#and from there it occurred to me that given the world events five years beforehand the meme would have VERY different

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i just realized setrákus is just ra ra rasputin But Evil and it took an inch off the front of my skull

[readyplayerhobi]

Sleigh Bells Ring

; (Not so)Single Dad!Hoseok x Reader

; Genre: Fluff

; Word Count: 10.2k

; Synopsis: This Christmas is going to be different than usual; it’s you first spent with Hoseok and his daughters while living with them. You’re not sure who’s more excited though, you or Hoseok.

; A/N: Revisting our favourite dad and his family on Christmas! :D please reblog if you enjoyed and send me comments and questions! :D

; Sequel to Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

; Part of the 12 Days of Bangtan Collab

-

“You’ve got all the presents right? And the cookies? I definitely packed them in that bag for you. The presents are there aren’t they?” The insistent nattering of your mom makes your eyes roll exasperatedly, looking at her with love and affection alongside just a hint of annoyance.

She means well and you try to tell yourself that repeatedly. This is the first Christmas that you’ll be spending not at your parent’s house for the day. It sounds a little lame when you say that, considering your age, but you’d never been in a committed relationship where you’d been living with someone else to spend Christmas with them instead of your own family.

Until this year.

This year marked your third Christmas with Hoseok, but it was your first Christmas living with him. You’d only made the transition into not only his heart and his bed, but his home, a few months ago. Both of you had moved slowly, letting his daughters get used to the idea of you being around more frequently until the prospect of you living full time with them wasn’t strange.

For both them and you.

Hoseok had been painfully aware that he needed to move slowly and carefully with his daughters and you’d been completely amenable to it, recognising that his three little girls were his entire world. But he’d also been careful to make you aware that his small world had expanded to include you.

And that meant he knew that he couldn’t simply expect you to just be perfectly fine with gaining a purpose built family. Accepting him meant accepting his kids, and he had never expect you to be a mother to them but it had been inevitable that they slowly looked to you for things that a mother would be the most likely to give them.

Such as when you’d given Soo-ah plenty of advice when she’d shyly come to you one morning a few months ago, her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment while stress made her eyes big. It had been so early that Hoseok and you had still been fast asleep in bed, his eldest daughter quietly shaking you awake and hoping not to wake her father.

That hadn’t worked, of course. Hoseok was a dad, and he’d been a solo father for so long that he was automatically attuned to his kids needs which meant he’d startled awake faster than you. But she’d insistently tugged you out of his arms, a frown on her face as she’d steadfastly ignored his concerned gaze.

You knew that it had hurt him that she hadn’t felt that she could come to him, especially when you’d told him later that the reason she’d come to you had been because she’d started her first period. While he knew logically that she’d probably be more comfortable talking to you, as a woman, you’d still had to soothe his hurt parental feelings.

Still, you knew that he appreciated the fact that you were there for those more awkward talks. Though he had been adamant at making it clear to all his girls that he was not going to be a squeamish and awkward dad with them. No, he was very much ready to talk to them about whatever they wanted.

It had pleased you both though to know that Soo-ah was finally comfortable enough with you to discuss personal matters such as that. She’d struggled more than the twins at accepting you in her father’s, and therefore her life. But she was getting there and she’d been trying.

“Yes mom, they’re all in my bag. The presents, and the food. And the books. And everything else you’ve snuck in there. Probably the cat if you’ve tried.” You muse, glancing down at your phone as you respond to a text from your best friend with an amused smile.

Your mom just lets out a snort, causing you to look up and watch as she flops down onto the couch in an exaggerated manner that makes her look far younger than she actually. A glance at your dad lets you see that he’s not even phased, his gaze focused firmly on the 4K television he’d managed to coax your mom to buy a few months ago, a Playstation controller in his hand while he plays his game.

“You don’t have to act so rude. I’m just being nice and caring.” Sighing deeply, you sense that you’ve affronted her deeply held maternal instincts and so you place your phone down, giving her a sweet smile.

“Thank you mom. They will all appreciate the food. You know that Hoseok loves your cookies and the girl’s adore your cupcakes. And they will all love their presents, even though Hoseok said not to get them too much.” That was probably the wrong thing to say.

She’d looked pleased at hearing their love for her baking, and you wouldn’t fault her there because you also enjoyed eating her baked delights, but then your words about the presents filtered in and she scowled deeply. Internally, you winced because you knew that she was going to get mad now.

“What do you mean?! I haven’t got them too much, I’ve got just enough. There’s two presents for Hoseok and three each for the girls.” You can’t stop the smile that spreads as you listen to her, watching as she counts on her fingers while also explaining what she’d bought.

Your mom had been wary at first when you’d told her about Hoseok. She’d been delighted to find out that you’d found someone you really liked, especially when he treated you so well and made you much happier than you had been beforehand. She’d liked him even more when you’d finally shown her pictures of him, her eyes widening as she took in how handsome he was and the beautiful profile he was blessed with.

And then she’d found out that he was a widower and had three daughters. Not only that, but three daughters all over the age of five. That had thrown her a bit and you knew that she wasn’t sure what to expect. 

Which had been entirely understandable. One child might have been surprising but not too much, two would have been a little more brow raising but three? That was a ready made family that you were walking into and she’d seen the potential fallout that could occur long before you’d properly thought about it.

As strange as it was for you to accept that you had entered into a relationship where you had become a pseudo-mom for three young girls, it was even stranger for your parents who had suddenly gone from no grandchildren to technically three. Even though you repeatedly told them that the girls were not their grandchildren.

But when did semantics ever matter to grandparents? They’d thrown themselves into it once they’d realised that Hoseok and you were serious, badgering you to introduce him and then his girls. Hoseok had been very hesitant and unsure, not wanting to make his previous wife’s parents feel uncomfortable at the idea of their grandchildren gaining ‘new’ grandparents.

So after permission from them, he’d finally brought them to your parents house for dinner. It had been his first time meeting them, which he’d handled like a trooper given the circumstances. And yet it had been almost instant love for your dad and the twins. 

They’d latched onto each other instantly, enjoying his loud laugh and playing games together until Hoseok was apologising for the loudness of his progeny. But your dad hadn’t cared. In fact, he’d looked happier and more alive than you’d seen him in recent years.

And Soo-ah? Well, she’d surprisingly latched onto your mom pretty well. As said before, your mom was phenomenal at baking and often sold her stuff to friends or for small catering events. Soo-ah had discovered a love of baking through her, enjoying spending all her time in the kitchen as they baked delicious food.

You supposed it was your mom’s kind and loving nature. She had worked for a long time as a support worker, caring specifically for a group of girls with severe disabilities and ensuring that they got to enjoy their life to the fullest. It had been the perfect job for her, suiting her nurturing personality and she’d done amazing at it, but ill health had forced her to retire a little earlier than she would have liked to.

With Soo-ah, she’d inadvertently found someone to nurture who hadn’t even realised they’d wanted or needed it. You’d felt bad that Soo-ah seemed to like your mom better than her own, blood grandparents but Hoseok had waved off your concerns with a smile.

In his eyes, they would be just as much her grandparents if your relationship kept going well as her real grandparents. Besides, it had endeared her to you a lot quicker now that she always wanted to visit your mom.

“Did you leave any for me?” You tease lightly, smiling as she pauses and gives you an imperious look. It’s a look that she’s given you many times throughout your life and it causes you to chuckle, knowing that of course there are presents for you. As an only child, you would fully admit to being spoiled by your parents throughout your life. 

It wasn’t something you’d ever asked for, but they’d done it either way. And you knew that they revelled in the concept of having more people to dote affection on. Particularly given how much they liked Hoseok. You were pretty positive that they’d begun saving for a wedding months ago, even though there had been zero hint of that from either Hoseok or you.

“There’s some for you...yes. Hopefully you’ll like them.” Your dad finally deigns to say, glancing over at you with a small smile before he’s looking back at the television screen. Chuckling lightly, you nod and stand up, stretching with a small grunt.

“I’m sure I will. Remember, yours are under the tree,” You pause slightly, warmth rushing through your chest as you look over at the small pile of presents for each of your parents. “There’s one each from the girls and then...ones from Hoseok and I.”

It leaves you a little breathless to say that and you feel silly, looking down at your hands. Last year, Hoseok had brought the presents for your parents separately and it had simply been one present from all four of them. But this year, he’d gone with you to buy them and had picked out the presents from his daughters.

Your heart fluttered slightly, knowing that the presents from you now bore gift tags that said ‘To Mom, love Y/N and Hoseok’. It had strangely made everything seem much more real, as you’d never had a relationship serious enough to warrant dual signed presents. He’d written the tags to his own parents presents as from both of you as well, leading to a little anxiety from you that they wouldn’t be fond of that.

They hadn’t said anything when he’d dropped them off though, just gave you both a hug and him an extra kiss on the cheek while thanking you and handing off their own presents. It had been with excitement that you’d seen presents labelled to you in them, leading you to silently believe that they approved of you.

Things like that were probably normal in most relationships, but everything seemed to be done different for Hoseok and you. After all, he had three daughters over the age of four when you first started dating. The rules were a little different in situations like that.

“Okay, I’m gonna head off. Anything else you desperately need to do?” You ask teasingly, grinning at your mom’s outraged expression before she shrugged lightly.

“Maybe I’ve got one more present for Hoseokie.” Her endearing nickname for him was cute and you try to hide your smile, knowing that she only calls him that when he’s not there. If she thought he didn’t know though, he was very wrong. She’d called him it once on a call to you only it had been on speakerphone while you did something else, leading to him overhearing her nickname.

He liked it though.

“Mom! Seriously?” You whine at her quietly, standing and heading out to the hall. The bag that she’d put all the presents into is waiting for you beside your boots which you pull on before slipping your arms through your black winter coat. A scarf is being wrapped around your head before she appears again with a smile and a small box in her hand.

“Hush. He deserves to be doted on after all he’s gone through. It’s nothing big.” Staring at her in suspicion, you look down at the plain box with a wary eye. It’s got no wrapping on it so you presume it’s something she bought rather late.

“Is this something he can open in front of the kids?” She gets an affronted look before snorting a laugh, something that sounds incredibly similar to what you do. Hoseok had noted that you seemed to favour your mom a lot in terms of mannerisms.

“Y/N! Seriously! It’s not a cock ring. It’s...it’s a photo frame. I’m not sure he’ll like it but I hope he does.” Pursing your lips, you look down at the box with an undeniable inquisitiveness and your mom tuts in gentle admonishment, taking it from your hands and opening it.

It’s one of those frames that let you put multiple pictures in and each one has been lovingly filled by her. There’s a photo of the girls, then one of Hoseok and the girls together, then one of you and them together. And finally, a photo of just Hoseok and you, arms wrapped around each other with silly grins on your faces.

You find yourself smiling softly before you hesitate, letting your fingers run down the side. “Mom...there’s no Yoo-jin picture. Maybe we should swap the one of me and-”

The cover is placed back on the box and she puts it into the bag at your feet before looking at you with a sad smile. Her hands come up to fuss with your scarf and you feel like a child all over again.

“Sweetheart, Yoo-jin still lives in that house and I’m glad she does. She is the mother of those beautiful girls and she shouldn’t be forgotten. But it makes me sad when I go there and I see more of her than you. You live there now. I’m not saying that I want her photos gone, I don’t. I just want to see more of you in there. If it offends Hoseok then he doesn’t have to put them anywhere, but I’d like to think that he’d be amenable to it.” 

“Mom…”

“I’m not saying to erase Yoo-jin, she has a firm place and she should never be removed from that place. But it’s your home now too. You live there, you care for those girls, you love those girls and you love that man.” You can’t find it in yourself to say anything to her so you simply nod, hoping to find a way to explain it to Hoseok.

There were photos of you in the house, but they were still minimal compared to those of Hoseok, the girls and Yoo-jin. You’d been okay with that, knowing that you were the imposter in that perfect little family. But your mom had hit a hidden nerve, the worry that you wouldn’t be allowed to grow in the space he’d invited you into.

Shaking your head, you smile brightly at her before giving her a tight hug.

“Thank you mom. I’ll call you tomorrow. Until then...Merry Christmas!” 

-

Later that evening, you’re sat on the couch and watching as the twins shout at each other while playing on their Nintendo Switch. Hoseok had bought them it for their birthday and you weren’t entirely sure buying twins a single present was a good idea, but he’d pointed out that if he bought only one of them it then he’d have to buy the other and he didn’t want to spend that much.

Which was reasonable, and it also meant that they had to take care of it because Hoseok had threatened that if it got broken, it was staying broken. So they treated it like a prized toy, having advanced from their superhero love to loving video games. You weren’t sure how Hoseok was managing to raise two girls who adored all things nerdy, because he wasn’t exactly a geeky person himself.

Another reason they loved you so much.

But for the moment, they were absorbed in playing Mario Kart with each other and trying to beat the other. If there was one thing being with Hoseok had taught you, it was that twins were perhaps the competitive creatures on the planet. 

Soo-ah was curled up in her usual spot in the comfy armchair she’d claimed as her own when Hoseok had bought a whole new suite the other year. The old one had ended up breaking when Ji-soo had jumped on it too hard. It was the angriest you’d ever seen Hoseok.

Not that he’d let that anger be seen by the girls, but when they weren’t in ear shot he’d used an amazing array of curse words that you hadn’t thought he’d even known frankly. But he conceded that he liked the new couches better, and Soo-ah had loved having her own little space in the living room.

A book was in her lap, one of the Percy Jackson books and you smiled at her softly even though she wasn’t watching. She was going to be a teenager soon, and you could already see the way she was starting to grow taller, her limbs starting to get that gangly look teens got when their bodies weren’t quite growing at the same rate.

But you’d never deny that she was the spitting image of her mom. It was like looking at Yoo-jin, which was an odd feeling for you given that you’d never actually met the woman. You felt proud of Soo-ah though and hoped that her mom was happy with how you were helping to raise her.

Warm lips press to your temple gently and you shift, looking at your boyfriend with a gentle smile and enjoying the tender gaze he gives back, eyes shimmering in the glow of the Christmas lights wrapped around the tree. It was decorated in rose gold and gold, a request from Soo-ah who was a little obsessed with the former at the moment, but you had to admit it was pretty.

The delicate baubles and other decorations hung from the fake trees limbs prettily while glitter tinsel wrapped its way around the branches, mingled with the warm lights that flickered softly. Icicle lights of the same colour decorated the main window while a sweet Christmas scene played out along the window sill.

Above the fireplace, which was currently lit and giving off a cosy warmth, were three stockings that had been personalised with a name each. They were for the girls evidently, and Hoseok had been using the threat of Santa all month to get them to do what he wanted.

You knew he was going to hate it when he couldn’t do that anymore.

More tinsel surrounded the shelf above the fireplace, shimmering softly as tiny snowflakes nestled amongst the festive decorations while various Christmas themed figures sat atop it alongside Christmas cards from family and friends.

It was all mostly matching, but some of it was a little odd. Like the plastic reindeer in the corner of the room, taking up the space that the vase which held ornamental branches normally held. That had been Ji-eun’s purchase. She’d threatened to have a nuclear meltdown in the store, despite being seven now, and Hoseok simply hadn’t had the willpower to put up with that.

Hence Meteor, the reindeer.

The name was Ji-soo’s choice. Again, something neither you nor Hoseok had wanted to fight.

But overall, the house just felt like Christmas and it pleased you. The candles which flickered gently atop the bookcase gave off a delightful cookie scent and everything just felt...nice. Three happy and content girls, a decorated house, presents under the tree and the most wonderful man in the world sat with you on the couch, his arm wrapped around you.

Yeah, this was definitely happiness. And you were glad that Hoseok was open to letting you experience this joy with him.

“You okay?” Hoseok whispers, his voice husky from how low he has it but you get the sense that he doesn’t want to interrupt the general mood of the room. It had been a worry as to how the girls might react to you not only coming over for Christmas, which is what you’d done last year in the afternoon, but actually being there for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

Despite how well they’d taken your presence in their lives, there were some things that they had as a routine that they didn’t like changing. Their birthday had bizarrely been one of the things that set the twins off. They had generally been amenable to you, latching onto you even but their birthday had been something that they had only ever celebrated with their daddy and grandparents.

It was made all the more awkward in that it was also the day Yoo-jin had died, meaning that Hoseok had juggled between celebrating the girls and commemorating their mom. Your appearance in their life had shifted that tradition and it had been one of the only major times that they’d thrown tantrums over you.

But everyone seemed to be okay this Christmas thankfully, and you smiled up at Hoseok.

“I’m fine. Just...gathering wool I guess,” You laugh quietly, feeling his body move against you as he lets out a breathy laugh too. “It’s exciting, spending Christmas with you and them.”

“I’m glad you think so. Part of me is a little sad that I can’t spend a Christmas with just you and give you that but then I wouldn’t trade a Christmas with the girls for anything. They make Christmas fun again.” He’s still got his voice low so they can’t hear, but the twins are making more than enough noise to cover up anything.

“Hey, don’t worry about that. It’s okay. Christmas is meant to be for family right? So...this is your family and I’m honoured to be part of it this year.” Hoseok grins at that, pursing his lips at you playfully and you roll your eyes before giving him a quick kiss.

That had been something new to get used to as well. Neither of you had really known how to introduce the concept of you both showing physical affection to each other in front of his kids so you’d just slowly worked your way up from holding hands to an occasional kiss.

Nothing too intense, neither of you felt it was appropriate to do anything more in front of them. You’d been mortified when Soo-ah had come across you both making out like teenagers and you’d been horrified when Hoseok forgot to lock the bedroom door one day and Ji-soo had woken up from a nightmare.

Thankfully, none of them particularly turned their nose up at a quick kiss and Hoseok in particular revelled in being able to show you affection. You’d discovered quickly that he was a very affectionate person when allowed, always wanting to be touching or holding you in some way. It was sweet, even if you had a suspicion that he’d likely always been affectionate but had been starved of romantic touch for so long.

“I love you.” He murmurs as he pulls away from your lips, pressing them to your forehead before looking over at the girls. “Okay, come on. I’ve got one present that Santa has given me early for you to open now and then it’s bedtime.”

The girl instantly stop their game, pausing it while Soo-ah looked up with bright eyes. She’d been told the truth about Santa two years ago but the twins still believed. And this was one of the traditions that you’d been worried about interrupting.

Hoseok squeezed your hand reassuringly though as he stood, heading over to the bookcase and pulling down four presents. He came back over to the girls and sat down on the floor with them, legs crossed as Soo-ah knelt next to him as well.

You remained on the couch, unwilling to intrude in this tradition. Hoseok had tried to get you to agree to get involved but you’d refused, deeming this to be something that only he and the girls should do.

“So, let’s look. This one...is for Ji-soo. This is Soo-ah, this is mine and that means that this is yours.” Hoseok grins at Ji-eun, handing her the prettily wrapped present. This was a tradition Hoseok had started after the twins were born and you hoped it continued on.

On Christmas Eve, he would give the girls a present each like he was doing now. Only they weren’t implied to be from him or his grandparents that Santa was delivering. Instead, these were special presents that Santa had retrieved from their mommy and delivered for them to open before Christmas.

As such, each tag wished them a happy Christmas and told them how much their mom loved them. It was the perfect way to keep her involved in their lives while also creating a sweet tradition of their own, and you’d refused to get involved with this one.

This was for them, to celebrate their mom on Christmas even if she wasn’t there.

“You go first Soo-ah.” Ji-soo says sweetly, smiling at her big sister and shuffling closer to her to see what she’s got. As with everything she does, Soo-ah opens it carefully and precisely before smiling. She obviously knows that it’s not from Santa, nor is it from her mom. But she plays along with it anyway.

Inside is a little black box and inside that is a beautiful necklace with a rose gold fox, enameled with white highlights. Soo-ah smiles brightly, lifting the delicate chain and watching as it shines prettily in the soft tree lights.

“It’s so pretty.” She whispers before placing it back down, letting her finger run over the pendant before looking at Ji-soo. Her younger sister has big, wide eyes before she looks down at her own present, tearing it open eagerly.

As she does so, Soo-ah looks at Hoseok and gives him a smile of thanks before focusing back on the mess Ji-soo is causing. Inside Ji-soo’s present is a set of Harry Potter books, something she’d been bugging Soo-ah to let her read for months now. Like her sister, Ji-soo was getting more into reading and Hoseok evidently wanted to encourage that.

“Thank you.” She said softly, smiling sweetly as she turned each book over reverently. No doubt they’d end up on the floor of the twins bedroom sooner rather than later but you had no doubt that they’d get read.

Ji-eun is already opening her present, revealing a LEGO set that at first glance doesn’t seem to be much but is in actuality, a Star Wars model. Immediately she’s squealing with excitement, about to tear into the box before Hoseok is tutting and taking it away from her.

“Tomorrow Ji-eun, I said we open the presents then we go to bed, right?” She pouts before nodding, her shoulders slumping and Ji-soo hugs her tightly.

“It’s okay! We can build it tomorrow sis.” Like magic, the words from her sister calm Ji-eun down and she’s back to being her smiling self, hugging Ji-soo back before babbling on about how cool it would be to play with. She’d already got around six other LEGO sets, enjoying the Star Wars ones because she could pretend to be in space.

Hoseok had made some good decisions with the presents and you let your foot run along his back slowly, letting him know that you approved of what he’d bought. Not that you hadn’t known, but he’d chosen these ones himself with no input from you. And he’d always been one to encourage any interests his daughters might have.

“Open yours dad! Open it!” Ji-soo exclaims, her twin practically vibrating next to her as she nods in excitement while Soo-ah moves a little closer too. This was the present that Hoseok had felt most awkward about, because he normally got his mom to get him something. But this year he’d asked you to get it, hoping to integrate both his deceased and his current loves.

You’d felt honoured and worried, unsure as to whether it would look good if you bought a present from him that was to be given in his dead wife’s name. But Yoo-jin’s parents had given their blessing to Hoseok’s idea, telling you that they knew you would do a good job for her because you were already doing good with her husband and children.

Maybe that made you cry. Just a little. Not a lot or anything.

As such, Hoseok had no idea what his present was, so shifted slightly to let you see his face too. He opened it up slowly, head tilting as he looked at the frame in his hand. It showed three star charts with a date below each.

And then he stiffened in realisation of what they symbolised, his eyes getting glassy as his lip quivered ever so slightly. Soo-ah frowned as she leaned forward, wondering what it was and she queried it softly.

Hoseok sniffed slightly before blinking rapidly and giving his girls a bright smile.

“It’s a star chart. It shows what the night sky looked like at a specific date so you can see what constellations were there. This...is your birthday Soo-ah and this is your birthday,” He points at one before gesturing to the twins. “And this...this is the day your mom and I got married.”

You can tell he’s struggling then for a moment and you reach out once more, just resting your foot against his hip in a simple gesture that said ‘I’m here’. He looked at you with a smile that wobbled before nodding slightly, pressing his lips into a firm line.

“I’ll have to put this up somewhere, huh?” There’s quiet for a moment before he places it to the side and gestures to the girls, pulling them all into a tight hug and kissing each one firmly on the head as they squirm and giggle. “I love you, and your mom loves you. I hope you like the presents Santa got from her.”

“We love them!” Ji-soo responds softly, wiping at her eyes that suddenly look a lot more tired and you can’t help but laugh gently. You swear the twins are battery operated because as soon as they lose power then they seem to shut down.

Hoseok senses it too, kissing her on the forehead before standing up.

“Okay, well...let’s get ready for bed then yeah? Santa can’t come if you’re awake! Don’t forget to leave out the carrot and cake for him, he’ll be very tired after all the travelling.” With that, you stand with him to help get them all ready and sent off to bed.

As they leave the kitchen after leaving out their treats for Santa and his reindeer, Hoseok pulls you to the side and presses a quick but deep kiss to your lips, holding your cheeks between his hands. He shifts back just as quickly, resting his forehead against yours and giving you such a fond look.

“Thank you. I love it. You should have left a space open on it though.” You feel yourself heat at that, unsure as to whether he means for another child or a wedding or what. “She would have approved.”

With that, he gives you another kiss before heading up the stairs to where the cacophony of girl voices tells you that the usual night time routine is in full motion. Standing in place for a moment, you look to the photo of Yoo-jin and Hoseok on their wedding day that sits atop the mantlepiece.

“I hope he’s right Yoo-jin. Happy Christmas.”

-

Shrieking voices wake you in the morning, alertness coming far too fast even though you’d been in bed by 11pm. Quietly you groan, voice gravelly from sleep while your eyes refused to open. Instead, you just roll over and curl closer into Hoseok, his warm body combining with the comfiness of the bed to try and lull you back to sleep.

But Hoseok is already alert, heaving a big sigh as he lets his head flop into the pillow for a few more moments before he’s shifting. You whine at him, fingers clutching at his shirt and he lets out a broken laugh, sitting up and running his hand over your shoulder.

“Come on baby, time to get up. It’s Christmas!” Despite how tired he sounds, you can tell he’s excited. Then again, he’s used to getting up crazy early with three kids by now. The man doesn’t know how to have a proper lie in, practically physically incapable of staying in bed past 9am. Unlike you...you hadn’t quite learnt that skill yet.

All of this meant that he was already pretty alert, a smile on his face despite his puffy eyes and cheeks, dark hair a complete mess. He hated what he looked like when he’d just woken up but you thought it was adorable.

The door slams open suddenly, left unlocked by Hoseok specifically for this reason despite the closed door policy of the house and two incredibly hyperactive girls come barreling through, voices getting increasingly louder as they talk over each other. Shuffling in bed, you move enough to let your head rest on Hoseok’s thigh as the twins jump onto the bed too, telling you both to hurry up.

“I’m guessing Santa’s been?” You ask, licking your lips and smile at the enthusiastic response you get from them. Soo-ah is stood in the doorway, looking far more tired than them with her plaited hair messy and pyjamas wrinkled.

“Yes! So you have to come downstairs! Come on! Please! Hurry up dad!” Ji-soo is tugging at Hoseok’s arm, jerking him as he laughs and holds up his free hand to her.

“Okay, okay. Go wash your faces and brush your teeth first then we’ll go down and open presents. Let me and Y/N get ready too.” They both pout immediately at the prospect of having to do chores, they thought of brushing their teeth as a chore at the moment, before opening presents but Hoseok is giving them The Look and so they speed off.

Soo-ah smiles at you both. “I’ll take them downstairs, don’t worry.”

With that, she closes the door behind her and leaves. Hoseok lets out a deep sigh that seems to come from the bottom of his stomach. “God...she’s getting older so quick. Where did my little girl go?”

Chuckling, you push yourself up and finally escape the confines of the duvet, stretching with a groan as you get out all the kinks.

“She’s still there. She’s growing up really well though.” You say absently, rubbing your eyes as you yawn. As such, you don’t see Hoseok come up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist tightly before kissing your shoulder.

“She is. Come on anyway, we can’t leave them alone too long. They’ll chew off their arms in impatience.” You snort in response to that, following him into the bathroom and quickly doing your morning routine at a much faster pace than you normally do.

Despite Hoseok saying that you didn’t need to change, you take the liberty of pulling on some clean underwear and leggings at least, wanting to be comfy and at least feel a little more like a person. He just pulls on some sweatpants before leading you downstairs.

The Christmas lights have already been turned on by Soo-ah you presume and you can’t help but laugh as all three of them sit eagerly on the floor in front of their respective present piles. Soo-ah doesn’t have as much as the twins, but then she’s reaching the age where her presents get smaller but more expensive.

“I see you’ve been good girl’s this year then. Santa must have enjoyed his time here,” Hoseok grins, pointing at the half eaten pie and empty glass that sat on the mantelpiece. “So come on then, let’s get on with it.”

He sits down on the couch, letting the girls take up the space and tugs you down next to him. The girls immediately tore into their presents, no consideration given for the time that had been spent wrapping them or anything and Hoseok has to repeatedly remind them to read the tags.

Soo-ah is finished first obviously, her pile consisting of books she’d asked for, a few films, some cute plushies and a bunch of clothes. That was everything she’d gotten from her grandparents and other family members. Her pride and joy though was the iPad that Hoseok had finally caved and bought for her.

The only reason he’d given in was because you’d told him that you’d pay part of it too so that he wasn’t spending a crazy amount on her. So it was the first dual present you’d ever gotten for her before and it made your stomach flutter with nerves and excitement as she squealed excitedly, holding the box to her chest tightly.

“Thank you dad!” Soo-ah said with the biggest smile, her eyes bright and Hoseok laughed, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and pulling you into him. 

“You need to thank Y/N too.” Without a second's hesitation she turns that pretty smile onto you and thanks you as well, jumping up and hugging you both tightly. She smells of the body spray that she’d started to wear lately, just a cheap one from the grocery store.

Ji-eun and Ji-soo distract you soon after, looking down at them as they both gasp in awe of the Playstation 4 that had been bought as a dual gift for them. A benefit of them both having the same bedroom was that Hoseok had only needed to buy one, letting them finally play all the games they begged to play on the console in the living room.

He was finally letting them have a little more time with electronics and you’d supported his decision the whole way. 

Alongside the PS4 came a whole host of games that they’d been desperately wanting to play along with a VR headset and an extra controller. That hadn’t been in the plan but Hoseok had been completely taken with the sales rep and ended up coming home with the thing. You hadn’t known whether it was a good idea for two girls so young but you figured they’d grow into it.

Plus...you kinda wanted to play it too.

Hoseok had admitted that to you as well and you had a feeling that it was probably more of a guilty present for himself as well. Not that you were going to out him about it or anything. At least...not until you’ve played Astrobot Rescue…

Their final presents from both you and Hoseok had been new bikes, bikes that would last them a few years as they grew. They weren’t cheap either, those fancy mountain bike styles because Hoseok wanted to be able to go on trails with them or take mini vacations to go biking. He liked that apparently, which was why you’d bought him a mountain bike for Christmas too.

Thankfully, you already had one so he had no reason to buy you one and Soo-ah had been gifted one last year from his parents. Their presents this from family were an assortment of superhero themed dolls which they still enjoyed playing with and a few small LEGO sets. For the most part, they both had similar interests so presents were a lot easier but you knew that would change as they grew older.

Then they’d watched with excitement as you and Hoseok opened presents. He got a bottle of expensive wine from his parents along with some expensive new shoes while Yoo-jin’s parents had gifted him a record player. You were surprised they still got him something but you thought it was sweet too.

Your own parents had gotten him one of the instant cameras, which confused you at first until he’d explained with a grin that he’d said to your dad he wanted one to take pictures and put them into books for the girls, and a box of fancy biscuits. The picture frame you’d hurried to say that you’d suggested changing one of the photos to Yoo-jin but Hoseok had just looked at you fondly, shaking his head lightly and telling you that it was perfect the way it was. 

He’d obviously got a bike from you but then you’d also splurged on him and gotten him the dash camera he wanted for his car. A more fun present was the series of figures that he loved. His face lit up in a smile that was a mirror image of his daughters as he examined the limited edition models with pure glee and your heart felt like it was going to explode in love.

From the girls, he got a whole range of small things that you’d gone and bought with them. Just stuff like funny socks to funny shirts, books to a new phone case. And you could see that he loved and appreciated every one of them.

Your own presents made you feel a little shy, the pile smaller than everyone else’s but they were just as eager to watch. The first thing you opened were from the girls. Hoseok had gotten you something from them last year but obviously you hadn’t seen them. This year you had them watching avidly.

And you let out a gasp of delight as you look down at the box of your favourite perfume, perfume that was not cheap.

“Oh my god! Thank you! This is my favourite!” You say excitedly, grinning broadly as you open the box and take out the pretty bottle. Soo-ah giggles as she shuffles closely, dainty fingers reaching out and touching the glass reverently.

“I know. I looked at your perfume and told dad.” Glancing at Hoseok, he shrugs with a small smile and you feel warmth blossom within at the fact that Soo-ah had taken the time to properly look. Despite feeling closer to the twins due to their immediate attachment to you, you still loved Hoseok’s eldest daughter and every step forward with her felt like a small victory.

“I love it. Thank you all.” 

Your parents had gotten you a new laptop and you vaguely remember that you’d told them you needed a new one. What’s surprising though is that it’s the exact one you’d been eyeing. Suspiciously, you glance to Hoseok who has a very innocent look on his face, eyes widening and brows rising as you watch him.

His parents had gotten you a beautiful military style long coat that had you ooh-ing as you ran your fingers over the luxurious black material and shiny gold buttons. It was truly exquisite and you just knew that it would look good on you.

Your eyes widened in shock as you were handed another present, this one small and delicate. But it was the tag that had you pausing, stating that it was from Yoo-jin’s parents. Almost immediately you look at Hoseok in confusion and he just leant forward, kissing your forehead.

“They’ve never met you but they know you’re in our lives and they didn’t want to be rude.” It was strange, opening up the present that his deceased wife’s parents had gotten you. Like you were breaking the rules or something, betraying Yoo-jin’s memory.

Inside was a delicate silver bracelet, little stars and moon breaking up the chain every now and then. It wasn’t an expensive brand or anything, but it could have been a cheap $5 ring and you would have been in awe given who it came from. Tenderly, you run your fingers along it while the girls all make noises at how pretty it is.

And then came the presents from Hoseok. Who appeared to have spoiled you given what you opened. Which was saying something given how much you’d spent on him.

A new Pandora bracelet complete with a set of Disney charms alongside a second bracelet that was rose gold, the hue shining in the dainty Christmas lights. New boots that you’d been considering for the last two months, your size and the exact colour you’d wanted. A set of tiny Harry Potter themed snow globes for your desk and a bunch of your favourite Pokémon in plush form. The console games you’d been wanting for a while but had been unwilling to spend money on and some new books for you to enjoy in your downtime. 

And then on top of all that, which was ridiculously honestly, was the Canon DSLR that he’d bought you. You’d been wanting to get a new camera and try out photography again, something you’d done years ago, but the cost had been putting you off.

“Hoseok!” His name comes out in an exasperated tone that’s threaded through with love, knowing that he’d just come with some excuse as to why he spent so much on you. You knew that he earnt enough and with you sharing the bills now he was even better off, but you’d never had so much stuff bought for it.

It left you a little flustered.

Almost as if he can tell, he grins broadly and kisses your cheek with an overly loud noise. The girls giggle to themselves at his display of affection before he squeezes your hand tightly.

“It’s Christmas! The season of giving. You can’t complain. Santa said you’ve been good.” You give him a look that tells him there’ll be a conversation about this later but you’re both distracted when the girls start to get antsy, wanting to play with their own stuff.

His foot came down rather quickly when the twins began to beg him to let them play outside on their bikes, desperate to have fun and probably scrape their knees multiple times. You’re sure he would’ve been okay with it, except that it was 5:30 in the morning and dark outside. Not exactly the right conditions to be letting them go around screaming.

Instead, he made them all go upstairs and shower to make sure that they were all clean before getting dressed in their comfy Christmas clothes that you’d bought for them. That was a tradition you’d brought from your own family; every year you got a new outfit for Christmas. Hoseok had been bemused by it but he’d gone along and the girls were just excited to have new clothes.

Once everyone was all dressed, you watched Hoseok for a moment as he helped to set up Soo-ah’s iPad as the twins got settled into playing on their PS4 already. He’d already turned it on and set it all up the other day so they were fully immersed in one of the LEGO games he’d bought, each chattering away as they played split screen.

A sudden wave of isolation hits you as you watched them, realising that you could easily walk out of the house right now and the picture here would still be the same. They wouldn’t really notice your loss and they’d survive happily without it. This was a family, his family. And you were just the interloper in it.

Chewing your lip, you turn around and head into the kitchen with a deep sigh. You try to keep those thoughts out of your head but it’s always a worry at the back of your mind. The anxiety that it all might fall apart. That you’d lose not only the man you love dearly, the man you’re positive is the love of your life, but also his beautiful daughters whom you had also come to love.

The kitchen is quiet as you turn on the oven, letting it pre-heat while you pull out the meats that you’d prepared the day before with Hoseok. Christmas dinner was easily one of the best moments of the day for you and you’d worked hard to combine his dinner with your family. Which meant you were eating honey glazed ham and roast turkey stuffed full of sage and onion stuffing.

Checking them over, you tut slightly and work at making sure they’ll be okay before placing them both into the oven, thankful that it was big enough to accommodate both. He had a grill above this that could also function as a second oven and you would be playing the vegetables into their later on to roast them to perfection with the seasonings and spices you’d lavished upon them.

You’re so invested in the food, taking out the cookies and everything your mom had given you yesterday and laying them on the side so that everyone could snack on them while the food cooked throughout the morning, that you don’t notice Hoseok sneaking in. It’s only when his arms wind around your waist that you realise, jumping slightly.

“Are you mad at me?” The childish tone to his voice tells you that he’s pouting and you resolve not to look at him. He has the most ridiculous puppy-eyes that manage to get him anything he wants and you’re not falling for it today. Not that you were actually mad at him or anything.

“No, I’m not. Though you spend way too much!” You whine petulantly poking his arm with your own lips turning into a pout. Hoseok chuckles, his chest vibrating against your back before he turns you around and gives you a bright smile, dimples appearing in his cheeks adorably.

“I love you. Christmas is when I get to spoil you.”

“You spoilt me on my birthday and our anniversary too.” Eyeing him suspiciously, his tongue pokes at his cheek as he looks at the ceiling and considers.

“Okay maybe so, but still. Point stands. I love you. And you never buy yourself anything! You always talk yourself out of it.” He argues, voice getting lower and more mumbled and you can’t help but smile at his face, reaching up and cupping those cheeks until they’re comically smushed. Despite the grumbles coming from his throat, he lets you be silly with him and you know it’s because you’ve gotten over it already.

“Did you like your stuff?” He nods, head jerking your hands before he reaches up and moves them away from his face. 

“I did. I’m a lucky guy.” Not responding, you just lean against his chest and exhale deeply, eyes closing as you just enjoy being with him in a small moment of silence in the madness that is his house. A madness that you’ve come to love and adore, something you’re not entirely sure you could live without anymore.

“This has been the best Christmas in a while.” Hoseok whispers softly, resting his cheek against your head while his arms wrap around you tighter. You don’t respond for a moment, hands grasping at his shirt before a response slips from your lips in a small, meek voice.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. It feels...whole again. It’s been really nice to just...have someone else here. Someone I love, you know?” You don’t really know but you nod anyway, unwilling to let the moment slide between you both.

“I love you.” It’s whispered against his chest but you know that he hears, arms tightening for a moment before he kisses your head.

“Love you too.”

-

A click and a flash of light makes you jump, eyes widening as you look up at Hoseok who grins from behind the camera your parents had got him. It was after 10pm now, dinner a long distant memory and you were sipping a glass of mulled wine on the couch, curled up in your pyjamas and reading one of the new books you’d been given.

The girls had tired themselves out and had gone to bed over an hour ago, the early start and excitement of the day knocking them out quicker than you’d ever seen. Hoseok had spent that time cleaning up the room to his liking, putting their presents into neat piles before sitting on the floor in front of you and messing around with some of his own presents.

And your’s, he’d also been playing with your own camera. You were content to let him do so, the silence between you both comfortable and pleasant. His very presence was just soothing and the tiny noises he made without realising amused you.

But evidently he was feeling playful now, his face a picture of mischief as he takes the photo that prints out and waves it, letting the picture develop. Shaking your head, you roll your eyes at him before reaching out and pushing at his shoulder with your foot.

He chuckles, grabbing your foot and kissing your ankle. The close vicinity to your feet makes you cringe, pulling back immediately as you make a sound that would be more at home coming out of Ji-soo or Ji-eun’s mouth.

“Having fun?” You ask, lips pursing as he holds out the photo to you once he’s scribbled something on it in black Sharpie. It’s not bad in reality, those cameras always have a way of bizarrely making people look good and you run your finger over the photograph carefully, admiring the way he’d written ‘First Christmas together’. Hoseok takes it back and places it on the coffee table reverently.

“Yep. You’re beautiful.” That gets a soft laugh and the camera flashes once more, capturing the emotion forever. You whine, disliking the momentary blindness but he just lays his head on your knee for a moment, waiting for the photo to develop.

Once it’s done, he pushes up and sits next to you, holding out the camera in front of you both and gestures to you. You smile prettily for the camera, head leaning in towards him and waiting for the flash once more.

“Will you marry me?”

Any thoughts of the camera disappear as your eyes widen and your jaw drops, turning to look at him in shock. The click of his finger on the camera button combines with a blinding flash, the camera whirring as it prints.

“What?” It’s the only thing you can say, shock freezing you as you’re not sure if he’d just said that to get a reaction out of you or because he genuinely meant it. But then he looks at you with a gentle smile, handing you the photograph and getting up to retrieve something he’d hidden behind a frame on the mantelpiece.

Sitting back next to you, you’re still experiencing that bizarre sense of uncertainty, body flushing cold and hot as you try to assess the situation. But then Hoseok opens the tiny box, revealing an elegant silver ring with a beautiful diamond set into the centre. It’s simple, but you love it already and without even realising you start to cry.

“Hoseok…”

“Will you marry me? Final present, I swear.” He grins, his own eyes looking ever so slightly misty while his cheeks take on a slightly rosy glow. You can’t stop looking between his face and the ring, hands shaking as you drop the book onto your lap and reaching out for it.

“Really? You...you really want to marry me?” Part of you knows that you should just say yes, but your emotions are so overwhelmed. Marriage was obviously something that you’d both discussed, it was something that anyone who had inclinations of wanting to get married and in a long term relationship discussed, but you just hadn’t thought he’d want to so early.

It wasn’t even ten years since his wife had died and he’d always said that she was the love of his life. While you knew that was likely true and you hadn’t wanted to try and compete against a woman who couldn’t fight back, you had that struggle in that you were faced with a woman who would forever be perfect in his memory.

Marriage for Hoseok meant cementing your place into his family, truly allowing you to take the place Yoo-jin had left. You would legally be the girls step-mother. It just all felt so final and you hadn’t been sure that Hoseok was ready for that.

“Of course I want to marry you. I love you. As cheesy as it is...you made me realise that it’s okay to love again. That’s it’s not betraying Yoo-jin, or myself or my kids. I have so much to thank you for; for embracing my kids, for loving me even though I came with a lot extra, for not trying to erase Yoo-jin, for just caring so much. I love being with you, I love how my kids love you, I love how my parents love you, I love your parents, I love you try so hard. Being with you...makes me feel younger than I actually am, like I’ve got a partner in crime again. That sounds lame,” He snorts, rolling his eyes.

“But it’s true. It’s not just me being ganged up on by my daughters anymore. I have someone to confide in, someone to trust, someone that I can break down in front of and not be seen as weak and who will hold me up until I feel strong again. I don’t think you realise how much you’ve done for me, or my family. Our family. I know you always think about Yoo-jin and your respect for her is amazing. But I don’t want you to think about her this time. I just want you to think about yourself. I love you and I really, really want to marry you.”

You have no doubt that you’re ugly crying now, your nose going alongside your eyes and you sniffle pathetically, rubbing at your face with the ends of your sweater. It makes Hoseok laugh gently, reaching out and pulling you into a tight hug. Neither of you realises for a moment that you’re nodding your acceptance, body already doing what your mind had decided.

“Yes. Yes, god yes. I’d...I’d love to marry you. I mean if you’re okay with that.”

“Sweetheart...I just asked you. I think I’m okay with it.” But he doesn’t push further, grinning broadly as he pushes the ring onto your finger before kissing it. His eyes are still shining with his own unshed tears, happiness dancing in them before he pulls you closer, pressing his lips to yours in a deep kiss, neither of you caring if anyone interrupts this one.

“God I am so glad you said yes. I was very stressed about this.” He murmurs when you finally pull apart, foreheads pressed together while your noses brush. You sniff one more and he gently wipes away the tears, cooing in the softest voice as he consoles you.

The two of you hug and kiss for a while longer, unwilling to let each other go in the bliss of happiness and excitement that his proposal had engendered. Any worries you may have about being officially part of his family disappear finally, simply enjoying the moment with him and in awe of the fact that he loves you enough to marry you.

This guy, who you’d started talking to at a get together years ago simply because you were sat next to each, had become such an important part of your life and it genuinely shocked you to know that you’d become the same to him. He pulls away, reaching for the Sharpie and the photograph that had fallen to your lap.

Carefully, he writes on it before lifting it up to look at it with a smile. “I think that was a good proposal.”

Turning it, he lets you look at the photograph and you feel warmth blossom as you remember that he’d captured this moment. In the small picture, he’s grinning broadly, that mischief you’d grown so used to in his eyes, that he’d passed onto his daughters, very prominent while you stare at him in complete shock.

Along the bottom, he’s scrawled out ‘Will you marry me?’. Laughing, you kiss his cheek.

“Is this why you asked for this kind of camera?” He shrugs in response, expression mysterious and you just burrow yourself into side deeper.

“Happy Christmas sweetheart.”

“Happy Christmas.”

[segadores-y-soldados]

A Fate Worse Than Death

Moira: The name Moira is a given name of Greek origin, deriving from μοῖρα, meaning "destiny, share, fate". 

I’ve already seen people asking me when my essay is going to happen and I need to be completely honest with you guys: This has been one of the most stressful weeks of my life in a very long time.  I do not have the energy - physical or emotional - to write a full essay at this moment.  I have, however, already seen people making mistakes on where Moira stands in the lore, and I want to clarify some of those: Timeline: Moira was only a part of Blackwatch for less than a full year - its final year (aka, the final year of Overwatch).

The proof is Genji.

Genji did not join Blackwatch until AFTER his fight with Hanzo.  This occurs sometime during February or March of the last year of Overwatch (indicated by the cherry blossoms present during the Dragon short, which is when Hanzo revisits the Shimada castle every year). Uprising occurs in April of the last year of Overwatch.  And Genji is still in training/recovery during the Uprising comic.

This likely puts Moira joining Blackwatch AFTER Uprising.

Decades: We all know the controversial statement by Michael Chu that Reaper’s profile on Play Overwatch is “deliberate.”  Here’s the paragraph it referenced:

“The Reaper is an extremely volatile mercenary, a ruthless and remorseless killer responsible for terrorist attacks across the world. He has fought in many armed conflicts in the last decades, showing no loyalty to any cause or organization.” For comparison, Moira’s research seemingly has only occurred in the last ten-fifteen years:

“Over a decade ago, O'Deorain made waves when she published a controversial paper detailing a methodology for creating custom genetic programs that could alter DNA at a cellular level. It seemed like a promising step toward overcoming diseases and disorders and maximizing human potential.” 

Something else that’s important to consider is Moira’s age.  She’s the same age as Roadhog/Mako Rutledge, three years older than Doomfist/Akande Ogundimu, and ten years older than Hanzo Shimada.

This means that Moira was an older teenager/young adult during the Crisis.

She is described as “brilliant,” so in theory, she could’ve been producing genetic discoveries at the time of the Crisis, but I wouldn’t bank on that, especially when we’re told her biggest controversial breakthrough was a paper that she wrote five to ten years AFTER the Crisis ended.

Point A. The Undercover Hypothesis

“Reaper” was Gabriel’s codename/undercover Blackwatch name well before it was ever associated with his current condition.

By technicality, the paragraph describing how “Reaper” has existed for “decades” does not actually describe his condition - it describes how “Reaper” has fought in armed conflicts “in the last decades.”

We know that at least one organization used call signs during the Crisis - the Egyptian Army.  Ana’s call sign was “Horus.”  It is not implausible that Gabriel’s post-Crisis call sign was “Reaper,” or that he took the name to infiltrate various illegal groups in the Post-Crisis Era, such as Deadlock.

Since we also know that Blackwatch was a black ops, clandestine ops, and covert ops division, it’s also entirely plausible that “Reaper’s” seemingly random “appearances” on different battlefields were actually due to clandestine and covert operations on part of Blackwatch and Overwatch.  The whole point of clandestine and covert operations is the ability to cover up the original organization or group supporting the action. From Wikipedia:

The United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Publication JP1-02, dated 5 January 2007) defines "clandestine operation" as "An operation sponsored or conducted by governmental departments or agencies in such a way as to assure secrecy or concealment. A clandestine operation differs from a covert operation in that emphasis is placed on concealment of the operation rather than on concealment of the identity of the sponsor. In special operations, an activity may be both covert and clandestine and may focus equally on operational considerations and intelligence-related activities." (JP 3-05.1).

Perspective:

What this means is that we need to put Moira’s new stuff into perspective.  She was only involved in Blackwatch in the final year of the organization, likely AFTER Uprising.  Moira’s involvement can fall in a few different places:

February/March: Genji joins Blackwatch

April: Uprising occurs

Month unknown: Reinhardt retires

Month unknown: Doomfist is arrested (before Genji leaves)

Month unknown: Ana “dies”

Month unknown: the explosion at the Swiss Base occurs

It is incredibly likely that Moira “created” the some aspect of Reaper either BETWEEN the final two events, or AFTER the last one.

I’ve highlighted Ana because Ana provides a “constraint” on Reaper’s current state of appearance/existence - she did not know this transformation occurred to him.

More importantly - 

Gabriel blames Jack and Overwatch for his “current existence.”

Not Moira.

The dialogue of the Old Soldiers panel continues to support the idea that Soldier:76/Jack and/or Overwatch left Gabriel behind at the explosion.  A second possible situation is “The Venice Incident” described in Moira’s biography, in which some sort of strange accident occurred.

Regardless, the combination of the timeline and Reaper’s lines to Ana makes it apparent that Gabriel felt abandoned in some way.

Hypotheses:

Stemming from this, we can hypothesize a few possible scenarios.

1. Gabriel requested to be transformed after Ana’s “death” for fear of his own death and/or because he specifically wanted to destroy Overwatch.

The problem with this is that this action would mean that Gabriel was not really “left behind.”  As the comic panel shows, Gabriel uses the past tense to indicate that he WAS left behind, this DID happen to him - not that he was afraid “he would be left behind.”

2. Moira started conducting tests on Gabriel (at his request) but it was the explosion itself which made him completely transform.

In my opinion, this is the most likely one (and I’ll explain more in a second).

3. Gabriel was only tested on AFTER the explosion, without his awareness of the hows and whys.

Given that we know Gabriel requested Moira join Blackwatch, this is unlikely.  According to a quote by Michael Chu at the Moira panel, Gabriel “wanted someone who could advise him on the matters of genetics,” which implies that he was aware of SOMETHING, and therefore willingly requested her assistance in some way.

Let’s go back to Hypothesis 2.

No Luck:

Something or someone was preventing Gabriel from getting some sort of information - possibly information on his own genetics.

If we look closely at contexts, there are multiple instances where Soldier: 76/Jack implies that his own genetics or biology has been altered - in a canon interaction with Ana, Ana notes that, despite his age, Jack “looks pretty good.”  Soldier: 76/Jack replies:

 “Well, all that stuff they pumped into me has to be good for something.”

Both Jack and Gabriel went through the same “Soldier Enhancement Program” during the Crisis.  The details are unknown, but in theory, they were pumped full of chemicals and somehow “enhanced,” meaning they could physically do more than the average soldier.  Combined with the “Commando” nature of their backgrounds (Commando: 76, the Commando sprays), they were likely also Special Operations.

This brings us back to Point A - both Gabriel and Jack were trained in clandestine and covert operations, at least during the Crisis, which again means that “Reaper” may have been Gabriel’s undercover mercenary alias or call sign for decades.

It’s very likely that the person Jack is referring to in this panel - “his old boss” - is Gabriel.  Considering that this panel comes right after the Old Soldiers fight scene, it certainly sounds like Soldier: 76 and Ana are alluding to Reaper.

Gabriel also appears to age significantly less than either Jack OR Ana by the time of Uprising.

The art style makes it difficult, but Gabriel’s hair is noticably more pigmented than either Jack’s or Ana’s, both of which have faded significantly compared to art of their younger days.

The new Moira video seemingly confirms that Gabriel has aged significantly less than Jack.

It is possible that Gabriel was interested in trying to have tests conducted on himself, or find information about the old SEP...but ran into roadblocks when he was searching.  It is also possible that, given her stance on medical ethics, Mercy/Angela was either unwilling or unable to assist him.

So he turned to someone who would help him.

Moria:

“My methods were too radical...too controversial...and [Overwatch] tried to silence me.  But there were others in the shadows, searching for ways to circumvent their rules.”

Back to Hypothesis 2.

We have a few major pieces we must account for in our hypothesis-building:

Moira does not join Blackwatch until after Genji.

Moira must be involved in conducting experiments on Gabriel - without Overwatch knowing.

Gabriel must be put in a situation where he blames Jack/Overwatch for “what happened to him.”

Ana has not seen Gabriel since her “death” and does not know what has happened to him.

Given these constraints, the most likely answer is a variation on Hypothesis 2:

The genetic mutations that made Gabriel into the current “form” of Reaper were caused - in some part - by Moira’s experiments on him in the final year of Overwatch, but he likely did not “transform” until the explosion at the Swiss Base - a situation during which he blames Jack Morrison and Overwatch for “leaving him to suffer.”  However, “Reaper” the persona existed “for decades” beforehand - just without the powers.

Reaper’s current abilities and state of existence is likely an extreme form of what is occuring in “half” of Moira (her right half) - mutated skin, mutated eyes, a life-drain ability, a “breakdown and teleport” ability, etc.

However, we only see Moira start this procces with Gabriel -

We do not see her end it.

But wait -

What about the “Gabriel is infiltrating Talon” hypothesis?

Personally, I think it still holds up in some way.  There’s the possibility that Gabriel “lost touch” with Moira after the explosion, or that he did not fully consent to “being transformed,” which would give him cause to be angry with BOTH Jack/Overwatch AND Talon.

We also haven’t really discussed motivations here.  Did Gabriel simply want answers that the US military and/or Overwatch would not let him find?  Did he actually want to do genetic testing on himself?  Did he consent to fuller experiments?  Was this a willful act of defiance against Overwatch?  Did he deliberately ally himself with Talon?  If he did, was it to infiltrate, or was it to gain more power to bring down Overwatch?  

Remember -

“One of the things that we really like doing with Overwatch is playing with perspective.  We utilize perspective when we tell stories about what characters are thinking, what their goals are - and we have a lot of unreliable narrators.  We want people to pay careful attention to what characters think about in particular situations.  When [Sombra] is telling you something, she’s serving her own ends too.”  Soldier: 76 - “You can take a character like Soldier: 76 - like obviously, he has this mission that he’s on, that he believes is good (Chu’s emphasis), he seems to be willing to sometimes do things which are…maybe not super heroic, and so it makes him complicated.” - Michael Chu’s GDC 2017 talk

You are hearing the Origins story of Moira from Moira.  And she clearly has a bias to sell.  So you also have to question her motivations: is she telling the truth?  Is she telling half-truths?  She claims Overwatch tried to stop her research, so SHE clearly has a vendetta - but did Gabriel?  We know Genji at least assisted in bringing down Doomfist...which seems to go AGAINST the idea that Gabriel was “already” his ally.

Moreover, since we know Moira only joined in the final year of Overwatch, we have to now ask questions about this:

“After Overwatch was disbanded, O'Deorain was forced to turn to unconventional sources of funding. This time, she was invited to join the scientific collective that had founded the city of Oasis. Yet some have whispered that the shadowy Talon organization had already been supporting her for years, aiding her experiments in exchange for utilizing the results for their own purposes.”

And now more questions about her:

So that brings up another series of questions:

Was Moira already involved in Talon when Gabriel asked her to join Blackwatch?  Did Gabriel know?  If he did not, did he put himself in a trap?  If he did, did he ask her to join hoping to ally himself with Talon...or hoping to infiltrate it?  In either situation, did he know what he could become if he let Moira experiment on him?

I am too tired to have more speculation.

“Aren’t you reaching?”

I probably am.  I’m tired.  About 10,000 things happened to me in the last five weeks.  I want to sleep for three days.  I am also not terribly pleased with the current version of the story that Blizzard appears to be pushing.  Moira as a new character in the gameplay was much-needed -

Her backstory, however, appears to be a massive mess.

Does it throw a wrench into a lot of fan hypotheses?  Sure, yes, absolutely.

Is it more interesting than any of theirs?

...Debatable.

Blizzard made a very interesting move here.  They’re pigeonholing themselves into a very strict timeline of the events of the final year of Overwatch.  They are limiting their own “choices” on where to put Gabriel’s “transformation,” and they seemingly have stuck with the idea that Gabriel “became” Reaper sometime around the Swiss Base explosion, whether that’s before, during, or very shortly after.  They’re also limiting themselves on how they can handle Genji, Widowmaker, McCree, Ana, and Soldier: 76′s backstories as a result.

Blizzard is also limiting themselves on how they can write their story, and several of their characters’ motivations.  Constricting their already massive plot is not a bad move in and of itself, but the way it is being done - releasing new characters, new lore, and new maps, without fleshing out more of the old ones - is proving to be a blessing-mixed-with-curses process.  It’s a year and a half into the game’s release and we STILL do not know many of the details behind Reaper, his intentions, his life, his motivations, his problems, etc.  Similarly, we know next to nothing about the fall and collapse of Overwatch, the other members involved in “the larger conspiracy,” how much of it was Talon’s influence, etc.

Several old characters have yet to have a comic or a short - Lúcio, D.Va, Zenyatta, Mercy, and Orisa.  

And 

Oh yeah

Reaper.

“But Reaper was in Recall!  And Infiltration!  And several comics!”

And how many of those were from his perspective?

Quite bluntly, I’m getting kinda tired of fans having to “solve the mystery” of each comic, each short, each new hero, each Origins video, each new map, etc.  The beauty of writing a good “mystery/conspiracy” story is that you have to give your audience the tools and clues to solve it for themselves -

And you can’t do that when each new “lore drop” is just...another mess of mysteries.

Or when you seemingly contradict your own, earlier clues.

I don’t know - maybe this is all just the Blizzard writers playing a massive game of D’n’D set in Overwatch’s universe and changing everything as they role 20s and 1s.  Twenty-six major playable characters and many of them only have 10 pages of “comic” time to their name.

...I wrote way more than I intended to.

Now I’m going to sleep for six days.

[sknews7]

‘My company has gone fully remote and I’m despairing’: who wins in the new world of working from home? | Working from home

I am 20 minutes into my scheduled 30-minute name with Shivani Maitra after I begin to freeze. Maitra, a associate at world consultancy agency Deloitte, is main the agency’s post-Covid-19 analysis into the way forward for work, and is giving me a seamless evaluation of what enterprise is about to seem like: extra autonomy, extra distant work, happier employees, extra accessible management – all facilitated by expertise. However I can’t get Skype for Enterprise to perform. It’s a sizzling day and the connection comes and goes, leaving me contorted and sweating over my laptop computer.

Maitra is just not essentially improper, however as my children (aged three and 5) thunder into the room, I can’t assist however assume we’ve got some approach to go. Los Angeles-based tech firm PORTL Inc has promised that, in 5 years’ time, we’ll all be capable of beam life-sized, speaking holograms of our colleagues into our properties; proper now, I believe an impenetrable forcefield round my desk can be extra helpful. “Expertise goes to be key to how we work sooner or later,” Maitra concedes. “However it’s going to be an enabler – it’s not going to be a solution.”

It’s too early to know precisely what Covid-19 will do to office-based work (you may’t “WFH” – make money working from home – on a manufacturing facility line, or as a surgeon, clearly). However many companies are predicting that no matter occurs subsequent – even when there’s a vaccine – this second may symbolize the tip of the nine-to-five as we all know it, and particularly the tip of huge company workplaces with banks of identikit desks.

In keeping with a recent study by Morgan Stanley, solely 34% of UK employees who may return to the workplace have really accomplished so, and plenty of companies have publicly acknowledged that they are going to lengthen the choice to WFH indefinitely. Fb has stated that 50% of its jobs shall be distant inside 10 years; Twitter is letting nearly all its world workforce WFH perpetually, in the event that they like; world regulation agency Slater and Gordon has given up its London workplace; fund supervisor Schroders says employees can continue to work flexibly for an indefinite interval, as have funding financial institution JP Morgan and authorized agency Linklaters. Work that might beforehand have been thought of unimaginable to do remotely moved on-line inside a matter of weeks of the UK going into lockdown.

However this doesn’t imply all enterprise districts are going to stay ghost cities. Organisations can’t simply tear up their leases, and plenty of are cautious of going fully distant. They need to maintain an area to convey groups collectively, if solely sometimes. How to do that safely, with out encasing everybody in Perspex or turning workplace blocks into a whole lot of self-contained pods is the crucial query. (Multimillionaire Xu Weiping plans to launch prototype cube offices this autumn, as he redevelops a part of London’s Royal Albert Dock.)

Darren Comber is chief govt of Scott Brownrigg, a global design observe specialising within the constructed surroundings, which not solely shifted to distant working originally of the pandemic, but in addition shifted the main focus of its 300 employees to methods of minimising contagion.

We have been by way of the largest work-life experiment in many years. We will say to individuals: what do workspaces should be?

“One of many largest issues that has to occur is entry to contemporary air,” he says. “For the time being, solely 10% of the air, usually, in an air-conditioned constructing is contemporary, and 90% is recirculating. We’re going to see that flip round fully, as a result of individuals need cleaner, more healthy environments, and are much less tolerant of any individual getting a chilly at one finish of an air-conditioned area, after which everybody getting it. That expertise already exists. It’s dearer, however what’s the human price? Your employees will merely say, ‘I’m not going to go in.’”

As a substitute, Comber is trying on the introduction of hydroxyl radicals into indoor air. “These happen naturally outdoors, and are one purpose your probabilities of catching one thing open air are much less. UV lighting is making an enormous distinction, too.” He’s eager on giving buildings, together with workplaces, well being badges, “in the identical means that you’ve a hygiene score system for eating places”.

Different tech options embody contactless facial recognition to realize entry to a constructing; voice-activated doorways, home windows and blinds; app-controlled merchandising machines; and sensible wearables that detect indicators of sickness, or warn you every time somebody strays into your private area. (Elevating the query of how a lot private information we is likely to be ready handy over to our bosses, simply to get again to the day by day grind.)

“Now we have all simply been by way of the largest work-life experiment in many years,” says Emma Morley, workplace designer and founding father of trifle* inventive, who has labored with corporations together with on-line stationers moo.com, Coco de Mer and Soho Home. Regardless of having needed to radically alter her newest undertaking, a 40,000 sq ft, 500-person, 25-meeting room workplace constructing, she is happy about what this 12 months may provide. (Social distancing implies that, the place there would have been six desks, there may be now solely room for 2, with wider corridors, and way more circulation area.)

“Fairly than feeling hindered, let’s flip that round and say we’ve acquired the best alternative to create a workspace design revolution. We will say to individuals: what do workspaces actually should be? As a result of if we don’t want all these desks, comfortable days. Desks take up 70-80% of area – and if we’ve all acquired a desk or desk at residence that we are able to work on, then once we go into the workplace it’s about collaboration, socialisation and sharing concepts. I’ve been speaking about this for 15 years – in regards to the significance of getting several types of area to work, about not filling areas with desks, as a result of desks will not be the perfect locations to provide you with concepts. And, now, impulsively, it’s right here.”

{Photograph}: Lol Keegan/The Guardian

Morley has chosen a hybrid setup for her personal workforce, which she plans to section on this month, so long as it appears secure to take action. “We shall be collectively two days every week, and three days every week from residence,” she says. “As people, we should be collectively. Collaboration doesn’t occur very simply over Zoom.”

Even earlier than the pandemic, the senior workforce at Awin, a world affiliate marketing online company with employees in 20 international locations, was planning a significant shift away from the workplace, having already experimented with distant working amongst its UK employees. When the disaster hit in early March, they had been prepared. “We didn’t need to take any dangers – we shut all the things down nearly in a single day,” says Adam Ross, COO, who was comfortable to take a breather after six years of fixed journey between the UK and Berlin workplaces. “All 1,200 employees: at some point they had been within the workplaces and the subsequent day they weren’t, and all the things labored completely.”

After a digital workshop during which the board deliberate for a completely distant 2023, they realised that the majority of what they needed to attain in three years might be accomplished now. When the employees had been surveyed and located to be in favour, the board determined not solely to maneuver to a completely distant workforce, but in addition to a versatile four-day working week (with no wage discount), which they hope to introduce early subsequent 12 months. “We realised everybody wanted extra time, whether or not for residence education, or youthful children and the nightmare of that. Or in the event you don’t have household, you want time for you – so we gave everyone Friday afternoons off. It was extremely well-received, and it didn’t scale back productiveness. So we thought, ‘How can we go one higher?’” In an effort to implement a four-day week, “we’re automation, easing a few of that grunt work. We imagine that is the best way ahead,” Ross says. They intend to shrink their workplaces, retaining some area for collaboration, however with few or no desks.

“We’re going to actively discourage coming into the workplace each day,” Ross says. “We’re very aware of the pitfalls which may come from having a hybrid scenario, as a result of you find yourself with a bizarre midway home and no one is aware of the place they stand.” A 2019 research revealed within the tutorial journal Group Science showed that remote employees have to do more than their in-house counterparts to get their achievements observed, usually making extra private sacrifices to take action. Though it’s too quickly to have information on this, it appears seemingly that this can apply most to youthful or newer distant staff.

If you happen to give individuals belief, and also you respect that they want a work-life steadiness, then they provide it again to you in spades

“Our youthful employees, once we surveyed them, did report that they beloved [office] tradition,” Ross says. “We had a vibrant ambiance and a phenomenal area. However [the results] had been nonetheless overwhelmingly in favour of extra flexibility, relying on the age group – older employees had been much less eager on coming in in any respect, and youthful individuals needed to come back in a single or two days every week.” An Awin taskforce is now researching a package deal to assist individuals work wherever they select, probably additionally contributing to residence broadband or utility payments. “If you happen to give individuals belief, and also you respect that they want a work-life steadiness, then they provide it again to you in spades,” Ross explains.

On the award-winning architectural agency Selencky Parsons, many of the workforce are already – safely – again of their London workplace, with newly spaced-out desks all dealing with away from one another. “Most of our staff are younger, they usually don’t have large properties to work in,” says co-founder David Parsons. The enterprise managed lockdown by instituting digital morning conferences and Friday beers (they acquired a neighborhood brewery to ship to everybody’s residence), together with Zoom quizzes.

“And that was effective for about 10 weeks, however what began to fret me was an absence of enthusiasm within the workforce.” He additionally nervous that some employees had been very lonely. Though there was loads of work coming in, productiveness appeared to drop. “It wasn’t that individuals weren’t working as laborious. It was that they weren’t attending to the solutions as rapidly – not feeling like they might name and ask any query, at any time, as they’d in the event that they had been bodily subsequent to us.”

{Photograph}: Lol Keegan/The Guardian

His concern was that his youthful workforce members had been lacking out on each formal and casual incidental studying. “The quantity you study from simply listening to different individuals’s conversations is big. To be fully remoted from all that, I believe, is an enormous downside,” he says.

This 12 months’s abrupt shift to distant work has higher suited extra skilled employees, who’re much less in want of on-the-job coaching and profession improvement, and who usually tend to dwell someplace with room for a desk. A girl in her early 30s who works for a big organisation (and requested to be nameless) instructed me, “It’s fairly a shock, as when all this began we had been instructed to count on a phased return in September, after which possibly not until subsequent 12 months. However now it’s just about: ‘Count on this indefinitely, with the odd day in.’ I’m nonetheless coming to phrases with it. I’m single, so it truly is simply me, all day lengthy. Working from home fits middle-class households who’ve sufficient area and a backyard. I fear about my future and assembly new individuals organically.”

One other lady instructed me a couple of flatshare during which the lounge had been repurposed as a bed room, to decrease the lease; as a consequence, 4 individuals had been all working full-time within the kitchen. Untold numbers are perched at worktops, on their beds or, within the case of my buddy Jo, an ironing board.

Distant work could also be very laborious for some (it is usually robust on carers of all types), however within the longer run, the lean away from 5 days within the workplace could imply extra alternative about the place to dwell. If you happen to’re solely visiting the workplace a couple of times every week, you may dwell farther from it, maybe someplace extra inexpensive. If you happen to not often go to in any respect, you may, in concept, dwell nearly anyplace. And, as Maitra factors out, this might create a extra various workforce: “Essentially the most far-reaching impact goes to be [organisations saying]: ‘You possibly can dwell anyplace you need to, however you may nonetheless come and work for me.’ Folks then don’t must dwell in costly metropolis flats.”

Will workforces transfer away from cities normally, and from overpriced London and the south-east particularly? The e-book writer Hachette not too long ago surveyed its employees about which UK cities they wish to dwell in, and is now trying to find regional hub workplaces in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Bristol to match the outcomes. The pandemic has opened up a home-buying rush within the countryside: inquiries from metropolis dwellers throughout the UK who need to transfer to a village are up 125%, based on Rightmove – and one purpose is the disappearance of the commute.

The boundary between on and off may be very blurred. We’re all vying to indicate how productive we’re

Among the downsides to distant working will take longer to disclose themselves. Whereas individuals working from residence could presently seem extremely productive, pre-Covid analysis by Cardiff College, carried out in 2017, showed that they are also prone to longer hours, and wrestle to set boundaries between work and residential life. Even earlier than the pandemic, distant employees reported comparatively excessive stress ranges, based on a 2017 UN report (41% of distant employees in contrast with 25% of workplace employees).

For each Awin, which has 70 volunteers working in 5 taskforces (generally known as Wherever/Each time; Workplace Redesign; 4-Day Week; Change in Mindset and Tradition; Ease Workloads), there may be one other organisation whose staff really feel deserted. “My firm has determined to go totally distant and I’m despairing about it,” says Paul, an IT developer. “I was infamous for how briskly I labored, however it was as a result of I’d give myself incentives – lunch with a colleague, or getting out on time for a drink. Now I largely really feel like I’m wading by way of treacle.”

Some staff are working at an unsustainable pace as a result of they don’t need to be pressured again into an workplace, or as a result of they’re afraid they are going to lose their jobs. Juliet, who works in exhibitions, tells me: “All people is up for the chop. I’m making an attempt to be as indispensable as I can. I discover myself logging on always. The boundary between on and off may be very blurred. We’re all vying to indicate how productive we’re.” Laura, a supervisor who works within the power trade, additionally struggles with digital presenteeism. “Main a workforce, I really feel stress to be out there and on-line by way of prolonged hours. I must imagine it’s OK to shut the laptop computer and swap off.” Lucy, who works in advertising and has young children, tells me she is at breaking level: “Each second is interrupted or interruptible. My husband and I each work each weekday night to maintain up, regardless of not having a commute to eat into our time. There are not any actual breaks.”

This autumn marks a crucial second in our work tradition: may it’s the tipping level the place workplace work adjustments unrecognisably, and for the higher? Or will much less enlightened organisations see it as an opportunity to decrease their overheads, encouraging employees to work remotely after which failing to assist or nurture them? For now, a hybrid mannequin, mixing the perfect of each worlds, appears to be like the perfect guess. If you happen to remove the workplace fully, Emma Morley argues, you remove “the tradition and neighborhood {that a} enterprise creates, and the alternatives for human beings to thrive and develop”. No matter they select to do, employers must embrace the truth that this has been a 12 months of unimaginably fast change for his or her employees. Getting work improper may result in an epidemic of burnout. However getting it proper may have big dividends, for everybody.

All worker names have been modified.

• Solo: How To Work Alone (And Not Lose Your Thoughts), by Rebecca Seal, is revealed by Profile Books on 17 September at £14.99. To order a duplicate for £13.04, go to guardianbookshop.com.

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[aquelondungeonmaster]

TAZHP: Erasure

(Guess who has more ideas for TAZHP!  Hint: who's making this post.  That's right, it's me.  Yeah.  This fic is sort of almost the polar opposite of the last one I posted, intensity-wise.  Also, there are like major major spoilers in here, so if you're not at least to the Stolen Century arc and care about spoilers at all then nothing to see here, move on.)

(Credit for this AU goes to @anonymousalchemist , and a lot of the ideas in here are from various other people who were talking to her about this sort of stuff.)

~Between Sixth and Seventh Year, Mid-August~

It's a beautiful, sunny day, and the Hogwarts campus is quiet.  Birds are singing somewhere in the distance, a faint breeze rustles the leaves of the trees, and the sun is high in the sky.  The surface of the lake is still, and one might have to really squint to see the lights given off by its main inhabitant.

That is about to change.

The campus is peaceful, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world is.  If one were to go to a big city, one might find a duel raging at this very moment.  Even if there weren't any at this moment, the knowledge of coming battles hangs over the heads of the entire wizarding world like some sort of magic sword.

That is also about to change.

There's no one on the campus at the moment, which means that no one notices when the peace and quiet is disrupted by someone materialising just outside of the grounds.  This person has light blonde hair and dark skin, and she looks nervous, but there's a determination in her eyes and the way she clutches her wand that might frighten a casual observer.  She tucks her wand into her bun to hold both items in place, and makes the trek from the edge of the anti-Apparation zone to the shore of the lake in silence.

At the lakeshore, she very carefully places her bag on the ground.  She opens a notebook that is stashed in one of the pockets of her bag and silently reviews the notes she's taken, deciphered and translated from books older than her entire family line.  She traces a finger down the section of the text that she wrote herself rather than translated from old books, the incredibly cautious calculations and exhaustively practiced gestures that will save the world today.

Well, if she hasn't messed up, of course.

She tucks the notebook back into her bag and eats some of the trail mix she packed.  She knows she's stalling at least a little bit, but this will almost definitely drain most of her energy.  She packs up, retrieves the gift she has brought, and wedges the bag under a rock.  Now is the time for action.

Withdrawing her wand from her bun, she jabs at the very edge of the water.  The ripples spread across the lake, and as they reach the center, the gigantic jellyfish that lives in the lake surfaces.  Lights flash across its huge bell like stars in the night sky.  A note in the notebook that is currently stashed in the bag describes this creature as something called a voidfish.  A scribble over to the side, a note from the young woman now standing up to face the voidfish, states that it appears to like music and wooden ducks.

The young woman has brought an expertly-carved wooden duck for this exact purpose.  She sets it in the water, and a long tendril from the voidfish curls around it.  The voidfish drifts over and lifts up the duck, and now its huge form is directly above her.

She starts casting the spell she has made.  It's not a simple spell, but she has committed it to memory.  As she speaks, the voidfish begins to sing in time.  It's almost a subconscious thing on its part, but it's still beautiful.

Her wand is glowing faintly, and the light that it emits starts spilling down her arm.  The sheer power required for this spell to be as effective as she needs is lifting her up in the air.  She's facing away from the lake, now, but she's backlit by the voidfish glowing like a supernova.

As the spell is cast and the young woman's voice falls silent, the brilliant light from both her wand and the voidfish expands outwards.  For a split second, it fills her field of view, and then it expands swiftly, rushing onwards and encircling the entire world.  It fades from sight.

~oOo~

One of the young woman's close friends is having lunch when it happens, several half-finished woodworking projects on the table.  He does not notice what happens, and will only really register that something is off of his own when he does with ease something he's been struggling to figure out for weeks.  However, later that day, the thought will occur to him that it's been a while since he last called his girlfriend, and he will do that.

~oOo~

"I finally mastered wandless magic!" he says.  "Check this out!"  He goes to punch a training dummy and blast it into a wall, but about half of the spell's effects blow back onto his face and both parties go flying.  The twins burst out laughing, but they do look impressed.

~oOo~

The seven of them are sitting by the lakeshore, discussing present events with some combination of anxiety and determination.  He puts the finishing touches on a small duck he's been carving and tosses it into the lake.  One tendril emerges from the surface and catches the duck in midair, and another accepts his offer of a high-five.

~oOo~

He's watching a young girl watch her father die, and there's nothing any of them can do about it.  In the girl's father's last few moments, he casts some sort of spell, and a small bird flutters into the air and lands on the girl's shoulder.  He doesn't know what to say, and neither does the bird, but they both try to do their best.

~oOo~

Another one of the young woman's close friends is in a greenhouse at the time.  He does not notice what happens, and it will be a few weeks before he thinks about something he's only recently adapted to and realises that something is off.

~oOo~

It's his turn to host Candlenights at his house, which is why the house is crammed full of six additional people, a few owls, a mongoose ("It's just a weird cat, m'dude."), and a goldfish.  The kitchen is going full-blast making macaroons which apparently couldn't be made in batches of less than exactly the amount that everyone eats, and he's chatting up one of his closest friends; they're making plans to go camping together, or gardening, or on a broomstick ride.  That last one has been decided against because the friend's style of flying is entirely too daring for this person.

~oOo~

The spell sinks into his arm and starts to rush up it.  It looks bad enough that he accepts his friend's offer to chop it off, and based on the way that his arm crumbles as it hits the ground, that was the right decision.

~oOo~

The man across from him is incredibly terrifying, even when his appearance isn't all opalescent.  Truth comes naturally to this person; bluffing his way through danger is nerve-wracking, but it seems to work.  Hopefully.

~oOo~

Yet another of the young woman's closest friends is relaxing in the bedroom of the cheap apartment he rented at that moment.  He does not notice what happens, which is almost incredible what with how much changes instantly about him, but in retrospect the setup of the apartment will look a little bit morbid, even though he won't realise that.  He will not register that something is off until the very same young woman who started this whole thing begins to look into something that he thought there was no way for her to know about.

~oOo~

"Like this, sir?" asks the younger kid, and this person corrects his mistakes with a level of kindness that he will deny to anyone else.  They continue lessons like this for the rest of the afternoon, and he offers the kid an extra cupcake that he had lying around-- just because there was one left over, of course.

~oOo~

They're backed into a corner, and there's no way out except for through the wizard that's advancing.  There's just enough room to wreak havoc, though, and he grins at his sister as they both transform-- her into a phoenix, him into a T-Rex.  The expression on the wizard's face is priceless; the expression on his sister's boyfriend's face is equally sweet, but for different reasons.

~oOo~

The idea is ridiculous, and he's concerned.  No, scratch that, legitimately scared.  It's not his place to interfere with how his sister lives her life, but that's definitely not entirely safe.  "It's just going to be a plan for if it's needed, babe," she says.  "We've got this shit on lock.  But we can't keep nearly dying forever; we've gotta do something to turn the tide, and this might just be it."  She has a point, but he's nervous for days beforehand and afterwards, and some of the other people in his friend group seem equally alarmed by how drastic their measures have been getting.

~oOo~

The remaining three of the young woman's closest friends have just landed in the town they were visiting to collect information, half the world away.  None of them notice what happens instantly, but all of them realise that something is very, very wrong within minutes: one realises that he's not in Britain anymore; one registers that huge portions of his memory have just vanished; and one figures out that she's effectively invisible.  They will not figure out why for several months.

~oOo~

The light fades slowly, and the voidfish drifts back into the lake, clutching the duck, unaware of most of the effects of the past few moments.  The young woman's light blonde hair has gone even paler, and is shot through with pure white. 

She falls to the ground and struggles to remain conscious for about a second before collapsing.  It takes an entire day for her to regain consciousness, and she spends the next couple days working up the energy to Apparate back to her house.

When she gets there, though; that's when she begins to discover exactly what the spell has done, which is to say, what it had to do and then some.  Some of it is amazing, some of it is confusing, and some of it...

Some of it is just terrifying.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Anonymous British street artist Banksy made headlines in October when his $1.4 million artwork Girl with Balloon self-destructed by passing through a shredder concealed in its frame at a London auction moments after it had been bought. But in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, a much larger Banksy art project – a hotel boasting “the worst view in the world” – appears to be unexpectedly saving itself from similar, planned destruction. When it opened in March last year, The Walled Off Hotel – hemmed in by the eight-metre-high concrete wall built by Israel to encage Bethlehem – was supposed to be operational for only a year. But nearly two years on, as I joined those staying in one of its nine Banksy-designed rooms, it was clearly going from strength to strength. Originally, The Walled Off Hotel was intended as a temporary and provocative piece of installation art, turning the oppressive 700-kilometre-long wall that cuts through occupied Palestinian land into an improbable tourist attraction. Visitors drawn to Bethlehem by Banksy’s art – both inside the hotel and on the colossal wall outside – are given a brief, but potent, taste of Palestinian life in the shadow of Israel’s military infrastructure of confinement. It proved, unexpectedly, so successful that it was soon competing as a top tourist attraction with the city’s traditional pilgrimage site, the reputed spot where Jesus was born, the Church of the Nativity. “The hotel has attracted 140,000 visitors – local Israelis, Palestinians, as well as internationals – since it opened,” says Wisam Salsa, the hotel’s Palestinian co-founder and manager. “It’s given a massive boost to the Palestinian tourism industry.” Exception to Banksy’s rule The Walled Off Hotel was effectively a follow-up to Banksy’s “Dismaland Bemusement Park”, created in the more familiar and safer setting of a British seaside resort. For five weeks, that installation in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England, offered holidaymakers a dystopian version of a Disney-style amusement park, featuring a nuclear mushroom-cloud, medical experiments gone wrong, boat people trapped on the high seas and the Cinderella story told as a car crash. But unlike Girl with Balloon and Dismaland, Banksy appears uncharacteristically reluctant to follow through with the destruction of his Bethlehem creation. Some 21 months later, it seems to have become a permanent feature of this small city’s tourist landscape. Given that Banksy is notoriously elusive, it is difficult to be sure why he has made an exception for The Walled Off Hotel. But given his well-known sympathy for the Palestinian cause, a few reasons suggest themselves. One is that, were he to abandon the hotel, it would delight the Israeli military authorities. They would love to see The Walled Off Hotel disappear – and with it, a major reason to focus on a particularly ugly aspect of Israel’s occupation. In addition, dismantling the hotel might echo rather uncomfortably Israel’s long-standing policy of clearing Palestinians off their land – invariably to free-up space for Jewish settlement. Israel strenuously claims the wall was built to aid security by keeping out Palestinian “terrorists”. But the wall’s path outside The Walled Off Hotel seals off Bethlehem from one of its major holy sites, Rachel’s Tomb, and has allowed Jewish religious extremists to take it over. A rare success story In sticking by the hotel, Banksy appears to have been influenced by Palestinian “sumud”, Arabic for steadfastness, a commitment to staying put in the face of Israeli pressure and aggression. But significantly, there is a practical consideration: The Walled Off Hotel has rapidly become a rare success story in the occupied territories, boosting the struggling Palestinian economy. That has occurred in spite of Israel’s best efforts to curb tourism to Bethlehem, including by making a trip through the wall and an Israeli checkpoint a time-consuming and discomfiting experience. Israel’s attitude was highlighted last year when the interior ministry issued a directive to travel agencies warning them not to take groups of pilgrims into Bethlehem to stay overnight. After an outcry, the government ­relented, but the message was clear. Salsa notes that The Walled Off Hotel has not only attracted a new kind of visitor to Bethlehem, but has also persuaded many to spend time in other parts of the occupied West Bank, too. Salsa understands the importance of tourism personally. He was an out-of-work guide when mutual friends first introduced him to Banksy in 2005, shortly after the wall cutting off Bethlehem from nearby Jerusalem had been completed. The city was economically dead, with tourists too fearful to visit its holy sites as armed uprisings raged across the occupied territories. The Second Intifada from 2000-2005 was the Palestinians’ response after Israel refused to grant them the viable state most observers had assumed was implicit in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. Banksy arrived in 2005 to spray-paint on what was then a largely pristine surface, creating a series of striking images. It unleashed a wave of local and foreign copycats. The wall in Bethlehem quickly became a giant canvas for artistic resistance, says Salsa. Much later, in 2014, Banksy came up with the idea of the hotel. Salsa found a large residential building abandoned for more than a decade because of its proximity to the wall. In secret, The Walled Off was born. “It was a crazy spot for a hotel,” says Salsa. “It felt like divine intervention finding it. It was close to the main road from Jerusalem so no one could miss us.” Palestinians’ reality Importantly, the hotel was also in one of the few areas of Bethlehem inside “Area C”, parts of the West Bank classified in the temporary Oslo Accords as under full Israeli control. That meant the army could not bar Israelis from visiting. “Nowadays there are no channels open between Palestinians and Israelis. So The Walled Off Hotel is a rare space where Israelis can visit and taste the reality lived by Palestinians. “True, Israelis mostly come to see the art. But they can’t help but learn a lot more while they are here.” Salsa is happy that the Walled Off Hotel provides a good salary to 45 local employees and their families. His hope in setting up the hotel was to “encourage more tourists to stay in Bethlehem and for them to hear our story, our voice”. But Banksy’s grander vision had been fully vindicated, he says. “The Walled Off Hotel gives tourists an experience of our reality. “But it also emphasises other, creative ways to struggle and speak up. It offers art as a model of resistance. “The hotel magnifies the Palestinian’s voice. And it makes the world hear us in a way that doesn’t depend on either us or the Israelis suffering more casualties.” Global impact The hotel’s continuing impact was underscored last month when it was featured for the first time at the Palestinian stand at the annual World Travel Market in London, the largest tourism trade show in the world. The event attracts 50,000 travel agents, who conduct more than $4 billion in deals over the course of the show. Banksy had announced beforehand that he would bring a replica of one of his artworks on the wall just outside the Bethlehem hotel: cherubs trying to prise open two concrete slabs with a crowbar. He also promised a limited-edition poster showing children using one of Israel’s military watchtowers as a fairground ride. A slogan underneath reads: “Visit historic Palestine. The Israeli army liked it so much they never left!” As a result, there was a stampede to the Palestinian stand, one of the smallest, that caught the show’s organisers by surprise. Rula Maayah, the Palestinian tourism minister, praised Banksy for changing the image of Palestinian tourism by diverting younger people into the West Bank, often during a visit to Israel. “He promotes Palestine and focuses on the occupation, but at the same time he is talking about the beauty of Palestine,” she said. At the Walled Off Hotel, however, Israel has made it much harder to see the beauty. Most windows provide little more than a view of the wall, which dwarfs in both height and length the Berlin Wall to which it is most often compared. That is all part of the Walled Off “experience” that now attracts not only wealthier visitors keen to stay in one the hotel’s rooms, but a much larger audience of day trippers. So successful has the Walled Off Hotel proved in such a short space of time that even some locals concede it upstages the Church of the Nativity – at least for a proportion of visitors. A local taxi driver who was guiding two French sisters along the wall outside the hotel said many independent tourists now prioritised it ahead of the church. Only wanting to be identified as Nasser, he said: “We may not know who Banksy is, but the truth is, he has done us a huge favour with this hotel and his art.” Sanctuary in a police state If Dismaland created a dystopian amusement park in the midst of a fun-filled seaside resort, the Walled Off Hotel offers a small sanctuary of serenity – even if a politically charged one – in surroundings that look more like a post-apocalyptic police state. Along the top of the wall, there are innumerable surveillance cameras, as well as looming watchtowers, where ever-present Israeli soldiers remain out of view behind darkened glass. They can emerge unexpectedly, usually to make raids on the homes of unsuspecting Palestinians. When I made a trip to the Walled Off in October, I parked outside to find half a dozen armed Israeli soldiers on top of the hotel’s flat roof. When one waved to me, I was left wondering whether I had been caught up in another of Banksy’s famous art stunts. I hadn’t. They were real – there to watch over Jewish extremists celebrating a religious holiday nearby at Rachel’s Tomb. The hotel’s lobby, though not the rooms, are readily accessible to the public. It is conceived as a puzzling mixture: part cheeky homage to the contrived gentility of British colonial life, part chaotic exhibition space for Banksy’s subversive street art. Visitors can enjoy a British cream tea, served in the finest china, sitting under a number of Israeli surveillance cameras wall-mounted like hunting trophies or alongside a portrait of Jesus with the red dot of a marksman’s laser-beam on his forehead. A history of resistance The lobby leads to a museum that is probably the most comprehensive ever to document Israel’s various methods of colonisation and control over Palestinians, and their history of resistance. At its entrance sits a dummy of Lord Balfour, the foreign secretary who 101 years ago initiated Britain’s sponsorship of Palestine’s colonisation. He issued the infamous Balfour Declaration promising the Palestinians’ homeland to the Jewish people. Press a button and Balfour jerks into life to furiously sign the declaration on his desk. Upstairs is a large gallery exhibiting some of the best of Palestinian art, and the hotel reception organises twice-daily tours of the wall. Entry to the rooms is hidden behind a secret door, disguised as a bookcase. Guests need to wave a room key, shaped like a section of the wall, in front of a small statue of Venus that makes her breasts glow red and the door open. A stairway leads to the second and third floors, where the landings are decorated with more fading colonial splendour and Banksy art. Kitsch paintings of boats, landscapes and vases of flowers are hidden behind tight metal gauze of the kind Israel uses to protect its military Jeeps from stone-throwers. A permanent “Sorry – out of service” sign hangs from a lift, its half-open doors revealing that it is, in fact, walled up. No mementos Although the rooms are designed thematically by Banksy, only a few contain original artworks, most significantly in the Presidential Suite. Hotels may be used to customers taking shampoos and soaps, even the odd towel, as mementos of their stay. But at the Walled Off, the stakes are a little higher. Guests are issued with an inventory they must sign on departing, declaring that they have not pilfered any art from their room. But it is the wall itself that is the dominant presence, towering over guests as they come and go, trapping them in a narrow space between the hotel entrance and an expanse of solid grey. A proportion visit the neighbouring graffiti shop, Wall Mart, where they can get help on how to leave their mark on the concrete. Most of the casual graffiti is short-lived, with space regularly cleared so that new visitors can scrawl their messages and use art as a tool of resistance. Protest pieces Banksy’s better-known artworks, however, are saved from the spray-paint pandemonium elsewhere. The crowbar-armed cherubs he brought to London were painted in time for Christmas last year, when he recruited film director Danny Boyle – of Slumdog Millionaire fame – to stage an alternative nativity play for local families in the hotel car park. The “Alternativity”, featuring a real donkey and real snow produced by a machine on the Walled Off’s roof, became a BBC documentary. Banksy had once again found a way to persuade prime-time TV to shine a light on Israel’s oppressive wall. Another artwork is his “Er sorry”, a leftover from the Walled Off’s “apologetic street party” of November last year, marking the centenary of the Balfour Declaration’s signing. Children from two neighbouring refugee camps were invited to wear Union-Jack crash helmets and wave charred British flags. A person dressed as Queen Elizabeth II unveiled “Er Sorry” stencilled into the wall. It served both as a hesitant apology on behalf of Britain and as a play on the initials of the Queen’s official Latin title, Elizabeth Regina. The event, however, illustrated that Banksy’s subversive message, directed chiefly at western audiences, does not always translate well to sections of the local Palestinian population. The party was hijacked by local activists who stuck a Palestinian flag into the Union Jack-adorned cake and chanted “Free Palestine”. Is this ‘war tourism’? Salsa outright rejects claims from some locals and foreign critics that the hotel is exploiting Palestinian misery and is an example of “war tourism”. He points out: “The Balfour party got the media interested in a story they probably would not have covered otherwise, because it lacked violence and bloodshed.” He adds that the area of Bethlehem in which the Walled Off is located would have been killed off by the wall were it not for Banksy investing his own money and time in the project. As well as the staff, it has brought work to tour guides, taxi drivers, neighbouring and cheaper hotels, shops and petrol stations. “That is a very important form of resistance,” he says. It is also a rare example of Palestinians reclaiming land from the Israeli army. On the other side of the wall there had been a large army camp until the hotel started drawing significant numbers of visitors. “The army didn’t like lots of tourists taking pictures nearby, so they moved further away, out of sight.” Eternal memories Canadian tourist Mike Seleski, 30, visited the hotel to see Banksy’s art before standing in front of the wall. He said he had heard about the Walled Off from an Israeli he befriended in Vietnam during a year of travelling. This was a detour from his stay in Israel – his only stop in the occupied territories. “I don’t like the usual tourist experiences,” he said. “It is important to hear the other side of the story when you travel.” In every one of the 32 countries he has visited, he has stood to be photographed before a famous local spot holding a cardboard sign with words to reassure his worried mother: “Mum – I’m OK.” In Bethlehem, he said it was obvious he’d take the photo in front of Banksy’s art on the wall, rather than the Church of the Nativity. “You see the wall on TV and forget about it. You get on with your life. But when you stand here, you realise Palestinians don’t have a choice. They simply can’t ignore it.” • First published at The National http://clubof.info/

[itsiotrecords-blog]

http://ift.tt/2rPuwTL

By revenue, Walmart is the largest company in the world. It’s also the second largest employer in the world (second only to the U.S. Federal Government) and the largest private company in the world, boasting a workforce of 1.4 million employees in the U.S. and 2.3 million employees total at 11,695 stores around the world. As big a company as Walmart is, it definitely had its share of criticism and lawsuits. It has faced criticism and lawsuits from various labor unions, religious organizations, environmental groups, and even their own employees. The company has come under fire for a variety of things—business practices, religious and racial discrimination, security policies, and more. In all of these cases, Walmart has denied doing anything wrong and claims they’re running on all cylinders when it comes to efficiency. Another statistic to add to the ones above is that Walmart’s annual turnover rate is more than 50%. A turnover rate that high must mean that people are getting fired left and right. In many cases, employees get terminated for some of the strangest reasons. Sometimes, employees are fired for not abiding by company policies and other times, employees are fired for no real reason at all. If you want to see what some of these cases were that got former Walmart employees discharged, then check out this list of 15 Walmart employees who share why they were fired.

#1 Practicing Self-Defense After Getting Punched By A Customer Obviously, this customer never heard of the saying, “Respect your elders.” The incident occurred at a Walmart in Florida in 2010. A customer was attempting to leave the store when the alarms went off. 69-year-old greeter, Ed Bauman, followed the customer out to check his receipt and see if the customer was guilty of stealing merchandise from the store, and he got sucker punched. Bauman was forced to use self-defense, but it didn’t matter to Walmart. They penalized Bauman by sending him home. When Bauman went in to work his next shift, he was told that he was fired. His termination notice referred to his actions involving the customer as “gross misconduct.” “They told me I did a good job of defending myself,” he said. “Then they turned around and fired me. I guess they just wanted me to stand there and get beaten.”

#2 Being A Cancer Patient Who Legally Uses Medical Marijuana The use of medical marijuana has always been a controversial topic. 29-year-old Joseph Casias was a store associate at a Walmart in Battle Creek, Michigan. He was a sinus cancer patient who had an incurable brain tumor that was pressing against his skull. In order to deal with the pain caused by his condition, Casias’ doctor prescribed him medical marijuana, which has been legal in the state of Michigan since 2008. But the Walmart in Battle Creek never got that memo. When Casias’ bosses heard that their employee was using medical marijuana, they promptly fired him. Casias had been with the company for five years and was named Walmart Associate of the Year in 2008. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took on Casias’ case and sued Walmart for wrongful termination.

#3 Posting A Joke On Social Media Everyone knows that you’re not supposed to post negative stuff about your job on social media, even if you’re just making a joke. In 2007, David Noordewier, a worker at a Walmart in Michigan, posted on Myspace, “Drop a bomb on all the Walmarts, trailer parks, ghettos, monster truck shows, and retarded fake “pro wrestling” events, and the average I.Q. score would probably double.” Someone copied, printed, and brought Noordewier’s post to the management at Noordewier’s job and he was fired for it. Walmart didn’t see the humor in Noordewier’s joke at all. In fact, they took it as a threat. His offense was cited as “Gross Misconduct – Integrity Issue,” which is described as “Theft, Violent Act, Dishonesty, or Misappropriation of Company Assets.” They even denied Noordewier his unemployment benefits.

#4 Pursuing A Shoplifter Through The Parking Lot It’s been said that you should never chase after a shoplifter because two people running through a crowded area could be dangerous to shoppers and store employees. But some employees just want to do the right thing. In 2009, Josh Rutner, an “asset protection officer” working at a Walmart in Florida, attempted to chase down a shoplifter wielding a knife across the store parking lot. Unfortunately, Rutner was punished for his heroics. The retail chain has a “no-chase policy” to protect its customers and employees, a policy Rutner knew about but didn’t care about in the situation that ultimately got him fired. “I couldn’t let him get away,” he said. “That’s wrong.” The good news is that the shoplifter was caught the next day and the merchandise he made off with—a pack of golf balls—was retrieved.

#5 Receiving Complaints Without Being Informed Beforehand This one is from Reddit user budgiechild. Budgiechild was given no warning prior to his termination from his job. After he finished his shift for the day, he went into the office where they told him he was getting canned. There were two reasons for his sudden termination—performance issues and complaints from customers for unfriendly behavior. Apparently, budgiechild was in bad standing and he had no idea. Management never told him about the complaints they were getting from customers. Budgiechild admits that he’s not good with people or socializing, but he always came into work on time. He just wishes he could have done a better job. And as if getting fired wasn’t bad enough, his employers decided to fire him on his 18th birthday.

#6 Preventing A Thief From Stealing A Computer This one is just like entry number 12 above. Walmart really stands by their “no-chase” policy. The incident occurred at a Walmart in Wichita, Kansas in 2010. 30-year-old customer service manager, Heather Ravenstein, followed a man out of the store who was carrying a computer worth $600. She was suspicious that he was attempting to shoplift the item and demanded proof that he purchased it. The man must have been guilty because he kicked Ravenstein and punched her in the shoulder before dropping the computer and running off empty-handed. Ravenstein was fired later that day, due to company policy that prevents anyone who isn’t a manager or a member of the asset protection department from attempting to stop customers from stealing. A spokesperson for Walmart did say they were grateful for Ravenstein’s actions, though.

#7 Turning In Money Found In Parking Lot Too Slowly You think that turning lost money in would be good enough regardless. But apparently, Walmart has a time limit on things like this. In 2015, Michael Walsh was fired from a Walmart franchise in Schenectady, New York for turning in a large amount of cash he found in the store parking too slowly by Walmart’s standards. Walsh found the money in various stacks of bills, which totaled $350. After stuffing the money in his pants pocket, he entered the store to turn the money in when he heard a woman yelling at the manager about how she lost some money. Walsh, who has anxiety issues, froze where he was. He eventually returned to his job and gave the money to the manager 30 minutes after he found it. Two days later, Walsh was fired for “gross misconduct” after said manager reviewed the surveillance tape. He wasn’t given a chance to explain the situation.

#8 Sending An E-Mail Detailing The Pagan Origins Of Christmas When Walmart changed its greeting from “Merry Christmas!” to “Happy Holidays!” in 2005, it prompted complaints from customers and an email from a certain customer service rep. The employee, identified as “Kirby,” took it upon herself to explain the pagan beginnings of Christmas in reply to one of the complaints from a disgruntled Walmart customer. She said the following: “Christmas is actually a continuation of the Siberian shaman and Visigoth traditions,” Kirby replied. “Santa is also borrowed from the [Caucasus] mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth, and the tree from the worship of Baal.” Technically, all of that is true, but it probably wasn’t the right response. A boycott on Walmart was formed by Catholic League demagogue, Bill Donohue. Walmart had no choice but to fire their employee who started the whole controversy.

#9 Testifying In A Lawsuit So much for telling the truth. In 2007, Andi Bailey was working at a Walmart in Texas when she saw a substance on the floor. She called store maintenance about it, but before they could get back to her, someone slipped on the substance and fell to the floor, getting injured in the process. As a witness in a personal injury lawsuit, Bailey was told by Walmart to lie under oath. An attorney for the company instructed Bailey to say she didn’t contact maintenance before the accident occurred. But Bailey told the truth. After she testified in court, Bailey called out of work on two separate days so she could care for her sick daughter. Her manager gave permission, but when Bailey tried to return to work 10 days later, she was fired for calling out of work without permission. Bailey sued her former employer in a wrongful termination lawsuit for $1 million for lost wages and mental anguish.

#10 Stopping A Thief Wielding A Gun Much like their “no-chase” policy, Walmart has a policy against engaging armed civilians. The episode happened in 2011 at a Walmart in Utah when a shoplifter was caught attempting to make off with a netbook from the store beneath his clothes. A loss prevention coordinator apprehended the man and escorted him to the loss prevention room. Three more employees accompanied him. The shoplifter pulled out the netbook, but also pulled out a handgun on the four employees. One of the employees managed to seize the gun from the man and disarm him successfully without anyone getting shot. The man was held to the ground until police arrived on the scene. But Walmart didn’t reward the employees for their actions. They were fired under company policy that forbids any employees from trying to take on armed people.

#11 Purchasing Toys For Charity With Employee Discount Well, at least her heart was in the right place. During the 2002 holiday season at a Walmart in Stewartsville, New Jersey, 20-year-old Walmart employee, Tara Osmun, purchased toys that she donated to charity with her employee discount. The toys were valued at $1,000 and Osmun saved $108. She gave them to the Harmony Township Volunteer Fire Co. which was trying to raise money with a raffle. But when Walmart heard about what Osmun did, she was fired. Walmart’s policy states that employee discounts are only supposed to be used by employees and their families, not for anyone else. They even threatened to incriminate her on criminal theft charges if she didn’t pay the money back. But local residents offered to pay off Osmun’s debt.

#12 Recording Colleagues’ Phone Calls This case is pretty complicated, so here’s the short version. In 2007, Bruce O. Gabbard was a computer security specialist at a Walmart in Arkansas. Well, at least until he was fired by the store for spying on company officials. He was caught recording phone calls made between Walmart’s PR team and a reporter for the New York Times. The trouble didn’t stop there, however. Gabbard claimed that he was spying on officials under company orders, saying that it was part of a large-scale operation by the company to spy on its employees and stockholders. When he took his story to the New York Journal, Walmart sued him, claiming that Gabbard took a large stack of confidential Walmart documents with him when he left. Gabbard counter-sued, saying that Walmart was hounding him as they tried to drag him into an Arkansas court after he fled to Oklahoma.

#13 Accused Of Stealing Chicken Neck Bones Walmart really blew things out of proportion with this one. In 2007, Mary Hill Bonin, who worked at a Walmart in Alabama, was out shopping with her husband when they encountered difficulties operating a self-checkout so they could purchase some chicken neck bones valued at $2.90. An employee had to help them with it. But as the couple tried to leave the store, they were stopped by a security guard who accused them of stealing the chicken neck bones. A fiasco occurred between the Bonins, the security guard, and the assistant manager that ended with the Bonins being arrested by police and taken to jail. INS was contacted and Mary Hill Bonin’s husband, who wasn’t a U.S. citizen at the time, was deported. Mary Hill was refused bail and was not taken to magistrate court. As a result of the ordeal, Bonin lost her car, her house, and all of her belongings.

#14 Being An African Immigrant While Locals Are Unemployed They call America the “land of opportunity.” At least for some people. A group of 10 West African immigrants were fired suddenly from their jobs at Walmart stores in Colorado in 2009 for being…well…West African immigrants. They claimed they were let go because their supervisors wanted to give their jobs to local residents who needed jobs. Six of the immigrants said that a manager at the Walmart in Avon, Colorado called for a meeting consisting of the West African employees that worked there and said, “Wow, there are a lot of Africans, and I don’t like some of the faces I see here. There are people in Eagle County who need jobs.” The immigrants were repeatedly disciplined for not meeting production requirements until they were ultimately fired. Walmart said that the immigrants were a portion of a larger group of diverse backgrounds who were fired due to management changes.

#15 Greeting Customers With A Semi-Nude Photo Well, there goes something you don’t see every day. Imagine going into a Walmart and being welcomed by a greeter with a semi-nude photo of himself…or at least mostly himself. 65-year-old Dean L. Wooten, who worked at a Walmart in Iowa in 2005, when the incident occurred, had a friend who Photoshopped his head onto another guy’s body. Wooten appeared to be naked in the photo, with a strategically-placed Walmart bag covering up his private parts. Wooten thought the picture was hilarious so he brought it with him to work to display to customers entering the store. After customers complained, a supervisor told Wooten to stop, but Wooten didn’t listen. Five days later, he was back to his shenanigans. The supervisor fired him. Wooten said he didn’t think he did anything wrong.

Source: TheRichest

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/education-late-deciders-drove-problems/

Education, Late Deciders Drove Problems

By means of EMILY SWANSON, Related Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Electorate in key swing states who settled on a candidate simply earlier than Election Day, together with polls that surveyed too few Voters without a university diploma, have been a number of the culprits in the back of overconfidence that Hillary Clinton became sure to overcome Donald Trump in the race for the White Residence, a new file shows.

The analysis of 2016’s pre-election polls, released Thursday By the American Affiliation for Public Opinion Research, located proof that Trump Citizens were more likely than Clinton Voters to show their desire to pollsters most effective after the election. But it located little proof that it truly is due to the fact they were reluctant to reveal their choice to pollsters at all.

The record’s authors encompass extensively respected survey researchers from a diffusion of backgrounds.

They observe that nation polls overlooked Through a wider margin on average than that they had in the four previous presidential elections. Polls displaying Clinton beforehand in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin fueled perceptions that she had a “Blue Wall” in the Electoral university — a wall that collapsed on Election Day.

Despite the fact that the record faulted the accuracy of nation polling, it stated that country-wide poll averages in the very last two weeks of the campaign had been the various maximum accurate in the last eight many years at estimating the country wide popular vote.

At an event hosted Via the Association, the record’s authors stated that the various instructions of Trump’s marvel victory are the need for survey researchers to spotlight the uncertainty inherent in measuring public opinion.

Autism Education: Technology and Beyond

One of the most typical misconceptions in today’s society about children with autism spectrum disorder and developmental drawbacks is that they may be mentally poor.

This couldn’t be farther from the fact.

kids with autism spectrum ailment usually face a problem at the same time as demonstrating highbrow talents. But, with the introduction of autism educational apps like “Simply Fit” and “Math at the Farm” in education, unique wishes kids have observed a vent through which they could show their true capacity.

The iPad and smart telephones have virtually modified the world of autism education.

These gadgets are notably new however have come to be key lecture room tools to impart schooling to big wishes children. The clever electronic devices can run autism education apps and have helped in developing literacy, well-known studying, and verbal exchange amongst autistic youngsters.

Whilst the clever phones and iPads have ushered in exciting new autism apps like “Just Suit” and “Math on the Farm”, an era which is predicated most effective on interacting with a display, can limit the possibilities and the capacity to come to be independent in lifestyles. Developers everywhere in the international are for that reason racking their brains to take the autism education apps a step in advance.

Special desires youngsters, particularly the ones with autism spectrum disease

Face difficulties in referring to humans. Then tend to relate without difficulty to non-human gadgets. at the same time as the “Simply Match” and “Math at the Farm” autism apps on iPads and function an opportunity to look-to-peer interplay, robot technology has also made massive strides in latest years.

Autism training apps are especially dependable because they’re largely predictable of their motion. This is one issue which autistic youngsters can easily become aware of. The apps lend a feel of safety, and at the identical time, stimulate the senses of the kid.

Autism apps also help greatly in growing motor capabilities some of the unique desires kids. Many kids with autism locate it hard to transport their arms and toes and perform significant body language communique. they may be additionally regarded to lack in social and emotional reputation. They fail to apprehend social cues. Some of the superior autism apps are programmed for facial and social recognition. More studies are of course required on how autism schooling apps can help special wishes youngsters without making them beaten.

How to Get My Husband Back After I Drove Him Away

You must have a question for your mind now and that is how to get my husband returned after I drove him away. You need to understand that marriage is full of America and down, and the maximum of the issues are because of miscommunication inside the relationship. Whilst you ask yourself a million questions, in this text, I’ve some clues to where your husband gets the messages wrong. While this occurs makes him need to backpedal.

You need to understand that men in popular are hunters and they prefer to seek that’s along with your husband. So when you have been letting yourself attend to his every want, You have to forestall being the prey. Am now not saying that you must forestall to serve your husband but simply leave him a few room to seek. You have a good way to rise up for yourself. To make it simple think of that is in case you just commenced dating.

A way to get my husband again once I drove him away isn’t as difficult as you suppose.

You should by no means compare your husband to some other guy. That does power maximum guys away from their girls. women make the mistake of doing that and questioning that their companions will alternate or do what they want them to do. it really is a no go vicinity. This makes your husband sense that he isn’t always proper sufficient for you. you’re imagined to make your husband experience secure and proud which you are with him. Say and do the things which you know left him up.

Having your husband again means you must focus on his fantastic side and how he makes you sense. You have to expose him that you could still have a great time with him. He has to recognize which you have his support and simply displaying him the honor he merits. There’s a pronouncing that what you won’t do on your husband, he’ll locate a person else who will.

Any other thing in an effort to power your husband away is if you positioned strain on him.

By no means positioned him in conditions in which he has to prove his emotions for you, what this indicates to him is that you don’t trust me. men don’t like having their feelings challenged.

A way to get my husband back after I drove him away means which you should not try to exchange him. You knew the person you had been marrying and if your husband wants to exchange allow him to try this himself. permit your husband to be himself.

No person is ideal, and no marriage is ideal; but When you are attempting to determine out the way to get my husband again, these are steps to take to sure you do no longer drive him off. You have to allow your husband be himself and stop the pushing him about.

On occasion, it can pay to be a humble wife and meaning You need to be the woman he fell in love with at the beginning.

Dog Bladder Control Problems – 5 Possible Causes of Your Husky Dog’s Bladder Control Problems

While you obtain your Husky domestic dog, you probable by no means idea you will address dog bladder control troubles. Veterinarians renowned that this is turning into extra of a recurring hassle with dogs in widespread. But, Husky puppies are greater vulnerable to sure conditions that result in bladder manage troubles in dogs.

dog bladder manipulates issues also are referred to as bladder incontinence. They may be resulting from a selection of factors. Which will make certain that your Husky remains healthful and safe, you want to have her recognized and handled as speedy as viable. You could choose to give your canine a homeopathic remedy to aid the recovery process.

Right here are five conditions that may be the purpose of your Husky’s bladder manipulate problem.

1. Bladder manages for a canine may be very difficult in case your canine become born with a beginning disorder. Girl Husky puppies are in particular prone to being born with urinary tract defects. in case your canine has a delivery illness, her ureter can also connect her bladder to her vagina in preference to her urethra, causing her to continuously dribble urine.

In case you suspect that a delivery illness may be the cause of your Husky’s incontinence

Take her to the vet. Surgical treatment can be vital to correct the trouble.

2. canine bladder manipulate issues are regularly because of a loosened sphincter in vintage age. Older dogs can not preserve their urine in because of a weakened urethral sphincter. There are artificial medicinal drugs that may be given to your canine In an effort to deal with this hassle but they may be no longer without their facet effects. Do not forget the usage of a herbal homeopathic compound to assist reinforce her urinary tract machine.

three. Bladder manipulate for a canine can become tough in case your dog is laid low with a bacterial infection. Micro organism clings to the liner of your canine’s bladder and causes inflammation and irritation that makes it tough for your dog to maintain her urine in. She might also have the regular urge to urinate and urinate frequently. Homeopathic remedies help manipulate the pH stage in your Husky canine’s bladder. This discourages the increase of Micro organism in her urinary tract.

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Tecno Mobile Launches in India With 5 New Smartphones

Tecno Cell, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based enterprise Transmission Holdings that’s additionally regarded for its Intel and Infinix manufacturers, on Monday unveiled five smartphones for India at an occasion in New Delhi. Called the Tecno i3 (Rs. 7,990), i3 Pro (Rs. nine,990), i5 (Rs. eleven,490), i5 Pro (Rs. 12,990), and i7 (Rs. 14,990). All prices said are market running charges (MOP).

The Tecno i7 could be to be had in India from early Might also,

But the different 4 smartphones will be to be had from Wednesday in Punjab, Friday in Rajasthan, and Saturday in Gujarat. All 5 smartphones might be available in Champagne Gold, Sky Black, and Space Grey color variations via offline shops.

Which has operations in Africa, says all five new smartphones are ‘Made for India’, something it claims can be discerned from the ‘i’ prefix within the names. One of the examples of India-precise customization includes the digital camera app, which the enterprise says capabilities an optimized set of rules tailored to the Indian skin tone.

The company also boasts of its PIXELED engine that is supposed to improve the high-quality of night images and motion pictures. Some fashions, like the Tecno i7, additionally include a quad-LED flash module at the rear digital camera, aside from screen flash and a separate LED module for the front digicam.

Some other characteristic being touted through the business enterprise is the

The presence of an ‘anti-oil fingerprint sensor’, which it says lets in users to unencumber their smartphones without an awful lot fear approximately “Indian lifestyle and climate situations.”

Tecno Cellular also boasts of its Rocket Charging rapid charging generation, that is stated to shorten charging time with the aid of as tons as 20 percent as compared to conventional charging strategies. In the end, the company is also highlighting functions of its own HiOS custom Android ROM, that’s based on Android 7.zero Nougat and consists of functions like Smart Break up-screen.

Book Launches and Talks: Some Author Tips

Book advertising is straightforward for a few authors. Other authors see advertising and marketing as a threatening experience. Just the idea of status in front of a group makes those authors sweat. They desire they were domestic, sitting at the laptop, and cranking out the copy.

There is some other trouble with Ebook launches and talks and it controls. No matter input, a writer would not have manipulated the whole thing–matters just like the date, lead-time, publicity, a terrible audio gadget, and technical disasters. Heritage noise can also detract from an appearance.

I enjoy speak and appeared ahead to speak to a neighborhood company. The corporation had agreed to host an E-book release for me. The event regarded to be properly publicized: emails to network groups, notices in the newspaper, and on a massive sign up the front of the building.

And that I did my element.

I paid a photograph clothier to create a poster for my books, made handouts, autographed books, and placed “autographed reproduction” stickers on the covers. To date so correct. Mins before the release were to start, my contact character informed me only six human beings had come to a previous occasion. Oh, my.

Genuinely, I suspected this could take place. There have been no vehicles in front of the constructing and no person came early. While matters cross incorrect, an author has two options–act down and defeated, or engage with those who came. I selected the second choice and bought three books.

Despite the fact that I am an experienced creator. I found out numerous matters from this enjoy. My observations may additionally help you to marketplace your E-book or books.

Check the community calendar.

Earlier than you schedule an E-book release or talk, scope out your opposition. The nearby newspaper is a great supply of information. Tv stations also announce network events.

Help with publicity. A publicity plan that looks properly on paper or in an electronic mail might not be the pleasant plan. Offer to assist with publicity in case you’re worried about it. I notion about doing this, but did not comply with through.

Put together for a large institution and a small. The instant I realized just a few human beings were coming to the event I switched to my small institution communicate. It went over nicely, After taking note of a tale I informed, one person stated it had the makings of some other E-book.

Don’t take things in my opinion.

Reports like this come with the writing territory. numerous days after the E-book launch I spoke to a service group and were given rave critiques. This becomes a pleasant stability to the Ebook launch enjoy.

Change your strategy. I desired to help and support the enterprise that hosted the E-book launch, so I agreed to speak there once more. The identical aspect occurred and only six humans came. One attendee said the publicity have been lousy. “Commonly we have 60 people here,” he declared. I Do not suppose I can speak there again.

Effects of Mobile Games On Human Life

There’s a distinction among the bringing up of the children nowadays and the manner their parents had been raised through their mother and father. The main motive for this distinction is the new medical innovations. This kind of inventions is the cellphone, the mobile telephones with huge monitors of approximately six to 10 inches which have the functionality of interesting one each time and however one desires it. As the hammer is to Thor, a cell telephone is to its owner. Someone feels paralyzed while he’s far from his mobile smartphone.

Video games are and constantly have been the top-of-the-list supply of leisure considering their invention. In case you appearance back, no longer a ways, but only a decade ago, human beings used to play the video games on the cumbersome Pcs. Next, play stations and X-bins took over the video gaming international. Now cell telephones, in every person’s fingers, are within the lead.

We will inspect the ways the cellular video games are influencing human lives.

The difficult estimate of the age institution that is extra prone to play the video games is 10-25. They have a touch know-how of the realities of the world. that is the age while A person could have loads of experience about how the matters are inside the global, by using traveling around and by interacting with the alternative contributors of the society. The video games have affected their peer relationships. They spend maximum in their time gambling on displays They hardly take part in fixing social issues which have an effect on their intercommunication talents.

There’s no scarcity in the genres of mobile games, for example; fighting, capturing, sports activities, flight simulating, make up games and surgical procedure games. Such video games may be very informative and may provide know-how beforehand to the children. Take an example of a baby who performs a riding game. Let us assume that the child does not have any actual lifestyles enjoy of using. Of direction, gambling a online game can’t supply the feeling of the real life regardless of how precise the photos are

Exploring the Northeastern Section of India

It’s miles alternatively abnormal that the maximum stunning segment of India, the Northeastern location, is a lot less explored by way of tourists who tour India than many different cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Calcutta. This vicinity is in truth connected to the rest of the usa by way of narrow lands of Butane and Bangladesh. Simply this complete region became now not linked to the outer international until latest times.

The problem is that there are numerous tensions around this dazzling section of India. The fleeting of a massive variety of Bangladeshis to the us of a and the tribal manners of among the population of the vicinity, and the reality that the tribes combat inside themselves created some troubles. But, tourists who journey to India are in no way the goal of any of these conflicts. The situation, moreover, has in large part advanced through the years.

Northeastern India experiences a variety

Of peoples and landscapes that would simply snatch the attention of lots of vacationers who spend their vacations in India on exploring the vicinity. The location enjoys web hosting a top notch variety of animals, plant life, and plant life that represent no longer less than 50% of the Indian biodiversity.

A few of the maximum widespread areas of Northeastern India is Assam. Extraordinarily ruled by the River Brahmaputra. The valley of this river is Surely surrounded by means of the foothills of the Himalaya from one aspect and the Meghalaya Hills from the alternative aspect imparting vacationers who journey to India astonishing opportunities for enjoy nature like everywhere else within the world.

The place is likewise well

Known for the manufacturing of oil and tea because it produces more than 50% of the USA’s tea. maximum of the tea estates had been Truly based with the aid of the British colonists once they occupied the region. Additionally, they established many golf equipment inside the vicinity. among the vacationers taking part in their vacations in India would really like to explore as an alternative far-flung cities and location that are off the touristic tune.

Positioned inside the capital of the area of Assam, the Guwahati Temple is the center of the Kali cult in the us of a that is splendid for its structure and for its ancient importance

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New Post has been published on Webpostingpro

New Post has been published on https://webpostingpro.com/tecno-mobile-launches-in-india-with-5-new-smartphones/

Tecno Mobile Launches in India With 5 New Smartphones

Tecno Cell, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based enterprise Transmission Holdings that’s additionally regarded for its Intel and Infinix manufacturers, on Monday unveiled five smartphones for India at an occasion in New Delhi. Called the Tecno i3 (Rs. 7,990), i3 Pro (Rs. nine,990), i5 (Rs. eleven,490), i5 Pro (Rs. 12,990), and i7 (Rs. 14,990). All prices said are market running charges (MOP).

The Tecno i7 could be to be had in India from early Might also,

But the different 4 smartphones will be to be had from Wednesday in Punjab, Friday in Rajasthan, and Saturday in Gujarat. All 5 smartphones might be available in Champagne Gold, Sky Black, and Space Grey color variations via offline shops.

Which has operations in Africa, says all five new smartphones are ‘Made for India’, something it claims can be discerned from the ‘i’ prefix within the names. One of the examples of India-precise customization includes the digital camera app, which the enterprise says capabilities an optimized set of rules tailored to the Indian skin tone.

The company also boasts of its PIXELED engine that is supposed to improve the high-quality of night images and motion pictures. Some fashions, like the Tecno i7, additionally include a quad-LED flash module at the rear digital camera, aside from screen flash and a separate LED module for the front digicam.

Some other characteristic being touted through the business enterprise is the

The presence of an ‘anti-oil fingerprint sensor’, which it says lets in users to unencumber their smartphones without an awful lot fear approximately “Indian lifestyle and climate situations.”

Tecno Cellular also boasts of its Rocket Charging rapid charging generation, that is stated to shorten charging time with the aid of as tons as 20 percent as compared to conventional charging strategies. In the end, the company is also highlighting functions of its own HiOS custom Android ROM, that’s based on Android 7.zero Nougat and consists of functions like Smart Break up-screen.

Book Launches and Talks: Some Author Tips

Book advertising is straightforward for a few authors. Other authors see advertising and marketing as a threatening experience. Just the idea of status in front of a group makes those authors sweat. They desire they were domestic, sitting at the laptop, and cranking out the copy.

There is some other trouble with Ebook launches and talks and it controls. No matter input, a writer would not have manipulated the whole thing–matters just like the date, lead-time, publicity, a terrible audio gadget, and technical disasters. Heritage noise can also detract from an appearance.

I enjoy speak and appeared ahead to speak to a neighborhood company. The corporation had agreed to host an E-book release for me. The event regarded to be properly publicized: emails to network groups, notices in the newspaper, and on a massive sign up the front of the building.

And that I did my element.

I paid a photograph clothier to create a poster for my books, made handouts, autographed books, and placed “autographed reproduction” stickers on the covers. To date so correct. Mins before the release were to start, my contact character informed me only six human beings had come to a previous occasion. Oh, my.

Genuinely, I suspected this could take place. There have been no vehicles in front of the constructing and no person came early. While matters cross incorrect, an author has two options–act down and defeated, or engage with those who came. I selected the second choice and bought three books.

Despite the fact that I am an experienced creator. I found out numerous matters from this enjoy. My observations may additionally help you to marketplace your E-book or books.

Check the community calendar.

Earlier than you schedule an E-book release or talk, scope out your opposition. The nearby newspaper is a great supply of information. Tv stations also announce network events.

Help with publicity. A publicity plan that looks properly on paper or in an electronic mail might not be the pleasant plan. Offer to assist with publicity in case you’re worried about it. I notion about doing this, but did not comply with through.

Put together for a large institution and a small. The instant I realized just a few human beings were coming to the event I switched to my small institution communicate. It went over nicely, After taking note of a tale I informed, one person stated it had the makings of some other E-book.

Don’t take things in my opinion.

Reports like this come with the writing territory. numerous days after the E-book launch I spoke to a service group and were given rave critiques. This becomes a pleasant stability to the Ebook launch enjoy.

Change your strategy. I desired to help and support the enterprise that hosted the E-book launch, so I agreed to speak there once more. The identical aspect occurred and only six humans came. One attendee said the publicity have been lousy. “Commonly we have 60 people here,” he declared. I Do not suppose I can speak there again.

Effects of Mobile Games On Human Life

There’s a distinction among the bringing up of the children nowadays and the manner their parents had been raised through their mother and father. The main motive for this distinction is the new medical innovations. This kind of inventions is the cellphone, the mobile telephones with huge monitors of approximately six to 10 inches which have the functionality of interesting one each time and however one desires it. As the hammer is to Thor, a cell telephone is to its owner. Someone feels paralyzed while he’s far from his mobile smartphone.

Video games are and constantly have been the top-of-the-list supply of leisure considering their invention. In case you appearance back, no longer a ways, but only a decade ago, human beings used to play the video games on the cumbersome Pcs. Next, play stations and X-bins took over the video gaming international. Now cell telephones, in every person’s fingers, are within the lead.

We will inspect the ways the cellular video games are influencing human lives.

The difficult estimate of the age institution that is extra prone to play the video games is 10-25. They have a touch know-how of the realities of the world. that is the age while A person could have loads of experience about how the matters are inside the global, by using traveling around and by interacting with the alternative contributors of the society. The video games have affected their peer relationships. They spend maximum in their time gambling on displays They hardly take part in fixing social issues which have an effect on their intercommunication talents.

There’s no scarcity in the genres of mobile games, for example; fighting, capturing, sports activities, flight simulating, make up games and surgical procedure games. Such video games may be very informative and may provide know-how beforehand to the children. Take an example of a baby who performs a riding game. Let us assume that the child does not have any actual lifestyles enjoy of using. Of direction, gambling a online game can’t supply the feeling of the real life regardless of how precise the photos are

Exploring the Northeastern Section of India

It’s miles alternatively abnormal that the maximum stunning segment of India, the Northeastern location, is a lot less explored by way of tourists who tour India than many different cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Calcutta. This vicinity is in truth connected to the rest of the usa by way of narrow lands of Butane and Bangladesh. Simply this complete region became now not linked to the outer international until latest times.

The problem is that there are numerous tensions around this dazzling section of India. The fleeting of a massive variety of Bangladeshis to the us of a and the tribal manners of among the population of the vicinity, and the reality that the tribes combat inside themselves created some troubles. But, tourists who journey to India are in no way the goal of any of these conflicts. The situation, moreover, has in large part advanced through the years.

Northeastern India experiences a variety

Of peoples and landscapes that would simply snatch the attention of lots of vacationers who spend their vacations in India on exploring the vicinity. The location enjoys web hosting a top notch variety of animals, plant life, and plant life that represent no longer less than 50% of the Indian biodiversity.

A few of the maximum widespread areas of Northeastern India is Assam. Extraordinarily ruled by the River Brahmaputra. The valley of this river is Surely surrounded by means of the foothills of the Himalaya from one aspect and the Meghalaya Hills from the alternative aspect imparting vacationers who journey to India astonishing opportunities for enjoy nature like everywhere else within the world.

The place is likewise well

Known for the manufacturing of oil and tea because it produces more than 50% of the USA’s tea. maximum of the tea estates had been Truly based with the aid of the British colonists once they occupied the region. Additionally, they established many golf equipment inside the vicinity. among the vacationers taking part in their vacations in India would really like to explore as an alternative far-flung cities and location that are off the touristic tune.

Positioned inside the capital of the area of Assam, the Guwahati Temple is the center of the Kali cult in the us of a that is splendid for its structure and for its ancient importance