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oswinpond · 5 years

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Even after the new film, which certainly popularized Amy/Laurie in a way I’ve never seen before, I keep hearing a lot of the same old arguments: “Laurie never stopped loving Jo”, “Laurie didn’t really love Amy”, “Amy was a second choice/consolation prize”, “Jo should’ve been with Laurie” etc. And a lot of these people claim this is book canon. As I’ve just reread the book, I’ve got a lot of thoughts on all of this...

(Note: This is all purely based on book canon.)

In the book, after Amy harshly scolds Laurie, he decides to go back to London and work for his grandfather to better himself. At first, he thinks he’s doing it for two reasons: Amy despises him and that hurts him, but also the idea that if he does something “splendid” Jo may love him (or at least respect him, as Amy put it).

So Laurie decides to write a requiem for Jo “which should harrow up Jo’s soul and melt the heart of every hearer”. But he can’t come up with anything because he keeps humming the dance music reminiscent of the Christmas ball in Nice which he spent devoting himself to Amy all evening. So then he tries to compose an opera with Jo as his heroine, but it doesn’t work. “He wanted Jo for his heroine, and called upon his memory to supply him with tender recollections and romantic visions of his love. But memory turned traitor; and, as if possessed by the perverse spirit of the girl, would only recall Jo’s oddities, faults, and freaks, would only show her in the most unsentimental aspects.”

Jo no longer fits as his heroine, no matter how hard he tries. So he gives up on that, and his imagination promptly comes up with another heroine for him without even trying:

“This phantom wore many faces, but it always had golden hair, was enveloped in a diaphanous cloud, and floated airily before his mind’s eye in a pleasing chaos of roses, peacocks, white ponies, and blue ribbons. He did not give the complacent wraith any name, but he took her for his heroine and grew quite fond of her, as well he might, for he gifted her with every gift and grace under the sun, and escorted her, unscathed, through trials which would have annihilated any mortal woman.”

While Laurie doesn’t realize it, the woman he’s imagining is Amy. Amy with the blue ribbons in her golden hair, who put roses in his buttonhole, who he watched feed the peacocks in Paris, and who he first saw again in a carriage drawn by ponies. It’s also a little prophetic, as he does escort the real Amy through future trials. (Bonus: at the same time, Amy spends her time sketching some faceless man who clearly resembles Laurie, but she doesn’t realize it either.)

Contrary to what some in the fandom would claim, Laurie isn’t at all forcing himself to love Amy just so that he can be part of the March family. He doesn’t even realize that she’s become the “heroine” in his story, that she’s the woman he’s fantasizing about. He thinks he’s doing this to improve himself for Jo, but it’s Amy that’s inspiring him.

And then Laurie realizes that his feelings for Jo are disappearing:

“Laurie thought that the task of forgetting his love for Jo would absorb all his powers for years, but to his great surprise he discovered it grew easier every day. He refused to believe it at first, got angry with himself, and couldn’t understand it [...] Laurie’s heart wouldn’t ache; the wound persisted in healing with a rapidity that astonished him, and instead of trying to forget, he found himself trying to remember. He had not foreseen this turn of affairs, and was not prepared for it. He was disgusted with himself, surprised at his own fickleness, and full of a queer mixture of disappointment and relief that he could recover from such a tremendous blow so soon. He carefully stirred up the embers of his lost love, but they refused to burn into a blaze: there was only a comfortable glow that warmed and did him good without putting him into a fever, and he was reluctantly obliged to confess that the boyish passion was slowly subsiding into a more tranquil sentiment, very tender, a little sad and resentful still, but that was sure to pass away in time, leaving a brotherly affection which would last unbroken to the end.”

This passage alone pretty much puts to rest the idea that Laurie never got over Jo. He actually got over her so easily and quickly that he felt disgusted with himself, thinking this made him fickle. His romantic feelings are gone, and soon will leave only a “brotherly affection” when the last of the hurt is gone as well. Maybe he got over her so easily because he simply mistook his strong bond with her for romance, or maybe it was just a rash and immature first love that was never going to last long anyways, or whatever else... point being, he got over her.

And Laurie was actually trying, and failing, to rekindle any love for Jo (unlike his unconscious growing feelings for Amy, which he wasn’t pushing for at all). As a last ditch attempt to revive that love, he writes to Jo asking if she was sure about her refusal, and when she responds that she absolutely could never love him that way, he accepts it without sadness or complaint this time. He’s already over her, so there’s nothing to be heartbroken over. That was his closure. He takes off the ring she gave him and locks it away with her letters, and that’s that.

And that’s when he’s ready to open his heart to Amy. He starts corresponding with her so often their letters are flying back and forth constantly. He wants to go back to her, but he doesn’t want to until she asks; she finally does after she hears about Beth’s passing, and Laurie immediately drops everything to go to her “with a heart full of joy and sorrow, hope and suspense” (and this is after he knows she’s turned down Fred, so we know what he’s hoping for now). Amy is his first priority after Beth dies, even though Beth was dearest to Jo. Laurie meets Amy in Switzerland and, without saying anything, they both know their relationship has changed.

They spend weeks doing everything together and spend all their time out at the lake. Despite the sad tidings, they wind up being their happiest together in Vevey. They both know that they’re in love with each other without even having to say it (they really seem to develop an unspoken communication at this point). And while Laurie knows that she’ll say “yes” to his proposal, he’s still nervous so he puts it off to enjoy his time with Amy in Switzerland. He imagines proposing to her in the chateau garden at moonlight, but instead blurts it out while they’re on a lake in the middle of the day:

Feeling that she had not mended matters much, Amy took the offered third of a seat, shook her hair over her face, and accepted an oar. She rowed as well as she did many other things; and, though she used both hands, and Laurie but one, the oars kept time, and the boat went smoothly through the water. “How well we pull together, don’t we?” said Amy, who objected to silence just then. “So well that I wish we might always pull in the same boat. Will you, Amy?” very tenderly. “Yes, Laurie,” very low. Then they both stopped rowing, and unconsciously added a pretty little tableau of human love and happiness to the dissolving views reflected in the lake.

And there’s so much to say about this little scene. While he had to beg and argue with Jo just to finally accept her firm “no”, he just has to ask a simple question with Amy and he gets his simple answer because they’re on the same page. The rather blunt metaphor of rowing well together, even when he uses one hand and she uses two, is all about how despite their differences they work. They keep time. And it calls back to Jo’s talk with Marmee where they both agree that Jo and Laurie never would’ve worked, in part because their similarities would clash horribly in a romantic relationship (but mainly because , y’know, Jo never once felt a single shred of romantic love for Laurie).

Now, I can understand where people come from thinking Laurie was “replacing” Jo with Amy with lines like "Laurie decided that Amy was the only woman in the world who could fill Jo’s place and make him happy”. I get how this can be interpreted as Amy filling in for what was meant to be Jo’s place in his heart. But it makes a lot more sense in the context of Laurie’s speech to Jo towards the end when he explains his feelings:

“I never shall stop loving you; but the love is altered, and I have learned to see that it is better as it is. Amy and you changed places in my heart, that’s all. I think it was meant to be so, and would have come about naturally, if I had waited, as you tried to make me; but I never could be patient, and so I got a heartache. I was a boy then, headstrong and violent; and it took a hard lesson to show me my mistake. For it was one, Jo, as you said, and I found it out, after making a fool of myself. Upon my word, I was so tumbled up in my mind, at one time, that I didn’t know which I loved best, you or Amy, and tried to love you both alike; but I couldn’t. And when I saw her in Switzerland, everything seemed to clear up all at once. You both got into your right places.”

Laurie didn’t settle for Amy. Amy took Jo’s place in the sense that they swapped places in how he saw them, from romantic to platonic for Jo and vice versa for Amy. And those wound up being their “right” places. He believes he was always meant to fall in love with Amy and see Jo as his sister, and that he would’ve gotten to this point naturally even if things had played out differently.

I’ll admit I wasn’t a fan of how the 2019 film portrayed Jo in this situation, because in the book she was absolutely thrilled for Laurie and Amy, and is happily surprised when Marmee tells her she’d been hoping for them to fall in love. But in the film, they take her sadness over her loneliness too far IMO, and make it seem like she was actually bitter over Amy and Laurie being together, which unfortunately fuelled the “Amy stole Laurie from Jo” crowd a bit. And after her conversation with Marmee where she admits that she only wants Laurie because she longs to be loved, and Marmee points that “that isn’t the same as loving”, this makes movie!Jo seem “silly and selfish” as book!Jo puts it (because in the book, that was only a “what if” she entertained and never wrote any letter).

Anyways, to conclude on all of this, when Amy and Laurie are married at and home, we get the thoughts of other characters on their relationship, and the unanimous opinion is that they’re completely in love and happy with each other. Jo herself insists that their happiness will for sure last, and notes how proud Laurie seems to be to call Amy his wife. Laurie, meanwhile, can’t stop talking about Amy through to the end (and Amy is clearly just as smitten). I dare you to read the last half of Part 2 and not find Amy and Laurie adorable together.

And to hammer that last nail in the coffin on Jo/Laurie as a romance, we get Laurie meeting Professor Bhaer. It’s specifically noted that while Laurie is suspicious of Bhaer and notices his interest in Jo, it was “not of jealousy” but a “brotherly circumspection”. Amy even asks him if he’s at all jealous and Laurie tells her “I assure you I can dance at Jo’s wedding with a heart as light as my heels. Do you doubt it, my darling?” and it says that Amy’s “last little jealous fear vanished forever”. Laurie actually winds up happily supporting Bhaer once he sees he’s a great guy for his sister Jo, and suggests to Amy that they should try to help them out as a couple.

So no, Jo never loved Laurie romantically, Laurie absolutely did get over Jo, Laurie and Amy are so happy together it’s almost obnoxious, Jo is pro-Amy/Laurie and Laurie is pro-Jo/Bhaer, and Amy wasn’t a second choice, she was Laurie’s “meant to be” by his own words.

#amy x laurie #laurie x amy #amy march #laurie laurence #little women #this wound up way longer than i intended #oops #so i added a read more #anyways all this to say that laurie and amy are OTP and laurie and jo are brotp #and jo and amy are my favourite sisters and their relationship is amazing

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thedinanshiral · 4 years

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My personal DA4 wishlist + thoughts

I’ve been teasing this post for a couple of weeks over at Twitter, i’m the worst! But anyway, since game journalism has decided to confirm, once again, that the next Dragon Age game will be set in Tevinter like that’s breaking news, now’s as good a time as ever to write all this down.

Locations: Tevinter, clearly. It’s been pretty much a given since the end of Trespasser in 2015, with that scene where the Inquisitor stabs a map on a table directly on Tevinter as they promise to go after Solas to stop him. But also concept art and several stories from Tevinter Nights heavily imply Antiva, Nevarra, the Anderfells, and maybe Rivain. For those of you who don’t know your Thedosian Geography 101, that’s basically Northern Thedas. And it makes sense, since so far for three games straight we’ve been first stuck in Ferelden, then the coast of the Free Marches, and later the rest of Southern Thedas. We’ve never been North, only heard of it. So in DA4 i’m sure we will finally be able to visit.

Characters: If we’re going to Tevinter, we must meet Dorian again, maybe meet Maevaris Tilani as well (previously only seen in comics), judging from the latest comics series, i’m hoping for Fenris too. And going by the latest teaser trailer, we might see Varric again. As for characters that so far we have no news of, i’d like to see Cole, the Iron Bull, and if by any chance BioWare feels like blessing us with a Hawke/Fenris reunion i might just die happy. I’d also very much like to see the Inquisitor, but more on that later.

Companions: considering concept art and the latest teaser trailer, plus Tevinter Nights stories and new characters, we have an interesting repertoire of new potential companions. A Tevinter mage, an ancient elf (like a temple guardian) or a dalish elf (like Strife), a Nevarran mortalitasi or spirit, Antivan Crows, Lords of Fortune (new faction, kind of like treasure hunters), Qunari lady, maybe an alchemist or shapeshifter, Grey Wardens (possibly a dwarf), a liberated or escaped slave, a Siccari (Tevinter spies/assassins)..even past agents of the Inquisition could return.

Plot: We know Solas wants to take down the Veil. We know there’s two archdemons left, and Grey Wardens are regaining some spotlight in concept art lately. We might have to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously and be strategic about it. Solas might even unleash a double Blight just to keep us distracted while he focus on his own goal, who knows. But many other things are happenig in the margins and all over the place. The Qunari Antaam is having a crisis with some of its members supposedly going rogue, the order they’re so proud of is breaking up, and the whole of Northern Thedas is facing an imminent threat of invasion. Tevinter is still dealing with remnants of the Venatori and might soon be dealing with a slaves rebellion and/or a political and social reform (Magisters Dorian and Maeveris have been working wirh the Lucerni, a group aiming to restore and redeem Tevinter). The Antivan Crows -the de facto rulers of Antiva - may be dealing with a succession crisis, as their First Talon, a powerful feared and respected but old lady, might not be around for much longer and seems her chosen heir has died before his time. Meanwhile in the Anderfells nobody’s heard anything from the Grey Wardens’ HQ at Weisshaupt since the end of Inquisition, and as told in the novel Last Flight, the sudden reappearance of griffons may have had something to do with that radio silence. So you see, get ready for another +100 hours long game because BW has plenty of stuff to keep us busy with. But in short, DA4 seems will be about primarily searching, finding, and dealing with Solas. Regardless of what you decided at the Exalted Council in Trespasser, the Inquisition or what’s left of it is most likely the group orchestrating that mission. As it was so clearly stated then, they need new people Solas doesn’t know so he can’t foresee their actions, so it’s possible the DA4 protagonist is a new agent or a third party hired to do what the Inner circle can’t due to their familiarity with Solas in the past. But at the same time -and this is assuming we get to find Solas in this game - i definitely think the Inquisitor could easily show up again. No, losing an arm doens’t mean they’ve retired forever, prosthetics do exist in Thedas, a world where you can combine dwarven craftmanship with enchantments, seriously, i don’t ever want to hear “but they lost an arm” ever again as an excuse to write them out. And no, marrying Cullen or joining the Red Jennys is no impediment to join the “Stop Solas” Squad; the end of Trespasser means something, mainly that this is personal. Be it they loved them as lovers, as friends or ended up hating his guts for using and betraying them, the Inquisitor’s relationship with Solas makes this very personal, and so having any other character do that face off would cheapen all of it, all that bittersweet angsty development and expectations of either revenge or closure. That moment should happen between those two. It adds a ton of motivation due to their past historyas well, something a new protagonist would lack entirely. My personal best hope is for a sort of dual protagonist thing, say we play new protagonist for most of the game but a selected missions or scenes where we play as the Inquisitor once again and take over for key and heart-wrenching dialogue options. My second best hope is for the Inquisitor to show up as playable for the moment we catch up with Solas. My third and final best hope is for the inquisitor to be a sort of advisor but more like new protagonist’s boss/employer to whom they report back to and get new missions from. The Inquisitor can be stuck in meetings for the most part of it, i just want to know they’re there, behind a door, super busy but there. A cameo like Hawke’s in Inquisition is the bare miminum i can take, anyhting less than that like a mention in a sidequest description or a footnote in a codex entry would be a total injustice.

Romances: I’m open for pretty much anything, as any good BW fan would be. But i’d like romances to feel more alive in the sense that they don’t abruptly get stuck once you exhaust all related quests and dialogue options. As much as my Adaar liked that spank from the Iron Bull, that it was the only thing they could share after their romance was locked was a bit..meh. I liked Dorian’s tho, because his gave one the option to talk a bit, go for a walk, gossip, and sure, it all happened off-screen, and there were limited possibilities, but it was nice and made their relationship feel a bit more real, like they had more to it than kissing and stuff. It happens in most games, once you secure a romanceable companion suddenly you run out of things to do and share with them, and you get stuck with the same 3 lines of dialogue over and over again. There should be a way of solving that.

Side quests: i’m ok with fetch quests initially as it is a good way of forcing the player to go out and explore huge maps, but i’d also like the fetching to have some meaning other than checking things off a list. I want to explore many ruins, and -can’t believe i’m actually saying this- i want a Fade quest. Wait! I know what you’re thinking but don’t kill me just yet, here’s my idea: what if we could visit the Fade at certain locations to witness memories or meet with spirits and recollect information on Solas, his past, his present? Both to understand him better (keep in mind we’ll most likely get a new protagonist who isn’t familiar with him like we are as players) and try to locate him or predict his next move. It would be i think i great way of having visions of Arlathan in its golden age, maybe seeing some of the other Evanuris, how they interacted with each other and with the elves in their service, what really happened ...i just want that sweet, sweet lore, i need it.

Technical stuff: ok, graphics will be amazing for sure, but i also would really really like: better, more varied and longer hairstyles, PLEASE. Body sliders, it’s damn time we get them. Mounts that actually make a difference! Let staves blades make damage in combat, I’M BEGGING HERE. Combined classes, MAGICAL ROGUES! A homebase we can fix up/build on/redecorate as fully as possible (Skyhold was great and i love it to pieces but why were those walls NEVER repaired????) . More casual outfit options, idk i love to dress up my characters, maybe some transmog? A day/night cycle and please i would love to see Thedas’ second moon, also weather variations depending on the region. Yes, i’m ambitious.

Gameplay: i’d like more AI options for companions, but not quite like in DAO, that was too much and i rarely used it. I’m curious how they’ll do combat this time but i know for sure i don’t want the kind of combat that has me going almost frame by frame pausing at every second, it’s annoying for me. I want large areas like in DAI but with a bit more stuff to see and do although one of my favourite maps is the Hissing Wastes so i won’t complain if we get a literal desert but i’d also like it to have secrets hidden around, make me work to find and solve them, i love exploring, i jump and click on EVERYTHING like i’m still a kid playing Monkey Island. A companion in concept art seems to be holding what looks like some form of rifle, so i’m curious how they’d incorporate that in the game. I know Tevinter has the magics and dwarves have the skill, a firearm is totally within the possibilities in-game without breaking any lore; also super curious what sort of skill trees Crows or Lords of Fortune could have, are they rogues, or warriors, or both??

So far, that’s what i got in my head.Well, most of it anyways, i may have missed something but this post has to end somewhere lol

What’s in your head? Feel free to share! Have you been thinking on how you’ll create your next protagonist? All i can think of is magical rogues and that glowing bow was all the hype i needed.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age 4 #Tevinter #da4 wishlist #DA4

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ltcol-laurens · 7 years

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Laurens-Hamilton letters

All this can be found here and this is just a list of quotes from letters between 1778 and 1782 between John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton at what could be hinting at a relationship between the two. I hope this is helpful.

First: ‘We have the Honour to be Sir Your most Obedt Servts A Hamilton John Laurens’ - They wrote a letter together that’s just cute.

From JL, 5th Dec 1778 ‘My Dear Hamilton...Adieu, my dear boy. I shall set out for camp tomorrow.’

The best letter of all time, From AH April 1779: ‘Cold in my professions, warm in {my} friendships, I wish my Dear Laurens, it m{ight} be in my power, by action rather than words, {to} convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that ‘till you bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent on the caprice of others. You sh⟨ould⟩ not have taken advantage of my sensibility to ste⟨al⟩ into my affections without my consent. But as you have done it and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality, which you have so artfully instilled into ⟨me⟩.’

From the same letter: ‘my Dear J’ - that’s cute.

From the same April 1779 letter: ‘ I anticipate by sympathy the pleasure you must feel from the sweet converse of your dearer self in the inclosed letters. I hope they may be recent. They were brought out of New York by General Thompson11 delivered to him there by a Mrs. Moore not long from England, soi-disante parente de Madame votre épouse. She speaks of a daughter of yours, well when she left England,12 perhaps ⟨– – –⟩. ‘ There’s an explanation for this: Hamilton was asked to deliver a letter from Martha Manning to Laurens so he found out that Laurens was not only married but also had a daughter. They’d already known each other for around a year and a half at that point.

Hamilton proceeds to seemingly ask John to find him a wife whilst he’s in South Carolina: ‘And Now my Dear as we are upon the subject of wife, I empower and command you to get me one in Carolina. Such a wife as I want will, I know, be difficult to be found, but if you succeed, it will be the stronger proof of your zeal and dexterity. Take her description—She must be young, handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape) sensible (a little learning will do), well bred (but she must have an aversion to the word ton) chaste and tender (I am an enthusiast in my notions of fidelity and fondness) of some good nature, a great deal of generosity (she must neither love money nor scolding, for I dislike equally a termagent and an œconomist).’

However it was just an excuse to put in as many innuendos and that famous ‘nose’ line: ‘ If you should not readily meet with a lady that you think answers my description you can only advertise in the public papers and doub[t]less you will hear of many competitors for most of the qualifications required, who will be glad to become candidates for such a prize as I am. To excite their emulation, it will be necessary for you to give an account of the lover—his size, make, quality of mind and body, achievements, expectations, fortune, &c. In drawing my picture, you will no doubt be civil to your friend; mind you do justice to the length of my nose and don’t forget, that I ⟨– – – – –⟩. ‘ - The word ‘friend’ seems to be teasing about how far from friends they are which is further consolidated with the ‘nose’ and infamous scratched out words which I believe that mystery has been solved and it possibly says: ‘never spared you of pictures‘ so it now reads: ‘...mind you do justice to the length of my nose and don’t forget, that I never spared you of pictures.’ I think the pure fact that JCH felt the need to cross that out shows that he interpreted it as sexual because if he thought that they were just friends and it was, as Massey puts it, ‘bawdy humour’ then why would JCH feel the need to cross it out? Really John Church is just confirming what we already knew - that Hamilton and Laurens were M O R E T H A N F R I E N D S. And that’s from a 18/19th Century homophobe (most likely). Also JCH met his Alexander (I know he died soon into John’s life but still they met) so will understand his father more than any historian and is therefore one of the most reliable sources.

‘ NB You will be pleased to recollect in your negotiations that I have no invincible antipathy to the maidenly beauties & that I am willing to take the trouble of them upon myself.‘ - Hamilton underline ‘NB’ (nota bene/note well and the underlining of ‘maidenly beauties’ and ‘trouble’ seems to suggest some sort of sexual innuendo ... with Laurens. He could be possibly reminding Laurens of a similar experience they shared. ‘Maidenly beauties’ seems to be referring to inexperienced women or virginity. The phrase ‘maidenly’ seems to be feminine adjective however it’s more likely to be describing purity (e.g in the case of virginity). Let’s remember how Hamilton was once played down his attraction to Eliza in a letter to Laurens so why would he be talking about female virginity. Furthermore,with Hamilton already talking about his relationship with Laurens previously in this letter this quote holds a lot more implication that he was talking about his relationship with Laurens. Another interpretation of this could be that Hamilton just wants to remind Laurens that he’s not exclusively attracted to men (as Laurens most likely was) so it’s a way to possibly make Laurens jealous as Laurens (accidentally) made Hamilton. Additionally, the word ‘trouble’ could be interpreted as pregnancy and he’s saying that despite the ‘trouble’ of the feminine body (i.e pregnancy) he’s not immune to be sexually attracted to them. Also just think how Laurens’ personal experience with women and probably the first, or one of the first times, he had sex with a woman it resulted in pregnancy and his own mother died because of pregnancy.

Hamilton concludes with: ‘ Do I want a wife? No—I have plagues enough without desiring to add to the number that greatest of all; and if I were silly enough to do it, I should take care how I employ a proxy. ‘ So he calls marriage a plague and he explicitly states that he doesn’t want a wife.

‘Did I mean to show my wit?’ - ‘Wit’ = 18c for penis

From Laurens, 14th July 1779: ‘ Ternant will relate to you how many violent struggles I have had between duty and inclination—how much my heart was with you...’ And he ends with ‘yours ever John Laurens’ so pretty effusive for Laurens.

From Hamilton 11th September 1779. There’s a bit of a gap here which Hamilton actually talks about: ‘ I acknowlege but one letter from you, since you left us, of the 14th of July which just arrived in time to appease a violent conflict between my friendship and my pride. I have written you five or six letters since you left Philadelphia and I should have written you more had you made proper return. But like a jealous lover, when I thought you slighted my caresses, my affection was alarmed and my vanity piqued. I had almost resolved to lavish no more of them upon you and to reject you as an inconstant and an ungrateful ——.2 But you have now disarmed my resentment and by a single mark of attention made up the quarrel. You must at least allow me a large stock of good nature.‘ Most notable in this paragraph is Hamilton’s uses the phrase ‘jealous lover’. He ends on a more formal note: ‘Adieu Yrs most sincerely A Hamilton’

From Laurens 12th December 1779: ‘Present my Respects and Love to our excellent General and the family; may you enjoy all the pleasure moral and physical which you promise yourself in winter quarters; and be as happy as you deserve.Yours ever John Laurens’

From Laurens 18th December 1779, Laurens uses the phrase: ‘ χαλου χαι αγαθου’ which is Greek ‘kalos kai agathos’ and cannot be translated directly into English and it has various meanings discussed by @john-laurens here who does a great job of explaining what it means. He ends on ‘My Love as usual. Adieu John Laurens.’

From Hamilton 8th January 1780:

Laurens used ‘dear boy’ several times e.g. here compared to a letter to his wife: ‘...and say dear Girl...’ so he used to same term to describe his affection towards his wife to describe his affection towards Hamilton.

From Hamilton to Laurens 30th March 1780: ‘Adieu my Dear; I am sure you will exert yourself to save your country; but do not unnecessarily risk one of its most valuable sons. Take as much care of yourself as you ought for the public sake and for the sake of Yr. Affectionate A. Hamilton.’

From Hamilton to Laurens 30th June 1780: ‘ Have you not heard that I am on the point of becoming a benedict? I confess my sins. I am guilty. Next fall completes my doom.‘ I might be looking too much into this but it sounds like he’s trying to assure Laurens (who was a POW at this point) that he hasn’t completely forgotten about him and it’s a strange way to put it if he’s truly happy about the wedding: ‘Next fall completes my doom’. Hamilton goes on to say (about Eliza): ‘ She is a good hearted girl who I am sure will never play the termagant; though not a genius she has good sense enough to be agreeable, and though not a beauty, she has fine black eyes—is rather handsome and has every other requisite of the exterior to make a lover happy.‘ This doesn’t sound like he holds the highest opinion of Eliza which contrasts to how he wrote in letters to Eliza, for example: ‘ My good, my tender, my fond, my excellent Betsy, Adieu.‘, ‘my angel’, ‘ I kiss you a thousand times‘ and ‘ I shall be miserable if I do not hear once a week from you and my precious infant. You both grow dearer to me every day. I would give the world for a kiss from either of you.’ (Bear in mind the last few quotes are after Laurens died) so either he’s making Eliza seem worse than she is to Laurens as they have a thing between them and Laurens wasn’t having the easiest time being a POW as the Americans had just suffered a defeat in South Carolina, he’s exaggerating his feelings to Eliza or a bit of both.

H to L, 12th Sept 1780: ‘my Laurens’ (bit possessive gee!) and ‘I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you and Meade. Adieu A Hamilton’ He’s in that I-hate-everything-in-the-world-except-Laurens-mood - I think we’ve all been there to be honest. I think this is the letter where Hamilton had just been denied a position in the south with Laurens although I could be wrong. He finishes with ‘My ravings are for your own bosom.’ So basically he misses his boy.

H to L, 16th September 1780: H asks L to do something for his sake: ‘ for my sake’, ‘ In spite of Schuylers black eyes, I have still a part for the public and another for you; so your impatience to have me married is misplaced; a strange cure by the way, as if after matrimony I was to be less devoted than I am now.‘ God there’s so much to say about this. Firstly, Laurens believes that marriage is a ‘cure’ and that raises the question of a ‘cure’ for what exactly? It also shows how Laurens views Hamilton’s feelings towards him because bisexuality and human sexuality in general wasn’t understood as well as it is now so Laurens believes that Hamilton can’t love Eliza and him simultaneously and Hamilton seems to have a better understanding of sexuality, or at least of his own feelings towards Laurens, so he says ‘as if matrimony I was to be less devoted than I am now’ I could be wrong but that sounds like ‘Even when I’m married I’ll still have these feelings for you.’ Then we get to the end of this letter where Hamilton seemingly invites Laurens to a threesome on his wedding night, but Laurens was stuck in Pennsylvania: ‘I wish you were at liberty to transgress the bounds of Pensylvania. I would invite you after the fall to Albany to be witness to the final consummation. My Mistress is a good girl, and already loves you because I have told her you are a clever fellow and my friend; but mind, she loves you a l’americaine not a la françoise.‘ It makes me think about how Hamilton goes around talking about how great Laurens is - someone he could’ve been romantically involved with - to his future wife Eliza. Also the Founders Archive website puts the words and phrases I put in italics in italics on the website so I guess Hamilton underlined them so he really wanted Laurens to see the ‘final consummation’ and the other parts that are all quite suggestive. ‘She loves you a l’americaine not a la françoise’ means how French people are more open with their sexuality and Americans are more prudish and sexually reserved so Eliza wouldn’t be down for a threesome on her wedding night with two guys which seems reasonable to me.

Interestingly there are a few more letters from Hamilton that are less romantic and more military as his first child Philip had just been born and there could’ve been a possible rekindling between Laurens and Kinloch although it seems unlikely. I just think something must’ve happened from the threesome thing to being strictly professional.

Then in July 1782 Laurens wrote a letter that apart from a few things such as this and talking about his black regiment etc doesn’t seem to be of much significance until you realise that on the bottom of the founders archive page here it says that there is at least a paragraph missing from that letter because it has no ending to the letter. However there is a printed extract of a letter that Laurens wrote to Hamilton but there is no date JCH just put ‘Hamilton replied on the 15th August’ and it finishes: ‘ Adieu, my dear friend; while circumstances place so great a distance between us, I entreat you not to withdraw the consolation of your letters. You know the unalterable sentiments of your affectionate Laurens.’ which as we can see from above is quite romantic coming from Laurens and he ended a similar way to his ending to Martha his wife.

Then we get to the final letter from Hamilton to Laurens 15th August 1782: ‘ Quit your sword my friend, put on the toga, come to Congress. We know each others sentiments, our views are the same: we have fought side by side to make America free, let us hand in hand struggle to make her happy.’ and it ends ‘Yrs for ever A Hamilton’ which he used a variation of in his last letter to Eliza before he died. I don’t know about anyone else but to me that letter has a definite air of finality as if Hamilton just knows that his friend is going to go ahead and get himself killed which is terribly heartbreaking.

#long post #historic lams #lams #laurens x hamilton #laurens #hamilton

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jnfsavellon · 4 years

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Quarantine Life, Alright.

(Selfie file photo, April 7, 2020)

April 8, 2020 - It's barely two weeks into the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Cebu City since the Mayor's declaration last March 27 but the changes were drastic which I will describe in the later paragraphs.

To name one is the near-zero traffic congestion comprising mostly of private cars, shuttle services for front liners and employees exempted from the "lockdown."

Our neighborhood here in Sitio Colveta II was peaceful. I can drive my car with ease. I'm my mother's chauffeur while I'm on paid leave - Yeah, Big Head's waiting for a reallocation because my clients won't let me work from home - my route is from home to Barangay Bulacao's Health Center and Birthing Center and back home. At times we're having stops at the grocery stores to stock up our inventory; we're not hoarding, just stocking up.

I could remember Mother spoke that such smooth traffic reminded her of the 80s to 90s roads where everyone was just walking around with lesser people and vehicles roaming around the streets. She said that traffic became worse during the 2000s, but yeah that was it.

I even told her that I could hear our parish the Archdiocesan Shrine of San Roque's bells ringing at 8:00 pm. The church is 600 meters away from home.

Safety and health was a top priority at this time. I've got to credit to Station 11's regular roving rounds in the neighborhood. Neighbors have been called out by police due to the former's hard-headedness because they're still going out of their respective houses at this period. The officers usually use their megaphones to call them out, but there was one time that they've had enough. One officer came out of the patrol car to warn them of their stubbornness. I share the same sentiments with the police on this part. The quarantine period is for everyone's well-being, and there are still stubborn people outside.

(File photo, April 7, 2020)

I shared a post of a former photojournalist that captured a photo of a congested Tabada Public Market. No crowd control. Just significant foot traffic that makes you itch to the bone. The good thing on the next day, the LGU and local police set up a post on the entrance/exits to ensure that people are following protocol such as wearing face masks and quarantine pass.

People just have to be aware that this coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic isn't just the seasonal flu where you could just have some home treatment to get rid of it. It's a new strain that eats out your organs most especially the lungs potentially leading to pneumonia. Once you have it, you'll be isolated away from your loved ones. You'll be met with front liners in PPE spacesuits whom you can't distinguish who's who because they are covered from head to foot. These came from the words of veteran journalist Howie Severino, COVID patient #2828 and now a survivor.

PET PEEVES!!

Speaking of pet peeves, I'm just bothered with some situations whenever I'm out in public to run a few errands: citizens, whether supermarket employees or customers are wearing their face masks improperly. They're wearing it covering just the nose. Worse is that some even take it off and hang it under their chin. Clothe masks have the least protection we can have compared to the N95 counterparts. People just need to be reminded of this.

Another thing is the long lines in the groceries and the padala centers and public market. They are essential, but the inconsistent practice of social distancing is just disturbing to see. I remembered one time I was at Shopwise with my mother, and there's this customer behind me who just keeps getting closer and closer while I was trying to distance myself. I couldn't blame myself because this crap has been giving me anxiety since the disease's spread, and I'm not buying this to catch it.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

Nevertheless, Mr. Severino's recovery story gives us hope that we shouldn't feel lonely during these tough times. He made sure to keep in touch with loved ones through video chatting. Do you what you gotta do to make yourself safe and productive. This was my point in Episode 08 ("Do What You Gotta Do, Citizens of Earth) of the Jump Shot Podcast.

I'm happy to be with my family at these times. I feel that there's safety here at home. I'm out of that paranoia I felt while I was traveling to work and going back home. Every time I went home, I was irritated and exhausted. During that weekend I broke down while I was on a call with Charrie, realizing that my mental well-being was shaky because of that ordeal.

But still, I figured out that I should stay at home. Then here I am writing. I still have enough funds to sustain our daily needs. I'm maximizing my time staying healthy and spending time on my pastimes.

I'm doing my home workouts together with my brother at least thrice a week. We have this exercise mat, a homemade 10-pound dumbbell, and a 20-pound barbel, and tons of health and wellness videos you can find on YouTube. It may seem nothing compared to going out to a gym or playing basketball, but something is better than nothing.

(Taco Monday!!!! April 6th)

We're continuing with our healthy diets of boiled egg, canned tuna or sardines, sometimes there's tacos and shawarma wraps filled with seasoned ground pork, cucumber, white onions, tomatoes, and a variety of sauces like sriracha, ketchup, mayonnaise, and hot sauce - our mother's best home cook meal (haha).

Also I'm focusing on some of my skills like Photoshop and audio editing. We're producing the most podcast content right now compared to December to February (haha).

Charrie is catching up with Photoshop as well. She's doing some editing as I've been tasking her to do graphics like the shirt and product designing and creating a sample logo for a possible business hopefully we can concretize it soon.

(Our second to the last coffee night out at Starbucks IT Park, March 14th)

It's been two weeks since we saw each other. We're currently in a long-distance mode right now. Yeah LDR, although Liloan is just 25 km away, the border lockdown is inevitable. So we've got to stick to online communication - it's reminding us of the humble beginnings of our relationship haha. But yeah, we've got some catching up to do after this crap.

(After the Holy Mass live streaming, March 21, 2020)

Meanwhile we've organized the parish's social media team, under Fr. Carmelo Diola's guidance, to continue serving. We're live-streaming the daily Holy Masses while increasing our reach as much as possible. We've also had catechetical-recollections. This way we can serve to have the people sustain their spiritual nourishment. It's just fulfilling to serve once again after many years as an altar server. It's good to be back in my old parish nevertheless. Check our Facebook page.

FINAL THOUGHTS

At this time there are still over 43,000 persons under monitoring (PUMs), and it's still early to call off the ECQ. I do hope Governor Gwen Garcia and Mayor Edgar Labella would consider an extension while strengthening the safety and weakening the virus' spread. I just hope there would be enough supplies for each family especially the ones who are relying on their jobs that were stopped due to implementation of the Executive Orders except for the front liners and other exempted industries.

There are complaints that there are local government units (LGUs) having delayed deliveries the relief goods from house to house especially in our barangay. Mother has had phone call duties as well, answering complaints of other citizens. The barangays lack manpower I've learned. I'm not sure what the real reason for the delays. On one side I believe that the LGUs are doing their best to deliver it - in Barangay Mambaling, there are 8,000 households. On the other people are starving as they are relying on jobs that were forced to stop as what I've mentioned.

I hope they would sort that out while we are quarantining. After all at the end of the day we just want to have peace and order. We just need some patience I guess.

Going back let me sum up my thoughts: (1) Health is a top priority; (2) SOCIAL DISTANCING please, (3) Let's pray for this pandemic to end, (4) Be a better citizen, stay disciplined, (4) Catch up with loved ones, (5) Keep busy, make your day productive.

I guess that's it for now.

Stay safe.

- James

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sweaterkittensahoy · 7 years

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4, 7, 10, 15, 18, 21, 25 ???

Pretty sure it was for this one; lemme know if I’m wrong.

4) favorite character you’ve written

I won’t say “all of them,” but I’m definitely thinking it. I love writing Natasha Romanov because it’s fun to explore her personal side. I also love writing Eric Bittle and Yuri Plisetsky because they are both very similar to me in ways, and it’s nice to work them through feelings and events that I feel close to. I love writing Ronald Speirs because I feel an understanding with the way he handled the war, and it’s nice to have a way to explore that. I haven’t written her in years, but getting to write CJ Cregg was always a delight because she was so wonderfully over bullshit.

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

It depends on the situation. I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t feel awkward telling people I’m in fandom, so that’s cool. For a long time, I always phrased it like original work because I didn’t want to explain. But explaining I write original work is harder because people get really up their own ass about that when you tell them sometimes, and I never know what the response is gonna be. I love writing, and I’m not embarrassed that I do it through fandom and original work, but you deal with enough dicks at various parties, and it gets aggravating.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

For any sort of challenge (NaNo, holiday exchanges), I have a lot of fun in a group because we’re all working towards the same goal. Otherwise, I write alone. Music comes and goes as I’m writing. If I’m going fast, it’s usually pretty quiet. If I’m stuck, I use music to unstick me. Cake is particularly useful to get me writing again. No idea why, but I’m glad I like them.

15) why did you start writing?

Oh, god, please forgive how pretentious this sounds, but I honestly don’t know because I’ve been writing since before I could remember. I would scribble onto paper and then read a whole “story” aloud to my family. Apparently, I would sometimes make edits mid-story, go back, add the new part, and then recite the story verbatim until I got to the next part I hadn’t “read” yet.

So, I started writing because I’m the lead female in a creepy novel by a middle-aged male professor going through a trial seperation?

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

Oh, boy, so many. Sperenza was an early influence in fandom, as was Jo March (she wrote a great Donna Moss). Also, James of Gila’s Cave (who I know has a tumblr, but whose name I am blanking on) taught me a lot. Also, @hugealienpie and @the-wordbutler were very influential for me.

In terms of original writing: Barbara Kingsolver, Ed McBain, Michael Chabon, and more comic book writers than I could easily name. I learned a lot about finding my voice by playing with my favorite parts of theirs, and I’m always adding authors to the list. Flannery O’Connor, for example, has a very individual voice, and I’ve tried to mimic it a couple of times just to feel the experience of it.

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

I’m glad @webbgirl34 does not recollect my days in JAG fandom. That was some fan fic bingo terribleness. Honestly, I look at my older stuff with a lot of affection. I’m the writer I am now because of the writing I did then. Is it worse writing? Yeah. But I’m glad of that. As a writer, I always want to improve and deepen my skills. If my stuff from years ago didn’t feel different in some ways, I would worry I was stale.

I will say that somewhere in the aughts, I went from a sort of “pat on the head” fondness of my older work to finding it solid even to the me of today. Would I do things differently now? Yeah, but my stories hold together internally, and I’m proud of how I interpreted the characters. It feels full in a way my earlier stuff doesn’t, and I know that’s from experience and practice.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

From New Mode:

Mama reaches out with her other hand and cradles Carwood's hand in both of hers. "I wasn't going to have this conversation," she says. "I was gonna let it be and just let you take care of it, but he said he thinks of us as his family, so I don't want there to be secrets, you understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"So, you tell me the truth, Carwood. Do you love him?"

"I do, Mama."

"And does he love you?"

"He does, Mama."

"Well," she says, and she presses his hand between her two. "I suppose I'll get used to that."

"Are you sure?"

"He looks at you like you hung the moon," she says. "You don't take that away from someone. Your daddy used to look at me like that."

Carwood feels tears in his eyes and blinks them away. "It's not so easy as all that. What about Jack and the boarders? If the boarders find out about George and Joe or me and Ron, that could end this place."

"I said it takes all kinds," Mama says. "It's not the first time I saw those marks on the carpet."

I spent a LOT of time figuring out how Mama Lipton would react to finding out her son was in love with another man in the 1940s. The boarding house background gave me some wiggle room in terms of what she may have learned in her life. She’s likely seen more people acting in more ways than a lot of people in that time period and especially that place. I wanted her to be supportive, but it had to feel real to the period. The thing I’ve learned from reading about older queer experience where family was supportive is that you just don’t use terms. It’s about making sure the person in question knows you support them because you see the love, and you respect it. The scene where Mama sits down and tells Carwood he’s not as slick as he thinks was a watershed moment for the story and for me as a writer. I felt like I had really done the work for readers to believe Mama and what she said, and it felt amazing to get it down and see people respond positively.

#ask #answer #anon #fandom asks #meme #Anonymous

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gldngrl7 · 7 years

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Karamel Fic: Edging Toward Synchronicity (8/8)

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: March 11, 2017

Chapters: 8

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author’s Notes:

Tagging: @mon-kai-el, @actualpuppychriswood, @pwettypwita, @contygold86, @karamelizedlove, @kelbottumbles, @starcrossed-comets, @emarasmoak, @fangirlintheforest, @ships-sailing-in-the-night, @lostin-the-desert, @somos-poeiraestelar

And all I gave you is gone

Tumbled like it was stone

Thought we built a dynasty that heaven couldn't shake

Thought we built a dynasty like nothing ever made

Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up

The scar I can't reverse

When the more it heals the worse it hurts

Gave you every piece of me, no wonder it's missing

Don't know how to be so close to someone so distant

--MIIA – “Dynasty”

Chapter 8/8

For three hours they went over the designs for the suit. Winn had seven designs in all, and together they were able to jettison some elements as impractical, too bold, or otherwise inappropriate, until the remaining ideas came together to create something both workable and aesthetic.

“I like the red,” Mon-El approves.

“It offsets Kara’s blue,” Winn nods. “I thought that would look nice,” he preens a bit.

“It reminds me of Daxam’s red sky.” His mind drifts back to last night’s dream and the vividness of it; the red sun over his head, the plum boscage at his fingertips. The crunch of the dead copper-blossoms beneath his knees as his wife’s blood poured through his fingers, his son’s life ebbing away inside of her. Mon-El’s heart races and his gorge rises. He covers his mouth with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut in a desperate bid to keep from vomiting.

“It does?” Winn inquires, blissfully unaware of the other’s vexation. Mon-El plays off his nausea-induced stress as a yawn, which has Winn doing a double-take. “Am I keeping you awake?” he snarks. “Long night?” Off of a stern look from Mon-El’s steel-turned eyes, Winn gulps and asks, “Too soon?” Then, nodding, he turns back to his computer and answers his own question. “Too soon. I hear you. So what do you think about the boots…?”

“They’re a little too high,” he shrugs with one shoulder. “I’m not a pirate.”

“Kara’s boots are high,” Winn explains.

“She wears a skirt,” he argues, “the aesthetic looks better.”

“Especially with those legs,” Winn blurts, before he can stop himself. He cringes, anticipating a challenge of some sort or at least another steel-blue stare, but instead he watches out of the corner of his eye as Mon-El’s lips quirk up on one side.

“Especially with those legs,” he echoes, his voice turning husky.

“Oh-kay,” Winn drawls, wishing he could scrub the look of blissful recollection on his friend’s face from his mind. “So, we’ll cut the boots back to below the knee. I’ll have them lined with Kevlar to be safe…maybe add some steel toes.” With a look from Mon-El, Winn corrects, “Steel toes taken care of…check.”

“I don’t see a cape in any of these designs,” Mon-El points out, hoping his voice doesn’t sound like a pout.

“No cape,” Winn answers succinctly. “You don’t want a cape.”

“Of course I want a cape!”

“Trust me, you don’t. Kara’s cape is for aerodynamics. It helps with drag, she takes care of the lift. You don’t fly, so all you’ll get is drag. Not having a cape could mean the difference between making a 15 story leap and an 18 story leap. Cape is just going to weigh you down.” Winn’s analysis is succinct and doesn’t leave much room for arguing. He chuckles, “You learn to fly…I’ll build you a cape. Deal?”

Mon-El sighs and rolls his eyes, unable to hide his disappointment. “Deal.”

“Plus, this way all the ladies will get a better view of your ass.” Winn’s eyes widen, as Mon-El side-eyes him. “Did I say that out loud?” With a defensive shrug he spouts, “What? I promised I’d make you look good…so I’m playing to your strengths!”

It took another hour to nail down the incidentals of the red suit, deciding on a high collar of royal blue to match the Kevlar-lined boots, an asymmetrical hemline on the shirt, skin tight pants that show the dips and creases of his musculature and a yellow belt with a center medallion containing a glyph of Daxam’s sun shooting red rays of light.

Taking measurements in the locker room was a singularly uncomfortable experience in which Winn joked about never expecting their relationship to get this close.

Ral was there the whole time laughing at Mon-El’s discomfort.

Heading back to the CIC after Winn said he had all he needed for the time being, Mon-El overhears an agent commenting that Dr. Danvers had arrived unexpectedly a while ago. Hospitality on this planet demands that he stop by and pay his respects to her – but also he’s always enjoyed talking to her in the past. She projects a motherly warmth for which Mon-El has secretly always yearned.

“You want to be charming,” Ral reminds him, unnecessarily, “but not too charming. Remember…the last time you saw her you were only thinking about defiling her daughter. You weren’t actually doing it.”

Mon-El stops in his tracks and glares pointedly at Ral, who grins widely, before walking onward. “No one’s defiling anyone,” Mon-El says surreptitiously between clenched teeth.

“Hmmm…I wonder if Dr. Danvers will see it that way….” Ral torments him. Admittedly, Mon-El has some concerns about seeing Dr. Danvers again, now that he’s mated to her adoptive daughter.

His gut clenches with concern, but he stays his course. “Why do I keep you around?”

“Because I know things, Brother. Things you’ve forgotten and don’t seem inclined to remember. It’s right there,” Ral says, needling him. “Right there under the surface. So close you can feel it bubbling up. Sometimes you think you hear the wails inside your head or see the flames in your mind’s eye. And the smell of the blood, of charred skin and heads on fire like screaming candlesticks….”

“Stop,” Mon-El begs. Suddenly finding himself breathless, his heart racing, he places his hand against the smooth concrete wall and tucks his face into his arm, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Behind his eyelids, white and gray flash and flicker like the screaming, flickering bulbs of the intrusive cameras belonging to rabid reporters and paparazzi. “You have to stop.”

“On the contrary, brother, I have to continue – if that’s what it takes. Now that you’ve seen the truth, or at least part of it, you need to let the rest in. It’s the only way to make you whole.”

“Whole,” he echoes. “I’m more whole here, now…with her…than I ever felt for even a single moment of my life back there.”

“Good…that’s good. There may come a time when you need to choose between hanging on to me and losing her, or letting go in order to have the life you want, and you’ll do well to remember that. But that day, that loss, and everything that led up to it…the choices you made…will always be a specter over your head for as long as you refuse to give it its due. Let it in,” Ral urges. “Feel it. Accept the pain of it, so that you can make it a part of who you are and move on. There’s still work to be done and you can’t keep it at a distance forever.”

“I know,” Mon-El breathes, seeing the truth of Ral’s words for the first time.

“Sir, are you alright?” an astute DEO employee walking by stops to ask, noticing Mon-El’s distress. He recognizes her as one of the medical practitioners often seen in the med-bay and her lab coat identifies her as such.

“I’m fine, thank you. Just...” his vision flashes white and gray again ad he rubs his eyes, “a bit of a headache.”

“Would like an escort to the med-bay?” the woman asks.

Mon-El tosses Ral a glance and nods, “Actually, I was just on my way to see Dr. Danvers.”

“I just saw her in the conference room, sir. With Agent Danvers and Supergirl.”

“Supergirl’s here?”

“Just flew in a few minutes ago,” the agent informs him. “Do you need help?”

“No, I’ve got this.” Mon-El straightens his spine, gives the woman a reassuring smile, and lies, “I’m feeling much better now, thanks.”

The medic regards him suspiciously for a moment before nodding and walking away. Mon-El watches as she goes, waiting until she disappears around the corner before altering his course in the direction of the conference room.

“You’re…not looking so good,” Ral declares.

He doesn’t feel so good either. It’s not anything he can pinpoint or put a finger on, like a fever or a choking cough. It doesn’t feel like the sickness created by the Medusa virus, but rather a profound foreboding that fills his chest and spreads down his spine like the tendrils of Velestrian Rot, a black vine that burrows deep, growing out of control until it breaks apart the very thing to which its attached. His fingers tingle and his eyes sting incessantly.

He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop but his powers appear to be fritzing out. It occurs to him that he may be experiencing withdrawals from going more than twenty-four hours without siphoning electricity. Ral had claimed it was becoming an addiction. Perhaps he had been right—he usually is.

“Safety of others?” he overhears Kara ask, but doesn’t know to whom she speaks. Is there something brewing out there? Perhaps Cadmus is up to some new tricks? Something for which he needs to prepare. “You want to put him back into a cell?”

Mon-El halts in his tracks just outside the conference room. This is interesting. Who is she talking about?

“Isolation,” he hears Alex say, her tone one of pacifying rationalization. “For his own good.”

“But in a cell,” Kara repeats. “After everything we—after everything I—put him through when he first arrived. After Medusa? You want to put him back in a cell like he can’t be trusted.”

Mon-El’s heart speeds up because it sounds like they could be talking about…him. Are they talking about him? Talking about putting him in a cell, like when he first arrived? After everything he’s done, how hard he’s worked to prove himself? To prove he can be trusted?

“Kara, he’s on the verge of a full-blown psychotic break. It sounds like he’s fighting it for the moment, but there’s no predicting how long he has before his mind completely fractures and he can no longer tell the difference between the hallucination and reality. And if that break happens and he experiences another flashback like the one he had last night…Kara, I know it’s painful, but locking him up really is the best for everyone. At least until we can find a way to purge him of the hallucination.”

“They know about me,” Ral says. “It was only a matter of time, of course. Especially with how close you two have been getting. You can’t keep these things secret forever.”

“Alex thinks they can take you away from me,” Mom-El says, a dark rage rising inside of him, a fever building that spreads up his neck and face until he can feel it burning beneath his skin.

“Let her believe what she likes, brother. She can’t take me away. No one has the power to do that.”

Mon-El tunes back in, listening for what comes next, waiting to hear Kara’s voice of reason…and hope. He knows, without a doubt, that she believes in him. Trusts him. She just asked him to move into her loft with her so that she can help him deal with the nightmares and now, the flashbacks; there’s no way she going to give up on him so quickly and so easily. She always fights for the ones she loves.

“Okay,” Kara’s voice agrees. “We’ll play this your way. We’ll lock him up.”

For the second time in his life, Mon-El’s entire world crumbles around him. She didn’t even fight for him, didn’t come to his defense. He had been so certain that she would, so certain that everything they’d shared had meant as much to her as it means to him.

They’d talked about sharing a life, about having a family, and here she is bartering all of that away because he’s…too damaged. She’ll take everything away from him if he allows this. If he doesn’t do something, doesn’t move or take a stand, she’ll take away everything he’s earned and worked so hard for. His job, his friends; she’ll take away Valor.

A righteous rage mixes and swirls with the heartbreak he feels inside. He won’t be locked up. Not again. Not after what his father did.

“Now you’re feeling it,” Ral exclaims. “Let it come, Brother.”

Mon-El shakes him off, ignoring the gnat that whispers in his ear, focusing only on the red that closes in around his vision, locking down his sight until it focuses like a laser beam, focuses on her. Her head whips around to see him standing in the door, and her eyes widen with surprise, her eyebrows crinkling as though already preparing to tell him lies.

“Remember when I said not to worry about the time and the place?” Ral asks. “That I would take care of it? This seems like as good a place as any other.”

Mon-El grits his teeth and steels his resolve.

“Mon-El,” Kara exclaims, frightfully. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” he grinds out.

“Mon-El, you’re not—“ she tries.

“Don’t,” he says, raising his voice and his hand. “Just don’t.”

“Looks like some people just don’t get the same consideration others do,” Ral needles in a practically blasé manner, sounding for all the world like he’s stoking Mon-El’s anger to a fine rage.

Mon-El turns on Ral, pointing a finger. “You…shut the hell up for once!”

Kara’s heart constricts, her throat closing as Mon-El reveals to her for the first time the depths of his psychosis. “Mon-El,” she cries, covering her mouth with her hands.

Dr. Danvers exchanges a look with Alex before slowly rising from her chair and inching away from him. Alex’s eyes harden and she reaches for her belt.

“Man’s got a point, though,” Mon-El shouts, his adrenaline surging unlike anything he’s ever felt before. The taste of it in the back of his throat is like battery acid. Looking at her, at this woman he fell in love with and by whom he is betrayed, he can feel the walls inside of him splintering, bursting apart like a cage outgrown by its captive. “How long did you get, Kara?” he wonders.

She sees him changing, breaking right in front of her and it’s everything she didn’t know she feared. His handsome face transforms into a monstrosity a red anger, his lips turning an alarming shade of…gray? “I don’t understand,” she shakes her head, expressing her own confusion, rather than answering his query.

“How long did your precious adoptive family give you to grieve all that you had lost? Did you a get a whole three months like you’ve given me? Is this the extent of your generosity? Did they threaten to lock you away because you were too broken to be fixed?”

“Mon-El, we’re trying to—“

“If you say ‘help’, Kara, so help me Rao.” Mon-El blinks furiously, his eyes watering, unable to clear the angry red of his vision. “I see my dead brother,” he confesses. “I talk to him when I need to work things out, or sometimes when I just need a friend. I’m not going to be told that’s wrong by a woman who keeps a virtual construct shrine to her dead mother.”

Kara gasps and swallows the acrid acid taste in her mouth that rises in the face of his vitriol…and his truth. “It’s not the same,” she insists, though her tone lacks conviction.

“Oh, I know,” he shouts, his voice grating on her heart like sandpaper. “The difference is I know that Ral is dead…in my heart. It happened right before my eyes. I’m not still holding on to hope. You know what I’m also not doing?” he asks. “I’m not going back to that cell.”

“It’s okay,” she promises. “I just need you to calm down.”

“I don’t get to be angry now? Of course,” he scoffs, “The woman I love betrays me and you still expect me to be your little lap dog. Doing whatever you tell me, being whatever you want me to be.”

He doesn’t know what he’s saying, where all these words are coming from. They spill from his mouth like a vomit of long buried but now unrestrained bitterness. Just this morning, he made love to her as if she were his world and he thought she felt the same. But now, looking at her feels like she’s just another jailer, holding the keys to his shackles.

Tears streak down her face as her heart breaks. She came here seeking help for him and never intended to betray him, but he would never see it that way, not in this state. She wipes the tears from her face, looking up to see four agents approaching him from behind.

Something slams him in the back, followed in quick succession by three more blows, one in the back of the head that brings him to his knees. Before he can gain his bearings his wrists are gathered in front of him and a pair of Nth metal cuffs are placed on them.

A thought flashes through Mon-El’s mind, that this is not how he planned to obtain Nth metal cuffs today. He scoffs angrily at the irony, but the thought only serves to inflame his rage, reminding him that just this morning, despite the specter of death that hung over his head, his whole world was shaping up quite nicely.

“Alex, what did you do?” he hears Kara ask her sister.

“I pressed my panic button,” she replies.

“Please,” Kara begs the agents who are dragging Mon-El to his feet. “Please don’t hurt him.” She steps forward toward Mon-El, but Alex grabs her arm to stop her.

The agents’ mistake is pausing before attempting to place Nth shackles on his ankles. He throws them off with ease, watching as Kara’s and Alex’s widen in surprise as two of the agent fly through the glass windows. Despite the verbal confrontation and his clear distress, neither of them expected him to get violent. But clearly they had underestimated his psychosis.

Crashing through the glass, the agents fly over the balcony and forcing Kara to speed to their rescue, leaving Mon-El alone with Alex and Dr. Danvers. Hyperaware of her need to protect her mother, Alex draws her weapon and points it at Mon-El, but anticipating her move he speeds to her and tears the gun from her hand, crushing it in his fist.

He considers throwing the chunk of metal at one of the remaining agents, but before he can decide, he’s grabbed from behind in a chokehold by an arm with which he is intimately familiar and the world is whizzing past until he and Kara are in the open atrium of the DEO’s top floor. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she shouts, begs.

“You already have,” he chokes, her strength crushing down on his larynx. His red vision grays around the edges, until his father appears before him and everything goes red-hot again. “No!” he screams.

“You’ll do as I say,” his father declares, his own steel-gray eyes staring coldly back at him with a sneer on his full lips. “And never forget that you are…utterly…replaceable. Did you honestly think that you were only one?”

Ignoring the pressure at his neck, Mon-El wrenches himself free. “I’ll kill you for what you did to me. I will never give you what you want.”

When he shakes Kara off, she’s thrown back several feet, knocking her into the light table, both smashing it to smithereens and shocking the hell out of her at the same time as thousands of volts of electricity pass through her.

“You will,” his father insists, a smile of victory spreading slowly across his face. “And until you do…I think I’ll keep our dear Morgon here as collateral. Whether or not he’s returned to you in one piece, depends entirely upon the speed with which you comply.”

Ral drops to his knees in front of Mon-El, broken and bloodied, one eye swollen shut. “Leave this place, Brother,” he whispers. ‘The first chance you get…run. Forget about me…he will never let you be free.”

“What have you done?” Mon-El shouts, focusing his rage on his father.

“Just a promise…with more to come.” Waving his hand with a careless, carefree gesture, he commands, “Take him away.”

The scene in his mind shifts again like a red swipe across his vision and Daxam is crumbling around him once more. Ral is sprawled at his feet, his wrists and legs in chains as the room shakes and trembles. His legs are broken, meticulously broken with great care, so as to increase initial pain and long-term suffering, but that isn’t what draws his attention this time.

Like the chains, it is a detail he hadn’t seen before—his mind hadn’t let him see—the swaths of dried blood caked on Ral’s cheeks, stemming from the empty sockets where his eyes once were.

“No, no, no…what he did he do?” Mon-El cries reaching down to touch his brother’s face. “What did he do?”

“Extracted a price,” Ral answers, as the smell of smoke and the sound of screams filter through the air. “A price that no longer matters, it seems.”

“He only did this because of me,” Mon-El cries. “Because I wouldn’t give him what he wanted.”

“Not your fault,” Ral reaches out blindly and grabs Mon-El’s collar, pulling him closer. “Every drop of blood taken from me is a price well paid if it means this venal House finally dies with him. Know that I regret none of it, so long as that is the outcome.” A loud boom fills the air causing the ground to shake beneath them and Ral chuckles, despite his obvious pain. “The gods of Val-Or side with you this day. With both of us.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because this is your chance to get away from this place. The prison doors are open.”

“What about you?”

“You have to leave me, I’ll only slow us both down. You can still escape. He took my eyes, brother,” Ral winces, blood gurgling up to his teeth, his injuries far worse than they initially appeared. “I’ll never see my beloved Melis again – unless it’s in the afterlife. A place I’ll be seeing sooner rather than later, if the gods are good to me once more.”

“I won’t let you die here,” Mon-El insists.

“You will,” Ral cough, blood and spittle spewing from his mouth. “And you will make me one last promise.”

Torn, a scream of heartbroken rage wells up within him, pushing its way through his clenched teeth. His brother-in-bond is dying and there’s nothing he can do for him, but fulfill a final wish. “What is it?” he asks.

“Find a way,” Ral coughs again. “After this place is gone and that old despot is dead…find a way to restore what was great about Daxam.”

“What was great…? I don’t understand.”

Another boom rocks the building, chunks of the ceiling falling around them both. “There’s no time,” Ral rasps ever more weakly around horribly split lips. “You have to go now, before you’re buried with me. You’ll find a way,” Ral says, and Mon-El knows he isn’t talking about escaping.

Mon-El backs away towards the cell’s only exit, reluctant to leave the only man he’s ever called friend – called family. The only person who’s only truly loved him for him.

Sensing his bond-brother’s reluctance, Ral’s voice softens, “I’m already a memory, brother. Go before it’s too late.”

Just as he reaches the doorway, he looks back just in to time to see a chunk of the stone ceiling fall and strike Ral in the head, caving in a large portion of his skull.

It is a killing blow, he knows, instantly sparing his brother from a slow agonizing death from internal bleeding. It is a death for which to thank the gods, but instead he feels only rage for stealing the life of the only good thing he ever had in his life. The only thing that was ever his.

Mon-El hands fist tightly as his anger and grief wells up within him and then overflows. “Noooooo!” he screams.

****

Mon-El isn’t with them anymore, if he ever had been in the last few horrible minutes. He’s somewhere deep inside his own fractured mind, remembering traumatic events of long ago as if they were happening for the first time – like cutting away healthy flesh to find a bloody, festering wound beneath. Regaining her feet, struggling to overcome the effects electricity has on her, Kara manages to shake off her disorientation and move towards him just as two things happen at once.

“Nooooooo!” he screams, blind eyes focused on something she can’t see while his hands fist together hard enough to stress the bone.

And then the room explodes.

“Get down, get down!” Kara screams, as agents dive for cover under and behind any available protective surface. Red beams of light shoot around the cavernous room cutting through everything they touch like a soldering iron. His sudden onset heat vision is made all the more uncontrollable by the fact that his feet are hovering several inches from the ground.

He mumbles incoherently for the most part, only the occasional phrase making sense inside the chaos he creates. “Where is he!?” he demands. “Where has he gone?” His ravings continue as Kara ushers people to safety, her first priority getting them out of the line of his unintentional fire. When the last of the agents is removed to safety she considers her options as she observes his delirious raving. “Looking for this—“

Taking flight, Kara shoots toward him, striking him at mid-level and pulling him down to the ground, both of them sliding across the floor until they’re buried in a wall. The beams of red-hot heat shoot into the ceiling, which crumbles around them. She can barely restrain him as he thrashes beneath her and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, but she has to end this before someone gets seriously injured.

It tears her heart out, the inhuman sounds he makes, as if he’s reached down into the deepest parts of himself and found his most excruciating pain, bringing it to the surface and using his own voice as its release valve. Where is he now, she wonders? Marinating in some hellish mind palace with no way out but death?

Kara covers his vision beams with her hands, absorbing them and keeping them doing any more damage.

“He’s out of control, Kara!” she hears Alex shouting.

She knows her sister is right. He’s out of control and out of his mind and there’s only one thing she can do. Balling her hand in a fist, she rears back and slams it in his jaw, once and then a second time, both times his head rolling right back like a ball-ended punching bag that always comes back for more.

“Yes,” he seethes, his voice filled with hatred. “Kill me,” he shouts, lost in a delusion she can’t understand. “Kill me now, if you can! Your last—“

His next words are drowned out when he turns his head, his laser beams striking the glass walls to the outdoor balcony, causing them to shatter and explode. Thousands of tiny glass missiles spray the atrium like a glittering rain of deadly diamonds.

“Mon-El,” she sobs, her face wet with tears. “Please?” Kara begs, but she doesn’t know what she’s begging for, maybe praying for, other than for it to end. Like an answer to her heartfelt but unarticulated prayer, his heat vision sputters out as he lay beneath her, as if he’s gained some measure of control.

She punches him again, blood splattering from his noise and upper lip, which is when she realizes he hasn’t gained control of his heat vision, but has simply expended the reserves of yellow sun radiation in his cells—solar flaring—which makes him utterly vulnerable.

His eyes widen as his mind flares to lucidity to find Kara hovering over him, her fist coming down towards his face with alarming force. In the instant that her fist makes contact, and pain explodes in his head, he’s certain that death awaits him.

His last thought as darkness closes in around him is that this morning he awoke a hero, and somewhere along the line, without knowing where he mis-stepped, he became a villain.

The End

(To be continued)

#karamel fic #hanging on letting go series

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ds4design · 8 years

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Lando Calrissian Ponders a Very Important Baby Gift in This Excerpt From Star Wars Aftermath: Empire's End

One of the most significant events between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens is the birth of Han and Leia’s son Ben. In this exclusive excerpt from Empire’s End, the final installment in Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy, it turns out Lando’s been a bit too busy to pay much attention to his old friends or their babies.

The Aftermath novels have been chronicling the continued fall of the Empire and rise of the New Republic following the Emperor’s death. While they primarily follow a small group of rebels who hunt for missing Imperial officers (and occasionally Han Solo, when he goes missing), each book checks in with characters all over the galaxy; in Empire’s End, due out February 21, that includes Lando. In this excerpt, he recollects how he took back Cloud City, but also has the best idea for a baby gift in any galaxy.

First, here’s the official synopsis of the book:

EVERY END IS A NEW BEGINNING.

As the final showdown between the New Republic and the Empire draws near, all eyes turn to a once-isolated planet: Jakku.

The Battle of Endor shattered the Empire, scattering its remaining forces across the galaxy. But the months following the Rebellion’s victory have not been easy. The fledgling New Republic has suffered a devastating attack from the Imperial remnant, forcing the new democracy to escalate their hunt for the hidden enemy.

For her role in the deadly ambush, Grand Admiral Rae Sloane is the most wanted Imperial war criminal—and one-time rebel pilot Norra Wexley, back in service at Leia’s urgent request, is leading the hunt. But more than just loyalty to the New Republic drives Norra forward: Her husband was turned into a murderous pawn in Sloane’s assassination plot, and now she wants vengeance as much as justice.

But Sloane, too, is on a furious quest: pursuing the treacherous Gallius Rax to the barren planet Jakku. As the true mastermind behind the Empire’s devastating attack, Rax has led the Empire to its defining moment. The cunning strategist has gathered the powerful remnants of the Empire’s war machine, preparing to execute the late Emperor Palpatine’s final plan. As the Imperial fleet orbits Jakku, an armada of Republic fighters closes in to finish what began at Endor. Norra and her crew soar into the heart of an apocalyptic clash that will leave land and sky alike scorched. And the future of the galaxy will finally be decided.

And here’s the excerpt. We hope Lando actually got baby Ben the gift. Or maybe that’s what turned him to the Dark Side?

“Lobot, we’re home.” Lando lifts a dubious eyebrow as he looks around, exasperated. “Guess the Empire didn’t keep up with housekeeping.”

This is the Casino level. Game machines line the smooth blue alactite floors far as the eye can see. Sabacc tables, too. And pazaak. And jubilee wheels. Along the far wall are banks of holoprojectors meant to show the latest swoop race down on the track-tubes piped through Bespin’s toxic Red Zone atmosphere. Once, this was a shining pillar of gambling excess: classy and bright with light coming in through windows looking out over the sun-kissed clouds. Now it’s wrecked. Trash drifts and tumbles. Machines have been turned over, their credits cut from inside like food from a beast’s belly. The windows are covered over with metal. The holoprojectors are dark. Lobot steps up alongside Lando. The computer forming a half-moon around the back of the man’s bald head blinks and pulses, and at Lando’s wrist is a communication from his friend and cohort:

I’ll look into rehiring staff immediately.

“Do that,” Lando says. Then he thrusts up a finger. “Ah. But make sure we’re hiring some refugees, will you?” The galaxy’s like a cup that’s been knocked over, and now everything’s spilling out. Whole worlds have been displaced by the war. Lando can’t let Cloud City turn from being a city of luxury to being a tent city of expats and evacuees, but he can damn sure give those people jobs. That’s his favorite kind of arrangement: the kind where everybody gets something for their trouble. They win. He wins. The ideal for how everything should work.

Cloud City was always that, for Calrissian. It was a respite—a refuge from the Empire while at the same time not existing to spite the Empire, either. He thought, Hey, everybody can be happy, baby. The Empire didn’t have to care. The rebels didn’t need to care. Cloud City could hang in the air above Bespin, separate from all the chaos, from all the strife. Come here, taste a little luxury. Meanwhile, he could mine the Tibanna gas, sell it to whatever starship manufacturer wanted it (the stuff was perfect for making hyperdrives, because with Tibanna, a little went a long way). Meanwhile, Lando could sit back, have a drink, roll some dice, find a lady or three.

Yeah. It didn’t work out that way.

He knows now: In a war like this one, you don’t get to be in the middle. You can’t play both sides. He’d lived his whole life shooting right down the middle, never taking up a cause except the one meant to support his own empty pockets. Those days are over and so is his love of sweet neutrality. When Vader came here, everything changed. He lost Han, for a time. He lost Lobot and Cloud City. He lost nearly everything.

But he gained a little perspective.

And he picked a damn side. Because sometimes, you want to win, you gotta bet big. You gotta put your stack of chits in one place.

It paid off. The Empire is gone. And now he’s a hero of the Rebellion (and oh, you can be sure he used that to con more than his fair share of free drinks, not to mention the attention of beautiful admirers). But all he wants is his city back. After Endor, he thought he would just be able to sweep in here like a handsome king retaking his throne in the sky—but then that son-of-a-slug Governor Adelhard formed the Iron Blockade. He kept the people here trapped not only by a well-organized Imperial remnant, but also by a grand lie: that Palpatine was not dead. And Lando knows that old shriveled cenobite is dead—because he’s the one who took out the Death Star’s reactor core. And because Luke said the monster was dead. Can you believe it? Palpatine and Vader. Both gone. Two scourges, scoured from the galaxy.

Suddenly he had a second war to fight. Here he thought the Empire was done for and Cloud City was once again his. What an eager fool. Nothing’s ever that simple, is it? It took months and months. He had to stage an uprising. Had to interface with Lobot on the inside. Had to cash in favors with a handful of scoundrels—like Kars Tal-Korla, that pirate. All because the New Republic wouldn’t commit a military action to retaking the city. He respects it, he understands it, and Leia put it best when she said, “The Rebellion was easy, Lando. Governing’s harder.” The chancellor was just trying to hold on to whatever advantage she had—and then with the Liberation Day attack on Chandrila . . .

Well. All that is over and done. No need to dwell.

Cloud City is his once again. Lando starved out Adelhard. Most of the Imperials surrendered. It’s over. Thank the lucky stars.

He steps forward into the Casino level, and he and Lobot aren’t alone. He’s got a ragtag force with him: some of his Wing Guard security forces, but some New Republic soldiers, too. It’s just enough to perform cleanup on those who linger behind, clinging to the illusion they can still win this thing.

Together they march forward through the wreckage of the Casino level. He asks Lobot: “The holdouts are ahead?”

Yes. In the Bolo Tanga room.

“Fine, fine, let’s get this over with and evict our final tenants.”

As they walk, Lobot looks over at him as a new communication flashes across his wrist: I am told to remind you that the princess will soon give birth and you have not yet procured for them the standard natal gift.

“What? That’s impossible. She was just—I swear they just got married—didn’t I just get them a nuptial gift?”

It has been the proper biological time. You just do not realize how much time has passed. We have been busy.

“So have they, I guess.”

Also, you never got them a nuptial gift.

He sighs. “Okay, okay. Buying gifts for a kid. Can we get him a cute little cape and a mustache so he looks like old Uncle Lando?”

Lobot doesn’t respond, offering only a humorless stare.

“Fine, fine, I’ll think about it.” His mind drifts briefly to Han and Leia. Han, one of his oldest and greatest friends. And sure, one of his greatest rivals, too. He misses that old reprobate. The crazy times they had!

Good times even when they were bad. And now, Han is with Leia. Hoo, boy. Those two are a pair of rocket boosters firing full-bore. Lando just hopes those two engines are both firing in the same direction—because if they’re ever pointed at each other, they’ll burn each other up.

We’re here.

That, from Lobot. Ahead waits the door to the Bolo Tanga room. Lando can see it’s been sealed with mag-alloy. He turns to Captain Gladstone of the Wing Guard. “We got imaging?”

Gladstone nods. “They’re holed up in there. They’ve broken through to the beam outtake shaft, which in theory would lead them to the engineering sublayer—”

“But the fumes coming up through the shaft will kill them if they try.”

“That’s exactly it, Baron Administrator.”

“So they’re trapped.”

“Like crete-bugs in a beetle-bag.”

“All right, let’s open it up.”

From the book STAR WARS: AFTERMATH: EMPIRE’S END by Chuck Wendig. Copyright © 2017 by Lucasfilm Ltd. Reprinted by arrangement with Del Rey Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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bienready2122 · 4 years

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Perhaps It's Love (Chapter 25 thru 28: Dancing and Demise)

Moving and Demise

In the days that followed, Tasma wanted to stow away in corners when she saw Jill or Johnny close by, however Tommy ended up being a magnificent companion, and audience, as to stay with her. During this period, Johnny and Jill settled down around evening time by the TV in the parlor and drank lager and ate potato chips, popcorn, etcetera, as Tasma called them: the Coke days in her journal, for she drank a great deal of coke. The issue was, from Tasma's perspective, if Jill didn't drink with Johnny at home, he'd go out and drink. What's more, she would not like to go to the bar any longer than what she needed to; in addition to the posse was all the while searching for him; not looking hard, however looking, so it was a do-win circumstance, so she remained his drinking accomplice Chapters Interactive Stories Diamond Hack All things considered, it became, Tasma and Tommy invested more energy talking than Jill and Tasma; her bashfulness appeared to blur with him, as herself-certainty developed and bloomed like a rose. It was during these dozen or so days they began to play music together and move in every others rooms; it was practically getting everyday practice. On an alternate note, during these equivalent days, Johnny give the impression to be missing something, he was somewhat hesitant. Tommy got to speculation, and communicating to Tasma he felt Johnny and Jill's relationship depended on some careless pride, or perhaps they were simply glad nitwits. Tasma didn't agree with his position she realized he was harmed, what man wouldn't be subsequent to being cheated out of what he may believe was his assets, as men frequently might suspect.

- Johnny, abhorred Jill's sticking on to him, yet he acknowledged it with troubling placidity. He wouldn't fret satisfying, yet detested duty. The youngster would just be an interference for him, an awkward one at that. To be very genuine, Jill was not all that, totally glad about her being pregnant. Apparently, her youngster would be expected the principal seven day stretch of November, she figured she got pregnant the first of March, and around five weeks presently had passed.

Spring, l968

The days had coagulated by, into weeks, at that point months and it would be not some time before a year would be added to Tasma's repertoire for being gone. Spring had shown up. During this time, the next long stretches of spring, Tasma kept doing some light housekeeping for Jill and the Belmont's. In spite of the fact that Tasma's life was not all that hard, Jill's from multiple points of view being more enthusiastically, yet it was hard for her to rehash it by moving back home to Minnesota. Also, the more she was gone, the more this got written in stone for her salvation; as she saw it in any case, and everything was changing, or had changed, and the hole extend among Minnesota and Seattle.

On the off chance that anything moved these four youthful grown-ups, it was youth and gravity, with crying hearts. All in their own particular manner had an inflexible craving forever's carelessness, shocks, passionate crazy ride, and desserts.

Drinking and Playing

Thus Johnny and Jill drank postulations days away sitting in front of the TV, setting off to the bar, working, as Tommy and Tasma become better companions with playing records and moving.

As Tasma was hitting the dance floor with Tommy in her room, a Friday evening, she began to see the ascent and fall of his heart, its vibration, its beat; it resembled a baritone on occasion and a quick thumping drum; it kept going as long as she hit the dance floor with him. She put Tommy's hand on her heart, "Do you feel my heart thumping quick, "she inquired. Tommy incapable to talk, his hand apparently was deadened in the middle of her bosoms, incompletely on the lower bit of her correct bosom.

[Finally he gagged out] "Can't state I can;" for some strange explanation he felt there ought to be disgrace in his face, yet there wasn't any: as it's been said, 'A face without blood,' yet I state once more, he didn't feel that way. Tasma had on an Elvis tune, "Love me Tender," and it was playing again and again. Tommy's hand felt her meager abdomen and hips, as though she was a boat, gradually moving them just creeps toward every path. Tasma at the present was feeling somewhat abnormal, she needed to advise Tommy to quit pressing her dress with his hands, yet couldn't figure on the best way to instruct him to move them, she was dumbfounded for the occasion.

Out of nowhere Tommy stated, "We should take a walk, okay?"

"Truly, yes," she prattled out in a free immolating way.

The cool dim air appeared to be captivating as they strolled down the walkway by the numerous houses and trees on the streets. She ended into a quiet as they strolled past entryways and roads and vehicles. She picked a top of a fragment from a help divider to a yard and put it in her mouth, her mom used. At that point with the fragment in her mouth she kept on strolling the dim road. Tasma needed to disclose to Tommy she was somewhat frightened of strolling in obscurity like this, she would have gotten a kick out of the chance to show this; in spite of the fact that she preferred the crisp and coolness of the night; yet he abruptly convoluted and they headed back as though he could peruse her feelings in the quietness.

"I'll be fine," said Tasma, as Tommy saw her, leaving her at her room entryway.

"Obviously you will," she said with a grin, as he stood gazing at her. Having said that, she moved her hands daintily over his shoulders, magnificent that he had once observed her exposed now, and nobody else; these were all new affections for her. As they remained there a minute longer, Jill's tobacco smoke floated up to her from the lounge and made her hack a piece, diverting their look into one another's eyes.

His gentile voice said something, yet she didn't make it out, her heartbeat was initiated and she didn't have the foggiest idea why, and well, she pulled him to her mid-body segment, against her body firmly, she felt something hard against her thigh, somewhat dumbfounded by what she felt and pondering internally she looked down: "In any case - (eyes all the way open) it's just you," she felt it must be okay and now refreshed into and onto his shoulder zone, she totally overlooked the hardness upon her thigh, some way or another the inclination was acceptable. Her dress was a thick white; Tommy could see her long dainty legs through it.

It was a decent completion for a taxing day and night thought Tommy as he strolled a ting unbalanced back to his room. For Tasma it was a difficult day, she was intellectually and genuinely exhausted. The two of them fell into bed like a sack of potatoes, and longed for each other.

Dozing

Tasma, attempted to rest, yet in such cases like love, or so she was feeling she was in such a phase, a sluggish condition of affection, or that it could be such a crossroads, one needs to departmentalize such things she modernized. Sort them out, sort of, and that is the thing that she was doing, hurling and turning presently in bed. [She thought]: 'Tommy is attempting to be pleasant to me, not out of feeling frustrated about me, for he is, or is by all accounts genuinely connected, what I would need, yet I don't need my character broken, or going out of control over some sincerely mending kick due to his misfortune with Jill, I don't need a bounce back; I need to keep my regard.'

In a manner she discovered Tommy much like her, with respect to the two of them could be thought of: isolated from the crowd and the two of them knew this. Also, night requested less from one another, other than regard, fun and discussion, friendship, kinship. With Jill and Johnny, it was simply Johnny who was not as much included sincerely with Jill, for she was wild about him. Every one of them needed the greater part of what life brought to the table, somehow.

Le Coup de Foudre

[Love from the start Sight]

Tommy was presently composing ordinarily between 700 and 2,000 words every day; and working at the bar still; he had wrapped up his tutoring totally, so that was off the beaten path (in spite of the fact that he'd need to take a temporary position sooner rather than later). Tasma notice his significant love for the word, and his interminable vitality he put into everything; it helped her to remember F. Scott Fitzgerald who lived not a long way from her uncle's home in St. Paul, Minnesota, at 599 Summit Ave. She particularly preferred his short stories in the book called, "Floppers and Philosophers," they were generally engaging. She recollected that his family had given him a space to compose his accounts in, specifically, "This Side of Paradise," which was his first book, and some state his generally encouraging. This obviously, permitted him the tranquil time he expected to do his story, and to engage with it. She sort of felt like Zelda, his significant other, she needed to do likewise, or might want to do likewise for Tommy; yet she reviewed, Zelda was somewhat sick and requesting if not unhinged, so she took Zelda's body, and his mom's caring interest, and imagined she was a piece of them in Tommy's composing profession. She realized that from the outset, when she had met him in the bar upon appearance, she loved him, and much more when he was acquainted with her as Jill's beau. Goodness she scrutinized his steadfastness and aims, however it was, 'unexplainable adoration,' so she felt now.

She at that point turned her musings to her journal, and how it was getting along as Tommy was wrapping up a draft to his book in the family room.

"I got the chance to send it off to certain distributers tomorrow," he said with fulfillment. On another issue as she sat in the easy chair, she was not cupid's little girl she let herself know, nor an evil human like Jill, yet her human instinct was staying at work past 40 hours with her childhood and it would appear to a lesser degree she was being- - or had been- - stricken, had been I believe was more the reality of the situation.

This new experience of adoration for Tasma was another and natural one, with a drive that separated into 'the desire,' territory so she guaranteed to herself, her second-self. She was currently, some way or another inclination it was OK to proceed, so she disclosed to her second-self inside her body; she was not in the chase for mate specifically, she didn't think so at any rate, however her concentration and vitality was going toward that path (toward Tommy), in any case; her neurological, and endorphin level was without a doubt - and they were high.

She was asking herself, '...was this within phase of what individuals call sentimental love?' love inside her body, 'Le Coup de Foudre [love from the start sight]' as she let herself know (feeling just as a lighte

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printablecalendar2020-blog · 5 years

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Blank September 2020 Calendar

September is the ninth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian schedules. In the Northern Hemisphere September is what could be compared to March in the Southern Hemisphere. September is the start of the meteorological pre-winter in the Northern side of the equator and the start of the meteorological spring in the Southern half of the globe.

HOW Might I PRINT A CALENDAR FOR SEPTEMBER 2020?

September is the ideal month for fresh out of the plastic new beginnings, objectives, and choices to keep our vitality high. In this way, it may be a smart thought to get a September 2020 Calendar schedule format! You may consider arranging your September month utilizing your clear September 2020 schedule. Set your objectives, plan your assignments, realize occasions ahead of time with your September 2020 schedule with occasions. You can spare your September 2020 schedule in PDF or JPG design on your PC in the wake of downloading it. At that point, you may handily print it through a printer appending with your PC. In the event that you need to investigate the unique days of the most recent month, you can download the August 2020 schedule, in the event that you need to design one month from now ahead of time you can download and print the October 2020 printable schedule. You will see, everything will be simpler and increasingly fun!

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF SEPTEMBER?

September (from Latin septem, "seven") was initially the seventh of ten months on the most seasoned known Roman schedule, with March (Latin Martius) the principal month of the year until maybe as late as 153 BC. After the schedule change that additional January and February to the start of the year, September turned into the ninth month, however, it held its name. It had 29 days until the Julian change, which included a day.

September was classified as "gather month" in Charlemagne's schedule. It compares halfway to the Fructidor and incompletely to the Vendémiaire of the main French republic. On Usenet, it is said that September 1993 (Eternal September) never finished. September is called Herbstmonat, reap month, in Switzerland. The Anglo-Saxons called the month Gerstmonath, grain month, that yield being then generally gathered.

Meteor showers that happen in September incorporate the Aurigids, the Delta Aurigids which happen from mid-September to early October, the Southern Taurids, which happen from September 10 to November 20, and the Andromedids which happen from September 25 – December 25.

WORLD TEACHER'S DAY

The United Nations' (UN) World Teachers' Day praises the job instructors play in giving quality training at all levels yearly on October 5. It is watched everywhere throughout the world since 1994 after the UNESCO Recommendation concerning Teachers.

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORLD TEACHER'S DAY?

The day may likewise be seen by meetings basic the significance of educators and training, and their issues. World Teachers' Day is committed to expanding open mindfulness on issues identified with instructors and educating by and large. This mindfulness incorporates subjects like the significance of all degrees of instruction and the difficulties educators regularly face in underdeveloped nations.

HOW TO CELEBRATE WORLD TEACHER'S DAY?

Today, in excess of 100 countries observe World Teachers' Day all around.

World Teachers' Day empowers kids and grown-ups of any age to figure out how to partake in and add to their nearby network and worldwide society. In World Teachers' Day, different occasions are composed of numerous nations around the globe. These remember festivities to respect instructors for general or the individuals who have made an exceptional commitment to a specific network.

On the off chance that you need to recollect the significance of the educators throughout your life again, this is a decent chance to bring issues to light on this issue. You can put a blemish on this day on your October 2020 schedule printable to recollect.

#semtember #2020 #calendar

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webart-studio · 5 years

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Your Information May Be Protected within the Cloud However What Occurs When It Leaves the Cloud?

Within the age of information breaches, corporations have a accountability to safeguard delicate info. Entrepreneurs can defend knowledge throughout transactions by taking Four easy steps.

April 7, 2019 5 min learn

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their very own.

With extra delicate knowledge saved within the cloud than ever earlier than, entrepreneurs have to know learn how to preserve info relating to their corporations and their clients secure.

Cloud service suppliers can efficiently defend knowledge bodily and technologically whereas it’s within the cloud, however that info could be weak to hacking as quickly because it leaves the cloud to work together with one other system. Even when corporations implement solely cloud-based techniques, they typically use knowledge backups and on-site storage indirectly. These techniques additionally fall underneath your accountability.

Simply take a look at February’s StreetEasy breach, through which hackers stole info from 1,000,000 accounts. Hackers did not entry this info throughout the actual property firm’s day-to-day operations; they stole it utilizing a database backup from 2016. Private info from these accounts — together with electronic mail addresses, usernames, the final 4 digits of bank cards, expiration dates and extra — is now obtainable on the market on the darkish net. This lesson is tough (and expensive) for entrepreneurs: It’s important to defend knowledge each step of the best way.

Associated: 7 Shocking Locations Hackers Conceal

Paradoxically, the myriad advantages of cloud-based knowledge storage can turn out to be dangers if companies aren’t cautious. Transactional knowledge requests could be made and fulfilled from just about anyplace on this planet, utilizing any related gadget — when a doctor’s workplace requests entry to a affected person’s hospitalization information, for example, or when a buyer purchases footwear on-line.

This rapid-fire communication makes enterprise operations run smoother, quicker and much more effectively. It additionally implies that knowledge could be left uncovered except you’re taking the right precautions. To guard your knowledge by means of each transaction, take the next measures:

1. Observe web security.

Utilizing digital non-public networks (VPNs) and safe socket layer/transport layer safety (SSL/TLS) helps be sure that your web connection does not depart you uncovered when working with knowledge that travels from one system to a different. A VPN makes your connection non-public and retains your on-line exercise, IP deal with and gadget info nameless. Use VPNs to entry computer systems or networks remotely, particularly for those who or your staff are utilizing public Wi-Fi.

SSL/TLS encrypts and safeguards delicate knowledge because it’s transferred between two techniques (resembling shopper/server or procuring cart/browser), stopping would-be criminals from studying and modifying that info. When accessing an internet site to make a purchase order, guarantee that the deal with begins with “https,” which verifies that the positioning is encrypting and hiding your knowledge from prying eyes.

Associated: 12 Easy Issues You Can Do to Be Extra Safe On-line

2. Encrypt related units.

Your encryption processes want to increase past the knowledge you retailer within the cloud, particularly with so many related and exterior units utilized in regular enterprise operations. As a enterprise proprietor, you should just be sure you encrypt any related units, laborious disks, USB drives and associated units. Any unencrypted knowledge saved on these units endangers the privateness, funds and identification of your organization and your clients.

Among the greatest worldwide knowledge breaches in historical past have been tracked again to contaminated USB drives, notably together with a U.S. Division of Protection breach in 2008. For instance, we had a healthcare shopper that was legally required to safeguard any units that may include affected person well being info (PHI). Sadly, somebody stole a doctor’s unencrypted laptop computer that contained affected person information from his automotive throughout a lunch break, leading to a violation that incurred a hefty wonderful (HIPAA violations can vary from $100 to $1.5 million).

Unencrypted knowledge is like handing your pockets over to a stranger, together with your bank cards, insurance coverage playing cards and types of identification. By encrypting your units, you make sure that folks can’t retrieve delicate knowledge from a stolen or misplaced laborious drive with out an encryption key.

3. A number of elements are higher than one.

What coaching does your organization presently give staff about creating, storing and defending their passwords? How does your organization provide password-protected buyer accounts? The fact is that almost all passwords aren’t safe — simple to recollect often means simple to hack.

Companies ought to use multifactor authentication (MFA) as a baseline. The precept behind MFA is that no single authentication issue is ideal. A second or third issue can compensate for the weaknesses of others. Complement your password with one or two authentication elements that aren’t simple for different folks to guess, utilizing an authenticator in your cellular gadget, for instance, or a biometrics issue like fingerprint or voice.

Associated: What You Have to Know About Multifactor Authentication

4. Defend backups within the face of ransomware.

When ransomware assaults a machine, backups are often the final line of protection. For this reason trendy attackers are utilizing extra subtle packages to penetrate safeguards. In March 2018, the cybersecurity world was launched to ransomware Zenis, which not solely encrypts information but additionally purposely deletes backups till the sufferer meets the hacker’s calls for.

A 2017 Malwarebytes report discovered that ransomware detections had been up 90 and 93 % for companies and customers, respectively, and that these assaults have gotten extra prevalent. All the time defend {hardware} and software program with anti-virus and anti-malware purposes, otherwise you’ll be a simple goal.

With the variety of related units, knowledge transfers and backups required to carry out typical enterprise operations, corporations want to guard knowledge each step of the best way. Even with cloud storage or a cloud computing system, knowledge could be weak when it is in transit, in backups or saved on unencrypted units. Take the above steps to guard your knowledge and your clients’ info.

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ultrasfcb-blog · 6 years

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Concussion in rugby: Mind skilled requires restrict to contact coaching

The concussion charge in elite English rugby has risen for six straight years

Rugby ought to restrict – or ban completely – contact coaching classes through the season to scale back the danger of mind damage, a number one concussion skilled has stated.

Advisor neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart believes the charges of concussion within the skilled recreation are “unacceptably excessive” and the game should change to maintain its gamers protected.

English rugby’s newest annual injury audit confirmed concussion was probably the most reported damage for the sixth successive season in 2016-17, whereas greater than one-third of all accidents have been sustained throughout coaching.

The speed of concussion rose for the seventh 12 months working, reaching a degree of 20.9 concussions per 1,000 hours of match play.

Though there are inconsistencies in knowledge assortment between sports activities, that determine is greater than comparable reported charges in boxing and signifies that, for each elite English rugby match, one participant is anticipated to undergo a mind damage.

A March report discovered 20.9 concussions have been sustained per 1,000 hours of match play in English skilled rugby – roughly one per recreation

The report additionally discovered World Rugby’s heightened sort out sanctions for contact to the pinnacle had no impact on the frequency of concussion.

English rugby chiefs will now work with the worldwide governing physique to implement an eight-point plan designed to make the sport safer.

In the meantime, the concussion charge continues to rise, 12 months on 12 months, and nothing rugby’s powerbrokers have carried out thus far has proved an efficient methodology of slowing it down.

“I do know some former skilled gamers who regarded ahead to the weekend match as a result of it gave them a relaxation,” Stewart informed BBC Scotland. “In the course of the week they have been simply getting destroyed.

“We’re speaking about diagnosable, recognisable mind accidents – there’s increasingly more proof coming that it is not simply those that produce signs which might be the issue, it is the cumulative impact of all of the smaller ones as nicely, those that do not essentially produce signs.

Fraser Brown noticed a specialist this 12 months after sustaining a number of mind accidents

“If, through the week, as an alternative of getting a number of days of contact coaching with increasingly more impacts on high of one another, you get rid of that, you are going to phenomenally cut back the variety of impacts over the season and that may’t be a nasty factor.

“There’s an entire lot of pointless publicity. Skilled rugby gamers remember by Monday or Tuesday find out how to play rugby, find out how to sort out, how to enter a ruck.”

‘The damage threat is much too excessive’

Fatigue was widely blamed for England’s poor Six Nations campaign, with 12 of the squad that completed fifth having toured with the British and Irish Lions final summer time, along with their membership calls for.

Gamers in Scotland and Eire are centrally-contracted, with restrictions positioned on the workload of internationalists.

“What was steered for England’s performances through the Six Nations? They’d performed an excessive amount of rugby,” Stewart stated.

Maro Itoje was one in every of 16 English gamers to tour with the 2017 British and Irish Lions

“Why have been Eire, Scotland profitable? Maybe higher participant administration. The internationalists have been protected.

“You get the most effective from the gamers over the season, however their careers ought to last more as nicely. You possibly can see gamers like Stuart Hogg lasting the course quite than having to pack it in early as a result of they’re struggling.

“If you wish to see the most effective gamers enjoying the most effective recreation for so long as attainable then it is smart recreation administration and smart coaching administration.

“That is simple and, if World Rugby have been critical about it, they might say, ‘This can be a mandate from on-high, underneath World Rugby’s code, skilled gamers should not do contact coaching through the season any greater than at some point every week, for instance, or under no circumstances’.

Stuart Hogg helped Scotland to 3 wins from 5 Six Nations matches this 12 months

“World Rugby is accountable for the sport. If leagues select to disregard that, they’re then culpable for what occurs 10-20 years down the road. World Rugby can say it did what it may.

“The damage threat is much too excessive and we all know gamers who’re drained and who have gotten niggly accidents are liable to additional damage.

“So it might be that, by reducing again on contact time through the week, you really cut back accidents in matches as nicely.”

‘Referees have an impossibly onerous process’

In response to the English knowledge, World Rugby appeared to lay the blame on the door of referees, suggesting RFU match officers had not policed their directive as stringently as demanded.

Former Scotland prop and certified doctor Dr Geoff Cross says at this time’s referees face a mountainous process in overseeing matches.

“There’s a drawback we wish to be onerous on – mind damage,” stated Cross, who gained 40 caps from 2009 to 2015. “On the lookout for somebody to put the failure of a coverage or a plan on isn’t being onerous on the issue – it is being onerous on the folks.

On his Scotland debut in 2009, Cross knocked himself out in a collision with airborne Wales full-back Lee Byrne

“We want the folks onside to be onerous on the issue. That is referees, gamers, officers within the governing our bodies, managers.

“We will speak about conditioning, neck power, sort out method, regulation modifications and the way they’re enforced by referees, who’ve an impossibly onerous job, as a result of there’s extra to observe and catch than you’ll be able to presumably have the eye and time to do.

“The necessary factor is to discover a approach to construction the legal guidelines in order that the behaviour is as protected as it may be – protected behaviour is rewarded and harmful behaviour would not get a reward, so that you cease doing it.”

World Rugby assertion in response to Dr Stewart’s feedback: “World Rugby and its unions are dedicated to an evidence-based strategy to damage discount in any respect ranges of our sport, together with the precedence space of head accidents. We have now applied quite a few training, administration and prevention initiatives which might be confirmed to achieve success in additional defending gamers. These embrace the HIA, Graduated Return to Play and Event Participant Welfare Requirements on the elite degree in addition to decreasing the suitable peak of the sort out, international training and the Activate warm-up programme throughout all ranges of the sport. Analysis highlights the significance of particular person participant load administration in lowering damage threat in coaching and enjoying environments and we now have beforehand outlined our view that everybody within the recreation ought to pay shut consideration to this space.”

‘If unsure, sit them out’

Scotland is the primary nation to undertake uniform, cross-sport guidelines on managing brain injuries, which advise relaxation, then step-by-step rehabilitation.

Cross is a powerful advocate of cultural change, urging gamers to take duty for their very own wellbeing.

“The latest grassroots key message – if unsure, sit them out – and an try to alter the tradition from ‘should you’re robust, you retain going when injured and play via’, to: ‘should you’re not in a position to play to the most effective of your potential and there are match, succesful, motivated folks behind you, who you’re stopping from getting on and contributing by not leaving the sector, it is completely attainable you’re actually harming the efficiency of the group’,” he stated.

“That is a vital level for skilled rugby gamers to think about. The explanation it is notably necessary with mind damage is since you’re not your self as soon as you’ve got had a concussion and stuff you would usually do, how you’d take additional collisions, the way you reply to issues round you, aren’t the identical.

“My suspicion is that is more true for mind damage than it’s for musculoskeletal accidents, which rugby gamers are much more comfy with.”

‘It is a very massive and humble factor to ask’

How practical, although, is anticipating a participant within the savage throes of knowledgeable contest to willingly stroll off – notably whereas reeling from a probably rationale-wrecking, sense-scrambling collision?

“I’ve definitely had that feeling: I will simply give it ’til the subsequent play, the subsequent 10 minutes, ’til half-time, then I will resolve,” Cross admits.

“I used to be lucky despite that decision-making.

Cross (with beard) scored the second of his two Scotland tries towards Tonga in 2014

“What can we do to encourage folks? If somebody is trying to play rugby for so long as attainable, should you can reveal to them that there is behaviour that shortens their profession and leaves them with issues afterwards, they might hearken to that.

“If you happen to’re within the group’s efficiency, and there are folks in a position to do a greater job than you as a result of they don’t seem to be in an injured and weak place, the choice is obvious.

“That is a really massive and humble factor to ask. It is attainable and the sport can be higher if we may obtain that.”

‘I would take the advantages and the recollections’

There may be an ever-lengthening listing of gamers whose careers have been stalled or halted altogether by the results of a number of mind accidents.

There are retired rugby males of Cross’s classic who nonetheless grapple with the lingering toll of these blows, however many extra who emerge from the sport neurologically unscathed.

“If I used to be going into skilled rugby now from college, on the steadiness of threat, I would nonetheless wish to do this,” Cross stated.

Quite a few worldwide gamers have had their careers curtailed by accidents to the pinnacle and mind

“I would take the cardiovascular advantages and the recollections.

“The troublesome query to ask me is what would it not must appear to be for me to say, ‘Really, no thanks, it is not price it anymore’?

“Proper now, I haven’t got an trustworthy reply. That could be confessing some biases I’ve.

“The closest I may get to that was if I noticed a regression in tradition again to: ‘simply be robust, don’t be concerned about tomorrow since you’re dwelling for at this time’.

“You will have one mind in your entire life and most of the people are intending life to final a very long time. It is price having precautions and being cautious with it.”

‘Rugby wants to alter’

Stewart’s “intestine feeling” is that the advantages Cross describes nonetheless outweigh the dangers of mind damage, however insists the game should do extra to sort out the issue.

“There comes a degree the place you need to say this isn’t an appropriate degree and rugby reached that time a number of years in the past,” he stated. “Rugby wants to alter and can’t proceed exposing folks to a mind damage each match.

Dr Willie Stewart (left) was closely concerned in creating Scotland’s cross-sport concussion tips

“If we consider boxing being a sport folks draw back from due to the dangers of mind damage then we’re placing rugby in that league – that is why it has to alter.

“They’re getting higher at recognizing the damage however that does not take away from the truth that the accidents are occurring.

“The underside line is, we expect mind damage is an issue and should pose a long-term drawback for individuals who take part in these sports activities. Would not it’s higher if we had the advantages and decreased the dangers?”

BBC Sport – Rugby Union – – [#ultras_FC_Barcelona]

ultras FC Barcelona - https://ultrasfcb.com/rugby-union/2456/

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usatrendingsports · 7 years

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The All-Overrated MLB Group: Eric Hosmer, Evan Longoria, Albert Pujols prepared the ground

Eric Hosmer is coming off the most efficient particular person season of his profession . USATSI

Calling something “underrated” or “overrated” is all the time robust. The phrases are 100 % subjective and in addition considerably nebulous. How are we defining how the merchandise in query is “rated” (RE: Seen by the plenty) and the way will we determine that the entity is both higher or worse than the widespread view? Once more, it is tough.

It is also enjoyable for me and then you definately, my pricey readers, get to yell at me for the way a lot I suck. It is a win-win, so I am trudging ahead with the All-Underrated MLB Group (already performed, click on right here) and going with the All-Overrated MLB Group proper now.

Some vital issues to recollect earlier than we dive in:

Once more, that is subjective. These are gamers I imagine get an excessive amount of credit score within the current from giant teams of baseball followers and media. An important factor to recollect — which many will ignore and nonetheless yell at me — is that “overrated” does not imply “suck.” Most overrated gamers are good, in any other case individuals would not suppose they had been nice.

An underrated participant can nonetheless be a worse participant than an overrated participant. If we ranked gamers on a 1-100 video-game-like scale and a participant was extensively considered as a 90 and I really feel like he is an 80, I believe he is overrated. A participant will be extensively considered as a 70 and I’ve him as a 75ish, then he is underrated but in addition worse than the overrated participant. See? It is not tough.

These are for proper now. There are gamers on this listing with unbelievable profession our bodies of labor, however that does not imply they’re nonetheless superior. We’re taking a look at 2017 efficiency with our eyes on 2018.

Going again to level one, not solely is that this subjective, however it’s solely me. Matt Snyder. This is not “CBS Sports activities” rating these guys. Please do not blame my wonderful colleagues for my poor style. You possibly can yell at me through electronic mail ([email protected]) or Twitter (@MattSnyderCBS). Deliver it.

And now, onto the ever-polarizing All-Overrated Group!

Catcher – Yadier Molina, Cardinals

Would possibly as effectively dive proper into the deep finish, huh?

I am anticipating probably the most backlash to this one, so I am going to reiterate the purpose from the intro to Cardinals followers that this is not saying Molina is a nasty participant. Removed from it. In actual fact, he’ll be a first-ballot Corridor of Famer and I am not going to place up an argument. He was as soon as an elite participant.

He is simply not anymore, so his legions of supporters begin avoiding the numbers and go to intangibles. It is stuff I actually will not dismiss — a minimum of not in his prime — corresponding to being a frontrunner and dealing together with his pitching workers.

The underside line, although, is we’re speaking a few participant heading into his age-35 season after posting a 96 OPS+, 2.Zero WAR, enjoying on an 83-win group and dealing with a pitching workers that was mediocre. He is nonetheless an important defender behind the plate and his profession acumen doubtless factors to top-of-the-line ever, however we have got a participant with marginal numbers and his intangibles do not actually appear to be doing a lot for his group nowadays.

I am certain it is his teammates’ fault now, however again in his prime, how was Molina making all his teammates higher and now he is not? What occurred?

Possibly he simply was actually good and now he is overrated primarily based upon all these fond reminiscences?

Regardless, I sit up for the numerous overly well mannered emails and tweets misunderstanding the train. Shifting on!

Runner-up: Salvador Perez, Royals

First baseman – Eric Hosmer, free agent

Like most each participant on this listing, Hosmer is nice. He is coming off the most efficient particular person season of his profession, too, and it simply occurred to be in a stroll yr. After having watched Jim Leyland begin Hosmer over a clearly-superior Paul Goldschmidt via the World Baseball Traditional final March, I assumed I would seen peak overrated, however then this occurred …

One American League supervisor: ‘When you had been going to ask me three gamers to begin a group with, Eric Hosmer can be one among them’

— Rob Bradford (@bradfo) December 13, 2017

Come once more? There is a supervisor who thinks Hosmer is a prime three participant … gulp … in all of baseball? I might title 50 gamers with out even taking a breath.

Even for those who believed final season was how Hosmer would play each single yr, he is not even near prime 20, however his observe report says he will not try this. Simply to make use of one metric, listed here are Hosmer’s OPS+ figures by season: 118, 81, 118, 99, 122, 102, 132. He is a primary baseman with a profession excessive of 25 residence runs, regardless of residence run totals exploding at an unprecedented charge.

This is not even shut.

Runner-up: Wil Myers, Padres

Second baseman – Rougned Odor, Rangers

Hey, the slugging of Jose Bautista was the integral a part of one among baseball’s prime fights ever and he can undoubtedly hit residence runs. Possibly final season was simply an enormous step backward that may present a correction shifting ahead, too.

It is simply that, man, Odor was dreadful final season. On the great facet, he hit 30 residence runs and stole 15 bases. He performs good protection at an up-the-middle spot.

On the down facet is every little thing else. Odor hit .204. His OBP was .252. He struck out 162 occasions in comparison with 32 walks. With energy up throughout the league, his 30 residence runs weren’t almost as vital and his sub-.400 slugging share (.397) illustrates simply how little these 30 homers meant in opposition to every little thing else he did. To prime it off, Odor was this dangerous whereas enjoying in all 162 video games.

Add all of it collectively and also you get a damaging WAR. Huge-time punch (which wasn’t even final season), respectable (however not nice) previous observe report and residential runs apart, the Rangers would have been higher off with just about every other MLB common.

Additionally thought-about: Dustin Pedroia, Purple Sox; D.J. LeMahieu, Rockies; Brandon Phillips, free agent

Shortstop – Troy Tulowitzki, Blue Jays

It occurs. He is 33 years previous now and much faraway from being top-of-the-line shortstops in baseball. There is a crop of younger shortstops that blow him away. He ought to be overshadowed. Amongst die-hard baseball followers, we’re effectively conscious he is not near the highest. Generally, although, title recognition carries a man far previous his prime amongst informal followers. We might nonetheless discover tons of followers who would off-the-top of their head reply “sure” to “is Troy Tulowitzki a top-10 shortstop?” He isn’t.

It ought to be famous, after all, that the “overrated” crop wasn’t fruitful right here. Hopefully this wasn’t taken as an excessive amount of a knock on Tulo.

Runner-up: Addison Russell, Cubs

Third baseman – Evan Longoria, Giants

An early-career darling — and rightfully so for a number of causes — Longoria’s title nonetheless carries a number of weight round many informal baseball fan circles. He had an influence surge in 2016 that might have taken him off right here, however final yr, Longoria hit .261/.313/.424 (100 OPS+) with 20 homers in probably the most homer-crazy season of all-time. He is nonetheless a great defender, however there are many these at third and previously six seasons, he is topped 4 WAR only one time.

And, hey, I typed all that two days earlier than Longoria was traded. Seeing him in AT&T Park these subsequent few years is not going to assist his offensive prowess. In actual fact, our SportsLine projections even have the Giants performing barely worse after the Longoria deal than earlier than it.

Runner-up: Mike Moustakas, free agent

Outfielders – Jackie Bradley Jr., Purple Sox; Jay Bruce, free agent; Jose Bautista, free agent

A lot of Bradley’s offensive worth in his profession got here from a great 2016 season, however look even deeper there. He hit simply .233/.315/.412 within the second half that season and the overwhelming majority of his success got here in a ridiculous Could (.381/.474/.701). It was an important first half and an absurdly nice month, however via almost 2,000 plate appearances, Bradley is total hitting .239/.318/.407 in his profession. Some would possibly say he is younger, however is he actually? He’ll be 28 subsequent yr. It is not a coincidence we preserve seeing his title come up in commerce rumors.

I understand I preserve mentioning the house run surge, however it issues. Context behind numbers all the time issues. If Jay Bruce had hit 36 residence runs again within the Lifeless Ball Period, he was freaking Babe Ruth. Final season, it was good. What else did he do, although? He hit .254 with a .324 OBP. He would not run the bases effectively and he is a poor defender. You’ve got both gotta do greater than hit residence runs or hit about 50 to be good nowadays.

Bautista’s a reluctant entry after hitting .203 final season and I might simply be flawed. Frankly, I did not like many different selections resulting from both the gamers being not-that-bad or not having many individuals suppose they’re higher than dangerous. There’s additionally in all probability loads of Joey Bats, Famous person residue amongst informal followers, particularly those that solely watch the the playoffs and noticed probably the most epic bat flip of all-time.

Additionally thought-about: Carlos Gonzalez, free agent; Billy Hamilton, Reds; Nick Markakis, Braves; Matt Kemp, Dodgers (it ought to be famous many followers know most of those guys aren’t excellent — and I believe Cargo bounces again subsequent yr)

As for the inevitable “the place is Kyle Schwarber?” query: He was on this group final offseason. After his 2017 season, I am fairly certain everybody exterior Cubs Nation thinks he is uncooked sewage and even a few of them do. He isn’t overrated anymore. In actual fact, he would possibly begin swinging the opposite approach. It is simply how these items work.

Designated hitter – Albert Pujols, Angels

Everyone knows the drill by now, proper? Title recognition, solely 23 homers in a heightened energy period, and so on. How about this, although: Pujols had over 100 RBI and many individuals nonetheless go nuts over that. He was the beneficiary of 449 runners on base (234 in scoring place) and a participant together with his variety of plate appearances averaged solely 380 (186).

Additionally, amongst 144 certified hitters final season, Pujols ranked 128th in common, 139th in on-base share and 132nd in slugging.

Beginning pitchers – LHP Cole Hamels, Rangers; RHP Adam Wainwright, Cardinals

In gentle of Tuesday’s information relating to Mr. and Mrs. Hamels, let’s exit of our approach right here to level out they’re exemplary human beings and by no means does being honest right here have an effect on their overly beneficiant gesture. The four-time All-Star has already put collectively an impressive profession, too, which incorporates successful the 2008 NLCS and World Sequence MVPs.

He is simply not that Hamels anymore (four.20 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, career-low 6.four Okay/9 final season), and that is OK! Being a great individual is healthier anyway.

Wainwright was additionally nice for a very long time. He has 4 top-three finishes in Cy Younger voting. The profession pedigree is there, together with a great W-L report final season (12-5), in order that all the time helps issues when it comes to the informal fan overrating somebody. Wainwright additionally led the NL in hits and earned runs in 2016 after which adopted it up with a 5.11 ERA final yr. He is 36 now, so he is in all probability performed. It is nothing to be ashamed about. Father Time is undefeated. Dealing within the current in comparison with his title recognition, although, Wainwright is overrated.

Additionally thought-about: Jake Odorizzi, Rays; Sonny Grey, Yankees; Gerrit Cole, Pirates

Reduction pitcher – Greg Holland, free agent

As soon as arguably the most effective reliever in baseball (in 2013, Holland had a 1.21 ERA, Zero.87 WHIP and 103 strikeouts in opposition to 17 unintentional walks in 67 innings!), Holland was derailed by a serious damage. It was Tommy John surgical procedure and he was sitting 93-94 together with his fastball final season, down from 97 in his prime. He led the NL in saves final season, however that is in some methods one other tell-tale signal of how somebody can turn out to be overrated. It is an overrated stat by itself. Holland additionally acquired off to an incredible begin earlier than main regression. He had a 1.62 ERA within the first half in opposition to a 6.38 ERA within the second half.

Now, Holland did throw the ball very effectively in September and subsequent season is his second full yr again from Tommy John surgical procedure. He might effectively make me seem like a idiot in 2018 and that is superb. He was an important story final season, particularly early. I am not simply assured in his work shifting ahead in any respect.

Additionally thought-about: Kelvin Herrera, Royals; A.J. Ramos, Mets

Man, this one actually is hard. I can say all I need that “overrated” does not imply a participant stinks and I nonetheless really feel like I am hating on these guys and that is no enjoyable. I powered via, although. Time to brace myself for the replies.

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hottytoddynews · 7 years

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This Former President of Meredith Corporation Magazine Group and Member of the Ole Miss Alumni Hall of Fame is an Author, Poet, and World-Class Management Consultant

Acclaimed author, businessman and Ole Miss alumnus James Autry discounted the proverbial phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none” when he rose to the top of his successful media, business and literary careers.

He in fact defies separation of left-brained and right-brained mentalities, cohesively twining successes in media managing and writing with creative vigor.

He now serves as a national educational speaker, and consults and conducts leadership trainings for many international corporations in Australia, Canada, Iceland, The Bahamas, The Netherlands and Singapore. He remains humble about his accomplishments, and says he’s simply grateful to have had the experiences.

Each of his 13 published works including, Nights Under a Tin Roof: Recollections of a Southern Boyhood, Life After Mississippi, and his book released in June 2012, Choosing Gratitude: Learning To Love The Life You Have, are succinct portrayals of Autry’s grounded Southern raising all the way to his lesson-learned outlook on his life. His awards include the prestigious Johnson, Smith and Knisely Award for the book that contributed the most to executive thinking in 1992, Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership.

As a Memphis, Tennessee native, Autry ping-ponged between his hometown and north Mississippi in his early summers after his mother and father divorced. His experiences in Mississippi shaped several poems included in Nights Under a Tin Roof. Although Autry only calls a part of himself a Southerner, his occupation as a writer was never a question.

“I always knew I wanted to be a journalist,” said Autry. “I always told people what my goals were when I was young. I wanted to be a newspaperman and make $50 a week. People ask if that was my only goal, and I always say ‘yes.’”

Autry said his older brother Ronald was his hero in their father’s absence, despite an 11-year age gap. Autry sought paperboy jobs from the age of 12 to escape the destitution his father left him and his mother in. He yearned to follow in the footsteps of his brother, who worked for the Associated Press in Memphis and eventually advanced to AP bureau chief in Atlanta. He knew an education was required in order for that to happen.

Autry had somewhat of an unconventional start to his journalism career at the University of Mississippi, and it began with a clarinet.

“I wasn’t an athlete by any means,” Autry said. “A friend and I went to the first day of football tryouts and after the ‘beltline’ (lining up and running the field while the upperclassmen hit you with belts) we decided we’d never go back again.”

The same friend got involved with the high school band and encouraged Autry to join. He confessed he didn’t know how to play an instrument, but the friend reassured him all they really needed were bodies to march.

“I was handed a clarinet that I eventually learned to play,” he said. “I went to Ole Miss on a clarinet scholarship and marched all four years I was here. During my senior year there was a spot open for drum major, so I tried out and got it.”

With a journalism degree in hand, Autry then segued into the military. He flew jet fighters in France for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during the Cold War for three years. After exiting the Air Force he became editor and publisher of a small weekly newspaper, The Courier- Chronicle in Humboldt, Tennessee. While this was a valuable journalistic and life experience, Autry found himself searching for something more.

A fellow journalism student put him in touch with Tom Textor, the sales director of Better Homes and Garden Books. Textor was an ex-Navy pilot himself and when the two met in person they spent most of their time talking about ying. A job in sales was offered and Autry declined, as it was not in the realm of journalism.

However, Textor put in a good word for Autry with the managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine when they were looking to replace a copy editor in 1960. Autry obtained the copy editor job and by 1962 he was appointed managing editor. He left Meredith in 1967 to become editor and pubisher of New Orleans magazine.

Autry returned to Meredith Corp. in 1968 and by 1970 became the editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens. By 1976, Autry had become vice president and editor-in-chief of all magazines and books.

In the late 1970s, he went from being editor-in-chief of books and magazines to the general manager of the magazine group. “In other words, I moved from the editorial side to the business side,” Autry said. He fostered an atmosphere of teamwork and creativity that was very productive. “We went from four magazines to 17 in two years.”

Autry is well respected in all regards – especially by two Meek School of Journalism and New Media staples: Dean Will Norton and Samir Husni. Norton is a long-time friend, and Husni, the director of the Magazine Innovation Center, looks to Autry for mentorship.

As a transplant from Tripoli, Lebanon, Husni didn’t land in northern Mississippi after swirling his finger and picking a spot on the map. He landed in Texas and later Missouri to further his education. Then thanks to Norton and Autry in conjunction, he arrived in Oxford. The Meredith Corporation allotted money to spearhead the inception of the first magazine service journalism program in the nation, with Husni at the forefront.

As his mentor, Autry introduced him to people in the media and sent his first publication, “Samir’s Husni’s Guide to New Magazines,” to every magazine publisher in the U.S. to showcase the man in whom he believed.

“Some people may be deceived by Jim’s soft-spoken, Southern, genteel approach to things, but behind those attributes is a great brain at work,” Husni said. “It’s a brain that mixes the creative part with the execution part. He treated business with passion, creativity and all the complexities that a business needs with genuine interest.”

Autry’s experience in the magazine industry caused him to draw many insights to advise better working relationships and managerial directions. His leadership skills are known throughout the world.

“Managers inevitably believe they need to boss people,” he said. “You can’t scare people into doing a good job, but rather instill a certain level of con dence in your employees to see favorable results.”

Although the Golden Rule has always applied to his life, Autry clarified you don’t have to like whom you work with, but you do have to care about each other to ultimately achieve a common goal. Using that defined focus to achieve common goals is one he’d use for the remainder of his life, emphasizing always living his life in context with others. He says it’s something for millennials to live by, too.

“Our lives are not about ourselves,” Autry said. “The context we live in compared to others should be about supporting, nurturing and being sensitive to others.”

Norton said Autry had no reason to go out of his way to supplement the magazine journalism program at Ole Miss, but he took $25,000 out of his magazine budget to help establish it.

“Autry never acts like he’s a big deal,” Norton said. “He’s one of the few people I can call a spiritual person. He makes decisions, not for fame or money, but because he’s not going to be on Earth forever and he wants to do right.”

Norton said when he went to Autry’s retirement party in Des Moines in the early ’90s, the place was filled with people.

“People loved him,” he said. “Those people knew he cared about each and every single one of them.”

Retirement as senior vice president of The Meredith Corporation and president of its Magazine Group came early.

“I had done everything I wanted to do in my career,” he said. “Also, my wife was carrying a heavy load with our autistic son, Ronald, and I wanted to help more. I’m glad I decided to do that for us.”

He and his wife Sally Pederson, former lieutenant governor of Iowa, now play huge roles in supporting autism awareness groups. Ronald now has his own apartment, takes care of two pets and calls his dad every morning to tell him what the weather is going to be like.

Autry’s outlook on present and future magazines is positive, saying journalism is no longer focused on the technical side of things, but on knowing your social sciences – aka your audience. Television wasn’t the end of radio, the internet wasn’t the end of TV. The mediums just needed to adapt to change.

“Magazines have always known who their audiences are,” he said. “Advertisers will soon find clicks aren’t really potential customers. There will be a huge shakeout and advertisers will find their way back into mediums focused on service journalism like magazines.”

For aspiring journalism professionals, Autry advises: “Envisioning yourself as a brand is inaccurate and dehumanizing,” he said. “You are a human being, so start thinking of yourself as one.”

By Anna Grace Usury

The Meek School Magazine is a collaborative effort of journalism and Integrated Marketing Communications students with the faculty of Meek School of Journalism and New Media. Every week, for the next few weeks, HottyToddy.com will feature an article from Meek Magazine, Issue 5 (2017-2018).

For questions or comments, email us at [email protected].

Follow HottyToddy.com on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat @hottytoddynews. Like its Facebook page: If You Love Oxford and Ole Miss…

The post James Autry: The Face of Experience appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

#hottytoddy #olemiss #oxfordms #oxford ms #mississippi #university of mississippi #the grove

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jackblankhsh · 8 years

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Truth Fact -- The Fool’s Ordeal -- “Hold your hand out naughty boy...”

This is based on a true story, in so far as anything can be called true considering that every story is a recollection warped, even ever so slightly, by perspective; and facts are not as objective as one may like to think since things like mood can't be measured by scientific instruments -- a set of calipers to calculate the dimensions of one's personal universe; suffice it to say this is an approximation of real events given the availability of particular details which may, or may not offer the fullest panorama possible, however, they do afford an opportunity for a slice of life, though perhaps roman à clef is more accurate given that some bits of fiction may have been overlain given the secondhand nature of certain anecdotes vital to the illumination of back story fleshing out some of the narrative's players, those being the parties involved with events described hereafter in media res.

"I took that jolly cunt by the ear, and slapped him so hard I hurt my own hand. Pass the greasepaint would you kindly... thank you darling," applying clown makeup he went on, "But fuck-all if I can remember why I did it. There's only bits of the blackout I recollect with certainty. Like you fucking that donkey April Mars."

"I did not."

"You did too, Jimmy, you did too."

"Nope, nope. She sucked my cock a piece, but no stuffing I swear."

Shrugging, Mark used a brush to draw a black diamond on one cheek, "I've no reason to doubt, so I won't, but you know the saying 'in for a penny' and such?"

Jimmy adjusted his oversized bowtie, "Yeah?"

"Course you do, it was rhetorical ya pigfucker. The point being any bit of a sexual doings with a cow is the same. Fuck an ugly duckling in the mouth, why not get some puss as well, eh?"

Jimmy nodded, "I see your point, though at the risk of ridicule, I have to say, she's not ugly."

"She's no cover model."

"Neither is Daphne Greene, and you went for her more than once."

Slamming down his lipstick, Mark turned to face him, half an exaggerated smile in place, "Are you comparing that dugong April Mars to the fine swan that is Daphne Marilyn Greene?"

Jimmy stiffened, "I am."

Shaking his head, and returning to finish the grin, "Well, I can't argue with an irrational man, but if you find the donkey desirable have at it mate."

A soft knock at the door. Mark slipped a bottle of whiskey out of sight in the bathtub. Jimmy opened the door. Mrs. Pembrook poked her head inside.

All warm smiles she asked, "Are you gentlemen almost ready? Folks are getting anxious."

Mark gestured at his face, "As you can see, it'll be another minute, but no more than two."

Mrs. Pembrook nodded, "Excellent. You look wonderful James."

"Thank you Mrs."

The door closed. Jimmy aimed a middle finger at it, the gesture hyperbolized by the enormous puffy gloves he wore. He glanced at himself in the mirror. Even while he frowned the painted grin wouldn't stop beaming.

He sighed, "This better be worth it."

Mark slapped him, friendly backhand across the shoulder, "Course it will. I've been on both sides of the line here. You put on the clown gear, go out, and give the people a show. It's simple. Better than prison, lemme tell ya."

"I don't want to get hurt too bad."

Never seeing a need for sugar coating, "A few cuts maybe, some bruises that'll last a week, but no one's ever broken a bone."

Jimmy grabbed the whiskey. He took a long pull from the bottle. Chugging at least two shots he shivered.

A thin glaze spread across his eyes, "Law of the land, I suppose."

"No supposing, Jimmy. And we must respect the law, to a certain extent, otherwise we're nothing but animals."

This may not be the most opportune moment to intrude on the narrative, however, returning to the matter of truth, mainly as it applies to point of view, I used to know a man who operated under the absolute certainty that he occasionally excreted diminutive, Lilliputian sized people from his rectum, or to put it simpler, he thought he shit out people; but insisted to such an impassioned extent that these events were not delusions, hallucinations, or any of the myriad explanations offered by mental health professionals as well as the average person -- whatever average means psychologically speaking -- that at the very least one is forced to accept that for this man a reality existed wherein he defecated fecal homunculi. We now return to the story, again, in media res.

The Judge slammed the gavel down. Silence descended on the orchard. Mark brushed a bit of ash off his shoulder, grey snow from the surrounding bonfires. Jimmy tried not to the fidget, but the stern expression on the Judge's mask, the glowering made him nervous. He wondered if he knew the person behind the porcelain.

The black robe and white full-bottom wig turned the current Judge -- elected in secret by the town mothers -- into a somber specter. As a child Jimmy used to have nightmares about Judges coming to get him, beating him in his bed with their gavels. He never thought he'd stand before one in real life. He wondered if the dreams would return.

The Judge spoke, voice distorted through a mechanism in the mask, "You have been found guilty, and for your crimes, you have been sentenced to the Fool's Ordeal."

Mark glanced at the clock tower, visible even this far from town. If things picked up a tick he might just make last bells at the pub.

"Do you have anything to say?"

Jimmy looked down at his feet. Shuffling his floppy shoes, he shook his head. Mark considered saying nothing, but then:

"I don't think we did anything wrong, but we got caught, and law is the law. So let's have at it."

"Very well," gavel raised, "Let the sentencing be carried out."

Bang! went the gavel.

The Queen kissed the King, the porcelain lips of their respective masks clinking. They stood, and gestured at the vacant throne of roses.

Mark sighed, "Let's get it done."

"After you," Jimmy said.

The two clowns sat on the wide throne. Mark leaned on an armrest. Thorns speared him, but he ignored them. Now was not the time to look like he could feel pain. The whiskey helped in that charade. He glanced at Jimmy. Poor sod sweating profusely to the point his makeup already ran, white droplets staining the red bowtie.

Figuring the ritual would distract the kid, Mark said, "Show time! I went to a brothel the other day. They had a sign up, 'Beat it. We're closed.'"

The Queen pantomimed laughing. The King shook his head in disgust.

Mark went on, "Feeling a pint might ease my sorrows, I go to the pub. A barmaid, seeing I'm glum, says, 'I got something ought to distract ya. You know a bit of archeology, right?' I sez, 'Yeah.' She reaches up her skirt, pulls out a used tampon, and splats it on my table, 'Tell me what period that's from.'"

Jimmy started to get the feeling Mark enjoyed this. Maybe it was just bravado. He couldn't be sure, but he knew what worried him: this didn't matter to Mark.

Mark carried on for a few more minutes until the King and Queen shook their heads in unified disgust. Crossing their arms they stepped away from the throne. The Queen made a slit-throat gesture. The King nodded in agreement.

The Wolves emerged from the darkness. Dressed in everyday clothes, but wearing wolf masks, townsfolk marched towards the throne of roses. Some rubbed their hands in anticipation.

Mark got up. Jimmy hesitated.

Knowing better, "Get up Jimmy. They'll just come get you."

Jimmy shook his head, "I don't care. Why make it easier?"

"Show you're taking responsibility." Mark walked into the throng. The Wolves punched and kicked as he passed. Some gave him more than one blow. He walked until the beatings caused him to fall.

Reluctantly, Jimmy got to his feet. He entered the Ordeal.

I have one more point to make about truth, mainly the beauteous possibilities inherent in its malleability, perspective acting like a prism separating a single truth into a rainbow of truths, but I can tell by the look on your face, dear Reader, that perhaps it's best to get back to the action in media res.

He heard the ocean, a gentle shooshing of waves rolling lazily onto shore. Then the darkness abruptly filled with a barrage of colors and shapes. They seemed familiar, but his brain wouldn't comprehend any of it -- Jimmy winced -- yet something about the view seemed off. It took a moment to realize one eye remained shut, swollen closed. Though it hurt to move he sat up.

An explosive cheer resounded throughout the room.

Mark shouted, "He's awake!"

Quinton started to sing, and the pub crowd soon joined in:

"And when he landed back, his wife said, 'Tell me Jack, While you've been in Paree have you always thought of me?' 'Always darling,' murmured he, 'For your love I've been pining night and day.' And then the gramophone began to play.

"Hold your hand out naughty boy. Hold your hand out naughty boy."

A few patrons playfully slapping the backs of theirs hands, while they sang:

"Last night in the pale moonlight I saw you, I saw you With a nice girl in the Park..."

Mark thrust a pint into Jimmy's hand, "See now, that wasn't so bad?"

"I'll let you know once I've seen my face."

#writing #fiction #postmodern #short story #honestyisnotcontagious #weird #postmodernism

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