?” she says, amused.

First, they go around and introduce themselves. Miyazaki and the other girls seem nice enough; in fact, Rin thinks she saw Honoka, the ponytail girl, smile and wave at her as she walked into Otonokizaka on the first day of class. She appears to just love and accept everyone; her sincerity is almost childish, but charming nonetheless.

Then they get into the dancing. The three other girls, all second years, seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to planning their performance, so Miyazaki spends most of her time teaching Rin and Hanayo some simple moves to a handful of familiar pop songs.

Slowly, Rin can’t help but unfold. The satisfaction that blooms in her chest whenever she gets a move right, when she shifts her body perfectly to the rhythm of the music, is such a pleasant shock to her system that she feels herself letting her guard down, opening up. She and Hanayo laugh whenever they screw up a step, and no matter how many times they fail, Miyazaki’s patience and attentiveness never waver. When Rin glances over at the other girls, she finds them completely absorbed in their practice; only occasionally does she notice any of them looking her way, and when they do, it’s not with the piercing eyes of judgment, but the joy of sharing in something they love. In this room, Rin doesn’t have to worry about how others see her. She can just be.

—

Hanayo and Rin attend every dance rehearsal together. It’s a small, close-knit group, and even though they aren’t all working together on the same exact thing, Rin can feel that sense of camaraderie that she’s been missing. They’re all constantly looking to improve, to try new things, to create something lively and beautiful. The world is their canvas, their bodies the brushes, the music the paint. For Rin, dancing becomes an unexpected refuge. In the dance room, no one throws crumpled-up papers at her head or tries to trip her down the stairs; no one whispers ugly words in her ear as she walks by.

After hours of deliberation on both their parts, and a lot of convincing (read: begging) on Honoka’s part, Rin and Hanayo decide to take her suggestion and sign up for the talent show as a dancing duo. Honoka apparently spends an inordinate amount of time picking out the perfect song for them, an upbeat tune from an upcoming idol about accepting oneself. “Trust me,” she says, “the audience will love it. Idols are all the rage these days.”

Rin suspects that Honoka picked it out on purpose for its lyrics, but for what it’s worth, it is a catchy song, the kind of song that makes Rin want to jump up and dance whenever she hears it. Luckily for her, that’s exactly what she’s going to do.

Miyazaki helps them come up with the choreography, and they spend the next few months working avidly to perfect it. Even on weekends, they often meet up at one of their houses and practice for hours. Only if they feel that they did the best they possibly could will either of them feel comfortable enough to get up onstage and let hundreds of potentially unforgiving eyes gaze upon them.

Every once in a while, a particularly nasty comment or incident will give Rin pause, and she’ll feel an almost overwhelming urge to beg Hanayo to let them drop out of the talent show. She wouldn’t do that, though; she’d never want to force her best friend to turn her back on an opportunity just for her. Besides, she’ll be okay as long as Hanayo is there with her.

—

The day before the talent show, Hanayo isn’t in school.

During lunch, Rin calls her in a panic in one of the bathroom stalls. “What’s going on?” she hisses. “Our final rehearsal is tonight! Where are you?”

“I have pneumonia,” Hanayo replies.

Rin feels like the floor is falling out from underneath her. Words crowd in her mouth, but all that comes out is, “In summer?”

Hanayo chuckles halfheartedly. “Yeah. I think I got it from my grandfather. You know his immune system isn’t the best. I don’t think I’ll be able to—” She breaks off into a fit of coughing. “I can’t come tonight. I don’t think I’ll be able to perform tomorrow. I went to the doctor yesterday after school, and he says I need to rest until the antibiotics start working.”

Rin recalls the past few days, how Hanayo had been coughing for a little while and seemed more out of breath than usual. She’d hoped it was just a cold, that it would go away in no time. Now Hanayo is sick in bed, her lungs filled with fluid, and they’re scheduled to perform tomorrow.

“Kayo-chin, I—I can’t do it on my own,” she says, her heart starting to race at the thought of standing alone on that stage.

“Sure you can,” Hanayo says. “Just…finish the school day and then go to rehearsal. I’m sure Miyazaki-sensei can help you out.” Then she hangs up before Rin has the chance to argue.

The rest of her classes are a blur. Her mind spins with worst-case scenarios, and her hands shake too much for her to even try to doodle. She speaks to no one, afraid that if she opens her mouth, nothing coherent will come out.

As soon as the dismissal bell rings, Rin snatches her things and races down the hall to the dance room. Her hands are so full that she kicks the door open with her foot.

Miyazaki flashes a smile at her, but it quickly dissipates once she sees the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

Rin drops her things on the floor against the wall. “Kayo-chin’s sick,” she says breathlessly. “Pneumonia. She can’t perform tomorrow. We have to drop out. I can’t do it without her; we have to drop out—”

Miyazaki holds up both her hands. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. Deep breaths, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

Rin nods reluctantly and tries to steady her breathing. She hears the door open and close behind her, and then Honoka says, “Where’s Hanayo-chan?”

“She’s sick,” Miyazaki says calmly. “Rin’s probably going to have to perform by herself tomorrow.”

“Oh dear,” Kotori says. “I hope she gets better soon.”

“Rin-chan can do it, though!” Honoka says. “We’ve all seen her in action. She’ll do great!”

Rin shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Umi adds matter-of-factly. “You two were basically doing the same moves, right? It’s not like you were ballroom dancing. You won’t have to change much of the choreography to turn it into a solo act. And we can help you.”

Rin shakes her head again, faster. “It’s not that. I’m not worried about how I’ll do. I’m worried about how it’ll look. I’m not one of those pretty girls everyone loves. I’m different. And everyone’s eyes will be on me and no one else. I’ll be the center of attention…and I just don’t know if I can deal with how they’ll react to that. It suits me to be a partner or a member of a group, so I can blend in more, so someone else can shine. I can’t be the girl who shines. Not like this.”

“Of course you can!” Honoka blurts. “People are afraid of what they don’t understand. But you’re a girl just like the rest of us. Now’s your chance to show everyone. You’re at the Otonokizaka Academy for Girls, aren’t you?”

“But I tried to show everyone,” Rin says, her shoulders slumping. “That’s what I thought going to this school would do. But people still treat me like I’m just too different for them. Like I’m a failed girl, like I’m the wrong kind of girl.”

It’s Miyazaki who speaks up next.

“Then that’s their problem,” she says, “not yours. There’s no such thing as a ‘wrong kind of girl.’ There are girls with short hair and girls who love sports and girls who like to work on cars and girls who wear tuxedos and girls who like to build things—and girls who were mistakenly raised as boys. And the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you can be free of what others think of you. People are going to judge you no matter what you do. So if dancing brings you joy, and you want to share that joy with other people, then I want you to dance your heart out on that stage tomorrow.”

For a moment, all is silent. Then Rin chuckles sheepishly. She’s right. Of course she’s right.

“Okay,” she says finally. “Who wants to help me touch up this choreography?”

—

It’s the day before summer break, and the air buzzes with excitement. Even from backstage, Rin can feel her classmates’ gazes from out in the auditorium. Her heart feels like it’s going to claw its way out of her chest and make a run for it, and part of her wants to follow suit. Deep down, though, she knows she’s ready. She’s worked as hard as she possibly could. She’s going to stay, and she’s going to perform like her life depends on it. She has to, for Hanayo.

Rin adjusts her earrings and checks her makeup one final time in the backstage mirror before Miyazaki pops her head in. “Honoka, Kotori, and Umi are almost done,” she says. “You’re up.”

Rin smooths out her dress, a cute pastel pink, the very same one she bought online over the winter. It’s her first time wearing it in public, and it fits her like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle. She takes a deep breath and glances down at her phone, which glows brightly with a new text message from Hanayo. I believe in you!! it reads, followed by a bunch of heart emojis.

Rin smiles, then fixes the pink barrette in her hair and heads out to the curtain area.

Honoka, Kotori, and Umi are walking offstage when Rin arrives. “You’ll do great!” Honoka whispers to her as she walks by, giving her a brief, sweaty hug. Kotori claps enthusiastically, and Umi puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Up next,” the principal says from the sound box, “we have Rin Hoshizora!”

The crowd claps politely. Rin tries her best not to look at any of them as she ambles onto the stage; her focus is only on the music and her body.

When she hears the opening of the song, all the fear and self-consciousness that’s been building up in her seems to fade away, replaced by instinct and muscle memory. She knows how to do this. She’s been doing it multiple days a week for months now.

For most of the first verse, the crowd is silent, as if they aren’t quite sure what to make of her. Then, when she bounces across the stage as the song shifts into the chorus, a few people whoop and cheer, and that’s all Rin needs to keep herself moving, to let the melody carry her home. She’s never felt more beautiful, more purely and authentically her. There’s so much she often hates about her body, but right now, she’s thankful for everything that makes her up, from her long limbs to her rectangular frame. Dancing, she’s discovered, isn’t just for conventionally attractive cis girls. It’s for anyone, as long as they have the passion and the resolve.

Honoka was right about the song choice—by the end, some people are clapping and dancing along, even singing the parts that they know. When Rin finishes the song with a smile, a wink, and a pose, the crowd responds in raucous applause. More than a few people in the audience seem shocked, and several others are smirking, shaking their heads, or mumbling to each other.

And yet, Rin finds it doesn’t particularly bother her. She’s realized something about this sudden turnaround: their acceptance of her is conditional, but her happiness is not. If being herself makes others uncomfortable…well, that’s their problem, not hers.

[imagesofthegreatgull]

Hybrid Rainbow

Joy has always been a rare and precious commodity. I would argue, though, that in the developed world (Wherever, exactly, that is), it has become somewhat less rare in recent times, as standards of living and education continue to go up. That’s an absurdly privileged thing to say, I realize, but I’m trying to start this thing as evenhandedly as I can. I understand about suffering and poverty; I’m reading A Tree Grows In Brooklyn right now, even! Okay, saying we’re closer now than ever to utopia is going to smack of ignorance no matter how you phrase it, but it also strikes me as undeniably true, in the grand scheme of things. I think most people--aside from the fascists--would refuse a one-way trip in a time machine to any previous era, or at the very least, would recognize that it wouldn’t improve much of anything for them. As unruly as our age is, it’s still probably the best one we’ve gotten thus far, and as the boot-heel of oppression starts to ever so slowly ease up its pressure on the necks of the long-suffering masses, the question has begun to enter into the collective consciousness: what is to be done with joy when it begins to fall, unbidden, into your life with something like abundance? What is to be done if moments of joy no longer must be pried with great effort and sacrifice from the rockface of life, but lie strewn liberally throughout our days, needing only the will and lack of embarrassment to seize them?

Thus far, the latter-day generations have faced up to this problem with decidedly mixed success. The idea that expecting anything other than the very worst leaves one vulnerable to the universe’s cruel whims has been stamped upon the human brain for centuries, and has left many sadly unable to recognize their own privilege (Which, by the way, is a big part of why a whole lotta white folks refuse to admit they have it better than anyone else and continue to dig their heels in against progress because to them it looks like cutting in line). It is still widely accepted that constantly finding joy and peace and purpose in one’s own life is the purview of children and children alone, that it is a naivete to be grown out of. We have the impulse always within us to be hard, to be warlike, to show the world that we’re not weak and frivolous but monsters to be feared, without emotions to be appealed to or ideals to be fallen short of.

Remedying this problem has turned out to be one of the primary functions of counterculture. If it is often unhelpful to simply look at the entire value system of one’s parents and say “Fuck that”, as it tends to foster a rather negative self-definition, still, if part of that value system is a deeply entrenched distrust of happiness, “Fuck that” may be exactly the response called for. The beauty of “Fuck that” is that it leaps past the slow loss of faith in something and arrives immediately at a flat rejection of it, and since much of the history of civilization has been bound up with blind faith in arbitrary and harmful things, the ability and the courage to flatly reject something, to give it no credit for however widely accepted it is but to dismiss it as bullshit from the ground up, is a step forward in human consciousness tantamount to the reinvention of the wheel.

The great irony of the end of the sixties is that all the hippies were miserable for no reason: they won. Rock n’ roll did change the world, it just didn’t immediately transform it on every level into an unrecognizable nirvana. For all the apparent emptiness of its utopian dreams, the basic thrust of the thing worked out just fine: that particular cat will never be put back into its bag, and those ideas are now out in the ether forever, always waiting for someone to find them and be inspired to change their own life and the lives of those around them for the better. The same goes for the punk rock revolution a few years later: they may not have brought the bastards down, but they did successfully bring personal liberation to a lot of people, and poured exactly as much gas on the fires of populism as they intended to. Culture, and in particular art and in particular music, cannot, unassisted, change the world, but it can change your world, and has been changing small worlds all over the frigging place at least since those mop-topped Brits set foot on American shores and probably since Johnny B. Goode learned to play guitar just like a-ringin’ a bell. 

The thread can get lost, however. Culture is always a reflection of the people, and the people still spend a lot of their time bored, frustrated, and terrified of letting on that they have feelings about stuff. Young people especially, formerly the eternal pirate crew waving high the flags of “Liberty” and “Up Yours”, in recent times have often capitulated and resigned themselves to no more than a few stray moments of fun pilfered from the fortresses of the almighty Money Man-Kings, usually in the form of drugs, sex, and reckless self-endangerment. The cost of the hippies and the punks giving up their battles is that the counterculture lost its intellectual leadership, at least until the resurgence in political literacy in the 2010s. In the wasteland following the 70s, there were no John Lennons or Joe Strummers to look to for guidance; even the people who were elected to speak for their generation seemed adamant that there was fuck-all they could really say. Yeah, it’s nice to know that someone else feels stupid and contagious, but that’s not really a direction, is it? The generation-defining message Kurt Cobain and his peers sent out was “We’re all way too fucked up to do anything about anything”, and that introspective moodiness pervaded American underground rock music from the invention of hardcore at least all the way up to the moment Craig Finn watched The Last Waltz with Tad Kubler and said “Why aren’t there bands like this anymore?” and set out with rest of the Steadies in tow to remind everyone that music can save your immortal soul and that hey, that Springsteen guy was really onto something, headband and all, and together they all successfully ushered in the New Uncool and now we’ve got Patrick Stickles wailing that “If the weather’s as bad as the weatherman says, we’re in for a real mean storm!” and Brian Fallon admitting “I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis” and everything’s great, except it’s not, everything’s fucked, but rock n’ roll is here to stay, come inside now it’s okay, and I’ll shake you, ooo-ooo-ooo.

The point of all this is my belief that even with the responsibility rock music has to provide cathartic outlets for dissatisfaction, is has an equal or greater responsibility to provide heroes. I think it’s time we all got over pretending that we’re better than the need for heroes, because we all insist on having them anyway, imperfect roses by any other name, and we’d do a hell of a lot better selecting them if we just admitted what we were after. We don’t just want particularly talented comrades, we want King Arthur, Robin Hood, Superman, Malcolm Reynolds. Damn it all, they don’t need to be perfect, they don’t even need to be all that great really, and yeah, Arthur dies, and Robin never gets Prince John, and Superman can’t save everyone, and the war’s over, we’re all just folk now, and John Lennon beat women and Van Morrison is a grumpy old fart and John Lydon’s a disgrace, but it’s the faith that counts. The faith that there’s something greater than ourselves that some people are more keyed into than others, and that whatever they can relay from that other side is what’ll see us through. All the best prophets are madmen, and madmen aren’t always romantic fools; sometimes they hurt people, or fail at crucial moments due to a compulsion they can’t control. Let he who is without sin etcetera, right? Why not cast aside realism and sincerely believe in something or someone, huh? 

I believe in the Pillows. I don’t know hardly anything about them; my expertise of Japanese culture and history extends to the anime I’ve seen and that “History of Japan” YouTube video that made the rounds a while back. I can’t locate them within the Japanese music scene; all their western influences seem obvious to me, and the rest I know nothing about. They’re the only rock band from their country I’ve listened to any great amount of, I don’t speak the language they mostly sing in, I don’t even know their career very well. The particulars of any experiences they might have had that motivated them to make the art they make are not ones I could possibly share in, so, saying that I “Relate” to their work sounds a little preposterous. They ought to be a novelty to me, a band that clearly likes a lot of the same bands I do despite hailing from a foreign shore, marrying that shared music taste with a cultural identity I have nothing to do with, a small, nice upswing of globalism pleasing to my sense of universalism but not having any kind of quantifiable impact on me.

Yet I, like a good many other westerners, believe in the Pillows. I’m a little buster, and my eyes just watered as I wrote that. In fact, it’s likely because of the barriers of language and culture that exist between us that my belief in the Pillows is so strong. Pete Townshend, someone else I believe in, once opened a show by saying “You are very far away...but we will fucking reach you”, and though the Pillows are both geographically (At the moment) and culturally miles away from me, Lord strike me down if they don’t fucking reach me. They reach me in a way many of their American college rock peers, many of their biggest influences in fact, never have. Dinosaur Jr, Bob Mould, Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Nirvana--all these artists speak directly to the American adolescent experience, but though they have all moved me to one degree or another, none of them have produced a body of work I can so readily see myself in as that of the Pillows. Maybe it is the novelty of it, maybe I’m fooling myself and it is just my sense of universalism carrying me away, but there’s something I hear in the Pillows that I don’t hear in those bands, and though the obvious candidate for that thing would be the foreign tongue the majority of the lyrics are written in, when it comes down to it, I think that thing is joy.

Joy, to me, is the possibility glimpsed by rock n’ roll. Not hedonistic pleasure, not a sadistic glee over the outrage of authority figures, but real, true, open-hearted, “Freude, schöner Götterfunken/Tochter aus Elysium”--type joy. Buddy Holly had joy. The Beatles, The Who, the pre-fall Rod Stewart, they had joy. Springsteen’s got joy to spare. Those people have such profound love for their art and their audience that just the continual recognition of the fact that they have a guitar in their hands and they’re being allowed to play it is enough to make them ecstatic, and whenever they want to actually express something serious they have to get themselves under control to do it. Yet, whether it’s the unfashionability of those utopian dreams, or the simple fact that rock music has become accepted by mainstream culture and is now a commonplace, unremarkable thing, but half the people who have picked up an electric guitar for the past few decades don’t seem all that excited about it. From Kim Gordon snarling about how people go down to the store to buy some more and more and more and more, to Thom Yorke moaning about how he’s let down and hanging around, crushed like a bug in the ground, even up to Courtney Barnett asking how’s that for first impressions, this place seems depressing, it’s not really a given anymore, if it ever was, that people who make rock music are very joyful in what they do. 

Of course, I’m not demanding that our artists be empty-headed fluff-factories; far from it. The Pillows write sad songs and angry songs same as everybody else. But the important thing is this: every song the Pillows play is played with an exuberance and abandon that is immediately striking, regardless of the emotional content of each song. Channelling that kind of revelry into rock music is both to my mind the initial purpose of the genre in the first place and something which has become so rare as to be remarkable. A veneer of detached cool, a howling ferocity, a whimpering woundedness--these have become the hallmarks of American rock music, and they are nowhere to be found in the Pillows.

At the same time, the Pillows are the very antithesis of artlessness. Joy of the caliber they deal in is more commonly found in folky rave-ups, a lack of musicianship giving way to trancelike festivity. But the Pillows are skilled song craftsmen like few others; their sound has evolved throughout the years, but they tend to settle in the neighborhood of power-pop, abounding in glorious hooks and surprising structures. A hundred unnecessary, perfect touches seem to exist in every song; a pause, a solo, a bassline, all deftly elevating the song into a perfect expression of something sublime, something that always--always--takes ahold of the musicians themselves and imbues their performances with power and purpose the likes of which most little busters can only dream of feeling. It should be testament enough to their brilliance that upon first listen to a song I never know what most of the lyrics mean, but whenever I look up a translation, they always turn out to be exactly what I felt they must be; their songs are so musically communicative that they all but lack the need for lyrics. 

This dual nature is why I believe in the Pillows: by so utterly failing to neglect both the highest possibilities of musical composition as an unparalleled tool for capturing emotional nuance and the unrestrained id-like rush that is the province of rock n’ roll, they successfully attain the lofty realm that is--or ought to be--the goal of music in the first place. Never once is there a hint of straying into the realm of primitivism nor into overthought seriousness, and instead they locate themselves somehow exactly center on the scale between punk and prog, lacking the weaknesses and gaining the strengths of both. They make rock whole again by finally disproving the tenet initially laid out by their heroes, your heroes, and mine, The Beatles: the notion that growing up means having less fun. The viscerally exciting early work of The Beatles lacks any of the depth and vision displayed by their later records, but those records are so carefully and expertly crafted that they tend to lose spontaneity, and constantly second-guess themselves where the juvenilia they followed forged unselfconsciously ahead. That legendary career path has laid out a false dichotomy that every proceeding generation of kids with guitars has chosen between, save for the few who could see past it, the ones who heard the wildness in “Revolution” and the wisdom in “Twist and Shout” and realized that they were of a piece, were one and the same, not to be chosen between but embraced fully. Pete Townshend. Bruce Springsteen. Joe Strummer. David Byrne. Paul Westerberg. The Pillows. The real heroes are not those who champion one side or another but fight all their lives for peace between them, knowing that we have not yet begun to imagine what could be accomplished if that were made possible.

Just as they bypass the divide between what Patrick Stickles termed the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies of rock (I prefer to think of the usual battle as being between the Dionysians and the Athenians, with the true devotees of Apollo being most of those heroes I keep referring to, except Dylan, who might be a Hermesian), so too do the Pillows bypass the Pacific frigging ocean. And the Atlantic, to boot. Their music quotes the Pixies and The Beatles directly, and obviously owes much to Nirvana and all their college rock predecessors who spent the entire 80s desperately stacking themselves until the doomed power trio could finally vault over the wall. Their first record is practically a tribute to XTC. They do speak a lot of English, too. I’m informed that much of western culture is seen as the epitome of coolness in Japan, which might explain their obsession with Baseball, and apparently sprinkling a bit of the Saxon tongue into the mix is far from uncommon in the music scene(s). Regardless, there is something ineffably touching to a distant fan in a foreign land about hearing Sawao Yamanaka spit “No surrender!” or exclaim “Just runner’s high!” It looks from here like a show of mutual effort to understand me as much as I’m trying to understand them. They’re generous enough to have already walked to the middle where they’re asking me to meet them, a middle where it doesn’t matter that I don’t have a suffix attached to my name or that they don’t wear shoes in houses. The invisible continent that all forward-thinking and sensitive people come to long for is where the Pillows are broadcasting from, because they’ve realized that its golden shores and spiraling cities are attainable. They’re attainable with joy, with the fundamentally rebellious act of refusing to let the fascists bring down even your globdamn day, because who the hell gave them that power other than us? I know enough about Japan and America to know that either one accusing the other of being imperialist and socially conservative to a fault is a fucking joke, and to know that we’ve done a lot more wrong to them than they’ll ever do to us and the presence of the Pillows amounts to a “We forgive you”, not an “I’m sorry”. Having watched a decent amount of anime, which is basically the result of Japan’s mind being blown by western media and then proceeding to show their love by often almost inadvertently surpassing their inspirations, I know that the only way to save our respective national souls and everybody else’s too is to put our knuckles down, have Jesus and Buddha shake hands like Kerouac tried to explain that they would anyway, and embrace each other’s dreams and passions and adopt them into our own. 

It takes better people to inhabit that better world, and in case that sounds like fascist talk, I mean we’ve got to do better, not be better. It’s no physical imperfection that holds us back, nor a mental imperfection exactly, as we all have our own neuroses and if we expunge those then we’ll be kissing art and lot of other vital stuff goodbye. No, it’s our discomfort with ourselves, our world, our neighbors, our aliens, that keep us from seeing that crazy sunshine. If we can’t even acknowledge the greatness around us, that surplus of joy I mentioned a while back that we just seem to have no idea what to do with, then we have no hope of ever achieving further greatness, of ever quelling man’s inhumanity to man down to an inevitable fringe rather than the basic order of the world. 

There was always more to do 

Than just eat and work and screw

But now that there’s time at last to do those things, we’re still afraid to, afraid that we’ll come up empty, that the search for fulfillment leads only to disappointment, better to hang back and play it safe, better not to risk becoming one of those people I shake my head at and pity and will secretly envy until I die. It’s a new world, and we must learn to be new people. I believe in the Pillows because I believe they make excellent models for that new kind of person. The way they behave in the studio and on the stage is the way people behave when they’re truly free, and we’ve all been set free already or will be soon, so if we’re going to try and learn what the fuck is next from anyone, I think we might as well learn from the Pillows. At least, that’s one of the places we could get that insight. There’s a lot of art and a lot of philosophy and political theory to sift through to in order to put together a workable 21st century identity, and the Pillows are hardly the only people to have begun making the leap. But because of a silly thing like the size of the earth, the infinitesimal size of the earth even compared to the distance between us and the next rock we’re gonna try and get to, not everybody is getting their particular brand of free thought and action, and I happen to think that’s regrettable, and it’s my will as a free individual to rectify it as much as I can.

Writing about music really is worthless, isn’t it? I haven’t said jackshit about what the Pillows actually do other than to vaguely qualify their genre and temperament, and the only more useless thing I could do than not describing their songs would be to describe their songs. If you don’t hear the bracing weightlessness in “Blues Drive Monster”, or the aching nostalgia in “Patricia”, or the soul-bearing cry in “Hybrid Rainbow” then nothing I could write about those would be more effective than “Little Busters is a really good album.” The better primer might be Happy Bivouac, from a few years later; it has the melancholic rush of “Last Dinosaur”, the ascended teenybopper “Whoa, whoa, yeah” chorus in “Backseat Dog”, and the intro that should make it obvious immediately that you’re listening to one of the best songs ever recorded which opens “Funny Bunny”. Those two, Runners High, and Please, Mr. Lostman are the classic era, selections from the former three immortalized in their biggest claim to western fame, the FLCL soundtrack, a brilliant use of their music that could warrant an equally long piece. Before and after those four are periods of experimentation and discovery equally worth your time, not all of which I’m familiar with yet. See, now I’m just an incomplete Wikipedia article; it’d be equally worthless to expound upon the individual bandmates, on the pure yawp of Yamanaka’s vocals, on the passionate drumming of Yoshiaki Manabe and the supernaturally faultless lead guitar of Shinichiro Sato, or the contribution of founding bassist Kenji Ueda, which was so valued by the others that when he left he was never officially replaced (They’re so sweet). I’m not here to write an advertisement or a press-release, I don’t really even know why I’m here writing this, but I know that I believe in the Pillows, that they’re important, and that people should write about them. I’m being the change I want to see in the world, get it? That’s all we can be asked to do.

It occurs to me that people believed in Harvey Dent too, and that didn’t turn out so well. Hell, let’s leave the comic book pages behind, people believe in Donald Trump, they think he’s a hero, and that’s all going down in flames as I write this. Having heroes can be dangerous, but I still believe it’s not as dangerous as not having heroes. “Lesser of two evils” sounds an awful lot like one of those false dichotomies between fun and intelligence or between misery and foolishness I mentioned earlier, so, let’s call it a qualified good. I’m not much of a responsible world-citizen if my only effort towards bringing the planet together is spinning some sweet Japanese alt-rock tunes and bragging about how open-minded I am, but if I do ever end up doing anyone any good, then I’d consider it paying forward the good done to me by the Pillows, among others. They helped me form my identity as an artist (Read: functional human being) and they made my adolescence a lot easier. Actually, that’s a lie: my adolescence was (And continues to be) pretty easy already, and the Pillows reassured me that I wasn’t avoiding reality by feeling that. While American bands sang about the downsides of being a mallrat or a non-mallrat, the Pillows offered a vision of teenagedome much like my own, one that was grandly romantic, in which suffering wasn’t a cosmic stupidity but a trial with pathos and merit, and joy was not an occasional indulgence but a constant presence, whether it was lived in or lost and needing recovery. 

That’s the old idea of youth, the youth of John Keats, the youth that makes the old miss it, makes it required that we explain to them that it’s still there, it never left, it’s a dream, a momentary affirmation, an attitude, a muttered curse word. So many of my peers, now no longer engaged in a constant race to stay out of the grave as their ancestors were, seemed intent on beating each other into their tombs, as if reaching walking death before their parents was the only way to outgrow them. There’s so much life just lying around and it’s just plain wasteful to let it lie in the sun and rust in the rain. There’s space enough to stretch, to not keep who you are awkwardly curled up inside yourself, to breathe the air and taste the wine and dig the brains of your fellow travelers in this loosely-defined circus. I found that space in the Pillows, having often suspected it was there, and while everyone is going to find that space in their own way--or not, still, tragically not--I have to think that experience was due in part  to some innate and unique quality of the music itself, not just a complimentary sensibility contained within myself. The Pillows are free, and that makes them freeing, it’s easy as that. Their liberation is plain as day; it rings in every chord, every snare-hit, every harmony; it’s up to us ascertain what we can do in our own limited capacity to hoist ourselves up to their level and give some other folks a boost along the way and a hand to grab afterwards. It’s the gift that art gives us, and the Pillows just give it more freely than most is all, which is why I think the suggestion to listen to them is more than just a solid recommendation. Like the insistence on listening to The Beatles, or The Clash, or any of the others, it’s a plea to save your soul, to learn the language of tomorrow and drink the lifeblood of peace and love and piss and vinegar, or else you’ll be lost, lost, lost. 

Can you feel? Can you feel that hybrid rainbow?

[qtakesams]

Dutch Reflections: A Take on (Non-Existent?) Culture Shock

When I first started my search for an abroad program and then selected one, the world travelers in my life started warning me about one specific thing: culture shock. Everything from what this could mean for me and how I could handle it. What to do if I got to my study location and decided within a few days that I hated it. When to recognize signs of culture shock and collect methods to resolve the issue.

           Somewhat obviously, culture shock is like academic stress or a light headache in that it affects us all very differently in different ways. Some people, especially those who do not travel until they are older and therefore do not know what another country could be like, are hit hard and fall into depression. Others, like me right now, notice the many cultural differences, but accept them rather easily.

           Generally, I’m a relaxed and chill person. I do sometimes stress easily, but I manage it pretty well. It takes a lot for something or someone to annoy me so much that I feel the need to escape the situation or say something. This is all part of why, when everybody around me began telling me I should worry about serious stress or culture shock, I didn’t give much thought to their words.

           The biggest form of stress most exchange students encounter is a language barrier. You never actually realize how important it is to communicate until you do something simple like order a drink or ask when the next bus arrives. Then, you realize it is imperative for you to be able to ask your question and receive a comprehensive response quickly. Students who go to Berlin, take German. Before Florence, they take Italian. Before Tokyo, they take Japanese. These are a handful of the places where English is hardly spoken outside of the inner city or high tourist density. If you visit these places expecting to not get lost only using your proper manners, you will be sorely mistaken.

           Before I knew of my acceptance to my program in Amsterdam, I knew there was almost no language barrier. I’ve written about this prior to this post, but one can travel almost anywhere in the Netherlands and whomever you need to interact with likely speaks borderline fluent English.

           Because of knowing this, the currency, and some general background history, I had expected I wouldn’t be hit too hard by culture shock.

This summer, I lived with eighteen other college students whilst doing an internship in Edgewater, Maryland. Of course, this meant I did not live alone and when I wanted a friend I could just walk into the common room and strike conversation. We did, however, each live off of our own paychecks and food. My parents provided me their spare car for the summer, so once a week I went grocery shopping and bought $40 worth of the cheapest one-person groceries I could buy.

We drove ourselves everywhere, cooked for ourselves, paid our own rent, and took ourselves to the urgent care center in town when we had tick bites and sinus infections. It was the first time in my life I was providing almost completely for myself. My parents took care of my phone bill and bought me a round-trip plane ticket to a family wedding in late July, but I did most everything else.

It was a huge wake-up call, showing me that yes, I could survive on my own if thrown into a poverty-stricken scenario. On the other hand, the experience showed me how much I need to learn. How to cook proper and healthy meals, track spending, and manage time. How to reallyspeak to people with eye contact and confidence. Truthfully, when I return to life as a normal college student in the spring, I’m not even sure how I’ll be able to bring myself to letting somebody else keep cooking for me.

With all of this under my belt, I got on my first ever international flight from Philadelphia to Dublin, worrying really only about how to catch my connection in Dublin to Amsterdam (it turns out, Dublin Terminal 2 is extremely small, and you can catch a connection in under thirty minutes). The first week I was here, I was whisked so quickly between orientation activities and new friends to the point where I wasn’t even trying to keep up with how my surroundings had changed.

It wasn’t until the end of the week, when I started going to the store and restaurants without a tour guide, that I realized I was really in a new country, living there.

A changing cultural aspect I was actually looking forward in the summer was the Dutch bluntness. The Dutch are known for how direct they can be, speaking in terms that we would deem rude in America. If you are standing in a group blocking the sidewalk, a Dutch person will simply part their hands and force you to separate. If you use sarcasm toward a Dutch person, they will take you literally. Truthfully, I do like this, as it feels good for someone to simply say what they mean. The sarcasm, however, takes adjustment.

Yesterday, I went out to dinner with two of my international friends. After a week of what felt like eating on the go or eating in a student environment, we all agreed it was delightful to venture on our own and eat food with other adult human beings.

The place we chose was an Italian restaurant, located in a tourist square not far from the opera house in Amsterdam. We approached the outdoor seating, and a waiter beckoned us in and handed us menus. We sat for maybe ten minutes, people-watching, until another waitress came by and took our food and beverage order. Another few minutes went by, and food and beverage came.

Now, keep in mind that because I am learning to bike in Amsterdam and the public transportation is difficult to learn, expensive, and sometimes unnecessary, I walked everywhere last week. According to my phone, I walked about 7-10 miles every day the first five days I was here. This includes the first day, when I was so jetlagged, I could have cried every time somebody spoke to me.

So, because of this, I’ve been drinking water. Lots of it, constantly. One of the weirder cultural aspects of Amsterdam I very much appreciate is that drinking water comes from the tap, and all taps are usable. People fill their water bottles using hoses sticking out of the ground in public spaces, something unheard of in America.

As I sit at this lovely restaurant eating our pasta, I finish my water in probably just two gulps, and patiently wait for the waiter to come refill it. And I wait. And I wait some more.

Eventually, my friend asks for a refill, and another waitress returns with an entirely new glass of water. I consider asking for one but decide not to bother.

After several minutes of sitting with our plates clean and glasses empty, we begin to wait for the check. In the back of my mind, I begin wondering if the food will soon be free because the service is presumably horrid.

Then, my other friend suggests an article she read before we arrived, one that described restaurant customs in the Netherlands. Basically, unlike in America where the staff routinely refills your drink and brings your check in a timely manner, you must ask for everything you need.

I don’t dislike this because I am too lazy to ask for the check, or flag down a waitress for more beverage. I dislike it because it feels demeaning to the staff to ask them for everything, like a needy child in a supermarket. Yet, when we ask the waitress for the check, and then to split it, she does it with a large smile spread across her face. It’s interesting.

What is perhaps most shocking about culture shock, is that what can seem extremely rude or weird to you is entirely normal for everybody else around you.

Many parts of Amsterdam look and feel just like America. This is mostly in the city center where fast food chains and cheap gifts line the canals for American tourists. In other areas, such as Amsterdam West and the Red-light District, the Dutch allow what we consider their freak flag to fly at top mast.

Amsterdam is pretty much known for liberal views and tolerated pot, along with several cultural norms that most other countries view as inappropriate or odd. Yet, mixed into that oddity is a brand new perspective one may find interesting if they have the courage to step outside their country’s own beliefs.

[myspideysensesrtingling]

In My Way (3)

IN MY WAY: WELCOME HOME

Pairing: (eventual) Peter Parker x Reader

Words: 2111

Warnings: none!

Notes: here you go! this is still somewhat filler, but I've written far past this and I promise it's setting a lot of things up! as always, I hope you enjoy it (and let me know if you do because I crave validation).

Summary: With your decision made, you, Tony, and Pepper hop on a plane to head to the compound. When you land, you get the tour of a lifetime.

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Several hours blueprints, and miles later, the Stark Industries quinjet touched down at the compound. The New York sky was as bright as the one on the other side of the country, apart from the fact that the sun was beginning to set on the long day of travel. Once again following the lead of Tony and Pepper, you took no more than one step off the plane before stopping in your tracks and to take in the enormous complex in front of you. No longer hearing footsteps behind them, Tony and Pepper turned around to face the you, looking as wide-eyed as ever, prompting a pair of grins to widen across their faces.

"Welcome home, kiddo," Tony said about as nonchalantly as possible with arms wide before continuing on their walk toward the nearby building. Not wanting to get lost in this massive new place, you chased after them, backpack bouncing uncomfortably on your back.

"I'll give you a quick tour," Tony said as he opened the first door for the girls, "this is the main building, which houses most everything you'll need. The building that was just behind us? That's the hangar where the quinjets are. I doubt you'll need to go in there…at least for a while," he added with a wink. Pepper raised her eyebrows hoping this wouldn’t be the case before stepping aside for a conference call she had in a few minutes. As she darted off, as a stout man hustled up to you and Tony, eyebrows forcefully pushed together into one as the rest of his face scrunched up. He was just inhaling to speak but never got the chance.

"Ahh, Happy! Let me introduce you to the new kid, Y/N," Tony said, "and Y/N, this is Happy. He's my assistant and can drive you around should you need to go somewhere." This comment did nothing but further the force put into scrunching the supposedly-happy man's face.

"Yeah, great to meet you--anyway, Tony, I need to talk to you about--"

"Happy! Please let my kid have a nice first day, ok? No need to be so high-strung!" Tony interrupted as he patted him on the back and started to walk away, you still following behind as if on a leash.

"But, sir, I need your input--"

"Talk to Pepper, Happy, she's in charge of the company, you know," Tony said cheerily without turning back as he and you continued walking, leaving Happy standing in your wake.

"Do…do you need to help him?" you asked. "I can sit for a minute, that seemed important," you added, knowing there were plenty of things happening with the Avengers that definitely trumped your orientation.

"Nah," Tony quickly shot back, "you're the priority today, kiddo!" he insisted while walking with a pat on your back, causing you to swell with excitement despite Tony's casual demeanor. The two of you continued down the long hallway and up some stairs, which opened to a wide kitchen and living room area where a few of the Avengers themselves were milling about.

For the third time that day, your jaw completely dropped to the floor. Here, right in front of you, stood Captain America, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. It was so strange to see these people you had seen in news articles fighting aliens in such a common setting doing such ordinary things like making dinner and chatting in front of the TV. Seeing them approach, Steve Rogers glanced up at Tony with a smile and nod before noticing you, a young girl, next to him.

"Tony…please tell me this is legal," he plead, his eyes concerned yet hoping it was a joke. The man was huge, almost popping out of his shirt and standing tall in the room that would otherwise appear to have raised ceilings.

"Ew, Rogers, God, is that really what you think of me?" Tony sarcastically replied, yet the look on Rogers' face showed he wasn't quite sure of the implications of your presence quite yet.

"Avengers, assemble," Tony started, "please," he continued forcefully with an eye-roll when Romanoff and Barton only stared at him.

"This," he introduced, pointing at you as the three avengers grouped up, "is Y/N, the young kid I told you Pep and I were hoping to adopt. She said yes!" he said with sarcasm yet again, although clearly not as amusing to the other Avengers as it was to Tony himself. Your eyes darted around the group as you tried to take in the situation and group dynamic, which was far different than anything you ever encountered at the home. Tony continued introducing you to the group, explaining that you'd start training with Steve initially for strength and build up to working with Natasha for hand-to-hand combat and Clint for archery and weapons in general. Natasha and Clint, both much smaller in stature than Steve, stood at ease yet ready for anything to come at them at any time. Natasha's red hair was an intense red-orange and fell at shoulder length, framing her refined features. Clint's face creased by his eyes and mouth as he smiled at you, trying to make this environment of trained fighters much more welcoming than it might otherwise seem.

"So, kid, where are you from?" Steve asked promptly.

"Seattle," you answered, please to start off with a question you could answer, "I've been there all my life."

"Huh. I'm from Brooklyn," Steve inserted, drawing sighs from the others as this was his go-to self-descriptor, "nice to meet you." He nodded as a large clap of thunder sounded outside, pulling everyone's attention out the window. It was a beautiful day, however, so the sudden change of weather caught you off guard. The other Avengers only rolled their eyes, knowing what followed the strange occurrence. Sighing in defeat, Tony looked out the window as a wide beam of light from the sky flashed onto the lawn.

"If he ruins my landscaping one more time, I'm going to kill him," he spat out with sarcastic anger. Thunderous footsteps then sounded on the stairs you ascended with Tony only minutes earlier. Moments later, a large man in armor holding a strange metal hammer arrived at the top of the stairs and marched over to the group.

"Hello Midgardians. I heard the call to assemble, is something wr--oh. There is a child here. Why is there a child here?" the man asked, noting your presence and awe-struck stare at him. Like Steve, he towered over her, except his golden-blonde hair was much longer. He wore armor even here in the compound and a long red cape descended down his back.

"Thor, meet Y/N, she's the new kid. My new kid," Tony explained.

"It--it was my understanding that Midgardians gave birth to babies like Asgardians. Is the case? Did the Lady of Potts birth her? Or did you grow her--"

"THOR," Tony interjected before the conversation unraveled any more as Steve, Natasha, and Clint walked away chuckling, leaving you still in stunned silence at your present company and Tony comedically annoyed by the conversation. "Her name is Y/N and we adopted her. Not unlike your brother Loki, just a lot less evil. Hopefully?" he asked, turning to you as you nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Ahh, well, good to meet you, Y/N," he settled, casually swinging his hammer around, "I am Thor, son of Odin and God of Thunder, and I look forward to fighting with you in the future."

Despite all the day's events, this comment from Thor in particular struck you. Your seemingly chronically-wide eyes softened as you looked internally, reconsidering the choices you were making. Fighting? With gods, trained agents, iron people, and engineered super-soldiers, no less? You had never argued with anyone much less physically fought someone. At least the Avengers were on your side of things, you noted. Footsteps once again echoed from the stairs, this time much lighter and quicker.

A new figure arrived at the top of the stairs, much shorter and leaner than the god that previously appeared there. A young boy, slipping off his red mask to reveal messy brown curls, trotted over to the group with urgency.

"Hi, um, hey, Mr. Stark. I got your message and came as quickly as I could," he sputtered, staring in admiration at an unphased Tony. He then accounted for the presence of thor towering over him and the young girl beside Tony. The girl looked about his age but he didn’t recognize her. She must not go to my school, he thought, because surely I'd have noticed a girl that--

"Peter, I just texted you a few minutes ago. How on Earth did you get here so quickly?" Tony asked, regaining the boy's attention. Steve, over by the kitchen table, flagged Thor over to watch from afar with the rest of the gang.

"I, uh, you know, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man…gotta…gotta be able to get everywhere in the neighborhood quickly," the boy responded, looking down at his feet and then back at Tony, catching your still-wide eyes on his way back up. "What did you need me for?" he asked Tony curiously.

"Right, well, I wanted you to meet the newest recruit, Y/N. Peter, meet Y/N; Y/N, meet Peter. Or, Spider-Man," he added, given the presence of the red and blue suit. "Once she's settled in and enrolled, I'm going to send her to school at Midtown with you in the same ‘Stark Internship’ situation,” Tony explained with enthusiastic air quotes. “And you’re going to help her start school as it’ll be a new experience for her.”

Peter now had the chance to look at you for the first time. The first thing he noticed was the excitement radiating from you. It was as if he could feel his spider senses tingling by just being in your presence. Your eyes glistened with hope as you stood next to his role model, cheeks rounding as you shyly smiled back at him. But Peter was distracted - Mr. Stark mentioned you being an intern along with him. Since when were there two Stark interns?

"Hi, Peter," you voiced quietly with your hand out, "nice to meet you." While completely unsure of how to handle yourself in the presence of another kid your age, you were pleased you would have a friend if Tony was going to send you to a real school. Even more so, you were pleased you'd have a friend at all.

"I, uh, hi. Nice to meet you, too," Peter replied, gripping your hand with his gloved one for a shake that lasted what he realized all-too-late was too long before then intertwining his hands together behind his back. Since when did Mr. Stark want two interns, he wondered again. He wanted more than anything for Tony to mentor him, teach him, train him, and, most importantly, approve of him. I can’t let this girl get in the way of that…

"Well! Now that introductions are mostly done, except - where's Sam?" Tony shouted, addressing the group of avengers assembled in the common room. Sam was a name you didn't recognize, either. You hadn't read too many articles on the Avengers, but saw enough headlines that you thought you'd recognize the whole group.

"On a personal mission or something," Steve shouted back.

"Oh yeah, ok," Tony said, returning to the teens, "the last introductions for today is Bruce, so let's keep moving on the grand tour, Y/N. Parker, thanks for stopping by. You're welcome to hang out, as always, or stay in your room, or whatever!" Tony rattled off, attention already on the next task with you. Tony scurried towards Banner's lab that overlooked his own, assuming you would follow behind him. Not quite getting the memo, you stared back at the group of superheroes you just met. The group of people you'd be living with for the foreseeable future. This is the coolest thing ever, you thought.

A smile gradually widened on your face while you scanned the room dreamily as if you'd never be back. The four original avengers still in the room chatted around the TV while Peter had not yet moved. He stared at you while you waved and jogged off to catch up with Mr. Stark, flustered by the fact that he traveled all the way from Queens for you - some new kid - to hog all the attention. Flushed with disappointment, he meandered back downstairs and out the front door before slipping his mask back on and swinging his way to his own friendly neighborhood as the last of the sunlight dropped below the New York skyline.

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[dcnativegal]

On being an anti-racist ally where there are very few black people

One of the most frequent questions I get from my urban friends since I moved out here is, to paraphrase, how the heck can you stand listening to such conservative people? As one friend put it, “I still don’t know how you survive in Trump country.” I stand it because I’ve lived here for 3 years and 6 months (but who’s counting), because ‘love your enemy’ is a thing, way harder than love your neighbor, because I’m ornery that way…because I’ll put up a lot in order to live with this Valerie chick…and I guess because as I’ve made a home here, I still find areas of commonality upon which to interact.

An example of listening, and conversing, happened in October, with mixed results. Apparently, the Lakeview High School went on ‘lockout’ which sounds like ‘lockdown’ in that no one was allowed to leave or enter the building because something was happening, but not so terrible that the place needed to be evacuated or nor did students and staff need to ‘shelter in place.’  A student had written an essay in response to an assignment in which he’d allegedly referred to African Americans in a derogatory way and used the ‘n’ word, which no white person under almost any circumstances is to use, ever, period. The teacher, who happens to be married to the principal of the school, and had at one time been the principal’s student when she was in 8th grade and he was her teacher… graded the paper and had everyone, include the ‘n’ word kid, read the essays in class. When the racist paper was read to the class, another student reacted very negatively and loudly to the content. He was not violent, but clearly agitated. The reacting student was removed from the school by his mother and rumor had it he was expelled. It also sounded at first as if he is biracial but he is white. The Facebook group, Lakeview Announcements, blew up, and eventually recorded over 300 comments. Among the early commenters were former students who are indeed biracial and Latinx. They shared their experiences of being called names and bullied when they were students at LHS. There was a great deal of mention of ‘racism’ and how no one seems to do anything about it, how it’s worse now than ever in Lake County, etc. I was intrigued. Never in my 3 years had this topic came up so directly on a social media platform in this place.

I waded into the discussion, listened, and tried to phrase my points in ways that could be heard. See for yourself how that went…

Two weeks after all this, on October 5th, I had a cup of tea with Cheryl, whom I met in all the hubbub on facebook. She runs the Klamath Community College Lake County school, which is apparently growing under her tutelage, and is now 30% Latinx. She told me that most of the Mexican people in Lakeview come from a province that is known for drug cartel activity. The young waitress who served us, with carefully painted eyebrows in perfect arches, has apparently recruited many other students. Her family had survived terrible circumstances before she left Mexico. Cheryl thinks that we can do a one-time lecture. All students invited, and open to the public. Perhaps something like the “Psychology of Racism”. There’s so much material to work with, to offer. Apparently, the Oregon Humanities is a nonprofit that promotes conversation around difficult topics. I found this:

I’m guessing we aren’t quite ready for either White Allyship or “Reading, Writing and Rising Up” in Lake County.

But we had to start somewhere.

On the Friday evening before Thanksgiving, Cheryl’s daughter, a half-Filipino public defender in Anchorage Alaska, joined me and our Chamber of Commerce director, Jessica, for a panel discussion about race and diversity in Lake County.  We gathered in a large room in the high school. There was a table of school personnel, including the high school principal. There were other tables scattered about, with people I recognized, perhaps 20 in all. A fair representation of liberals, plus the school folks. Jessica spoke ardently of the need to be a welcoming county seat for travelers in order to support our small businesses, encourage people to move to Lake County, and grow tourism. Cheryl’s daughter laid out the bias in our criminal justice system which, by design and implementation, punishes people of color unfairly. I was the last one to speak.

You can watch the entire presentation here: https://youtu.be/HQgHplGZbEo. I started my presentation with a story about Valerie’s grandfather. He was reluctant to start driving a car after a lifetime working with horses. He got the hang of driving, mostly, but it took him a long time to stop pulling on the steering wheel and roaring: WHOOOOA. The point being, change is HARD.

As I write this, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday weekend has come and gone. It’s a holiday for schools and banks, and federal agencies. A second cousin of Valerie’s was a volunteer in Alabama during those years when Dr. King was making a huge difference for Black people. She had her consciousness raised by a teacher in a Lakeview school, and marched in Selma along with Dr. King and the late great John Lewis. Sandy Watts made the Oregonian, and her embarrassed mother could no longer keep up the lie that Sandy was simply taking a summer off before college. Sandy made a point of going to our church on MLK Day to read from Dr. King’s speeches and writings. Lake County plans nothing to mark the occasion: our tiny but fierce Episcopal Church will be open and witnessing in the darkness.

It's not for naught. On New Year’s Eve, 2019there was a hate crime in Eastern Oregon that made the news:

A Eugene man is accused of attempted murder and hate crimes after allegedly attacking a female hotel owner in Redmond on New Year’s Eve in what authorities believe was a hate crime.

The victim is a 70-year-old immigrant from India who owns the business with her husband, also an immigrant. She suffered broken bones during the assault and remains hospitalized but is expected to survive, according to Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel. She testified for a Deschutes County grand jury from her hospital bed, an effort which Hummel described as “heroic.”…

“Too many people in Oregon are silenced by intimidation and violence because of how they look, who they love, or to whom they pray,” Hummel said in a written statement. “Because of this woman’s strength, and because the Oregon Legislature passed a law last year to strengthen Oregon’s hate crime law, justice will be delivered in this case. Hate is not tolerated in Deschutes County.”

A week later, this update is reported: “Our life has changed forever,” Satish Puri told the AP. “We’re not going to be in the motel business running it ourselves now, and she’s not going to be coming back to this place, ever, because she’s so scared now.”

 In the New York Times, Michele Alexander makes the point:

The stakes are even higher given the acquittal of the Criminal in Chief since this article was published. 

As long as I live in Lake County, also known as Whitelandia, I will struggle with allyship: how to work against the racism that lives in me and everyone else, too. And how to show why it’s important work for us all to do, all of us.

I wish I could explain to the trump supporters I encounter here that the food stamp cuts, the delays in disability determinations, generally shitty treatment of poor people by our culture and government can draw a direct line to the discrimination against Black people, the murderous contempt our culture and government has for Black people, despite (and perhaps somewhat medicated by) our worship of Beyonce, hip hop, Black athletes, etc.

Well, at least the confederate flag is gone. No idea why, but it’s an improvement, I can tell you.

[kimamanitranslatesnovels]

Destruction Flag Otome v3c3pt2

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T/N:

Today’s a statutory holiday in Canada, so I had the time to post one day early~ 

Volume 3, Chapter 3: Captive

Part 2: Pages 198 - 228

Though it’s a bit awkward to say this myself, I think that I, Jared Stuart, am pretty talented. I can do most things easily and I’m pretty good at reading people’s expressions. So I’ve been able to do most things easily with no struggle.

If there was one, single thing that I couldn’t do easily, it would have to do with my fiancée Katarina Claes.

I was first attracted to her when I met her when I was eight, and eight years later, my feelings for her are so crazy strong they even shock me.

And yet… Katarina just won’t dance to my tune… in fact, I even feel like she’s getting further and further away from me. Even though the more we spend time together the more I’m attracted to her...

Take today for example. After spending eight years with her, I had gotten pretty used to her actions and had thought that I wouldn’t be too surprised at anything she did…

But at the sight of her on the stage, my heartbeat rose and she stole my heart anew. Just how many times must she steal my heart away until she’s satisfied? I just keep getting more attracted to her.

However, I’ve honestly gotten a little frustrated that Katarina just sits there normally with not a hint of a blush when I say lines that easily fluster other noble ladies.

That’s why I had planned to take my revenge by touching her even more than usual at the ball, to have my fill of her soft body… but my hopes remained unfulfilled as Katarina suddenly disappeared.

To make things worse, Katarina’s location remains unknown even as the days pass by. At first, I thought little of it, figuring that she had gotten lost or something in the academy since it was dark outside. It’s normal for her to not sit still and listen to instructions.

But after a little while, I realized that wasn’t the case. Apparently no one saw her after she went into the waiting room. Is that even possible? There were even a few people who said that their memory was hazy, worsening my sense of unease.

I recall last year’s incident. Katarina nearly lost her life after forbidden dark magic was cast on her. However, that incident was over and done with. The mastermind Rafael lost that power anyway.

So what in the world is going on this time?! Why is it always Katarina…?

My feelings did a 180 and I grew irritated. But even as I continued my desperate search, there was no progress and so I became even more irritated. That was when…

“… Um, Jared-sama, a letter has arrived for you,” says one of my servants in a very respectful voice.

That hesitation is probably because I’m so different from my usual self. I recognize that, but I still can’t smile like I usually do.

Even as I think that I couldn’t care less about a letter at a time like this, I soften my face for my frightened servant and ask:

“Who sent it?”

“Well the thing is, the sender’s name is missing,” my servant says, looking troubled.

“The sender’s name is missing?”

Thinking rationally, it’s unbelievable that someone wouldn’t put their name on a letter addressed to royalty. What does this mean? Did some idiotic noble write me some abuse and slander or something?

As I muse, I accept the letter from my servant.

“I have not read the letter, but I did verify that it was not dangerous.”

Hearing my servant’s words, I open the letter with no worries. What I saw written there when I passed my eyes over the letter was something I hadn’t even considered.

“What… is this…?”

I lost my voice in my shock.

************

I was kidnapped, brought to some place who-knows-where, and my kidnappers don’t even want ransom money. I don’t understand what’s going on. As if I’d be able to relax in a situation like this!

… Or at least that’s what I had thought, but…

When I say that I’m hungry, I’m brought sweets, when I say that I want to read a book since I’m bored, I’m brought books. Even better, when I said that I couldn’t relax in a dress, I was brought some incredibly pleasant feeling clothing.

At the academy, I’m always busy with lessons and training, but here I can laze around as much as I want. If I were at the Claes household, Mother would probably barge into the room to glare at me and say “Stop lazing around and go practice your manners!”

But here, no one barges in like that.  I can read books, eat sweets, and laze around as much as I want.

A little over half a day since I woke up in an unknown location, I began to happily make myself at home.

“It’s a bit strange for someone in my position to say this, but Katarina-sama, are you not ill at ease?” Lana says with a complex expression as she watches me.

“Ill at ease?”

“Yes. About where this is, when you don’t even know why you were kidnapped.”

Oh, right! I was kidnapped! I was having such a pleasant time I completely forgot about that.

“R – right.”

I’m startled after Lana reminds me of my current situation.

“Don’t tell me… you forgot?”

Lana widens her blue eyes in great shock. I begin to feel somewhat ashamed.

“Sorry,” I apologize.

Lana looks downwards. She’s probably exasperated at how carefree I am… but it can’t be helped that I’d let my guard down in such a pleasant place.

As I watch Lana, who’s still looking downwards, I notice that her shoulders are severely trembling.

What?! What’s the matter?! Is she feeling ill?

“L – lana, what’s the matter? Are you alright?” I say in worry.

“I – I’m fine. I apologize for my unseemly conduct,” she responds with a slightly trembling voice.

“You’re really alright?”

“Yes. I’m fine,” she responds this time with a firm voice. She then raises her head, looks at my face and says with a beaming smile, “Katarina-sama, you’re really just like the stories.”

“The stories?”

I was wondering what she meant by ‘the stories’, but Lana just laughed off my questions with an alluring smile. I feel I’ve seen that smile before… but I met Lana for the first time today so it’s probably just my imagination.

In this way, I remembered the situation I was in and asked Lana questions, but as expected, she couldn’t answer them. Lana’s just a maid so she can’t easily talk about things her master has forbidden her from talking about (Though, even if I forbid Anne from talking about things, she still unhesitatingly tells Mother about how I snuck out some sweets, or how I broke flower vases and statues…).  

Since that was the way things were, I decided to continue to happily laze about in the room. I talked about a lot of things with Lana, since she was with me. Once I told her about my field and how I was great at tree climbing and fishing, she said that it sounded fun. With sparkling eyes, she then asked me to teach me how to do those things sometime, and we ended up getting close.

This is bad – I might end up addicted to this lifestyle.

************

I had lunch brought to my room and had Lana eat with me since it would be boring eating all by myself, but for dinner, I was escorted to a different room.

It had a needlessly long table with cutlery already laid out. It seems dinner will be brought here.

At the instructions of the servants in the room, I sat at the seat that had been prepared for me. Since the seat across from me has been prepared for me as well, it seems one more person will come. Just as I thought that, Selena came in, with the lady-killer butler following close behind.

“Katarina-sama, are you feeling well?” Selena asks, seeing that I’m obediently sitting in my seat.

“Ah, yes, thanks to you.”

I was treated to such a pleasant experience that I almost forgot that I had been kidnapped.

“I am so very sorry that I was unable to prepare anything particularly delicious for lunch, and had you eat in your small room,” says Selena, again lowering her head deeply.

This country’s nobles generally always eat plate after plate of fancy food in rooms like this so long as they aren’t sick or something. That’s probably why Selena is apologizing like this, but I don’t think that my room is small, and I don’t really need a great variety of different food to eat. After all, if I’m given so many different types of food, then I end up wanting to try it all, often leading to a stomach-ache.

Thinking back, I was given just the right amount of food for lunch, and I was able to eat it happily with Lana, so there’s really no reason for Selena to apologize.

“No no. Really, I’m completely fine,” I say sincerely.

“… I’m very sorry for making you push yourself.”

She mistakenly thinks that I’m pushing myself.

Looking at Selena’s pained face makes me want to apologize.

From Selena’s appearance alone, she looks like a run-of-the-mill noble girl. She probably has a delicate and kind heart.

Even if I say “You’re really treating me well,” she’ll probably think that I’m just thinking of her feelings and forcing myself.

Perhaps Selena sees me as a delicate noble girl as well.

That’s not to say that I’m not delicate… I’m a run-of-the-mill noble girl as well. My heart is fairly delicate as well.

For example, my delicate heart is hurt when someone eats sweets I had wanted to eat later or when birds eat my vegetables that were nearly ready for harvest… but neither of those things happened today.

After all, I can eat as much as I want, read as much as I want, and even laze around without people getting angry at me – I’m completely in heaven. Honestly, I’d even go as far as to say that I want to live here for a little while to get my fill of this lifestyle.

But Selena, unaware of my true feelings, continues to apologize, trying to be attentive to my feelings.

When I gorge myself on all the food being brought out to us, she tells me “You don’t have to force yourself to eat it,” in a worried tone of voice (Of course, I’m not forcing myself at all. I’m just eating because I want to eat).

Really, I’m more worried about Selena, who’s barely touched her food.

Honestly, Selena looks so unwell from worrying about me that I’d think that Selena was the one who was kidnapped.

After that, she asked me a lot of things like whether there was anything I felt I was missing or whether there was anything I needed.

You’ve already given me everything I need so I don’t need anything more… Selena is just way too thoughtful. I feel like this is the most I’ve been spoiled in the past sixteen years.

Just from seeing how Selena has been acting during this short while, I can tell that she didn’t want to kidnap me.

Dinner is nearly over and I’m completely full. As I mentally murmur “Ah, that was really satisfying,” to myself, my eyes meet Lana’s, who’s standing in a corner. When our eyes meet, I notice that her eyes narrow.

This is – she’s exasperated at me because she thinks that I’ve forgotten that I’ve been kidnapped again! Wait, I haven’t forgotten. I’ve just let my guard down a little because I’m experiencing such pleasure. So I ask:

“Um, Selena-sama. Why did you bring me here? You said that you would bring me back once everything is over, but what in the world do you mean by ‘everything’?”

I try asking Selena the question I asked at the very beginning. It’s not like I’ve forgotten that I’m kidnapped! It’s not like I feel like I’m on an amazing vacation or anything! Not at all!

At my words, Selena, who already looked unwell, began to look even worse.

Urgh, I kind of feel bad, sorry Selena.

“Yes, of course. You must feel ill at ease not knowing anything. At this rate, you won’t be able to sleep…”

No, you’ve treated me very well so I don’t feel ill at ease at all, and I feel confident that I’ll be able to sleep deeply tonight. But I keep quiet and listen to Selena for now.

“The truth is, I brought you here because…”

Just when Selena says those words, that butler Rufus steps in and cuts off her words.

“Young mistress Selena, dinner is over, so let us return to your room. Katarina-sama, I’m sure you’re tired so sleep early,” says Rufus, placing a hand on Selena’s shoulder.

“… Yes, of course. Then, Katarina-sama, good night,” says Selena with an expression reminiscent of a doll. She leaves the room.

She seemed like a completely different person from the person who had just been talking… I have a bad feeling, one that sends shivers up my spine.

************

All in all, I ended up facing the night still not knowing where this was or why I was kidnapped.

Selena had worried that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but naturally that wasn’t a problem. I talked with Lana until I went to bed, and had her bring me some extremely delicious tea, so I had plenty of fun and ended up having a pleasant sleep.

And as I was elegantly sleeping deeply…

“Katarina-sama, please wake up.”

“I don’t want to, I’m still sleepy. Let me sleep a little longer, Anne.”

“I am not Anne, I am Lana.”

“Ugh… Lana?”

Huh, not Anne? Who was Lana again?

When I somehow manage to open my eyes, I realize I’m not in my normal dorm room.

Huh, where was this again?

As I blearily look around the room, a little bit of my consciousness awakens and I recall where I was. That was right. I was kidnapped and brought to this heavenly room.

My room is still dark, lit dimly by a lamp. Huh? It’s not morning yet.

“Katarina-sama, there’s someone here to see you.”

“What, here to see me?”

Who would come here this late at night? When I get out of bed, I’m still half-asleep. Lana fixes up my pajamas and my hair then sits me down in a chair. Then the door quietly opens and a small human silhouette appears.

“… Selena?”

A small animal-like noble lady, the lovely Selena Burke, was illuminated by the lamp.

Why is she here so late? Ugh, and I’m still sleepy. I rub my eyes to try to wake myself up.

“Yes. Katarina-sama, I’m very sorry to visit you at this time of night. But I was just so worried that you were having a sleepless night, filled with unease…”

It seems rather that Selena wasn’t able to sleep. She looks even more unwell than before.

On a side note, since I was able to eat delicious food for dinner, I was able to sleep well. Thus, I probably look great. So, I think that anybody would worry more about Selena than me.

“… After dinner, for some reason, I began to feel really strongly that I shouldn’t tell you why. But now I think that it’s really not right to tell you nothing after all…”

Selena has a brooding look. She was probably worrying about things while I was deep in sleep. I kind of feel sorry.

“Um, so you’re talking about the reason you brought me here? As I thought, Selena-sama, you know why?”

“Yes… I am the one who planned this kidnapping, after all.”

What?! Selena-sama is the mastermind?! I thought that she was just being used or being threatened by someone since she seemed so guilty about everything… but to think that she was the mastermind…

Putting aside my mouth open wide in shock, Selena began talking as if she were confessing her sins.

“I am trying to force Jared-sama to renounce his right to the throne by kidnapping you.”

“… Forcing Jared to renounce his right to the throne?”

Quite frankly it was a motive I hadn’t expected at all.

“Yes. To have Ian-sama be the next king…”

I saw strong determination in her eyes that had been so dark just a moment ago.

And then, Selena began explaining the exact details of the kidnapping…

There were some parts I found difficult to understand here and there, but the general gist is the following. Lately, Jared has been gaining more influence and among a certain faction of nobles, there’s been talk about him becoming the next king.

At the moment, just the firstborn Geoffrey and the second-born Ian have been dueling it out for the right to the throne, but if Jared steps in as well, the fight will become even worse. So to prevent that from happening, Selena wants to force Jared to renounce his right to the throne.

But why would she attack Jared, ignoring her main rival Prince Geoffrey? There were some parts of the story that didn’t really make sense to me, but for now –

“I really don’t think that Jared would renounce his right to the throne even if you use me…”

It’s true that I’ve been friends with Jared for nine years and we get along fairly well, but would he really throw away his right to the throne for a mere friend?

Maybe if I were his girlfriend or his wife… but I’m just a fiancée he uses as a shield. I feel like he wouldn’t go that far for me.

“That can’t be, it’s well-known that Jared-sama loves you very much. He’ll do anything for you, Katarina-sama,” says Selena passionately.

But that’s probably just false rumours that black-hearted prince spread around so women wouldn’t try to get close to him. That’s what I thought, but…

“I’m so envious that he loves you so much,” says Selena, cheeks red as fire.

I didn’t really want to crush her dreams, so I kept quiet.

************

Jared-sama, Keith-sama, Mary-sama, Nikol-sama, Sophia-sama, and Maria-sama – the academy’s student council members are together in one dorm room. But the one that should be in this room, Katarina-sama – the mistress of me, Anne Sherry – is nowhere to be seen.

It’s been about half a day since Katarina disappeared at the end of the school festival. That’s when Jared received an anonymous letter. The following was written in the letter:

We have kidnapped Katarina Claes. If you want her to be returned safely, renounce your right to the throne.

That’s right – Katarina didn’t just disappear, she was kidnapped.

Jared immediately gathered everyone in this way after receiving the letter and explained the situation to them. He was even considerate to me, who had been worried about Katarina and unable to sit still, by letting me stay here with everyone else.

Once Jared finishes explaining, everyone looks even worse, despite already looking fairly pale before. I suspect I myself have a pretty terrible expression on my face as well.

Even after he finishes explaining, no one speaks up. A heavy silence permeates the room.

“So Jared-sama, what are you planning to do?” Keith asks finally after a little while. He looks at Jared strongly.

“If Katarina can come home safely, I’ll renounce my right to the throne however many times I need to. But unfortunately it’s something that takes time. If something happened to her while I was renouncing my right…” says Jared with a grim face. He had completely lost his usual smile.

“… Not to mention, even if Jared gives into the demands, there’s no guarantee that Katarina will come back safely. It’s not unthinkable that if she saw the culprit’s face, she’d be killed to keep it a secret,” says Nikol gravely with a similarly grim look.

“That can’t be! It’s completely unreasonable to kill her just because she saw their face while they were kidnapping her…” cries Sophia in a voice nearing a scream.

Although I didn’t say anything out loud, I’m screaming the same thing in my heart.

“We’re talking about someone who kidnaps people – they probably don’t care if they do something unreasonable. It’s possible. If that’s the case, Jared giving into the demands won’t end things. It would be faster to go searching for her location than to begin preparations to renounce his right to the throne.”

“Alan-sama, you occasionally have good ideas.”

“… You didn’t need to add the ‘occasionally’, Mary.”

“Heh heh, I apologize. Well, if that’s the case, should we go searching for any suspicious people and mansions we can find?” laughs Mary darkly.

“No, to search everywhere is a bit much… plus, that would take quite a bit of time,” disagrees Keith.

“U – um, it’s possible that dark magic is involved, right?” says Maria frantically with a raised voice.

Yes, it’s true. Apparently a number of people who were likely one of the last to see Katarina on the day of the school festival have hazy memories. This is similar to the incident that occurred last year. Dark magic – a forbidden magic hidden by royalty – is capable of manipulating people’s minds.

The reason why everyone here along with me knows about this magic is because of last year’s incident. Last year, a certain incident occurred. During the incident, a certain someone cast dark magic on Katarina, forcing her into an unending sleep. Everyone worried about her, but thanks to Katarina’s efforts among other things the incident was successfully put to rest.

During the incident, Jared told everyone here, along with me (who had been with Katarina the longest) and Katarina-sama, about the existence of dark magic, on the condition that we wouldn’t tell anyone else about it.

However, last year’s dark magic incident had been successfully put to rest, and the criminal behind it now got along well with everyone.

So if dark magic was used again in this incident… that means that there would have to be a different dark magic user involved.

“If dark magic was really used, then I’ll be able to tell who the culprit is just by looking at suspicious people.”

Maria is one of a select few light magic users in the country, and thus one of the few who can see dark magic, which can’t normally be seen.

It’s true that Maria might be able to see the culprit. I thought it was an excellent plan, but…

“It’s true that it’s a good plan, but if I remember correctly, you can only see dark magic when it’s being used or a little after it was used, right? So wouldn’t you be unable to see anything now, since half a day has already passed?”

“… That is…”

Maria’s expression clouds over. Ah, even though I had thought it was such a good plan…

“It seems we’ll have to search every little corner after all.”

“Wait a second, Mary! Where do you think you’re going?! Calm down!”

Ignoring Alan’s shouts trying to stop her, Mary’s smile grows even darker and she makes her way to the door. But the moment she makes to open the door, someone knocks and a new person enters the room.

“Mary-sama, where are you planning to go?”

“Oh, Rafael-sama, it’s been a while. I’m planning to go search for Katarina-sama, of course.”

There stood Rafael Walt, the culprit behind last year’s incident. He was currently working at the Ministry of Magic due to the incident.

“Do you have any clues?” responds Rafael with a questioning look. He likely already knew about the current situation.

“For now, I’m planning to go search anywhere that looks suspicious one by one.”

Rafael lets out a small sigh at Mary’s confident words.

“That’s much too reckless.”

“But Katarina-sama might be in danger right now as we’re standing around talking! What do you think we should do then?!” shouts Mary, tears welling in her eyes. Despite acting determined, she’s probably worried on the inside.

Rafael smiles kindly at Mary.

“Everything is going to be alright. No harm will come to Katarina-sama,” says Rafael firmly.

At those words, Jared stares at Rafael.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Katarina-sama has the ultimate bodyguard, so there’s no chance that any harm comes to her. So, just wait a little bit more,” says Rafael, before continuing with words brimming with strength, “I will definitely save Katarina-sama.”

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[ma-at-thought]

Story-Time With Ma’at

White Supremacists and Nazi Bingo

I actually had to sit here for a minute and stare at this title. I’ve written about a lot of things on Tumblr, but even just a few months ago, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be writing a current events piece on fucking Nazis. Given the content, this will be a long time-traveling story-time.

Let us go back in time, to my innocent years fresh out of high school.

There I sit, at the computer. It’s not my computer of course, but it’s the first home computer I ever had access to. Ah, how I remember those buzzes and pwings that heralded incoming internet connection. I scroll through the chat rooms that have been created that day on Prodigy, and I stumble across one for white supremacists. Curious creature that I am, I go in.

It was really boring. I can’t honestly remember what was being discussed in there. It certainly wasn’t anything relating to white supremacy. It was just people who happened to be white supremacists chatting about whatever was happening on the news, or talking about a TV show, or sharing stories about their lives. I was very baffled; by the chat name, I should have been bathed in vitriol about the more colorful people in the country. But nope, just people talking like ordinary people.

I finally get curious enough to send a private message to one of them. I pick the most articulate one, and open the conversation stating that I am not a white supremacists, but want to understand what was going on with such a thing. I even tell him that I’m half Hispanic, a lie to see if he changes how he speaks with me.

Spoilers: It didn’t change how he spoke to me. I ask him how my mixed race would influence his behavior, and he tells me that he wouldn’t marry or have a child with me. That’s it. I ask him about concepts like ethnic cleansing and he is disdainful of the very idea. All he cares about in relation to other races is that his bloodline be “pure”, and there is no reason to do any harm to anyone over it. It was his choice to not marry or have a child with someone non-white, you see, but he has no problems working with or interacting with any people of color. I find that to be very weird (and a potential start for a modern Romeo / Juliette story,) but not harmful or violent like historical Nazis or the KKK is. I thank him for his time, he wishes me well, and that was it.

Let us go further back, to my 8th grade year.

Schindler’s List is released. My 8th grade class has a field trip to go and see the movie for educational reasons, and we’d spend the next two days in history and religion (Catholic school) classes discussing it.

That movie is awesome. In the sense that it fills you with awe. Do you know how hard it is to keep a bus full of 8th graders quiet? Well, on the trip back to school, it is easy as pie, because literally nobody says a word. Complete silence. And if you’ve seen the movie, you understand why. If you haven’t seen the movie, I strongly recommend it. It isn’t something people want to see, but it is something people need to see.

And we’re solemnly lined up, still shrouded in quiet, to file into our class room when it came time for the 6th and 7th grade classes to switch rooms. They knew we’d been going to see the movie, and some want to ask us questions. Most of them are hushed, like we were, wanting to know what happened, wanting to be told about this masterpiece of sorrow. But one boy comes up to me, grinning like an idiot. He flat-out asks me “How many boobies did you see?!”

I don’t even think. I punch that kid in the face hard enough to send him staggering backwards. I didn’t even know why I did that, and when the principal asks me, I just repeat what he’d said. And when I tell her what prompted the punch, she looks appalled. An act that would normally come with a three day suspension was instead recorded with a single note of the act, because most of the education staff was utterly horrified that anybody would even think such a thing. 

About a week later, we are all gathered in the auditorium for announcements. Parents are invited to this meeting as well. As it turns out, there is a planned KKK march coming up, and the school staff wants to discuss options for us. Our school is on the route, and while we don’t have many kids of color, everyone is still very concerned about this, and what our few non-white students would experience if the KKK happened to come by during recess. 

In the end, it is decided that the safest thing to do is to close the school that day. The teachers ask our parents to not show up to this “parade” either; they feel that the best way to show these hooded assholes they aren’t accepted was to have them marching down completely empty streets with no one to yell at. Most of the public schools take our lead and cancel school that day too. Some people joke (in that somewhat non-humorous, mildly disturbed way) that school is cancelled on account of ‘heavy snow’.

We spend our day at home researching the KKK and the Nazis, so we will all have class discussions on the matter the next day. And as far as I know, those paraders really did march to nearly-empty streets.

And one last trip further back in time. I am right around seven years old.

Her name is Ruth. She and her husband are friends of my grandparents, and came over to our house (my grandparents raised me) to play Bridge every couple of weeks. I’ve known her for most of my life, and years before had been given an explanation for why her arm was crippled. I understood what Polio was. She’d been very sick when she was young, and was lucky she didn’t die because of it. 

So here all these old folks were, waiting for the fourth couple to show up so they could play a card game I do not understand to this day. I'm sitting on the couch with Ruth; I'm not allowed to hang out in the room once the game started, but my grandparents are just fine with me socializing before it begins.

I don’t know.. maybe I just never saw Ruth wearing short sleeves before. She usually wore long-sleeved blouses and sweaters, but today she’s wearing a short-sleeved white shirt beneath her jacket, and she’s taken the jacket off. We’re chatting, because she’s a very cool adult who is all about socializing with kids, and then I see her tattoo. I’m shocked, because tattoos were strange, and mostly on younger folks. I reach out and touch the blue numbers on her inner forearm and ask why she got them.

The whole room goes silent, which is enough to make me shy away; I thought I’d done something wrong. All eyes are on this couch. But apparently, Ruth is prepared for this question. And so that day, I learned about Nazi concentration camps, and how Jews were rounded up and labeled with a numbered tattoo. I learned how she got Polio in the first place. The Bridge game was put off for about an hour, as these adults talked to me about this dark time in history, let me ask questions, and tried to help me understand these events well beyond what history classes taught seven year old kids.

And now, we come back to the present.

In this particular present, Nazis are still relevant. Two days ago, I discovered that a few people I was friends with on Facebook had Nazi inclinations. At first, I thought they were posting pro-Nazi political cartoons to mock them, but as it turned out, I was wrong. I kept trying to discuss the matter with them, mostly because I was desperately hoping that I was incorrect in starting to think they were Nazis, but it wound up being like a game of Nazi Bingo. 

They call the Nazi symbol the NSDAP flag. They believe that banning immigrants is the first step to making America better, and don’t think it should stop there because people of color are making trouble. They treat the Nazi Party as though it was a worthwhile and acceptable political platform. They talk about how no violence or imprisonment or lists would be necessary if there wasn’t so much active resistance to their ideals. They’re white. BINGO!

In truth, though, I do see a problem with what’s going on today, from “the good guys”, and that’s the over-liberal usage of the term “Nazi”. Not all white people are Nazis. Not all Republicans are Nazis. Not all who voted for the Mad Mango are Nazis. Not even all white supremacists are Nazis (though all Nazis are white supremacists. It’s sort of a prerequisite.)

Political parties do not equate to Nazis. (Unless it’s the Nazi party, which I half expect to show up on ballots in some places.) I know quite a few Republicans who are horrified by what’s going on. Even ultra-conservatives are outright comparing Bannon to Nazis. You don’t get much more right-wing than Glenn Beck, for example, and he’s declared Bannon to be similar to the Nazi propagandist Goebbels. My grandparents were Republican and if they were alive today they’d be absolutely livid about our current government. 

As for the Outrageous Orange, many people did vote for him because they liked some of what he had to say, and were certain that there was no way he could enforce the rest. You can recognize those guys now; they’re wide-eyed and shaken, regretting their vote. And believe me, I understand the “I told you so” urge. But let’s not label them as Nazis. They’re horrified, and they Do Not Want what is happening; many want to try and stop it. They don’t want four years of this.They don’t even want four months of this. They could help ensure that we don’t have to deal with that, but if we keep calling them Nazis, it’s going to drive them away. They didn’t understand before the vote, but they absolutely understand now.

I support punching Nazis. I’d like to do it myself, but there aren’t any in my immediate vicinity. There have been some political comments going around about how anybody can be labeled as a Nazi to excuse violent behaviors toward them. Those comments are correct; I’ve been seeing little hints of that here and there, and we can’t let that keep happening. Anybody who supports ethnic cleansing, be it through deportation, denials to immigrants, or violence, qualifies for Nazi-hood, and therefore punching. Anybody *coughBannoncough* who insists on being prepared for a religious war and tries to ‘rally the Christian soldiers’ against Islam (or really, any religion or skin color) qualifies for Nazi-hood, and therefore punching. But just being Republican, or voting for the Crazy Carrot, aren’t enough to qualify as punchable Nazis. 

Violence isn’t the answer, not when it’s applied in a blanket manner over whole groups because of the actions of some members. Call your Senators; you can look them up here. Call your House Representatives; you can look them up here. All of us should have learned from history, but it is rapidly becoming apparent that our Cheeto-In-Chief and his Cabinet of Horrors are ignoring history entirely. Tell the government officials that represent you in House and Senate that this is wrong, and ask them what they plan on doing about it.

[junker-town]

Euro 2020 jerseys, ranked and reviewed by group

Photo by Kirsty O’Connor/PA Images via Getty Images

These are what we’ll see when the best teams in Europe fight for a continental title

It’s been jarring when we consider that next year, there will be a World Cup without there having been a Euros the previous summer.

But that’s where we currently stand. The coronavirus pandemic stopped the entire footballing world in 2020, and the Euros were not the only casualty — but they may have been the biggest. Nevertheless, UEFA has decided to continue with their vision and carry out a bigger and improved European Championship.

Once envisioned as a grand celebration of its 60th anniversary, Euro 2020 has undergone a few notable changes. The biggest is that while it retained its name, it’s actually happening in the summer of 2021 after the Covid-19 pandemic forced it to be moved from the previous summer.

While the idea of hosting it in 11 different countries has endured, some of the specific locations have changed. The initial vision of having games played in multiple countries has undergone massive changes. Dublin, Ireland was set to host matches, but due to restrictions on attendance, they were removed as a host. Spain initially planned on inviting teams to the Estadio San Mames in the northern Basque Country. Instead, they’re moving those hosting duties about as far south as you can go in Spain — to the unused Estadio de La Cartuja in Sevilla.

But the grand vision — a tournament extending as far west as Sevilla, Spain and as far east as Baku, Azerbaijan — still remains. Teams are gearing up to play with the first match between Turkey and Italy set to kick off in Rome on Friday.

To fit the occasion, kit manufacturers are rolling out the best of what they have to offer. Some are beautiful, well-designed, and inspirational. Others need to be forgotten and sent to the dust bin of history located somewhere near the crushed hopes and dreams of the 2018 Germany National Team.

These are all my own takes. I’m reviewing them based on creativity, uniqueness, overall design, execution, and effort. I’ve bought a lot of kits in my day, reviewed a lot of kits in my day, and I try to find the best in each of them. I’ve even recently helped out a NWSL team with the launch of one of their jerseys, so if any teams in MLS or wherever out there want me in a focus group or to help with your jerseys let me kno-

*ducks flying tomatoes*

We’re going about this by group, because if I tried ranking them from 32-1 with commentary this would be a 4,000 word article.

So, let’s start in Group A.

Group A: Turkey, Italy, Wales, Switzerland

via FootyHeadlines

4. Turkey

These jerseys aren’t bad, but it’s something we’ve seen from Turkey before. There’s not much creativity Nike put in these kits, and so others who added more diverse details were put above this one.

3. Switzerland

Throughout this list, you will see me putting these Puma away kits toward the bottom. I do not like them at all. Having a random word mark in the middle of the shirt just naming the country seems lazy and uninspired. When you consider that they’re trying to symbolize the nation they play for, when their country crests already do that and are included in these kits, it seems unnecessary to exist. While I like the Swiss home kit, the away kit sinks it for me.

2. Italy

Again, this away kit is that Puma template and it’s awful. But, of all the Puma templates we will see here, this one might be the best executed. It hops the Switzerland kits because of Italy’s gorgeous third kit:

via FootyHeadlines

I’m a sucker for green and gold, so they slide up to No. 2.

1. Wales

Do I think these are the best kits on this list? Not necessarily, but they do have the least wrong with them. The sleeves on the home kit are fantastic and the green adidas stripes on the shoulder of the away kit tie in really well. Add to that Wales’s new, minimalist crest that was adapted after their last major tournament appearance, and I feel good adding it to the top of the list.

Group B: Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Russia

4. Finland

I’m a fan of the home kit. Incorporating the Finnish flag in the kit is a great way to incorporate some national pride into the shirt. I think the gold accents on both kits look great. But the away kit looks more like a Nike coaches polo than it does the away kit of a team making an appearance in a major tournament for the first time.

3. Russia

The home kit is an adidas template we’ll see later on this list and in our kit review for the Copa América. The away kit incorporates the national flag of Russia well, but the home kit (that doesn’t even incorporate a cool flag motif we see in the other template kits) knocks it down to third.

2. Denmark

The home and away kits are somewhat copy and paste from previous incarnations of Danish kits. Being red for the home, white for the away, and made by Hummel doesn’t come as much of a surprise. But what puts it at second for the group is the waveform graphic on the home kit and inside the collars of both kits. It’s the sound wave from home fans singing the Danish National Anthem before a game against Ireland in June 2019. That sweet homage to fans who haven’t been able to watch the team in over a year is a great nod to them and puts them here.

1. Belgium

Yes, the away kit is that same adidas template that Russia uses. The one thing I’ll give the Belgian one is the incorporation of two of the national flag colors on the cuffs of the sleeves. However, it’s No. 1 on this list because the red shirt might be my favorite home kit of the whole tournament. The paint brush-esque black lines add a cool texture to this kit and certainly stand out from other red jerseys we’ll see during this tournament.

Group C: Netherlands, Ukraine, Austria, North Macedonia

4. Austria

From one of the best kits at the tournament in Belgium, to one of the worst for Austria. The home shirt is nice, traditional and would normally see this team higher in this ranking. But the away kit is - to me - the ugliest jersey in the whole tournament. From the fact that it’s that awful Puma template, to the multiple little Austria crests in a style that went out of fashion in football kits after the 1994 World Cup, the black kit is a train wreck that shouldn’t ever be seen again.

3. The Netherlands

That sublimated lion on the home jersey is awesome, but the lines all over seem a bit over the top. The black and orange on the away kit looks amazing as well. Overall, a great effort from Nike that falls just short.

2. Ukraine

We were all set to post this list with Ukraine at third in this group. Little did we know the kits we THOUGHT were going to be worn were just a false front.

The two jerseys above are their away and third kits. I used them because in the press run for the kit unveiling, only Ukraine’s home jersey showed the whole front. That’s where the controversy comes in.

via FootyHeadlines

Look closely and you’ll see an outline of the map of Ukraine in the center of the kit. Anything stand out as being controversial? No? Let me highlight a part of the kit for you:

That part of the map on the kit circled in red is the Crimean Peninsula. If you recall in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. The annexation and subsequent Russian invasion of the peninsula was met with international criticism. While the people of Crimea voted for their independence and then was adopted by Russia, Ukraine (along with most of the international community) disputed the legitimacy of the elections and recognized the land as Ukrainian.

Looking at the kit itself, I’m not a fan of putting the crest at an awkward place that makes the map look asymmetrical. If that moved to the upper left right over the heart, that’d be fine. The colors and accents are nice. But, more importantly, the sheer audacity to include a part of the country which may or may not be yours depending on who you ask is enough to put it at the No. 2 spot on our list.

1. North Macedonia

Like their Dutch counterparts, North Macedonia also has the national team nickname, The Lynxes, represented by sublimated graphics. However, what puts them over the top is the fact that it’s clearer to see it on these kits from Jako. It helps that the home kit is a darker color than the Dutch orange kits. The motif carries over to all three kits North Macedonia has including this black third kit:

Group D: England, Croatia, Scotland, Czech Republic

4. Czech Republic

The home kit is very nice. The subtle lines on the front and dark blue collar and sleeve accents make this a great home shirt. However, the awful Puma template strikes again. In the pure epitome of laziness, this is the only shirt in the Puma template category that doesn’t have the name of the country written in its native language.

3. Croatia

Croatia’s home kits are always good and never change. The away kits, however, leave a lot to be desired. Their Nike kits from Euro 2016 were good and I loved their away kits from the 2018 World Cup. For some reason, these just don’t do it for me.

2. Scotland

Both kits look really sharp. I love the hoop pattern on the home kit and the sky blue color of the away kit looks amazing. Overall, well done from adidas for a Scotland team making their first appearance in a men’s tournament since the 1998 World Cup.

1. England

I’m not usually a fan of badges in the center of a shirt, but I think Nike got away with it in the home shirt. While it’s not seen here, the red numbers look really nice on the white background. The away kit seems really busy, but the design overall looks cool. I don’t like the fact that the World Cup winners star is the same color as both of the shirts, but it’s not enough for me to knock it down from No. 1.

Group E: Spain, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia

4. Slovakia

I know Slovakia hasn’t been to a lot of major tournaments recently, but I feel like I’ve seen this exact kit combination every single time. When I heard Nike were taking over Slovakia’s kit contract from Puma, I was hoping for some more variety in their color palate. But nope, white away kit, blue home kit. There’s red in your national crest too guys, you can use that as well.

3. Poland

They look good, but there’s nothing too special about them here. Sure, they have different collars, but is that really enough to diversify your shirt selection?

2. Spain

These are both nice looking kits. I like the pattern in the home kit and I like the bottom part of the sleeves on the away kit. It’s a great result from adidas, but there was one shirt that I thought put Spain in second place.

1. Sweden

Yeah sure, the home kit looks nice. The shirt itself is kinda boring but the collar and sleeves look really good together. Now, let’s talk about that gorgeous yellow-pinstripe away kit. It’s unique and simple at the same time. The stripes are small enough to make an impact, but not wide enough that they swallow the kit whole. Adidas did an excellent job on this shirt and that puts it here at No. 1.

Group F: Hungary, Portugal, France, Germany

4. France

This was the hardest group to decide, so let me be clear: I like all of these offerings. I have to pick the ones I like based on execution, effort, uniqueness, etc. So, I had to put someone in 4th and I went with France. The home kit looks really nice and that red stripe in the middle calls back to the 1998 World Cup home kit. But that white away kit seems pretty mundane. The two red and blue stripes on the side don’t make this seem any less like a white Nike t-shirt.

3. Portugal

I’ll be honest, I’m just not that big of a fan of that away jersey. I’ll give it points for being unique, but the size and colors of the stripes being backed by a mint green kit just don’t seem to work. At least Nike was able to give them a good home jersey to look forward to.

2. Hungary

Back in the Euros after a surprise run to the Round of 16 in 2016, Hungary comes out with some classy looking shirts. Their home kit has stripes inspired by the Danube River, which flows through the nation’s capital of Budapest. The away kit is clean, simple, and incorporates the colors of Hungary’s flag. Applause for adidas in making a kit the Magyars can be proud of.

1. Germany

Die Mannschaft went bold with their kit choices for this tournament. For the continental tournaments this year, adidas had the habit of having the cuffs of the sleeves tie in to the national flag (see: Colombia, Argentina, Russia, Belgium). For my money, Germany’s flag motif sleeves are the cleanest executed of the bunch. The pinstripes on the home kit look like they were drawn on with a Sharpie, so they lose some points there. But, that blacked out away kit wins it over for me. The team will have player names and numbers in white, which creates a stark contrast with the black stripes, badge, and stars on the shirt. Excellent execution here.

Let us know who you’re rooting for, and which kit you thought was the best, in the comments.

Jake covers Bayern Munich and German soccer in writing and via podcasting at Bavarian Football Works. He also reviews jerseys for SB Nation. He can be found screaming into the void on Twitter @jeffersonfenner.

[radramblog]

Happy Pride Month!

I’m a few days late on this, but it’s finally June, the time for rainbow capitalism and also, you know, actual rainbows. A time to celebrate the diversity of humanity and the struggle for acceptance that has gotten us to the point we’re at.

Of course, I’m not really sure about that us part. It’s no coincidence that both my discord and twitter avatars have an ally flag in them, a split-second decision when I was getting it commissioned, admittedly, but one I don’t regret. I’m not sure my own sexuality is something I’m interested in going into here (…yet), but in retrospect it does feel a bit pretentious.

But this ain’t about me, at least as much as me dribbling words onto digital paper can not be about me. Anyway.

It is always somewhat frustrating that the first reminder (for me, at least) of June being Pride Month and it being Here is all the companies who want to act like they care, well, doing so. Logos change to rainbows, standard messages of vague support get dropped, we continue to glare at accounts dedicated to particular regions of the world not making pointless gestures in the places they’d be the most meaningful. The offerings this year feel particularly weak- Disney trotting out a trite image immediately after Cruella features their…what, fifth “first LGBT+ character”? I’ve lost track at this point, but I don’t expect that film to have bucked the usual trend of having any decent representation be stuffed away into a brief corner that can be edited out. Tack on the recent…I don’t want to say news, but people are only just becoming aware of them just squashing a 70% done movie based on a fairly representative webcomic, like, yeah great job fellas, thanks for the rainbows, gonna go buy a box set of tinker bell now.

If this feels fairly pessimistic, it’s because I kind of am. Ultimately at this point I’ve seen more corporate bullshit and nonsense ____phobia than actual cool and good pride content, and that tends to get a guy down. From people tryna “reclaim the rainbow” like it was something they gave a single fuck about until they could weaponise it against things they don’t like, to some absolutely vile shit I’ve seen on twitter (one step closer to deleting that app tbh), it’s kind of tiring.

My own place within the community is also something I’ve thought a lot of. Because ultimately, even though I’m still unsure of where I will ultimately end up (again not going into it), the fact is at the moment I’m on the outside and the inside at the same time, and that feels wrong. I’m a straight-presenting cis bloke who’s been to all of one protest, but I’m also active in spaces that are primarily LGBT+ or at least are extremely pro the community. It’s a little weird, but hey, you can’t blame me if my interests- content-wise and politically- happen to align, right?

I promised this wasn’t going to be about me didn’t I. Shit.

Despite how generally annoyed I am with the state of things at present, I do think the celebration is both relevant and necessary. Relevant because, like it or not, the work of getting non-cis, non-straight, and like most of the ace/aro spectrum accepted by the masses isn’t done by half, and even in more accepting countries you still get shitheads. Hate will never die, which is why we need to promote love. But that brings me to the Necessary half, because it’s just incredibly important to both recognize and commemorate the sacrifices people and communities made to get things to the point the world is at. Where countries accepting enough exist that some companies will change their logo’s colours for a month, and where the presence of LGBT+ is heard enough that they think it’s a profitable idea to make piecemeal gestures like they do.

(At some point I should memorise the entire acronym.)

[lalka-laski]

Have you ever had a really bad haircut? Yeah, like the time I got a lob expecting I’d look like Jennifer Lawrence but I actually looked like fucking Lord Farquaad.�� Did you ever order any clothes from the Alloy catalogue? We got those catalogues sent to our house all through my childhood! I loved leafing through them but we could never actually afford those clothes.  What brand, color, and type is your favorite eyeliner? I hardly wear eyeliner but I have a few pencils in my makeup collection of various brands.  Do you wear eyeliner? See above

Was there ever a time in your life when you couldn’t cry? HA, safe to say that has NEVER been a problem for me. 

What’s your favorite type of yogurt? The texture of yogurt skeeves me out. Sometimes I like PLAIN greek yogurt with a little granola on top, but that’s rare.  What posters did you have on your wall as a teenager? I went through a few phases. The earliest poster I remember was a shirtless JC Chasez (from Nsync) posed underneath a waterfall. Not the most appropriate choice for a 7 year old? I also remember once being so excited to win a Spice Girls poster at a fair. I brought it home and a few days later I walked into the living room to find my sister on the floor with a pair of scissors just cutting it into strips. TRAGIC!  What are your favorite type of calendars? I don’t use calendars anymore but growing up I had them of various celebrities and characters I liked. Lots of Disney Princess ones, of course.  Do you have a full-length mirror? The doors to my coat closet are both full-length mirrors  When was the last time you bought stamps? I don’t think I ever have Do you have any overdue library books right now? No, although that’s one of my recurring dreams. (Or are they nightmares?!!)  How often do you do laundry? Usually once a week Do you have a piggy bank? Nope  Do you remember your locker combinations from high school? Funnily enough, that’s another one of my recurring dreams. I’m standing at my locker and completely blank on my combination and then I panic.  What’s your favorite DIY crafts youtube channel? I’ve watched a few here and there but I don’t have a specific channel  Could you spend hours on pinterest? Nah, pinterest annoys me  Do you own plaid pants? Nope Have you ever had to wear a school uniform? No, but I always secretly wished I did. I was so stressed about fitting in and wearing “cool clothes” and a uniform would’ve eliminated that problem for me.  What was your high school’s mascot? Titans What were your high school’s team colors? Blue & gold? I think?

Who were your best friends in high school? I had a few, all of whom are still really good friends of mine to this day

Who was your first boyfriend or girlfriend? His name was J.R. Which is funny because Glenn is also a junior and went by “J.R” occasionally growing up.  Have you ever been to Chicago? Nope but I’d love to. Polski Pride! If yes, what do you like best about it? Have you ever stayed in a hostel? Nope Would you rather sleep on the top bunk or bottom bunk? Hm, that’s tough. I’d really prefer to just sleep on a regular bed if anything.  Do you love camping? I do somewhat. I’m not exactly outdoors-y or adventurous but I have an appreciation for nature.  Would you rather sleep in a tent or under the stars? I’d only sleep anywhere that had zero chance of critters getting to me What insects are you afraid of? Ladybugs gross me out to NO end. I don’t mind many bugs, but ladybugs can fuck all the way off.  Have you ever had a secret admirer that left you notes? Mmm nope. Are you close with your cousins? My cousin Rachel is one of my best friends! Are you close to any aunts or uncles? Kind of. I honestly which I was closer to most of my extended family members. There’s so much weird hostility between everyone and I wish it wasn’t so. Are you close to your grandparents? I have very little memories of my paternal grandfather, although we apparently had a special bond. I was very close buddies with my paternal grandma though, right up until she died. And as for my maternal grandparents, we have a great relationship although I do wish we could be closer. Sometimes. 

Who betrayed your trust? Blah... Who was your first best friend (apart from a sibling)? Sean What was your favorite thing to do at sleepovers when you were younger? I loved ghost stories and all those stereotypical sleepover games like Truth or Dare. Oh, and my friends and I loved doing makeovers! What kind of popcorn is your favorite? SUPER buttery. Popcorn’s one of my favorite snacks and we eat it almost every night Does your town have a big fountain in it? Uhhh not that I know of  What is your town known for? My city has a super high crime and poverty rate so WOOHOO for that. But we also have some really cool history and a fun art/music scene.  Do you currently live in the city you grew up in? Mhm  What’s one way in which you’re behind the times? I don’t understand a lot of modern slang and I avoid using it at risk of sounding like a try-hard.  What’s one way in which you’re still a child? I’m obsessed with Disney princesses, I sleep with a teddy bear, and I’d eat Kraft Mac & Cheese for dinner every night if I could. What’s one way in which you’re old? Well being behind on modern slang as I mentioned above is one thing. I also can hardly stay up past midnight anymore.  Do you feel old or young? Or do you feel both at different times? I certainly don’t feel old enough to be 28, that’s for sure How old are you? ^^ Do you know what you want to do for your next birthday? No clue yet. For one thing, it’s too far away to think about and secondly, who the hell knows what state the world will be in by that time? If yes, what is it? What is the last new thing you discovered that was really good? Glenn & I started watching this make-up competition show that is fascinating. The talent is mind-blowing! What would be the best surprise you could receive right now? If my work could shut down & I could quarantine for months again while still getting unemployment bonuses I’d be a happy camper Do you usually forgive when someone hurts your or try to get revenge? I’m all too forgiving. And I’m not clever enough to plot revenge Were there any subjects in school that were really easy for you? English If so, what? ^^  Did you ever skip a grade or get held back a grade? Neither  What time of day were you born? 5:45 PM What is the best hairstyle you’ve ever had? This is currently the healthiest my hair has ever been. And I really do love the shade of it.  Do you think you look better with dyed hair or natural hair? I haven’t seen my natural hair in ages. It’s a darker, more brassy shade of the blonde I have now. I definitely like my chosen color better.  Do you think your look better with curly hair or straight hair? Wavy  Do you have bangs? Nope. although I did for all of my childhood Do you think you look better with bangs or without? Without. I mean, I think I was a cute looking little kid but my mom definitely kept me in bangs wayyyy longer than I should’ve been. Do you think you look better with long hair or short? LONG, for sure.  What’s your favorite rock band? The Killers Who’s your favorite country singer? I don’t care for it Do you ever listen to Celtic music? Mhm. I mean not regularly but I like instrumentals for studying/relaxing.  Do you listen to Hillsong? Nope  Did you try the unicorn frappuccino, and if yes, were you a fan? Nope and I am so thankful that I no longer worked at Starbucks when that was a thing Have you ever won a contest? None that I recall  Have you ever wanted to be a model, actress, singer, or dancer? I always thought I’d make a decent actress, but anxiety got in the way of me ever venturing into that territory. And I do wish I could sing.  When you look at your baby pictures, do you recognize yourself? Yep  Has your hair color changed since you were a toddler? Actually, my current (dyed) hair color is pretty much the same shade I had as a toddler.  Do you wear matching socks? When I have to wear socks, yes.  How many drawers does your dresser have? Umm... four small ones and I think six large ones? Do you own an American flag shirt? Nope Do you own a British flag shirt? Nope Do you have a seashell collection? I did at one point but I have no idea what happened to it Do you have a rock collection? Actually I have a small collection of rocks I gathered a few months ago with the intentions of painting them and hiding them for others to find. (Spoiler: I did no such thing).  Do you decorate for Halloween? Yep! Well, more for Fall in general but some of my decorations are ~spooky.  What is your favorite thing to do in the pool? Anything! I love swimming and just splashing around.  Flamingos or pineapples? You mean like for a pattern or print? Either one is fun for summer.  Cacti or seashells? Both?  Maple tree or palm tree? Tough! Again, I like both.  Dreamcatcher or wind chimes? Dreamcatcher. The sound of wind chimes always kind of creeps me out for some reason. Have you ever taken a picture at the perfect moment? Yes! Do you have a crush right now? He might be a little more than a crush

What color was your first car? I don’t drive Was your first car used or new? Do you have a car now? What color(s) eyeshadow do you wear the most? I really only wear neutrals. I’d love to learn how to do more exciting things with my makeup but I usually play it safe

[trueconservatives]

Abolish the Billionaire Class 03.01.2019 Billionaires are the grotesque products of an exploitative, immoral economic system. We should get rid of them. Thanks in part to an ongoing reawakening of left politics amid rising inequality, questioning the tyranny of extreme wealth is fast becoming the stuff of mainstream political debate. And with the re-injection of class politics into the American political arena, there is growing momentum for previously unthinkable policies like a 70 percent top marginal rate and a sharply increased estate tax. (Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar also deserves credit for proposing an even higher top marginal rate of 90 percent). The singling out of individual billionaires has also gained a foothold in mainstream politics, thanks in no small part, once again, to Bernie Sanders, who has made moral condemnation of the billionaire class, from Jeff Bezos to the Walton Family, his bread and butter. Asked about Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s prospective presidential run several weeks ago, for example, he curtly replied: Why is Howard Schultz on every television in the country? Why are you quoting Howard Schultz? Because he’s a billionaire. There are a lot of people I know personally who work hard for a living and make forty, fifty thousand dollars a year that know a lot more about politics than Mr Schultz. But because we have a corrupt political system, anybody who is a billionaire, who can throw a lot of ads on television, suddenly becomes credible. This sudden rupture in America’s longstanding political culture of obsequious deference to billionaires is overdue, to put it mildly, and the Democratic presidential primary race — which is going to run the gamut from progressives like Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to billionaire-adjacent candidates and maybe even actual billionaires — will be a testing ground for pro and anti-billionaire arguments alike. Likely for this very reason, some centrist opinion-makers seem keen to plant their flags somewhere in the middle of the debate (where else?), defending the ultimate existence of billionaires while arguing there could, potentially, be fewer of them, maybe. A recent illustration of this position was the New York Times op-ed by Times contributor Will Wilkinson, of the soft-libertarian Niskanen Center, entitled “Don’t Abolish Billionaires — Abolish Bad Policy Instead.” Wilkinson rightly recognizes that “enthusiasm for radical leveling” is “blossoming into a mainstream mood.” But he cautions, “I hope that [prospective Democratic nominees will] stick up for the idea that it can be morally kosher to bank a billion and that the existence of virtuous three-comma fortunes is a sign not of failure but of supreme policy success.” His ensuing argument largely rests on a particularly bogus kind of syllogism: liberal democracies have billionaires. Liberal democracy is good. Therefore, billionaires are good. Wilkinson writes: The empirical record is quite clear about the general form of national political economy that produces the happiest, healthiest, wealthiest, freest and longest lives. There’s no pithy name for it, so we’ll have to settle for “liberal-democratic welfare-state capitalism.” There’s a “social democratic” version . . . and there’s a “neoliberal” version. You may prefer one version over the other, but they’re not all that different. And in comparative terms, they’re all insanely great. The typical citizen of these countries is as well-off as human beings have ever been. These places are the historical pinnacle of policy success. But guess what? There are billionaires in all of them . . . So what’s the problem? Preventing billion-dollar hoards guards against the bad consequences of . . . having the best sort of polity that has ever existed? He then proceeds to proffer an all-too-familiar narrative in defense of billionaires: namely, that some of them are innovators who have simply been rewarded for their contributions to society. There are therefore deserving billionaires and undeserving ones, and the former should be actively celebrated. In this telling, billionaires are a potentially, though not inherently, positive corollary of our economic system rather than a structural deficiency or failure. A few things should be said about these arguments. The first is a basic complaint about Wilkinson’s circular logic. System Y being better than System X is not a sufficient defense of System Y, even if its relative superiority can be agreed upon. Most members of the urban proletariat in nineteenth-century Europe were almost certainly materially better off than their equivalents in the Middle Ages, but the superiority of pre-democratic industrial capitalism to feudalism is not an argument for its superlative virtue. By the same token, the presence of billionaires in modern liberal or even social democracies is not in and of itself a defense of them. And even with his qualifier attached (“in comparative terms”), Wilkinson’s characterization of all Western liberal democracies as “insanely great” is difficult to credit. The United States is the richest society in the history of civilization but also has obscene levels of poverty and inequality. As Meagan Day recently noted, Jeff Bezos makes the equivalent of the median US income every twelve seconds, but some 40 percent of Americans lack even $400 in reserve funds and are thus a single emergency away from disaster. To state what should be obvious, these two facts are not unrelated. Vast concentrations of wealth in the hands of the few is both how and why there is so much poverty and insecurity among working and middle-class Americans, despite there being so much wealth overall. Thanks to their cumulative labor — in factories, schools, hospitals, care homes, restaurants, and throughout the economy — an immense amount of wealth is produced in a society like the United States, but much of it is expropriated by billionaires in the form of rents and capital income. No one earns a billion dollars, but hierarchical economic structures and a skewed political system ensure some nevertheless acquire it because of the property they own. A billion dollars, let alone the over $100 billion amassed by Jeff Bezos, is not a reward proportionate to someone’s social contribution. It’s institutionalized theft, plain and simple. Nor is it the case that billionaires are just like regular citizens but happen to be wealthier than others. Wilkinson, to his credit, does at least acknowledge the potentially nefarious influence of the billionaire class on the institutions of democracy, but mostly elides it using the same circular logic: The progressive idea here is usually that people with vastly more wealth than the common run of citizens wield vastly disproportionate political power and therefore imperil democracy and the equal worth of our basic rights. It’s a worry we’ve got to take seriously, but it’s based more in abstract theorizing than empirical analysis. Inspect any credible international ranking of countries by democratic quality, equal treatment under the law or level of personal freedom. You’ll find the same passel of billionaire-tolerant states again and again. And contrary to what Wilkinson says, the threat described above is anything but an abstractly theorized one. As a class, billionaires visibly exert a tremendous and insidious influence on political decision-making, bankrolling key figures in both the Democratic and Republican parties and working overtime to mold legislation in their collective favor. Being a thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand times wealthier than the average person invariably translates into a level of power and influence that is incompatible with the basic principles of democratic equality. To put it in the starkest terms possible, you can have a society with billionaires or you can have a genuine democracy, but you can’t have both. (Swedish social democracy may be somewhat more insulated from the threat posed by its billionaires than American liberal democracy, but it remains imperiled and compromised nonetheless.) Far from being a necessity or even a basically tolerable corollary of prosperous societies, the obscene hoarding of wealth by a tiny few is an expression of deep and abiding injustice. The billionaire class is the modern, capitalist equivalent of the feudal landed gentry: acquiring its fortunes through the exploitative extraction of rents and wielding its immense wealth and power to tighten its illegitimate grip on both politics and the economy. It’s a moral abomination we’d all be much better off without. About the Author Luke Savage is a staff writer at Jacobin.