#it should be obvious but these are 0 percent read over

[thetoxicgamer]

Here’s How 100 Thieves Can Qualify for the 2023 LCS Spring Split Playoffs

Today marks the start of the final week of the 2023 LCS Spring Split regular season. Five teams are still firmly involved in the playoff race going into the final three days of the split. The remaining clubs in the league will compete for the final three spots in the Spring Split playoffs since three teams have already clinched their spots and two others have been eliminated. Smacked in the middle of those teams is 100 Thieves, who currently sit in fifth place in the LCS, just within the boundaries of playoff qualification. But their 7-8 record is tied alongside two other teams—CLG and TSM—meaning they’ll need an extra push here in the final week to secure a postseason berth. No seven-win team has ever qualified for the LCS playoffs since the league formally adopted its 18-game split format in 2015, meaning 100 Thieves will need to win at least one game this weekend, with maybe a tiebreaker included at the back-end of the schedule to guarantee their place in the playoffs. Here’s how 100 Thieves can secure a playoff berth for the 2023 LCS Spring Split. The direct road: A 3-0 superweek The most obvious and direct way that 100 Thieves can secure their place in the postseason is by winning all three of their week-eight games. Wins against direct threats in TSM and Evil Geniuses to start the week would strengthen their playoff chances, while a victory over Immortals would guarantee them a spot in the playoffs. From there, they’d have to rely on other results to determine their seed, but a spot in the upper bracket would be possible. Results may vary: A 2-1 superweek If 100 Thieves win two of their final three games, their playoff chances are relatively strong. Beating TSM and one other opponent would guarantee them at least a tiebreaker to get into the postseason. But it’s imperative that they beat TSM, considering the two teams share a record coming into the superweek. Additionally, 100 Thieves beat TSM earlier in the year, so a second victory this week would give 100T the tiebreaker advantage, pushing them past TSM should they finish the split with identical records. It’s getting dicey: A 1-2 superweek If 100 Thieves only win one game this week, it better be their opening match against TSM. Wins against the already-eliminated Immortals or already-clinched EG will still count in the W column, but a victory against TSM will guarantee them a crucial head-to-head record against a direct playoff competitor, as well as a likely chance at a tiebreaker game against a different opponent. A 1-2 record still might not be enough for 100T, though, as CLG could pull off upset victories against Golden Guardians and Cloud9 to leave the Thieves in the dust. There’s also a world where Liquid finish with a 9-9 record and 100T round out at 8-10, leaving 100 Thieves in seventh place, just outside of the lower bracket. A full washout: A 0-3 superweek If 100 Thieves manage to lose all three of their superweek games, there’s a near 100 percent chance that they don’t go through to the playoffs. The only way they’d even have a chance at qualifying in this scenario is if other teams in the playoff hunt (CLG and Liquid) somehow defy the odds and finish with records of 7-11, forcing a three-way tie for the sixth seed in the Spring Split playoffs. 100 Thieves’ playoff push begins today, March 15, with that all-important match against TSM at 6pm CT. They’ll then play EG tomorrow, March 16, at 4pm CT and Immortals on March 17 at 8pm CT. Read the full article

[leighbot]

day three! up quite early for me! i have no solid plan to keep this going for twenty more days but we’ll see :)

a sappy excerpt from my 50 first dates au (and this also fits my think written prompt for day 11 sooooooo i’m using it)

“I want to get out of the house for a bit,” Zayn says, leaning against the doorjamb and peering into the kitchen where Harry is unloading bags of groceries. Finn is clinging to Zayn’s calf, just over a year old and completely obsessed with his baba. “Been reading my journal and feel kind of…”

“Closed in?” Harry offers, pulling back from one of the upper cabinets.

“Yeah.”

“What colours did you read today?”

“Mostly the yellow one… family.”

“There’s a fair a couple towns over; would you want to go for a drive?”

“Can the baby come?”

Harry snorts. “’Can the baby come’,” he repeats as he walks towards them before bending down to pick up Finn. “Of course the baby can come. He’ll love the lights.”

“And the smells,” Zayn says, already dreaming of fried dough. He wants some with cinnamon and some with strawberries.

“Fried dough,” Harry says, smiling wide at Finn. “Baba wants some fried dough.”

Zayn doesn’t know that he’ll get used to the fact that Harry knows everything about him while he knows almost nothing about Harry.

Harry must realise his thoughts because his smile fades quickly. “Sor-“

“Nope!” Zayn says, a little too loudly as he lifts a hand. “A lot of my last few entries made it clear you’re feeling really… guilty, or sommat, lately. No ‘sorry’ allowed today.”

Seriousness lines the corners of Harry’s mouth as he nods. “I’ll do my best,” he promises. “Want to get ready for a carnival?”

“I’ll take Finn,” Zayn offers, holding out his hands for his little boy. He’s already missing having him in his arms. “Let’s go get ready, baby.”

~*~

Two hours and plenty of fried dough bites later, Zayn and Harry are sat next to each other with Finn on Zayn’s left in a whirly ride. It’s still early in the evening and they’re far from the only family milling around, though the teenagers are starting to come out in full force. “I’m going to pee myself,” Harry laughs around a particularly fast turn.

“That’s cute,” Zayn snorts, keeping Finn close to his side. He’d apologized the first time they rode this ride, when he kept pressing into Harry’s side. He flushes now when he does it again, his own weight feeling heavy where he’s tucked under Harry’s arm. Harry leans in when the ride slows and coaxes Zayn into a quick kiss before the carnie comes around to check that their cart is empty.

“I love you,” Harry tells him.

Before Zayn can think of a non-awkward way to respond, Finn is crawling over Zayn’s lap and pushing at Harry’s stomach. “No!” he says. “No no no.”

Zayn laughs and pulls Finn away from Harry. “Baba’s protector,” he jokes as he stands, shifting Finn to his hip. “Do we want to go on the Ferris Wheel?”

“Yea!” Finn agrees, fisting his hands in Zayn’s t-shirt. He’s tugged it out of shape, the V-neck more of a U-neck at this point, and Zayn tugs it out of his fist with a few kisses of encouragement.

“Gonna need to go shopping soon,” Harry tells him. “You’ve gone through all of your own shirts and now you’ve ruined mine, as well.”

“Your son did it,” Zayn corrects, smiling easily when he looks over to Harry. “Why don’t you just buy more and I’ll snag them from your wardrobe?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Of course that’s your solution.”

They jump in line for the Ferris Wheel, Zayn bouncing Finn on his hip as the baby begins to doze.

“You’re different today,” Harry notes as they step forward.

“I’m different every day, I suppose.”

“Different-er today.”

“Not so different-er that I know that wasn’t a word.”

Harry blinks before breaking out into a huge grin. “You don’t tease like that very often. You’re fiesty today. Reminds me of the day you proposed.”

“I proposed?”

“That usually takes you by surprise.”

Zayn frowns, turning away. He doesn’t want to think that he would keep Harry trapped in this life but a part of him thinks that Harry already knows this. They shuffle forward in the queue.

“It was the perfect day: we went shopping at a farmer’s market and bought a tonne of fruit and veg. We each had our hands full of things and, at the last stall, you saw a woman selling flowers.”

“What kind?” Zayn asks, enchanted with the story. It’s like he’s being told about someone else’s life instead of his own except that he feels satisfaction in his soul, like pieces of his puzzle are being fitted together and the overall picture is becoming clearer.

“Really ugly ones.”

Zayn laughs, caught off guard. “What?” he asks. He’s too loud for Finn, who wakes briefly from his nap and pouts up at Zayn with his big green eyes. Zayn brushes his fuzzy blonde hair back from his face and rocks him to sleep again.

“There were normal ones, like a daisy and a yellow tulip, but then there were a lot that looked like fancy weeds and a couple that I promise were just leaves plucked off of trees. The whole bouquet was beautiful altogether but really not lovely when you took apart the pieces.”

“Well, stop feeling the need to over-examine everything in your life and maybe all you’ll see are the beautiful, whole pictures.”

“Haha, that’s fair,” Harry says. His hand is a solid weight against the small of Zayn’s back as they step up for their turn. They get into the buggy, one of the big ones where they’re completely enclosed and there’s a bar in the middle of the bucket that keeps them rigged to the machine. Zayn steps in first and doesn’t move much further, forcing Harry to crowd in next to him.

“I wanna kiss you at the top of the Ferris Wheel when Finn can’t yell at you,” Zayn says, his voice barely over a whisper in the non existent space between them. Harry bares his teeth in a playful growl and Zayn laughs and lunges away, mindful of the baby still in his arms.

~*~

They get in their kiss- kisses, really, as Zayn’s lips feel a little chapped by the time they’re disembarking- and Finn doesn’t wake up until they’re walking around the grounds again. They stop for a bit, making up a small pseudo-picnic space on a patch of grass behind one of the rides just before the parking lot begins. They let Finn stretch his legs and toddle between them while he snacks on a fistful of cereal that Zayn doesn’t think actually makes it into his mouth.

“I think we’re ready to go home,” Zayn says a few minutes later, his eyes heavy and the only thing he can think of is resting his head on Harry’s chest and taking a late afternoon nap. Then something occurs to him – he remembers something he saw from the top of the Ferris Wheel. “Oh, no, come on. Let’s go.”

“What?” Harry drags out the word, clearly half-asleep himself.

Zayn gets Finn on his hip and grabs for Harry’s hand once the diaper bag is all packed up. “C’mon.”

Obviously curious, Harry links their fingers and falls into step with Zayn. They cross the asphalt and weave through the growing crowds. The sun is low in the sky and some of the lights on the rides are starting to come on. Zayn can tell the second Harry realises their destination, his footsteps falling faster and his hand holding Zayn’s tighter.

“This is… so cheesy,” Zayn admits once they’re stopped. He drops Harry’s hand to rub at an itch on the back of his neck that he’s pretty sure is just a nervous tic.

“This is perfect!” Harry contradicts, nearly running to hop onto the carousel floor. He grabs onto one of the poles as it stops moving unexpectedly and Zayn hops on behind him to help get him steady, Finn between them as they walk about.

“I know which one you want,” Zayn says, nodding at a blue-scaled dragon hovering above the ground.

“Will I break it?” Harry asks, though he eagerly crosses over and hops on. There’s a second pause where Zayn wonders if he’s still worried about it falling but the whole thing stays connected to the metal pole fixed through the dragon’s shoulders and down to the floor.

“Where should we sit, Finn?” Zayn asks, kissing Finn’s cheeks.

“Dadda!”

“Yeah? You can go with daddy.” Zayn passes him over and climbs onto the animal next to Harry, not realising what it is until he’s slinging the diaper bag from Harry’s shoulder across the horn and noticing that he’s chosen a purple unicorn. “Nice!”

“Baba?” Finn asks, looking the wrong way.

“I’m right here baby,” Zayn calls out. He’s close enough that Finn can reach his hand with Harry holding his shorts so he doesn’t over balance. The music starts a second before the ride does and Harry leans his forehead on the pole of his dragon and watches Zayn. “What?” Zayn asks, wiping at his face as if there’s something on it.

“Just can’t get enough of you,” Harry says simply. “I don’t think I ever will.”

Zayn bites at his bottom lip and pulls out his mobile phone. He turns on the camera. “Say it again,” he orders Harry, smiling when he watches Harry’s performer personality come out in the brightness of his eyes. Harry repeats himself for his audience and Zayn turns the view around so he can see himself. “Me too,” he says softly, smiling wide when he sees Harry’s expression change out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t let yourself forget this right now.” He drags the camera in a swoop around him, capturing the lights and sounds from the ride and the people around them. “You’re in love and a beautiful man loves you right back.”

He stops recording and sends the video to his email immediately, not risking losing this one. By the time he tucks it into his pocket, Harry’s stood next to him and is getting his free hand around the curve of Zayn’s jaw. Ignoring Finn’s babbled protests, Harry captures Zayn’s mouth in a kiss a little too long and wet to be decent for public. “I love you,” Harry says when he lets Zayn go. Zayn laughs and pushes his fingers through Finn’s hair to soothe his jealousy. The ride begins to slow and Zayn smacks another kiss to Harry’s mouth.

“I love you,” Zayn says. He knows he doesn’t always say it, doesn’t always get there each day, but he can’t imagine waking up tomorrow and not feeling all of this right now. “I love you, I love our family, I love how happy we seem despite… everything.”

“The baby and I will be here for you every single day,” Harry insists. “Just like I know you’ll be here for us.”

[animedaddymilkers]

Kinkmas 2020: Day 17

Prompt: Age Play w/ Shikaku

Genre: Smut/18+ || Tags: Age Play, Boss/Worker, Mutual Pining, Shower Sex, Creampie, Vaginal Sex || Characters: Shikaku Nara, Female Reader || read it on ao3 here

"(Y/N). My office. Now,” the gruff, irritated voice of your boss broke you from the paperwork you were attending to and you stood, quickly following after him.

You closed the heavy oak door behind you and smoothed your skirt out as you stood in front of his desk. Shikaku was glaring at the window, his hand stroking his facial hair. It was obvious he was fuming from something, trying to calm himself down so he wouldn’t irrationally take any anger out on you. That was just part of his personality that you adored, always so thoughtful for others and in control of his emotions. This week was rough enough for him, the anniversary of his wife’s death having been at the beginning of the week. Now, added to whatever he was upset about currently was sure to be too much for him to handle, especially alone. So, you stood there, waiting patiently and without pressure for him to speak, letting him be ready at his own pace.

“I was assigned the mission,” after five minutes of standing in silence he spoke, the words mumbled so quietly that it took you a moment to process them.

“You… that mission? Alone?! But that was supposed to be assigned to-”

“The strongest shinobi besides the Hokage. Yes. And apparently, that would be me. It’s an honor.”

“It’s a suicide mission! Surely you can’t really be expected to go alone!”

Shikaku finally turned from the window to face you, his expression as stern as always despite his initial unrest, “There’s no one else to accompany me.”

“I can go. Let me be your partner on this mission,” you were adamant in standing your ground on this, unable to accept your boss going out on such a risky mission alone.

“You’re too young.”

“And you’re too old!”

He scoffed before chuckling, catching you off guard as he heartily laughed while sinking into his office chair, “Every time I see that look in your eye and hear that fiery attitude I’m reminded of why you’re a perfect fit here,” he sighed, “I know I’m not going to change your mind on this, no matter how much I’d prefer you stay here safe and sound. But, I admire your tenacity, my little fawn. We leave in four days.”

You sighed and sat down in the chair on the other side of his desk, taking in the fact that he agreed to your offer before continuing, “Thank you, I’ll do my best to support you. We’ll come back. Together.”

“Mm, with you by my side I’d fight to the ends of the earth. But, you have been neglecting your training since being promoted to my assistant. We’re done with work for today, come to my house at dawn, I’ll personally oversee your training. It will be beneficial for us to become more...in sync before the mission as well.”

With a nod, you agreed to his conditions, not about to turn down one on one training with one of the best shinobi in the village, let alone one of the most attractive. After finishing what you were working on before being interrupted, you both packed up and left the office for the day. That night, you tried to go about your routine as normal but couldn’t help your mind from wandering. You thought about the events of the day, that brief moment where he used a pet name for you replayed a million times over, your cheeks heating up each time. Then, your mind would picture the possibilities that tomorrow morning might hold for you. Cheesy visuals filled your head of Shikaku wrapping his arms around you to show you proper form, an idea you no doubt got from cheesy romance movies. As if you need help perfecting your form. You were more than capable of holding your own in a fight and this training was simply to get you back in the swing of things.

The next morning came simultaneously too fast and not fast enough. You showed up at the Nara house, taking note that the house would be more appropriately labeled as a mansion. Dawn had yet to peak across the horizon, but Shikaku was already in the courtyard, kicking the air. Making your presence known, you set your supplies down on the porch before meeting his gaze. His face brightened when he saw you, sending a strange feeling to your chest.

“Ha! Figures you’d show up early. You’re too ambitious for your own good, kid.”

You grinned back at him as you started stretching, “Hey, you started early too, old man.”

He shook his head jovially, always amused when you dished back what he gave you. Without much more small talk, your training began and from then on you were focused on furthering your abilities. After all, the success of the mission was depending on both of you being at your absolute best for the entire duration. Shikaku knew better than to take it easy on you, instead treating you as any other opponent, and more importantly, treating you as an equal. It was a mild relief, but you were confident in your abilities to the point where you knew if he didn’t give it his all you’d lay his ass flat.

Two hours in and you were both fighting like a well-oiled machine, he went in for a hit, you blocked and parried to which he deflected. It ended up in you both barely being able to land a blow because the moves were just too predictable. Another half-hour and you agreed on a break, sitting on the engawa while catching your breath and chugging your water. You glanced over to Shikaku to find him already looking at you and suddenly you realized just how sweaty the training had made you. Alternatively, you also realized just how sweaty training had made Shikaku. The mesh shirt that was usually worn under his vest left little to your imagination, sweat glistening through the thin material. Silently, you thanked whatever gods existed and forced your attention back to a random tree in the courtyard.

“We should...clean up before work. You can use my shower,” he stood up after you agreed and led you inside, “Don’t worry about being quiet, Shikamaru’s on a mission of his own.”

You nodded and took note of the fact, still generally quiet though as he led you through the house to the bathroom. The place was even bigger from the inside and the bathroom itself looked like the size of your bedroom. Without much more thought you stripped once the door was closed and went to step in the shower. Blinking, you stared blankly at the shower knob, why the hell was each shower designed so damn differently? This shit looked like literal alien technology. You groaned and looked at your discarded clothes, there was no way in hell you were getting those leggings on while you were still so sweaty, let alone the sports bra. Grabbing a towel you wrapped it around your body and said a prayer.

“Shikaku…?” You called out tentatively, one hundred percent sure if you weren’t careful you’d get lost within the house, “Shikaku?”

“(Y/N)?” The door ahead on your left swung open and the older man appeared, currently shirtless and Kami, his hair was down.

“Uhm, I can’t figure out your shower…” admitting it out loud was mildly embarrassing and you could see the newspaper headline flash inside your head, ‘local shinobi gets stumped over fancy shower’.

Shikaku chuckled and rubbed his neck, “Forgot about that, yeah it’s a bit intimidating, isn’t it? I’ll show ya.”

You nodded and turned around, leading the way back to the bathroom, leaving Shikaku to trail behind you. Unintentionally, it was a test of will, his eyes desperately avoiding the sight of the towel barely covering the bottom of your ass. His eyes stared a hole into the back of your head trying to avoid your body. He was not going to objectify you, not now, not ever, he was better than this. Yet, he couldn’t help how his thoughts always wandered to you, though thankfully most of them weren’t dirty, or else he probably wouldn’t ever be able to look you in the eyes.

The bathroom couldn’t come fast enough and even as he leaned into the shower to turn it on you had to pry your eyes away from his backside, ignoring the way your eyes could spend ages just taking in all the scars that adorned his torso. He straightened himself out, standing tall again as the water began to spray. Well damn, he made it look so easy. You sighed and nodded in defeat, shower: 1, you: 0.

“Thanks…”

“Don’t worry about it. You gonna need help with anything else, kid? You know how the shampoo works, right?” a shit-eating grin spread across his face and you huffed before shooting him an innocent look.

“Well, now that you mention it, I’m not quite sure I know how, I think I need someone a bit older and wiser to teach me how,” you twirled your hair and batted your eyes, your voice an octave higher, really dialing up your little girl act.

The reaction was instantaneous, if ever there was a moment where you could pinpoint when a man’s willpower broke, this would be it. Shikaku unbuckled his pants and let them drop to the floor, leaving you the deer in the headlights now. The both of you played off the other too well, each pushing it just a bit farther, both refusing to be the one who backed out. That game of constant cat and mouse led you here, standing in the shower as the head of the Nara clan affectionately cleaned your hair. Not like you were complaining, though.

“Such a good little fawn, always eager to learn more. Are you taking in this lesson? Have you learned how to wash your hair, young one?”

“Yes sir, thank you for teaching me. Can you teach me how to wash my body now?” Pushing, nudging the boundary line further you rested your hands on his toned chest.

He smiled softly and grabbed the washcloth. There was no nervousness, most likely thanks to these roles you were both embracing. Instead, you felt confident. If the way you asked for him to wash you was any indication. His hands gently caressed your skin, lathering the soap over your body. Boldly, his hands lingered on your tits, brushing the rough material of the cloth over your nipples, making you arch into him. Your hands rested on his biceps, marveling in the way that they flexed just from washing you. After your torso was scrubbed the cloth wandered to your thighs, silently coaxing you to spread them.

Once you spread your legs his hand cupped your sex through the washcloth, another hand gently holding your face, keeping your eyes locked on his. Your hips instinctively rolled into his touch, a small gasp leaving you as the washcloth grazed over your clit. He grinned and finally leaned in, capturing your lips in his, thumb brushing over your cheek. Kissing back you slid your arms around his neck, keeping him there to kiss you more. His hand rubbed a bit harder before leaving altogether, washing the rest of your body while he kissed you. If his lips wouldn’t have been on yours you would have whined at the loss of contact. Luckily for him, he finished washing you soon enough, not leaving you enough time to complain.

As he hung up the washcloth, you refused to accept that was the end of your physical contact with him, “Can I practice what I learned on you, sir?”

“Well, of course. Learning by experience is always best. Go ahead, little one.”

With his affirmative answer, you reached up, scrubbing his long hair and massaging his scalp. Meanwhile, his hands wandered your sides, rubbing up and down as you tended to him. You made sure to condition his hair thoroughly, it’d be a shame to see those locks of his get dry. When it came to his body you washed it in record time, though you purposely avoided his crotch, saving it for last. Now, it was your turn to tease him, gently rubbing the washcloth over his half-hard cock. His eyes closed and he sighed deeply, trying to resist the way your hand wrapped around him through the cloth.

“Fuck me, Shikaku.”

Slowly, his eyes reopened and he looked at you, almost expecting you to be joking, or maybe he was hallucinating, but you repeated yourself, “Fuck me, Shikaku.”

He let out the breath he was holding and his hands gripped your hips, mouth leaning in to latch onto your neck this time. Carefully, he coaxed you to let him lift you, to let him show off those muscles he worked hard to earn. As if you really needed coaxing to let him do that. Your back pressed against the shower wall, legs wrapped around his waist, holding his hips close to yours. His cock nuzzled against you and he groaned, nipping at your neck. A moan left your lips and your hands went to his hair, tugging on it gently just to get him to groan again.

“I can’t wait any longer to have you, little fawn.”

“Mmm, figures, the old man doesn’t have any patience left in his old age,” you giggled softly, though, in reality, the feeling was mutual as you were more than ready to get railed by him.

“Hmph, damn kids and their smart mouths,” he mumbled into your neck but still reached down, pushing his cock into you slowly.

Your head leaned back against the wall in a silent gasp as his member spread you, deliciously sliding deeper until he hit your cervix. His arms wrapped around you like he was going to lose you, letting you get adjusted to his size before slowly thrusting. He groaned and kissed you as his hips moved at an agonizing pace to the point where you began to move yours forward just to meet him faster. Eventually, he got the hint, though he did prolong it a bit further just to tease you. Finally, he fucked his cock into you like he meant it, quick, deep strokes that hit you in all the right places. With every thrust, you could feel the prominent veins on his cock drag along your walls driving you, almost literally, up the wall.

The first time Shikaku moaned your name you nearly came right then, the sound sending a shiver down your spine and straight to your pussy. How many nights had you imagined what this would be like? Now, to have him fucking you like you were a goddess...it was overwhelming. As he continued to slam in and out of you, your nerves went wild, feeling like your whole body was on fire and the steamy bathroom didn’t help. One of his rough fingers met your clit and you knew you were done for. He rubbed quick and rough in time with his hips and you found yourself falling apart in his arms.

You cried out his name, clawing your nails down his back as your pussy spasmed and clenched around his cock. He held you tight, riding you through your orgasm, fingers still rubbing your clit as your thighs continued to shake. The son of a bitch sent you straight into a second orgasm, a scream of ecstasy tearing from your throat. Your whole body tensed and Shikaku buried himself deep inside of your pussy before he groaned and emptied his load. The feeling was heaven, his warm cum filling you full and as you came down from your high you found you couldn’t wait until tomorrow’s training session.

hope you enjoyed! remember likes & reblogs help me reach more people! :D

[nanoland]

Ponder on the Narrow House

fandom: Lucifer

main characters: Mazikeen, Eve, Michael

pairings: Mazikeen/Eve/Michael 

summary: In which Mazikeen isn't finished with Michael yet. 

warnings: Violence, gun violence, trauma, dehumanization, outdoor sex. 

0 

In 2019, Fodor’s had crowned LAX the worst airport on Planet Earth, comparing it – much to Mazikeen’s amusement – to Dante Alighieri’s Hell.

She couldn’t comment on the comparison’s accuracy; she’d never read Divina Comedia. Human poetry bored her.

Up against the real thing, however? Hell was quieter, cleaner, and smelt better than Los Angeles International, and it wasn’t even close.

Granted, Mazikeen was biased. Hell was her home and she liked it quite a lot. But surely even a human – even an angel – would sooner take a stint in one of Lucifer’s loops than spend more than thirty minutes in Terminal 3.

Yet there he was, leaning against the wall, watching the bustling crowd with a faint smile on his face, like a man in the park resting his eyes on the ducks. Perfectly content.

“Do you know,” he said as she approached him, “that around forty percent of all humans are scared of flying?” 

She hadn’t been sure how this encounter would go and, being innately practical, had dressed accordingly. Black satin skirt, flattering and loose enough to both conceal several demon daggers (invisible to the full-body scanner she’d just sauntered through) and not impede her reaction time in a fight. Red silk wrap blouse, easily unwrapped to serve as a garrotte or tourniquet. Hair down, curled, dyed pitch black with bronze-gold streaks – possibly a tactical disadvantage if he grabbed it, but possibly a distraction. She knew he liked her hair.

When she was satisfied he wasn’t about to lunge for her throat, she took a gamble and moved in to lean against the wall alongside him, following his gaze. “Not surprising. Think of it from their perspective. They don’t have wings. Actually – huh. I guess that’s a perspective you can sympathise with now.”

He sneered. “You’re trying to bait me, Miss Mazikeen. That’s cute. But I’m not in the mood, dollface. This? This is me time. I’ve had a shitty few days and I came here specifically to soak up these idiot mortals’ fear and chill out. Get lost. Go play with my twin if you’re so starved for entertainment.”

Mazikeen stretched. “That’s the problem. He’s hanging out with the rest of your lousy family. Gabriel. Raziel. Jophiel. Now that he’s in charge, they’re all trying to crawl up his ass. It’s pathetic. And annoying.”

His jaw clenched and she knew exactly what he was thinking: ‘That should have been me.’

“Also,” she added, after a pause, “they don’t like me. Most of them have never met a demon. There’s no outright hostility but… they talk to me like I’m some gross exotic pet Lucifer found and adopted.”

“They’re afraid of you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Nope. I’m wrong about some things. Never about fear. They can tell how much you matter to him, how much he’d do for you and vis versa, and it scares them shitless. Chloe Decker they can understand – she was Dad’s gift, after all. You, though? Lucy was never supposed to love you. No one was.”

She fiddled with her earring; big, gold, shaped like a swallow with rubies dotting its tail feathers. A gift from Eve. “Whatever. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. With you. Instead of them. You’re the worst, most obnoxious, most cowardly creep ever. I mean it. Christ, do you suck. But you always talked to me like I was a person. Right from the beginning.”

Ugliness flared behind his eyes. “Seriously? Now you’re being nice? Lucifer sent his general to console me? Ha! That’s how pitiful he thinks I am?”

“Pfft – no. Lucifer doesn’t give a crap about you. I’m here because I wanna offer you a job, moron.”

“A… job.”

“Yep. Ever heard of ‘bounty-hunting’?”

He nodded. Slowly. Smirking, she pushed off the wall and twirled on her six-inch heels to face him.

“Here’s the thing, o Angel of Dread; I’ve spent centuries in Hell learning how to terrify people. I look at you and you know what I see? Potential. Sure, you’re rough around the edges. Still got some celestial baby fat clinging to you. Still a little squeamish when it comes to certain tricks of the trade. But Mikey, honey, six months under my tutelage and I think we can turn you into a bona fide fucking nightmare.”

She let the skin on her face’s left side melt away and grinned at him. “So? How about it?”

“Eh,” he said after taking one last glance around the terminal. “Fuck it. Why not? Nothing better to do.” 

0 

“Los Angeles is kinda like me,” Mazikeen told him, taking off her red-lensed cat-eye sunglasses as she strutted down the pier.

“Doesn’t have a soul?”

A withering glare. “Tough. Pretty on the outside, mean on the inside. It’s easy to make enemies around here and when you’ve made ‘em, you need to stay on your toes. Stay nimble. Stay mobile. Ready to fight or flee at any moment.”

Michael nodded. “And that’s how you justify living on a tugboat.”

“Ahoy!” called Eve, standing on the deck in a polka dot bikini and pirate hat Mazikeen had presumably stolen for her off the set of some summer blockbuster or other being shot nearby, the salty breeze playing with her hair.

“It’s a yacht,” Mazikeen growled.

“No. That’s a yacht,” Michael replied, pointing to the gleaming white MCY 70 Skylounge docked nearby. “What you have is a glorified raft that can, at best, accommodate two people and maybe a toaster.”

He should, perhaps, be trying harder to ingratiate himself with his new boss.

But he was tired.

Getting in his face, she snapped, “Hey! That’s our headquarters, asshole. Show some respect.”

“It’s covered in seagull crap. It looks older than me. There’s a very obvious bloodstain on the helm. Jesus, doesn’t Lucifer pay you?”

She pushed him into the sea.

Offering him a hand when he bobbed to the surface, Eve said, “Don’t take it personally. She’s just mad because we weren’t able to steal a bigger one.”

0 

It was while Michael was towelling himself dry down below decks that the chunky-faced cop wandered in, took one look at him, and strode across the room.

“Mister Espinoza,” he drawled, “what can I-… oh. Oh, wow, you really thought that was going to work, huh?”

Curled up on the floor, clutching the fist he’d very mistakenly slammed into Michael’s jaw, Dan hissed, “Fuck you. You killed me.”

“Poppycock. I had you killed. That’s entirely different, buddy.”

Dan staggered to his feet and shouted, “Maze! Eve! What the hell is he doing here?”

Taking off his wet jacket and draping it over the rack alongside the towel, Michael said, “I was invited, thank you very much. No one told me you were part of the arrangement.”

“What arrangement, asshole?” Dan snapped, turning red. “I’m just here to help Maze fix her boat’s engine.”

“Oh. You don’t work with her, then? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. As we’ve established, you’re entirely too killable.”

“You sleazy son-of-a… Maze! Get down here!”

Grumbling, Michael’s new boss stalked below deck carrying a crate of beer on her left shoulder and a sleeping bag under her right arm. “Goddammit – Dan, I told you to wait. Is your hand bleeding, you big meathead? We seriously just dragged your ass out of Hell and you couldn’t go two whole days before breaking yourself again? Ugh. You’re impossible. You’re worse than Decker.”

“Maze, d’you wanna explain what the actual fuck Lucifer’s psycho twin is doing here?”

“Interning,” Michael said, cheerfully.

His face now practically purple, Dan half-yelled, “What is he talking about? This is not okay, Maze! Does Chloe know? Does Amenadiel? Why is he even still on Earth? Lucifer’s God now; can’t he stick him on Mars or turn him into a bug or something?”

“Look, Dan, just calm down-…” she began.

“I died! I actually, literally, physically died! Because of him! No, I’m not going to calm down!”

Michael scoffed. “Please. Like that’s what you’re really upset about. You’re not angry about dying. You’re not angry at all. You’re scared, buttercup. And not just of me; of her, of Lucifer, of everything, and to be honest, I didn’t even need to use the ol’ angel juice to work that out.”

Mazikeen set down her cargo, pulled a knife from her belt, and flung it. It embedded itself five inches deep in the floor between them. “This? This is not Lux, dickheads. Mortals and celestials don’t hang out here to have a good time while I sit behind the bar and tolerate them. This crummy, crusty-ass, piece of crap boat is my domain. Here, I don’t have to put up with one femtometre of your bullshit. If you want to fight, do it somewhere else. If you want to fuck, do it quick and clean up afterwards. If you want to make yourselves useful, help me get the weapons on board.”

“Wait – wait, weapons? What weapons?” said Dan to her retreating back. “You said you were going fishing. Maze! What weapons?” 

0 

“Where’s all your stuff?” Eve asked when she showed him to his tiny cabin.

“I’m an archangel. I don’t have ‘stuff’.”

(Michael had already decided he didn’t like her. She was bubbly.)

“Heh. You should travel with Lucy sometime. We went to Vancouver for a weekend and he brought seven bags, five watches, and six pairs of shoes. Okay, do you – uh, do you at least have a change of clothes? Because those look kinda soggy.”

To his annoyance – and embarrassment – she spend twenty minutes hunting down a shirt and pants that would fit him.

“They’re mine,” she said, dropping them into his lap. “But I bought them to sleep in and I like loose pyjamas, so they’re a dozen sizes too big on me. Oh! Also found you this.”

She presented a hot water bottle in the shape of a fat, cuddly sheep.

He accepted it carefully, wondering if it was booby-trapped. “You’re Lucifer’s ex, right?”

“Er… yep? Amongst other things. The Original Sinner. First Woman, First Wife, First Mother. Mother of Mankind. Second Human. First Knowledgeable Human. But sure, I was also your brother’s girlfriend for a while.”

“And now you’re Mazikeen’s. Do you also work with her?”

“Sure do!” she said, interpreting the question as an invitation to sit down next to him. “I’m The Choronzon’s captain. That’s our boat’s name. My idea. I know she’s not much to look at but she’s got so much history. There’ve been fourteen homicides on her! Plus, she’s fast; way, way faster than she looks. And I know the beds are hard, but we’ve got three hammocks stashed away and getting them set up is easy as pie.”

“Wow. Those suckers up in the Silver City don’t know what they’re missing.”

She nodded, blinking slowly. “Hmm. Maze was right. You are mean. That’s cool. I get on well with mean people. Anyway, just in case she hasn’t told you; we’ve got a job lined up and we’ll be setting sail tomorrow at dawn. You get seasick? Not a problem; we’ve got a medical kit full of antiemetics. On that note, should we pick up something for you before we leave shore?”

“No.”

“You sure? Just that – uh – I mean, my third son, Seth, the one nobody talks about – he also had pretty severe scoliosis. Wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it back then. But these days they’ve got tons of stuff; opiods and anti-inflammatories and memory foam. Science is so, so cool. And I’m going shopping for sunscreen anyway, so dropping by the pharmacy wouldn’t be a problem.”

For a moment, he reviewed a list of responses that would deeply, profoundly hurt her, responses that would ensure she didn’t approach him again.

But he was tired, tired, tired.

“Here.”

He took a folded piece of A4 paper from his pocket and handed it to her. “These are what the last human doctor I went to recommended. Getting hold of those three I’ve circled is tricky, but I know a guy. Call him on that number down there and he’ll meet you wherever. If he gives you any trouble, remind him that Michael knows about the vacuum cleaner. That’ll shut him up.”

As soon as she’d bounced out of the room, he shut the door, locked it, and laid down to sleep. 

0

It was night when he awoke.  

He went upstairs to find Mazikeen and Eve sitting on the deck, admiring what stars could be seen through Los Angeles’ perpetual light pollution and sharing a pizza.

“Mickey! Get over here,” called Mazikeen, clad in a black dressing down and slippers shaped like plump pink pigs.

“It’s freezing,” he complained.

She snickered and threw him the prickly blanket that had been resting over her knees. “Wimp. Eve told you about the job, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how to use any weapons?” Eve asked. “Maze sticks with her knives most of the time. I prefer my traps and crossbow. But we’ve got guns, if that’s more your speed.”

They were clearly expecting him to sit down. Eve had even scooted to the left to make room.

He opened the blanket up and wrapped it around his shoulders, remaining standing. “Can I ask a question? What, precisely, is my role here?”

“For now, you’re a meat shield,” said Mazikeen, talking through a mouthful of pepperoni and violently yellow cheese. “Me and Eve are both vulnerable to bullets. I mean – I’m less vulnerable, obviously. But I don’t hate any of my relatives enough to go about finding out exactly how many bullets it takes to snuff a demon. So your job, at least tomorrow, is just to soak up enemy fire until we’ve got our hands on the target.”

Scowling, he said, “Getting shot does hurt, you know.”

“Yeah,” she replied, eyes shining with spite. “Dan sure seemed to think so.”

When the tense silence had stretched for over thirty seconds, Eve clapped her hands, smiling anxiously, and said, “So! Anyone up for rummy?” 

0 

Along the California coastline, the cruise ship Illustrious Voyager bore four thousand three hundred and ten passengers, one thousand two hundred and ninety-six crewmembers, and two guide dogs.

Five thousand six hundred and eight souls, in total.

At around 4pm, without anyone noticing, that number became five thousand six hundred and nine.

Hands clasped behind her back, Eve strolled down the promenade, admiring the vessel’s size and beauty. This fresh new millennium’s wealth astonished her. Sickened, sometimes. Entranced, sometimes. But always astonished.

Back in the garden, they’d slept on and under rocks. When it rained, they got wet. When large animals came by, they hid. No weapons. No shelter. No blankets. The only resource they’d had in abundance was food. Good grief – so much food. God had been so proud of all the different fruits and nuts and mushrooms he’d made available to them, and Adam had been so grateful. Eve supposed she had been, too.

It hadn’t stopped her from one day approaching her husband and the plump rabbits resting in his lap – two of several dozen pets – and asking if he didn’t think the cold nights would be much more endurable if they each had a warm pair of fur slippers.

Then she’d met Lucifer. Fallen in love. Bitten the apple. Learned how powerful he and his Father truly were. That was when the real questions, the sticky, prickly questions, had come bubbling up.

If Lucifer has such a vast family, with so many siblings, why can’t I have even one? she’d asked the sky. Why is Adam all I get?

And later: If You can simply bring people into existence, why must I scream and bleed and shit myself in order to have children? Am I doing it wrong? Is there another way? If there isn’t, why not?

And later: Why is nothing fair?

And, most recently, after meeting Mazikeen: Why isn’t everything at least equally unfair? Why do humans get a world of options while Maze and her family are expected to serve angels from birth to death? Why isn’t Maze allowed into Heaven, even after an eternity of loyalty and hard work?

“Sorry,” she said, flashing white teeth at a passing crewmember. “I’m trying to find a friend of mine. Can you tell me how to get to Room 835?”

Half an hour later, there was a splash and the ship’s population dropped to five thousand six hundred and seven.

Before binding his arms and legs, Eve had secured Andrew Bismarck’s lifejacket and gagged him. Furious and helpless, he bobbed alongside her as the ship moved on and Mazikeen rowed up in her inflatable raft, wearing a sunset-orange swimsuit.

“Should I be worried about those, babe?” she asked as she gripped Bismarck’s lifejacket and hauled him out of the water.

Eve smiled at the dolphin pod swimming in playful loops around her, and patted the nearest one’s nose. “No. They’re my friends.”

The inflatable wasn’t big enough for three people, so Eve held on to a friend’s dorsal fin and let him drag her back to The Choronzon.

Michael stood on the deck, looking bored. As they climbed aboard, their prisoner slung over Mazikeen’s shoulder, he drawled, “Seriously? This sad specimen’s worth two million dollars?”

“Actually, his net worth is eight hundred million,” said Mazikeen, dumping him down. “Two million is just what his ex-wife is willing and able to pay.”

Wringing out her hair, Eve added, “She took half his money in the divorce but she gave almost all of it to a chimpanzee shelter. I really like her!”

His lip curled. “How delightfully sordid. Isn’t this all a little beneath you, Ms Mazikeen? I mean, you’re a big deal in Hell. High Commander of Lucifer’s legions, head advisor to the king himself. Aren’t you worried taking jobs like this diminishes you?”

Busy handcuffing Bismarck to the railing, Mazikeen said, “Eve, honey? Do me a favour?”

“Boop!” Eve chirped, having already snuck up behind Michael, and pushed him overboard.

“I know it’s your whole gimmick,” Mazikeen called down as he splashed and spluttered, his face red with princely indignation. “And I know you don’t have a lot else going for you. But the next time you try that on me, I will stop being nice. Kapish?”

“Kapish,” he muttered.

The Choronzon had barely travelled a mile before Eve spotted Bismarck’s henchmen coming after them.

“Someone gimme details!” shouted Mazikeen, busy putting a bulletproof vest on over her bikini and opening up the box she’d told Dan contained a fishing rod, not a halberd.

Eve peered through her binoculars. “Two speedboats. Twelve guys on jet skis. Guns everywhere.”

“Heh. Awesome. Mickey – move that tight ass to the front and make like a nice juicy target.”

“Wait, what about-…” Michael began, trailing off as Mazikeen dove gracefully into the sea.

Bouncing from foot to foot, Eve shot him a grin. “Don’t look so glum, sourpuss. This is the fun part.”

She’d never spoken to Michael in Heaven, despite the millennia they’d both resided only two miles apart, her in a lakeside cottage on the outskirts of the Silver City, him in the crystal palace in its centre.

Granted, she’d not exactly had a warm and fuzzy relationship with any of Lucifer’s siblings. They all knew what had happened in the garden. Some had been nice – Amenadiel had visited often, even though he’d never had much to say and they’d spent their time together skipping stones across the lake’s surface. But the others had kept her at a distance. She was a bad influence.

Michael, however, was the only angel she’d not ever said one word to.

She’d seen him, now and then, in the early days, when she was the only human in Heaven and, as such, grudgingly invited to divine family get-togethers. On those occasions, she’d spent too much time feeling awkward and out-of-place to pay attention to the sullen figure lurking in whatever shadows were available. The one time she’d glanced his way, it had been to marvel at the stories of people getting the twins mixed up; beyond the raw basics of bone structure, Michael couldn’t have looked less like her old lover.

Bullets sprayed across the hull. Humming, Eve stepped daintily into Michael’s shadow, seconds before they started bouncing off his shoulders and chest.

“It is beneath her,” he muttered.

She made an ambiguous noise. “How d’you figure?”

There came a shout and a splash from the nearest jet ski. The bullets stopped.

“C’mon. She’s Mazikeen. Everyone in the Silver City knows about Mazikeen. Ordinarily, we couldn’t give two dry shits about Lucifer’s minions, but her? She’s a minor celebrity. The power behind Hell’s throne. Christ, it’s no secret my beloved twin couldn’t govern his way out of a paper bag.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling fondly. “He’s kind of bad at everything. Except music. He’s a great musician.”

More shouting. More shooting. More bullets bouncing off Michael’s torso. Mazikeen rode by, one hand gripping her newly-acquired jet ski’s throttle lever, the other clutching her bloodstained halberd. Watching her circle the enemy, Eve was reminded of a sheep dog.

Michael went on: “And then there’s the fact that for a while, everyone thought Lucifer was going to marry her. It was all anyone could talk about. Jophiel was taking bets on when the proposal would happen. She’d have been High Commander and the Queen of Hell. Instead? All of a sudden, Lucifer takes an indefinite vacay to the mortal realm, drags her with him, and next thing anyone knows, she’s working behind a bar.”

The remaining jet skis and their terrified, wounded riders had been neatly rounded up, which meant it was time for Eve to open her purse.

“Um – how long have those been in there?” asked Michael, watching her take out three grenades.

“You want one?” she offered. “Don’t forget to take the pin out before you throw it. I did that my first time.”  

One thing to be said for millions of dull, dull years spent sitting next to God’s Greatest Warrior, skipping stones across a lake; your aim got good.

The first blast was a warning, not close enough to actually kill any of Bismarck’s men, though the resultant waves did knock several into the water. They tried to retreat, turning their vehicles around, only to remember Mazikeen, corralling them single-handed and now armed with machine guns she’d confiscated from those already bested.

When they saw the second and third grenade incoming, they gave up and abandoned the jet skis, jumping into the sea and swimming for their lives.

“Fuck!” Michael yelped, blocking his ears at the concomitant explosions.

Gazing past the debris and smoke, Eve saw Mazikeen head for the nearest of the two speedboats. Its occupants, preoccupied with aiming a rocket launcher at The Choronzon, saw her coming far too late.

“I get your point,” said Eve, as her girlfriend and her halberd made short work of the crew. “But that’s a really… how can I put this? It’s a really angelic way of looking at things. Maze doesn’t consider anything ‘beneath her’.”

“Wow. Sick burn. You’re basically admitting she has no pride.”

“Oh, she’s got pride. Tons of pride. Her pride’s just dependant on how well she does a job, not on the type of job she has. She wasn’t happy working at Lux, but that wasn’t because she thought bartending was ‘beneath her’; it was because she prefers doing things she’s good at. Customer service isn’t really one of her strengths.”

The second speedboat was abandoned by its crew mere seconds before Mazikeen rammed the first speedboat into it, cackling victoriously.

“Actually,” Eve said, moving from Michael’s shadow to where Mazikeen had earlier set a crate of peach soda – her favourite – out on the deck, “now that you mention it, I guess I’m the one with no pride. Haven’t really ever had anything to be proud of. Your Dad never gave me the chance. I was never meant to do things. I was just meant to be.”

Michael snorted. “Lucky you. Trust me; he may have softened in his later years, but back in the day he never, ever stopped riding our asses. You think Lucy really rebelled because he had better plans for how the universe should be run? Because he was an innovator? Nope. Lazy dick just hated being told to do his chores.”

By the time Mazikeen swam back to them, saltwater had washed off the blood and her ponytail had come loose.

“Oh, hey,” said Eve, gripping her hand and pulling her up. “A mermaid.”

After pressing a rough kiss to her cheek and taking a swig of peach soda, Mazikeen asked, “You okay? He did his job?”

Eve patted the angel’s shoulder – the one that wouldn’t hurt. “He was terrific! Awesome addition to the team.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Michael mumbled.

Ignoring him, Mazikeen snatched up a towel to dry her hair. “Glad to hear it. Alright! Let’s get Bismarck back to shore, get paid, and find a place to have dinner so we can toast Team Hellrazor’s first successful mission.”

“R-A-Z-O-R,” Eve informed Michael. “To make it cooler.” 

0 

Bombshell curls. The only way to celebrate victory.

“Should I even ask why your hair smells like burning plastic?” asked Britney, a sixty-four year old veteran stylist with spectacles and a bright blue bob. She’d worked in Hollywood since she was seventeen and her skilled hands, according to rumour, had tended to Viola Davis herself.

Mazikeen flipped through a magazine with the hand that wasn’t getting its nails painted red-gold by two assistants down on their knees, as intensely focused as if they were touching up The Last Supper. “Blew up some jet skis. Don’t worry about it.”

Picking up the curling iron, Britney said, “That handsome guy you and Eve came in with… new boyfriend?”

“Ha! No. Not in a million years. He’s my intern.”

Eve had only wanted a trim and, as soon as it was done, had dragged Michael away to shop for books and shoes. She was trying, without much subtlety, to work out what he liked; what he did for fun; if he was even capable of having fun. Waste of time, in Mazikeen’s opinion, especially considering that before the end of the week he’d probably run away to some dark hole where he could get back to wallowing in his bitterness. But maybe not. Eve clearly had hope and Mazikeen trusted her judgement.

As the assistants moved on to her other hand, her phone buzzed.

Glancing up to meet Britney’s gaze in the mirror, Mazikeen said, “Get that for me? My nails are wet and it’s probably Eve. Word’s got out what happens to all other humans who call me on a Saturday.”

The older woman’s blue eyebrows bounced as she picked up the phone. “Might be that tasty boss of yours!”

“Nope,” she muttered, old unhappiness flaring hot in her heart. “He only ever calls when he wants me to do something and right now, there’s nothing he can’t do himself.”

Britney held the phone up in front of her face.

There was a message from Linda.

Charlie’s missing his Auntie Maze – see u for dinner Tuesday? J <3

“Uh – are you crying?” asked Britney.

“No!” she snapped. “Just… shut up. Reply for me. Say yes. And add a knife emoji. I always use knife emojis.”

Just then, a white woman with long brown hair and skinny jeans strode purposefully into the salon.

Britney tutted and held up a hand. “Ma’am? I’m sorry, but Ms Smith has booked the entire…”

She trailed off as the woman’s eyes flashed red.

“Chantinelle,” Mazikeen greeted, spinning the chair round and crossing her legs regally. “It’s okay, Britney. She’s a friend. Well – an ally.”

Gravel-voiced, like she smoked heavily, the other demon drawled, “I’m touched, your great and gracious Majesty.”

Mazikeen snickered. “Bitch, get over here.”

With a smirk, Chantinelle marched over and planted a fierce kiss on her cheek.

“What news from Hell?” Mazikeen asked her sister.

Chantinelle briefed her while Britney and the others finished up her curls and manicure. They spoke in Lilim, Chantinelle parking her denim-clad butt on the vanity next to an arsenal of combs and keeping one eye on the door. She’d already tried twice to convince Mazikeen that a queen needed a bodyguard, to no avail.

When their meeting was concluded, Britney said, “So you’re from Holland, right? Oh! It’s a lovely country. My cousin lives there and she’s always telling me to visit.”

(Britney knew they weren’t from Holland. Britney knew they weren’t from Earth. Britney was one of those people who coped with uncomfortable realities like demons in her workplace by ignoring them.)

“Will you be coming home soon?” Chantinelle asked before she left.

Studying her reflection – avoiding her sister’s gaze – Mazikeen said, “Mmm. Yeah. Soon. Just got a few things to finish up here.”

“Well, don’t keep us waiting too long. The family misses you. I mean – it’s been years, y’know?”

“I know. I do.”

“I didn’t know you had a family,” Britney commented after Chantinelle had gone. “How come you never talk about them?”

Mazikeen handed over a wad of blood-spattered cash. “Eh. After a while, I figured out that nobody likes it when I do.”

She began making her way across the mall to Eve’s favourite shoe shop, then stopped when she approached the arcade and heard her girlfriend’s laugh over the beeps and buzzes of various games.

Unsurprised, she wandered in and found her on the Dance Dance Revolution platform, barefoot and skirt twirling as she beat the shit out of someone’s high score, surrounded by a crowd of cheering, applauding onlookers.

Michael stood off to the side, clutching three bulging shopping bags and looking mortified.

“I couldn’t stop her,” he hissed to Mazikeen. “What the hell? What the actual hell? I thought you were trying to maintain a reputation on this crummy rock! What’re your enemies going to think if this is how your allies behave in public?”

“I figure they’ll think something like, ‘Oh my God, she’s tapping that? I am going to literally die of jealousy’,” Mazikeen said, kicking off her stilettos and handing them to him. “Go fetch us some bottled water, wimp. We’ll be here for a while.”

Eve’s competitor on the adjacent platform yelped as Mazikeen shoved him off and took his place.

“Hi, pretty lady,” said Eve, her eyes sparkling. “You know I’ve been dancing for millions of years, right?”

Mazikeen grinned at her and tossed back her bombshell curls. “Bring it, beautiful.”  

Out the corner of her eye, she saw Michael blush bright red. 

0 

What was he doing here?

“We are fifteen miles over the speed limit!”

Mazikeen cackled and drove faster. In the seat beside her, Eve punched the air and turned up the radio until Michael thought Rihanna’s voice would burst even his divine eardrums. (Contrary to his brother’s accusations, he did, in fact, enjoy some types of music. Just not when it was loud or fast-paced.)

“May I remind you of a crucial fact?” he demanded, having to shout to be heard. “It’s not me who’ll die if this thing flips! Angel, remember? You two are the ones who’ll be splattered all over the road! Hello? Is anybody listening to me?”

“I’m a fine-tuned supersonic speed machine,” Mazikeen sang.

The desert outside the cherry-red convertible they’d stolen in Las Vegas was a sickening blur and he hated it. Not that he’d never travelled this fast – though he was slower than just about all his siblings in the air, he could still outpace a jet. But flying under his own power couldn’t be compared to being trapped in this hideous human death trap under the command of a demon and a madwoman.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, this time to himself, gripping his seatbelt with both hands like it was the neck of an angry serpent. “Whatever happens. Even if we crash. They’ll die. I’ll be fine.”

“Hey!” called Eve, turning to look at him, squinting. “Are you really not having fun? Maze! Slow down! He’s not having fun.”

Mazikeen groaned but brought them back to a less terrifying percentage of light speed, while Eve undid her seatbelt and climbed into the back with Michael.

He sputtered. “Jesus H. Christ – you’re not supposed to do that while the vehicle is moving. Rules exist for a reason, goddammit.”

“I’m sorry we freaked you out,” Eve told him, with… confusing sincerity.

None of his siblings had ever apologised for frightening him, Lucifer least of all (“Aww – don’t be so nervous, brother!” and a golden laugh from the brave, adventurous Morningstar after he’d enticed Michael to fly with him into a hurricane for fun and the noise and sight of it had made his twin cry).

When Michael was young, he’d assumed that was because apologies were for lesser beings, like mortals – except that when he’d discovered his latent talent for underhanded pranks, his siblings had all turned around and demanded apologies from him. The pranks had become progressively mean-spirited after that.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop – for the punchline – he said, carefully, “It’s fine.”

The wind had blown Eve’s hair all over the place. As she brushed it out of her eyes, he was reminded that today she’d chosen to wear one of her thin white summer dresses, this one low-cut enough to make it clear that that was all she was wearing.

Now mischievous, she winked at him. “But you know… if I made a habit of following those rules you like so much, I’d still be married and bored out of my mind. Wanna kiss?”

He nearly jumped out of the car.

“Uh,” he croaked.

His gaze flickered past Eve’s inquisitive face to the back of Mazikeen’s head. How long did he have? How many milliseconds left before she turned around and tore out his throat in a fit of frenzied jealousy?

“Hell, yeah!” Mazikeen cheered, throwing up the horns. “One of you take a picture for me. Or, better yet, move over so I can see you in the rear view mirror.”

Eve’s chin tilted downwards as she examined Michael. “I dunno. Doesn’t seem like he’s into it. Er – yikes. Actually, I think he’s gonna throw up. Might wanna pull over, babe.”

“I’m not going to throw up! I just need… just need air. Could you sit back for a moment?” he hissed.

She did so and he got his breathing under control. Crap, his shoulder hurt so much today.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, fidgeting. “I didn’t mean to-…”

“Is this because of him?” Michael snarled, suddenly furious.

“What?”

“Him! Lucifer! He dumped you, yeah? And now you’re – what, trying to get back at him by hitting on me? Or is it just because I look like him so I’m the best substitute you can get, or-…”

She slapped him.

It hurt.

(It really did. What? Since when did getting hit by mortals hurt?)

Mazikeen whistled approvingly.

“No,” said Eve, half-growling. “I’m not like that. I don’t use people like that, Michael.”

He touched the part of his face where her skin had met his. It felt hot. Tingly. He swallowed. “Um – right. Got it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

The anger in her eyes subsided. “Good. Now, would you like to kiss me or not? It’s fine if you don’t want to. You’ll still be part of the team. This is just for fun.”

Feeling oafish and off-kilter, he gestured at Mazikeen. “Won’t she mind?”

“Nope!” Mazikeen volunteered without hesitation.

Eve, exasperated, huffed, “I already asked her if she’d mind. Do you really think I’d put the offer on the table if I hadn’t? Whatever they say about me in the Silver City, I’m neither frivolous nor disloyal. I didn’t go behind Adam’s back when I fell in love with your brother; I told him to his face what I was doing.”

“Oh. Didn’t know that.”

“Because he didn’t tell anyone. He didn’t care. Adam was a decent man who didn’t love me at all. But Maze does, and I love her, and we’ve decided this is something we’re both okay with.”

“Yeah, most demons are poly,” Mazikeen told him. “As long as everyone’s on board and on the same page, you can hook up with whoever you like.”

“Last chance: kiss or no kiss?” said Eve.

She was close enough now for him to smell her perfume. His chest felt tight. “I don’t like ultimatums.”

“Okay. How about wagers? I bet you anything I’m the best kisser you’ve ever met. Or requests? Please, please kiss me, Michael. Or-…”

She was so warm. Her breath flowing into his mouth felt like drinking hot chocolate on a Winter’s night, sugary heat poured down his throat and filling up his whole chest.

His bones seemed to melt. He slid down the seat, half-pushed, until he lay almost flat with her on top of him, cradling his face in her hands, her thumbs making slow, comforting circles on his jaw.

“Ghnnff-fu-fuck,” he slurred.

That he was hard, and had been hard ever since he’d noticed how low-cut her dress was, seemed almost irrelevant in the face of far more interesting observations, like the soft grunts she made or the way her breasts felt pressed tight against him, until she slid a thigh between his legs.

He cried out. Arched.

“There you go,” she purred against his neck.

Elegant and effortless, she took off her shoes and her panties, and slid down onto his cock with a soft, fluttering sigh. Grabbed his hand and raised it to cover one of her nipples.

Just before he came, he opened his eyes and gazed up, and the sun had moved behind her, draining all but her edges of definition, and the wind had picked up her hair again and sent it billowing up and out, like dark wings. Like his wings.

“Michael! Ah!”

The car stopped.

“Huh,” said Mazikeen. “There’s something you don’t see every day.”

She pointed. Panting, they both followed her finger.

Across the sky, from one horizon to the next, the clouds had arranged themselves into the words

I LOVE YOU DETECTIVE !!!!

-LM

“Oh, crud,” said Eve. 

0 

Fuck the next bounty.

After thinking about it for ten seconds, Mazikeen turned them around and started driving straight for Los Angeles.

Eve can talk to him. Not me. He needs to talk to someone, and Eve will do.

Barely half a mile later, Amenadiel dropped out of the sky and landed in the middle of the road, just far enough away for her to bring the car to a screeching halt before it would otherwise have slammed into him like wet clay into a steel wall.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said, looking exhausted.

She snorted and pointed skyward. “Yeah. This? Not gonna lie, I was expecting something like this. But I thought it would take, like, at least a month.”

Wincing, Amenadiel said, “No, that’s… that’s a different problem and Chloe’s promised to discuss it with him. Maze, we need you back at Lux. Now.”

“Hi, Amenadiel!” Eve called, waving.

He succeeded in smiling at her without even glancing at Michael, despite his younger brother sitting right at her side, glaring fixedly.

“Why?” demanded Mazikeen, tensely drumming her fingers on the wheel. (Inner voice hissing, Shouldn’t have left him alone, you dumb bitch, you’ve been doing this for centuries and you know what he’s like when you leave him alone for more than five minutes.) “Seriously – what could he possibly need me for? He’s God.”

Sighing, Amenadiel put his wings away. “Mazikeen, we’re all well aware that Lucy often… has difficulty focusing. To put it mildly. There’s a lot more for him to focus on now than ever before. He’s trying to undo climate change. To that end, he started refreezing all the melted ice in the Arctic. But he did it too quickly and, resultantly, there are several hundred trapped ships we need to save and several thousand dead penguins to resurrect and, to be honest, he hasn’t really got the hang of resurrection yet – you remember what Dan looked like for the first few hours after Lucifer brought him back to life…”

“Eurgh. Yeah. Yuck. Totes not the kinda shit you’d wanna see in Happy Feet.”

Michael was snickering.

“Right. And then there are all the changes he’s been making locally,” Amenadiel went on. “The expansion of Lux, the overnight disappearance of all Los Angeles’ firearms, his deciding that the city’s white supremacist population should grow a third ear so they can be easily identified, and, well, it turns out that a lot of Chloe’s colleagues at the police station-…”

“I get it, I get it. Chaos everywhere. As usual. What, exactly, is the problem he wants me to fix?”

Amenadiel exhaled heavily. “The demons. The ones you brought from Hell to help us defeat Michael.”

“Oh, so you do remember I exist,” Michael muttered.

Stonily ignoring him, Amenadiel said, “They’re still on Earth and they’re causing trouble. The one called Dromos, in particular. He’s gathered followers and they’ve surrounded Lux.”

Her brother’s face – his real face, not the human puppet he wore – flashed through her mind’s eye; a memory from when they were unruly children and had raced through Hell together, using the stone pillars that they’d not yet known were cells as an obstacle course. She’d been faster; he, more athletic. Together with a few cousins, they’d made a fearsome team, and not even their meanest older siblings had bullied them.

She folded her arms and looked away. “They’re demons. Lucifer can deal with them. Snap his fingers and turn them into rats or whatever. Make them explode.”

“Mazikeen,” Eve murmured, soft and low, touching her shoulder. “You don’t want that. They’re your family.”

Amenadiel blinked, as though that hadn’t occurred to him. “Er… yes, there’s that. There’s also the fact that Lucifer doesn’t want all of humanity to see him as the type of God who casually annihilates his enemies; a harsh, vindictive God. He wants to be liked. To be loved.”

“Fine. So why don’t you and the other angels sort it out?”

“Come now, Maze. A bunch of angels and a bunch of demons waging war in the midst of a bustling city? Humans will die. But you’re the Queen of Hell now and, by extension, the Queen of Demons. If you command Dromos to stand down, he will. This can all be resolved peacefully.”

Eve’s fingertips were cool against her skin.

Mazikeen looked back at the sky. The cloud letters were starting to dissolve. “What does he want?”

“Who?”

“Dromos. He doesn’t act on instinct. He’s a planner. He wants something.”

Shrugging, Amenadiel said, “He shouted at me about demanding an audience with the king. I didn’t ask for details. I don’t really care. Dromos isn’t someone I’m inclined to listen to at the best of times. The last time the wretch showed his face on Earth, he kidnapped my son.”

“Mmm. Kinda like your sister was gonna do. Kinda like you were gonna do, now that I think about it.”

“Maze!” he gasped, sounding shocked and hurt. “You can’t compared poor Remiel’s misguided actions to-…”

“I’ll do it,” she interrupted. “Take me to Lux. Now.”

“Excuse me? What about us?” snapped Michael.

Mazikeen met Eve’s gentle gaze. “You don’t need to be involved in this. My family drama, it – it’s not pretty.”

“My son killed my son,” said Eve, taking her hand. “My husband loved another woman. I’m used to drama.”

Swallowing, Mazikeen glanced at Michael. “And you, wimp?”

Feigning disinterest – feigning it badly – he said, “You showed up to my last domestic dispute. Guess this’ll make us square.”

“I’ve only got two arms. I can’t carry all of you,” Amenadiel pointed out.

Mazikeen rubbed her chin. “No… but you can carry the car, right?” 

0 

He didn’t have time for this. There was so much to do.

“World hunger,” he recited as he bounced from one laptop to the next, all twenty-three of them displaying a different article or video by a leading scientific or sociological mind, “wealth inequality, pollution, cancer, droughts, racism, elderly abuse, housing shortages, cruelty to animals…”

“Lucifer,” said Linda patiently, sitting on his best couch with her legs crossed, a cup of coffee and a laptop of her own beside her. “You said you wanted my advice as to how you should manage this whole ‘being God’ business.”

“I do, doctor! Very much. Your input is invaluable. Blast, where did I put that map of Alaska? I’m thinking of making it bigger; slotting it in alongside the Arctic to help stabilise all that new ice.”

“Right. Thanks. So here – here is what I’m suggesting now; slow down. Seriously. Take a breath, step back, and think your next move through.”

He scoffed. “‘Slow down’? Doctor, I need to work at least three times faster if I’m to keep up with everything. There are people suffering everywhere, millions of them! There are sinners in need of punishment! I’m seriously considering asking Chloe to be my Deputy God. I never imagined omnipotence would entail so much paperwork and she’s always been better at that than me.”

Outside the penthouse, many stories below, the chanting grew louder. None of the human police officers, journalists, and gawkers who’d gathered to watch could understand it; it was in Lilim.

Cursing, Lucifer strode to the balcony and shouted down, “For the last time, would you all kindly piss off? I’m trying to fix an entire planet here!”

He heard the elevator open and moaned. “Detective, not now. Please. I’m very sorry I haven’t returned your calls – I swear I’m not avoiding you – it’s just that I’ve got a lot on my plate today and we did already agree to meet for supper at-…”

“Lucifer,” said Linda, sounding terrified.

“Lucifer,” said someone else, sounding irritable.

Now that he was God, rage didn’t turn his eyes red anymore. It turned them gold and blindingly bright, like spotlights. Fists clenched, he turned to see Dromos step into the penthouse, once again clad in the flesh of the late Father Kinley and wearing a leather jacket.

“Nice trick, making all the doors disappear. Finally decided to climb up the side of the building with a sledgehammer and burrow my way through into the elevator shaft,” said the demon, hands in his pockets and concrete dust coating his beard and his bald head. “I want to talk to you, sire.”

Storming across the room while Linda remained frozen, white-faced, on the couch, Lucifer snarled, “You! You have the nerve to come here, to stand before me, after what you did to my nephew?”

He took Dromos by the neck and lifted him off the ground, his wings opening in fury (he had six of them now).

Stoical even as he choked, Dromos said, “I need. To talk. I will leave immediately afterwards.”

“Oh, you’ll leave, alright! You’ll be lucky if I don’t throw you into an active volcano, you accursed traitor!”

Dromos’ stolen skin began to sizzle beneath his fingers. He waited until the demon’s face was wrinkled with pain before throwing him to the floor hard enough to crack the wood and make a crater.

“I will leave,” Dromos gasped, coughing up blood, “when I have spoken.”

“What could you possibly have to say for yourself? Kidnapper. Child-thief.”

Still on the couch, Linda said tremulously, “Lucifer, you’re… you’re hurting him. Stop it. Please.”

“Let us stay!” shouted Dromos, and coughed again before dragging himself up onto his knees. “On Earth. That’s what I came to say. Let your erstwhile subjects stay on Earth if they choose – at least, those who served you in the battle against Michael. Don’t force them to return to Hell. Let them, let us choose where we live, going forward. That’s my request, your Majesty. My only request.”

Lucifer boggled at him. “Is that a joke? Demons? On Earth, indefinitely, unsupervised? Are you out of your tiny mind, Dromos?”

Baring teeth, Dromos said, “Why not? What does it matter to you now? You’ve got everything you could possibly want. Everything anyone could possibly want! All we’re asking is the freedom to come and go as we please.”

“No.”

He spoke the word bluntly, and then he stepped back, adjusting his cuffs. Regaining his composure. “Never. You’re dangerous and untrustworthy. This world is for humans, not you. Good grief, haven’t I got enough to preoccupy my mind, without the added stress of demons rampaging around town?”

“We won’t rampage. We just-…”

“Why are you even coming to me with this? Mazikeen’s the new Queen of Hell. Didn’t you get the memo?”

Dromos wiped blood from his lips. “I don’t know if my sister and I are on speaking terms right now. And she may be Queen, but you’re God; I assumed you would be tasked with such decisions. After all, there’s never been a demon in charge of Hell before. We were told – we were always told – that only angels could rule us. I don’t doubt Mazikeen’s competence, but I…”

He seemed to run out of steam, spreading his hands and finishing weakly, “Lucifer, you’re the king. You’ve been the king for millions of years. For my entire life. Look, if you really don’t want us leaving Hell, then can you at least use your newfound power to improve it? Let us have the things mortals enjoy? Pianos, dogs, blankets, weekends, all that stuff?”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “That would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? Hell is supposed to be a place of punishment. The ultimate consequence awaiting sinners. I need a carrot and a stick, Dromos. How else am I supposed to convince people to behave if I don’t? Imagine a rapist arriving in Hell and being confronted with demons playing pianos and walking their dogs. Wouldn’t have quite the desired effect, would it?”

Dromos was quiet for a moment, then said without inflection, “Perhaps you could find somewhere else to put rapists. Somewhere other than our home.”

Throwing up his arms, Lucifer said, “More demands! Don’t you see how selfish you’re being? Here I am, doing my best to end all suffering, and you’re complaining about babysitting a few evil-doers – which, might I remind you, is your job. Nay, your very reason for existence. Always has been. Why’re you getting stroppy about it now?”

“I think,” Linda began, taking a tentative step forward before stopping and clearing her throat. “Excuse me. May I interrupt? Um. Okay, so I think that maybe Dromos has a point here, Lucifer.”

“Doctor! This is the creature that stole your baby!”

“Yes, I know. And I’m not saying I forgive him for that, but…”

“I wasn’t going to eat the brat,” Dromos grumbled. “I was going to make him a king.”

“You took him away from his mother!” Lucifer shouted.

“Gentlemen!” said Linda, sharply. “Please! Let’s try to talk this through like adults.”

Overcome with frustration, and only vaguely aware that he’d not been sleeping well lately, Lucifer kicked the nearest chair. “I can’t believe you’re siding with him, doctor.”

“I’m not siding with anyone. I-…”

“You don’t know these people like I do. You didn’t spend millions of years in Hell alongside them. The only demon you’ve ever gotten acquainted with is Maze, and she’s not like the others; even without a soul, she’s learned how to behave like a more-or-less civilised adult, barring the occasional tantrum. But your average, baseline demon has nothing to them besides wrath and cruelty. Lilith made them to be weapons and that’s all they really are. I mean – just imagine, for a moment, how hard it was for me. To go from the Silver City, the most beautiful place ever created, to a lightless nightmare realm full of these bloodthirsty animals. To be surrounded by them, for endless eons, while they nattered mindlessly on and on about how much they love torture and pain and…”  

He trailed off. Linda and Dromos were both looking past him.

To the elevator. Where – oh – Mazikeen was standing.

Where Mazikeen was crying.

No sobs, not like when Dan had died. No expression at all, really. Just open eyes, motionless muscles, and steady tears.

Before Lucifer could say a word, she pressed the button to close the elevator doors.

“Wait!” he yelped, sprinting over to stop them.

He needn’t have bothered. Now that he was God, objects did whatever he told them to do. The doors stilled, half-open.

“That sounded wrong,” he acknowledged, clasping her shoulders in apology. “You completely missed the context. What I was trying to say was-…”

“Don’t touch me.”

It was a phrase he’d heard many times before from mortal lovers to whom he had accidentally revealed his Devil Face. Some of them said it in horror. Some of them, the religious ones, said it in anger.

Mazikeen looked neither horrified nor angry. She looked sick. As though the very sight of him turned her stomach.

Lumbering over, Dromos stepped into the elevator alongside her and pointedly pressed the button again. With no idea what to do or say, Lucifer allowed the machinery to work.

The elevator closed.

“What have I done?” he asked Linda. 

0  

Nothing I didn’t know.

“Maze?” called Eve, waiting by the car with the others as Mazikeen stepped out of Lux’s front door and into the sunlight.

The door hadn’t been there when they’d arrived. She’d been forced to use Dromos’ route. Lucifer must have decided to put it back. He could do that now. Just decide things. Didn’t need servants, nor followers, nor anyone. Sure didn’t need a ‘more-or-less civilised adult’ whose kin were animals.

“Maze! Wait!”

Mazikeen didn’t know where she was going, only that she was walking very quickly and felt that she’d die if she stopped. She heard Eve’s heels patter on the pavement and heard her say her name a third time, quiet and worried, and that was what stilled her feet.

“What happened?” murmured Eve, cupping her face.

The fifty or so demons who’d been standing around outside Lux when Amenadiel had set the car and its passengers down were still there. Instead of chanting to get their king’s attention, they were now looking at her.

Michael and Amenadiel stood among them, the latter having been trying to convince them to stop blocking traffic.

Which was what she should have been doing. It was what he’d brought her here to do. But she’d been gripped by a sudden, violent need to see Lucifer, to check on him, just quickly, before tending to her siblings. Once a bodyguard, always a bodyguard.

Except that wasn’t what I was. Not to him. To him, I was a Rottweiler on a leash.

“Are you alright?” asked Amenadiel, his eyes overflowing with concern.

That was what cracked her.

To him. Not to everyone. Not to Eve, or Amenadiel, or Linda. It’s not that I’m incapable of earning love and respect.

I’m just incapable of earning his.

Her legs gave out. She crumpled against Lux’s outside wall and started to weep properly, loud and bitter.

Eve immediately dropped down beside her, holding her tight. Michael shuffled closer, rubbing his shoulder while his mouth opened and shut, testing out sentences that were never spoken.

Then Dromos was there, kneeling, his face sad and tired.

“We did what we were told,” she said to him in Lilim, through sniffles. “We obeyed. We were loyal. We… we…”

“We are alone, sister,” he replied. “But I think we always were.”

“We obeyed!”

“We obeyed Lilith and she left. We obeyed Lucifer and he left. No one wants us, Mazikeen. It’s just the truth.”

She took a shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes shut. “No. I want us.”

Seizing his jacket’s shoulder, she hauled herself to her feet and addressed the crowd, her voice raw: “I want you! You’re my family and I want you! And I swear I will be the queen you deserve, for as long as you’ll have me!”

Her human skin fell away, the left side of her face turning cold, bony, and brittle.

Stepping back to join their siblings, Dromos asked hesitantly, “What would you have us do, then, my queen? What are your orders?”

Hurriedly drying her eyes, she studied them one by one. “Whoever wants to can stay here. But I’m going home. Hell is going to be ours, Dromos. No more damned souls. No more angels. It’s ours now and we’re going to make it into something we can love.”

She turned to face Eve and Michael, her heart pounding. “You’ll come with me, yeah? You’ll stand with me?”

“Always,” said Eve, closing in to kiss her.

“Whatever,” Michael muttered, clearly just relieved that the crying part was over.

Amenadiel sighed, shaking his head gravely. “Mazikeen, are you sure this is what you want? You won’t be able to leave Hell on your own – you’ll need to contact me.”

“Yeah. At least until this one grows his feathers back,” she said, gesturing at Michael. “That’s okay. You’ll always come when I call, right?”

“Of course. You’re my friend, Maze. I’m sorry if I haven’t said that often enough.”

Fuck it. Cringing on the inside, Mazikeen drew Amenadiel into a quick, gruff hug. “You too, idiot.”

TO BE CONTINUED

[mdo-1903]

IN DEFENCE OF WHITE SOUTH AFRICA

Anyone who attended any of the recent public hearings on the SA government’s proposal to introduce legislation permitting land to be expropriated without compensation would have realised that there are two distinct trains of thought in this country, and never the twain will meet.

If ever the unbridgeable abyss between white and black thinking about land, a modern economy and food security was so starkly exposed, these sittings were it. Western logic was set against a strange mixture of racial resentment and at times open hatred, plus a thought process on the use of land which, if unconstrained, would lead to famine in SA.

As black after black speaker stated that whites were “rotten people”, that they “belonged to Europe and should go back”, that they took the land “because we were black”, that “we are impatient and we will take the land by force” and “these 1652 white gangsters robbed us”, whites in the audience simply shook their heads in hopelessness because who can argue with such obtuseness?

The futility of trying to debate with those who said they were “sick and tired of white people”, and that “whites won’t reconcile with us” was obvious. Whites were warned that “going to international courts” wouldn’t help because “the land will be taken physically”. One ANC provincial official declared that “since Jan van Riebeeck set foot on South Africa’s soil, whites have been rapists!”

The fact that the government used these public hearings as an endorsement of their own imbecility shows what South Africans are up against. Whether savvy urban blacks agree with the fatuous declarations by officials who clearly know nothing about how a modern economy works, or that scientific farming is the only path to food survival in a drought-ridden country like SA, is a moot point. Suffice it to say that anyone who thinks that the people in the halls will somehow uphold food security when they get “their land” needs to quickly go back to the drawing board.

MOMENT OF TRUTH

The moment of truth is upon us. We now must acknowledge that with the coming to power of the ANC, the stage was set for the inexorable destruction of, inter alia, South Africa’s food security. The government must be stopped in its tracks with this legislation. Amazingly there are still those who argue for “debate” and “compromise” on land expropriation (read theft). The immutable fact remains that only South Africa’s commercial farmers can produce enough food for 57 million people. No other group in the country can do this, and tinkering with this fact on the altar of political correctness or Freedom Charter humbug is setting South Africa on the road to Zimbabwe.

The unashamedly racist blacks spouting bile and venom against whites are clearly too backward to realise the bald irony of their situation – here they were hectoring the meeting chairmen about the evil whites in a hall built by whites, using a microphone not indigenous to Africa, wearing Western clothes, speaking a Western language, sending their children to schools teaching Western education, using Western money, buying food produced by white farmers, and travelling in Western transport. Virtually nothing inside or outside those halls, or in South Africa’s cities, towns and rural areas, is indigenous to Africa. Yet the people who created every single thing around them while they shouted and complained, were vilified. This strange anomaly has been commented upon with incredulity by several overseas TV presenters.

Not one jot of credit is ever given to white South Africa for taking most South African blacks out of the stone age. When the first Europeans arrived in South Africa in 1652, it was more than 1970 years after Ptolemy the First built the magnificent library at Alexandria in Egypt. In 1652 all that existed at the southern tip of Ptolemy’s continent were mostly warring tribes, living in mud and grass dwellings and using some decorated clay pots. Kraals held African wealth – cattle - while rudimentary crops were planted. Land did not “belong” to anyone in the Western sense of the word – it was just there, to be used. (It seems as if this mentality still exists - we want the land, is the clarion cry, with nary a thought about what will become of it (and them!) when it is “used up”.)

Living from day to day – the modus vivendi of Africa before Western influence – still exists in the minds of those now clamouring for land, otherwise they would be thinking of what they would do after taking the land. They haven’t the slightest idea, of course, and herein lies the danger, not within their minds but within the mind of the so-called sophisticated president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa. He is pandering to this lunacy for thirty pieces of voting silver in next year’s election. He’s also looking over his shoulder at the most backward of them all, Mr. Six Percent Julius Malema, he of the fiery but empty promises. The President is not telling his people the truth, and they will turn on him when they find out! And there will be no country south of South Africa to run to (as did the Zimbabweans) when the SA cupboard is bare!

In the meantime, the “land grab from the whites” clarion call rings loud and clear across the veld where no jobs exist, where the soil is degraded, and where nothing is produced. No wonder ignorant poor people are led to believe that a “piece of land” will improve their lot!

Ramaphosa’s blustering will not save South Africa. The despised whites will do so, with the other population groups. Whites are only 8.5% of the population (2011 Census) but without them there is Zimbabwe, there is Haiti. By 2030, based on SA’s current age 0 – 24 years population growth, there will be only one white for every 91 blacks. This is just over ten years hence!

GETTING RID OF THE WHITES

What will be the consequences of “getting rid of the whites”? Messrs. Ramaphosa and Malema would do well to read some history books. History is an unerring teacher. For those who never had the written word, they will need to consult the history of other nations. And history has shown us what happens when “getting rid of the whites” became a reality.

In 1804 a massacre occurred in the Caribbean country of Haiti, a French colony where slaves had already rounded upon their masters and slaughtered many whites during a revolutionary uprising some years before. Subsequent mass killings of whites were carried out on the order of one Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a mulatto. Full details of this relentless purge are in the history books, but suffice it to say that practically the whole French population of Haiti was annihilated.

Starting in the 1730’s, French engineers had constructed complex irrigation systems to increase sugar cane production in Haiti. By the 1740’s, Haiti and Jamaica (a British colony) had become the main suppliers of the world’s sugar. Haiti was the wealthiest colony in the New World. There existed tremendous racial friction and the slave revolt was certainly understandable. But the aim of relating this story is that once the whites were thrown out, Haiti never recovered. That is the point. The Caribbean nation of 10 million today cannot feed itself. More than a million families a day are fed by UN food aid. The country has had its share of natural disasters, often used as an excuse for its poverty. But Japan has more natural disasters per capita than any other nation, yet it is the world’s third largest economy.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. The Duvalier family who ruled Haiti from 1957 to 1986 left the country economically decimated. Other corrupt and inept leaders followed. The hated colonists at least had created an economy, even though poverty existed. What followed the annihilation of the French was complete collapse. Ironically, educated professionals left Haiti for the lands of their former oppressors. Agriculture was destroyed, while deforestation and soil erosion worsened the impact of hurricanes and tropical storms.

ZIMBABWE

We don’t have to look further than across the river Limpopo to see what “getting rid of the whites” did to the once beautiful and productive land, Zimbabwe. The first white hunters, traders and missionaries who, in the 19th century came to the region, found a land devoid of infrastructure. The wheel was not in use. Early travellers moved around for days without seeing any human habitation. They recorded this fact. With a black population of about 250 000 at the time, most of the land was not occupied. (At the time of the Mugabe government purge of the whites in the 1980/1990’s, the black population stood at around 12 million.)

Commercial farming was started by white settlers on what was, for the most part, virgin land. There were no roads or railways, no electricity or telephones. There were no fences, boreholes, pumps, windmills, dams, irrigation schemes, cattle dips, barns or any other farm buildings.

From this barren starting point, commercial agriculture developed faster than it had anywhere else in the world, courtesy of the whites. Soon the country became self sufficient in most agricultural products. In many cases yields per hectare and quality equalled or bettered those in the developed world.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Year Book of 1975 ranked the then Rhodesia second in the world in terms of yields of maize, wheat, soya beans and groundnuts, and third for cotton. In the combined ranking for all of these crops RHODESIA RANKED FIRST IN THE WORLD. Rhodesia’s Virginia tobacco was rated the best in the world in yield and quality. The world’s largest single citrus producer was developed early in the country’s history.

The story of the destruction of this productive country is that Western political correctness trumped good sense and the morality of being able to feed a population. Whites were literally chased out and murdered. Their farms were taken for “the people”, which farms mostly ended up in the hands of the governing party’s chums. Today it is estimated that more than three million black Zimbabwean refugees live on the fringes of South Africa’s cities.

In 1972 around 50 000 prosperous, hard-working Indians of Uganda were forced out of their own country by the puerile and mentally-retarded Idi Amin. His actions reveal the same inferiority complex now evident in the anti-white behaviour of SA’s rulers. They are patently unable to rule a country successfully. Instead of trying to learn, they destroy those who are successful. Do they care? Apparently not. In the early seventies, a top official of the Transkei homeland government told a visiting American that Transkeians didn’t care “if the roads turn to dust”, as long as they “got rid of the whites”. Well, the whites left and the roads did indeed turn to dust.

(It is noticeable that current Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni asked the Indians to return. Despite making up less than 1% of the population, Uganda’s Indians now contribute 65% of the country’s tax revenue).

Those meeting hall provocateurs who think milk comes in supermarket packets may be in for an unpleasant surprise. From SA’s 50 000 commercial dairy farmers in 1997, the figure is now a paltry 1600. Many could leave the industry in future. Will the new owners of these uncompensated farms continue to produce sufficient milk for the country? Mr. Ramaphosa should be thinking about this but of course he’s not. He’s worrying about holding on to power at the next election

SOUTH AFRICA BULLETIN

from the headquarters of

TAU SA in Pretoria

Web: www.tlu.co.za

[pgoeltz]

Thomas F. Kline MD, PhD                                                    JATH                                                                    Carolyn M. Concia, NP

David John Williams                          EDUCATIONAL CONSORTIUM, LLC **                 Jaime James Sanchez

                                                                                       6409 Pernod Way

                                                                                                Raleigh, North Carolina 27613

                                                                                                             919-561-0144

                                                                               Pain Refugee Statistics

                                   DATA PERTAINING TO THE PAIN REFUGEE CRISIS

April 1, 2019

A crisis ten times the size of opioid epidemic has begun to occur and is worsening daily.  I am observing it with horror from my position as an independent chronic and rare disease specialist with more than 40 years experience and no ties to anything but my responsibilities to care for all of the patient, especially when suffering.

I have never seen a health care crisis develop of this magnitude without anyone seemingly knowing it is occurring.  I could never have imagined this happening within the United States of America.

The opioid crisis has nothing to do with office pain patients with one of many permanent, painful disease disorders.  Cardiac disease needs cardiac medication.  Painful disease needs pain medication.

On March 15, 2016 the CDC issued the “Guideline for Prescription of Opioids for Chronic pain” which started the cascade of disenfranchisement of potentially millions of legitimate innocent patients with very nasty painful rare diseases.

The “Guideline” has grossly interfered with the doctor-patient relationship by implying primary care doctors needed education in safe (read reduced) prescribing, as over prescribing by doctors was responsible for the opioid epidemic.  This is a terrible accusation and needs substantial establishment of validity before a federal agency would issue such serious statement.  To this date they have not provided the needed validity.  But regardless, the “Guideline” provided the accelerant for the wildfire that is actually getting worse each day as access to medical care for painful diseases is closing rapidly.

There are 10 million patients with painful diseases (Dr. Volkow)  such as:  Ehlers-Danlos, CRPS or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Adhesive Arachnoiditis from spinal injections, failed back surgery, Trigeminal Neuralgia, Chiari Syndrome of the brain being displaced, advanced inoperable multi-joint destructive disease, Central Pain Syndrome with Chronic Brain Inflammation (old title “fibromyalgia), pain syndromes following trauma, especially in Veterans with war wounds, Interstitial Cystitis, and about 25 more rare disorders.  None of these can be treated with Tylenol or with CDC “alternatives”.

No one has shown prescribing “too much” is the real reason behind the “overdose deaths” in street heroin addicts, a fact the CDC failed to disclose.  Of the 40,000 overdose deaths reported by the CDC 39,500 died from heroin addiction without medical care. None of the studies looked closely at Cause of Death, just association. Association may or may not be causal, which possibly could drop prescription overdose death rate in general population to near 0. Of 64 million people prescribed opiates 500 or less possibly died of OD.

In fact “opioid exposure” is like “demon exposure.”  It actually has nothing to do with genetically driven opiate addiction or Chemical Receptor Disease.  If it were true the $600 billion spent on substance control (CRS) would have worked by now.  The reason it has not worked and will not work is the pathophysiology of type 2 addiction or classical Heroin addiction is different from other addictions where exposure to substance is a factor.

Mass hysteria or Fear of Addiction Phobia has exploded pre-existing prejudices into a destructive mythology harming a large number of innocent bystanders – the pain refugees. This national fear is as bad or worse than previous fears of being possessed by the devil leading to hangings in 1692,  fears in the 1950’s communists in every walk of life,  fear in the 1980’s with “crack cocaine dope fiends” raiding communities in the 1980s, and the fear of catching HIV on every toilet seat.  

This mass hysteria is worse now, actual deaths are occurring from suicides to relieve pain caused by forcibly stopping effective, safe medicines.  Potentially millions of lives are being ruined people unable to function without proper treatment of the painful disease.  No one is counting these. No one really is seeking the truth.

CDC may say they didn’t really mean it that way, but they published a “Guideline” that looked much like a regulation when only the FDA has congressional authority to publish concerning any prescription drug.  I was and is taken with the zealousness of a real regulation – which it is not. Internally the “Guideline” does not discuss when to use opiates with the implication that they should never be used.

The “Guideline” is written as corrective actions for the wrongs of primary care doctors.  The doctors responded by stopping the opioid prescriptions as they did after federal narcotic police arrests in beginning in 1915 after the Harrison Act, a federal attempt to control pain medicines deemed by the police to be dangerous causing “highs’.  In the last three years two thirds of primary doctors have done the same thing – “send ‘em to pain management,” whatever that is.

CDC and their opioid avoidance consultants have tried to walk back the idea of forced tapering  in a futile and illogical attempt to reduce the heroin street deaths, a ludicrous, dangerous notion that cutting based on flawed thinking that back on substance exposure is what causes heroin addiction.  This is not true. It is doesn’t even make sense.  How can taking frightening sobbing people off medicines they know have saved their functional lives stop overdoses in street addicts.  There is something very wrong with logical thinking.  It sounds more polemic and it sounds policy based on fear of medicines for pain.

Whether the CDC regulations are valid is a moot point.  As a result of demonizing 50 centuries of the opiate pain medicine, and as a result of blaming primary care doctors, and as a result attempts to remove opiate pain medicine as the drug of choice, we have nearly annihilated the use of “God’s Medicine” in the words of Sir William Osler, father of Internal Medicine.

The following descriptive data is taken from my twitter following.  There are approximately 25,000 people in this group of chronic painful disease patients.  The data is sidewalk interview type data with those choosing to respond providing the data.  Each question had between 200 and 500 respondents.  This information is offered a beginning point.  We need to further define this serious and widespread injury to potentially millions of people.

The CDC was tasked by its Scientific Advisors to follow up to see if any unintended consequences were occurring. It has been three years.  No reports have been seen.  The unintended consequences of destruction of lives and suicide deaths remain unknown but until proven otherwise the estimate remains in the millions of American citizens, mainly women. These are people who did nothing to deserve being caught in the crossfire of opioid zealotry.  

Some facts:

1.  Ten million people in the US need to take daily opiate medication, of the 25.3 million with daily pain lasting longer than three months with 15 million already trying alternatives.

2.  Four different surveys, including my own Twitter poll indicate 60-70% of the ten million are being actively tapered off opiate pain regimens without medical reason.

3.  When asked why the doctors were tapering for no reason patients reported they were told it was due to the CDC and DEA.  (“I cannot lose my license over this, you will need to deal with your pain”)

4.  Fifty percent of the ten million with legitimate long term, incurable painful diseases are completely taken off medicines that should never have been taken away lacking a medical reason.

5.  Two thirds of primary care doctors have quit prescribing opiate pain medicine in the last three years

6.  Picking up the slack, pain specialists now bursting at the seams to help those denied access for their disease, are being raided by federal and state drug squads for “having too many patients”, and “prescribing more than any other doctor” – a crime I never heard of.  Punished for helping out.

7.  This data to follow is informal and should have been obtained by the CDC.  But, the obvious is not always an illusion>  Reading the stories of 28,000 pain patients makes me believe these these probes are more than likely portray the truth.

These statistics are from those patients who have been tapered down or off their pain medicines:

--After tapering 89% had more pain, 11% less pain or no change 302 12-27

--Sleep was worse in 92%  (sleep deprivation is a new secondary disease from tapering)

--70% were forced to taper against their will with their strong protestations and tears ignored

--Dependence or having withdrawl is pretty much the same as addiction. 18% yes 2-4 82% no

-- 2/3 of patients require more than 90mg Mme per day (CDC never checked if 90mg would work)

     (FDA, the rulemaking agency for opiates has not recommended tapering and by law and regulations  has no maximum amount or dose)

--Those doing “fine” after the tapering  15%

--negative impact on parenting – 78%

--negative impact on sexuality – 88%  (78% stopped having sex altogether)

--negative impact on  social activities like PTA, church, civic activities:  57% stopped activities,  major reduction 36%, no change 3%

- -“big” problems with relationships – 92%

-- weight gain 45%, weight loss 35%, no change 20%

--considered an addict for taking pain medicine- 50% said yes

--Flagged in computers as “drug seekers” – 43%

-- agree or disagree with the statement made by opiate opposed doctors that long term opiate medicine is ineffective:  82% disagree

--Percentage of painful disease patients refused medication because they did not have cancer -69%

--Statement by CDC Director Thomas Frieden MD that “doctors are the cause of the opioid epidemic” – 82% disagreed

--Veterans: after two months off meds or tapered are you better for it? Yes better 13% worse 29% a lot worse 58% 112 1-17

--Antidepressant helped: quite a bit 9% maybe helped some 22% did not help 69%

Side effects of antidepressant: major 53% mild to moderatle 26% none 26%

--Do you know a vet: 12% no tapering 51% Stopped, 37% reduced 141 1-14

--Percentage receiving “adequate pain medicines”  17%

- suicide numbers - unknown.  CDC is reporting sharp rise in suicides especially in women.  About 70% of the population of chronic painful diseases are women, reflecting similar weighting in autoimmune disease.  CDC has not reported and data on why the increase in suicides.  It must be assumed to be related to pain so great as to make life  not a life until proved otherwise. One CDC person interviewed indicated the notion of medication tapering suicides said they were not studying this.  Google “medium suicides” for case reports.

--Problems filling their doctors’ prescriptions at the pharmacy -33%

--Major “life changes” – 68%

--Tapered off or down on pain medicines  but still doing “ok”    6%  94% worse

-- Forced tapering without a say so-  76%

-- tapering effects on employment- no change 3%, negative effect 36%, had to quit job 61%

--once tapering was found to increase pain and decrease functioning how many had their original doses restored- - 13%, 76% of practitioners refused to restore  to previous effective levels

-- Percentage of “doctor shoppers” who are addicts – 40%, percentage who are pain patients -60%

-- Percentage of patients currently looking for doctors but cannot find one--- 65% (of ten million presumably)

CDC recommends using alternative, second line treatments first, not a standard medical practice I am familiar with..  Generally we physicians like to treat with the most effective first, back ups if the drug of choice fails.  As a result of the stampede to more expensive, higher risk and reduced effectiveness we asked several questions in each poll--

--Back surgery, was it “worth it”? – yes 23% , 77% no

--Neck surgery, was it worth it?  - 68% no, 32% yes

--Physical Therapy helped – 10%,  PT made it worse 43%

-- Alternate medicines worked as well as the opiates:  5%  yes, 95% no

--Lyrica - effective in only 8%, noticeable side effects 72%

--Neurontin, side effects in more than half, worked in only 13% little or none 35% side effects bad 46% side effects minimal 6%

--Spinal Stimulators implanted by surgery, “was it worth it”? – no in 86% (40-50K dollars)

--ketamine infusions – effective in 50%  

--Morphine pumps “did it relieve pain”? – 50% yes, 50% no (30-50K dollars plus monthly fees, surgical risks)

--Injection treatments, “would you recommend to others with the same diseases?”  47% said no (high risk of addisonian adrenal suppression and adhesive arachnoiditis, a disastrous lifelong disease)

--Radiofrequency ablation, “was it worth doing?” – 79% said no, 21% said yes  (extremely painful and expensive procedure)

--of those without addiction how many felt euphoria when starting: 16%, euphoria later

--euphoria from gabepentin: heard of this? 24% yes 296 1-2

Most patients are referred to pain clinics.  The status of licensing requirements is unknown. People who no longer are treated for their pain by their regular doctors, traditionally the ones who treated pain prior to 2015, who now go to “Pain Clinics” are asked to respond on twitter polls.

Contracts, pill counts, urine-analyses were traditionally reserved for opiate addicts.  It is not clear why these methods are forced on the pain patients abandoned by their primary care practitioners.  They report the following:

--forced to sign addiction style pain contracts -80%  restricting what pharmacies to go to,  forced birth control, etc  one person committed suicide after an ER relief prescription was refused by the pharmacy due to restrictive pain control (google Medium Suicides)

--numbers reporting good care at the pain clinic- -25%, not so good in 25%, “terrible” care 50%

--Number of pain clinics not prescribing actual pain medication – 25-31%

--Number of pain clinics offering “injections only” – 41%

--Number of pain clinics refusing to prescribe pain medicines until patient agrees to injections first--34%

--Number of pain clinics prescribing pain medicine according to FDA guidelines- 18%

--Number of patients that were not sent to Pain clinics by their primary care and followed in the office for the pain treatment – 19%, with 63% were “referred out”

--50% have to pay $100-$300 for each pain clinic visit after insurance pays

--Forced to have addiction type urine tests  in spite of no one ever reported to addict already on pain medications with false positive and negative rates leading to discharge from pain clinic and labeling as drug seekers on EHR records damming the patient for ever in receiving pain medication for any reason.

--How many have problems getting your pain meds at pharmacies: at chain pharmcies 55% at independent 1% 115 sample of 15k 12-16-17

-- repeating the poll in a different way: now many in general have had problems filling your prescriptions at pharmacies- 33% have had a problem 31% at chains 2% at independent pharmacies 225 sample from 15k 12-17-17

-- “honestly now, pulling no punches do you believe over prescribing by doctors is contributing to overdose deaths Yes 18% No 82% 284 votes of 15k 12-22-17

--the CDC and PROP Believes long term medication continues to be taken after three months just to hold off withdrawal Agree 18% Disagree 82% 273 votes of 15k 12-20-17

--of you looking for new doctors to prescribe pain meds how many docs/np’s/pa’s have you contacted 1-10 34% more than 10: 9% eventually successful 15% still looking 42% 122 votes

--are you getting proper and adequate treatment for your painful disease? yes getting good treatment 21% No not getting adequate treatment for your painful disease 79% 175 votes 12-23-17

--Reactions by doctors and practitioners when telling you are going to be tapered against your will: neutral 41% vindictive 29% nice or sad 24% gleeful 6% 228 1-22

--How many of you have been denied pain medicine because you don’t have cancer 69% 251 votes

--Medical society with plan for board protection 23 votes 17% yes

In general painful disease patients are also reporting:

--34% take both benzodiazepines and opiate with no problems reported in  87%, problems in 13%

--Two percent report benzodiazepines work best to relieve pain, opiates work best 52% and the combination of benzodiazepines and opiates work best in 36%, with neither working in  10%

--Outcomes with opiate pain medicine:  89% reporting “good”

--Numbers of patients in the universe of twitter followers officially disabled from their painful diseases: 53%

--requiring more than 90mg MME for pain control: 63%

These twitter polls were conducted by JATH over the last two years.  Many of the polls were validated by other polls outside of JATH.  The polls cannot be dismissed by saying they were not properly done.  The obvious is not always an illusion.  Are these randomly stratified samplings – no.    This information is provided to issue an alert.

Opiate drugs have an addiction rate of 0.5% - a major side effect but which can be managed easily if caught early.  If each prescriber would merely ask their patients if they have ever had an opiate we would stop new deaths from opiate addiction.   With this simple question no more teenagers will die due to ignorance of the pathophysiology of opiate addiction and the different types.  There is no such thing as “addiction” or “drug abuse”, but there are types of addiction  which are very different and need to be treated differently just as we do with the two types of diabetes.  

If the answer to the critical question “ever had a pain killer before” is YES the person will never opiate addict.  If the answer is NO they will have < 1% change for genetically determined opiate addiction.  The prescriber needs to warn “no” patients to report back if they have other than a sedative effect from the narcotic especially if they “go on a magic carpet ride”   If they do,  they have opiate addiction disease, type 2.   They need not seek out heroin and die.  No new cases of addiction need to die.  Ninety percent of opiate addiction occurs in teenage years.  Why? - First exposure.   Opiate addiction differs from other forms of addiction as it is triggered by the hidden propensity for immediate addiction.  This is why the news stories report the addiction from the doctors prescription – first exposure, not “substance exposure”.  

Thus identified, the patients can be medically treated in the office. Opiate addiction is serious side effect, but it is not fatal like many serious side effects of other prescription drugs.  We need to ask more about the facts of the two types of addiction and why they are different.  We cannot apply one solution for both.  This is where the mistakes have been made, and money wasted for 100 years.   We need medical facts, pathophysiological facts before we subject millions of people to the withdrawal of medical treatment without rhyme or reason.   It is their choice to take the risks or not take the risks, not the government, not doctors cowed into harming their patients, not the drug police.

Of any new idea,  Einstein said that some things are easy to understand but hard to believe.  This is offered in that light.  I have seen it.  Heads are in the sand. A nationwide tragedy  is really happening on a scale no one could ever imagine.  

Thomas F. Kline MD, Ph.D

Chronic and Rare Disease Specialist

Raleigh, North Carolina

Web: thomasklinemd.com

Email: thomasklinemd@gmail.com    Intelligent discussions are welcome

**JATH Educational Consortium LLC is a Raleigh based research group providing unrestricted data to the medical community and the general public for policy making and improvement of medical care

[orenonahaichigoda]

Again, I'm gonna meld my experience and something I just learned into Ichigo.

So, remember, I'm reading the whole "unusual haircolour" being of note as Ichigo being mixed, probably via Masaki, because Issin is coded VERY Japanese, either Yamato or Ainu, but not Ryukyuan. Masaki is not. Orihime's same colour of hair is not noted (only how pretty her hair is) nor is Chizuru's darker red. (Yeah, that one classmate has purple hair, but purple and blue are often stand-ins for shades of black, to differentiate, in a way of compensating for the lack of detailed faces. Brown is because brown to black is a scale--my own head and beard hair is very dark brown, and how black vs brown it looks depends on lighting, mostly. You can also read brown hair as "basically black" on characters like, say, Keigo, unless stated they're not Japanese/Asian, like Chad)

Some shows are pretty low on racial coding--these are often shows like...okay, I don't actually watch a lot of cartoons, but there are shows out there that might be slice-of-life or romance or something, where everyone's supposed to be Yamato Japanese, including the girl with lime green hair and purple eyes, which is basically for visual interest and easier character differentiation.

Bleach...is not that show. Not only are some noted in dialogue--again, Chad--but then Kisuke is inspired by a Scandinavian fairytale or something, and seriously, just hold Byakuya up against Tousen. I'm also pretty convinced Yoruichi's supposed to be Black, but Tousen or sea urchin guy is obvious.

I mean, I could go on about Shunsui convincingly reading European (or headcanoning him as Romani and growing out his hair in defiance of the Spanish), or how seriously no one ever read Grimmjow as Japanese, but canonically is pretty diverse. Kyouani kept it up with the Bounts who were clearly from Europe (remember the backstory of Cain and striped-hair guy and the boy that died?)

I mean, Soi-Fon, the Bount in the qi pao, Shaolong, and the fracción of Barragan (which is a real Spanish language last name, I forget what architect he was named for) with the braided hair are all super-duper Chinese-coded, but these are apparently codings the average Westerner misses. (I get maybe missing Barrangan's guy, but how the heck people miss the friggin guy named Shaolong...! Then again, I just saw keysmash fake-Japanese name in a Digimon 02 fic where it was really hard to take seriously a professor named "morning sickness." You can't make this up!)

So point one is that I've always felt like this was probably another thing that Kubo was stopped from doing by his editors, though "the world may never know" www but I've seriously long thought Ichigo was supposed to be mixed.

(of course, my nascent project goes ahead and diversifies further, including the aforementioned Chizuru and Orihime, but that's separate)

So I've known pretty much my entire life that sans hard leftists, Japanese/East Asian women 30+ (I used to say "older," but now I'm older, too!) are a heck of a lot less accepting of mixed people than the men are. I guess it skews opposite from orientation issue positioning. (Only the right 25% of the Japanese spectrum really kick and scream about binary trans. Non-binary is not something I have a whole lot of data on, period, as my generation grew up in the binary-insistent 20th Century)

Anyway, my experience as a kid and now alone reaffirms that this isn't limited to Dankai/Sirake and Boomer generations, unlike some other problems. Nor is it limited to the far-right Liberal Democrat voting bloc, as those types tend not to leave Japan, and it happens here, too.

I notice less of it among Dankai Juniors and Post Dankai Juniors generation immigrants, as I notice less of it from age-peers American born Gen X, but it's still there, and is present among people my dad's age (blanking on the Japanese generation, but second-wave Silent Generation is the American one for those years) and always was. In both countries.

I was hanging out after work at a nearby spot, and was talking to a half-Black Boomer.

The same thing where Asian men in-group me and many Asian women fiercely out-group me was found among G.I. Generation and Silent Black Americans.

So I feel like this would very strongly play into Ichigo's experience as I have him wherever he goes. Hanging out in some random town in Soul Society, anywhere (Seireitei just cares who can cut more people to bits www). This has clearly been going on in many places for a long time. Sure, racism as it was in 20th Century Japan, particularly even the idea of anti-Blackness, which was rightfully scrapped starting around '90, was brought, along with queerphobia, by Admiral Perry/President Filmore, but in-group and out-group dichotomy is pretty much everywhere.

And I have to think "us v them" style bigotry also comes in in Chad's story. Is he Zainichi Mexican? Is he from Okinawa because he's got something to do with the U.S. Army base (Futenma) there? Or is he Mexican and Ryukyuan?

I'm not RPing Chad, though I'm seriously tempted. Look at how much I blather--it'd be an interesting challenge.

But for now, I'll focus on Ichigo.

Now, yeah, bullies pick on him a lot for looking different. But there are always bullies, and kids will pick if you can't afford meat in your lunch, or you like an "uncool" TV show, or you sneezed. Anything.

But this would really and strongly colour Ichigo's interactions with adults. I didn't reach high school there and *I* had this come up with teachers and school staff over there (although I really only did high school here, but anti-Asian racism from teachers/staff came up in a higher percent than anti-mixed sentiment in Japan from school staff. There's probably a conclusion I should be able to draw)

Anyway, with the anti-miscegination crowd, mixed people who are part-their demograph get way more scorn and coldness that someone 0% their demograph.

So if Ichigo's mixed and Chad's Zainichi Mexican, and they're talking to a teacher like this, she'll be way worse to Ichigo. That kind of crowd always wants to prove your claim to the demograph invalid. That you're not "real" demograph. Like they see you existing as a threat to their identity. It's a threat to nothing, but this is how they treat mixed people.

Learning the universality of this tonight made me realise this would definitely be a part of Ichigo's life, as unfortunate as that is.

Also, about bullies, the guy bullies tend to pick on the guys. The girl bullies tend to pick on the girls.

(Reason 465 why I say everyone knew I was male before I figured it out myself)

So I don't feel like this is something that would affect Ichigo's interactions with his peers, at least in youth.

But in adulthood, yeah, he'd start to get this from women his peers. The men, not really. I have no clue why the women are the ones doing this and men don't really care. Do not get the gendering of it. But it's apparently a thing. And really, really common, unfortunately, so there's no way he wouldn't meet it. A lot.

(Although frankly Karakura First Private High School staff is almost entirely banananas in their own special way. How is that school even still accredited/operating/ostensibly graduating people? Sure, high school isn't *mandatory,* but they're more of a minor plot device than a functional school!)

[kandiileena-blog]

7 Miter Saw Tricks Every DIYer Should Know

Handle and switch: Super obvious disclaimer: I am not an expert, I'm just a girl with a husband who instructed her how to make use of a miter saw. Power tools are dangerous if you don't understand what you do. Take care, my close friends. We're kicking off the string using a tutorial on how best to make work with of a miter saw. No idea what that is? It's really a saw wiz that's used to make cuts across timber -- it's perfect for cutting down wood for baseboards, art endeavors, shelves, plus much more. You can cut wood whatsoever kinds of different angles and for about a zillion different functions, but we're keeping it simple today -- we're discussing making basic 90-degree (or directly ) cuts, and also 45-degree cuts (for making corners). 

What's a Miter Saw? What can you do once you know just how to make work with of a miter saw? You are able to create DIY frames, so you also can install baseboards (though that is a slightly more intricate process -- it's perhaps not quite as awful as you might imagine!) , also you can cause the gorgeous DIY Exotic artwork bit which I showed you . 

Plus about a million other things -- the sky's the limit , my own friends. To make a cut, you only need to measure to find the amount you want (view all of the important points in my DIY wood art post, in case you'd like to do some thing along the lines), and then mark it on your wood. Following that, you are going to want to line your timber upwards along the fencing...

Miter estimate: ThenI raised the blade back up, hit the on / off button, and moved to town! This is the way you operate your saw. Once you press on the button up on the grip, the blade starts rotation, when you let go, it quits. Pretty basic!

The weapon: So, now that you're familiar with those parts, you basically learn how to use it. Frankly -- it's that easy! It sounds so cheesy to say, but I believe enabled now I understand how to utilize this tool. I feel as that I will take on projects without having to ask Corey for assistance, and it makes me S O pumped to get started learning how to make use of other tools. So basically what I am saying it, transplant that at the trunk of your mind, and it will come back for you the first time you necessarily make that mistake. It'll make sense. Promise. This may be the area that cuts the wood. Duh. Don't get your hands anywhere near this section...unless you want to lose one. And examine the position of the blade. Below, I had been making a 45-degree cut and I had been trying to cut on the corner of the wood off. So, I carefully lowered the blade (without turning it around ), and corrected the positioning of the wood before I knew the blade will hit right where I wanted it . And, in the event that you step only right, you're going to get perfectly mitered corners. So, let's get into it.

I left a brief video to demonstrate how it's done, however if you can not see the video, then keep reading for the information. This part includes pre-measured angle ceases so you can rotate the table to generate different angled cuts. If that tiny reddish notch is pointing to 0, you're creating a right cut. When it's in 4-5, you're generating a 45-degree angle. And so on. You utilize the lock handle which stands apart of the to rotate the table and get the perfect angle -- we merely played with straight cuts along with 45-degree angles from the video, however you may create just about any angle your little heart desires! Want to start doing power tools and building things for the house but have no idea how to start? Allow me to help! Here's a fast briefing on what to use a Best Miter Saw (and what a miter watched is!) I'm relatively familiar and comfortable with the majority of power tools, I understand how to operate themand iam not scared to utilize them. However, I have no idea how to make anything using them. I'm none of the who may pop into the workshop to get a couple of hours and end up with some thing to show to this I just stand there caked staring at everything and wondering where to get started. Ok, so let's break it down a bit. To start -- the regions of the saw. 

And, guess what? I am taking you along for that ride -- with an whole show on power tools for novices! Would you believe that, while I have been writing this site for over 6 years now and have carried on hundreds of DIY projects, I've never built anything on my own? Howto Generate a Cut With a Miter Saw This sticks from where you set the wood -- it's what you want to push up the wood against to be certain that your cuts are straight and even. If you do not remember to push the timber against the fence, then you could wind up getting a bizarre, removable cut, or so the timber might go flying because it isn't being supported on each side. You always need to use one hand to gently grip the timber against the weapon, and the other to use the saw. 

One thing to consider: once you're lining and measuring up your timber, don't neglect to factor in the diameter of the blade itself. In the event that you line it on the inside of your trimming, you are going to end up with a brief piece of wood because of the blade. The first time Corey clarified this to me I'd no clue what he was talking about, however the first time that I lined up it wrong it clicked in my own mind. Certainly one of my intentions for this year was supposed to learn a new skill, and I've officially decided that I"m going to learn just how to do some basic woodworking. Volume 90 percent But no more. How to Use a Miter Saw If you would rather, you may watch the video on YouTube directly here.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The narrative after the 2016 Democratic primary was that black voters overwhelmingly chose Hillary Clinton in part because they didn’t like or connect with Sen. Bernie Sanders. That dislike for Sanders was often attributed to his focus on inequality based on class rather than race and to his sometimes clumsy comments about racial issues. That narrative never really went away, and we’re already seeing coverage of his 2020 campaign that suggests he has a problem with black voters that he must fix if he wants to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

But while some black political activists may dislike the Vermont senator,1 there is little evidence that black voters do. Polls suggest black voters liked Sanders in 2016 and like him now. Rather, if 2016 is any guide, the barrier to Sanders winning black voters will be whether another candidate comes along who black voters like even more.

During the 2016 primary process, exit polls found that Clinton won almost 80 percent of the black vote overall, and she romped through Southern states with large black populations because of that strength. That advantage in the South and with black voters overall (they were about 25 percent of the Democrat electorate in 2016) were huge factors in Clinton winning the Democratic nomination.

But I believe that strength was likely built more on pro-Clinton votes than anti-Sanders votes. Here’s some data that points me toward that conclusion:

In a Gallup poll conducted at the beginning of 2016, 53 percent of black Democrats had a favorable view of Sanders, while only 16 percent had an unfavorable view2 — +37 is a good net favorability rating. In fact, Sanders’s net favorability rating was about as high among black Democrats as Clinton’s was among white ones.3 But Clinton was really popular with black Democrats, with a net favorability rating of +70 points (82 percent favorable, 12 percent unfavorable).

A poll conducted by Survey Sampling International during those same months showed a similar dynamic. Asked to rank their feelings about Sanders on a scale from 0 (very unfavorable) to 100 (very favorable), black voters gave the Vermont senator a 58, on average. That’s not great, but it’s not bad either. For context, Donald Trump averaged a 22, and Sen. Ted Cruz a 36. Again, Clinton was notably higher at 72.

In a March 2016 poll, the Pew Research Center asked registered voters if various candidates would be a “great, good, average, poor or terrible president.” Among black Democratic respondents, 67 percent said Clinton would be good or great, while another 25 percent said average. Sanders also had fairly high marks: 62 percent said he would be good or great, 27 percent said average.

And young black voters actually liked Sanders more than Clinton by some measures. A Gallup survey from April 2016 suggested that Sanders’s favorability rating among black millennials (67 percent) was higher than Clinton’s (60 percent.) And this was borne out in the results. Among black voters under 30, the two candidates split the vote about evenly in 2016. But older black voters were a bigger part of the electorate the 2016 primary (suggesting they were most likely to turn out and vote), and they leaned heavily toward Clinton.

I’m not saying that Sanders was beloved by black voters in 2016, or that he couldn’t have done a better job of appealing to them. But I think an accurate reading of what we know from 2016 is that black voters liked Sanders — just less than Clinton.

You can see all this in recent polling too. Sanders remains fairly popular with African Americans. A December 2018 Quinnipiac poll found that 55 percent of black voters had a favorable view of Sanders, while 26 percent had an unfavorable view. (Clinton was at 62-22.) Most more recent polls didn’t publish candidates’ favorability with specific demographic groups. (Often the sample sizes aren’t big enough for the results to be meaningful.) But we reached out to Morning Consult, which is doing regular polling of the 2020 race and so amasses fairly large samples of racial and demographic groups. According to their national polling conducted March 18-24, 71 percent of black Democrats had a favorable view of Sanders, compared to 10 percent who had an unfavorable view.

“Duh,” you might say, “Sanders is a Democrat4 and about 90 percent of black voters back Democrats, so of course black people are favorable toward him.” And you might ask: “Why does it matter if a group likes a candidate if they won’t vote for him or her?”

It matters for two reasons. First, understanding this dynamic between Sanders and black voters should influence media coverage. If Sanders’s problem with black voters in 2016 was about Clinton, not him, the media should probably not cover Sanders with the assumption that he has a tense relationship with black voters or doesn’t understand them. Secondly, it complicates what approach Sanders and his campaign can take to win over more black voters. The Vermont senator is making outreach efforts to black Americans a part of his strategy from the beginning of his campaign in 2020 in a way he did not in 2016. But these efforts may not amount to much if the issue isn’t Sanders’s flaws but his opponents’ strengths. In fact, he may need to attack some of his potential rivals who appeal to black voters. And some Sanders allies have been doing just that over the last few months, in particular highlighting Sen. Kamala Harris’s controversial record as prosecutor.

Who should Sanders be worried about beating him with black voters? The obvious answers are Sens. Cory Booker and Harris, the two prominent black candidates in the race. But the Democrat who is really popular with African Americans right now is former Vice President Joe Biden. In the recent Morning Consult polling, Biden was viewed favorably by 77 percent of black Democrats, with just 8 percent viewing him unfavorably. He’s the only potential candidate who had a better net favorable rating than Sanders with black respondents. Booker (45 favorable, 11 unfavorable) and Harris (48-13) are popular too, but a lot of respondents either don’t know who those two senators are or don’t know them well enough to have an opinion of them yet.

Morning Consult found Biden getting 40 percent of the vote among a national sample of about 2,900 black Democrats, with Sanders at 24 percent, Harris at 11 and Booker at 6. A Quinnipiac poll conducted from March 21-25 similarly found Biden with 44 percent support among black Democrats, with Sanders in second among the 2020 candidates at 17 percent.

In the Morning Consult data, Biden gets a bit more support among black voters than he does from the electorate overall. Harris and Booker overperform a bit with black voters too. Notably, while Sanders doesn’t overperform with black voters, he doesn’t underperform either.

In any case, it’s way too early to predict which candidates will ultimately do well with black Democratic primary voters — or primary voters overall. We don’t know even know yet if Biden is running. Still, I don’t think we should completely discount Biden’s early strength with black voters either.

Looking to next year, you could imagine five or six candidates (or more) staying in race through the first dozen primaries or so. Maybe several of them, including Sanders, get significant chunks of the black vote and no one really consolidates it. That’s a good scenario for the Vermont senator if he maintains his base of younger voters. Or maybe Sanders could gain support among black voters — they already have pretty favorable views about him and he is trying hard to appeal to them. That’s an even better scenario for him.

But Sanders could face the same problem he did in 2016 if the race comes down to say, Sanders vs. Biden or Harris — a candidate who most black voters just like more than the Vermont senator. Either way, there’s little evidence that black voters start off the 2020 race hating him.

[nanoland]

mazikeen/eve/michael fic in progress

title: Ponder on the Narrow House

fandom: Lucifer

characters: Mazikeen, Eve, Michael 

blurb: In which Mazikeen isn't finished with Michael yet. 

warnings: Spoilers for Season 5. 

0  

In 2019, Fodor’s had crowned LAX the worst airport on Planet Earth, comparing it – much to Mazikeen’s amusement – to Dante Alighieri’s Hell.

She couldn’t comment on the comparison’s accuracy; she’d never read Divina Comedia. Human poetry bored her.

Up against the real thing, however? Hell was quieter, cleaner, and smelt better than Los Angeles International, and it wasn’t even close.

Granted, Mazikeen was biased. Hell was her home and she liked it quite a lot. But surely even a human – even an angel – would sooner take a stint in one of Lucifer’s loops than spend more than thirty minutes in Terminal 3.

Yet there he was, leaning against the wall, watching the bustling crowd with a faint smile on his face, like a man in the park resting his eyes on the ducks. Perfectly content.

“Do you know,” he said as she approached him, “that around forty percent of all humans are scared of flying?”

She hadn’t been sure how this encounter would go and, being innately practical, had dressed accordingly. Black satin skirt, flattering and loose enough to both conceal several demon daggers (invisible to the full-body scanner she’d just sauntered through) and not impede her reaction time in a fight. Red silk wrap blouse, easily unwrapped to serve as a garrotte or tourniquet. Hair down, curled, dyed pitch black with bronze-gold streaks – possibly a tactical disadvantage if he grabbed it, but possibly a distraction. She knew he liked her hair.

When she was satisfied he wasn’t about to lunge for her throat, she took a gamble and moved in to lean against the wall alongside him, following his gaze. “Not surprising. Think of it from their perspective. They don’t have wings. Actually – huh. I guess that’s a perspective you can sympathise with now.”

He sneered. “You’re trying to bait me, Miss Mazikeen. That’s cute. But I’m not in the mood, dollface. This? This is me time. I’ve had a shitty few days and I came here specifically to soak up these idiot mortals’ fear and chill out. Get lost. Go play with my twin if you’re so starved for entertainment.”

Mazikeen stretched. “That’s the problem. He’s hanging out with the rest of your lousy family. Gabriel. Raziel. Jophiel. Now that he’s in charge, they’re all trying to crawl up his ass. It’s pathetic. And annoying.”

His jaw clenched and she knew exactly what he was thinking: ‘That should have been me.’

“Also,” she added, after a pause, “they don’t like me. Most of them have never met a demon. There’s no outright hostility but… they talk to me like I’m some gross exotic pet Lucifer found and adopted.”

“They’re afraid of you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Nope. I’m wrong about some things. Never about fear. They can tell how much you matter to him, how much he’d do for you and vis versa, and it scares them shitless. Chloe Decker they can understand – she was Dad’s gift, after all. You, though? Lucy was never supposed to love you. No one was.”

She fiddled with her earring; big, gold, shaped like a swallow with rubies dotting its tail feathers. A gift from Eve. “Whatever. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. With you. Instead of them. You’re the worst, most obnoxious, most cowardly creep ever. I mean it. Christ, do you suck. But you always talked to me like I was a person. Right from the beginning.”

Ugliness flared behind his eyes. “Seriously? Now you’re being nice? Lucifer sent his general to console me? Ha! That’s how pitiful he thinks I am?”

“Pfft – no. Lucifer doesn’t give a crap about you. I’m here because I wanna offer you a job, moron.”

“A… job.”

“Yep. Ever heard of ‘bounty-hunting’?”

He nodded. Slowly. Smirking, she pushed off the wall and twirled on her six-inch heels to face him.

“Here’s the thing, o Angel of Dread; I’ve spent centuries in Hell learning how to terrify people. I look at you and you know what I see? Potential. Sure, you’re rough around the edges. Still got some celestial baby fat clinging to you. Still a little squeamish when it comes to certain tricks of the trade. But Mikey, honey, six months under my tutelage and I think we can turn you into a bona fide fucking nightmare.”

She let the skin on her face’s left side melt away and grinned at him. “So? How about it?”

“Eh,” he said after taking one last glance around the terminal. “Fuck it. Why not? Nothing better to do.” 

0 

“Los Angeles is kinda like me,” Mazikeen told him, taking off her red-lensed cat-eye sunglasses as she strutted down the pier.

“Doesn’t have a soul?”

A withering glare. “Tough. Pretty on the outside, mean on the inside. It’s easy to make enemies around here and when you’ve made ‘em, you need to stay on your toes. Stay nimble. Stay mobile. Ready to fight or flee at any moment.”

Michael nodded. “And that’s how you justify living on a tugboat.”

“Ahoy!” called Eve, standing on the deck in a polka dot bikini and pirate hat Mazikeen had presumably stolen for her off the set of some summer blockbuster or other being shot nearby, the salty breeze playing with her hair.

“It’s a yacht,” Mazikeen growled.

“No. That’s a yacht,” Michael replied, pointing to the gleaming white MCY 70 Skylounge docked nearby. “What you have is a glorified raft that can, at best, accommodate two people and maybe a toaster.”

He should, perhaps, be trying harder to ingratiate himself with his new boss.

But he was tired.

Getting in his face, she snapped, “Hey! That’s our headquarters, asshole. Show some respect.”

“It’s covered in seagull crap. It looks older than me. There’s a very obvious bloodstain on the helm. Jesus, doesn’t Lucifer pay you?”

She pushed him into the sea.

Offering him a hand when he bobbed to the surface, Eve said, “Don’t take it personally. She’s just mad because we weren’t able to steal a bigger one.” 

0 

It was while Michael was towelling himself dry down below decks that the chunky-faced cop wandered in, took one look at him, and strode across the room.

“Mister Espinoza,” he drawled, “what can I-… oh. Oh, wow, you really thought that was going to work, huh?”

Curled up on the floor, clutching the fist he’d very mistakenly slammed into Michael’s jaw, Dan hissed, “Fuck you. You killed me.”

“Poppycock. I had you killed. That’s entirely different, buddy.”

Dan staggered to his feet and shouted, “Maze! Eve! What the hell is he doing here?”

Taking off his wet jacket and draping it over the rack alongside the towel, Michael said, “I was invited, thank you very much. No one told me you were part of the arrangement.”

“What arrangement, asshole?” Dan snapped, turning red. “I’m just here to help Maze fix her boat’s engine.”

“Oh. You don’t work with her, then? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. As we’ve established, you’re entirely too killable.”

“You sleazy son-of-a… Maze! Get down here!”

Grumbling, Michael’s new boss stalked below deck carrying a crate of beer on her left shoulder and a sleeping bag under her right arm. “Goddammit – Dan, I told you to wait. Is your hand bleeding, you big meathead? We seriously just dragged your ass out of Hell and you couldn’t go two whole days before breaking yourself again? Ugh. You’re impossible. You’re worse than Decker.”

“Maze, d’you wanna explain what the actual fuck Lucifer’s psycho twin is doing here?”

“Interning,” Michael said, cheerfully.

His face now practically purple, Dan half-yelled, “What is he talking about? This is not okay, Maze! Does Chloe know? Does Amenadiel? Why is he even still on Earth? Lucifer’s God now; can’t he stick him on Mars or turn him into a bug or something?”

“Look, Dan, just calm down-…” she began.

“I died! I actually, literally, physically died! Because of him! No, I’m not going to calm down!”

Michael scoffed. “Please. Like that’s what you’re really upset about. You’re not angry about dying. You’re not angry at all. You’re scared, buttercup. And not just of me; of her, of Lucifer, of everything, and to be honest, I didn’t even need to use the ol’ angel juice to work that out.”

Mazikeen set down her cargo, pulled a knife from her belt, and flung it. It embedded itself five inches deep in the floor between them. “This? This is not Lux, dickheads. Mortals and celestials don’t hang out here to have a good time while I sit behind the bar and tolerate them. This crummy, crusty-ass, piece of crap boat is my domain. Here, I don’t have to put up with one femtometre of your bullshit. If you want to fight, do it somewhere else. If you want to fuck, do it quick and clean up afterwards. If you want to make yourselves useful, help me get the weapons on board.”

“Wait – wait, weapons? What weapons?” said Dan to her retreating back. “You said you were going fishing. Maze! What weapons?” 

0

“Where’s all your stuff?” Eve asked when she showed him to his tiny cabin.

“I’m an archangel. I don’t have ‘stuff’.”

(Michael had already decided he didn’t like her. She was bubbly.)

“Heh. You should travel with Lucy sometime. We went to Vancouver for a weekend and he brought seven bags, five watches, and six pairs of shoes. Okay, do you – uh, do you at least have a change of clothes? Because those look kinda soggy.”

To his annoyance – and embarrassment – she spend twenty minutes hunting down a shirt and pants that would fit him.

“They’re mine,” she said, dropping them into his lap. “But I bought them to sleep in and I like loose pyjamas, so they’re a dozen sizes too big on me. Oh! Also found you this.”

She presented a hot water bottle in the shape of a fat, cuddly sheep.

He accepted it carefully, wondering if it was booby-trapped. “You’re Lucifer’s ex, right?”

“Er… yep? Amongst other things. The Original Sinner. First Woman, First Wife, First Mother. Mother of Mankind. Second Human. First Knowledgeable Human. But sure, I was also your brother’s girlfriend for a while.”

“And now you’re Mazikeen’s. Do you also work with her?”

“Sure do!” she said, interpreting the question as an invitation to sit down next to him. “I’m The Choronzon’s captain. That’s our boat’s name. My idea. I know she’s not much to look at but she’s got so much history. There’ve been fourteen homicides on her! Plus, she’s fast; way, way faster than she looks. And I know the beds are hard, but we’ve got three hammocks stashed away and getting them set up is easy as pie.”

“Wow. Those suckers up in the Silver City don’t know what they’re missing.”

She nodded, blinking slowly. “Hmm. Maze was right. You are mean. That’s cool. I get on well with mean people. Anyway, just in case she hasn’t told you; we’ve got a job lined up and we’ll be setting sail tomorrow at dawn. You get seasick? Not a problem; we’ve got a medical kit full of antiemetics. On that note, should we pick up something for you before we leave shore?”

“No.”

“You sure? Just that – uh – I mean, my third son, Seth, the one nobody talks about – he also had pretty severe scoliosis. Wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it back then. But these days they’ve got tons of stuff; opiods and anti-inflammatories and memory foam. Science is so, so cool. And I’m going shopping for sunscreen anyway, so dropping by the pharmacy wouldn’t be a problem.”

For a moment, he reviewed a list of responses that would deeply, profoundly hurt her, responses that would ensure she didn’t approach him again.

But he was tired, tired, tired.

“Here.”

He took a folded piece of A4 paper from his pocket and handed it to her. “These are what the last human doctor I went to recommended. Getting hold of those three I’ve circled is tricky, but I know a guy. Call him on that number down there and he’ll meet you wherever. If he gives you any trouble, remind him that Michael knows about the vacuum cleaner. That’ll shut him up.”

As soon as she’d bounced out of the room, he shut the door, locked it, and laid down to sleep. 

0

It was night when he awoke.  

He went upstairs to find Mazikeen and Eve sitting on the deck, admiring what stars could be seen through Los Angeles’ perpetual light pollution and sharing a pizza.

“Mickey! Get over here,” called Mazikeen, clad in a black dressing down and slippers shaped like plump pink pigs.

“It’s freezing,” he complained.

She snickered and threw him the prickly blanket that had been resting over her knees. “Wimp. Eve told you about the job, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how to use any weapons?” Eve asked. “Maze sticks with her knives most of the time. I prefer my traps and crossbow. But we’ve got guns, if that’s more your speed.”

They were clearly expecting him to sit down. Eve had even scooted to the left to make room.

He opened the blanket up and wrapped it around his shoulders, remaining standing. “Can I ask a question? What, precisely, is my role here?”

“For now, you’re a meat shield,” said Mazikeen, talking through a mouthful of pepperoni and violently yellow cheese. “Me and Eve are both vulnerable to bullets. I mean – I’m less vulnerable, obviously. But I don’t hate any of my relatives enough to go about finding out exactly how many bullets it takes to snuff a demon. So your job, at least tomorrow, is just to soak up enemy fire until we’ve got our hands on the target.”

Scowling, he said, “Getting shot does hurt, you know.”

“Yeah,” she replied, eyes shining with spite. “Dan sure seemed to think so.”

When the tense silence had stretched for over thirty seconds, Eve clapped her hands, smiling anxiously, and said, “So! Anyone up for rummy?”

(to be continued) 

[keywestlou]

THE GOOD IN LIFE.....THE MARATHON TURTLE HOSPITAL

So much tragedy in life. Centralized in the U.S. with the coronavirus pandemic.

Tragedies occur in other areas and with other species. Man sometimes is there to help.

One of the places is the Marathon Turtle Hospital. Not a fly by night operation. In existence for many years. Fully staffed. Totally respected. Turtles flown in from all over the world to be saved.

A local incident this past week. The Key West Citizen’s Rob O’Neal wrote a pointed article about it.

Involved, a juvenile green sea turtle.

Fishermen noticed the turtle while in the lower Keys. They could tell the turtle was in a bad way. Tumors all over the turtle’s body.

Authorities were contacted who in turn contacted Key West Wildlife Rescue and the Marathon Turtle Hospital. Together they were able to capture the turtle from the ocean waters.

The turtle was transported to the Marathon Turtle Hospital. Diagnosis serious. Tumors on the face, neck and flippers. A typical malady of turtles all over the world. The tumors are created by the fibropapillomatosis virus which affects a turtle’s soft body tissue.

If left untreated, the turtle’s vision can be obstructed, can’t see  predatory fish, unable to swim and feed.

The Turtle Hospital will surgically remove the tumors. The turtle will remain in the Hospital for one year for rehabilitation purposes. Then will be released back into the wild.

Giuliani should be an author today rather than an attorney. The imaginative things he comes up with would make for good reading. Not so in the political world, however.

Giuliani did a press conference following his appearance in a Philadelphia court. He was sweating profusely. As reported yesterday, his head was so wet from sweat that the dye from his black hair was running down his face to his jaws.

Giuliani’s imagination can run wild. Crazy wild.

He claimed Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez was a prominent figure in the election ballot cheating being claimed. Chavez died in 2013.

He suggested someone should “cut the heads off “Democratic leaders. I wonder if he was influenced by Steve Bannon in this regard. A few days earlier Bannon had suggested certain people should have their heads cut off and placed on poles in front of the White House.

Another part of his theory involved a Clinton. He was not specific which one. He said, “Somehow the Democratic Party was hijacked by Clinton and since then it’s gone more corrupt.”

Another weird representation was that the conspiratorial theory he was promoting was orchestrated in Frankfort, Germany.

About as valid as saying it was born in Hitler’s bunker.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson had a great article in this morning’s edition of the Washington Post. Titled “Donald Trump’s 2020 Theme: Make America Sick Again.”

Robinson’s opening three sentences stated the obvious: “This is becoming like Greek tragedy. The nation is on fire with COVID-19, cases and hospitalizations are soaring to unattainable new highs, and our leader does nothing but rage and moan about his own punishment at the hands of cruel fate. If it is true that those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad, then President Donald Trump is finishing his shambolic term in office as Mad King Donald.”

Robinson’s last sentence right on: “The theme of his failed re-election campaign should have been ‘Make America Sick Again!”‘

Hopefully, the Key West City Commission is finally seeing the light. It has cancelled all special events on public property through 12/31. One week after it decided to ease restrictions. In that one week, coronavirus in Key  West and Monroe County surged.

Gone this holiday season are the Christmas Parade, Christmas tree lighting, Memorah lightnings, the Lighted Bike Ride, and all concerts at the Amphitheater.

The numbers. Coronavirus on the move. Straight upward. A surge.

Keys had 99 new cases in one day this past week. Sixty seven of those cases were in Key West.

Monroe County cases already top 3,000.

Florida close to 1 million. Actual number 923,418.

Positivity rates off the wall. Florida 17.6 percent. Monroe County 20.38 percent. To appreciate these numbers recognize New York City closed its schools when the positivity rate hit 3 percent.

A growing trend is obvious. Key West locals are getting more vocal and upset with the numbers and the failure of governmental authorities to do their job effectively.

The Citizens’ Voice clearly reflects the trend.

Today’s Citizens’ Voice carried 9 complaints from persons upset with the growing numbers and what they perceive the reasons why. Only 3 comments ran in the opposite direction.

The worse danger facing the U.S. since World War II is coronavirus. Trump should be providing personal hands on attention to the problem. Instead he mans about his loss and takes every opportunity to hurt the U.S., the wreckage of which will remain long after he leaves office.

The pain of it all! Syracuse got beat last night 30-0 by Louisville. Syracuse was favored. Syracuse had only won 1 game going into last night. Louisville, 2. For whatever reason, Syracuse was favored.

What a mistake!

What a season!

I can’t stand much more! Thank God there are only 2 games left.

This is my 291st day of self-quarantine. I feel like I am blindly following the Pied Piper.

Not easy. Gets to me some days.

This week will be tough. Thanksgiving. I am a family man. Love family holidays. No family this year. Lisa and I have talked. I did not want to come to her house for dinner, she did not want me there. The virus!

She is sending me a plate.

Enjoy your day!

  THE GOOD IN LIFE…..THE MARATHON TURTLE HOSPITAL was originally published on Key West Lou

[maximuswolf]

Math and data to maximize scratchoff wins. via /r/Lottery

Math and data to maximize scratchoff wins.

(Edited repost: the original post required a couple of small changes.)

I've been crunching a lot of numbers, sending a lot of FOIA requests, and searching for advantages.

I want to share a little bit of what I've learned so far.

Overview

These are a couple of the rules I've determined will help you win more often.

Play tickets that have sold many tickets and have many unclaimed grand prizes.

Prefer playing a few higher priced tickets over many lower priced tickets.

That's all there is to it. I'll explain the reason behind the rules in the rest of this post.

Play tickets that have been sold for a long time and have a large number of unclaimed grand prizes.

To understand this rule, you need to know a little bit of math. It's not much. It can be explained in simple terms. But it's powerful enough to beat blackjack in the casino. What you're about to read is the foundation behind card-counting. But here, we use it to beat scratch offs.

There is an important difference between scratch offs and draw games like Powerball.

In draw games, every draw is "independent". What I mean by that is the results of a previous draw have no effect on the results of the following draws.

If the draw for a pick 3 game is "3", "1", "9", then the odds that the following draw is also "3", "1", "9" are the exact same.

This is counter-intuitive to a lot of people. If you flip a coin 3 times and it comes up heads all 3 times, then it's natural to think that it's more likely to come up tails on the next flip. But it's not! It is still equally likely to be either heads or tails on the 4th flip.

The counter-intuitiveness of this is known as the "Gambler's Fallacy" and can be read about many places online, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy, so I won't go into any more detail. Just know that it's a mathematical fact. The previous results of a draw game have no effect on future draws.

How are scratch offs different?

But with scratch offs, previous results do affect the future. It's obvious when you look at an extreme example. Consider what happens if there is a single grand prize in 1 million unscratched tickets. Your odds of getting the grand prize is 1 in a million. But now imagine you just watched the person in line in front of you buy a ticket, scratch it, and reveal the grand prize. Now there are no more grand prizes. Your odds are exactly 0!

In that extreme example, it's clear that past results affect future odds.

This is completely different from a draw game. In a draw game, if someone hits the Powerball jackpot with 09, 36, 49, 56, 62, 08, then that doesn't mean you should or shouldn't play those exact same numbers next week. They are just as likely to appear again as any other set of numbers.

But scratch offs aren't randomized with each purchase. Scratch offs are randomized once, when the tickets are printed. Then, as the tickets are bought and scratched, the remaining tickets become less random.

This is just like counting cards at blackjack. The deck is shuffled once at the beginning of the game. Then, as cards are dealt, the deck becomes less random. Once it becomes less random in favor of the player (more big cards remaining than little cards), then the player has an advantage and can increase their bet.

How do you know which tickets have have many unclaimed grand prizes and few remaining overall tickets?

Most states publish this information on their lottery homepages.

Here is an example from the Florida Lottery for the $3 Multiplier Crossword https://www.flalottery.com/scratch-offsGameDetails?gameNumber=1429

​

https://preview.redd.it/9p5sp880x9p51.png?width=481&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d5dc49e773243274dca0952502b06f51f0d54c1

That table has a column showing the total number of tickets printed at each prize tier and another table showing the number of tickets claimed at each prize tier.

The lowest-value ticket is usually the most common. It often has hundreds of thousands of tickets printed. There is something in math known as "the law of large numbers" that makes the lowest price ticket a good indicator of what percentage of tickets have been sold. Even though the state doesn't publish how many tickets in total have been sold, and even though they don't say anything at all about the non-winning tickets that have been sold, we can use the lowest-priced ticket as a good estimator.

In the image above, you can see that 3,170,852 tickets were printed that were $3 winners. Of those, only 603,652 remain.

With some simple math, we can convert that to a percentage.

603,652 / 3,170,852 = 0.19

So about 19% of the tickets remain. 81% of the tickets have been sold.

How about the grand prizes? Are there a large number of grand prizes remaining in relation to how many tickets have been sold? To know that, we need to convert the number of grand prizes remaining to a percentage also, that we we can compare percentages to percentages, apples to apples.

There are 4 grand prizes remaining out of 20 total grand prizes printed.

4 / 20 = 0.20

So 20% of the grand prizes remain. That's almost exactly where we expect to be. That means there is not a lot of grand prizes remaining in relation to the total number of tickets remaining.

If there were 5 grand prizes remaining, then the percentage remaining would be 5 / 20 = 0.25, or 25%. Then there would be 5% more grand prizes than expected. If that were the case, this might be a good game to play!

Knowing this, you can check back daily or weekly and see how the numbers change. Every day, more tickets will be sold.

Let's say a few weeks pass and couple hundred thousand $3 winners are claimed. Now there's 400,000 $3 prizes remaining.

400,000 / 3,170,852 = 0.126

If no grand prizes have been claimed in that time, then now there's only about 12.6% tickets remaining but still 20% grand prizes remaining. Grand prizes are almost 8% more likely than average!

Check your state lottery website and you can perform these calculations for whatever games you like to play.

Prefer playing a few higher priced tickets over many lower priced tickets.

I wrote software to automatically analyze every scratch off game from many different states.

As part of that analysis, I calculate the total amount of prizes that will be paid out. Since the states publish on their websites the total number of tickets at each prize tier and the value of each prize. I simply multiply the number of tickets at each tier by that tier's value and then sum the results for each tier of a game.

Another number I calculate is the cost to buy every ticket. That's a lot easier. It's simply the total number of tickets printed times the price of each ticket. If a game prints 14 million tickets and each ticket costs $10, then the cost to buy every ticket is 14 million times $10, or $140 million.

Those two numbers are all we need to calculate the "expected value" of a game.

If a game has $100 million in prizes and it would cost $140 million to buy every ticket, that means the state will make $40 million in profit. That profit comes out of our pockets.

But we can minimize our losses by playing games where the state has the least profit.

Here's a simple example. Which game would you rather play?

Game A: $100 million in prizes where it would cost $140 million to buy every ticket. Game B: $120 million in prizes where it would cost $140 million to buy every ticket.

Obviously, game B is better. The state takes less profit. That means more money in our pockets.

This is one way to rank the quality of a game. The more money that is returned to players and the less money that the state keeps as profit, the better the game.

By analyzing data from every game for multiple states, I have determined the average quality for different priced tickets.

This graph below tells the whole story.

​

https://preview.redd.it/u6hm1t7gx9p51.png?width=1645&format=png&auto=webp&s=5cd0e3afc3ef411ec7d62c23dacd14ef74291b7b

It is clear that on average, higher priced tickets are better.

Spending $100 on $20 tickets will result in an average win of $71.95 while spending $100 on $2 tickets will result in an average win of $65.65. By buying $20 tickets rather than $2 tickets, you will win an average of $6.30 more!

Why do states pay out more for higher priced tickets?

This advantage comes from economics.

It costs roughly the same amount for the state to print a $1 ticket as a $20 ticket.

Here's a table that shows the prices that GTECH, a ticket printer, proposed to the Texas Lottery.

​

https://preview.redd.it/gqpn85whx9p51.png?width=1295&format=png&auto=webp&s=c21158fa868caa4da444a5ec8404f9a8a822d3be

Usually, lower priced tickets are smaller. A $1 ticket might be 2.4 inches x 4 inches while a $20 ticket has more gameplay options and might be 10 inches x 4 inches. Those dimensions correspond to the "A" and "E" columns in the table above.

The values you see in each row are the cost per 1,000 tickets.

Let's compare.

The cost of 1 million $1 tickets of 2.4 inches x 4 inches in packs of 250 would cost $33.78 per 1,000 tickets, or about $0.034 per ticket.

The cost of 1 million $20 tickets of 10 inches x 4 inches in packs of 50 would cost $59.50 per 1,000 tickets, or about $0.06 per ticket.

That's 3.4 cents per $1 ticket and 6 cents per $20 ticket.

Why are higher priced tickets better?

The state needs to make a profit on the lottery. That's the whole point of the lottery: to make money to pay for services like education and roads.

Money that goes towards ticket printing is wasted. It's money that is taken from the players and is not kept by the state.

The less money that goes towards ticket printing, the more money is available to pay out in prizes (and to go towards public goods).

While the $20 ticket may cost more to print than the $1 ticket (6 cents vs 3.4 cents), the percentage of the ticket price that goes towards printing costs is lower.

6 cents is only 0.3% of $20. That's zero-point-three percent. Less than half of a percent of the ticket price goes towards the printing costs.

3.4 cents out of $1 is 3.4%, or over 3% of the ticket price going towards printing costs.

If you were to buy $100 worth of $1 tickets, the state would have paid $3.4 to ticket printers, leaving only $96.60 in funds to split between paying players through the prize pool and funding things like public roads and education. But if you were to buy $100 worth of $20 tickets, then the state would have paid only $0.18 to ticket printers! That leaves $99.82 to split between the prizes and state funding.

Note: The above is a simplified calculation that doesn't take the full cost of each ticket from printing to disposal. There's obviously costs associated with shipping and other services. But I wouldn't expect the percentages to change much. The economics of high-price vs low-price tickets is still the same.

Good luck!

I want to close by wishing you good luck. But now you know there's more to it than just luck. Use these tips and tricks to your advantage and make your own luck.

A final word of caution: even if you follow all of my tips, it's still practically impossible to consistently make profit from scratch offs. The best that almost anyone can do is to increase their "expected value". That's a good thing. It's huge. It's great if you're playing for fun and would be buying tickets regardless of the circumstances. But that's not good enought to play more often than you otherwise would. So, please, if you or anyone you know needs support around gambling, please reach out to places like https://www.gamblingtherapy.org/en

Remember:

If you can't afford to lose, you can't afford to play.

Submitted September 25, 2020 at 04:58AM by Dr-Lotto via reddit https://ift.tt/341rPPk

[joshuajacksonlyblog]

Bitcoin Bull Peter Brandt: 99% of Altcoins Will Eventually Fall Towards $0

Over the past few weeks, the focus has gone from Bitcoin to altcoins.

This is for good reason: due to a confluence of fundamental and technical trends, countless altcoins have seen explosive breakouts that have brought them dozens or hundreds of percent higher.

Take the example of Chainlink (LINK), which is up by around 500% from its March capitulation lows as it has benefited from adoption by top crypto startups and China’s Blockchain Service Network. Or take the example of Cardano (ADA), which has gained approximately 800% from those same lows due to the impending launch of “Shelley.”

With such a strong rally, some analysts have asserted that an “altseason” has arrived. An altcoin season or altseason is a term that traders use to describe a period in the markets where non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies strongly outpace the market leader.

According to a prominent commodities analyst, though, this sentiment is too optimistic. He commented in a recent Twitter post that in the long run, a vast majority of altcoins will trend towards a price of $0.

Related Reading: PSA: There’s A Crypto Scam on Youtube Misappropriating Cardano Content

A Vast Majority of Altcoins Will Hit $0?

Optimistic investors think that the recent strength in the altcoin market will last forever.

But according to Peter Brandt, a commodities trader/analyst with decades of experience, this belief is well too bullish. On July 14th, Brandt, referencing the chart of a cryptocurrency whose value has trended towards zilch against the dollar and against Bitcoin, commented:

“Please speak up all you trolls that attacked me for telling you that $DIG was nothing but a huge scam. This chart will eventually describe 99% of all alt coins. But of course, your pet rock will not be one that flat lines.”

Please speak up all you trolls that attacked me for telling you that $DIG was nothing but a huge scam. This chart will eventually describe 99% of all alt coins. But of course, your pet rock will not be one that flat lines pic.twitter.com/LI0EDDsNbf

— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) July 15, 2020

This is not the first time he has issued this warning. Brandt previously called said that 99% of altcoins should be in the “trash pile.” Yet in that comment, the trader did say that he sees value in specific projects like Ethereum and Litecoin.

Brandt is far from the only prominent investor to have recently made such a comment about the state of the cryptocurrency industry.

As reported by NewsBTC previously, an angel investor in Uber and Robinhood, Jason Calacanis, wrote in June:

“Historically, 99% of crypto projects are garbage run by unqualified idiots, delusional but below average founders or grifters… the 1% that are not, could change the world. I’m waiting for that 1% to deliver their product so I can talk to their customers.”

Time For Bitcoin to Shine

Arguably, one reason why Bitcoin has the potential to outperform its altcoin peers is that the macroeconomic environment has never been more favorable for the asset.

As BlockTower Capital, a crypto and blockchain fund, wrote in a report published in May, the “macro case for Bitcoin has never been this obvious.”

Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: TikTok’s Dogecoin Craze, Coinbase on Stock Markets, BTC Holds $9k

Of course, altcoins may experience some of the bullish effects of certain macroeconomic trends. From a market structure standpoint, though, Bitcoin is the most likely cryptocurrency to benefit from issues like money printing, the collapse of emerging economies, and government overreach.

Featured Image from Shutterstock Price tags: btcusd, xbtusd, btcusdt Charts from TradingView.com Bitcoin Bull Peter Brandt: 99% of Altcoins Will Eventually Fall Towards $0

from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2Ce6Aju via IFTTT

[michaelbennettcrypto]

Bitcoin Bull Peter Brandt: 99% of Altcoins Will Eventually Fall Towards $0

Over the past few weeks, the focus has gone from Bitcoin to altcoins.

This is for good reason: due to a confluence of fundamental and technical trends, countless altcoins have seen explosive breakouts that have brought them dozens or hundreds of percent higher.

Take the example of Chainlink (LINK), which is up by around 500% from its March capitulation lows as it has benefited from adoption by top crypto startups and China’s Blockchain Service Network. Or take the example of Cardano (ADA), which has gained approximately 800% from those same lows due to the impending launch of “Shelley.”

With such a strong rally, some analysts have asserted that an “altseason” has arrived. An altcoin season or altseason is a term that traders use to describe a period in the markets where non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies strongly outpace the market leader.

According to a prominent commodities analyst, though, this sentiment is too optimistic. He commented in a recent Twitter post that in the long run, a vast majority of altcoins will trend towards a price of $0.

Related Reading: PSA: There’s A Crypto Scam on Youtube Misappropriating Cardano Content

A Vast Majority of Altcoins Will Hit $0?

Optimistic investors think that the recent strength in the altcoin market will last forever.

But according to Peter Brandt, a commodities trader/analyst with decades of experience, this belief is well too bullish. On July 14th, Brandt, referencing the chart of a cryptocurrency whose value has trended towards zilch against the dollar and against Bitcoin, commented:

“Please speak up all you trolls that attacked me for telling you that $DIG was nothing but a huge scam. This chart will eventually describe 99% of all alt coins. But of course, your pet rock will not be one that flat lines.”

Please speak up all you trolls that attacked me for telling you that $DIG was nothing but a huge scam. This chart will eventually describe 99% of all alt coins. But of course, your pet rock will not be one that flat lines pic.twitter.com/LI0EDDsNbf

— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) July 15, 2020

This is not the first time he has issued this warning. Brandt previously called said that 99% of altcoins should be in the “trash pile.” Yet in that comment, the trader did say that he sees value in specific projects like Ethereum and Litecoin.

Brandt is far from the only prominent investor to have recently made such a comment about the state of the cryptocurrency industry.

As reported by NewsBTC previously, an angel investor in Uber and Robinhood, Jason Calacanis, wrote in June:

“Historically, 99% of crypto projects are garbage run by unqualified idiots, delusional but below average founders or grifters… the 1% that are not, could change the world. I’m waiting for that 1% to deliver their product so I can talk to their customers.”

Time For Bitcoin to Shine

Arguably, one reason why Bitcoin has the potential to outperform its altcoin peers is that the macroeconomic environment has never been more favorable for the asset.

As BlockTower Capital, a crypto and blockchain fund, wrote in a report published in May, the “macro case for Bitcoin has never been this obvious.”

Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: TikTok’s Dogecoin Craze, Coinbase on Stock Markets, BTC Holds $9k

Of course, altcoins may experience some of the bullish effects of certain macroeconomic trends. From a market structure standpoint, though, Bitcoin is the most likely cryptocurrency to benefit from issues like money printing, the collapse of emerging economies, and government overreach.

Featured Image from Shutterstock Price tags: btcusd, xbtusd, btcusdt Charts from TradingView.com Bitcoin Bull Peter Brandt: 99% of Altcoins Will Eventually Fall Towards $0

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[brettzjacksonblog]

Bitcoin Bull Peter Brandt: 99% of Altcoins Will Eventually Fall Towards $0

Over the past few weeks, the focus has gone from Bitcoin to altcoins.

This is for good reason: due to a confluence of fundamental and technical trends, countless altcoins have seen explosive breakouts that have brought them dozens or hundreds of percent higher.

Take the example of Chainlink (LINK), which is up by around 500% from its March capitulation lows as it has benefited from adoption by top crypto startups and China’s Blockchain Service Network. Or take the example of Cardano (ADA), which has gained approximately 800% from those same lows due to the impending launch of “Shelley.”

With such a strong rally, some analysts have asserted that an “altseason” has arrived. An altcoin season or altseason is a term that traders use to describe a period in the markets where non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies strongly outpace the market leader.

According to a prominent commodities analyst, though, this sentiment is too optimistic. He commented in a recent Twitter post that in the long run, a vast majority of altcoins will trend towards a price of $0.

Related Reading: PSA: There’s A Crypto Scam on Youtube Misappropriating Cardano Content

A Vast Majority of Altcoins Will Hit $0?

Optimistic investors think that the recent strength in the altcoin market will last forever.

But according to Peter Brandt, a commodities trader/analyst with decades of experience, this belief is well too bullish. On July 14th, Brandt, referencing the chart of a cryptocurrency whose value has trended towards zilch against the dollar and against Bitcoin, commented:

“Please speak up all you trolls that attacked me for telling you that $DIG was nothing but a huge scam. This chart will eventually describe 99% of all alt coins. But of course, your pet rock will not be one that flat lines.”

Please speak up all you trolls that attacked me for telling you that $DIG was nothing but a huge scam. This chart will eventually describe 99% of all alt coins. But of course, your pet rock will not be one that flat lines pic.twitter.com/LI0EDDsNbf

— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) July 15, 2020

This is not the first time he has issued this warning. Brandt previously called said that 99% of altcoins should be in the “trash pile.” Yet in that comment, the trader did say that he sees value in specific projects like Ethereum and Litecoin.

Brandt is far from the only prominent investor to have recently made such a comment about the state of the cryptocurrency industry.

As reported by NewsBTC previously, an angel investor in Uber and Robinhood, Jason Calacanis, wrote in June:

“Historically, 99% of crypto projects are garbage run by unqualified idiots, delusional but below average founders or grifters… the 1% that are not, could change the world. I’m waiting for that 1% to deliver their product so I can talk to their customers.”

Time For Bitcoin to Shine

Arguably, one reason why Bitcoin has the potential to outperform its altcoin peers is that the macroeconomic environment has never been more favorable for the asset.

As BlockTower Capital, a crypto and blockchain fund, wrote in a report published in May, the “macro case for Bitcoin has never been this obvious.”

Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: TikTok’s Dogecoin Craze, Coinbase on Stock Markets, BTC Holds $9k

Of course, altcoins may experience some of the bullish effects of certain macroeconomic trends. From a market structure standpoint, though, Bitcoin is the most likely cryptocurrency to benefit from issues like money printing, the collapse of emerging economies, and government overreach.

Featured Image from Shutterstock Price tags: btcusd, xbtusd, btcusdt Charts from TradingView.com Bitcoin Bull Peter Brandt: 99% of Altcoins Will Eventually Fall Towards $0

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[conversationswithcole]

Corona Pandemic vs. Opioid Epidemic

Alright y’all buckle up because this is gonna be a long one. As I was driving home from babysitting today I was obviously thinking about the state of the world right now and somehow my thoughts snowballed into rage. Here is today’s hot take, as my friend Christian would call it, about the way we are handling Coronavirus versus the way we are handling opioid addiction. 

The entire world has been shut down for almost two months and everyone (minus the people who think science is fake and are protesting against corona), has come together to fight against this disease so it stops taking the lives of our loved ones. 

Why is this kind of media attention and this kind of affirmative action, from both government officials and non-government personal, not given to the opioid epidemic? Imagine how much further we would be in finding a cure to this disease if it got half the attention Coronavirus has gotten in the past two months. We do not realize how much the media shapes the world we live in until we take a step back and look in from the outside. 

Quick background to help those of you who are new, my little brother struggled with opioid addiction starting at age 18 until he passed away in August 2019 at age 23. Over the years I was exposed to a disease that I would not wish on my most hated enemy. 

Before we dive into these two public health crises’ let’s define them. Honestly I had no idea what the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic was until I looked it up for this post.

A pandemic is defined as a disease that’s spread over multiple countries and continents, while an epidemic is only referring to a specific region, community or population. 

While opioid addiction doesn’t only exist in the United States, we do have one of the HIGHEST overdose mortality rates in the entire world. According to Shatterproof, a non profit organization working to combat the addiction crisis, on average 192 Americans die from an overdose each day.  200 people every single day makes 1,400 people per week, 5,600 people per month, and 67,200 people every single year. In 2017, 70,237 people died from an overdose. Opioid overdose deaths went up 30 percent from July 2016 to July 2017 and have risen FOUR times as much as they were in the last fifteen years. Think about what those numbers probably look like between 2018-2020. 

Google reports that Coronavirus has killed 60,726 people in the United States and 225,000 worldwide. Yes these numbers are extraordinarily high in such a short period of time, which is why we acted so abruptly as soon as we discovered the gravity of the disease. Imagine where we would be over the span of just one year if we didn’t. Just to be clear, I am not here to take away the severity of this disease or to deem any of the precautions taken as unnecessary, I am simply here to present my “hot take” and back it up with facts. 

Every single media outlet is FLOODED with talk about Covid-19. Every single death is reported to the masses, whether you ask for it or not. If you Google virus statistics there’s a whole page with graphs and updated numbers down to the minute. There is not a person in the world who doesn’t know about this disease. We will talk about it for years and years to come, our children will learn about it as an essential part of the world’s history. 

When I typed in opioid statistics on Google earlier I had a particularly hard time finding information from the years following 2017. This seems odd to me because the disease clearly didn’t just disappear. Lack of information means lack of public knowledge. People ingest what the media puts out there whether it is factual or not and once they have absorbed this information that is what they believe to be true. I vaguely remember learning about drug addiction throughout my years in public school, and most of those memories are of those corny videos and speeches about how marijuana is a gateway drug. We are in the year 2020 and science has proven marijuana to be anything but that. Science has proven marijuana to be extremely useful with many positive benefits for numerous mental and physical ailments in today’s world. It is legal in a handful of states across the country with hopes that trend will continue across all fifty. Just like how science showed that heroin, which is a common opiate, should no longer be legal in the United States in the late 1890′s when they became aware of its potential dangers. Yes you read that year correctly, 1 8 9 0. We have known for the past 130 years that opioids are highly addictive and yet here we are.

Doctors and health care professionals are feverishly working to find a vaccine for Covid-19 that will, fingers crossed, cure current patients and prevent continuous outbreaks. From the second we realized how deadly this disease was we made it our number one priority and nothing will change this mindset until we are one-thousand percent sure it is safe. The well-being of our countries citizens is our biggest concern. There is no way our nations leaders allow this disease to become more deadly than it already is right now, let alone continue to take the lives of innocent people for years to come. 

Why isn’t this the approach we take when dealing with addiction? Imagine how drastic the change in addiction stigma and what the statistics would be. What if names, ages, images and videos of the 197 innocent lives lost per day due to a drug overdose were broadcast across the media as consistently as Covid-19?Why isn’t addiction portrayed to the public in this impossible not to take in, shocking, heart wrenching, devastating fashion, when in fact it is all of those things on a daily basis whether we are aware of it or not?

Knowledge is truly power. The more people that are exposed to the harsh reality of addiction the more power we will have to fight against it. I want you to really sit here and think about how often you hear about Coronavirus on a daily basis. It is literally everywhere. You cannot avoid it no matter how hard you try. Now I want you to replace that word with opioid addiction and tell me how you feel. Like countless others you have become sick of hearing about how horrendous the disease is. It pains you to hear about all of the lives that are being lost so suddenly and you pray to see the end of this as soon as possible. You send your prayers and condolences to those around you as you learn of their loss, you offer your hand to help those struggling and reach into your wallets to donate what you can to help fight against it. 

They are BOTH vicious, life threatening diseases that know no bounds. People walk through life with this misguided notion that they’re invincible from certain tragedies based on their social status, geographic environment, wealth, race and ethnicity when in actuality that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Now you can use this argument against the media for a great deal, if not all, diseases that put our well-being at risk, but I chose addiction for the obvious reasons. 

The more I think about this entire comparison of deadly diseases that I have drummed up the more points I want to add to argue in my favor, but those I will save for the conversation that follows this post.